him, the syllogism is a true touchstone of right arguing but it can pretend to nothing more than being a test of knowledge. While the intuitive reason, grasping propositions immediately, furnishes the foundation of all knowledge and certainty, it is incapable of building knowledge beyond, or higher than, itself. This function can be performed only by the Demonstrative Reason which furnishes the next degree of knowledge. "The mind perceives the agreement or disagreement of any ideas, not immediately, but by the intervention of other ideas, and this is that which we call reasoning." (IV. 2; 2.) Demonstrative knowledge depends upon intuitive knowledge in every step of correct reasoning. The mind must carry exactly this intuitive certainty, and see that no part of it is left out. (IV. 2. 7.) Thus we have a demonstrative knowledge of the existence of God. Demonstration depends upon proofs, i. e. intermediate ideas introduced by the reason, to show the agreement or disagreement of any couplet of ideas or propositions. This is the sphere of the reason alone, but, says Locke, as if anticipating objections, "if general knowledge consist in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our ideas, and the knowledge of the existence of all things without us, be had only by our senses, what room is there for the exercise of any other faculty but outward sense and inward perception? What need is there of reason? Very much; both for the enlargement of our knowledge, and regulating our assent. For it hath to do both in knowledge and opinion, and is necessary and assisting to all our other intellectual faculties, and indeed contains two of them, sagacity and illation, or logical inference. Sense and intuition reach but a very little way. The greatest part of our knowledge depends upon deduction and intermediate ideas, the faculty which finds out the means and rightly applies them to discover certainty in the one, and probability in the other, is what we call reason." (IV. 17; 2. cf. IV. 2; 3.4.) .... "Sensitive knowledge", says Locke, "is the perception of the mind employed about the particular existence of finite ! being without us; which, going beyond bare probability, and yet not reaching to either of the foregoing degrees of certainty, passes under the name of knowledge." (IV; 2. 14.) Although Locke reduces sensitive knowledge to a minimum, and is inclined to regard it as mere "faith or opinion, but not knowledge, at least in all general truths"; although he holds that "our ideas are not always proof of the existence of things", he yet admits the external world into the sphere of knowledge, on the principles of causality and com mon sense, and on such considerations as our consciousness of the difference in looking on the sun by day, and thinking on it by night. (II. 17; 4. II. 7; 7. IV. 11; 3-9.) Locke defends his moderate realism, his very moderate realism, (IV. 11; 3-9), with sufficient clearness, and concludes that the reality of the external world is as great as our happiness or misery, and sufficient to enable us to attain the good, and avoid the evil caused by external objects, "which is the important concernment we have in being made acquainted with them". (IV. 2; 8.)1) Thus, says Locke, "we may allow these three degrees of knowledge, viz, intuitive, demonstrative, and sensitive". We have three fundamental certainties corresponding to these three classes, the existence of self, of God, and of the world. The illustrative force of Locke's doctrine of knowledge, is this. While sensation is chronologically first in the origin of ideas, and logically the last in the doctrine of knowledge, intuition is logically the origin of all knowledge, and chronologically the last in the formation of ideas. Thus, we have in Locke the maxim, 'what is psychologically last, is first in logic and in reason'. 1) The grounds of the belief in the existence of the external world, were left by the Scottish School exactly where Locke placed them, and where Hume tacitly recognized them to lay. Brown agreed with Mackintosh, that the difference between Hume and Reid was simply verbal. "Hume," he said, "shouted, we can give no reason for our belief in an external world, but whispered, we cannot help believing; Reid, on the other hand, shouted, we cannot help believing in an external world, but whispered, we can give no reason in support of our belief." Webb. The Veil of Isis. p. 161. V. Of knowledge and judgment. Locke's definition of knowledge as "the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our ideas" has been sharply criticised, but his explanation of it in his controversy with the Bishop of Worcester seems to be, on the whole, satisfactory. "Nobody", says Locke, "who reads my essay with that indifferency which is proper to a lover of truth can avoid feeling that what I say of certainty, was not to teach the world a new way of certainty, but to endeavour to show wherein the old, and only true way of certainty consists." (Works. I. 749.) "I have said that demonstration consists in the agreement or disagreement of the intermediate idea, with those whose agreement or disagreement it is to show in each step of the demonstration." (Works I. 725.) "And so far as Aristotle goes in his method that what things agree in the third agree among themselves, he and I agree. I presume to say that if Aristotle had gone forth in this matter, he would have placed our knowledge or certainty of the agreement of any two things in the perception of their agreement."1) Locke thus illustrates his method of certainty. The proposition, "Everything that has a beginning must have a cause, is a true principle of reason". But the proposition "Everything must have a cause, is a false proposition", for while the idea of the existence of something and the idea of eternity do agree, the idea of existence from eternity and having a cause, do not agree, or are inconsistent with the same thing. (Works I. 495.) Throughout Locke's discussion with Stillingfleet he insists there is no difference between the Bishop's certainty of reason and his own by ideas.2) When we take into consideration Locke's position 1) Works I. 701. Both hold that ideas begin with sensation, without which, thought and knowledge are impossible. Both are also agreed that intuition is the ground of all certainty, and that "reason must be the basis or beginning of science" or of all formal knowledge. Analyt. Post. II. 15. I. 3. and 23. 2) Works I. 608. 610. 627. 690. 725. H. U. II. 32; 1. IV. 5; 2. IV. 2; 1. IV. 4; 5. In Inductive method Locke seems to have advanced beyond Aristotle, and to have anticipated the present logical forms. Prof. J. P. Mahaffy show how Mill's theory of syllogism was clearly and explicitly laid down by Locke". Mind. Vol. I. 287. that "the understanding has a native faculty to perceive the coherence or incoherence of its ideas", (IV. 17; 4.) that the mind has no other immediate objects but its own ideas, (IV. 1; 1) that by intuition we are furnished with the fundamental principles of all certainty and knowledge, (IV. 7; 19.) that the reason alone by finding intermediate ideas increases our knowledge, (IV. 3; 18), we cannot object that the percipient mind or reason should be regarded as the sole umpire in the field of knowledge and probability. The Reason is, according to Locke, the sole organ of certainty in every department of knowledge, and the assurance we have that the Reason is fitted to be a guide in universal morality, is the conviction grounded on observation and experience that "the intellectual faculties are made, and operate alike in most men". (Works I. 544.) Locke proceeds from this point to develop a theory of judgment or practical reason, which is distinguished from knowledge by a want of absolute certainty. "Man" says ✓ Locke, "is by nature a rational being. God has not made men barely twoleged creatures, and left it to Aristotle to make them rational. Reason is natural revelation, and it must be our last guide in everything."1) "Reason constitutes man a moral being and were not the Candle of the Lord set up by himself in men's minds, which it is impossible for the breath or power of man wholly to extinguish, we might despair of any progress in the moral sciences, and look for Egyptian darkness and bondage." 2) But in what sense does 1) IV. 19; 4 and 14. IV. 17; 4. IV. 17; 23-24. C. U. III. 3. 2) The Candle of the Lord is a phrase taken from Proverbs xx. 27. "The spirit of man is the Candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts." This was a favourite text of the Cambridge preachers, especialy of Culverwel and Whichcote. Culverwel makes the phrase equivalent to the "Light of Reason", and says, "God hath breathed into all the sons of men reasonable souls, which may serve as so many candles to enlighten Reason constitute man a moral being? "The mind" says Locke, "has two faculties conversant about truth and falsehood, first, knowledge, whereby it certainly perceives and is undoubtedly satisfied of the agreement or disagreement of any ideas." Knowledge, as here used, includes the results of the intuitive and demonstrative reason, and, as allowed by Locke, the reality of the external world. Knowledge and certainty are identical, what is less than certain is not knowledge. The truth which we cannot doubt, and the things which we can prove, are the known, the certain. Secondly, the faculty that God has given to man to supply the want of clear and certain knowledge, is judgment: whereby the mind takes its ideas to agree or disagree, or, which is the same, any proposition to be true or false, without perceiving a demonstrative evidence in the proofs. (IV. 14) Judgment then is common sense, or practical reason. It plays a leading part in Locke's ethical philosophy. It has to do with all those ideas and propositions, the truth of which is not made certain by intuition or demonstration. The moment a proposition cannot be doubted, or can be proved, it becomes a part of knowledge. But the sphere left for judgment or the practical reason, is coextensive with human life. The grounds of probability are twofold, first, the conformity of anything with our own knowledge, observation, and experience; secondly, the testimony of others vouching their observation and experience. In the testimony of others are to be considered the number, integrity, and skill of the witnesses; the design of the author, where it is the testimony out of a book cited, the consistency of the parts and circumstances of the relation and contrary testimonies. These grounds, as they are the foundation on which our assent is built, so are they also the measure whereby its several degrees are, or ought to and direct them in searching out their Creator, in discovering of inferior beings and themselves also." (Light of Nature. p. 29.) It is in this sense that Locke uses the expression. IV. 3; 21. IV. 12; 8. |