Page:Collected Works of Dugald Stewart Volume 1.djvu/24

6 defects and blemishes. In this part of Bacon's logic, it must, at the same time, be owned, that there is something peculiarly captivating to the fancy; and, accordingly, it has united in its favour the suffrages of almost all the succeeding authors who have treated of the same subject. It will be necessary for me, therefore, to explain fully the grounds of that censure, which, in opposition to so many illustrious names, I have presumed to bestow on it. Of the leading ideas to which I more particularly object, the following statement is given by D'Alembert. I quote it in preference to the corresponding passage in Bacon, as it contains various explanatory clauses and glosses, for which we are indebted to the ingenuity of the commentator. "The objects about which our minds are occupied, are either spiritual or material, and the media employed for this purpose are our ideas, either directly received, or derived from reflection. The system of our direct knowledge consists entirely in the passive and mechanical accumulation of the particulars it comprehends; an accumulation which belongs exclusively to the province of Memory. Reflection is of two kinds, according as it is employed in reasoning on the objects of our direct ideas, or in studying them as models for imitation. "Thus, Memory, Reason, strictly so called, and Imagination, are the three modes in which the mind operates on the subjects of its thoughts. By Imagination, however, is here to be understood, not the faculty of conceiving or representing to ourselves what we have formerly perceived, a faculty which differs in nothing from the memory of these perceptions, and which, if it were not relieved by the invention of signs, would be in a state of continual exercise. The power which we denote by this name has a nobler province allotted to it, that of rendering imitation subservient to the creations of genius. "These three faculties suggest a corresponding division of human knowledge into three branches:—1. History, which derives its materials from Memory; 2. Philosophy, which is the product of Reason; and 3. Poetry (comprehending under this title all the Fine Arts,) which is the offspring of