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116 ber of original remarks than Locke himself; In one of Locke’s most noted remarks of this sort, he has been anticipated by Malebranche, 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 same 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, &c. 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 superficiels.” ''Rech. de la Vérité''. Liv. ii. Seconde Partie, chap. ix.

At a still earlier period, Bacon had pointed out the same cardinal distinction in the intellectual characters of individuals.

“”

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. —since whose time, with the single exception of Helvetius, hardly any attention has been paid to it, cither by French or English metaphysicians. The same practical knowledge of the human understanding, modified and diversified, as we everywhere see it, by education and external circumstances, is occasionally discovered by his very able antagonist Arnauld; affording, in both cases, a satisfactory proof, that the narrowest field of experience may disclose to a superior mind these refined and comprehensive results, which common observers are forced to collect from an extensive and varied commerce with the world.

In some of Malebranche’s incidental strictures on men and manners, there is a lightness of style and fineness of tact, which one would scarcely have expected from the mystical divine, who believed that he saw all things in God. Who would suppose that the following paragraph forms part of a profound argument on the influence of the external senses over the human intellect?

“Si par exemple, celui qui parle s’énonce avec facilité, s'il garde une mesure agréable