Samuel Bailey - Letters on the Philosophy of the Human Mind (Volume 2)

Letters on the Philosophy of the Human Mind

Samuel Bailey

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The chief obstacle in the way of complying with your request is, I confess, want of adequate motive; or, if you will, that kind of mental indolence which is not seldom the fruit of it. The requisite materials are already in my mind, I may say, indeed, already stored in various manuscript volumes, although put down in detached memoranda without much method, finish, or connexion.

You know as well as myself the pleasure of mastering (in one's own fancy at least) difficult and interesting subjects, and discussing them in the desultory way of random notes or friendly conversation; but the process of reducing such speculations to order and precise expression digesting them, as it is significantly termed, into a methodical treatise connecting the disparted, marshalling the disorderly, supplying the deficient, labouring at transitions, consulting authorities and verifying assertions and references constitutes altogether a very different affair. The delight of novelty and invention, of expatiating at will and skipping when convenient, is gone, and the drudgery of task-work succeeds. For this formidable labour some strong motive seems essential. You have named several; the hope of distinction as one, the prospect of enlightening the world as another you very wisely did not mention pecuniary profit as a third. But of attaining these ends I see small probability. With regard to the first, I do not apprehend that even the successful accom plishment of such a task would greatly extend the reputation, wide or narrow, which any author might before possess; and as for illuminating the world, to the difficulty of furnishing the light must be added the rather considerable impediment that the world is not sensible of being in the dark, and cares nothing for such elucidations. In a word, little effect would result in any way from the publication of a work which could hardly promise itself a score of readers. Where, then, is the inducement for undertaking what you propose? except it be that, taking ages into view, no earnest effort after truth on any subject can be regarded as altogether fruitless; and that the study of philosophy, although it will always be confined to a few, must not on that account be abandoned nor its results suppressed. At all events I have come to the resolution of partially at least acceding to your wishes. Without the formality of a regular treatise, I can, I think, succinctly explain in a series of letters addressed to yourself whatever is essential and peculiar in the views I entertain.

There is an objection in some minds to the treatment of such subjects otherwise than in formal discourses or dissertations. For my part I care little for the mere shape, and would have the philosopher indulge in any form that may happen to please his fancy, whether Essaj', Discourse, Dialogue, Lecture, or Epistle. If he has anything to communicate he will probably do it best in the way which his own taste prescribes: and, whatever that may be, the real method the arrangement of his thoughts will, with equal pains, be much the same. I never could enter into Mr. Stewart's objection to Home Tooke's throwing his etymological speculations into the form of dialogue. It was doubtless the mode best suited to the genius of the man.*

The design here announced will not, I trust, be construed as an attempt to produce exclusively something novel and unheard of, instead of what it really will be, an endeavour to select from a wide range of speculation such views as are least likely to have been before presented to the student of philosophy. When an author submits his productions to the public, it is of course implied that he conceives them to contain something new either in matter or manner, else why obtrude them on his neighbours? But still, on first embarking in the inquiry which led to them, he very probably dreamed of nothing more than understanding the subject for his own satisfaction. To set out indeed upon any investigation expressly and purely for the sake of being personally original, or discovering for himself some fortunate novelty, I hold to be one of the last things which a genuine lover of knowledge would think of. Too intent for any such project on finding out what is true, on seizing the very heart of a question, on mastering the whole bearings of a doctrine, and too glad at all times to be spared the labour of research and reflection by the lucid and complete expositions of his predecessors, when he can meet with them, it may be safely asserted that his mind has no room for the mere ambition of novelty, although, being human, he cannot fail to be gratified whenever novelty appears to be the result of his inquiries.