WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED, AND VINDICATED FROM THE CHARGE OF CONTRIBUTING BY OTHE EDWARD TAGART, F.S.A., F.L.S. LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS. 1855. 265. i. 79. "I know not how men, who have the same idea under different names, or different ideas under the same name, can in that case talk with one another."-LOCKE. "I rejoice in your quotations from Locke. That great man has done more for the enlargement of the human faculties, and the establishment of pure Christianity, than any author I am acquainted with."- BISHOP WATSON. PREFACE. THE Work now presented to the reader supposes careful students of the philosophy of the mind, with access to the books which profess to treat of it. It is a plea for English Philosophy and its great masters. It consists of two parts. The first is a vindication of Locke from prevalent misrepresentations, and especially from the charge of encouraging scepticism in religion and morals, showing, by a somewhat careful examination of Hume's metaphysical writings, that Hume neither built nor affected to build on any principles peculiar to Locke, and placing Locke in just relation to Descartes, Berkeley, Gassendi, and Leibnitz. The second contains a view of the progress of English philosophy, properly so called, from Bacon, through Hobbes, Locke, and Hartley, to more modern thinkers, such as Bentham, Mill, and Austin. It aspires to give such a view of the contents of the Essay on the Human Understanding' as may facilitate the pro |