"qualities which admit of comparison, " and by which the ideas of philofophical "relation are produced: but if we dili"gently confider them, we fhall find, that "without difficulty they may be compri"fed under feven general heads: 1. Re"femblance; 2. Identity; 3. Relations of

66

Space and Time; 4. Relations of Quan

tity and Number; 5. Degrees of Quality; "6. Contrariety; 7. Caufation (a)." Here again are feven predicables given as a complete enumeration, wherein all the predicables of the ancients, as well as two of Locke's are left out.

The ancients in their divifion attended only to categorical propofitions which have one fubject and one predicate; and of thefe to fuch only as have a general term for their fubject. The moderns, by their definition of knowledge, have been led to attend only to relative propofitions, which exprefs a relation between two fubjects, and thefe fubjects they fuppofe to be always ideas.

(a) Vol. 1. p. 33. and 125.

SECT.

SECT. 2. On the Ten Categories, and on Divifions in general.

The intention of the categories or predicaments is, to mufter every object of human apprehenfion under ten heads: for the categories are given as a complete enumeration of every thing which can be expreffed without compofition and Structure; that is, of every thing that can be either the subject or the predicate of a propofition. So that as every foldier belongs to fome company, and every company to fome regiment; in like manner every thing that can be the object of human thought, has its place in one or other of the ten categories; and by dividing and fubdividing properly the feveral categories, all the notions that enter into the human mind may be mustered in rank and file, like an army in the day of battle.

The perfection of the divifion of categories into ten heads, has been strenuoufly defended by the followers of Ariftotle, as well as that of the five predicables, They are indeed of kin to each other VOL. III.

T t

they

they breathe the fame fpirit, and probably had the fame origin. By the one we are taught to marshal every term that can enter into a propofition, either as subject or predicate; and by the other, we are taught all the poffible relations which the fubject can have to the predicate. Thus, the whole furniture of the human mind is presented to us at one view, and contracted, as it were, into a nut-shell. To attempt, in fo early a period, a methodical delineation of the vast region of human knowledge, actual and poffible, and to point out the limits of every diftrict, was indeed magnanimous in a high degree, and deferves our admiration, while we lament that the human powers are unequal to fo bold a flight.

A regular distribution of things under proper claffes or heads, is, without doubt, a great help both to memory and judgement. As the philofopher's province includes all things human and divine that can be objects of enquiry, he is naturally led to attempt fome general division, like that of the categories. And the invention. of a divifion of this kind, which the fpeculative part of mankind acquiefced in

for

for two

was.

thoufand years, marks a fuperio

appear,

rity of genius in the inventer, whoever he Nor does it that the general divifions which, fince the decline of the Peripatetic philofophy, have been substituted in place of the ten categories, are more perfect.

Locke has reduced all things to three categories; to wit, fubftances, modes, and relations. In this divifion, time, space, and number, three great objects of human thought, are omitted.

The author of the Treatife of Human Nature has reduced all things to two categories; to wit, ideas, and impreffions: a divifion which is very well adapted to his system; and which puts me in mind of another made by an excellent mathematician in a printed thefis I have seen. In it the author, after a fevere cenfure of the ten categories of the Peripatetics, maintains, that there neither are nor can be more than two categories of things; to wit, data and quafita.

There are two ends that may be propofed by fuch divifions. The first is, to methodize or digeft in order what a man actually knows. This is neither unim

រ

portant nor impracticable; and in pro portion to the folidity and accuracy of a man's judgement, his divifions of the things he knows, will be elegant and useful. The fame fubject may admit, and even require, various divifions, according to the different points of view from which we contemplate it: nor does it follow, that because one divifion is good, therefore another is naught. To be acquainted with the divifions of the logicians and metaphyficians, without a fuperftitious attachment to them, may be of use in dividing the fame fubjects, or even thofe of a different nature. Thus, Quintilian borrows from the ten categories his divifion of the topics of rhetorical argumentation. Of all methods of arrangement, the most antiphilofophical feems to be the invention of this age; I mean, the arranging the arts and sciences by the letters of the alphabet, in dictionaries and encyclopedies. With thefe authors the categories are, A, B, C, &c.

Another end commonly proposed by fuch divifions, but very rarely attained, is to exhauft the fubject divided; fo that nothing that belongs to it fhall be omit

ted.