BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

This volume and volume XII. contain those of Hazlitt’s writings which remained uncollected during his lifetime and have not been included in earlier volumes of the present edition. Some of these writings were published by the author’s son in the three works of which particulars are given below; one of them, the essay ‘On Abstract Ideas,’ was published in the second edition (1836) of An Essay on the Principles of Human Action (cf. Bibliographical Note, vol. VII. p. 384); a few, viz. ‘Common Places’ and ‘Trifles Light as Air,’ were included in Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s edition of The Round Table (Bohn’s Standard Library, 1871); but most of the papers are here reprinted for the first time. See the Table of Contents, where the essays which have never been republished before are marked by an asterisk. The evidence upon which the Editors have relied in respect of this fresh material will be found in the Notes. A great many of the Essays now printed have not hitherto been identified as Hazlitt’s, but none have been included concerning which the Editors feel any doubt.

The works published by the author’s son and referred to above are as follows:—

1. ‘Literary Remains of the late William Hazlitt. With a Notice of his Life, By his Son, and Thoughts on his Genius and Writings, By E. L. Bulwer, Esq., M.P. and Mr. Sergeant Talfourd, M.P. In Two Volumes. London: Saunders and Otley, Conduit Street. 1836.’ Vol. I. contained (as a frontispiece) Bewick’s crayon drawing of Hazlitt reproduced in vol. VIII. of the present edition; a Sonnet ‘written on seeing Bewick’s Chalk-Drawing of the Head of Hazlitt’ by Sheridan Knowles; a ‘Biographical Sketch’ of Hazlitt by his son; ‘Some Thoughts on the Genius of William Hazlitt’ signed ‘The Author of “Eugene Aram”‘; ‘Thoughts upon the Intellectual Character of the late William Hazlitt,’ by Mr. Sergeant Talfourd, M.P.; ‘Character of Hazlitt,’ by Charles Lamb, extracted from the well-known ‘Letter of Elia to Robert Southey, Esq.’ (1823); six ‘Sonnets to the Memory of Hazlitt’ by ‘A Lady’; and the following essays by Hazlitt, viz.: (i) Project for a new Theory of Civil and Criminal Legislation, (ii)

Definition of Wit, (iii) On Means and Ends, (iv) Belief, whether Voluntary? (v) Personal Politics, (vi) On the Writings of Hobbes, (vii) On Liberty and Necessity, (viii) On Locke’s Essay on the Human Understanding, and (ix) On Tooke’s Diversions of Purley.—Vol. II. contained the following essays by Hazlitt, viz.: (i) On Self-Love, (ii) On the Conduct of Life; or, Advice to a School-boy, (iii) On the Fine Arts, (iv) The Fight, (v) On the Want of Money, (vi) On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth, (vii) The Main-Chance, (viii) The Opera, (ix) Of Persons One Would Wish to Have Seen, (x) My First Acquaintance with Poets, (xi) The Shyness of Scholars, (xii) The Vatican, and (xiii) On the Spirit of Monarchy. Of these, the essay ‘On the Fine Arts’ and the essay on ‘The Vatican’ are included in vol. IX. of the present edition; the rest are published in this volume or in vol. XII.

vi2. ‘Sketches and Essays. By William Hazlitt. Now first collected by his Son. London: John Templeman, 248, Regent Street. MDCCCXXXIX.’ An Advertisement states that ‘The volume which the Editor has here the gratification of presenting to the public, consists of Essays contributed by their author to various periodicals. None of them have hitherto been published in a collective form, and it is confidently anticipated that they will be received as an acceptable Companion to the “Table Talk” and “Plain Speaker.”’ The contents are as follows: (i) On Reading New Books, (ii) On Cant and Hypocrisy, (iii) Merry England, (iv) On a Sun-Dial, (v) On Prejudice, (vi) Self-Love and Benevolence (a Dialogue), (vii) On Disagreeable People, (viii) On Knowledge of the World, (ix) On Fashion, (x) On Nicknames, (xi) On Taste, (xii) Why the Heroes of Romance are insipid, (xiii) On the Conversation of Lords, (xiv) The Letter-Bell, (xv) Envy, (xvi) On the Spirit of Partisanship, (xvii) Footmen, and (xviii) A Chapter on Editors. This

volume was reprinted in 1852 with ‘Sketches and Essays’ as a half-title and the following title-page: ‘Men and Manners: Sketches and Essays. By William Hazlitt. London: Published at the office of the Illustrated London Library, 227 Strand. MDCCCII.’ In this edition the essay entitled ‘Self-Love and Benevolence (A Dialogue)’ is omitted. A third edition (which has been reprinted from time to time) was published in 1872 in Bohn’s Standard Library, edited by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt.

3. ‘Winterslow: Essays and Characters written there. By William Hazlitt. Collected by his Son. London: David Bogue, Fleet Street. MDCCCL.’ This small 8vo volume contained the following essays: (i) My First Acquaintance with Poets, (ii) Of Persons One Would Wish to Have Seen, (iii) Party Spirit, (iv) On the Feeling of Immortality in Youth, (v) On Public Opinion, (vi) On Personal Identity, (vii) Mind and Motive, (viii) On Means and Ends, (ix) Matter and Manner, (x) On Consistency of Opinion, (xi) Project for a new Theory of Civil and Criminal Legislation, (xii) On the Character of Burke, (xiii) On the Character of Fox, (xiv) On the Character of Pitt, (xv) On the Character of Lord Chatham, (xvi) Belief, whether Voluntary, and (xvii) A Farewell to Essay-Writing. This volume was republished in 1872 along with Sketches and Essays in the volume of Bohn’s Standard Library referred to above. Of the essays published in Winterslow the Characters of Burke, Fox, Pitt and Lord Chatham are included in vol. III. of

the present edition (Political Essays). The rest of the essays published in Sketches and Essays and Winterslow are included in vols. XI. and XII. of the present edition.

It will be seen that Literary Remains and Winterslow to some extent overlap one another, and that Winterslow contained several essays which had already been published in Political Essays. Under these circumstances it has been found necessary in the present edition to adopt a fresh scheme of arrangement in place of republishing Literary Remains, Sketches and Essays and Winterslow as they stand. Each essay, whether contained in one of those posthumous collections or now republished for the first time, is printed in chronological order under the heading of the magazine or newspaper in which it originally appeared; and the magazines themselves are arranged in a chronological order based upon the respective dates at viiwhich Hazlitt began to contribute to them. The only exception to this last scheme of arrangement is that at the end of the present volume it was found convenient to take the ‘Common Places’ from The Literary Examiner a little before their turn. They should strictly have followed the contributions to The Liberal

in vol. XII., but it was thought better not to divide between two volumes the important essays from The New Monthly Magazine which now begin vol. XII.

This plan of arrangement seemed on the whole the simplest and best, and it is hoped that with the aid of the Tables of Contents and the Index the reader will have no difficulty in finding any particular essay.

In the present edition all the essays, the magazine source of which is known, have been printed verbatim from the magazines themselves. In preparing Literary Remains, Sketches and Essays and Winterslow for the press the author’s son took considerable liberties with the text. In one or two cases the alterations which he made may have been based on a MS. or a copy of a magazine with corrections by Hazlitt, but far more often the essays were reprinted with omissions and trifling alterations made, as it would seem, by the editor himself on his own responsibility. Some passages thus omitted and now restored for the first time are of great interest. The more important of them are specially indicated in the notes. In the few cases where the author’s son added passages from a MS. or other authoritative source, the passages have been given either in the text (with a note indicating where they occur), or in the Notes.

In addition to the essays printed in the text of this volume and to those referred to in the notes it may be convenient to mention here a few essays which may have been written by Hazlitt but have been omitted from the present edition on the ground that his authorship is not sufficiently certain. They are arranged in the following list under the heading of the magazine in which they first appeared.

I. The Examiner.

II. The Edinburgh Magazine (new Series).

Three papers on the criminal law, viz.: ‘Historical View of the Progress of Opinion on the Criminal Law and the Punishment of Death’ (March, 1819, vol. IV. p. 195); ‘Parliamentary Report on the Criminal Laws’ (Dec., 1819, vol. V. p. 491); and a short paper on the same subject (Jan. 1820, vol. VI. p. 26). Mr. W. C. Hazlitt in his Memoirs, etc. (vol. I. p. xxvi.) attributes these articles to Hazlitt, perhaps on the strength of some MS. or proof in his possession at the date of the Memoirs (1867). Hazlitt’s authorship, however, though very probable, does not seem to be certain, and as the papers consist largely of extracts from a Parliamentary Report, they have been omitted from the present edition. Hazlitt’s views on capital punishment will be found in an extract which was first published in Fraser’s Magazine in 1831 and is reprinted in vol. XII.

III. The London Magazine.

CONTENTS[1]

FACSIMILE (REDUCED) OF HAZLITT’s HANDWRITING, FROM A MS. IN THE POSSESSION OF MR. W. C. HAZLITT.

ON ABSTRACT IDEAS

I shall in this essay state Mr. Locke’s account of generalization, abstraction, and reasoning, as contrasted with the modern one, and then endeavour to defend the existence of these faculties, or acts of the mind from the objections urged against them by Hume, Berkeley, Condillac, and others, which are in truth merely repetitions of what Hobbes has said on the subject. I must premise, however, that I do not think it possible ever to arrive at a demonstration of generals or abstractions by beginning in Mr. Locke’s method with particular ones: this faculty of abstraction is by most considered as a sort of artificial refinement upon our other ideas, as an excrescence, no ways contained in the common impressions of things, nor scarcely necessary to the common purposes of life, and it is by Mr. Locke altogether denied to be among the faculties of brutes. It is the ornament and top-addition of the mind of man, which proceeding from simple sensations upwards, is gradually sublimed into the abstract notions of things; ‘from the root springs lighter the green stalk, from thence

the leaves more airy, last the bright consummate flower.’ On the other hand, I conceive that all our notions from first to last, are strictly speaking, general and abstract, not absolute and particular; and that to have a perfectly distinct idea of any one individual thing, or concrete existence, either as to the parts of which it is composed, or the differences belonging to it, or the circumstances connected with it, would imply an unlimited power of comprehension in the human mind, which is impossible. All particular things consist of, and lead to an infinite number of other things. Abstraction is a consequence of the limitation of the comprehensive faculty, and mixes itself more or less with every act of the mind of whatever kind, and in every moment of its existence. There is no idea of an individual object, which consists of a single impression, but of a number of impressions massed together: there is no idea of a particular quality of an object, which is perfectly simple, or which is not the result of a number of

impressions of the same sort classed together by the mind without 2attending to their particular differences. Every idea of an object is, therefore, in a strict sense an imperfect and general notion of an aggregate: of a house, or tree, as well as of a city, or forest: of a grain of sand as well as of the universe. Every idea of a sensible quality, as of the whiteness of the sheet of paper before me, or the hardness of the table on which I lean, implies the same power of generalization, of connecting several impressions into one sort, as the most refined and abstract idea of virtue and justice, of motion, or extension, or space of time, or being itself. This view of the subject is not, I confess, very obvious at first sight, and it will be more easily understood after I have stated the arguments of others on this difficult question. The concise account of the nature of abstract ideas is that which Mr. Locke has given, as follows. ‘All things that exist being particular, it may be perhaps thought reasonable that words which ought

to be conformed to things should be so too, I mean in their signification: but yet we find quite the contrary. The far greatest part of words that make all languages are general terms, which has not been the effect of neglect or chance, but of reason and necessity.’ ‘First, it is impossible that every particular thing should have a distinct peculiar name. For the signification and use of words depending on that connection which the mind makes between its ideas and the sounds it uses as signs of them, it is necessary in the applications of names to things, that the mind should have distinct ideas of the things, and retain also the particular name that belongs to every one, with its peculiar appropriation to that idea. But it is beyond the power of human capacity to frame and retain distinct ideas of all the particular things we meet with; every bird and beast we see, every tree and plant that affect the senses, could not find a place in the most capacious understanding. If it be looked on as an instance of a prodigious memory,

that some generals have been able to call every soldier in their army by his proper name, we may easily find a reason why men never attempted to give names to each sheep in their flock, or crow that flies over their heads, much less to call every leaf of plants or grain of sand that came in their way, by a peculiar name. Secondly, if it were possible, it would not serve to the chief end of language. Men would not in vain heap up names of particular things that would not serve them to communicate their thoughts. Men learn names, and use them in talk with others, only that they may be understood, which is then only done, when by use or consent, the sound I make by the organs of speech, excites in another man’s mind who hears it, the idea I apply to it in mine when I speak it. This cannot be done by names applied to particular things, whereof I alone have the ideas in my mind, the names of them could not be significant, intelligible to 3another who was not acquainted with all those very particular things which had fallen under my notice. Thirdly, granting this

feasible, which I think it is not, yet a distinct name of every particular thing would not be of any great use for the improvement of knowledge; which though founded in particular things, enlarges itself by general views, to which things reduced into sorts under general names are properly subservient. These with the names belonging to them come within some compass, and do not multiply every moment beyond what either the mind can contain, or use requires, and therefore in these men have for the most part stopped. But yet not so, as to hinder themselves from distinguishing particular things by appropriated names, where convenience demands it. And therefore in their own species, which they have to do with, and wherein they have often occasion to mention particular persons, they make use of proper names; and these distinct individuals have distinct denominations. Besides persons, countries, cities, rivers, mountains, and other like distinctions of place have usually found particular names, and that for the same reason; and I doubt not but if we had reason to mention

particular horses, as often as we have to mention particular men, we should have proper names for the one as familiarly as for the other, and Bucephalus would be a word as much in use as Alexander. And therefore we see amongst jockies, horses have their proper names to be known and distinguished by, as commonly as their servants, because amongst them there is often occasion to mention this or that particular horse, when he is out of sight. The next thing to be considered is how general words came to be made. For since all things that exist are only particulars, how come we by general terms, or where find we those general natures they are supposed to stand for? Words become general by being made the signs of general ideas, and ideas become general by separating from them the circumstances of time and place, and any other ideas that may determine them to this or that particular existence. By this way of abstraction they are made capable of representing more individuals than one, each of which having in it a conformity to that abstract idea is (as we call it) of that sort.

‘But to deduce this a little more distinctly, it will not, perhaps, be amiss to trace our notions and names from their beginning, and observe by what degrees we proceed, and by what steps we enlarge our ideas from their first infancy. There is nothing more evident than that the ideas of the persons children converse with, are like the persons themselves, only particulars. The ideas of the nurse and the mother are well framed in the mind and like pictures of them there, represent only those individuals. The names they first give rise to are confined to these individuals, and the names of nurse and mamma 4which the child uses, determine themselves to those persons. Afterwards when time and a larger acquaintance has made them observe that there are a great many other things in the world, that in some common agreements of shape, and several other properties resemble their father and mother, and those persons they have been used to, they frame an idea which they find those many particulars do partake in, and to that they give with others the name Man, for example.

And thus they come to have a general name, and a general idea. Wherein they make nothing new, but only leave out of the complex idea they had of Peter and James, Mary and Jane, that which is peculiar to each, and retain what is common to them all. By the same way that they come by the general name and idea of man, they easily advance to more general names and notions. For observing that several things that differ from their idea of man, and therefore cannot be comprehended under that name, have yet certain qualities wherein they agree with man, by retaining only those qualities and uniting them into one idea, they have again another and more general idea; to which having given a name, they make a term of a more comprehensive extension; which new idea is made, not by any new addition, but only as before, by leaving out the shape, and some other properties signified by the name man, and retaining only a body with life, sense, and spontaneous motion, comprehended under the name animal. That this is the way that men first formed general ideas and general names