Elements of the philosophy of the human mind. By Dugald Stewart. Rev. and abridged, with critical and explanatory notes, for the use of colleges and schools. By Francis Bowen ...

402 IEtASON.
keeping constantly in view, the close and inseparable connection
which will be afterwards shown to exist between the two different intellectual operations which are thus brought into immediate contrast.
Opinions of the ancients respecting the argument from universal consent. —" Those things are to be regarded as first
truths, [says Aristotle,] the credit of which is not derived from
other truths, but is inherent in themselves. As for probable
truths, they are such as are admitted by all men, or by the generality of men, or by wise men; and, among these last, either
by all the wise, or by the generality of the wise, or by such of
the wise as are of the highest authority."
The argument from Universal Consent, on which so much
stress is laid by many of the ancients, is the same doctrine with
the foregoing, under a form somewhat different. It is stated
with great simplicity and force by a Platonic philosopher, [Maximus Tyrius,] in the following sentences:"In such a contest, and tuinult, and disagreement, (about
other matters of' opinion,) you may see this one law and language acknowledged by common accord. This the Greek says,
and this the barbarian says; and the inhabitant of the continent, and the islander; and the wise, and the unwise."
Objection to which the argument is liable. - It cannot be
denied, that against this summary species of logic, when employed without any collateral lights, as an infallible touchstone
of philosophical truth, a strong objection immediately occurs.
By what test, it may be asked, is a principle of common sense
to be distinguished from one of those prejudices to which the
whole human race are irresistibly led, in the first instance, by
the very constitution of their nature? If no test or criterion
of truth can be pointed out but universal consent, may not
all' those errors which Bacon has called idola tribus,* claim a
* [Idols of the Tribe, as they are called in the fanciful nomenclature of
Lord Bacon, are the errors and prejudices to which all men (the whole
trnibt) are liable, because they grow out of the natural imperfections and
biases of the human understanding. " For the light of the human intel