Such is my interpretation of Locke's definition of reason, in the proper and specific sense of this word. If it is strictly correct, as I believe the intelligent reader will find by reference, then it is Locke confounds reason with reasoning, mistakes a part for the whole, and the whole for a part, and acts similarly--to borrow his own way of illustration--to the representing a gallon to be a quart, or a half-sovereign to be a sovereign. It is to be observed, too, that it is entirely in behalf of the more showy kind of knowledge, that the mistake is made. The respected name of reason is given exclusively to logic and demonstrating. Good sense, good feeling, just instinct, if they stand alone, have no claim to it; they are put on an inferior footing; true, they are intuition; but what then? they are not reason. Now, the century introduced by Locke is accused by the present, and it is generally admitted, with some degree of justice, of having "materialistic" tendencies. We may see, then, how Locke's doctrine, as just described, founded though it is only on nomenclature, hinging merely on definition, incurring whatever wrongness it implicates from no other lapse than that of confounding a word with its derivative, doing nothing, in short, but annul the difference of meaning between the two words, reason and reasoning; we may see how this apparently harmless experiment might tend to supplying these materialistic tendencies with a ground, a rationale, a principle, and thus to exalt their authority, and how, indeed! it just smacks of their spirit. It may be seen, too, how, from a few slips, such as this on the part of the champion of the "new philosophy," competing schools of the present age might be able to make up a case, specious enough to gain the acquiescence of a portion of the public against both--with how great futility, I believe, would appear, if the accusations were weighed by a competent tribunal. And, finally, it might be expected, that the undue exaltation of the demonstrative department of reason, should issue in a reaction into a contrary extreme, and that some Mr. Carlyle might be found to inveigh against "logic," to sneer at "analysis," to denounce "cause and effect philosophy" and to praise "mysticism." I have already assumed that the third test that I promised, goes against Locke, and requires no examination, simply because he has not advanced it in his behalf. He has assigned no ground for changing the meaning of the word reason, and it is presumable that none is assignable.