" Idea innata nulla est. Aptitudo qumdam innata menti inest qua ad ideas hasce, vulgo innatas dictas? percipiendas approbandasque, quandocumque se obtulerit necessario dirigetur."[80]I have employed more time than I would like to tell any one, in searching after the Scottish ancestry of Kant, but without success. I find that the name Cant was not uncommon in Forfarshire in last century: it occurs on the tombstones in a number of churchyards. In a map of a piece of ground at the north end of Brechin, there is mention of its belonging successively to George Cant and Alex. ander Cant. There was a James Cant, weaver in Brechin, admitted to the guild in 1779. I have seen a deed in which George Scott sells, in 1799, to John Cant, tanner in Brechin, a piece of property on the east side of High Street. It had been bought in I 796by the two, in a contract of copartnery for carrying on the business of manufacturing and selling of leather. As leather and saddlery are connected, I have at times favored the idea that Kant, the saddler, may have been descended from the same Cants as John Cant, the tanner, who it is understood came from Montrose to Brechin. It is proper to state that Ihave been assisted in these researches by D. 1). Black, Esq., town clerk, Brechin.
[81]"The Collected Works of Dugald Stewart, edited by Sir William Hamilton, Bart., with a Memoir of Dugald Stewart, by John Veitch."[82]It is an interesting circumstance that, perhaps, the fairest estimate which we have of Bacon and the inductive system is by a German, Kuno Fischer, in We " Francis Bacon of Verulam " (translated by Oxenford). He errs, however, after the usual German mode of theorizing, in connecting Bacon with such men as Hobbes and Hume, the former of whom never professed to follow the Baconian method, and the latter of whom formed a very low estimate of Bacon, and has been most effectively met by Reid and Stewart, who professedly and really adopted the inductive system. This has been shown by Remusat, in his pleasantively written and judicious work, " Bacon: Sa Vie, son Temps, sa Philosophic where there is a just estimate of Bacon's general philosophy, and some good remarks on the metaphysical points involved in induction.
[83]The intellectual side has been brought out to view by Henry Rogers, Professor Bowen of Harvard, and Professor Webb of Dublin.
[84]"Account of the Life and Writings of Thomas Brown, M.D."(1825), by David Welsh. Shorter Memoir by same prefixed to Brown's " Lectures."[85]"Life of Francis Jeffrey," by Lord Cockburn.
[86]I am afraid we cannot claim Sydney Smith (born 1771, died 1845) as one of the Scotch metaphysicians as he was not a Scotchman: he merely resided for a time in Edinburgh. But his "Lectures on Moral Philosophy," delivered in London, 1804-6, and published in a volume (1850), is drawn from the Scottish philosophy, especially from Stewart, and is a remarkably clear, lively, and judicious work.
