THE SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHY

 The Scottish Philosophy
James McCosh
1875
Editor's note: After the publication of George Berkeley (1710) and (1713), philosophy in Great Britain was dominated by Scottish philosophers until about 1850. The Scottish philosophical movement is usually described as beginning with Gershom Carmichael at around 1700, and concluding with William Hamilton (d. 1856). These 50 or so philosophers were university teachers at Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and at other smaller schools in Scotland. Unable to obtain university employment, Hume is the most notable exception to the list. McCosh believes that adherence to the inductive method of investigation is the distinctive feature found throughout Scottish Philosophy. More than 100 years after the its publication, McCosh's remains the most comprehensive account of these philosophers. McCosh was born in 1811 in Ayshire, Scotland. He studied at the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, and received his M.A. from the latter in 1834. He was a pastor for several years and instrumental in establishing the Free Church of Scotland. From 1868-1888 he was president of the College of New Jersey (Princeton University). He continued living there until his death in 1894. McCosh's other philosophical writings include (1850), (1860), (1866), and (2 vol., 1886-1887). McCosh was a harsh critic of both Mill's empiricism and Hamilton's idealism. Following Reid, he argued that intuitive mental principles shape our experiences and establish the authority of our fundamental beliefs.
* * * * THE SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHY Biographical, Expository, Critical FROM HUTCHESON TO HAMILTON BY JAMES McCOSH, LL.D., D.D. PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY, PRINCETON London: MACMILLAN AND CO. 1875 * * * * JAMES McCOSH, LL.D., D.D., PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY, PRINCETON London: MACMILLAN AND CO. 1875 PREFATORY NOTE.
T/HIS\ work has been with me a labor of love. The gathering of materials for it, and the writing of it, as carrying me into what I feel to be interesting scenes, have afforded me great pleasure, which is the only reward I am likely to get. I publish it, as the last, and to me the only remaining, means of testifying my regard for my country -- loved all the more because I am now far from it -- and my country's philosophy, which has been the means of stimulating thought in so many of Scotland's sons.
The English-speaking public, British and American, has of late been listening to divers forms of philosophy, -- to Coleridge, to Kant, to Cousin, to Hegel, to Comte, to Berkeley, -- and is now inclined to a materialistic psychology. Not finding permanent satisfaction in any of these, it is surely possible that it may grant a hearing to the sober philosophy of Scotland.
M. Cousin has remarked that the philosophy of Scotland is part of the history of the country. I have treated it as such; and I claim to have one qualification for the work: I am in thorough sympathy with the characteristic sentiments of my native land. I have farther tried to make my work a contribution to what {iv} may be regarded as a new department of science, the history of thought, which is quite as important as the history of wars, of commerce, of literature, or of civilization.
Some of these articles have appeared in the "North British Review," the "British and Foreign Evangelical Review," and the "Dublin University Magazine; " but the greater number are now given to the public for the first time, and all of them have been rewritten. J. MCC. P/RINCETON\, New Jersey, October, 1874.
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CONTENTS. 1. Characteristics Of The School -- 1 2. State Of Scotland -- 11 3. Precursors Of The School -- 22 4. Shaftesbury, 1671-1713 -- 29 5. Gershom Carmichael, 1672-1729 -- 36 6. Andrew Baxter, 1636-1750 42 7. Francis Hutcheson, 1694-1746 -- 49 8. Religious Conflicts-Ralph Erskine -- 86 9. Archibald Campbell Died 1756 -- 89 10. Alexander Moncrieff, Died 1761 -- 90 11. Rise: Of The Aberdeen Branch -- 91 12. George Turnbull, 1698-1748 -- 95 13. David Fordyce, 1711-1751 -- 106 14. William Duncan, 1717-1760 -- 107 15. John Stevenson, 1694-1775 -- 107 16. Sir John Pringle, 1707-1782 -- 109 17. Thomas Boston -- 109 18. David Dudgeon, 1706-1743 -- 111 19. David Hume, 1711-1776 -- 113 20. Books Advertised In "Scot's Magazine" -- 161 21. Adam Smith, 1723-1790 -- 162 22. Henry Home (Lord Kames), 1696-1732 -- 173 23. American Philosophy-John Witherspoon, 1722-1794 -- 183 24. James Balfour, 1705-1795 -- 190 25. Alexander Gerard, 1728-1795 -- 191 26. Thomas Reid, 1710-1796 -- 192 27. The Aberdeen Philosophical Society -- 227 28. James Oswald, Died 1793 -- 229 29. James Beattie, 1735-1802 -- 230 30. George Campbell, 1719-1796 -- 239 31. James Burnett (Lord Monboddo), 1714-1799 -- 245 32. Adam Ferguson, 1723-1816 -- 255 33. James Hutton, 1726-1797 -- 261 34. John Gregory, 1724-1773 -- 263 35. James Gregory, 1753-1821 -- 264 36. Alexander Crombie, 1760-1842 -- 265 37. Archibald Arthur, 1774-1797 -- 266 38. John Bruce, 1744-1826 -- 267 39. Review Of The Century -- 267 40. Dugald Stewart, 1753-1828 -- 275 41. William Lawrence Brown, 1755-1830 -- 307 42. Archibald Alison, 1757-1839 -- 308 43. George Jardine, 1742-1827 -- 316 44. Thomas Brown, 1773-1820 -- 317 45. Francis Jeffrey, 1773-1850 -- 337 46. Sir James Mackintosh, 1765-1832 -- 346 47. Henry Lord Brougham, 1779-1868 -- 360 48. James Mylne, Died 1839 -- 364 49. John Young, 1781-1829 -- 367 50. William Cairns, 1780-1848 -- 369 51. James Mill, 1773-1836 -- 370 52. John Ballantyne, 1778-1830 -- 388 53. Thomas Chalmers, 1780-1847 -- 393 54. John Abercrombie, 1780-1844 -- 406 55. David Welsh, 1793-1845 -- 408 56. John Wilson, 1785-1853 -- 410 57. Sir William Hamilton, 1791-1856 -- 415 58. The Metaphysics Of The Future -- 434
APPENDIX. 1. Ms. Letters Of Francis Hutcheson -- 463 2. Questions In The Philosophical Society Of Aberdeen -- 467 3. Mss. Papers By Reid -- 473
INDEX -- 477
THE SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHY. I.-- CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SCHOOL. T/HE\ Germans have histories without number of their philosophy from Kant to Hegel, with not a few historical reviews of the later speculations. The French, too, have numerous sketches of the philosophy of their country generally, and of individual systems, such as that of Descartes. It is no way to the credit of British thought, and least of all to that of the Scotch metaphysicians, that we have not in our language a history of the Scottish school of philosophy. There are valuable notices of it, it is true, in Dugald Stewart's Historical Dissertation, and in his Eloges of Reid and Adam Smith; but Stewart is far too dignified and general in his style to be able to give an articulate account of the special doctrines of the different masters of the school, or a vivid picture of the times, with many of the marked characteristics of which he had no sympathy. The best history of the Scottish Philosophy is by a Frenchman, and has not been translated into English. We look on "Philosophic Ecossaise," the volume in which M. Cousin treats of the Scottish school, as containing upon the whole the most faultless of all his historical disquisitions. In his other volumes he scarcely does justice to Locke, whom he always judges from the evil consequences which have flowed from his philosophy on the continent, and he is not able to wrestle successfully with the powerful logical intellect of Kant; but he has a thorough appreciation of the excellencies of the Scottish metaphysicians, and, when he finds fault, his criticisms are always worthy of being considered. But it could not be expected of a foreigner, that he should thoroughly comprehend the state of Scotland when its peculiar philosophy arose, nor be able to estimate its relation to the national character; and the account given by M. Cousin is fragmentary, and critical rather than expository.
The Scottish Philosophy possesses a unity, not only in the circumstance that its expounders have been Scotchmen, but also and more specially in its method, its doctrines, and its spirit. It is distinguished by very marked and decided features, which we may represent as determined by the bones rather than the flesh or muscles.
1. It proceeds on the method of observation, professedly and really. In this respect it is different from nearly all the philosophies which went before, from many of those which were contemporary, and from some of those which still linger among us. The method pursued in Eastern countries, in ancient Greece and Rome, in the scholastic times, and in the earlier ages of modern European speculation, had not been that of induction, either avowedly or truly. No doubt, speculators have been obliged in all ages and countries to make some use of facts, in the investigation of both mind and matter. But in the earlier theosophies, physiologies, and philosophies, they looked at the phenomena of nature merely as furnishing a starting- point to their systems, or a corroboration of them; and their inquiries were conducted in the dogmatic, or deductive, or analytic manner, explaining phenomena by assumed principles, or bringing facts to support theories, or resolving the complexities of the universe by refined mental distinctions. This spirit had been banished from physical science, first, by the great realistic awakening of the sixteenth century; then by the profound wisdom and far- sighted sagacity of Bacon; and, finally, by the discoveries of Newton and the establishment of the Royal Society of London. But it lingered for some ages longer in material science, from which it has not even yet been finally expelled. Bacon had declared, that his method was applicable to all other sciences as well as to the investigation of the material universe. "Does any one doubt (rather than object)," says he, "whether we speak merely of natural philosophy or of other sciences also, such as logics, ethics, politics, as about to be perfected by our method?" "We certainly," he replies, "understand all these things which have been referred to; and like as the vulgar logic, which regulates things by the syllogism, pertains not to the natural but all sciences, so ours, which proceeds by induction, embraces them all. For thus we would form a history and tables concerning anger, fear, modesty, and the like, as also examples of civil affairs, not omitting the mental emotions of memory, composition, division, judgment, and the rest, just as we form such of heat and cold, of light, vegetation, and such like." Sir Isaac Newton had said in his Optics: "And if natural philosophy in all its parts, by pursuing this method, shall at length be perfected, the bounds of moral philosophy will also be enlarged." But the employment of the method of induction in the study of the human mind was for ages slow, wavering, and uncertain. It has been asserted, that Descartes proceeded on the method of induction; but the statement has been made by metaphysicians who have never correctly apprehended the mode of procedure recommended by Bacon. Descartes does indeed appeal to profound ideas, which may be regarded as mental facts; but it is not by them to arrive at laws by a gradual generalization; it is rather to employ them as foundation- stones of his structure, which is reared high above them by the joint dogmatic and deductive method, and on the geometric and not the inductive plan. It has been averred that Hobbes proceeded on the method of his friend Bacon; but Hobbes nowhere professes to do so: his doctrine of the origin of civil government is a mere theory, and his system of the human mind and of morals is obtained by a very defective analysis, and in fact, is mainly borrowed from Aristotle, whose profounder principles he was incapable of appreciating. It cannot be denied that Locke does proceed very largely in the way of observation; but it is a curious circumstance that he nowhere professes to follow the method of induction; and his great work may be summarily represented as an attempt to establish by internal facts the preconceived theory, that all our ideas are derived from sensation and reflection. To the Scottish school belongs the merit of being the first, avowedly and knowingly, to follow the inductive method, and to employ it systematically in psychological investigation. As the masters of the school were the first to adopt it, so they, and those who have borrowed from them, are almost the only persons who have studiously adhered to it. The school of Condillac in France, and its followers in England {4} and Germany, do indeed profess to attend to observation, but it is after the manner of the empiricists, described by Bacon as beginning with experience, but immediately abandoning it for premature hypotheses. It will be seen, as we advance, that Kant followed the critical and not the inductive method. Hutcheson and Turnbull, and especially Reid and Stewart, have the credit of announcing unambiguously, that the human mind is to be studied exclusively by the method of observation, and of consistently employing this mode of procedure in all their investigations.
II. It employs self-consciousness as the instrument of observation. It may thus be distinguished from some other schools with which it has been confounded. Bacon, we have seen, did believe in the applicability of his method to all the mental sciences. But he had no clear apprehension of the agency by which the observation is to be accomplished; he supposed it to be by " the history and tables concerning anger, fear, modesty, the memory, composition, division, judgment, and the like." In respect of the means of observation, philosophy is greatly indebted to Descartes, who taught men, in studying the human mind, to seize on great internal ideas. The questions started by Locke, and his mode of settling them, tend towards the same issue; he dwells fondly on reflection as the alone source of the ideas which we have of the workings of the human mind, and ever appeals to the internal sense as an arbiter in discussions as to the origin of ideas. But the Scottish philosophers took a step in advance of any of their predecessors, inasmuch as they professed to draw all the laws of mental philosophy -- indeed, their whole systems -- from the observations of consciousness.
By this feature they are at once distinguished from those who would construct a science of the human mind from the observation of the brain or nerves, or generally from animal physiology. Not indeed that the Scottish philosophy is required, by its manner or its principles, to reject the investigation of the functions of the bodily frame, as fitted to throw light on mental action. Certain of the masters of the school, such as Reid, Brown, and Hamilton, were well acquainted with physiology in its latest discoveries in their day, and carefully employed their knowledge to illustrate the operations of the human mind. {5} There is nothing in the method, or the spirit, or the cherished doctrines of the school tending to discountenance or disparage a painstaking experimental investigation of the parts of the bodily frame most intimately connected with mental action. Possibly the next great addition may be made to psychology, when internal observation of the thoughts and feelings, and external observation of the brain and nerves and vital forces, are in circumstances to combine their lights. But in the days of the great masters of the Scottish school, physiology was not in a state, nor is it yet in a position, to furnish much aid in explaining mental phenomena. The instrument employed by them was the internal sense; and they always maintained that it is only by it that we can reach an acquaintance with mind proper and its various operations, and that the knowledge acquired otherwise must ever be regarded as subordinate and subsidiary. They might have admitted that the occasion of the production, and the modifications of our mental states, could so far be influenced by the cerebro-spinal mass, or the forces operating in it; but they strenuously maintained that we can know what our perceptions, and judgments, and feelings, and wishes, and resolves, and moral appreciations are, not by the senses or the microscope, not by chemical analysis, or the estimation of the vital forces, but solely through our inward experience revealed by consciousness.
But let us properly understand what the Scottish school intend when they maintain that a science of the human mind can be constructed only by immediate consciousness. They do not mean that the study of the mind can be prosecuted in no other way than by looking in for ever on the stream of thought as it flows on without interruption. The operation of introspection is felt to be irksome in the extreme if continued for any length of time, and will certainly be abandoned when thought is rapid or feeling is intense; and those who trust to it exclusively are apt to fix their attention on a few favorite mental states, and omit many others no less characteristic of the human mind. He who would obtain an adequate and comprehensive view of our complex mental nature must not be satisfied with occasional glances at the workings of his own soul: he must take a survey of the thoughts and feelings of others so far as he can gather them from their deeds and from their words; from the {6} acts of mankind generally, and of individual men, women, and children; from universal language as the expression of human cogitation and sentiment; and from the commerce we hold with our fellow-men by conversation, by writing, or by books. Reid in particular is ever appealing to men's actions and language, as a proof that there must be certain principles, beliefs, and affections in the mind. Still this evidence ever carries us back to consciousness, as after all both the primary witness and the final judge of appeal; as it is only by it, and by what has passed through our own minds, that we can come to discern and appreciate the feelings of our brother men.[2]
III. By the observations of consciousness, principles are reached which are prior to and independent of experience. This is another grand characteristic of the school, distinguishing it, on the one hand, from empiricism and sensationalism; and, on the other hand, from the dogmatism and speculation of all ages and countries. It agrees with the former in holding that we can construct a science of mind only by observation, and out of the facts of experience; but then it separates from them, inasmuch as it resolutely maintains that we can discover principles which are not the product of observation and experience, and which are in the very constitution of the mind, and have there the sanction of the Author of our nature. These are somewhat differently apprehended and described by the masters of the school, some taking a deeper and others a more superficial view of them. Hutcheson calls them senses, and finds them in the very constitution of the mind. Reid designates them principles of common sense, and represents them as being natural, original, and necessary. Stewart characterizes them as fundamental laws of human thought and belief. Brown makes them intuitions simple and original. Hamilton views them under a great many aspects, but seems {7} to contemplate them most frequently and fondly after the manner of Kant, as forms or conditions. But whatever minor or major differences there may be in the fulness of their exposition, or in the favorite views which they individually prefer, all who are truly of the Scottish school agree in maintaining that there are laws, principles, or powers in the mind anterior to any reflex observation of them, and acting independently of the philosophers' classification or explanation of them. While the Scottish school thus far agrees with the rational and systems, it differs from them most essentially, in refusing to admit any philosophic maxims except such laws or principles as can be shown by self-inspection to be in the very constitution of the mind. It has always looked with doubt, if not suspicion, on all purely abstract and rational discussions, such as that by which Samuel Clarke demonstrated the existence of God; and its adherents have commonly discountenanced or opposed all ambitious systems, such as those which were reared in imposing forms in Germany in the end of last, and the beginning of the present, century.
These three characters are found, in a more or less decided form, in the works of the great masters of the school. I am not sure indeed whether they have been formally announced by all, nor whether they have always been consistently followed out. I allow that the relation of the three principles one to another, and their perfect congruity and consistency, have not always been clearly discerned or accurately expressed. In particular, I am convinced that most of the Scottish metaphysicians have not clearly seen how it is that we must ever proceed in mental science by observation, while there are at the same time in the mind laws superior to and independent of observation; how it is that while there are principles in the mind, it is yet true that we cannot construct a philosophy by speculation. But with these explanations and deductions, it may be maintained that the characters specified are to be found, either announced or acted on, in the pages of all the writers of the school, from Hutcheson to Hamilton. Whenever they are discovered in the works of persons connected with Scotland, the writers are to be placed among the adherents of the school. Wherever there is the total absence of any one of them, we cannot allow the author a place in the fraternity. {8}
The Scottish metaphysicians and moralists have left their impression their own land, not only on the ministers of religion, and through them upon the body of the people, but also on the whole thinking mind of the country. The chairs of mental science in the Scottish colleges have had more influence than any others in germinating thought in the minds of Scottish youth, and in giving a permanent bias and direction to their intellectual growth. We have the express testimony of a succession of illustrious men for more than a century, to the effect that it was Hutcheson, or Smith, or Reid, or Beattie, or Stewart, or Jardine, or Mylne, or Brown, or Chalmers, or Wilson, or Hamilton, who first made them feel that they had a mind, and stimulated them to independent thought. We owe it to the lectures and writings of the professors of mental science, acting always along with the theological training and preaching of the country, that men of ability in Scotland have commonly been more distinguished by their tendency to inward reflection than inclination to sensuous observation. Nor is it to be omitted that the Scottish metaphysicians have written the English language, if not with absolute purity, yet with propriety and taste, -- some of them, indeed, with elegance and eloquence, -- and have thus helped to advance the literary cultivation of the country. All of them have not been men of learning in the technical sense of the term, but they have all been well informed in various branches of knowledge (it is to a Scottish metaphysician we owe the "Wealth of Nations"); several of them have had very accurate scholarship; and the last great man among them was not surpassed in erudition by any scholar of his age. Nor has the influence of the Scottish philosophy been confined to its native soil. The Irish province of Ulster has felt it quite as much as Scotland, in consequence of so many youths from the north of Ireland having been educated at Glasgow University. Though Scotch metaphysics are often spoken of with contempt in the southern part of Great Britain, yet they have had their share in fashioning the thought of England, and, in particular, did much good in preserving it, for two or three ages towards the end of last century and the beginning of this, from falling altogether into low materialistic and utilitarian views; and in this last age Mr. J. S. Mill got some of his views through his father from Hume, Stewart, and Brown, {9} and an active philosophic school at Oxford has built on the foundation laid b Hamilton. The United States of America especially the writers connected with the Presbyterian and Congregational Churches, have felt pleasure in acknowledging-, their obligations to the Scottish thinkers. It is a most interesting circumstance, that when the higher metaphysicians of France undertook, in the beginning of this century, the laborious work of throwing back the tide of materialism, scepticism, and atheism which had swept over the land, they called to their aid the sober and well- grounded philosophy of Scotland. Nor is it an unimportant fact in the history of philosophy, that the great German metaphysician, Emmanuel Kant, was roused, as he acknowledges, from his dogmatic slumbers by the scepticism of David Hume.
But the great merit of the Scottish philosophy lies in the large body of truth which it has -- if not discovered -- at least settled on a foundation which can never be moved. It has added very considerably to our knowledge of the human mind, bringing out to view the characteristics of mental as distinguished from material action; throwing light on perception through the senses; offering valuable observations on the intellectual powers, and on the association of ideas; furnishing, if not ultimate, yet very useful provisional classifications of the mental faculties; unfolding many of the peculiarities of man's moral and emotional nature, of his conscience, and of his taste for the beautiful; resolving many complex mental phenomena into their elements; throwing aside by its independent research a host of traditional errors which had been accumulating for ages; and, above all, establishing certain primary truths as a foundation on which to rear other truths, and as a breakwater to resist the assaults of scepticism.
In comparing it with other schools, we find that the transcendental speculators of Germany have started discussions which they cannot settle, and followed out their principles to extravagant consequences, which are a of the whole method on which they proceed. Again, the physiologists have failed to furnish any explanation of consciousness, of thought, of moral approbation, or of any other peculiar mental quality. Meanwhile, the philosophy of consciousness has coordinated many facts, ascertained many mental laws, {10} explained many curious phenomena of our inward experience, and established a body of intuitive truths. By its method of careful observation, and by it alone, can the problems agitated in the rival schools be solved, so far as they can be solved by the human faculties. Whatever aid physiological research as it advances may furnish to psychology, it must always be by the study, not of the brain, and nerves, and vital forces, but of our conscious operations, that a philosophy of the human mind is to be constructed. Whether the Scottish philosophy is to proceed exclusively in its old method, and go on co-ordinating facts with ever-increasing care, and expressing them with greater and greater precision, or whether it is to borrow from other schools, -- say to resolve in its own way the questions started by Schelling and Hegel, or to call in physiology to account for the rise of mental states, -- it is at least desirable that we should now have a combined view of what has been accomplished by the philosophy of consciousness. This is what is attempted in this work.
It should be freely admitted that the Scottish school has not discovered all truth, nor even all discoverable truth, in philosophy; that it does not pretend to have done so is one of its excellencies, proceeding from the propriety of its method and the modesty of its character. Among the writings of the Scottish school, it is only in those of Sir William Hamilton that we find some of the profoundest problems of philosophy, such as the conditions of human knowledge and the idea of the infinite discussed; and the majority of the genuine adherents of the school are inclined to think that on these subjects his conclusions are too bare and negative, and that he has not reached the full truth. Reid and Stewart are ever telling us that they have obtained only partial glimpses of truth, and that a complete science of the human mind is to be achieved solely by a succession of inquirers prosecuting the investigation through a series of ages. Brown and Hamilton make greater pretensions to success in erecting complete systems, but this is one of the defects of these great men, arising, as we shall see, from their departing from the genuine Scottish method, and adopting, so far, other and continental modes of philosophizing, the one betaking himself to the empirical analysis of the French sensational school, and the other adopting the critical method {11} of Kant; and it is to be said in behalf of Brown, that he never mounts into a re.- lion of cloudy speculation; and in favor of Hamilton, that his most vigorous efforts were employed in showing how little can be known by man. All the great masters of the school not only admit, but are at pains to show, that there are mysteries in the mind of man, and in every department of human speculation, which they cannot clear up. This feature has tempted some to speak of the whole school with contempt, as doing little because attempting little. They have been charged with their country's sin of caution, and the national reproach of poverty has been unsparingly cast upon them. Let them not deny, let them avow, that the charge is just. Let them acknowledge that they have proceeded in time past in the patient method of induction, and announce openly, and without shame, that they mean to do so in time to come. Let it be their claim, that if they have not discovered all truth, they have discovered and settled some truth -- while they have not promulgated much error, or wasted their strength in rearing showy fabrics, admired in one age and taken down the next. It is the true merit of Scotchmen that, without any natural advantages of soil or climate, they have carefully cultivated their land, and made it yield a liberal produce, and that they have been roused to activity, and stimulated to industry, by their very poverty. Let it, in like manner, be the boast of the Scottish philosophy, that it has made profitable use of the materials at its disposal, and that it has by patience and shrewdness succeeded in establishing a body of fundamental truth, which can never be shaken, but which shall stand as a bulwark in philosophy, morals, and theology, as long as time endures.
II. STATE OF SCOTLAND. D/URING\ the seventeenth century, the three kingdoms had passed through a series of political and religious convulsions, and in the opening of the following century the Protestant people were seeking to enjoy and improve the seasonable -- as they reckoned it the providential -- rest which was brought by the Revolution Settlement. The floods had swept over the {12} country, partly to destroy and partly to fertilize, and men are busily employed in removing the evils (as they reckon them) which had been left, and in sowing, planting, and building on the now dry and undisturbed territory. In particular, there is a strong desire on the part of the great body of the people to make the best use of the peace which they now possess, and to employ it to draw forth the material resources of the country. As a consequence of the intellectual stimulus which had been called forth mainly by the previous great contests, and of the liberty achieved, and the industry in active exercise, the riches of the nation are increasing, agriculture begins to make progress, great commercial cities are aggregating, household and social elegance and comfort are sought after and in a great measure secured, refinement of manners is cultivated, and civilization is advancing. In the eager pursuit of these worldly ends, the Generation then springing up scarcely set sufficient value on the higher blessings which had been secured by the struggles of their forefathers. By the profound discussions of the seventeenth century, the great body of the people had been made to read their Bibles, and to inquire into the foundation and functions of political government. By the deeds done, by the sufferings endured, and the principles enunciated, the great questions of civil and religious liberty had been started, and opinions set afloat which were ultimately to settle them theoretically and practically. But the race now reared did not sufficiently appreciate the advantages thence accruing. They were kept from doing so by two impressions left by the terrible battles which had been fought on their soil.
Every one who has read the history of the period knows that a large amount of profligacy had prevailed among certain classes in the latter reigns of the Stuarts. The rampant vice led naturally to religious infidelity, and the two continued to act and react on each other. Self-indulgent men were little inclined to value the truths of spiritual religion, and lent their ears to plausible systems of belief or unbelief which left them undisturbed in their worldly enjoyments; while youths who had broken loose from the old religious trammels were often tempted to break through moral restraints likewise, and to rush into vice, as exhibiting spirit and courage. The great cavalier party, composed largely of the upper classes, and of {13} those who aspired to rise to them, had been all along in the habit of ridiculing the fervor and strictness of the puritan movement, which bad sprung up chiefly among the middle and better portion of the lower classes, and of describing all who made solemn pretensions to religion as being either knaves or fools. Many of those who had originally brought the charge did not believe it in their hearts, as they had been constrained to respect the great and good qualities of their opponents; but they succeeded in instilling their sentiments into the minds of their children, who were taught to regard it as a mark of a gentleman to swear and to scoff at all religion. From whatever causes it may have proceeded, it is certain that in the first half of the eighteenth century there is a frequent and loud complaint on the part of theologians, both within and beyond the Established Churches, of the rapid increase and wide prevalence of infidelity, and even of secret or avowed atheism.
The struggles of the seventeenth century had left another very deep sentiment. The sects had contended so much about minor points, that now, in the reaction, there was a strong disposition, both among the professedly religious and irreligious, to set little or no value on doctrinal differences, and to turn away with distaste from all disputes among ecclesiastical bodies. The indifference thence ensuing tended, equally with the mistaken zeal of the previous age, to prevent the principles of toleration from being thoroughly carried out. Those who stood up for what were esteemed small peculiarities were reckoned pragmatical and obstinate. Their attempts to secure full liberty of worship and of propagation met with little sympathy, and were supposed to be fitted to bring back needlessly the battles and the sufferings of the previous ages. The two sentiments combined, the desire to have a liberal or a loose creed, and the aversion to the discussion of lesser differences, issued in a result which it is more to our present purpose to contemplate. It led the great thinkers of the age, such as Samuel Clarke, Berkeley, and Butler, to spend their strength, not so much in discussing doctrines disputed among Christians, as in defending religion in general, and in laying a deep foundation on which to rest the essential principles of morality and the eternal truths of religion, natural and revealed. The first age of the eighteenth century, as it was the period {14} in which the first serious attacks were made on Christianity, so it was also the time in which were produced the first great modern defences of religion, natural and supernatural. Men of inferior philosophical breadth, but of eminent literary power, such as Addison, were also employing their gifts and accomplishments and contributing to what they reckoned the same good end, by writing apologies in behalf of religion, and laboring to make it appear amiable, reasonable, and refined. These same causes led preachers of the new school to assume a sort of apologetic air in their discourses, to cultivate a refined language, moulded on the French, and not the old English model, to avoid all extravagance of statement and appeal, to decline doctrinal controversy, and to dwell much on truths, such as the immortality of the soul, common to Christianity and to natural religion, and to enlarge on the loveliness of the Bible morality. The manner and spirit were highly pleasing to many in the upper and refined classes were acceptable to those who disliked earnest religion, as they had nothing of "the offence of the cross;" and were commended by some who valued religion, as it seemed to present piety in so attractive a light to their young men, about whom they were so anxious in those times, and of whom they hoped that they would thus be led to imbibe its elements, and thereby acquire a taste for its higher truths. But all this was powerless on the great body of the people, who were perfectly prepared to believe the preacher when he told them that they were sinners, and that God bad provided a Saviour, but felt little interest in refined apologies in behalf of God and Christ and duty; and they gradually slipped away from a religion and a religious worship which had nothing to interest, because they had nothing to move them. All this was offensive in the extreme to those who had been taught to value a deeper doctrine and a warmer piety. They complained that when they needed food they were presented with flowers; and, discontented with the present state of things, they were praying for a better era.
To complete the picture of the times, it should be added that there was little vital piety among the clergy to counteract the tendency to religious indifference. The appointments to the livings in England and Ireland lay in the hands of the government and the upper classes, who preferred men of refinement {15} and prudence, inclined to political moderation or subserviency, to men of spiritual warmth and religious independence. The Nonconformists themselves felt the somnolent influence creeping over them, after the excitement of the battle in which they had been engaged was over. Their pastors were restrained in their ministrations, and consequently in their activities, by laws which were a plain violation of the principles of toleration, but which, as they did not issue in any overt act of bitter persecution, were not resented with keenness by the higher class of Dissenters, who, to tell the truth, after what they had come through in the previous age, were not much inclined to provoke anew the enmity from which they had suffered, but were rather disposed, provided only their individual convictions were not interfered with, to take advantage of what liberty they had, to proclaim peace with others, and to embrace the opportunities thrown open to them in the -- rowing cities and manufactories, of promoting the temporal interests of themselves and their families. In these circumstances, the younger ministers were often allured (as Butler was) to go over to the Established Church; and those who remained were infected with the spirit which prevailed around them, and sought to appear as elegant and as liberal as the clergy of the church, who were beginning to steal from them the more genteel portion of the younger members of their flocks. The design of those who favored this movement was no doubt to make religion attractive and respected. The result did not realize the expectation. The upper classes were certainly not scandalized by a religion which was so inoffensive, but they never thought of heartily embracing what they knew had no earnestness; and, paying only a distant and respectful obeisance to religion in the general, they gave themselves up to the fashion. able vices, or, at best, practised only the fashionable moralities of their times. The common people, little cared for by the clergy, and caring nothing for the refined emptiness presented to them instead of a living religion, went through their daily toils with diligence, but in most districts, both of town and country, viewed religion with indifference, and relieved their manual labor with low indulgences. England is rapidly growing in wealth and civilization, and even in industry, mainly from the intellectual stimulus imparted by moral causes acting in the {16} previous ages; but it is fast descending to the most unbelieving, condition to which it has ever been reduced. From this state of religious apathy it is roused, so far as the masses of the people are concerned, in the next age, and ere the life had altogether died out, by the trumpet voices of Whitfield and Wesley. It was in a later age, and after the earthquake convulsions of the French Revolution had shaken society to its foundation, that the upper classes were made to know and feel that when " the salt has lost its savor," it is good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men, and that a dead religion is of no use either to rich or poor, either for political ends or for personal comfort.
An analogous, but by no means identical, process begins and goes on, and is consummated in Scotland about half an age or an age later in point of time. All throughout the seventeenth century, Scotland, like England, had been ploughed by religious contests. But the penetrating observer notices a difference between the shape taken by the struggle in the two countries. In England, the war had been a purely internal one between opposing principles, the prelatic and puritan; whereas, in Scotland, the battle had been mainly against an external foe, that is, an English power, which sought to impose a prelatic church on the people contrary to their wishes. Again, in England the contest had been against an ecclesiastical power, which sought to crush civil liberty; whereas, in Scotland, the power of the Church of Scotland had been exerted in behalf of the people, and against a foreign domination. This difference in the struggle was followed by a difference in the state of feeling resulting when the contest was terminated by the accession of William and Mary.
The great body of the people, at least in the Lowlands, acquiesced in the Revolution Settlement, and clung round the Government and the Presbyterian Church as by law established. But there soon arose antagonisms, which, though they did not break out into open wars, as in the previous century, did yet range the country into sections and parties with widely differing sympathies and aims. In fact, Scotland was quite as much divided in opinion and sentiment in the eighteenth, as it ever was in the seventeenth century. In saying so, I do not refer to the strong prelatic feeling which existed all over the north {17} east coast of Scotland, or to the attachment to the house of Stuart which prevailed in the Highlands, -- for these, though they led to the uprisings of 1715 and 1745, were only the backward beatings of the retreating tide, -- but to other and stronger currents which have been flowing and coming into more or less violent collision with one another from that day till ours.
At the close of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century, the Church of Scotland was composed of a somewhat heterogeneous mixture of covenanting ministers, who had lived in the times of persecution; of prelatic clergy whose convictions in favor of Episcopacy were not sufficiently deep to induce them to abandon their livings, and to suffer the annoyances and persecutions to which the more sincere non jurors were exposed and of a race of young men zealous for the Presbyterian establishment, but "only half educated and superficially accomplished." The conforming "curates" were commonly indifferent to religion of every kind, and it was hoped that they would soon die out, and that the heritors and elders, with whom the election of pastors lay, would fill the churches with a learned and zealous ministry. But, in 1711, the Jacobite government of Queen Anne took the power of election from the parish authorities, and vested it in the ancient patrons, being the Crown for above five hundred and fifty livings, and noblemen, gentlemen of landed property, and town- councils, for the remaining four hundred.[3] The effect of this new law became visible in the course of years, in the appointment of persons to the churches who, for good reasons or bad, were acceptable to the government of the day, or were able to secure the favor of the private patrons. Forced upon the people in the first instance, there was a public feeling ready to gather round this law of patronage. From bad motives and from good -- like those which we have traced in England -- there was a desire among the upper, and a portion of the middle and educated, classes to have a clergy suited to the new age which had come in. As the result, there was formed a type of ministers which has continued till nearly our time in Scotland, called "New light" by the people, and designating themselves " moderates," as claiming the virtue of being moderate in all things, though, as Witherspoon charges {18} them, they became very immoderate for moderation, when they rose to be the dominant party. Most of them refrained in their preaching from uttering a very decided sound on disputed doctrinal points; some of them were suspected of Arianism or Socinianism, which, however, they kept to themselves out of respect for, or fear of, the Confession of Faith, which they had sworn to adhere to; the more highly educated of them cultivated a refinement and elegance of diction, and dwelt much on the truths common to both natural and revealed religion; and all of them were fond of depicting the high morality of the New Testament, and of recommending the example of Jesus. It is scarcely necessary to remark, that this style of preaching did not gain, as it did not warm, the hearts of the common people, who either became callous to all religion, without any zealous efforts being made to stir them up, or longed and prayed for a better state of things. The enforcement of the law of patronage, and the settlement of ministers against the wishes of the people, led to the separation of the Erskines and the Secession Body in 1733, and of Gillespie and the Relief Body in 1753. In the Established Church there still remained a number of men of evangelical views and popular sympathies, such as Willison and Boston, who hoped that they might stem and ultimately turn the tide which was for the time against them. The boast of the moderate party was, that they were introducing into Scotland a greater liberality of sentiment on religious topics, and a greater refinement of taste. The charge against them is, that they abandoned the peculiar doctrines of the gospel, that they could not draw towards them the affections of the people who, in rural districts, sank into a stupid ignorance of religious truth, and, in the crowded lanes of the rising cities, into utter ungodliness and criminality, -- except, indeed, in so far as they were drawn out by the rapidly increasing dissenters, or by the evangelical minority within the Established Church. The collisions of the century took various forms. After the Union with England, dancing assemblies, theatres, and wandering players (with Allan Ramsay to patronize them), dancing on the tight-rope, cock- fighting, gambling, and horse-racing make their appearance, and receive considerable countenance and patronage from various classes, upper and lower; while {19} ineffectual attempts are made to put them down by civil penalties inflicted by burgher magistrates, and by public ecclesiastical censures, which the zealous clergy rigidly enforce, but which the new-light clergy are anxious to relax. In the turmoil of opinions which sprang up in this new state of things, there are rumors of deism, and even of atheism, being secretly entertained or openly avowed, and of the establishment here and there, in town and country, of " hell-fire clubs," where bold men met to discuss new opinions, and even, it is said, to act mock ceremonies, intended to ridicule the sacraments, and all that is awful in religion. Worse than all, and without being Much noticed, or meeting with much opposition on the part of the clergy of either party, there is the commencement of those drinking customs, which have ever since exercised so prejudicial an influence on the Scottish character.
If we look to the common people in the first quarter of the century, we find them in a state of great rudeness in respect of the comforts and elegancies of life. In the Highlands, they are scarcely removed above the lowest state of barbarism; and in the borders between the Highlands and Lowlands, the Celts are lifting cattle and exacting black- mail from the Lowlanders. Even in the more favored districts in the south of Scotland, the ground is unfenced; roads are very rare; and goods are carried on the backs of horses. The clothing of the people in the same region is of undyed black and white plaiding, and neither men nor women have shoes or stockings. Their ordinary food is oatmeal, pease, or beer, with kail groats and milk, and they rarely partake of flesh meat. The houses have only the bare ground as floors, with a fireplace in the midst, and the smoke escaping out of a hole in the roof, and with seats and the very beds of turf; even in the dwellings of the farmers there are seldom more than two apartments; not unfrequently, however, in the south-west of Scotland, there is in addition a closet, to which the head of the house would retire at set times for devotion. Superstitious beliefs are still entertained in all ranks of life, and are only beginning to disappear among the educated classes. In the Highlands and Islands, second-sight is as firmly believed by the chieftain as by the clansmen. In the Lowlands, mysterious diseases, arising from a deranged nervous {20} system, are ascribed to demoniacal possessions; and witches, supposed to have sold themselves to the Evil One, and accomplishing his purposes in inflicting direful evils on the persons and properties of neighbors, are being punished by the magistrates, who are always incited on by the people, and often by the more zealous ministers of religion. Toleration is not understood or acknowledged by any of the great parties, political or religious.
What, it may be asked, is there in the condition of this people fitted to raise any hope that they are ever to occupy a high place among the nations of the earth? I am sure that a worldly-minded traveller, or an admirer of mere refinement and art, in visiting the country at those times, and comparing it with France or Italy, would have discovered nothing in it to lead him to think that it was to have a glorious future before it. But a deeper and more spiritually-minded observer might have discovered already the seeds of its coming intelligence and love of freedom: -- in the schools and colleges planted throughout the land in the love of education instilled into the minds of the people and, above all, in their acquaintance with the Bible, and in their determined adherence to what they believed to be the truth of God.[4]
Before the first age of the century has passed, there are unmistakable signs of industrial and intellectual activity. The Union has connected the upper classes with the metropolis and the Court of England, from which they are receiving a new refinement and some mental stimulus. The middle classes, and even the lower orders, are obtaining instruction from a very different quarter, from their parochial schools and churches, {21} from their burgh academies and their universities. The towns are hastening to take advantage of the new channels of trade and commerce; manufactures are springing up in various places, and already there is a considerable trading intercourse between the west of Scotland and America. The proprietors of the soil, in need of money to support their English life and to buy luxuries, are beginning to subdivide and enclose their lands, and to grant better dwellings and leases to their tenantry, who, being thereby placed in circumstances fitted to encourage and reward industry, are prepared to reclaim waste lands, to manure their grounds, to improve their stock of sheep and cattle, and introduce improved agricultural implements.
This imperfect sketch may help the reader to comprehend the circumstances in which the Scottish philosophy sprang up and grew to maturity, and the part which its expounders acted in the national history. It could have appeared only in a time of peace and temporal prosperity, but there had been a preparation for it in the prior struggles. The stream which had risen in a higher region, and long pursued its course in ruggedness, -- like the rivers of the country, -- is now flowing through more level ground, and raising up plenty on its banks. It is a collegiate, and therefore a somewhat isolated, element among the agencies which were forming the national character and directing the national destiny; but it had its sphere. Through the students at the universities, it fostered a taste for literature and art; it promoted a spirit of toleration, and softened the national asperities in religious and other discussions; it is identified with the liberalism of Scotland, and through Adam Smith, D. Stewart, Mackintosh, Horner, Brougham, Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, Lord John Russell, and Palmerston, with the liberalism of the three kingdoms; and, above all, it has trained the educated portion of the inhabitants of North Britain to habits of reflection and of independent thought. The Scottish metaphysicians, with the exception of Chalmers, have never identified themselves very deeply with the more earnest spiritual life of the country; but they defended the fundamental truths of natural religion, and they ever spoke respectfully of the Bible. The Scottish philosophy, so far as it is a co-ordination of the facts of consciousness, never can be antagonistic to a true theology; I believe indeed it may help to establish some {22} of the vital truths of religion, by means, for instance, of the moral faculty, the existence of which has been so resolutely maintained by the Scottish school. Some of the moderate clergy did at times preach the Scottish moral philosophy instead of scriptural truth; but they did so in opposition to the counsel of the metaphysicians, at least of Hutcheson, who recommended his students to avoid the discussion of philosophic topics in the pulpit. Some of those who have been the most influential expounders of the Scottish theology, such as Chalmers and Welsh, have also been supporters of the Scottish philosophy, and have drawn from its established doctrines arguments in favor of evangelical religion.
III. -- PRECURSORS OF THE SCHOOL. I/N\ the Libraries of some of the Scotch Colleges are collected a number of the theses which had been defended in the Scottish Universities in the seventeenth century. These seem to fall under the heads of Theses Logicae, Theses Ethicae, Theses Physicae, Theses Sphericae. Aristotle still rules both in logic and ethics. In logic, there is much abstract enunciation, and there are many acute distinctions in regard to Ens and unity, singulars and universals; and in ethics, the discussions are about virtue and vice, and choice. In physics, there are rational and deductive investigations of the nature of motion and resistance. During the century, the courses of study differ somewhat in the different universities, but still there is a general correspondence. In the course of Philosophy the Regents use Aristotle , Porphyry's Introduction, the Categories of Aristotle, the Dialectics of Ramus, and the Rhetoric of Vossius, with the works of such writers as Crassotus, Reas, Burgersdicius, Ariaga, Oviedo, &c. The ethics include politics and economics, and there are discussions about the nature of habits. It is scarcely necessary to say that all topics are treated in a logical and rational, and not in an observational, manner and spirit.
The Parliamentary Commission for visiting the
universities, appointed in 1690, and following years, directed, in 1695, the {23} professors of philosophy in St. Andrews to prepare the heads of a system of logic, and the corresponding professors in Edinburgh to prepare a course of metaphysics. The compends drawn up in consequence were passed from one college to another for revision there is no evidence that they were finally sanctioned, but they may be accepted as giving a fair idea of the instructions in philosophy conveyed in the universities of Scotland at the close of the eighteenth century, -- at the very time when Locke's Essay was finding its way so rapidly over the three kingdoms.[5] Logic is called the instrument to acquire other sciences, inasmuch as it prescribes rules for rightly apprehending, judging, and arguing. It is said to be defined by others as the science which directs the operations of the mind for finding out truth in every other science. It is represented as treating of the three operations of apprehension, judgment, and discourse, to which some add a fourth part, on method, under which analysis and synthesis are explained. In all this there is nothing but the commonplace of by-gone ages. But in this same text-book of logic we have the distinction drawn in the Port Royal Logic, between the extension and comprehension of the notion, adopted and stated. "We must distinguish betwixt the extension and comprehension of an idea. All the essential attributes of an idea are called its comprehension, as being, substance, vegetative, sensitive, and rational are the comprehension of man; but Peter, Paul, &c., contained under man, are called the extent of man." It can be shown that this distinction comes down in an unbroken historical chain in Glasgow to Sir W. Hamilton, who has so profitably amplified and applied it. It is found in the Introduction to Logic by Carmichael, and in the Logical Compend of Hutcheson; and the latter continued to be used in Glasgow till towards the time when Hamilton was a student there. Metaphysics are said to be defined by some, as a science of being as being; by others as a speculative science, which considers being in general, and its properties and kinds, as abstracted from matter. The benefits arising from the study of metaphysics are said to be, that treating of undoubted truths and axioms, we are enabled by their assistance the better to discover truths generally, and avoid errors; that as dividing {24} beings into classes it keeps us from confusion; that giving general names to common and abstracted beings, it aids the understanding in every kind of learning, and specially in theology, in which use is made of metaphysical terms. The first part of metaphysics treats of the principles of being, and of the various species of beings. The second part treats of the properties of being, such as unity, verity, goodness; and under this head we have abstract discussions as to the finite and infinite, the necessary and contingent, the absolute and relative, cause and effect, means and end, substance and quality. Such was the pabulum on which college youths fed during the century. This was the learning which helped to sharpen the intellects of such men as Henderson, Rutherford, Leighton, Gillespie, Baillie, Dickson, Burnet (Bishop), Stair (Lord), and Carstairs, who acted so important a part in the affairs of their country.
But in order to appreciate fully the philosophic tastes and capacities of Scotchmen, we must follow them into France. From a very old date, certainly from the thirteenth century, there had been a close connection between that country and Scotland, arising from the jealousy entertained by both nations of the power and ambition of England. The Scottish youth who had a love of adventure, or a thirst for military glory, had a splendid opening provided for them in the Scottish Guard, which protected the person of the king of France, while those who had a taste for letters found means of instruction and employment in the numerous French colleges.[6] The Scotch scholars who returned to their own land brought back the French learning with them. Bishop Elphinston, who was the founder, and Hector Boece, who was the first principal of King's College, Aberdeen, had both taught in the University of Paris; and they set up the Scottish University on the model of the French one. John Major or Mair, who taught scholastic theology in Glasgow and St. Andrews, and who was the preceptor of Knox and Buchanan, had been for some time in the University of Paris. During the sixteenth, and the early part of the seventeenth century, there was a perpetual stream of Scottish scholars flowing into France. Some of these were Catholics, {25} to whom toleration was denied at home, and who betook themselves to a country where they had scope for the free exercise of their gifts. But quite as many were Protestants, who finding (as Scotchmen in later ages have done) their own land too narrow, or thirsting for farther knowledge or learned employment, connected themselves with one or other of the reformed colleges of Saumur, Montauban, Sedan, Montpellier, and Nismes, where some of them remained all their lives, while others returned to their own country. Some of these emigrants were lawyers or physicians; but by far the greater number of them were devoted to literature, philosophy, or theology. George Buchanan, Thomas Ricalton, three Blackwoods, Thomas Dempster, two Barclays, Andrew Melville, John Cameron, Walter Donaldson, and William Chalmers are only a few of the Scotchmen who occupied important offices in France. Two deserve to be specially named, as they wrote able logical works, -- the one, Robert Balfour, a Catholic, and Principal of Guienne College, Bourdeaux, and an erudite commentator on Aristotle; and the other, Mark Duncan, a Protestant, and Principal of the University of Saumur, and author of Institutes of Logic. There must have been some reality as the ground of the extravagant statement of Sir Thomas Urquhart in his "Discovery of a Most Exquisite jewel," that "the most of the Scottish nation, never having restricted themselves so much to the propriety of words as to the knowledge of things, where there was one preceptor of languages among them, there was above forty professors of philosophy." "The French conceived the Scots to have above all nations in matter of their subtlety in philosophical disputations, that there have not been till of late for these several years together any lord, gentleman, or other in all that country, who, being desirous to have his son instructed in the principles of philosophy, would entrust him to the discipline of any other than a Scottish master." He adds, that "if a Frenchman entered into competition, a Scotchman would be preferred."
By such teaching at home, and by such foreign intercourse, a considerable amount of narrow but intense intellectual life was produced and fostered in Scotland. But youths were beginning to feel that the air was too close, too confined, and too monastic for them, and were longing for greater freedom and {26} expansion. While Aristotle and the scholastic method still hold their place in the cloisters of the colleges, there is a more bracing atmosphere in the regions without and beyond; and this is now to rush into Scotland. From the time of the revival of letters in the sixteenth century, almost every great and original thinker had thought it necessary to protest against the authority of Aristotle and the schoolmen. Bacon left Cambridge with a thorough contempt for the scholastic studies pursued there; and the grand end aimed at in his "Novum Organum," was to carry away men's regards from words and notions, to which they had paid too exclusive attention, and to fix them on things. In respect of a disposition to rebel against Aristotle and the schoolmen, Descartes was of the same spirit as Bacon; and Gassendi and Hobbes agreed with Descartes, with whom they differed in almost every thing else. It would be easy to produce a succession of strong testimonies against the Stagyrite and the Mediaevals, spread over the whole of the seventeenth century. The rising sentiment is graphically expressed by Glanvil in his "Scepsis Scientifica," published in 1665. He declares that the " ingenious world is grown quite weary of qualities and forms-," he declaims against "dry spinosities, lean notions, endless altercations about things of nothing; " and he recommends a " knowledge of nature, without which our hypotheses are but dreams and romances, and our science mere conjecture and opinion; for, while we have schemes of things without consulting the phenomena, we do but build in the air, and describe an imaginary world of our own making, that is but little akin to the real one that God made."
The realistic reaction took two different but not totally divergent directions in the seventeenth century, and both the streams reached Scotland in the following century. In the works of Grotius and Puffendorf, an elaborate attempt was made to determine the laws of nature in regard to man's political and social conditions, and apply the same to the examination and rectification of national and international laws. This was thought by many to be a more profitable and promising theme than the perpetual discussion of the nature of being and universals. This school had undoubtedly its influence in Scotland, where Carmichael, in 1718, edited and annotated Puffendorf, {27} and where Hutcheson, and Hume, and A. Smith, and Ferguson, and D. Stewart, combined juridical and political with moral inquiries, and became the most influential writers of the century on all questions of what has since been called social science.
But a stronger and deeper current was setting in about the same time,-a determination to have the experimental mode of investigation applied to every department of knowledge. This method had already been applied to physical science with brilliant results. And now there was a strong desire felt to have the new manner adopted in the investigation of the human mind. In 1670, John Locke and five or six friends are conversing in his chamber in Oxford on a knotty topic, and quickly they find themselves at a stand; and it occurred to Locke that, before entering " on inquiries of that nature, it was necessary to examine our own abilities, and see what objects our understandings were or were not fitted to deal with." He pondered and wrote on this subject for twenty years, at the close of which (in 1690) he published his immortal " Essay on the Human Understanding." In this work he would banish for ever those innate ideas which had offered such obstacles to the progress of thought; and, by an inquiry into the actual operations of the human mind, he would trace the ways in which mankind attain ideas and knowledge, and settle the bounds imposed on the human understanding. Locke's Essay was hailed with acclamation by all who were wearied of the old scholastic abstractions and distinctions, and who had caught the new spirit that was abroad.
Still Locke's Essay was not allowed to take possession of the thinking minds of the country without a vigorous opposition. Locke was met in his own day by Stillingfleet, the Bishop of Worcester, who argued resolutely that the view given in the Essay of our idea of substance was not sufficiently deep to enable it to bear up the great truths of religion, especially the doctrine of the Trinity. The great Leibnitz severely blamed Locke for overlooking necessary truth, and reviewed his work, 'book by book and chapter by chapter, in his "Nouveaux Essais sur l'Entendement Humain; " which, however, in consequence of Locke's death taking place in the mean time, was not published for many years after. It was felt by many otherwise {28} favorable to the new spirit, that Locke had not laid a sufficiently deep foundation for morality in his account of our idea of virtue, which he derived from mere sensations of pleasure and pain, with the law of God superadded in utter inconsistency with his theory. There were still in England adherents of the great English moralists, More and Cudworth, who had opposed Hobbes with learning and ability; and these maintained that there was need of deeper principles than those laid down by Locke to oppose the all-devouring pantheistic fatalism of Spinoza on the one hand, and the rising materialistic spirit on the other.
In the early part of the eighteenth century, there appeared several works which were not conceived at least wholly in the spirit of Locke. I do not refer to such works as Norris's "Ideal World," in which we have an able defence of the Aristotelian analysis of reasoning, and an exposition of Platonism, more ideal far than that presented in Plato's own dialectic; nor to Collier's "Clavis," "being a demonstration of the non-existence or impossibility of an external world:" I allude to works which left a far deeper impression on their age. Samuel Clarke, with vast erudition and great logical power, was establishing, in a mathematical manner, the existence and attributes of God, giving virtue a place among the eternal relations of things perceived by reason, and defending the doctrine of human freedom and responsibility against those who were reducing men to the condition of brutes or machines. Berkeley did adopt the theory of Locke as to the mind being percipient only of ideas, but the view which he took of human knowledge was very different; for while Locke, consistently or inconsistently, was a sober realist, Berkeley labored to show that there was no substantial reality except spirit, and thought in this way to arrest the swelling tide of materialism and scepticism. A more accurate thinker than either, Bishop Butler, was establishing the supremacy of conscience, and showing that there was a moral government in the world; and that revealed religion was suited to the constitution of the mind, and to the position in which man is placed.
It was while philosophic thought was in this state that the Scottish Philosophy sprang up. The Scottish metaphysicians largely imbibed the spirit of Locke; all of them speak of him {29} with profound respect; and they never differ from him without expressing a regret or offering an apology. Still the Scottish school never adopted the full theory of Locke; on the contrary, they opposed it in some of its most essential points; and this while they never gave in to the mathematical method of Clarke, and while they opposed the ingenuities of Berkeley. Hutcheson, the founder of the Scottish school, was a rather earlier author than Butler, to whom therefore he was not indebted for the peculiarities of his method and system. But there was a writer to whom both Butler and Hutcheson, and the early Scottish school generally, were under deeper obligation than to any other author, or all other authors, and who deserves in consequence a more special notice.
IV. -- SHAFTESBURY. T/HE\ author who exercised the most influence on the earlier philosophic school of Scotland was not Locke, but Lord Shaftesbury (born 1671, died 1713), the grandson of the Lord Chancellor Shaftesbury, who bad been the friend of Locke. " Peace," says he, " be with the soul of that charitable and courteous author, who, for the common benefit of his fellow-authors, introduced the way of miscellaneous writing." He follows this miscellaneous method. The pieces which were afterwards combined in his " Characteristics of Men, Manners, and Times," were written at various times, from I 707 to 1712. They consist of a " Letter Concerning Enthusiasm," " Sensus Communis, an Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humor," " Soliloquy, or, Advice to an Author," "An Inquiry Concerning Virtue and Merit," "The Moralists, a Philosophical Rhapsody," "Miscellaneous Reflections on the said Treatises, and other Critical Subjects," "A Notion of the Historical Draught or Tablature of the judgment of Hercules, with a Letter concerning Design." He tells us that the miscellaneous manner was in the highest esteem in his day, that the old plan of subdividing into firsts and seconds had grown out of fashion, and that the " elegant court divine exhorts in miscellany, and is ashamed to bring his {30} twos and threes before a fashionable assembly." " Ragouts and fricassees are the reigning dishes; so authors, in order to become fashionable, have run into the more savory way of learned ragout and medley." His style is evidently after the French, and not the old English, model. It has the jaunty air of one who affects to be a man of elegance and fashion. Undoubtedly he was extensively read in the Greek and Roman philosophy, especially in Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and the Roman Stoics, and he has many just and profound views, but these are ever made to appear as the ornaments of a modern nobleman, who studies philosophy as an accomplishment.
His " Characteristics" open with remarks on " Enthusiasm," and on " Wit and Humor." He tells us that "vapors naturally rise," and he would dispel them by ridicule. " The melancholy way of treating religion is that which, according to my apprehension, renders it so tragical, and is the occasion of its acting in reality such dismal tragedies in the world." He would " recommend wisdom and virtue in the way of pleasantry and mirth," and tells us that " good-humor is not only the best security against enthusiasm, but the best foundation of piety and true religion." It does not appear very clearly what is the nature of the piety and religion which he would recommend. Sometimes he seems to scoff at the Scriptures, and at all their spiritual verities and holy mysteries; at other times he would make it appear as if he wished to be thought a believer in Christianity. There is, I suspect, much of latent levity in the profession he makes: " We may in a proper sense be said faithfully and dutifully to embrace those holy mysteries even in their minutest particulars, and without the least exception on account of their amazing depth," " being," he adds, " fully assured of our own steady orthodoxy, resignation, and entire submission to the truly Christian and catholic doctrines of our holy church, as by law established."
But he reckons these pleasantries merely as an introduction to graver subjects. He has largely caught the spirit of Locke, but he by no means follows him, especially in his rejection of innate ideas. "No one," says he, "has done more than Locke towards recalling of true philosophy from barbarity into the use and practice of the world, and into the company of the better and politer sort, who might well be ashamed of it in its {31} other dress. No one has opened a better and clearer way to reason." But he qualifies his praise. "'Twas Mr. Locke that struck at all fundamentals, threw all order and virtue Out Of the world, and made the ideas of these, which are the same with those of God, unnatural, and without foundation in our minds. is a word he poorly plays upon: the right word, though less used, is ." He shows that there are many of our mental qualities natural to us. " Life, and the sensations which accompany life, come when they will, are from mere nature and nothing else. Therefore, if you dislike the word innate, let us change it, if you will, for instinct, and call instinct that which nature teaches, exclusive of art, culture, or discipline." Beginning with these lower affections, he goes on to show that preconceptions of a higher kind have place in human kind, preconceptions' of the 'fair and beautiful.'"[7]
He reviews the famous argument of Descartes, " We think, therefore we are." "Nothing more certain: for the Ego or I being established in the first part of the proposition, the Ergo, no doubt, must hold it good in the latter." "For my own part," he adds, "I take my being upon trust" He everywhere appeals to the "Sensus Communis," or Common Sense. His general doctrine is thus expressed: "Some moral and philosophical truths there are withal so evident in themselves, that it would be easier to imagine half mankind to have run mad, and joined precisely in one and the same species of folly, than to admit any thing as truth which should be advanced against such ."[8] He allows that what is natural to us may require labor and pains to bring it out. " Whatever materials or principles of this kind we may possibly bring with us, whatever good faculties, senses, or anticipating sensations and imaginations may be of nature's growth, and arise properly of themselves without our art, promotion, or assistance, the general which is formed of all this management, and the clear notion we attain of what is preferable and principal in all these subjects of choice and estimation, will not, as I imagine, by any person be taken for {32} . Use, practice, and culture must precede the under standing and wit of such an advanced size and growth as this." These surely are the very views which were developed more fully and articulately by Reid, in his opposition to the scepticism of Hume. The object of his works is to carry out these principles to taste and morals. "Nor do I ask more when I undertake to prove the reality of virtue and morals. If I be certain that I am, it is certain and demonstrable who and what I should be." Should one who had the countenance of a gentleman ask me why I would avoid being nasty when nobody was present?' in the first place, I should be fully satisfied that he himself was a very nasty gentleman who could ask this question, and that it would be a hard matter for me to make him ever conceive what true cleanliness was. However, I might, notwithstanding this, be contented to give him a slight answer, and say, I It was because I had a nose.' Should he trouble me further, and ask again, 'What if I had a cold? or what if naturally I had no such nice smell?' I might answer perhaps, 'That I cared as little to see myself nasty as that others should see me in that condition.' I But what if it were in the dark?' 'Why, even then, though I had neither nose nor eyes, my of the matter would still be the same: my nature would rise at the thought of what was sordid."' He thus reaches a sense of beauty. "Much in the same manner have I heard it asked, 'Why should a man be honest in the dark?"' The answer to this question brings him to a moral sense.
He speaks of nature in general, and human nature in particular, as an " economy," and as having a "constitution" and a "frame." In examining the nature of the soul, he finds (1) self-affections, which lead only to " the good of the private." He enumerates, as belonging to this class, ,love of life, resentment of injury, pleasure, or appetite towards nourishment and the means of generation; interest, or the desire of those conveniences by which we are well provided for or maintained; emulation, or love of praise and honor; indolence, or love of ease and rest." But he finds also (2) natural affections, which lead to the good of the public. He takes great pains to establish the existence of disinterested affections, and opposes the views of those who, like Rochefoucauld, would resolve all human action {33} into a refined selfishness. Referring to the common saying, that interest governs the world, he remarks shrewdly: " Whoever looks narrowly into the affairs of it, will find that passion, humor, caprice, zeal, faction, and a thousand other springs which are counter to self-interest, have as considerable a part in the movements of this machine. There are more wheels and counterpoises in this engine than are easily imagined." With such affections, " man is naturally social, and society is natural to him;" and in illustrating this position, he sets himself vigorously against the social theory of Hobbes, who represents the original state of man as one of war. Virtue consists in the proper exercise of these two classes of affections. Vice arises when the public affections are weak and deficient, when the private affections are too strong, or affections spring up which do not tend to the support of the public or private system. He shows that virtue, as consisting in these affections, is natural to man, and that he who practises it is obeying the ancient Stoic maxim, and living according to nature. The virtues which he recommends fall far beneath the stern standard of the Stoics, and leave out all the peculiar graces of Christianity: they consist of, -- "a mind subordinate to reason, a temper humanized and fitted to all natural affection, an exercise of friendship uninterrupted, thorough candor, benignity, and good-nature, with constant security, tranquillity, equanimity."
He would establish a morality on grounds independent of religion. "Whoever thinks that there is a God, and pretends formally to believe that he is just and good, must suppose that there is, independently, such a thing as justice, truth, and falsehood, right and wrong, according to which he pronounces that God is just, righteous, and true." " If virtue be not really estimable in itself, I can see nothing estimable in following it for the sake of a bargain; " and he complains of those who " speak so much of the rewards and punishments, and so little of the worth or value of the thing itself." He remarks very justly: " By building a future state on the ruins of virtue, religion in general, and the cause of a deity, is betrayed; and by making rewards and punishments the principal motives to duty, the Christian religion in particular is overthrown, and its greatest principle, that of love, rejected and exposed." He admits, how {34} ever, that a good God, as a model, has an effect on our views of morals and conduct; and allows that "fear of future punishment and hope of future reward, how mercenary and servile however it may be accounted, is yet, in many circumstances, a great advantage, security, and support to virtue."
Such is his view of the nature of virtue. But Shaftesbury is quite aware that the question of the character of the virtuous act is not the same as that of the mental faculty which looks at it and appreciates it. This faculty he represents as being of the nature of a sense. Locke had allowed the existence of two senses, an external and an internal; and had labored in vain to derive all men's ideas from these two sources. Hutcheson, perceiving that the inlets to the mind were too few according to the theory of Locke, calls in other senses. These senses become very numerous in the systems of some of the Scottish metaphysicians, such as Gerard. In the writings of Shaftesbury, two occupy an important place, -- the sense of beauty and the moral sense.
"No sooner," he says, "does the eye open upon figures, the ear to sounds, than straight the Beautiful results, and grace and harmony are known and acknowledged. No sooner are actions viewed, no sooner the human affections and passions discerned (and they are most of them as soon discerned as felt), than straight an eye distinguishes and sees the and , the and , apart from the , the , the , or the ." Though in all this advancing quite beyond the "Essay on the Human Understanding," yet he seems to be anxious to connect his view of the moral sense with the reflection or inward sense of Locke. "In a creature capable of forming general notions of things, not only the outward beings which offer themselves to the sense are the objects of the affections, but the very actions themselves, and the affections of pity, kindness, gratitude, and their contraries, being brought into the mind by reflection, become objects. So that by means of this reflected sense, there arises another kind of affection towards these very affections themselves, which have been already felt, and are now become the subject of a new liking or dislike." Conscience is represented by him "as the reflection in the mind of any unjust action or behavior, which he knows to be naturally odious and ill-deserving. {35} No creature can maliciously and intentionally do ill, without being sensible, at the same time, that he deserves ill. And in this respect, every sensible creature may be said to have a conscience."[9]
He has evidently been smitten with some of the Platonic views of beauty. "We have," he says, "a sense of order and proportion; and having, a sensation, reason can give this account of it, that whatever things have order, the same have unity of design and concur in one, are parts constituent of one whole, or are in themselves one system. Such is a tree with all its branches, an animal with all its members, an edifice with all exterior and interior ornaments." He is fond of connecting or identifying the beautiful and the good; in fact, virtue is represented by him as a higher kind of beauty. "It is, I must own, on certain relations or respective proportions, that all natural affection does in some measure depend." "The same numbers, harmony, and proportions have a place in morals." He evidently clings fondly to the idea that " beauty and good are one and the same."
We have given so full an account of the philosophy of Shaftesbury, because of the influence which it exercised on the Scottish Philosophy. Francis Hutcheson did little more than expound these views, with less versatility, but in a more equable, thorough, and systematic manner. Turnbull, who founded the Aberdeen branch of the school, and influenced greatly the mind of Reid, avowedly drew largely from Hutcheson in his theories of taste and virtue. Reid and Beattie got their favorite phrase, " common sense," I have no doubt, directly or indirectly from the treatise so entitled in the " Characteristics." Hume was evidently well acquainted with the writings of {36} Shaftesbury; and I am inclined to think that they may have helped to form his style, and to suggest some of his essays. We have an anticipation of the spirit of Hume in the miscellany entitled, " Philocles to Palemon:" "You know that in this Academic Philosophy I am to present you with, there is a certain way of questioning and doubting, which in no way suits the genius of our age. Men love to take party instantly. They can't bear being kept in suspense. The examination torments them." Theocles observes, that "if there be so much disorder in the present state of things, he would not be disposed to think better of the future." Lord Monboddo declares that " Shaftesbury's Inquiry is the best book in English on the subject of morals." His Draught or Tablature of the judgment of Hercules, and his Disquisitions on Taste, originated the theories of Beauty which formed an essential part of Scottish metaphysics for more than a century.
V. -- GERSHOM CARMICHAEL. S/IR\ W/ILLIAM\ H/AMILTON\ says that Gershom Carmichael "may be regarded, on good grounds, as the real founder of the Scottish school of philosophy." ("Reid's Works," P. 30.) I am disposed to retain the honor for Francis Hutcheson, to whom it is usually ascribed. Carmichael does not possess the full characteristics of the school. He seems to me to be the bond which connects the old philosophy with the new in Scotland.
He was descended from a genuine covenanting stock. His father was Alexander Carmichael, the son of Frederick Carmichael, who had been minister in various places in Fifeshire, and who died in 1667; his mother was relict (she had been the second wife) of Fraser of Bray. Alexander was minister at Pittenain, and had at one time been attached to prelacy, but abandoned it to join the suffering ministers. Early in 1672, he is in the tolbooth of Edinburgh. On February 22, he is before the Council, charged with keeping conventicles, and is ordered to depart the kingdom, never to return without license; and February 26, he is transported in a ship to London, where {37} he was useful as a minister, and died about the year 1676 or 1677. In 1677, shortly after his death, there was published, from the copy which he had left, a treatise, entitled, "The Believer's Mortification of Sin by the Spirit," edited by Thomas Lye, who says in the preface, "As for that flesh of his flesh, and the fruit of his loins, as for that Ruth and Gershom he hath left behind him, I question not but as long as the saints among you continue to bear your old name, Philadelphia (so the old Puritans of England have used to style you), you will not, you cannot, forget to show kindness to Mephibosheth for Jonathan's sake." Gershom, so called by his father because he was "a stranger in a strange land," seems to have been born in London about 1672. It may be supposed that the family returned to Scotland after the father's death. We certainly find Gershom enrolled a Master of Arts in the University of Edinburgh, July 31, 1691. He afterwards became Regent at St. Andrews, where he took the oath of allegiance, and subscribed the Assurance. On November 22, 1694, he is elected and admitted Master in the University of Glasgow, having been brought in by public dispute, that is, by disputation on comparative trial, through the influence of Lord Carmichael, afterwards the first Earl of Hyndford. About the same time he lost his mother, and "married a good woman, the daughter of Mr. John Inglis." Wodrow, who tells us this (" Letters "), was his pupil, and describes him as at that time possessed of little reading, as dictating several sheets of peripatetic physics , as teaching Rohault, and being very much a Cartesian, -- this seven years after the publication of Newton's " Principia." Afterwards he made himself master of the mathematics and the new philosophy, and Wodrow used to jest with him on this matter of his juvenile teaching. From these notices it appears that, by parentage and birth and training and ancestral prepossessions, he belongs to the seventeenth, but catches the spirit of the eighteenth century. He exhibits in his own personal history the transition from the old to the new thought of Scotland.
He is represented as a hard student, a thinking, poring man, his favorite study being moral philosophy. At the commencement of his professorial life, a Master took up the batch of students as they entered on the study of philosophy, and carried {38} them in successive years through all the branches, including logic, pneumatology, moral philosophy, and natural philosophy. This system required the teacher to be a well-informed man in various departments, but was a hindrance to eminence in any one branch of learning. But from 1727 the Masters are restricted to their several classes, and to Carmichael is consigned moral philosophy. It appears that, in 1726, there were thirty-six students in the third year's class, and nineteen in that of the fourth year; in the latter days of Carmichael the numbers were larger. The classes were swelled by non- conforming students from England, who, shut out from the English universities by their tests and their churchified influence, betook themselves to the Scottish colleges. Many of these were attracted to Glasgow by the fame of Carmichael. The college session lasted from the beginning of November to the end of May. On the Lord's day, the Masters met with their classes, to take an account of the sermons, and this was a work in which Carmichael felt a special interest.
Carmichael was a most affectionate, friendly man, but withal a little warm in his temper, and became involved in consequence in scenes which seem somewhat inconsistent with the supposed calm of an academic life. The college corporation was evidently much agitated by internal feuds, and Carmichael takes his part in them, commonly siding with the party of independence against the Principal. In 1704, joined by Mr. Loudon, he protests that several things minuted as Acts of Faculty were written and signed privately by the Principal. The Faculty finds the charge unfounded, and suspends the two from their functions. Subsequently they ask forgiveness, and are restored. In 1705, Mr. Law, one of the Regents, complains that some expressions had been uttered against him by Mr. Carmichael, who is gravely admonished, and exhorted to avoid every thing irritating towards his colleagues in time to come. In 1717, there are hot disputes as to who should elect the Rector. The Masters combine against the Principal, call the students to the common hall, and choose their man. But, in 1718, the Commission for the Visitation of the College finds some of the Masters, including Carmichael, guilty of great disorder in the election of the Rector; and they are discharged for a time from exercising any part of their office (such as choosing professors), {39} except the ordinary discipline in the class. In 1722, a bonfire was kindled by the students on a decision in favor of the election of Lord Molesworth (we shall meet with him again in these articles) to Parliament, and Carmichael rushes into the heart of the mob, and gets into trouble in extinguishing the flames. In November, 1728, we find him joining in a protest against the claim of the Chancellor to sit and vote. It was by such disputes that the constitution of the Scottish colleges came to be settled.
Patriotic exertions helped to relieve the sameness of the college life, and in these the collegiate body in Glasgow (it was different in Aberdeen) are of one mind. In 1708, the kingdom is threatened with "an invasion of French and Irish papists," and the Masters agree each to maintain a number of foot soldiers; and Carmichael signs for five men. In September, 1715, the rising in the north of Scotland in favor of the pretender becomes known. The Faculty agrees to raise fifty men at sixpence a day; the Principal provides eight, the professor of divinity five, and Carmichael subscribes for four. It was by such active exertions in the south of Scotland that the progress of the Rebellion was so speedily arrested.
In his later years, as he became known, Carmichael carried on a correspondence with Barbeyrac and other learned men. He had a numerous family, "who were all a comfort to him, except one, who was a cause of great distress." Wodrow says, that " in his advanced years he was singularly religious. I know he was under great depths of soul exercise, and much the worse that he did not communicate his distress to anybody almost." This is the only record we have of a Scottish metaphysician having had his" soul exercises;" but surely there must have been others who had their conflicts as they dived into the depths of the human soul. For the last two or three years of his life, he had a cancerous wart, which spread over one eye and across his nose to the other eye, and at last carried him off. During all his illness he remained a hard student and serious Christian. He died, November 25, 1729. On his death the English students leave the university, the attendance at which is reported by Wodrow as very thin in December; and it does not seem to improve till Hutcheson commences his lectures in the following October. {40}
Carmichael published "Breviuscula Introductio ad Logicam," which reached a second edition in 1722. He defines logic as the science which shows the method of discovering truth, and of expounding it to others. He represents it as having to do with judgment, but then it also treats of apprehension as necessary to judgment. Under apprehension he speaks of the doctrine of the difference of the comprehension and extension of a notion, and of the former being evolved by definition, and the latter by division, as being quite commonplace. He distinguishes between immediate and mediate judgment. Immediate is between two ideas immediately compared; mediate, in which the comparison is by means of a third judgment, is called discourse. He says all knowledge may ultimately be resolved into immediate judgments, known in their own light; and he divides immediate judgments into two classes: one abstract, in which there is no direction of the mind to the thing itself as really existing, , the whole is greater than a part; and the other intuitive, when the mind has a consciousness of the thing as present, as, for example, the proposition, . Coming to mediate judgment, he gives as the supreme rule of affirmative syllogism the axiom, "Things which are the same with one and the same third are the same with one another g, " and of negative syllogisms the axiom, " Things of which one is the same with a third, and the other not the same, are not the same with one another." These statements show a " thinking, poring," man, and will be valued most by those who have thought longest on these subjects. We see a new historical step in the transmission of the distinction between the extension and comprehension of a notion; we see that the difference between immediate and mediate judgments was known in these times; and that there was an attempt to find a supreme rule of mediate reasoning in the sameness (here lies the looseness) of two things with a third. Carmichael is aware that there are propositions seen to be true in their own light; and that there is an intuitive apprehension, in which the thing is known as present; and many will think that the is a preferable form to the of Descartes.
Carmichael published an edition of Puffendorf, " De Officio Hominis et Civis," with Notes and Supplements, for the use of students, described by Hutcheson as more valuable than the {41} original work. In the notes he offers many acute observations, and gives extracts from De Vries, Titius, and Grotius. In the first supplement he speaks of a divine law, to which all morality has reference, which alone obliges, and to which all obligation of human laws is ultimately to be referred. The law may be made known either by means of signs, oral or written, or by the constitution of human nature, and other things which offer themselves to the observation of men. What is known by the latter is called , which has two meanings, -- one the faculty of reason itself as given to man by God, and the other such a power of intelligence as can discover what is in nature by ordinary diligence. He takes far higher grounds of religion than those adopted by Shaftesbury and Hutcheson. He declares that no one can be said to obey the law who does not know what the law enjoins, or who acts without reference to God and his law. At the same time, he seems to be a eudaimonist, and inclined to look on God as having an ultimate respect to happiness in his law. He has a second supplement, calm, moderate, and sensible, on the " Duties of Man towards his own Mind," and a third on " Quasi- Contracts."
His latest work, published in 1729, shortly before his death, is " Synopsis Theologiae Naturalis." In his preface he tells us that, in teaching pneumatology, he had used two Belgian textbooks. He advises that the forms of the Aristotelian school be avoided, as obscure and artificial, but declares at the same time that the doctrines of the scholastics, at least of the older, are more agreeable to reason and holy Scripture than those opposed to them in his day, especially in their finding a foundation for morality and obligation in God; and he denounces some who, of late years, with a showy appearance of genius and eloquence, would separate morality from religion, referring, I should suppose, to the school of Shaftesbury, against which, therefore, he thus gives his dying testimony, as it were in the name of. the old philosophy.
In establishing the existence and perfections of God, he draws arguments from a variety of sources. He would call in metaphysical principles. Thus he urges that there must be , otherwise we are landed in an infinite series of causes, which he declares (with Aristotle) self-evidently impossible. He appeals, with the French theologian Abbadie, {42} to universal consent. But he reckons the arguments of Descartes and De Vries, and that by Samuel Clarke, as unsatisfactory. He maintains that we can argue that what we attribute to a thing in idea exists, only after we have shown that the thing exists. He maintains that the existence of God as an existing being is to be established, not , but , and appeals to the traces of order, beauty, and design in the universe, and to the illustrations to be found in the writings of Ray, Pelling, Cheyne, Derham, Niewentite, and in Pitcairn on the Circulation of the Blood. He refers to the properties of matter, as established by Newton; and argues, as Baxter did so resolutely afterwards, that matter cannot move of itself, but needs a new force impressed on it. In regard to the dependence of creature on created power, he holds that things spiritual and corporeal exist so long as they have being from the creative efficacy of God, and speaks of the need of a divine or . He admits, however, that created spirits have efficacy in themselves. He refers to Leibnitz, and shows that he was well acquainted with his theory of possible worlds. It is surely interesting to observe a modest and retiring Scottish writer so thoroughly acquainted with the highest philosophy of his time, British and Continental, and yet retaining his own independence in the midst of his learning. If he cannot be regarded as the founder of the new school, he has the credit of judiciously combining some of the best properties of the old and new philosophy.
VI. -- ANDREW BAXTER B/AXTER\ cannot be justly described as a leader or a follower of the Scottish school. His method is not really nor professedly that of inductive observation. He belongs rather to the school of Samuel Clarke, to whom he often refers, and always with admiration. But be was a Scotchman, and an independent thinker: he does not belong to the old philosophy; but he was a contemporary of the men who founded the Scottish school, and treated of many of the same topics. He had readers both in England and Scotland in his own day, and for some years after his death; and he deserves a passing notice as the representative of a style of thought which met with considerable favor in his time, but had to give way before the new school. {43}
We have a life of him in Kippis's " Biographia Britannica," drawn up from materials supplied by his son. He was the son of a merchant in Old Aberdeen, where he was born in 1686 or 1687. His mother was Elizabeth Frazer, descended from a considerable family in the north. He was educated at King's College, Aberdeen, where, at the beginning of last century, he would be trained in the old logic and metaphysics. But, as we shall see more fully in future articles, a considerable amount of a fresh literary taste, and of a spirit of philosophical inquiry, began to spring up in Aberdeen in connection with the two Universities pretty early in that century. Baxter, besides being a good mathematician, was well acquainted with the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, and with the theories of Leibnitz as to matter and motion. He was familiar with the Essay on the Human Understanding, but had a deeper appreciation of the speculations of Clarke.
The chief professional employment of his life was that of tutor to young men of good family. The boys who, in our days, would be sent to the great public schools of England taught by Oxford or Cambridge masters, were very often, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, put under tutors, who went about with them to the colleges at home, or travelled with them abroad. The occupation of teaching and travelling tutor was one coveted by young men of limited means and of a reading taste, who did not wish officially to enter the church, and had no other office open to them than that referred to, fitted to furnish them with means of study. When the tutor had trained and travelled with the heir of a good estate, the family felt bound to make provision for him for life. It was thus that, in the seventeenth century, Hobbes had been tutor to two successive Earls of Devonshire; that, in the eighteenth century, Thomson the poet became tutor to the Lord Chancellor Talbot's son on the Grand Tour; that Hume coveted the office of travelling tutor to Murray of Broughton; and Turnbull and A. Smith gave up chairs in the Scottish colleges to become tutors, -- the one to the Wauchopes of Niddrie (?) and the other to the Duke of Buccleuch Baxter was tutor, among others, to Lord John Gray, Lord Blantyre, and Mr. Hay of Drummelzier.
In the spring Of 1741, he went abroad with Mr. Hay, having also Lord Blantyre under his care. He resided some years at Utrecht, and thence made excursions into Flanders, France, and Germany. Carlyle met him -- " Immateriality Baxter," as he calls him -- at Utrecht in 1745, and says of him, 'though he was a profound philosopher and a hard student, he was at the same time a man of the world, and of such pleasing conversation as attracted the young." His son bad described him as being at polite assemblies in Holland, and a favorite of ladies; but a writer in the Corrigenda of the following volume of the " Biographia," after mentioning that he saw him daily for more than two years at Utrecht, declares: " His dress was plain and simple, -- not that of a priggish French man, but of a mathematician who was not a sloven. I am pretty well persuaded that while in the Low Countries, he never had any conversation with women of higher or lower degree, unless it were to ask for the bill at an ordinary, or desire the servant maid to bring up the turf for his chimney." The same writer describes him as a "plain, decent, good humored man, who passed all his time, but {44} what was bestowed at his meals, in meditation and study." His son describes him as social and cheerful, and extremely studious, sometimes' sitting up whole nights reading and writing.
In 1724, he had married the daughter of Mr. Mebane, a minister in Berwickshire; and, while he was abroad, his wife and family seem to have resided at Berwick-on-Tweed. In 1747, he returned to Scotland, and resided till his death at Whittingham, in East Lothian, where he employed himself in country affairs, and in his philosophic studies. In his latter years, he was much afflicted with gout and gravel. In January 29, 1750, he wrote to (the afterwards notorious) John Wilkes, with whom he bad formed a friendship in Holland, " I am a trouble to all about me, especially my poor wife, who has the life of a slave night and day in helping to take care of a diseased carcass." He had long, be states, considered the advantages of a separate state, but " I shall soon know more than all men I leave behind me." He died April 13, 1750, and was buried in the family vault of Mr. Hay at Whittingham.
He wrote a book in two volumes entitled " Matho," being a compend of the universal scientific knowledge of the day. He published his principal work, " An Inquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul," in 1733,[10] and it reached a second edition in 1737. In 1750, shortly after his death, was published, "An Appendix to his Inquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul." He had taken a great body of manuscripts with him to Holland; in the letter referred to, he speaks fondly of his unfinished manuscripts, in which he had discussed " a great many miscellaneous subjects in philosophy of a very serious nature, few of them ever considered before, as I know of" In 1779, the Rev. Dr. Duncan of South Warnborough published from his manuscripts, after correcting the style, " The Evidence of Reason in proof of the Immortality of the Soul," and at the close is his letter to Wilkes. Another work of his, entitled " Histor," discussing, on the English side, the controversy between the British and Continental writers as to force, and on the side of Clarke, the controversy between Clarke and Leibnitz, was offered to Millar the bookseller; but the new generation did not appreciate his life-labors; his day was over, and the offer was declined.
The avowed design of Baxter, in all his works, is to establish the existence of an immaterial power. Such a defence seemed to him to be required, in consequence of the new views of the powers of matter founded on the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton; by the equivocal language of Locke, frequently quoted about our not being "able to know whether any material being thinks or not;" and by the materialistic spirit abroad. The new doctrine of all matter attracting other matter seemed to show that we must be prepared to modify the old doctrine, that body is altogether passive. Leibnitz, on metaphysical grounds, and in opposition to the accepted Cartesian {45} doctrine, had maintained that matter has an essential potency. Baxter proceeds on the doctrine of Clarke, the friend of Newton, and quotes his language. "All things that are done in the world are done either immediately by God himself, or by created intelligent beings; matter being evidently not at all capable of any laws or powers whatsoever, any more than it is capable of intelligence, excepting only this one negative power, that every part of it will always and necessarily continue in that state, whether of rest or motion, wherein it at present is. So that all those things which we commonly say are the effects of the natural powers of matter and laws of motion, of gravitation, attraction, or the like, are indeed (if one will speak strictly and properly) the effects of God's acting continually and every moment, either immediately by himself, or mediately by some created intelligent being," The first volume of Baxter's work on the "Nature of the Soul," his "Appendix" and a large part of his "Evidence," are mainly occupied with a full elucidation and elaborate defence of the views summarily expressed in this passage.
He labors to prove that a , or resistance to a change of present state of rest or motion, is essential to matter; that matter hath this and nothing else; that it cannot have any sort of active power; that what are called the powers of matter is force impressed upon it . He maintains that matter is "liable to but one change or casualty, /viz\., to be annihilated, or to be destroyed by a Being to whose power that effect is competent," and lie denies that Infinite Power may " superadd a property to a substance incapable of receiving it." He maintains this doctrine as resolutely as if it were the foundation of religion, which must stand or fall with it. The questions which he has taken up had been discussed in a profound manner by Descartes and Leibnitz, and they cannot be regarded as settled at this day. But from his dogma of the impotency of matter he argues the necessity of an immaterial powerful being who first made the dead substance, matter, who originally impressed, and still continues to impress, motion upon it. " I am of opinion, and think it would be easy to show it, if one bad leisure to run through the several particulars, that unless an immaterial power continually re-excited motion in the material universe, all would stop in it in a very short time, perhaps in half an hour, except that the planets would run out in straight- lined directions" ! ! "To say that Deity interposes when he sees that matter would go wrong, is the same thing, in other words, as owning that lie interposes always if that were proper. Every particle of matter resists a change of its present state, and therefore could not effect a change of state in itself nor in other particles." He would thus establish his conclusion, that the " Deity, who can be excluded from no place, but is active and present everywhere, acts immediately on all the parts of matter," and that his governing is only his creating power constantly repeated. "Our philosophy can only be consistent when we take in the immediate power of the Creator as the efficient cause in all the works of nature." He looks on his own position as being very much superior, in its religious aspects, to the doctrines which had been entertained by many others. " Low and pitiful are the shifts we are put to when we would remove the Deity to the head of nature, and the head of nature out of sight." {46}
"It is not right to exalt the Deity in words and derogate from his perfections in facts. This is only paying him a compliment, and then setting aside his government in whole or in part, -- a state artifice. Cicero objects this low cunning to Epicurus, when he says, it is " verbis ponere re tollere." " Descartes, before Spinoza, had given the government of the universe to matter and motion; and Leibnitz, under a pretence of extolling the original contrivance of things, leaves the execution of all this to dead substance. According to all these schemes, we see nothing that the Deity does now: we behold only the operations of matter. This fills the mind with anxious doubts. If matter performs all that is wonderful, it catches our first admiration; and we know not where to search for the being who contrived that which we see matter executes with such dexterity." Much may be said in favor of the doctrine, that God acts in all physical action; but it is wiser not to found it on the peculiar dogma of Baxter, that matter is inactive.
But the grand aim of Baxter, in depriving matter of its powers, is to establish the immateriality, and consequent immortality, of the soul. It is a fundamental position with him, that "a power always belongs to something living." He is thus able to establish the existence of a human soul active and immortal. He maintains that " no substance or being can have a natural tendency to annihilation or become nothing," and argues that the soul must endlessly abide an active perceptive substance, without either fear or hopes of dying, through all eternity." When we find such positions coolly assumed, one almost feels justified in rejoicing that in that very age David Hume rose up to dispute all such dogmas; and that in the following age Emmanuel Kant examined narrowly the foundations both of rational theology and of rational psychology. We are certainly warranted in feeling a high gratification that Thomas Reid, a wiser man than any of these, did immediately after the time of Hume, and before the time of Kant, set about establishing natural religion and philosophy upon a safer foundation.
Baxter is prepared to follow out his principles to all their consequences, however preposterous they might appear. The phenomena of dreaming came in his way, and he gives an explanation of them. He cannot refer these dreams to dead matter, nor can it be the soul that forms the scenes present to it. His theory is, that separate immaterial beings act upon the matter of our bodies, and produce on the sensory a [Greek term] or vision, which is perceived by the active and recipient mind. He acknowledges that he knows nothing of the conditions and circumstances of these separate agencies, but he evidently clings to the idea that there is no scarcity of living immaterial beings, and asks triumphantly: "Why so much dead matter, without living immaterial substance in proportion? " " Hath not the most despicable reptile animalcule an immaterial soul joined to it?"
It ought to be added, that in his " Evidence " be adduces stronger arguments, than those derived from his favorite view of matter, in favor of the soul's immortality. He shows that if there be no state beyond the grave, our existence is incomplete, without design, irrelative; and he calls in the divine perfections as furnishing 'a certain ground of confidence that our existence will not be finally broken off in the midst of divine purposes thus visibly unfinished here," and securing that beings "becoming good for {47} something should not instantly become nothing." In arguing thus, be shows his besetting tendency to take up extreme positions; for lie maintains that in our world pain is much more extensive in its nature than pleasure, and that all bodily pleasures are merely instigations of pains. He argues that as in this world reason may often be disobeyed with no evil consequences and obeyed without any good ones, so there must be a future world to make every thing consistent with reason. He shows that the prepossessions of mankind are in favor of this tenet. " In the very dawnings of reason, let a child be told what is death, having no idea of any way of existing beside the present, amazement seizes him: lie is perplexed, uneasy, dismayed." He is met, as so many others have been, by the objection, that most of these arguments would prove that brutes are immortal. In answering it, he is obliged to allow that immortality does not depend solely on immateriality, and to throw himself on the moral argument, which does not apply to brutes, which, not being moral agents, are not capable of rewards and punishments. But it is clear that he cherishes the idea that the immaterial part of brutes, while not constituting the same conscious being, may not perish ultimately when separated from the material frame.
In treating of these favorite topics, he discusses a great many important philosophic questions, and always gives a clear and decided opinion. He evidently favors the arguments derived from "abstract reason and the nature of things" in behalf of the divine existence. He argues the necessity of an infinitely perfect intelligent being, -- not only from space and time, as Clarke did, but from the necessity of eternal truth in geometry or in other abstract sciences." Truth is not a being existing by itself, and therefore the immutable necessary nature of truth must be referred to some being existing of itself, and existing immutably and eternally." We have only to define truth as the conformity of our ideas to things, to see the fallacy lurking in this argument.
His view of space and time is taken from Newton and Clarke. He represents them as not beings, but the affections of beings: " And as time and space are not existences, so their correlate infinites (if I may say so), that is, eternity and immensity, are not existences, but the properties of necessary existence." In some other of his statements, be goes back to some of the mystic statements of the schoolmen, and anticipates some of the doctrines of Kant. "God's existence is unsuccessive." He says, " implies opposite ideas, if applied to our existence; but if we allow an eternal and immutable mind, the distinction of past and future vanishes with respect to such a mind, and the phrase has propriety." But surely there is an inconsistency in first arguing the divine existence from our ideas of space and time, and then declaring that our ideas in regard to space and time do not apply to Deity.
In maintaining that mind is ever active, he has to
consider its seeming dormancy in sleep. "The soul in sleep seems to suffer something like what happens to a live coal covered up under ashes; which is alive all the while, but only appears so when disencumbered and exposed to open air." As to what has since been called unconscious mental action, his theory of it is the same as that defended in after years by D. Stewart; he supposes {48} that the mind was conscious of its action at the time, but that the memory could not recall it. "There is certainly a great deal of our past consciousness which we retain no memory of afterwards. It is a particular part of our finite and imperfect nature, that we cannot become Conscious of all our past consciousness at pleasure. But no man at night would infer that he was not in a state of consciousness and thinking at such a certain minute, about twelve o'clock of the day, because now perhaps he hath no memory what particular thought be had at that minute. And it is no better argument, considered in itself, that a man was not conscious at such a minute in his sleep because next morning he hath no memory of what ideas were in his mind then."
Baxter was most earnest in restricting the properties of matter, but he was equally resolute in maintaining its existence. In his work on the soul he has a long section on " Dean Berkeley's scheme." He was one of the first who examined systematically the new theory. He takes the obvious and vulgar view of it, and not the refined one ascribed to the ingenious author by his admirers: for those who have opposed Berkeley have usually given one account of his system, while those who have defended him have usually given another; and some have thence come to the conclusion, that his whole theory is so ethereal that it is not capable of definite expression. Baxter maintains that " we perceive, besides our sensations themselves, the objects of them that " we are conscious not only of sensation excited, but that it is excited by some cause beside ourselves," and that "such objects as rivers, houses, mountains, are the very things we perceive by sense." He endeavors to prove that the system of Berkeley carried out consistently would land us in a solitary egoism, for " we only collect concerning the souls of other men from the spontaneous motions and actions of their bodies; these, according to him, belong to nothing." Berkeley had boasted that, by expelling matter out of nature, he had dragged with it so many sceptical and impious notions; Baxter replies that this " puts us into a way of denying all things, that we may get rid of the absurdity of those who deny some things," -- " as if one should advance that the best way for a woman who may silence those who attack her reputation is to turn a common prostitute." He thinks that the doctrine may tend to remove the checks to immorality; for "he who thinks theft, murder, or adultery nothing real beyond bare idea, and that for aught we know be injures nobody, will be surely under less restraint to satisfy his Declinations of any kind." The mathematician is evidently annoyed and vexed at the attacks which Berkeley bad made on his science, and shows "that if there be no such thing as quantity, we have a large body of immutable truths conversant about an impossible object."
In examining Berkeley he gives his views of sense- perception, which are not so clear and satisfactory as those of Reid; but are vastly juster than those of his contemporaries. He distinctly separates himself from those who hold that the mind can perceive nothing but its own states. " If our ideas have no parts, and yet if we perceive parts, it is plain we perceive something more than our own perceptions." He adds "We are conscious that we perceive parts as that we have perceptions at all." The {49} existence of matter in general, or at least of material sensories to which the soul is united, seems to me to be nearer intuitive than demonstrative knowledge." He declares that the "same perception of parts proves to us both the spirit and a material agency." This is so far an anticipation of the doctrine of Hamilton as an advance upon that of Reid. As to the manner of the action of matter on spirit, and spirit on matter, he says, in the very spirit of Reid. " We are certain this is matter of fact in many instances, whether we conceive it or not." He adds, in his own manner: " The Deity himself moves matter in almost all the phenomena of nature, and the soul of man perhaps moves some matter of the body, though in an infinitely less degree."
VII. -- FRANCIS HUTCHESON.[11] D/URING\ the greater part of the seventeenth century there was a constant immigration into the north-east of Ireland of Scotch men, who carried with them their hardy mode of life and persevering habits; their love of education and their anxiety to have an educated ministry; their attachment to the Bible and the simple Presbyterian worship. This movement commenced with the attempt of the first James of England to civilize Ireland by the Plantation of Ulster, and was continued during the period of the prelatic persecution in Scotland, whereby not a few sturdy adherents of the Solemn League and Covenant were driven for refuge to the sister isle. The Scottish Church kept a watchful guardianship over her scattered children, and sent after them a succession of ministers to preach the gospel, for a time in the Established Church, and, when churchmen from England (such as Jeremy Taylor) would not tolerate this any longer, to set up a Presbyterian organization. Among these was the Rev. Alexander Hutcheson, the second son of an old and respectable family at Monkwood, in Ayrshire, who became minister at Saintfield, in the heart of county Down, and purchased the townland of Drumalig. His second son ' 'John, was settled at Ballyrea, within two miles of Artnagh, and ministered to a Presbyterian congregation in the archiepis opal city, where he {50} was known by his church as a man of retiring habits and of superior abilities, and a firm supporter of Calvinistic doctrine. His second son, Francis, was born Aug. 8, 1694, it is said in his grandfather's house in Drumalig.[12] When about eight years of age, he (with his elder brother, Hans) was put under the care of the same grandfather, and attended a classical school kept by Mr. Hamilton in the "meeting house" at Saintfield. He was afterwards sent to Killyleagh, in the same county, to an academy kept by the Rev. James Macalpin, said to be a man of virtue and ability, and who taught the future metaphysician the scholastic philosophy. We have it on record, that the Presbyterian Church of Ireland -- seeking now, after coming through a long period of harassment and trouble, to work out its full educational system --did about this time set up several such schools for philosophy and theology. However, the great body of the young men intending for the ministry did then, and for more than a century after, resort to the University of Glasgow for their higher education. Of this college Hutcheson became a student about 1710 (he does not seem to have matriculated till 1711). During his residence with his grandfather he became such a favorite with the old man, that when he died in 1711, it was found that he bad altered a prior settlement of his family affairs, and, passing by the older grandson, had left all his landed property to the second. Francis, though a cautious, was a generous youth: he had all along taken pains, even by means of innocent artifices, to uphold his brother in the old man's esteem; and now he refused to accept the bequest, while Hans, with equal liberality, declined to receive what had been destined for another; and the friendly dispute had at last to be settled by a partition of the lands, which again became united when Hans, dying without issue, left his share to the son of Francis.
Francis Hutcheson thus sprang, like Gershom Carmichael (and we shall afterwards see George Turnbull), from the old {51} orthodox Presbyterian Church and its educated pastors; and both were early nurtured in the scholastic logic, from which they received much benefit. But Hutcheson comes an age later than Carmichael, and falls more thoroughly under the new spirit which has gone abroad.
At Glasgow the youth followed the usual course of study in the classical languages and philosophy, and enjoyed the privilege of sitting under the prelections of Carmichael. In after years, when called back to be a professor in the college, he gives in his Introductory Lecture a glimpse of the books and branches in which he felt most interest in his student life. After referring to the pleasure which he experienced in seeing once more the buildings, gardens, fields, suburbs, and rivers' banks (more pleasant then than now), which had been so dear to him, he expresses the peculiar gratification which he felt in revisiting the place where he had drunk the first elements of the quest for truth; where Homer and Virgil, where Xenophon, Aristophanes, and Terence, where the philosophy of Cicero and the discussions of the Fathers, had been opened to him; and where be had first been taught to inquire into the nature and reasons () of virtue, the eternal relations of number and figures, and the character of God. Having taken the Master's degree in 1712, he entered, the following year, on the study of theology under Professor John Simson. This professor was at that time, and, indeed, for the greater part of the period from 1712 to 1729, under prosecution before the ecclesiastical courts for teaching doctrines inconsistent with the Confession of Faith. It appears from the charges brought against him, and from his shuffling and vacillating explanations (he was often in a shattered state of health), that he took a favorable view of the state of the heathen; that he was inclined to the doctrine of free- will; he maintained that punishment for original sin alone was not just; he held that rational creatures must necessarily seek their chief good, -- always under subserviency to the glory of God, who cannot impose a law contrary to his own nature and to theirs, and who cannot condemn any except those who seek their chief good in something else, and in a different way than God has prescribed: but the special charge against him was, that he denied that Jesus Christ is a necessarily existent being in the same sense as the Father is. The lengthened process {52} concluded with the General Assembly declaring, in 1729, that Mr. Simson was not fit to be intrusted with the training of students for the ministry. It does not appear that young Mr. Hutcheson ever threw himself into this agitation on the one side or other, but it doubtless left its impression on his mind; and this, I rather think, was to lead him to adopt, if not the doctrine, at least some of the liberal sentiments of Simson; to keep him from engaging in religious controversy, and to throw him back for certainty on the fundamental truths of natural theology and the lofty morality of the New Testament.
To the teaching of Simson the historians of the Church of Scotland are accustomed to trace the introduction of the " New Light " theology into the pulpits both of Scotland and Ulster. But there were other and deeper causes also at work, producing simultaneously very much the same results all over the Protestant Continent of Europe, and in England both in the Church and among Non-conformists. It was a period of growing liberality of opinion, according to the view of the rising literary men of the country. It was a time of doctrinal deterioration, followed rapidly by a declension of living piety, and in the age after of a high morality, according to the view of the great body of earnest Christians. In the preceding age, Milton, Newton, and Locke had abandoned the belief in the divinity of Christ, and the great Church of England divine of that age, Samuel Clarke, was defending the Arian creed, and setting aside the Reformation doctrine of grace. Francis Hutcheson, by this time a preacher, writes from Ireland to a friend in Scot land, in 1718, Of the younger ministers in Ulster: "I find by the conversation I have had with some ministers and comrades, that there is a perfect Hoadley mania among our younger ministers in the north; and, what is really ridiculous, it does not serve them to be of his opinions, but their pulpits are ringing with them, as if their hearers were all absolute princes going to impose tests and confessions in their several territories, and not a set of people entirely excluded from the smallest hand in the government anywhere, and entirely incapable of bearing any other part in the prosecution but as sufferers. I have reason however, to apprehend that the antipathy to confessions is upon other grounds than a new spirit of charity. Dr. Clarke's work (on the Trinity), I'm sufficiently informed, has made several {53} unfixed in their old principles, if not entirely altered them." Hutcheson never utters any more certain sound than this on the religious controversies of his day. It is evident that his mind is all along more inclined towards ethical philosophy and natural theology. It is interesting to notice that, in 1717, he wrote a letter to S. Clarke stating objections to his famous " Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God," and that he received a reply, both of which are lost. We are reminded that, about four years before this, Joseph Butler, then a youth of twenty-one, at a dissenting academy, had written Clarke, taking exception to certain points in his "Demonstration," and had received answers to his letters. The objections of Hutcheson must have been more fundamental as to method than those of Butler. He was convinced that, as some subjects from their nature are capable of demonstration, so others admit only of probable proof, and he had great doubts of the validity of all metaphysical arguments in behalf of the existence of Deity. Dr. Leechman tells us: "This opinion of the various degrees of evidence adapted to various subjects first led Dr. Hutcheson to treat morals as a matter of fact, and not as founded on the abstract relation of things."
During his student life he was tutor for a time to the Earl of Kilmarnock. Leaving college about 1716, he was licensed to preach the gospel by the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. His preaching does not seem to have been acceptable to the people, who were alarmed at the New Light doctrine which was creeping in among them, and felt that the young preacher's discourses were scarcely in the spirit of the Scriptures, as they were not after the model of the ministers and divines whom they reverenced.[13] However, he received a call from a country {54} congregation at Magherally, in his native county, but was easily persuaded to accept instead an invitation to open an academy in Dublin, to give instruction in the higher branches. About the time he settled there the Protestant Non-conformists, aided by the government, but after a keen opposition from the Irish bishops, had succeeded in obtaining a parliamentary repeal of the Acts which required all persons to resort to their parish church every Sunday, and imposed a fine of L100 upon the dissenting minister who officiated in any congregation. But the young teacher had to suffer two prosecutions in the Archbishop's court for daring to teach youth without subscribing the canons and obtaining a license. These attacks upon him came to nothing, as they were discouraged by the Archbishop. Dr. King, author of the metaphysical work on the " Origin of Evil," who, though he had been a determined opponent of the relaxation allowed by law to dissenters, was unwilling to oppress so accomplished a man and well-disposed a citizen as Hutcheson. In Dublin he had laborious duties to discharge, which left him, he complained, little time for literature and mental culture; but he seems to have met with congenial society. The Presbyterians and Independents were the representatives of the English Non-conformists, who had been a considerable body there when Henry Cromwell was vice-regent, and when Winter and Charnock preached to them in Christ's Church Cathedral; and they had among them families of standing and influence. His literary accomplishments opened other circles to him. There seems to have been at that time a considerable taste for learning and philosophy in the metropolis of Ireland. From a very early date after its publication, the " Essay on the Human {55} Understanding," had been most enthusiastically welcomed by Molyneux, who corresponded with Locke, and expressed his excessive admiration of him. Berkeley, the tutor of Molyneux's son, began in 1707 to give to the world his ingenious speculations on mathematical and philosophical subjects. It does not appear that Hutcheson was acquainted with Berkeley, who, we rather think, would not appreciate the views of Hutcheson: be has certainly condemned the opinions of Shaftesbury. But he enjoyed the friendship of a number of eminent men, including Viscount Molesworth and Dr. Synge afterwards Bishop of Elphin; both of whom encouraged him to publish his first work, and assisted him in preparing it for the press. The former connects him historically with Shaftesbury, who had written letters to Molesworth, which were published in 1721. When in Dublin, Hutcheson and some others formed a club in which papers were read by the members on philosophic themes. It is an interesting circumstance, that in the next age some of the more important works of Gerard, Reid, Beattie, and Campbell sprang out of a similar society in Aberdeen.
It was in 1725 that he published in London his first work, "An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue." The treatise was published anonymously, as (so he tells us in the second edition) he had so little confidence of success that he was unwilling to own it. The subject, the thoughts, and the style were suited to the age; and the work was favorably received from the first. Lord Granville (afterwards Lord Carteret), the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, sent his private secretary to inquire at the bookseller's for the author; and when he could not learn his name he left a letter to be conveyed to him, in consequence of which Hutcheson became acquainted with his Excellency and was treated by him with distinguished marks of esteem. A second edition, corrected and enlarged, was called for in 1726.
This was the age of serial literary essays which had commenced in England with the "Tatler" and "Spectator." There was such a periodcal set up in the metropolis of Ireland called the "Dublin Journal" conducted by Hibernicus (Dr. Arbucle), and to this paper Hutcheson sent two letters, of date June 5th and June 12th, 1725, on " Laughter," in opposition to the views of Hobbes, who attributed men's actions to selfish motives, and {56} represented laughter as nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others or our own formerly. He characterizes Hobbes as "having fallen into a way of speaking which was much more intelligible than that of the School men," and "so becoming agreeable to many wits of his age;" and as "assuming positive, solemn airs, which he uses
most when he is going to assert some solemn absurdity or some ill natured nonsense." He finds it difficult to treat the subject of laughter "gravely," but gives his theory of the cause of laughter, which is "the bringing together of images which have contrary additional ideas, as well as some resemblance in the principal idea g, this contrast between ideas of grandeur, dignity, sanctity, perfection, and ideas of meanness, baseness, profanity, seems to be the very spirit of burlesque, and the greater part of our raillery and jest are founded on it." Some such view as this has ever since been given of wit. Samuel Johnson describes it as a sort of . Hutcheson ventures to specify the use of laughter: "Our passions are apt to lead us into foolish apprehensions of objects both in the way of admiration and honor, and ridicule comes in to temper our minds." This moderate view falls considerably short of that given by Shaftesbury, who represents ridicule as a test of truth.
Mandeville, in "The Fable of the Bees," had advanced some curious and doubtful speculations as to private vices being public benefits; showing that the power and grandeur of any nation depend much upon the number of people and their industry, which cannot be procured unless there be consumption of manufactures; and that the intemperance, luxury, and pride of men consume manufactures, and promote industry. The author has here caught hold of a positive and important truth, the explanation of which carries us into some of the deepest mysteries of Providence, in which we see good springing out of vice, and God ruling this world in spite of its wickedness, and by means of its wickedness, but without identifying himself with it. But Mandeville was not able to solve the profound problem, and in dealing with it he uses expressions which look as if he intended to justify, or at least to palliate vice. Hutcheson hastens to save morality, and writes letters on the subject to Hibernicus, {57 } and easily shows that virtue tends to private and public happiness, and vice to private and public misery; and that there "would be an equal consumption of manufactures without these vices and the evils which flow from them."
Hutcheson had now tasted the draught of authorship, and must drink on. In the "London Journal" for 1725 there appeared some Letters signed "Philaretus," containing objections to the doctrine of the "Inquiry into the Ideas of Beauty and Virtue," which is represented as not giving a sufficiently deep view of virtue as founded on the nature of things and perceived by reason. Hutcheson replies in the same journal. In that same year he published his second great work, being " An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, with illustrations of the Moral Sense." In the Preface he says, " Some Letters in the ' London journal,' in 1728, subscribed 'Philaretus,' gave occasion to the Fourth Treatise (on the Moral Sense); the answer given to them in these weekly papers bore too visible marks of the hurry in which they were wrote, and therefore the author declined to continue the debate that way, choosing to send a private letter to Philaretus to desire a more private correspondence on the subject of our debate. He was soon after informed that his death disappointed the author's great expectations from so ingenious a correspondent." Philaretus turned out to be Gilbert Burnet (second son, I believe, of the bishop), and the correspondence was published in 1735, with a postscript written by Burnet shortly before his death. Burnet examines Hutcheson from the stand-point of Clarke, and fixes on some of the weak points of the new theory.
At this time there was a keen controversy in Ulster as to whether the Presbyterian Church should require an implicit subscription to the Westminster Confession of Faith, and this issued in those who refused to subscribe forming themselves into a separate body called the Antrim Presbytery, the members of which published a " Narrative of the Proceedings of the Seven Synods," which led to their separation. The work of replying to this document was committed to Mr. Hutcheson, of Armagh, whose paper, however, was not published till after his decease, which took place in February, 1729. The old man had anxieties about his son, lest he should be tempted by the flattering attentions paid him in Dublin to conform to the Established {58} Church, and wrote a letter expressing his fears. We have the reply of the son, of date Aug. 4, 1726. In this he avows that he did not regard the "government or externals of worship so determined in the gospel as to oblige men to one particular way in either:" that he looks upon the established form as an "inconvenient one;" that he reckons the dissenters' cause "in most disputed points the better;" that he believes the original of both civil and ecclesiastical power is from God; he denounces those religious penal laws which "no magistrate can have a right to make;" but he would not blame any man of his own principles who did conform, if the "ends proposed were such as would over-balance the damage which the more just cause would sustain by his leaving, particularly if he had any prospect of an unjust establishment being altered," of which, he confesses, he does not see the least probability. He says, that both Lord Cathcart and the Bishop of Elphin had professed their desire to have him brought over " to the Church, to a good living; " that he kept his mind "very much to him self in these matters, and resolved to do ," but that he had no intention whatever to depart from his present position, and that he would feel it his duty continually to promote the cause of dissenters. I rather think that this frank but expediency letter would not altogether satisfy the good old father, who had stood firm on principle in trying times. I have referred to these transactions, because they exhibit the struggles which were passing in many a bosom in those times of transition from one state of things to another. Hutcheson never conformed, as his contemporary Butler did, to the Church. His Presbyterian friends were soon relieved from all anxieties in this direction by his being appointed, after be had been seven or eight years in Dublin, to an office altogether congenial to his tastes, in Glasgow University, where, however, he exercised a religious influence which his father, provided he had been spared to witness it, would have viewed with apprehension and disapproval.
He was chosen to succeed Carmichael, Dec. 19, 1729, by a majority of the Faculty, over Mr. Warner, favored at first by the principal, and over Mr. Frederick Carmichael, son of Gershom, supported by five of the professors. His appointment could be justified on the ground of merit; but he owed it mainly {59} to family connections, who gained Lord Isla, the great government patron of the day, before whom the principal had to give way.[14] In October, 1730, twenty English students have come to the college, expecting Mr. Hutcheson -- whose " Inquiry " and work on the " Passions " were already well known -- to " teach morality Professor Loudon, however, insisted that he had a right to take the chair of Moral Philosophy, whereupon the English students gave in a paper declaring that, if Mr. Hutcheson, who had not yet come over from Ireland, did not teach them morality, they would set off to Edinburgh, and Mr. Loudon had to yield. On November 30, he was publicly admitted, and delivered, in a low tone and hurried manner, as if awed and bashful, an inaugural discourse, "De Naturali Hominum Socialitate," in which he expounds, in a clear and pleasant manner, and in good Latin, his favorite doctrine as to man having in his nature disinterested affections. He maintains, in opposition to the "very celebrated" Locke, that man has something natural, but admits that it requires time and circumstances to bring it forth; and in opposition to Hobbes and Puffendorff, that man can be swayed by other motives than self-love. He represents the conscience as the [Greek term] to which all our nature ought to be subjected, and to which it had been subjected in our entire state; but admits that our nature is fallen, weakened, and corrupted, in many ways. Hutcheson lectured five days a week on his proper course, which embraced Natural Religion, Morals, jurisprudence, and Government; and at another hour he read three days of the week, with his students, some of the finest writers of antiquity, Greek and Latin, on the subject of morals; interpreting both the language and sentiment. This practice of combining reading with lectures was followed by his successors in the moral chair in Glasgow, and is vastly superior to the plan of the Edinburgh professors of a later date, who instructed their pupils only by reading lectures. His prelections were at first, after the manner of the times, in Latin; but he had the courage to break off from the ancient custom, and to speak in the English tongue, no doubt to the great joy and benefit of the students, who might lose somewhat in not being familiarized with the ancient learned language; but would gain vastly more in being brought into close sympathy with the {60} speaker, in listening from day to day to elegant English, and in the mastery which they would thereby acquire over their own tongue. Dr. Carlyle has left us a picture of the lecturer: "I attended Hutcheson's class this year (I 743-44) with great satisfaction and improvement. He was a good- looking man, of engaging countenance. He delivered his lectures without notes, walking backwards and forwards in the area of his room. As his elocution was good, and his voice and manner pleasing, he raised the attention of his hearers at all times; and when the subject led him to explain and enforce the moral virtues, he displayed a fervent and persuasive eloquence which was irresistible." A like account is given of him by his professed biographer Leechman: "A stature above middle size, a gesture and manner negligent and easy, but decent and manly, gave a dignity to his appearance. His complexion was fair and sanguine, and his features regular. His countenance and look bespoke sense, spirit, kindness and joy of heart," It may be added that this is the very impression left as we gaze on his portrait, with wig and gown, with florid face, and easy but dignified air, in the common hall of Glasgow College. Leechman represents him as dwelling in his lectures in a more diffuse manner on such moral considerations as are suited to touch the heart, and excite a relish for what is truthful and noble; and by his vivacity of thought, and sensibility of temper, commanding the attention of his students, and leaving strong impressions on their minds.
In the college he had an eminent colleague in Mr. Robert Simson (nephew of the theological professor), and a congenial one in Mr. Alexander Dunlop, the professor of Greek. Mr. Simson was an eccentric man, who spent his time between severe geometrical studies in the morning, and social meetings in the tavern at which he lived, or in his club, in the evening. Hutcheson and Dunlop -- who was a man of strong sense and capacity for business -- got the credit of managing all the affairs of the university, and both exerted themselves to maintain the discipline of the college and foster its literary tastes. In particular, Hutcheson had great success in reviving the study of ancient literature, particularly the Greek, which had been much neglected in the university before his time. At a later date, he had associates of a kindred spirit in the elegant {61} and grave Dr. Leechman, professor of theology (afterwards principal); in the lively and learned Dr. Moor, first the librarian of the college, and in 1746 made professor of Greek; and in the two eminent printers, Robert and Andrew Foulis, who published a multitude of learned works, including many of Hutcheson's. With such a spirit reigning in the college, and a great thirst for education on the part of the Scottish youth, fostered by the parish and burgh schools, the class- rooms were filled with students. Carlyle, who had just come in 1743 to Glasgow, after having been at Edinburgh College, describes the spirit that reigned among the youths: "Although at the time there appeared to be a marked superiority in the best scholars and most diligent students of Edinburgh, yet in Glasgow learning seemed to be an object of more importance, and the habit of application was much more general," -- a description which applies equally to Glasgow in after years. He mentions that among the students there were sundry young gentlemen from Ireland, with their tutors; and he names, among young men of station attending, Walter Lord Blantyre, Sir -- Kennedy and his brother David, afterwards Lord Cassilis. Walter Scott of Harden, James Murray of Broughton, and Dunbar Hamilton, afterwards Earl of Selkirk. The Scotch colleges were quite competent at that time to educate the nobility of the country, who had not yet fallen into the way of going to the great English schools and colleges, there to lose their national predilections and become separated, as they did in succeeding ages, from the sympathies, social, political, and religious, of the middle classes and common people of Scotland, to the great injury of the church and the nation generally.
Hutcheson exercised a special influence in drawing students, Scottish, Irish Presbyterian, and English Non- conformist, to the college. His own class was so large that he had to employ an assistant. The Calvinistic creed of the south-west of Scotland, the theological preaching of the old-school ministers, and the training of the young in the Shorter Catechism, all inclined the students to mental philosophy; and in Hutcheson they had much to attract, and little to offend. When he set before them wide fields of knowledge; when, in his lectures on natural theology, he pointed out evidences of the wisest contrivance and {62} most beneficent intention; when he led them from the external world into the still greater wonders of the internal, and traced the parts of man's moral constitution, and described the virtues in their loveliest form, and enlarged on the elevated enjoyments furnished by them; when he quoted, with glowing zest, the noblest passages of Greek and Roman literature; when he inculcated, with immense enthusiasm, the importance of civil and religious liberty, - - the students felt as if a new world were thrown open to them, and a new life kindled within them. Following the custom of his predecessor, he lectured on the sabbath evenings on the truth and excellence of Christianity, and the students of all the classes eagerly rushed to his prelections. The conversation of the youths in their social walks and visits often turned on the literary and philosophic themes which he discussed, and some of them chose to attend his lectures for four or five successive years. Among his pupils were Mr. Millar, afterwards President of the Court of Session; Archibald Maclaine, who in future years translated Mosheim's " Ecclesiastical History;" Matthew Stewart, famous for his Mathematical Tracts, and father of Dugald Stewart; and a youth, specially appreciated by Hutcheson, with a vast capacity for learning of every kind, and destined in future years to be so famous in Hutcheson's own department, -- Adam Smith, author of " The Theory of Moral Sentiments," and of " The Wealth of Nations." All of these ever spoke of Hutcheson in terms of high admiration and gratitude.
Defoe describes the city of Glasgow, with its four principal streets meeting in a cruciform manner at a point, as being, in 1726, one of the cleanliest, most beautiful, and best built cities in Great Britain. On the street that ran toward the north stood the college, completed in 1656, with quadrangles, arcade, and spire, built after the style of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV. The population, when Hutcheson was a professor, might be upwards of twenty thousand. At the summit of the social scale were the foreign merchants engaged in the American trade, in which they carried out linen and brought back tobacco " the tobacco merchants, with their scarlet cloaks and gold-headed canes, and cocked hats, perched on powdered hair or wig, with dangling clubtie or pigtail." Next to them, but at a considerable distance, were the ordinary shopkeepers; and farther {63} down, the tradesmen and servants; while at the base were the Highlandmen, with their tartan jacket and kilts, driven from their native hills by starvation, and ready to perform the most servile work. All classes made a solemn religious profession; but Wodrow mourns over degenerate customs which wealth and luxury were introducing. The better citizens dined early in their own homes, without show; and many of them spent their evenings in social meetings at taverns, -- a practice which gendered those drinking customs which, beginning with the upper classes about this time, went down to the peasant class in the days of Burns, and by the end of the century infected the whole of Scottish society, which has not yet recovered from the evil influence. But Hutcheson does not seem to have been much mixed up with the citizen life of Glasgow; we do not hear of his spending his evenings in the tavern, or being a member of any of the social clubs which began to spring up in Glasgow at this time. He had experience of the evil effects of the new habits (which were coming in with the new theology), in the lives of some of the Irish students who were committed to his care, and over whom he watched with the most friendly interest. "The wretched turn their minds take is to the silly manliness of taverns." He satisfies himself with keeping personally free from the evil. He presses his friend Tom Drennan, from Belfast, to pay him a visit for a month or six weeks, and promises: "Robert Simson, with you and Charles Moor, would be wondrous happy till three in the morning; I would be with you from five to ten."
His sphere was within the walls of the college; whence, how ever, his influence spread over the educated mind of the south west of Scotland and of Ulster, and over not a few of the Non-conformists in England. Carlyle tells us that he was believed by the students to be a Socinian. There is no evidence of this, nor of his expressing any positive opinion on any doctrinal subject. Even in his Sabbath evening lectures he kept to Grotius "De Veritate Christianae Religionis," and avoided, Leechman tells us, " the party tenets or scholastic system of modern ages." He seems to have maintained a friendly communication with the non- subscribing Presbyterian ministers in Ireland, some of whom (such as Abernethy and Leland, and Bruce and Boyce) were as accomplished men as any theologians {64} of their age, and of whom it may be said to their credit, that they suffered in their temporal interests rather than subscribe articles which they did not believe. In particular, Hutcheson carried on a very genial correspondence with the Rev. Thomas Drennan, a non-subscribing minister at Belfast.[15] The ministers of this communion, more especially as they were often abandoned by the people when their views became known, were at times in very poor circumstances. On hearing this, Hutcheson writes to his friend (May 31, 1742) am concerned that in my prosperous circumstances I did not think of it sooner. If you have any little contributions made towards such as are more distressed than the rest, you may mark me as a subscriber for L5 , and take the above ten pounds as my payment for two years past. . . . I think it altogether proper you should not mention my name to your brethren, but conceal it. I am already called New Light here. I don't value it for myself, but I see it hurts some ministers who are most intimate with me. I have been these ten days in great hurry and perplexity, as I have for that time foreseen the death of our professor, who died last Wednesday, and some of my colleagues join me in laboring for Mr. Leechman to succeed. We are not yet certain of the event, but have good hopes. If he succeed, it will put a new face upon theology in Scotland."
This was no doubt one of the ends for which Hutcheson lived and labored, "."[16] Discouraging all doctrinal exposition, and all rousing appeals to the conscience, he would have the preachers recommend the Christian religion as embracing a pure morality, and holding out the hope of a blessed immortality; but meanwhile providing no pardon to the poor sinner anxious about the past, nor gracious aid to help him in his struggles to deliver himself from sin in the future. Never avowing any doctrinal belief, his students {65} looked upon him as a Socinian, and so his influence went in that direction. The crop that sprang up may be taken as represented by such men as Carlyle, elegant and accommodating but dreadfully rankled by a Calvinistic creed which they had to swear, and by the opposition of the people, who could not be made to feel that the New Light was suited to them, or to believe that it had any title to be called a religion. But all this was in the future, and was not the precise result expected b), Hutcheson. Meanwhile he rejoices in Leechman, and describes him as one " who sees all I do." It seems that the Scotch divine received a call from a non-subscribing congregation in Belfast, and Hutcheson is rather inclined that he should go; he is so anxious to have him out of "that obscure place where he was so much lost," and where he was "preaching to a pack of horse-copers and smugglers of the rudest sort," who, we venture to say, would not profit much by that calm, abstract, elegant style which so pleased the professor of moral philosophy. Hutcheson uses every means to secure Leechman's appointment to the chair of theology in Glasgow, and brings influence of a very unscrupulous character (as I reckon it) to carry his point. He writes Mr. Mure of Caldwell (Nov. 23, 1743) that he wants a letter from the Duke of Montrose, the Chancellor of the University, in behalf of Leechman to Morthland, professor of Oriental languages, to be shown to others, and he malignantly mentions that Professor Anderson, the chief opponent of Leechman, " made himself ridiculous to all men of sense by dangling after Whitefield and M'Cullogh " (" Caldwell Papers "); and he wants this to be specially known to Tweeddale, who was Secretary of State for Scotland, and to Andrew Mitchell, his private secretary' It seems that the advocates of liberality could not tolerate that a man should be favorable to a revival of religion. It was by such means that " a new face was to be put upon the theology of Scotland." He writes to his Belfast friend (Feb. 20, 1743- 44): I could tell you a good deal of news upon the unexpected election of a professor of divinity, and the furious indignation of our zealots." He had written previously (March 5, 1738-39): "I hope Jack Smith has sent down to your town a 'Serious Address to the Kirk of Scotland,' lately published in London; it has run like lightning here, and is producing some effect; the author is unknown; 'tis wrote {66} with anger and contempt of the Kirk and Confession, but it has a set of objections against the Confession which I imagine few will have the brow to answer." The moderate party in the Church of Scotland is being crystallized by coldness out of the floating elements; and already there is a felt polar antipathy between them and those whom they choose to call " zealots." Hutcheson writes (April 16, 1746), " I would as soon speak to the Roman conclave as our presbytery."
The professor of theology introduced by him to the college, had signed the Confession of Faith, and professed his willingness to sign it at any time. He accomplished the end of Hutcheson. The subjects represented by him as suitable to be dwelt on by the preacher from the pulpit, were the perfections of God; the excellence of virtue, and the perfection of the divine law; the truth of the Christian religion, and the important purposes for which Jesus came into the world; the great doctrines he taught the interesting scenes of providence he has displayed to men the dignity and immortality of the soul, and the inconceivable happiness of the heavenly state. In the social circle he was grave and silent, but is represented by Carlyle as having a lively wife, who entertained the students that came to his house in the evening, and was anxious to hear about the new plays and novels which were coming into Scot land. He set out a body of young preachers, who unfortunately lost the common people, and the pious of all ranks, without gaining the worldly and unbelieving. He published a sermon in which he thought to recommend prayer as fitted to have an influence on the mind of the person praying, and submitted a copy to Hume, who told him plainly that the person praying must believe that his prayers have an influence on God and bring an answer.
It should be allowed that Hutcheson was most anxious to impart a taste for learning and refinement to the ministers of the Church of Scotland. He was deeply impressed with the evils which were springing from the law of patronage being now put in operation with a high hand. In 1735, he published " Considerations on Patronage, addressed to the Gentlemen of Scotland." In this pamphlet he predicts that, " instead of studying sobriety of manners, piety, diligence, or literature, one or other of which qualities are now necessary to recommend {67} the candidates to the favor of heritors, elders or presbytery, the candidate's sole study will be to stand right in politics, to make his zeal for the conspicuous; or by all servile compliance with the humor of some great lord who has many churches in his gift, whether that humor be virtuous or vicious, to secure a presentation." He fears the mischiefs of patronage were but beginning to appear, and that gentlemen's sons will no longer devote themselves to the ministerial office, which will be sought by lads of mean parentage and circumstances. It is quite certain that, owing to the law of patronage, combined with the smallness of the livings, estimated by Hutcheson as at that time about L80 a year, and the influence of London court life, the upper classes (from which so many ministers had sprung in the previous century) ceased from this time to encourage their sons to enter the sacred office.
The recorded incidents of his person and family life are not numerous. He seems to have been engrossed in lecturing to his students, in managing college matters, and in preparing text-books. He published a "Compend of Logic," a "Synopsis of Metaphysics," and "Institutes of Philosophy," all in clear and graceful Latin (referred to with commendation by Dr. Parr in his " Spital Sermon "). He joined Dr. Moor in publishing a translation of the " Meditations " of Antoninus, with a life of Antoninus, an introduction and notes in English, the last showing a considerable acquaintance with the Stoic philosophy.
When in Dublin, he had married Mary Wilson, daughter of Francis Wilson, a gentleman of property, and belonging to a Presbyterian family in Longford.' In a letter to a friend, Feb. 12, 1740, he speaks of himself as " having been married now fifteen years and having only one boy surviving, of seven children borne to me by a very agreeable woman. I bless God for the one he has spared to me, and that he has no bad genius. If he proves a wise and good man, I am very well in this world. Since my settlement in this college I have had an agreeable and I hope not an useless life, pretty much hurried with study and business, but such as is not unpleasant. I hope I am contributing to promote the more moderate and charitable sentiments in religious matters in this country, where yet there remains too much warmth, and commonly about matters of no great consequence to real religion. We must make allowance {68} for the power of education in all places, and have indulgence to the weakness of our brethren."[17]
So early, as June, 1741, he writes to his Belfast friend: " In short, Tom, I find old age, not in gray hairs and other trifles, but in an incapacity of mind for such close thinking and composition as I once had, and have pretty much dropped the thoughts of some great designs I had once sketched out." On April 3, 1745, he was nominated to the chair of moral philosophy in Edinburgh by the Town Council, but declined the honor, in consequence of not feeling strong enough to engage in new labors. He writes, April 16, 1746: "I am in a great deal of private distresses about Jo. Wilson and his sister, the latter in the utmost danger, the other scarce recovered from death; my wife, too, very tender; but, by a set of most intricate business, upon which the soul of this college depends, and all may be ruined by the want of one vote, I cannot leave this till after 26th June, and we go to Dublin first." He had been for some months in an uncertain state of health: he went to Dublin about the time mentioned in the letter quoted; and there, after a few days' fever, he was cut off, Aug. 8, 1746. His remains were buried in the old graveyard of Knockmark, East Meath, among his wife's kindred, the Wilsons and Stanhopes. He left one son, who became a physician, and rose to be professor of chemistry in Dublin College. That son published, in 1754, his "System of Moral Philosophy," to which is prefixed an account of the father's life by Dr. Leechman.
Hutcheson has nowhere explained very fully or formally the method on which he proceeds. But he everywhere appeals to facts; he brings all theories to the test of the actual operations of the human mind as disclosed to consciousness (a word frequently employed by him); he sets no value on speculations built up in any other way; and he everywhere speaks doubtfully or disparagingly of the logical distinctions and verbal subtleties of the schoolmen, and of the rational deductions of Descartes and Samuel Clarke. Proceeding on the method of observation, he discovers certain cognitive powers, which he {69} calls, perhaps unhappily, senses, which have a place in our very nature and constitution, and operate independent of any notice we may take of them. These features show that he belongs to the Scottish school, of which he is entitled to be regarded ,is the founder, inasmuch as no philosopher connected with North Britain had previously combined these characters, and as lie in fact gave the modern stimulus to philosophic speculation in Scotland.
He does not dwell at great length, nor very minutely, on the intellectual powers. He says that "late inquiries have been very much employed about our understanding. and the several methods of obtaining truth and so he would rather investigate " the various pleasures which human nature is capable of receiving," and our various internal senses, perceptions, and affections, specially the sense of beauty and the moral sense. Still he intimates very clearly what views he takes of man's intellectual nature. And first, as to the senses, he says, " It is not easy to divide distinctly our several sensations into classes. The division of our external senses into the five common classes seems very imperfect. Some sensations received without any previous idea, can either be reduced to none of them, such as the sensations of hunger, thirst, weariness, sickness; or, if we reduce them to the sense of feeling,, they are perceptions as different from the other ideas of touch, such as cold, heat, hardness, softness, as the ideas of taste or smell. Others have hinted at an external sense different from all of these. The following general account may possibly be useful: (1) That certain motions raised in our bodies are by a general law constituted the occasion of perceptions in the mind. (2) These perceptions never come alone, but have some other perceptions joined with them. Thus every sensation is accompanied with the idea of duration, and yet duration is not a sensible idea, since it also accompanies ideas of internal consciousness or reflection; so the idea of number may accompany any sensible ideas, and yet may also accompany any other ideas as well as external senses. Brutes, when several objects are before them, have probably all the proper ideas of sight which we have without the idea of number. (3) Some ideas are found accompanying the most different sensations, which yet are not to be perceived separately from some sensible quality, {70} such as extension, figure, motion, and rest, accompany the ideas of sight or colors, and yet may be perceived without them, as in the ideas of touch, at least if we move our organs along the parts of the body touched. Extension, figure, motion, or rest, seem therefore to be more properly called ideas accompanying the sensations of sight and touch than the sensations of either of these senses, since they can be received sometimes without the ideas of color, and sometimes without those of touching, though never without the one or other. The perceptions which are purely sensible, received each by its proper sense, are tastes, smells, colors, sound, cold, heat, &c. The universal concomitant ideas which may attend any idea whatsoever are duration and number. The ideas which accompany the most different sensations are extension, figure, motion, rest. These all arise without any previous ideas assembled or compared g, the concomitant ideas are reputed images of something external. From all these we may justly distinguish those pleasures perceived upon the previous reception and comparison of various sensible perceptions with their concomitant ideas, or intellectual ideas, when we find uniformity or resemblance among them. These are meant by the perceptions of the internal sense." ("Nature and Con duct of the Passions," Sect. I.)
This note comprises the result and the sum of much reading and much reflection. The principal thoughts, more especially as to the separation of the ideas of number and duration, and of extension, figure, motion, and rest from our common sensations, are taken, directly or indirectly, from Aristotle's " Psyche," B. II. c. vi. (which is not referred to, however), where there is a distinction drawn between common and proper percepts. But he seems to take a step beyond Aristotle when he tells us here, and still more expressly in his " Logic," that number and duration can be perceived both by the external and internal sense. It has been felt by all profound thinkers, that in order to account for the phenomena, and to save the senses from deceiving us, there must be distinctions of some sort drawn between different kinds of sensations or perceptions. Adopting the distinction of Aristotle, we find him in his " Logic " identifying it with that of Locke, between the primary and secondary qualities of bodies. It may be doubted whether we can so {71} absolutely divide, as Aristotle and Hutcheson did, the accompanying ideas from the sensations or perceptions. The sensations and ideas are in every case wrapped up in one concrete cognitive act, while, however, the may come tip in a different t, y concretion in our next experience, and may be separated into elements by an analytic process. I rather think, too, that the perception of extension (as has been shown by Hamilton) is involved in all our sense-perceptions, for we seem to know our organism as in space and localized by every one of the senses. The language about the motions of bodies constituting the of the perceptions in the mind, proceeds upon the inadequate distinction between efficient and occasional cause, drawn by the disciples of Descartes, -- a distinction adopted by Reid as well as Hutcheson. I suspect that it still remains true, that the common division of our external senses is very imperfect, and that it is not easy to arrange our sensations into classes.
In regard to the question started in the next age by Reid, as to whether we perceive by the senses the external object, or an idea of it, it is certain that he accepts the view and the language of the great body of philosophers prior to his time, and he speaks of our perceiving by ideas " as images of something external."
Formal logic has been taught, I believe, in Glasgow University from its establishment in 1451 to this present time. Hutcheson has a "Logical Compendium" which was used as a text-book in Glasgow and elsewhere. In this treatise, after a meagre dissertation on the rise of philosophy, he defines logic as " the art of guiding the mind in the knowledge of things; adding, that it may also be considered a science, and that others define it " the art of discovering and declaring truth." These definitions will be regarded as too loose and vague by the rigid logicians of our time. In treating of the concept, notion, or idea, he represents ideas as being divided into sensations, imaginations, and pure intellections, -- a theory adopted by Gassendi, and favorably received by not a few for an age or two after the time of Descartes and Gassendi, as seeming to reconcile these two eminent men. Hutcheson had previously represented all sensation as external and internal, and declared, with Locke, that all our ideas arise either from the external sense or {72} from reflection. The intellections he defines as " any ideas not reached or comprehended by any bodily sense; " they are chiefly " suggested by the internal sense, and include our actions, passions, judgments, doubts, and the like, and also abstract ideas." There is an incongruous mixture here of the Lockian with an older theory. The ideas derived from reflection, which are all singular and concrete, should not be put in the same class with those abstract and general ideas which are formed by the intellect from the materials got from sensation and reflection, and, we may add, from those furnished by the faculties of the mind in their exercise, such as those we have of the beautiful and the good. This confusion long lingered in the Scottish psychology from which it has scarcely yet been expelled.
Hutcheson represents complex (concrete would be the better phrase) ideas as having comprehension, and universal ideas as having extension; and announces the rule that extension and comprehension stand to each other in a reverse order. He distinguishes between a logical whole, which is a universal in respect of its species, which are spread out in division; and a metaphysical whole, which is the comprehension of a complex idea, and is declared by definition. He distinguishes between noetic and dianoetic judgment, in the former of which the two ideas are compared immediately (), and in the latter by means of a third. The subject, predicate, and copula are said to be in the proposition either expressed or suppressed and involved. He does give the dictum of Aristotle as the regulating principle of reasoning, but derives all the force of syllogism from these three axioms, in which, we think, there is a very unsatisfactory vagueness in the phrase : " (1) Things which agree in one third agree with one another; (2) Things of which the one agrees and the other does not agree with one and the same third do not agree with one another; (3) Things which agree in no third do not agree with each other; (4) Things which disagree in no third do not disagree among them selves. Hence are deduced the general rules of syllogisms." This "Compend" continued to be printed and used down to at least the close of the third quarter of the eighteenth century. One is inclined to think that these phrases and distinctions must have been introduced to the notice, and inscribed on the {73} memory, of William Hamilton during his collegiate life at Glasgow, and that they may have helped as they recurred, consciously or unconsciously, to suggest to him certain of the essential principles of the "New Analytic of Logical Forms."
He has a separate treatise on metaphysics ("Metaphysical Synopsis," 1742) which he divides into ontology, or the science of being, and pneumatology, or the science of spirit (divine and human). " It appears from his treatise on metaphysics," says his admiring biographer, " that he was well acquainted with the logomachies, meaningless questions, and trivial debates of the old scholastics, which had thrown a thick darkness on that part of philosophy: he has set that branch of knowledge in a clear light, and rendered it instructive and entertaining." The sneer at the scholastics is a symptom of the age. The alleged " meaningless questions " are still put, and must be put, by profound thinkers who would go down to the foundations of truth. Even Hutcheson was obliged to put them and to answer them. The answers which he gives, if not so profound in fact or in appearance as those given by the ancient Greek philosophers, by the scholastics, or by Descartes and Leibnitz, are always clear and sensible, and often just and satisfactory. He discusses, and this by no means in a superficial manner, topics which the Scottish metaphysicians between him and Hamilton carefully avoided. His scholastic training at Killyleagh, and the spirit of the older teaching, had still a hold upon him for good.
He treats of being, declaring it to be undefinable, and showing that it involves existence and essence, and that potency and action are the principles of being. He refers the conviction of our identity of being to consciousness. As to the much agitated question of the principle of individuation he comes to the sound conclusion that it is to be ascribed to the nature of the thing existing.
He discusses the question whether metaphysical axioms are innate. He denies that they are innate in the sense of their being known or observed by the mind from its birth, and affirms that in their general form they are not reached till after many comparisons of singular ideas. He shows that the mind assents to them in their singular form, even when a sensible object is presented. He stands up for axioms, self- evident and immutable, {74} -- with him, as with Locke, self-evidence being their prominent feature and their mark but he also declares them to be eternal and unchangeable, -- the mind perceiving at once the agreement or disagreement of the subject or predicate. He denies that there is any principle entitled to be regarded as the first of all, and maintains that it is vain to seek any other criterion of truth than the faculty of reason itself, and the native power of the mind. These views are surely more profound than those of Locke, less extravagant than those of Descartes, Leibnitz, or Wolf (he refers to Wolf). They do not exhaust the subject; in particular, while he says truly (with Aristotle) that the singulars and the less general are first known, he does not enter on the question, which neither the Scottish nor any other metaphysicians have yet settled, of the relation of self-evident truths in their singular to their generalized form.
In regard to space and time, he avoids the extreme positions both of Clarke, who represents them as modes of the divine being, and of Leibnitz, who describes them as mere relations perceived by the mind. He represents them as things or realities, and declares modestly and truly that we are ignorant of the relation in which they stand towards the divine nature. These judicious views were followed by the Scottish metaphysicians generally down to the time of Hamilton.
This leads him into the investigation of the infinite. He regards the following propositions as probable: that it is scarcely possible that there should be a number of infinite things of the same kind , that the infinite, because it is infinite, cannot be greater; that infinites, so far as infinites, cannot be multiplied; nor can have any finite relation () to finite parts, although things by one reason infinite and by another finite may be divided and multiplied, if only there are other things of the same description. But after enunciating these bold propositions he cautiously adds that these questions may well be held to surpass human capacity.
He declares that, properly speaking, there is only one sort of cause, the efficient. He says that in the impulse and motion of bodies, and in the effort to change the idea in our minds, and to produce motions in our bodily members, we not only see change, but perceive some energy or efficacy. This view is not thoroughly carried out; it certainly is the truth so far as {75} it goes. He cautions us, in the very spirit of Reid, against dogmatizing too minutely as to the power of the mind over the body.
Substance is that which remains when the affections change. He agrees with Locke that the nature of substance is unknown, except that we have an obscure idea of something as the substratum of qualities. His views on this whole subject are meagre and unsatisfactory.
Still it is in the discussion of these questions that he passes beyond Shaftesbury, and shows the clearness, the judiciousness, and the independence of his thinking. I am not sure whether these metaphysical topics have been discussed in a profounder manner by any thinker of the Scottish school except Sir W. Hamilton; and he has not shown the same amount of speculative caution and good sense as Hutcheson.
But Hutcheson dwells far more on the motive and moral parts of man's nature than on logical and metaphysical subjects. We have seen that he brings in many other senses besides the external ones. He defines sense, " every determination of our minds to receive ideas independently on our will, and to have perceptions of pleasure and pain." The following is his classification of them: " (1) In the first class are the external senses, universally known. (2) In the second, the pleasant perceptions arising from regular harmonious uniform objects, as also from grandeur and novelty. These we may call, after Mr. Addison, the `pleasures of the imagination,' or we may call the power of receiving them an internal sense. Whoever dislikes this name may substitute another. (3) The next class of perceptions we may call a public sense; viz., our determination to be pleased with the happiness of others, and to be uneasy at their misery. This is found in some degree in all men, and was sometimes called [Greek term], or , by the ancients; this inward pain or compassion cannot be called a sensation of sight. It solely arises from an opinion of misery felt by another, and not immediately from a visible form. The same form presented to the eye by the exactest painting, or the action of a player, gives no pain to those who remember that' there is no misery felt. When men by imagination conceive real pain felt by an actor, without recollecting that it is merely {76} feigned, or when they think of the real story represented, then, as there is a confused opinion of real misery, there is also pain in compassion. (4) The fourth class we may call the moral sense, by which we perceive virtue or vice in ourselves or others. This is plainly distinct from the former class of perceptions, since many are strongly affected with the fortunes of others who seldom reflect upon virtue or vice in themselves or others as an object; as we may find in natural affection, compassion, friendship, or even general benevolence to mankind, which connect our happiness or pleasure with that of others, even when we are not reflecting upon our own temper, nor delighted with the perception of our own virtue. (5) The fifth class is a sense of honor which makes the approbation or gratitude of others, for any good actions we have done, the necessary occasion of pleasure, and then dislike, condemnation, or resentment of injuries done by us, the occasion of that uneasy sensation called shame, even when we fear no further evil from them." He adds that this enumeration may not be sufficient, and says that "there may be others, such as some ideas of decency, dignity, suitableness to human nature in certain actions and circumstances."
He then shows that the objects gratifying these senses call forth desires, which fall into five corresponding classes, those of the bodily senses, of the imagination or internal sense, of public happiness, of virtue, and honor. We are yet (so I am inclined to think) without a thoroughly exhaustive classification of the natural appetencies which lead to emotion, and desire, and action. That of Hutcheson is one of the best which we yet have, and should be looked to by those who would draw out a scheme of the categories of man's motive principles. I am disposed to think, however, that the sense of honor may be resolved into the moral sense combined with some other principles. (" Moral Philosophy," Book I.)
He shows how secondary grow upon these original desires. "Since we are capable of reflection, memory, observation, and reasoning about the distant tendencies of objects and actions, and not confined to things present, there must arise, in consequence of our of every thing imagined useful to gratify any of the primary desires, and that {77} with strength proportioned to the several original desires and the imagined usefulness or necessity of the advantageous object. Thus, as soon as we come to apprehend the use Of wealth or power to gratify any of our original desires we must also desire them. Hence arises the universality of these desires of wealth and power, since they are the means of gratifying all other desires." Mackintosh says, " He seems to have been the first who entertained just nations of the formation of the secondary desires which had been overlooked by Butler." ("Passions," Sect. I. Mackintosh's " Diss.," Sect. V.)
He also shows how the association of ideas, which he characterizes as the "disposition in our nature to associate any ideas together for the future which once presented themselves jointly," has an influence upon our desires, primary and secondary, and specially on our sense of beauty. " Some objects which, of themselves, are indifferent to any sense, yet by reason of some additional grateful idea may become very desirable, or by like addition of an ungrateful idea ma raise the strongest aversion. When any circumstance, dress, state, posture, is constituted as a mark of infamy, it may become, in like manner, the object of aversion, though in itself most inoffensive to our senses. If a certain way of living, of receiving company, of showing courtesy, is once received among those who are honored, they who cannot bear the expense of all this may be made uneasy at their condition, though much freer from trouble than that of higher stations. Thus dress, retinue, equipage, furniture, behavior, and diversions, are made matters of considerable importance by additional ideas." , The beauty of trees, their cool shades and their aptness to conceal from observation, have made groves and woods the usual retreat to those who love solitude, especially to the religious, the pensive, the melancholy, and the amorous. And do not we find that we have so joined the ideas of these dispositions of mind with those external objects, that they always recur to us along with them." He thus started those views regarding the influence of association of ideas on our perceptions of beauty and moral good which were prosecuted by Turnbull, Beattie, and others, till they culminated in the ingenious but extravagant theories of Alison and Jeffrey in regard to the beautiful, and of Adam Smith and Mackintosh as to virtue. Hutcheson certainly has not developed the full {78} influence of association of ideas, but the account which he gives is just, so far as it goes.[18]
He dwells at great length on the sense of beauty. The feeling is raised at once on the perception of certain objects. He does not stand up for beauty supposed to be in the nature of things without relation to any mind perceiving it. On the contrary, all beauty implies the perception of some mind. Still there may be a distinction drawn between original or absolute beauty on the one hand, and relative or comparative beauty on the other. By the former he understands the beauty which we perceive in objects without comparison with any thing external, such as that observed in the works of nature, artificial forms, figures, theorems; by the latter, the beauty founded on uniformity, or a kind of unity between the original and the copy. In determining what the beautiful is, he propounds the theory that it is a compound ratio of uniformity and variety, so that where the uniformity of bodies is equal, the beauty is as the variety; and where the variety is equal, the beauty is as the uniformity. He seeks to establish this view by examples, dwelling on beautiful objects in nature and art, showing how there is in all of them uniformity or unity, proportion or harmony. This doctrine may not be the full theory of beauty; but there must surely be some truth in it; for in some modification or other it has cast up among profound thinkers in all ages, from Plato and Augustine in ancient times, to Cousin, Macvicar, and Ruskin in our day.
He stands up resolutely for the existence of disinterested and social affections. He earnestly opposes those who, like the Cyrenaics, and probably the Epicureans, would make pleasure the end of existence, and who would make us desire the good of others or of societies merely as the means of our own safety and prosperity, or as the means of some subtler {79} pleasures of our own by sympathy with others in their happiness; or who would make our end to be the pleasure we enjoy in being honored, or some reward we expect for our services, and these either from God or man. He opposes also that more refined system which makes our aim the joys proceeding from generous motions and moral approbation. He shows, with great acuteness, that in all our desires, whether benevolent or selfish, there is some motive, some end intended distinct from the joy of success, or the removal of the pain of desire; and that there is first the motive operating, and then the joy or pain following, according as the motive is gratified or thwarted. He proves that men have affections, such as the love of offspring and of relatives, which fit them for a state of society; he takes pains to show that in this respect he differs from Puffendorf, who constructs his theory of society on the principle that self-love is the spring of all our actions; and he offers a most determined opposition to Hobbes when he makes the natural state of man to be one of war.
A considerable portion of all his works is occupied in demonstrating that man is possessed of a moral sense. In his "Inquiry," published before Butler's "Sermons on Human Nature," he declares, " that from the very frame of our nature we are determined to perceive pleasure in the practice of virtue, and to approve of it when practised by ourselves or others." He declares that the vast diversity of moral principles in various ages and nations " is indeed a good argument against innate ideas or principles, but will not evidence mankind to be void of a moral sense to perceive virtue or vice in actions." He ever kindles into a gentle warmth when he speaks of the joys derived from this sense, which he represents as purer and more elevated than those which can be had from any other source. The conscience, though often unable to govern our inferior nature, is yet in its own nature born for government; it is the ruling principle ([Greek term]) to which all things had been subjected in the entire () state of our nature, and to which they ought to be subjected. His views on the subject of the supremacy of conscience are not so thoroughly wrought out as those of Butler; but they are explicitly stated, and become more decisive in his later works.
But what is the quality in actions looked at, appreciated, and {80} approved by the moral sense? To this question Hutcheson gives, if not a satisfactory, a very decisive reply. He represents this quality as good-will or benevolence. " All those kind affections which incline us to make others happy, and all actions which flow from such affections, appear morally good, if while they are benevolent towards some persons they be not pernicious to others." Advancing, a step farther, he discovers that "the several affections which are approved, though in very different degrees, yet all agree in one general character of tendency to the happiness of others," and the most perfectly virtuous actions are such " as appear to have the most unlimited tendency to the greatest and most extensive happiness of all the rational agents to whom our influence can reach." He is evidently inclined to reckon the moral sense as planted in our nature to lead us to commend at once those actions which tend towards the general happiness. His theory of virtue thus comes to be an exalted kind of eudaimonism, with God giving us a moral sense to approve of the promotion of happiness without our discovering the consequences of actions. Hume required only to leave out the divine sanction (he retained some sort of moral sense) in order to reach his theory of virtue consisting in the useful and agreeable. Hutcheson opposes very resolutely all those moralists who seek to give morality a deeper foundation in the nature of things. The function of reason in morals is simply to show what external actions are laudable or censurable, according as they evidence good or evil affections of soul.[19]
Proceeding on these principles, derived mainly from Shaftesbury, but more systematically expounded, he builds up a system of moral philosophy. He gives a division of the virtues, and treats of the duties we owe toward God, toward mankind, and toward ourselves. In proving the existence of God, he appeals to the structure of the world. He reaches the divine perfections by a set of metaphysical principles surreptitiously introduced, and scarcely consistent with his philosophy. {81} He answers the objections derived from the existence of evil in a commonplace way, by showing how particular evils are necessary to superior good. He seeks to establish the immortality of the soul by an appeal to the nature of the soul as being different from the body, and to the hopes of a future state.
He enters at great length into the discussion of the ages which preceded him, as to the law of nature. He shows that there are rights antecedent to the institution of civil government. He establishes the right of property, first, on the principle that " things fit for present use the first occupier should enjoy undisturbed; " and on the farther principle, that each has a right to the fruits of his own labor, and that it is the common interest of society, and tends towards the furtherance of industry, that mankind should be secured in their possessions.
He says that "civil power is most naturally founded by these three different acts of a whole people: (1) An agreement or contract of each one with all the rest, that they will unite into one society or body, to be governed in all their common interests by one council; (2) A decree or designation made by the whole people of the form or plan of power and of the persons to be intrusted with it; (3) A mutual agreement or contract between the governors thus constituted and the people, the former obliging themselves to a faithful administration of the powers vested in them for the common interest, and the latter obliging themselves to obedience. Though it is not probable that, in the constitution of the several states, men have generally taken these three regular steps; yet it is plain that, in every just constitution of power, there is some such transaction as implicitly contains the whole force of all the three." He argues that the people have a right of resistance, and of dethroning a prince who is grossly perfidious to his trust.
He thinks that the senate of the country should create a censorial power, " that by it the manners of the people may be regulated, and luxury, voluptuous debauchery, and other private vices prevented or made infamous." He holds that the " magistrate should provide proper instruction for all, especially for young minds, about the existence, goodness, and providence of God, and all the social duties of life and motives {82} to them." But he particularly maintains that " every rational creature has a right to judge for itself in these matters." While an earnest supporter of liberty of thought and action, he yet holds " as to those who support atheism, or deny a moral providence, or the obligation of the moral law, or social virtues, that the state may justly restrain them by force, as hurting,, it in its most important interests."
When Calamy heard of Hutcheson's call to Glasgow, he smiled, and said he was not for Scotland, and that he would be reckoned there as unorthodox as Simson. But Hutcheson lived an age later than Simson; he was much more prudent, and was personally liked; he was professor of philosophy and not of theology; and so he passed through life with very little public opposition. Still the stone which he had set a-moving could not go on without meeting with some little ruffling. About the beginning of the session 1737-38, a paper was printed and published anonymously by one who professed to have been lately in the college, charging Hutcheson with teaching dangerous views. I have not seen this attack; but the reply prepared by a body of his favorite students is preserved. There seems to be force in some of the objections taken; others entirely fail. It is objected to him that he taught that we could have the knowledge of moral good and evil, although we knew nothing of the being of a God; it is replied that Hutcheson's doctrine was that we might have knowledge of some virtues, though we had not known God, and that a notion of moral good must come prior to any notion of the will or law of God. It is objected that he taught that the tendency to promote the happiness of others is the standard of moral goodness; it is acknowledged in the answer that benevolent affections towards others are our primary notion of moral goodness, and the primary object of our approbation. It is objected that he taught that it is sometimes lawful to tell a lie; it is answered that Hutcheson's doctrine was very much against lying, but did imply that there might be cases in which lying was justifiable.
Throughout Scotland there was an impression among the scholars who had been trained in the previous generation that he was sensualizing and degrading the old philosophy. The friends of evangelical truth perceived that the young preachers {83} who admired him addressed them in a very different speech from that of their old divines and from that of the inspired writers. The description given of the new style of preaching by the clerical satirist Witherspoon, in his " Characteristics," was found to have point and edge: " It is quite necessary in a moderate man, because his moderation teaches him, to avoid all the high flights of evangelic enthusiasm and the mysteries of grace of which the common people are so fond. It may be observed, nay, it is observed, that all our stamp avoid the word grace as much as possible, and have agreed to substitute the moral virtues' in the room of the `graces of the Spirit.' Where an old. preacher would have said a great decree of sanctification, a man of moderation and politeness will say a high pitch of virtue." In the advice to a good preacher the following counsels are given: "(1) His subjects must be confined to the social duties. (2) He must recommend them only from rational considerations; viz., the beauty and comely proportions of virtue, and its advantages in the present life, without any regard to a future state of more extended self-interest. (3) His authorities must be drawn from heathen writers; none, or as few as possible, from Scripture. (4) He must be very unacceptable to the common people." " The scattering a few phrases in their sermons, as harmony, order, proportion, taste, sense of beauty, balance of the affections, will easily persuade the people that they are learned; and this persuasion is to all intents and purposes the same thing as if it were true. It is one of those deceitful feelings which Mr. Hg in his essays has shown to be beautiful and useful." In illustrating the third counsel he says: " It is well known there are multitudes in our island who reckon Socrates and Plato to have been much greater men than any of the apostles, although (as the moderate preacher I mentioned lately told his hearers) the apostle Paul had a university education and was instructed in logic by Gamaliel. Therefore let religion be constantly and uniformly called virtue, and let the heathen philosophers be set up as great patterns and promoters of it. Upon this head most particularly recommend M. Antoninus by name, because an eminent person of the moderate character says his `Meditations' are the best book that ever was written for forming the heart." The effect of this accommodation of religion to the {84} world is graphically and truly described: "The necessity of such a conduct cannot be denied when it is considered what effect the length and frequency of public devotion have had in driving most of the fashionable gentry from our churches altogether." "Now the only way to regain them to the church is to accommodate the worship as much as may be to their taste." "I confess there has sometimes been an ugly objection thrown up against this part of my argument; viz., that this desertion of public worship by those in high life seems, in fact, to be contemporary with, and to increase in a pretty exact proportion to, the attempts that have been made and are made to suit it to their taste."
Hutcheson's works got fit audience in his own day, but did not continue to be much read after his death. In his mode and manner of writing he is evidently indebted to the wits of Queen Anne, such as Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke, Pope, and Swift, who were Frenchifying the English tongue, polishing away at once its roughness and its vigor, introducing the French clearness of expression, and, we may add, the French morals. Hutcheson has their clearness, but is without their liveliness and wit. His style is like a well-fenced, level country, in which we weary walking for any length of time; it is not relished by those who prefer elevations and depressions, and is disliked by those who have a passion for mountains and passes. He ever maintains a high moral tone but it is doubtful whether he has retained for morality a sufficiently deep foundation.
His philosophy is undoubtedly an advance upon that of Locke, and rises immeasurably above that of those professed followers of Locke in England and France, who in the days of Hutcheson were leaving out Locke's reflection, and deriving all man's ideas from sensation, and all his motives from pleasures and pains. His view of the moral faculty is correct so far as it goes. He represents it as natural to man, and in his very constitution and nature. There may even be a propriety in calling it a with the qualifying phrase , inasmuch as, like the senses, it is a source of knowledge, revealing to us certain qualities of voluntary acts or agents, and inasmuch as it has always feeling or sensibility attached to its exercises.
But, on the other hand, his view of the moral power falls greatly beneath that of the great English moralists of the previous century, and below that of the school of Clarke {85} in his own day. The word sense allies the conscience too much with the animal organism, and the whole account given of it separates it from the reason or higher intelligence. On this point he was met, immediately on the publication of his views, by Gilbert Burnet, who maintains that moral good and evil are discerned by reason; that there is first reason, or an internal sense of truth and falsehood, moral good and evil, right and wrong, which is accompanied by another succeeding internal sense of beauty and pleasure; and that reason is the judge of the goodness and badness of our affections and of the moral sense itself. Hutcheson does speak of the moral sense as being superior in its nature to the other senses, but he does not bring out so prominently and decisively as Butler did its supremacy and its right to govern.
If his theory of the moral power is superficial and defective, his account of that to which the conscience looks is positively erroneous. He represents virtue as consisting in benevolence, by which he means good-will. This view cannot be made to embrace love to God, except by stretching it so wide as to make it another doctrine altogether; for surely it is not as a mere exercise of good-will that to love God can be described as excellent. His theory is especially faulty in that it overlooks justice, which has ever been regarded by our higher moralists as among the most essential of the virtues. Nor is it to be omitted that his moral system is self-righteous in its injunctions, and pagan in its spirit. No doubt he speaks everywhere with deep admiration of the morality of the New Testament; but the precepts which he inculcates, are derived fully as much from Antoninus and the Stoics as from the discourses of our Lord, and the epistles of the apostles; and we look in vain for a recommendation of such graces as repentance and humility, meekness and long-suffering.
By bringing down morality from the height at which the great ethical writers, of ancient and modern times, had placed it, he prepared the way for the system of Adam Smith, and even for that of Hume. Smith was a pupil of his own, and Hutcheson was brought into contact with Hume. Hume submitted to Hutcheson in manuscript the " Third Part of his Treatise of Human Nature," that on morals, before giving it {86} to the world. The remarks which Hutcheson offered have been lost, but we can gather what they were from the letter which Hume sent him on receiving them, and which has been preserved. Hutcheson most characteristically objects to Hume, that he had not expressed a sufficient warmth in the cause of virtue, and that he was defective in point of prudence. Was this all that the high moralist Hutcheson had to object to the founder of modern utilitarianism? On the publication of his " Institutes of Moral Philosophy," Hutcheson sends a copy of it to Hume, who remarks upon it, specially objecting to it as adopting Butler's opinion, that our moral sense has an authority distinct from its force and desirableness g, but confessing his delight " to see such just philosophy, and such instructive morals, to have once set their foot in the schools. I hope they will next get into the world, and then into the churches." Yes, this was what the rationalists wished in that day, and what they wish in ours, to get their views . Hutcheson, though disapproving of the philosophy of Hume, and refusing to support him as a candidate for the chair of moral philosophy in Edinburgh, which he himself declined, had not retained sufficiently deep principles to enable him successfully to resist the great sceptic who had now appeared. Error has been committed, God's law has been lowered, and the avenger has come.
VIII.-- RELIGIOUS CONFLICTS.-- RALPH ERSKINE. W/E\ are now in the heart of the Scottish conflicts of the century. It is the crisis of the contest between Cavalier and Whig. On one point the philosophers and the evangelicals agree: they are defenders of the House of Hanover and opponents of the Pretender and the Stuarts, of whom they could not expect that they would be supporters of culture on the one hand, or of Protestantism on the other. The last formidable contest between Jacobite and Whig, was decided in behalf of the latter in 1746, at Culloden; and henceforth the former. is sinking into a state of complaining and garrulous, though often lively, old age. The religious conflicts are deeper, and continue for a longer period. From the time of Hutcheson, there is a felt and known feud, not always avowed, between the new philosophy and the old theology. It would have been greatly for the benefit of both, had there been one to reconcile and unite them. In the absence of such, each ran its own {87} course and did its own work, being good so far as it went, and evil only in its narrowness and exclusiveness, in what it overlooked or denied. The philosophers were laudably engaged when they were unfolding man's intellectual, esthetic, and moral nature; but they missed the deepest properties of human nature, when, in the fear of the ghosts of fanaticism, they took no notice of man's feelings of want, his sense of sin, and his longing after God and immortality; and the views of theologians would have been more just and profound, had they observed -- always in the inductive manner of the Scottish school -- those nascent ideas of good and evil and infinity which are at the basis of all religious knowledge and belief. The evangelical preachers were only faithful to their great Master when they declined to allow the doctrines of grace to sink out of sight; but they erred so far as they opposed the refinement and liberal sentiments which the moral philosophers were introducing, and showed that they were incapable of fully appreciating the apostolic command, "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." Pity it is that it should be so, but it is only by vibrations that the world moves on, only by breezes that its atmosphere is kept pure; and when the church errs by cowardice, it has to be rebuked by the unbelieving as -- an old Covenanter might have said -- the father of the faithful was rebuked by a pagan Egyptian. It was only in a later age, and mainly through the influence of Chalmers, that the church was prepared heartily to accept what was true in the Scottish philosophy, and to acknowledge its compatibility with the doctrine of salvation by grace.
Three distinct religious parties are being formed in Scotland, not including the covenanting "remnant," who never submitted to the Revolution settlement, and whose vocation was on the mountains, rather than the colleges of their country. First, in the Church of Scotland there is the "Moderate" type of minister crystallized by coldness out of the floating elements. He is or be affects to be elegant and tolerant, and he is terribly afraid of a zealous religious life. He wishes to produce among the people a morality without religion, or at least without any of the peculiar dogmas of Christianity. As yet he himself is a moral man, and the people are moral, for they believe in the old theology; in the next age both pastors and people, retaining little faith, become considerably immoral, showing that, if we would have the fruit good, we must make the tree good. This party, preaching moral sermons without doctrine, is the genuine product of the Scottish philosophy in the Church of Scotland.
Secondly, the Evangelical party, called by their opponents `zealots' and `highflyers,' were placed in an ambiguous position and shorn of much of their strength since the enforcement of the law of patronage. They are fast becoming a minority, and a small minority, in the church; and they have to submit to much that they abhor, as, for example, to the settlement of pastors contrary to the will of the people. But they labor earnestly to keep alive the fire all through the dark and wild night; they cherish fellowship with other evangelical churches, and anticipate the missionary spirit of a later {88} age by countenancing the " Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge." They come into collision with the philosophic moralists by maintaining so resolutely the doctrines of grace; and they carry their antagonism to the " legal " system to the very verge of Antinomianism, as shown in their favor for the "Marrow of Divinity," this by a reaction prompting the moral divines to preach a morality without an atonement for immorality.
Thirdly, beyond the Established Church, the Seceding body, encompassed with hardships as fierce as the storms, but breathing a spirit as free as the air of their country, are rallying around them the old-fashioned and more determined religious life of Scotland. At this stage of its history it serves itself heir to the Covenants of the previous century, blames the Church of Scotland for being too indulgent, is intolerant of toleration, and has little sympathy with other churches. This body is beneath the notice of the philosophers; and in return it shows its utter distrust of them by declining to allow its students to attend the classes of moral philosophy, and appointing a professor of its own to give instruction in that branch, on which, as on other high departments of learning, it continued to set a high value. The event of that period which agitated lowland Scotland more than even the inroad of the Pretender was the preaching of Whitefield, which moved the common people as the winds do the trees of the forest. The moderate party affected to despise and actually hated the preacher and his doctrine. The evangelicals in the Established Church rejoiced in his labors and their fruits. The seceders might have triumphed in his success; but they expected him to identify himself with their peculiar ecclesiastical constitution, and stand by them in the fight for the old cause of the Covenant. Upon Whitefield declining to do this, they became jealous of his influence, and were in doubts about the sound character of the revivals which he was the means of awakening. Out of this arose a very curious controversy, forgotten by all but a few antiquarians, but not unworthy of being noticed.
Mr. Robe, belonging to the evangelical party in the Church of Scotland, and a promoter of revivals and of the lively feeling manifested in them, declared that "our senses and imagination are greatly helpful to bring us to the knowledge of the divine nature and perfections; " and in defending this he asked: " Can you or any man else think upon Christ really as he is, God-man, without an imaginary idea of it?" To this Ralph Erskine, the seceder, replies in a treatise Of 372 closely printed pages, entitled " Faith no Fancy; or a Treatise of Mental Images, discovering the Vain Philosophy and Vile Divinity of a late Pamphlet entitled `Mr. Robe's Fourth Letter to Mr. Fisher,' and showing that an Imaginary Idea of Christ as Man (when supposed to belong to Saving Faith, whether in its Act or Object) imports nothing but Ignorance, Atheism, Idolatry, great Falsehood, or gross Delusion " (1745). He says of Mr. Robe: " This way of speaking appears indeed new and strange divinity to me, and makes the object of faith truly a sensible object; not the object of faith, but of sense." This leads him to criticise various philosophies. He refers to Tertuilian (as quoted by Jerome), who in regard to Platonic ideas said, " Haereticorum patriarchae philosophi." He shows him that the learned De Vries, Mastricht, and other eminent doctors {89} and divines abroad, had noticed how the ideal doctrine of Cartesius and his followers had led to imagery and idolatry. He also criticises Locke with considerable skill. "There seems nothing more common in the experience of mankind than that a man who hath the greatest stock of habitual knowledge and understanding relating to many truths, yet while his body sleeps, or his mind is in a muse about other things, lie perceives none of theme truths." So "I see no greater absurdity in saying one may leave a stock of seminal or habitual knowledge, though lie leave no actual knowledge, than to say one may have a stock of senses, though be hath no actual sensation, or consciousness of the acts or exercise of any of his senses, as a child not born or a man in a deep sleep; or a natural store of affections subjectively in him, and yet affected with nothing till occasions and objects appear. One may have a good pair of eyes, and yet see nothing till light be given and objects be presented. Nor is it an improper way of speaking to say a man hath not his eyes or sight, though he be not actually seeing. And as little is it improper to say a man hath understanding and knowledge, though he be not actually knowing or perceiving the truths he has the impress of in his understanding." This is a wonderfully clear statement of the distinctions between the seminal capacity and the actual ideas, between a laid-up stock and occasions, by which philosophers have sought to overthrow the theory of Locke. In regard to the special question discussed, Mr. Robe had quoted the received rule, "." Erskine quotes against him Hieroboord, " Mens non indiget semper phantasmata ad suas perceptiones." "The object of that idea is only corporeal things as corporeal; but the object of rational knowledge is not only corporeal things, but spiritual and corporeal things, not as corporeal, but as intelligible." " It is reason, and not sense, that is the only help to attain the natural knowledge of God and his perfections." Above reason he places faith. " True faith differs as much from, and is as far above, mere intellectual ideas as intellectual ideas are above corporeal and imaginary ideas; yea, much farther than human reason is above sense; even as far as what is above human and supernatural, is above merely natural." It is evident that there are curious questions started, though not precisely settled, as to the place which the phantasm has in thought, and the imagination in religion. We feel that we are in the society of men of reflection and of reading. The evangelical and the seceding ministers of these days are quite as erudite as the academic men who despised them, and are holding firmly by old truths which the new philosophy is overlooking.
IX.-- ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL. H/E\ was a pupil of Professor Simson's, in Glasgow, and became minister of Tarbert in Stirlingshire. I have been able to collect few notices of him. He is worthy of being mentioned, as having had played upon him one of the basest tricks mentioned in literary history. He wrote a treatise on {90} "Moral Virtue," and sent it up to London to his friend, Alexander Innes, D.D., assistant at St. Margaret's, Westminster, to have it published; and Innes published it in his own name, with the date, Tothill Fields, Jan. 20, 1727- 28. In 1730, Campbell went to London and exposed Innes's imposture. It seems that the Lord Chancellor, believing that Innes was the author of the work, presented him to a living. The Chancellor, being convinced of the deceit, sought to male amends by offering a living to Campbell, who declined the offer, saying that he preferred his own country; and he becomes professor of ecclesiastical history in St. Andrews. In 1733, he published the work in his own name, dating it St. Andrews, and disowning the " Prefatory Introduction " and " some little marginal notes of Innes." "An Inquiry into the Original of Moral Virtue, wherein is shown, against the Author of the Fable of the Bees, that Virtue is founded in the Nature of Things, is unalterable and eternal, and the great Means of Private and Public Happiness, with some Reflections on a late Book entitled `An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue.' " Hutcheson, whom he thus assailed, spoke of him as no better than a disciple of Epicurus. His system is the boldest form of self-love. " Human nature is originally formed to pleasure and pain." " There is, indeed, a. distinction of goodness into natural and moral, but the latter as well as the former lies wholly in pleasure." 'God and all mankind are governed by one common principle, viz., self-love." "They can favor or esteem no other beings but as they gratify this principle." " The affections and actions that correspond to the self-love of our own species are likewise agreeable to the self-love of the Deity." " From self-love we desire the love and esteem of other intelligent beings." There is a passage in which there is an anticipation of Smith's theory of sympathy: " Whatever tenderness we conceive in favor of other people, it comes from putting ourselves in their circumstances, and must therefore be resolved into self- love." He also wrote a treatise on the " Necessity of Revelation," 1739; and another, " Oratio de Vanitate Luminis Naturae." He thinks it impossible that man kind, left to themselves, should `discover' the great truths and articles of natural religion, or should be capable of giving a system to natural religion." He died in April, 1756. A posthumous work, " The Authenticity of the Gospel History," was published 1759. He was opposed by [Alexander Moncrieff].
X.-- ALEXANDER MONCRIEFF.[20]
A/LEXANDER\ M/ONCRIEFF\ Of Culfergie in the parish of Abernethy was educated at the grammar school of Perth and St. Andrews University, and became minister of his native parish. He was favorable to the Marrow school of divinity, and took part with the Erskines in defending the popular rights and in seceding from the Church of Scotland, being one of the four fathers of the secession. In 1724, he was made their professor of divinity. He {91} died in 1761. He wrote "An Inquiry into the Principle, Rule, and End of Moral Actions, wherein the Scheme of Selfish Love laid down by Mr. Archibald Campbell . . . is examined, and the received Doctrine vindicated." To quote the summary supplied by his biographers, he establishes the following propositions: " (1) To show that self-love is not, or ought not to be, the leading principle of moral virtue; (2) That self-interest or pleasure is not the only standard by which we can and should judge of the virtue of our own and others' actions, or that actions are not to be called virtuous on account of their correspondency to self-interest; (3) That self-love, as it exerts itself in the desire of universal, unlimited esteem, ought not to be the great remaining motive to virtuous actions," &c.
XI.-- RISE OF THE ABERDEEN BRANCH. T/HE\ north-east of Scotland, -- embracing Aberdeen, Banff, Murray, Mearns, and a large portion of Angus, -- though now very much amalgamated with the rest of Scotland, had a character of its own in the seventeenth century. The people had a large Scandinavian element in their composition, had a shrill intonation, and a marked idiom, and a harder aspect (though probably with quite as much feeling within) than the people of the south and west. When Samuel Johnson lumbered through the region in 1773, and visited Lord Monboddo, he found it miserably bare of trees; but, had he travelled a century or two earlier, he would have had to pass through wide-spread forests. These were cut down in the seventeenth century; and in the stead of the deer and wild animals a more industrious people substituted sheep and cattle, ranging over high mountains and large undulating plains, on which you would have seen patches of oats or bear here and there around the clay or turf dwellings of the tenants, but few fences or enclosures of any kind, except in the immediate neighborhood of the proprietors, whose castles and gardens, on the French model, relieved the wildness of the scene. On to the eighteenth century the rural population consisted of landlords, with rather small farmers absolutely dependent on them, and who paid their rent in the service, on certain occasions, of men and horses, and in such articles as oats, bear, mutton, salmon, geese, poultry, and peats. In these regions the peasantry had not been taught to think and act for themselves, as they had been in the south-west by the ploughing {92} up of the soil effected by the great covenanting movement. But in some of the towns, particularly in Aberdeen, which was looked up to as a capital by a considerably wide district, there was not a little refinement, which spread its influence over the landlords, the ministers of religion, and the other professional men: in particular, there had been in the city named a gifted painter, Jameson, a disciple of Rubens; and a very superior printer, Raban, who put in type the works of the Aberdeen doctors. The two universities, King's and Marischial's, trained and sent forth a large body of educated men, some of whom found their proper field on the Continent; while the great body of them remaining at home, were the special instruments-as teachers, clergymen, doctors, lawyers, or country gentlemen-of spreading a civilizing influence in these regions. For ten years after the Restoration, seventy students entered annually at King's, and a considerable number, though not so large, at Marischal some of these rose to eminence, and all of them helped to create a taste for learning and an appreciation for it, on the southern slope of the Grampians, and in the wide region lying north of that range of mountains, which was never crossed by the Roman legions, but was now conquered by the Roman literature.
The Calvinistic and covenanting principles which had determined the Scottish character in the south and west, and so far north as Fife, Perth, and some parts of Angus, had not generally permeated the region beyond. No doubt, the common people in the northern counties gladly listened to the evangelical preachers from the west, when they had the opportunity; and some of the covenanting ministers, banished in the times of persecution from their own people in the south, gathered around them in the places of their exile -- as Samuel Rutherford in Aberdeen, David Dickson in Turriff - - bodies of devoted adherents attached to the Presbyterian preaching and organization. Still these were as yet merely fermenting, but leavening, centres in the midst of influences which were resisting their extension. In the wide country held by the Gordon family, the Roman Catholic religion still held its sway. In the other parts, the landlords, the college regents, and the clergy were mostly Cavalier in politics and High Church in religion; and the mass of the people bad not learned to claim the prerogative {93} of thinking and acting for themselves. When a deputation from the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland-consisting of Alexander Henderson, Samuel Rutherford, and Andrew Cant-went north to Aberdeen to proclaim the Covenant in 1638, they were met by "Replies and Duplies" on the part of the Aberdeen doctors, and the landlords discouraged their tenantry from following the new zeal imported from the south. The divines of Aberdeen, during that century, such as Baron and John Forbes (author of "Irenicum"), were adherents of Episcopacy; their studies were in the later fathers of the church, and their sympathies with the Laudean divines of England; and like them they wrote against Popery on the one hand, and Puritanism on the other. It was years after the Revolution before the Presbyterian Church could put its legal rights in execution in the north-east of Scotland. Almost all the old Presbyterian ministers had disappeared; and, in 1694, the Synod of Aberdeen consisted of six clerical members, most of them brought from the south. It was not till 1703 that John Willison was settled as first Presbyterian minister at Brechin in Angus; it was not till 1708 that he was in a position to dispense the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. When he intimated that he was to do so next Lord's day, Mr. Skinner, the Episcopalian minister who preached in the same church in the after part of the day, announced that he would dispense the communion on the same day in the afternoon to his supporters; and the ecclesiastical records report that 1500 communicated with Mr. Skinner. When Mr. Gray was appointed minister of Edzell, in the same district, the Presbytery had to conduct the services at his ordination in a neighboring parish; and they then passed into the parish to " lay hands on him " and return immediately; and, on the following sabbath when he rode to Edzell for the purpose of preaching, the people, hounded on by the landlords, took him off his horse, flung him into the West Water, and kept him there till he was nearly drowned, " to their eternal disgrace," as he causes it to be written in the parish records. During the Rebellion of 1715 the Presbyterian ministers were rabbled from their churches, which were occupied by the nonjuring clergy praying for the Pretender. A considerable body of the students in both the Aberdeen colleges sympathized {94} with the banished king; and, after
the battle of Sheriffmuir, several of the professors had to retire in consequence of the part which they had taken against the government. It was not till after the suppression of the Rebellion of 1715,-indeed, not fully till after the crushing of the chieftain power after 1745,-that the north-east of Scotland became one with the south of Scotland in religion and in national feeling.
In the universities, both tinder Prelatic and Presbyterian domination, the philosophy taught had been to a great extent Aristotelian and scholastic. The university commissioners appointed, in 1643, a for Aberdeen; and in it the student is required, after taking Greek the first year, to go on the second year to the dialectics of Ramus, to Aristotle's categories, interpretation, and prior analytics, and in the third year to the rest of logics and portions of the ethics of Aristotle, &c. In the " Metaphysics " of Robert Baron, who lectured in Marischal College in the first half of the seventeenth century, he treats of being, unity, and goodness; enters fully into the controversy between the Thomists and Scotists; gives the divisions of and of cause, and treats of necessity and contingency, of sameness and diversity, of absolute and relative, of whole and parts. In the university library of Aberdeen we have theses occupying 121 pages by Andrew Cant, the younger, of date 1658; in these he shows that he knew the Copernican theory of the heavens and Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood: but the whole discussions are conducted in a formal manner; and he dwells fondly on the scholastic logic, in the treatment of which he shows some independence of thought. In 1710 there was published a work by Thomas Blackwell, who had come from Paisley, in 1700, to be minister at Aberdeen in the Presbyterian interest, and who was made professor in 1711, and principal in 1717: his work is entitled " Schema Sacrum, or a Sacred Scheme of Natural and Revealed Religion; " and in it the common orthodox theology is defended by the old distinctions, and there are no traces of a new spirit or a new school.
But, after the year 1715, Aberdeen was prepared for a new style of thought. The High Church theology was no longer encouraged, except among a scattered nonjuring clergy subjected to poverty and privation. The Calvinistic divinity had {95}never struck its roots deep into the soil; but the literature and physical science of England were known to and relished by the educated classes, and there must be a fresh philosophy to meet the awakened intelligence and new tastes of the country. The first to gratify this feeling was a young graduate of Edinburgh, appointed as one of the rectors in Marischal by the Crown, which had seized the patronage of the college, vacated by the attainder of Earl Marischal, who had been out in the rebellion.
XII. -- GEORGE TURNBULL.[21] T/HE\ celebrated Hogarth, in his "Beer Street," has a graphic picture of a porter drinking barley wine, after depositing on the ground a load, directed to the trunk- maker, of five enormous folios; one of which has on the back, "Turnbull on Ancient Paintings." Turnbull was one of the most voluminous writers of his age. I have read many thousand pages written by him; but I fear the greater part of the copies of his works have gone to the destiny indicated by Hogarth. It is disappointing to find that this author, who was both an able and a graceful writer, has passed away from the public view so effectively that it is difficult now to procure materials for his biography, or even to get a sight of most of his works. It may be doubted whether any one, except the writer of this history, has been at pains to peruse his works as a whole, for the last hundred years. Dugald Stewart, so well informed on British philosophy, had only looked into one of his volumes; and Sir William Hamilton, in his multifarious researches among obscure writers, does not seem to have thought it worth his while making any inquiries about him. Yet it can be shown that he exercised a greater influence than all other masters and writers put together on his pupil Thomas Reid,-the true representative of the Scottish philosophy. He seems to have been the son of the Rev. George Turnbull (his mother's name was Elizabeth Glass), of whom we {96} can gather a few scattered notices: as that he was born about 1656; that he graduated in Edinburgh University in 1675; that he became minister of Alloa in 1689, when the Episcopal clergyman was ejected; that he was translated to Tyningham in 1699; that he was nominated but not carried as moderator of the General Assembly in 1711; that he preached before that body in 1713; that his name appears among the members of "The Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge," in 1720 and that he died in June, 1744, at the age of eighty-eight. His son was born in 1698 (he was baptized July 15) graduated in Edinburgh in April, 1721 and in November of the same year he was appointed, by a presentation from the Crown, regent of Marischal College; and is taken on trial in philosophy and the Greek Language, and declares his willingness to sign the Confession of Faith. He comes to have among his colleagues Thomas Blackwell, son of the principal, admitted regent in 1723, who did much to create a taste for Greek in the college, and who is still known to antiquarian scholars by his learned but uninteresting works, "Inquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer," "Letters concerning Mythology," and " Memoirs of the Court of Augustus." In Aberdeen at that time there was-as we have seen there was in Glasgow-- a principal's party and an opposition party; and there were disputes about the election of the rector. The majority of the masters, including Mr. Turnbull, in opposition to the principal, Blackwell the elder, wish the society to make up a list of persons recommended for the office of rector, to be submitted to the procurators chosen by the students in their nations; and, upon the principal refusing, they elect a preses in his room, and choose a rector, who holds a court and summons the principal to appear before them; but they are stayed in their career by a suit from " the Lords of Council and Session." On April 14, 1726, he has carried a batch of thirty-nine students through a course of philosophy on to graduation; and the last name on the list is Thomas Reid. As having to preside on this occasion, he prepares a thesis, afterwards published, to be discussed by the candidates, -- "De Pulcherrima Mundi Materialis turn Rationalis Constitutione," -- in which the new physics are employed to furnish proofs of the existence of God, and in which he declares that natural science (physiology) is to be taught before moral philosophy, and inclines to censure Socrates because {97} he discouraged inquiries into the structure of nature. He also printed, when at Aberdeen, a " Thesis on the Connection of Natural and Moral Philosophy." In his lectures on pneumatology he delivered to his students those views which, after being rewritten, were given to the world in his treatise on moral philosophy. In his later writings he frequently quotes Hutcheson and Butler; but his own philosophic opinions seem to have been formed, and delivered in lectures, before either of these influential writers had published any of their works.
In 1726, he published "A Philosophical Inquiry concerning the Connection between the Doctrines and Miracles of Jesus Christ." In it he treats of subjects in which there is a revived interest and which are anxiously discussed in our day, and advances principles which would be favorably received by many in these times. He argues that the works of Jesus were natural proper samples of his doctrines. That he had abandoned the old theology of Scotland is evident, from his declaring that the Scripture way of talking about the Spirit of God and his operations means simply assistance to the virtuous. It is interesting to notice, that in this treatise he refers once and again to common-sense as settling certain moral questions; in this, as in other matters, anticipating and probably guiding Dr. Reid.
In the spring of 1727, Turnbull resigned his office in Marischal College; and for the next twelve years we have little record of him. There is reason to believe that he became a travelling tutor, -- it is said, to the family of the Wauchopes, of Niddry, near Edinburgh. It is certain that he must have travelled extensively on the Continent, and made himself conversant with the treasures of art in Italy. In 1732, he received the honorary degree of doctor of laws from the University of Edinburgh. He seems to have mingled in the literary circles of London,'[22] and acquired friends among persons of eminence. During these years he prepared an immense store of literary works, which were issued in rapid succession, -- more rapidly, I suspect, than the public were prepared to receive them. In {98} October, 1739, he advertises, at four guineas, in sheets, his " Treatise on Ancient Painting;" in which he has observations on the rise, progress, and decline of that art among the Greeks and Romans, comments on the genius of Raphael, Michael Angelo, Nicholas Poussin, and others, and illustrates the work will) engravings of fifty pieces of ancient painting. It will be remembered that Shaftesbury had " Disquisitions on Taste;" and we shall see most of the Scottish metaphysicians speculate on taste and beauty. The work was not of such an original or daring character as to recommend it to the genius of Hogarth; yet it seems to have had a considerable roll of subscribers. " is style is pleasant, and the remarks judicious and highly appreciative of the classical painters. In February, 1740, there appeared his most important work, and the only one that continues to be read, "The Principles of Moral Philosophy." At the close he promises, as soon as his health admits, a work on " Christian Philosophy," which was actually published before the close of the year; and in it he treats of the Christian doctrines concerning God, providence, virtue, and a future state, and recommends the Word of God because it embraces and illustrates such doctrines. He dates October, 1740, a preface and appendix to Heineccius's " Methodical System of Universal Law."[23] In 1742, he published " Observations upon Liberal Education; and in it he speaks as having long been engaged in the work of education. He subscribes himself as Chaplain to the Prince of Wales, and dedicates the treatise to the " Right Reverend Father in God," Thomas, Lord Bishop of Derry; in whose esteem, he says, " he had long had a share."[24] It appears that before {99}this time be had left the communion of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and entered into orders in the Episcopal Church of England, which was doubtless more congenial to his tastes. Through the bishop, to whom he dedicated his work, he was appointed Rector of Drumachose, in the diocese of Derry. I cannot find that he left any mark behind him in that parish: there is no remembrance of him in the popular tradition of the district, and no record of him in the diocese. In consequence of failing health, he went to the Continent, and died at the Hague, Jan. 31, 1748.[25]
Turnbull was the first metaphysician of the Scottish -- I believe of any -- school to announce unambiguously and categorically that we ought to proceed in the method of induction in investigating the human mind. He takes as the motto of his " Moral Philosophy " the passage from Newton about the method of natural philosophy being applicable to moral subjects, and the line of Pope, " Account for moral as for natural things." His enunciations on this subject are as clear and decided as those of Reid and Stewart in after ages. "If a fact be certain, there is no reasoning against it; but every reasoning, however specious it may be, -- or rather however subtle and confounding, -- if it be repugnant to fact, must be sophistical." It must have been from Turnbull that Reid learned, even as it was from Reid that Stewart learned, to appeal to common language as built on fact or universal feeling. "Language not being invented by philosophers, but contrived to express common sentiments or what every one perceives, we may be morally sure that where universally all languages make a distinction there is really in nature a difference." Reid only catches the spirit of his old master, who speaks of " philosophers who, seeking the knowledge of human nature not from experience, but from I know not what subtle theories of their own invention, depart from common language, and therefore are {100} not understood by others, and sadly perplex and involve them selves." In some respects, his exposition of the method is more comprehensive and correct (so I believe) than that given by Reid and Stewart; inasmuch as he avows distinctly that, having got facts and ideas from experience, we may reason deductively from them, in what Mr. J. S. Mill calls the deductive method, but which is in fact a joint inductive and deductive method. He sees clearly that in natural philosophy there is a mixture of experiments with reasonings from experiments; and he asserts that reasonings from experiments may have the same relation to moral philosophy that mathematical truths have to natural philosophy. " In both cases equally, as soon as certain powers or laws of nature are inferred from experience, we may consider them, reason about them, and compare them with other properties, powers, or laws." He instances among the moral ideas which we may compare, and from which we may draw deductions, those of intelligence, volition, affection, and habit. Moral philosophy is described by him as a mixed science of observations, and reasoning from principles known by experience to take place in or to belong, to human nature. In his preface to Heineccius, he says that the appended " discourse upon the nature and origin of laws is an attempt to introduce the experimental way of reasoning into morals, or to deduce human duties from internal principles and dispositions in the human mind." In following this method, he claims to be superior to Puffendorf, to Grotius, and the older jurists.
Proceeding in this method he discovers, both in matter and mind, an established order and excellent general laws, and on this subject quotes largely from his contemporaries Berkeley and Pope. He constantly appeals to these laws as illustrating the divine wisdom; and to the excellence of laws as justifying the divine procedure, despite certain incidental acts which may flow from them. As inquirers discover these laws, science is advanced; and he dwells as fondly on the progressiveness of knowledge as Bacon had done and as Stewart has done.
In particular, he shows that if we look at human nature as a whole, and at its several parts, we shall find beneficent general laws. He discovers in our constitution means to moral ends, and the science of these means and ends is properly {101} called moral philosophy. He shows that by such a study we can discover what are natural laws; and that, in all well-regulated states, the sum and substance of what is called its civil laws are really laws of natural and universal obligation adding that "civil law adopts only those laws of nature on which the quiet of mankind entirely depends, and that there are other duties to which men must attend out of reverence to their Creator and sincere love to mankind, without regard to the fear of human penalties." He shows that mankind are not left indifferent to virtue and to beauty: "As we are capable of distinguishing truth from falsehood, so we are capable of distinguishing good and approvable actions, affections, and characters, from bad and disapprovable ones." He would call this capacity moral sense, moral taste, moral discernment, or moral conscience. Like Shaftesbury (" who must live forever in the esteem of all who delight in moral inquiries"), and Hutcheson, whom he often approvingly quotes, he represents the virtues as capable of being reduced into benevolence.
In unfolding the elements of human nature, he dwells with evident fondness on the "association of ideas." He does not seem to attempt an ultimate resolution of the laws; but he considers association as "a league or cohesion formed by frequent conjunction in the mind," and says that "any appearance immediately suggests its concomitants and consequents to us." He adds, that association is more easily engendered between ideas that have some affinity or likeness." It may be doubted whether we have a better account at this day of the law of association as a whole. In regard to what Brown calls " secondary laws," and Hamilton the " law of preference," he prescribes two rules from Cicero for helping the memory: one is to attend to the things we would wish to recall; and the other is to consider its analogies, relations, and oppositions to other objects which will thus call it up. He accounts (as Stewart does) by the association of ideas for the law of habit, which he represents as a " propension to do, and a facility and readiness in doing, what we have often done." He shows truly and ingeniously how association influences the senses, by connecting the qualities perceived by one sense with those perceived by the others (a subject much dwelt on in a later age {102} by Brown); and, in particular, how, according to the theory of Berkeley, it aids the eye in discovering distance, not itself an idea of sight. He shows how our ideas have other ideas so associated with them that they make one perception, and how difficult it is to separate ideas that have thus been associated, and to find out precisely and philosophically what is involved in any particular idea, and how apt we are in consequence to confound qualities that are different. He is particularly successful in showing that desires and volitions are prompted by associations. " Ideas, as often as they return, must excite certain affections; and the affections which lead to action must, as often as they are revived, dispose and excite to act, or, in other words, produce will to act." He remarks that " very few, if any, of the ideas which excite our warmest and keenest affections are quite free from associated parts." He insists that " various associations must produce various tempers and dispositions of mind; since every idea, as often as it is repeated, must move the affection it naturally tends to excite, and ideas with their correspondent affections often returning must naturally form inclinations, propensions, and tempers." He would account in this way for much of our feeling of beauty, and for propensity to imitate passing into custom. His exposition of the association of ideas is more satisfactory and accurate than the one, so much commended, published by Hume at the same time; and is far more philosophical than that given by Reid, who, in this respect, fell behind his master. I jam acquainted with no exposition of this part of our constitution published prior to his time which seems to me so full and correct.
His ideas on education are liberal and advanced. He is opposed to corporal punishment, and declares that the grand aim of education should be to foster good habits. Giving a high place to the study of the mind, he maintains, as did all the great masters of the Aberdeen school who came after him, that mental science should not be taught to young men till their minds have been other-wise well furnished. He gives logic a somewhat large and wide field;, in this respect, too, like the Scottish metaphysicians who came after him. Its province is to " examine the power and faculties of our minds (favorite phrases of Reid's), their objects, and operations; to inquire {103} into the foundations, the causes of error, deceit, and false taste; and, for that effect, to compare the several arts and sciences with one another, and to observe how each of them may derive light and assistance from all the rest. Its business is to give a full view of the natural union, connection, and dependence of all the sciences." Like Reid, and Stewart after him, he sets a high value on the study of " the nature and degrees of moral, probable, or historical evidence," and complains that it is left out in the logical treatises. The teacher should aim to make his pupil look at things, instead of words. At the same time, he recommends the study of languages with the study of things employing language in an enlarged sense, as embracing the different methods of expressing, embellishing, or enforcing and recommending truth, such as oratory, poetry, design, sculpture, and painting. He complains that in education the arts of design are quite severed, not only from philosophy, but from classical studies. The object contemplated by him in his work on " Painting " was to bring these various branches into union: he thinks that paintings may teach moral philosophy. The essential elements of painting are represented by him as being truth, beauty, unity, greatness, and grace, in composition. He dwells fondly on the analogy between the sense of beauty and moral sense; and on the inseparable connection between beauty and truth. His works on " education " and on the fine arts are clear and judicious, written in a pleasant and equable, but at the same time a commonplace style; and they seem never to have attracted the attention which they deserved, and which would have been freely given to works of greater pretension, eccentricity, or extravagance.
But, after all, we are most interested in noticing the points in which Turnbull seems to have influenced Reid. We have already had some of these before us. We have seen that Turnbull announces as clearly as Reid that the human mind is to be studied by careful observation. Both are averse to abstruse scholastic distinctions and recondite ratiocinations on moral subjects. Turnbull ever appeals, as Reid did after him, to consciousness as the instrument of observation. Both are fond of designating mental attributes by the terms ,powers " and "faculties." Both would give a wide, and I may add a loose, field to logic, and include in it the inquiry into the nature of probable evidence. {104} In proceeding in the way of observation, both discover natural laws or principles, and both call them by the name of " common-sense." " Common-sense is certainly sufficient to teach those who think of the matter with tolerable seriousness and attention, all the duties and offices of human life; all our obligations to God and our fellow- creatures; all that is morally fit and binding. And there is no need of words to prove that to be morally fit and obligatory, which common-sense and reason clearly show to be so." Reid holds that all active power implies mind. This was the expressed doctrine of Turnbull before him. " It is, therefore, will alone that produces both power and productive energy." " To speak of any other activity and power, is to Speak without any meaning at all; because experience, the only source of all our ideas (and of the materials of our knowledge), does not lead us to any other conception or idea of power." Nor should it be omitted that both -- in this respect, however, like all the other Scotch metaphysicians ever speak with profound reverence of Scripture; ever, however, dwelling most fondly on those doctrines of the word which are also truths of natural religion; such as the existence of God, the obligations of morality, and the immortality of the soul.
I have been at pains to trace these agreements, not with the view of depreciating the originality and still less the independence of Reid, who may have had some of these views suggested to him by his teacher, but who may have afterwards found them in other writers, and who no doubt thought them all for himself, and adopted them because they seemed to him to be sound.[26] We have seen that in one or two points, Reid fell behind his master, who had clearer apprehensions than his pupil of mingling deductive with inductive observation, and of the laws of the association of ideas. But in other and more important philosophic doctrines, Reid passed far beyond his teacher. Reid claims to be original in rejecting the ideal theory of sense perception; which had been the received one for two thousand years, which had been adopted by Locke, and pursued to its logical consequences by Berkeley. But Turn bull evidently adheres to the old view. " Properly speaking, what we call matter and space are but certain orders of sensible {105} ideas produced in us, according to established rules of nature, by some external cause; for when we speak of material effects and of space, we only mean, and can indeed only mean, certain sensible perceptions excited in our mind according to a certain order, which are experienced to be absolutely inert and passive, and to have no productive force." He speaks of the "external material world " as unperceived by us, and in itself absolutely unperceivable, as all philosophers acknowledged When, in speaking of the material world, he says it may be called the "external cause or occasion of those sensible ideas, and their connections, which make to each of us what we call the sensible world," we see that this is the doctrine which Reid set aside g, and yet we may notice that the phrase " occasion " is used by Turnbull, as by Reid, to designate the relation of the external action to the internal perception. In another point, Reid made a more important advance upon Turnbull. Living at a later age, Reid had to meet the objections of the great modern revolutionist, and had in consequence to dive down into profounder depths of the human constitution. The scepticism of Hume brought out to view the superficialities of the philosophy of Shaftesbury, partly by following its principles to their legitimate consequences, but mainly by making all men feel that it is nothing wherewith to meet the assaults of the new and formidable enemy. Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and Turnbull had all appealed to common-sense; but Reid behoved to take a deeper and more searching view of the principles which constitute common- sense, in order to meet the exigencies of the new era.
Turnbull's works had no great circulation in their own day, and they speedily disappeared from public view. It might have been different had he continued in Aberdeen, and gathered around him a body of young men ready to receive and to propagate the lessons he taught them. But he departed into other fields, -- into the literary circle of England, and a church which set more value on liturgy than on abstract doctrine, -- and there he met with few to appreciate his gifts. A Presbyterian Scot might have urged, with some plausibility, that his name has perished because he forsook the country and the church in which his philosophic labors would have been valued. It might even have been different, had he published his metaphysical {106} treatises a dozen of years earlier; for then they might have run their course with those of Hutcheson and Butler. But at the very time that Turnbull advertised his work on "Moral Philosophy," Hume published his "Treatise of Human Nature," which, as it forced its way to the front, required philosophy to deepen its foundations and give a new facing to its buttresses. Turnbull is remembered because he had, for three years, when he was himself a very young man, a diligent and thoughtful pupil, who in due time wrestled with the great sceptic, and is acknowledged by Scotland as the representative of its native philosophy.
XIII.-- DAVID FORDYCE. [27] H/E\ was born in Aberdeen in 1711, entered Marischal College in 1742, and was drowned at sea, as he was returning from travel, in September, 1751. During that age and the next there was a strong disposition towards the study of mental philosophy. In 1748, R. Dodsley began the publication of the " Preceptor," in London, and Fordyce wrote the article on " Moral Philosophy." He was appointed professor of moral philosophy in the college in which he bad been educated, in 1742. In 1745, he published " Dialogues concerning Education," a very pleasantly written book. He discusses the question whether nature or training does most, and inquires whether the Socratic method is fitted to bring forth what is in our nature. He dwells fondly, like most of the philosophers of the Scottish school, on the influence of the association of ideas. The religion he recommends was evidently the moderate type: " As the religion of Christ was designed as a plain, consistent rule of life, and not a system of abstracted reasonings and speculations, -- to influence the heart more than fill the head, -- I would endeavor above all things a high spirit of disinterested and extensive virtue." He was author also of an essay on "Action of the Pulpit." After his death there was published a work of his, " Theodorus, a Dialogue concerning the Art of Preaching," to which was added " A discourse on the Eloquence of the Pulpit, by James Fordyce." His " Elements of Moral Philosophy" was published in 1754. There is little that is original in his works, but much that is judicious and useful. It is evident that he was acquainted with the works of Butler and Hutcheson. " Moral philosophy contemplates human nature, its moral powers and connections, and deduces the laws of action." " Moral philosophy has this in common with natural {107} philosophy that it appeals to nature or to fact." He finds passions or affections, some private, some public, and above these; (1) reason or reflection; (2) conscience, by which we denominate some actions and principles of conduct honest and good, and others wrong, dishonest, or ill." " We came by the idea of moral obligation or duty in the same way as our other original and primary perceptions: we receive them from the Author of our nature." We employ reason in moral cases, in "examining the condition, relations, and other circumstances of the agent, and patient." " Therefore, when we use these terms, obligation, duty, ought, and the like, they stand for a simple idea." He opposes those who establish morals on the divine will, and those who place it in the natures and reasons, truths and fitnesses, of things."
XIV.-- WILLIAM DUNCAN.[28] H/E\ was born in Aberdeen, July, 1717, and was the son of a respectable tradesman. He received his education partly at Aberdeen and partly at Foveran. He entered Marischal College in 1733, and took his degree in 1737. Originally, he was designed for the gospel ministry; but not finding an inclination for the work, he went, as so many Scottish youths have done in like circumstances, to London (in 1739), and devoted himself to literature; translating " Select Orations of Cicero " and " Caesar's Commentaries," which were long found useful by youths averse to turn over the leaves of a dictionary. He wrote for Dodsley's " Preceptor " the article on " Logic and this was afterwards published in a separate volume, and continued for an age or two to furnish, not very philosophical but very useful, instruction to Scottish and other youths. The work is partly psychological partly logical. In Book First he treats of the origin and division of ideas, and of language; in the Second, of judgment, self-evident and demonstrable; in the Third, of reasoning and demonstration; and in the Fourth, of invention, science, and the parts, of knowledge. He was appointed professor of philosophy in Marischal College, May 18, 1752, and entered the professorship, Aug. 21, 1753. He was drowned when bathing, May, 1760.
XV.-- JOHN STEVENSON.[29] F/ROM\ the date at which we have now arrived, we have a succession of distinguished men testifying to the benefit they received. from the instruction imparted in the departments of logic and moral philosophy in the Scotch colleges. As being among the eminently successful teachers of his age, we have to give a place to John Stevenson, professor of Logic or {108} "Rational and Instrumental philosophy" in the University of Edinburgh. Dugald Stewart says of him that to his ,valuable prelections, particularly to his illustrations of Aristotle's "Poetics," and of Longinus on the "Sublime," Dr. Robertson has been often heard to say, that lie considered himself as more deeply indebted than to any other circumstance in his academic studies." "I derived," says Dr. Somerville, "more substantial benefit from these exercises and lectures than from all the public classes I attended at the university." Similar testimony is borne by the famous leader of the evangelical party in the Church of Scotland, Dr. Erskine (see Life by Sir Henry W. Moncreiff). The course of instruction followed by Stevenson is given in the Scots Magazine, and is well worthy of being quoted as an exhibition of the highest style of education imparted in the age. He gives lectures upon "Heineccii Elementa Philosopliae Rationalis," and Wynne's abridgment of Locke's "Essay upon the Human Understanding: " in which he explains all the different forms of reasoning, the nature of certainty both mathematical and moral, with the different degrees of probability; and shows how the understanding is to be conducted in our inquiries after truth of all kinds. He likewise explains the fundamental rules to be observed in the interpretation of the texts of very ancient authors. He teaches metaphysics in lectures upon De Vries's "Ontologia," in which he explains the several terms and distinctions which frequently occur in the writings of the learned. He also lectures upon Longinus, in which he illustrates the several precepts of oratory given by Cicero and Quintilian; and also, upon Aristotle, in which he illustrates his rules by examples from ancient and modern poets, and explains the grounds of criticism in eloquence and poetry. He gives likewise a course upon "Heineccii Historia Philosophica," in which he gives an account of the most famous philosophers ancient and modern, and the several opinions by which the different sects were distinguished. Each of his students is required to make a discourse upon a subject assigned him, and to impugn and defend a thesis, for his improvement in the art of reasoning. These exercises are performed before the principal and some of the professors with open doors. The students met him two hours daily; one of them was devoted to lectures on logic, delivered in the Latin tongue. It is stated that the college opens about the 10th of October, and rises about the end of May. The shortening of the length of the session in the colleges of Scotland, in later years, has done much to lower the standard of attainment.
John Stevenson was appointed professor in Edinburgh, in 1730, and died Sept. 12th, 1775, in the eighty-first year of his age. It is mentioned to his credit, by Stewart, that at the age of seventy be gave a candid reception to the philosophy of Reid, which was subversive of the theories which he had taught for forty years; and that "his zeal for the advancement of knowledge prompted him, when his career was almost finished, to undertake the laborious task of new-modelling that useful compilation of elementary instruction to which a singular diffidence of his powers limited his literary exertions." (Stewart's " Life and Writings of Reid.") {109}
XVI.-- SIR JOHN PRINGLE.[30] H/E\ was for a time " professor of pneumatology and ethical philosophy " in Edinburgh University. The pneumatics are divided into the following parts: (1) A physical inquiry into the nature of such subtle and material substances as are imperceptible to the senses, and known only front their operations; (2) The nature of immaterial substances connected with matter, in which is demonstrated, by natural evidence, the immortality of the human soul (3) The nature of immaterial created beings not connected with matter (4) Natural theology, or the existence and attributes of God demonstrated front the light of nature. Ethics or moral philosophy is divided into the theoretical and practical parts, in treating of which the authors lie chiefly uses are Cicero, Marcus Antoninus, Puffendorf, and Lord Bacon. He had lectures explaining the origin and principles of civil government, illustrated with an account of the rise and fall of the ancient governments of Greece and Rome, and a view of that form of government which took its rise from the irruptions of the northern nations. His students have also discourses presented to them upon some important heads of pneumatical or moral philosophy, which are delivered before the principal with open doors. Pringle was by no means so thorough an instructor as Stevenson. Carlyle describes him "as an agreeable lecturer, though no great master of the science he taught." " His lectures were chiefly a compilation from Lord Bacon's works, and had it not been for Puffendorf's small book, which he made his text, we should not have been instructed in the rudiments of the science." Nevertheless, we see that he discussed topics which must issue, sooner or later, in a scientific jurisprudence and political economy. We see, in the case both of Stevenson and Pringle, how much attention was paid in the Scottish universities to the practice of English composition.
Pringle's taste did not lie specially in metaphysics. He was born in Roxburghshire, in 1707, and became a physician. He settled in Edinburgh about 1734; and after 1748, resided in London, where be was elected president of the Royal Society in 1773. He died in 1782
XVII.-- THOMAS BOSTON. W/E\ wish our readers to transport themselves to the eastern border country of Scotland, and to try to realize its condition in the first half of last century. People are apt to take their views of that district from Sir Walter Scott, who passed the most interesting portion of his boyhood there, and picking up the dim traditions of the past ere they were finally lost, and tingeing them with the romantic hues of his own imagination, has presented to us such a picture as a man of the nineteenth century, in love with chivalry, would be {110} likely to furnish of the ages of border strife. But the truth is, Sir Walter has given us only one side of the Scottish character; he never thoroughly sympathized with the more earnest features of the national mind, and he did not appreciate the attempts which were made in the seventeenth century to deliver the country from violence and superstition, and to Promote education and a scriptural religion. The people of the eighteenth century had such traditions of the earlier ages as to be glad that the days of the border raids had passed away. At the time we wish to sketch, two classes of people were to be found in the district. There were landed prorietors, disposed to allow no opposition to their not very generous or enlightened will, but who were already catching the taste for improving the land, which has made Berwickshire one of the most advanced agricultural districts in the three kingdoms. Under them were small farmers and their servants, with the ignorance and much of the rudeness of the previous ages, and not yet awakened to independent thought and action. Between them there was scarcely any middle class, except the parish ministers, who, in the early part of the century, if not highly cultivated, were zealous preachers of the doctrines of grace, and actively seeking to raise their people to church-going habits and a decent morality; and who, at a later date, as patrons began to assert their legal rights, and colleges adopted the new philosophy, became the most vehement opponents of the evangelical party: so that, in the days of Carlyle, the Synod of Merse and Teviotdale turned the vote against popular rights, and the ministers of it, coming to the General Assembly, rushed to the theatre to hear Mrs. Siddons when she happened to be in Edinburgh. Believing that there was nothing suited to them in such a religion, the common people set up in the towns and large villages seceding congregations, which drew towards them the more earnest of the inhabitants. Out of one of these congregations sprang Thomas M'Crie, who has given us the other phase of the Scottish character.
At the beginning of the century, the most remarkable man in the district was undoubtedly Thomas Boston. Born at Dunse in the previous century, he remembered his going, when a boy, to the prison of his native place to keep his father company when lie was incarcerated for resisting the imposition of Prelacy. All his life he is most sedulous and consistent in discountenancing the system of church patronage, which is being steadily introduced. Settled as a minister first in Simprin, and then in Ettrick, he is consumingly earnest in visiting once a year, in catechising twice a year, and in preaching on Sabbath-day and week-day to, an ignorant and careless people just rising out of barbarism. But he contrived to retain a literary taste amidst his active parochial employments. With a difficulty in getting books, and rejoicing so when a good one came in his way, he was able, by his own independent study, to develop views in regard to the importance of Hebrew points which were far in advance of those attained in his time by any British scholar. Endowed with a clear, logical mind, he has, in his " Fourfold State " and " Covenant of Grace," given us perhaps the best exposition we have of the old Scotch theology in its excellencies,-- some would add, in its exclusiveness. Living and breathing in the doctrine of free grace, he seized with avidity and valued excessively the " Marrow of Modern Divinity," {111} which he found in the cottage of one of his people, and he vigorously opposed the moral or legal preaching which was fast coming in with the new literature and philosophy. Singularly single-minded, earnest, and fervent in his piety, this man becomes a favorite and a power, first in his district, and, in the end, by his theological works all over Scotland. In reading his Memoirs, we observe that lie was painfully careful in watching his moods of mind, often referring to spiritual interposition what arose from wretched health; and that he was ever looking on events occurring in God's providence as indicating that he should pursue a particular line of conduct. It needed a philosophy -- we regret that it should have been an infidel one which did the work -- to correct these errors of a narrow theology.[31]
XVIII.-- DAVID DUDGEON. A/LREADY\ the old orthodoxy was being troubled. Mr. David Dudgeon published, in 1732, a work entitled "The Moral World." We have no record of the early history of this man, and we do not know whether he received a college education. When he comes under our notice, he is tenant of a large farm called Lennel Hill, in the parish of Coldstream. In the work referred to he maintains, with clearness and ability, a doctrine like that of Anthony Collins, whom he had read. He asserts " that there is no evil in the moral world but what necessarily ariseth from the nature of imperfect creatures, who always pursue their good, but cannot but be liable to error or mistake," and that evil or sin is inseparable in some degree from all created beings, and most consistent with the designs of a perfect Creator." On account of the errors in this work, he was summoned before the Presbytery, where two charges are brought against him: 1st, That he denies and destroys all distinction and difference between moral good and evil, or else makes God the author of evil, and refers all evil to the imperfection of creatures; 2d, That he denies the punishment of another life, or that God punishes men for sin in this life, -- yea, that man is accountable. He appears before the court, and holds it to be contrary to Scripture that man has free-will in the Arminian sense, but holds that man is accountable and punishable for practising contrary to the divine precepts of our Saviour, the practice of which tends to make all men happy. The case goes up from presbytery to synod, and from synod to General Assembly, which remits it to the Commission of Assembly in 1733, again in 1734, again in 1735, and again in 1736, with no evidence that the commission ever ventured {112} to take it up.[32] In 1734, he published a vindication of the " Moral World," in reply to a pamphlet against him, said to be written by Andrew Baxter; and therein he maintains that when a rogue is hanged he is set free to enter a state where he may be reformed. His most important work is " Philosophical Letters concerning the Being and Attributes of God," first printed in 1737. These letters were written, in the midst of pressing agricultural cares. to the Rev. Mr. Jackson, author of a work written in the spirit of Clarke, " The Existence and Unity of God." In these letters, Dudgeon reaches a species of refined Spinozism, mingled with Berkeleyanism. He denies the distinction of substances into spiritual and material, maintains that there is no substance distinct from God, and that "all our knowledge but of God is about ideas they exist only in the mind, and their essence and modes consist only in their being perceived." In 1739, he published a " Catechism founded upon Experience and Reason, collected by a Father for the use of his Children " and, in an introductory letter, lie wishes that natural religion alone was embraced by all men, and states that, though he believes there was an extraordinary man sent into our world seventeen hundred years ago to instruct mankind, yet he doubts whether he " ever commanded any of those things to be written concerning him which we have." The same year, he published " A View of the Necessitarian or Best Scheme, freed from the Objections of M. Crousaz, in his Examination of Pope's `Essay on Man.'"
Dudgeon died at Upsettlington, on the borders of England, January, 1743, at the age of thirty-seven. His works were published in a combined form in 1765, in a volume without a printer's name attached, showing, that there was not as yet thorough freedom of thought in Scotland. His writings had for a time a name in the district (the " Catechism " reached a third edition), but afterwards passed away completely from public notice. The late Principal Lee was most anxious to know more of his history, and in particular whether he could have influenced David Hume in personal intercourse or by his writings. As they lived in the same district, Hume must have heard of the case, which appeared when Hume was cogitating his own system. There are points in which Dudgeon anticipated Hume. Thus, Dudgeon maintains that all knowledge is about ideas, the essence of which is that they are perceived. He says that the words "just, unjust, desert &c., are necessarily relative to society; " and that if we allow that there is not justice in the government of this world, we cannot argue that there is justice in the world to come. Dudgeon, too, is a stern necessarian. But in all these points Dudgeon had himself been anticipated by others. In other respects the two widely differ. Dudgeon assumes throughout a much higher moral tone than Hume ever did. Dudgeon had evidently abandoned a belief in Christianity, but he stood up resolutely for a rational demonstration of the existence of God as the cause of the ideas which come under our experience; and he has a whole system of natural religion: whereas Hume undermines all religion, natural as well as revealed. {113} Dudgeon had superior philosophic abilities; and in other circumstances might have had a chance of becoming the head of a new philosophic Heresy. But there was a young man in his own neighborhood being trained to supersede and eclipse him in his own line, and to go beyond deism to atheism. It is thus that error advances till it corrects itself.
XIX.-- DAVID HUME.[33] D/AVID\ H/UME\ was born at Edinburgh, on April 26, 1711. He was the second son of Joseph Home or Hume, of Ninewells, so called from a number of springs which may still be seen as fresh as when the name was given. The mansion is in the parish of Chirnside, in Berwickshire, and is situated on the green slope of a hill which rises from the river Whitadder, immediately in front. The situation is remarkably pleasant, and from the heights above there are extensive views of the whole eastern border country, now associated in the minds of all reading people with tales of romance. Here David Hume passed the greater portion of his younger years, and much of the quieter and more studious parts of his middle age. But he never refers to the scenes of his native place, not even (as Mr. Burton has remarked) when be has occasion in his History of England" to relate events which might have led him to do so. It is clear that his taste for the beauties of nature was never very keen; the time had not come when all people rave about natural scenery; he was in no way disposed to expose himself to English prejudice by betraying Scottish predilections, and I rather think that he was glad that the time of border raids had for ever passed away.
His father was a member of the Faculty of Advocates, but passed his life as a country gentleman. His mother was a daughter of Sir D. Falconer of Newton, who had been a lawyer in the times of the Stuarts, and had filled the office of president of the Court of Session from 1682 to 1685. So far as the youth was exposed to hereditary predilections, they were those of Scotch landlords, who ruled supreme in their own estates, of hard-headed Edinburgh lawyers, and of old families {114} opposed to the great Whig or covenanting struggle of the previous century. His father having died when the second son was yet an infant, the education of the children devolved on their mother, who is represented as training them with great care,-in what way or form in respect of religion we are not told.
David became an entrant of the class of William Scott, professor of Greek in the Edinburgh University, February 27, 1723, being still under twelve years of age. What his precise college course was is not recorded; but we know generally that in those times, and for many years after, boys who should have been at school, after getting an imperfect acquaintance with Latin and Greek, were introduced in the classes of logic, pneumatics, and moral philosophy, to subjects fitted only for men of mature powers and enlarged knowledge. I suspect there was no ruling mind among his teachers to sway him, and he was left to follow the bent of his own mind. Already he has a taste for literature, and a tendency to speculative philosophy. " I was seized very early," be says in " My Own Life," with a passion for literature, which has been the ruling passion of my life, and a great source of my enjoyments." In writing to a friend, July 4, 1727, he mentions having by him written papers which he will not make known till he has polished them, and these evidently contain the germs of a system of mental philosophy. " All the progress I have made is but drawing the outlines on loose bits of paper: here a hint of a passion; there a phenomenon in the mind accounted for; in another an alteration of these accounts." Mr. Burton publishes part of a paper of his early years, being " An Historical Essay on Chivalry and Modern Honor." In it we have no appreciation of chivalry, but we have the germs of the historical, political, and ethical speculations which he afterwards developed. He inquires why courage is the principal virtue of barbarous nations, and why chastity is the point of honor with women (always a favorite topic with him), and is evidently in the direction of his utilitarian theory of virtue. About his seventeenth year he began, but speedily relinquished, the study of the law. " My studious disposition, my sobriety, and my industry, gave my family a notion that the law was a proper profession for me; but I found an unsurmountable aversion {115} to every thing but the pursuits of philosophy and general learning; and while they fancied I was poring upon Voet and Vinnius, Cicero and Virgil were the authors I was secretly devouring."
We have two admirable accounts of Hume's life: the one, " My Own Life," calm as philosophy itself; the other by Mr. Hill Burton, who had access to the papers collected by Baron Hume, and deposited with the Royal Society of Edinburgh; and who has collected all other available information, and put it together in a clear and systematic manner. But there is much that we should like to know not communicated. The autobiography, though honest enough, is not open or communicative. We may rest assured that in that great lake which spreads itself so calmly before us, there were depths, and movements in these depths, which have been kept from our view. Though so skilled in psychological analysis, he gives no account of the steps by which he was led to that deadly scepticism in philosophy and theology which be held by so firmly, and propounded so perseveringly. Mr. Burton has, however, published a remarkable document, which lets us see what we should never have learned from " My Own Life," that there had been an awful struggle and a crisis.
It is a letter written to a physician with great care, but possibly never sent. He begins with stating that he " had always a strong inclination to books and letters," and that, after fifteen years, he had been left to his own choice in reading: " I found it to incline almost equally to books of reasoning and philosophy, and to poetry and the polite authors. Every one who is acquainted either with the philosophers or critics, knows that there is nothing yet established in either of these sciences, and that they contain little more than endless disputes, even in the most fundamental articles. Upon examination of these, I found a certain boldness of temper growing in me, which was not inclined to submit to any authority on these subjects, but led me to seek out some new medium by which truth might be established. After much study and reflection on this, at last, when I was about eighteen years of age, there seemed to be opened up to me a new source of thought, which transported me beyond measure, and made me, with an ardor natural to young men, throw up every other pleasure or {116} business to apply actively to it. The law, which was the business I designed to follow, appeared nauseous to me; and I could think of no other way of pushing my fortune in the world but that of scholar and philosopher. I was infinitely happy in this course of life for some months, till at last, about the be ginning of September, 1729, all my ardor seemed in a moment to be extinguished, and I could no longer raise my mind to that pitch which formerly gave me such excessive pleasure. I felt no uneasiness or want of spirits when I laid aside my book; and therefore never imagined there was any bodily distemper in the case, but that my coldness proceeded from a laziness of temper which must be overcome by redoubling my application. In this condition I remained for nine months, very uneasy to myself, but without growing any worse, which was a miracle. There was another particular which contributed more than any thing to waste my spirits, and bring on me this distemper, which was, that, having read many books of morality,-- such as Cicero, Seneca, and Plutarch, - and being smit with their beautiful representations of virtue and philosophy, I undertook the improvement of my temper and will, along with my reason and understanding. I was continually fortifying myself with reflections against death and poverty and shame and pain, and all the other calamities of life. These no doubt are exceeding useful when joined with an active life, because the occasion being presented, along with the reflection, works it into the soul, and makes it take a deep impression; but in solitude they serve to little other purpose than to waste the spirits, the force of the mind meeting with no resistance, but wasting itself in the air, like our arm when it misses the aim. This, however, I did not learn but by experience, and till I had already ruined my health, though I was not sensible of it." He then describes the symptoms: scurvy spots breaking out on his fingers the first winter, then a wateriness in the mouth. Next year, about May, 173 1, there grew upon him a ravenous appetite, and a palpitation of heart. In six weeks, from " being tall, lean, and rawboned, he became on a sudden the most sturdy robust, healthful-like fellow you have seen, with a ruddy complexion and a cheerful countenance." He goes on to say, that " having now time and leisure to cool my inflamed imagination, I began to consider seriously how I should proceed with my philosophical {117} studies. I found that the moral philosophy transmitted to us by antiquity labored under the same inconvenience that has been found in their natural philosophy, of being entirely hypothetical, and depending more upon invention than experience every one consulted his fancy in erecting schemes of virtue and happiness, without regarding human nature, upon which every moral conclusion must depend. This, therefore, I resolved to male my principal study, and the source from which I would derive every truth in criticism as well as morality." He tells how he had read most of the celebrated books in Latin, French, and English; how "within these three years I find I have scribbled many a quire of paper, in which there is nothing contained but my own inventions;" how he " had collected the rude materials for many volumes but he adds, " I had no hopes of delivering my opinions with such elegance and neatness as to draw to me the attention of the world, and I would rather live and die in obscurity than produce them maimed and imperfect." "It. is a weakness rather than lowness of spirits which troubles me;" and he traces an analogy between what he had passed through and recorded religious experiences. " I have noticed in the writings of the French mystics, and in those of our fanatics here, that when they give a history of the situation of their souls, they mention a coldness and desertion of the spirit, which frequently returns." But, " however this may be, I have not come out of the cloud so well as they commonly tell us they have done, or rather began to despair of ever recovering. To keep myself from being melancholy on so dismal a prospect, my only security was in peevish reflections on the vanity of the world, and of all human glory, which, however just sentiments they may be esteemed, I have found can never be sincere, except in those who are possessed of them. Being sensible that all my philosophy would never make me contented in my present situation, I began to rouse up myself." He found these two things very bad for this distemper, study and idleness, and so he wishes to betake himself to active life. His choice was confined to two kinds of life, that of a travelling governor, and that of a merchant. The first not being fit for him he says he is now on his way to Bristol, to engage in business till he is able to "leave this distemper behind me." He says, that " all the physicians {118} I have consulted, though very able, could never enter into my distemper," and so he now applies to this eminent doctor.
In this remarkable document Hume unbosoms himself for the first time, and, I may add, for the last time. He had endeavored to act the self-righteous and self-sufficient stoic. We have other evidence of this. In the letter already extracted from, written when he was sixteen, he says. "I hate task-reading, and I diversify them at pleasure; sometimes a philosopher, sometimes a poet." "The philosopher's wise man and the poet's husbandman agree in peace of mind in a liberty and independence on fortune, and contempt of riches, power, and glory. Every thing is placid and quiet in both, nothing perturbed or in disorder." " A perfectly wise man that outbraves fortune is surely greater than the husbandman who slips by her; and indeed this pastoral and Saturnian happiness I have in a great measure come at just now. I live a king, pretty much by myself, neither full of action nor perturbation, -- . This state, however, I can foresee, is not to be relied on. My peace of mind is not sufficiently confirmed by philosophy to withstand the blows of fortune. This greatness and elevation of soul is to be found only in study and contemplation; this can alone teach us to look down on human accidents. You must allow me to talk thus like a philosopher; 'tis a subject I think much on, and could talk all day long of." But the attempt had turned out a miserable failure, as he acknowledges in his letter to the physician. Doubts had crept in, and the stoic was tempted to turn sceptic. Writing long after to Sir Gilbert Elliott in regard to his " Dialogues on Natural Religion," which sap all religion, be mentions a manuscript, afterwards destroyed, which he had written before twenty. "It began with an anxious search after arguments to confirm the common opinion, doubts stole in, dissipated, returned, were again dissipated, returned again; and it was a perpetual struggle of a restless imagination against inclination, perhaps against reason."
The letter is supposed by Mr. Burton, on good grounds, to have been written to the celebrated Dr. Cheyne, author of the Philosophical Principles of Natural Religion" (1705), and The English Malady; or a Treatise of Nervous Diseases of all kinds, Spleens, Vapours, Lowness of Spirits, Hypochondriacal {119} Distempers," &c. It is doubtful whether the letter ever reached Dr. Cheyne, and it may be doubted whether that eminent physician had in all his pharmacopoea a medicine to cure the malady of this remarkable youth. Dr. Cheyne defends with the common arguments the "great fundamental principles of all virtue and all morality: viz., the existence of a supreme and infinitely perfect Being; the freedom of the will, the immortality of the spirits of all intellectual beings, and the certainty of future rewards or punishments." But the youth who proposed to address him had already a system evolved which undermined all these. One could have wished that there had been a friend at hand to direct him away from Cicero, Seneca, and Plutarch, to a better teacher who is never mentioned. Not that we should have expected him in his then state to be drawn to the character of Jesus, but he might have found something in His work fitted to give peace and satisfaction to his distracted soul. But it is useless to speculate on these possibilities. All he says himself is: " In 1734 I went to Bristol with some recommendations to eminent merchants, but in a few months found that scene totally unsuitable to me. I went over to France, with a view of prosecuting my studies in a country retreat, and I there laid that plan of life which I have steadily and successfully pursued."[34]
We can easily picture the youth of twenty-three as he set out for France. By nature he is one of a class of persons to be found in all countries, but quite as frequently in Scotland as anywhere else, who are endowed with a powerful intellect, conjoined with a heavy animal temperament, and who, with no high aspirations, ideal, ethereal, or spiritual, have a tendency {120} to look with suspicion on all kinds of enthusiasm and highflown zeal. With an understanding keen and searching, he could not be contented with the appearances of things, and was ever bent on penetrating beneath the surface; and his native shrewdness, his hereditary predilections, and the reaction against the heats of the previous century, all combined to lead him to question common impressions and popular opinions. He saw the difficulties which beset philosophical and theological investigations, and was unable to deliver himself from them, being without the high sentiments which might have lifted him above the low philosophy of his own day in England and France, and the sophistries suggested by a restless intellect. He knew only the ancient Stoic philosophy in the pages of Roman authors, and the modern philosophy of Locke, as modified by such men as Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, and driven to its logical consequences by Berkeley: he bad tried the one in his practical conduct, and the other by his sifting intellect, and having found both wanting, he is prepared to abandon himself to scepticism, which is the miserable desert resorted to by those who despair of truth. Meanwhile his great intellectual powers find employment in constructing theories of the mind, in which he himself perhaps had no great faith, but which seemed the logical conclusion of the acknowledged philosophical principles of his time, and quite as plausible as any that had been devised by others, and brought such fame to their authors.
With these predilections, France was the country which had most attractions to him, but was at the same time the most unfortunate country he could have gone to, and the middle of the eighteenth century the most unfortunate period for visiting it. In philosophy, the age had outgrown Descartes and Malebranche, Arnauld and Pascal, and the grave and earnest thinkers of the previous century, and was embracing the most superficial parts of Locke's philosophy, which had been introduced by Voltaire to the knowledge of Frenchmen, who turned it to a wretched sensationalism. In religion he saw around him, among the great mass of the people, a very corrupted and degenerate form of Christianity, while, among the educated classes, infidelity was privately cherished, and was ready to burst out. Voltaire had issued his first attack on Christianity, {121} in his " Epitre a Uranie," published in 1728, and the fire spread with a rapidity which showed that there were materials ready to catch it and propagate it. Sixty years later, one so fond of order and peace would have been scared by the effects produced by scepticism, so powerful in overthrowing old abuses, and so weak in constructing any thing new or better but at this time infidelity was full of hope, and promising an era of liberty and peace. The very section of the Catholic Church which retained the highest faith and the purest morality, had unfortunately been involved in a transaction which favored the sceptical tendency among shrewd minds. Only a few years before, the people believed that the sick were healed, and the blind made to see at the tomb of the famous Jansenist, the Abbe Paris; the noise made by the occurrences, and the discussions created by them, had not passed away when Hume arrived in Paris; and the youth pondered the event, to bring it out years after in his " Essay on Miracles." While he lived at La Fleche, a Jesuit plied him with some "nonsensical miracle," performed lately in their convent, and then and there occurred to him the famous argument which he afterwards published against miracles. " As my head was full of the topics of the `Treatise of Human Nature,' which I was at that time composing, the argument immediately occurred to me, and I thought it very much gravelled my companion; but at last he observed to me that it was impossible for that argument to have any validity, because it operated equally against the gospel as the Catholic miracles, which observation I thought fit to admit as a sufficient answer."
After living a short time in Paris, he retired to Rheims, and afterwards went to La Fleche, where he passed two of the three years he spent in France. We know nothing of his employments these years, except that he devoted himself most earnestly to the composition of his " Treatise on Human Nature." In 1737 he brought it over with him to London, where he published the two first books the end of the following year.
This treatise is by far the most important of all. his philosophical works. If we except certain speculations in history and political economy, it contains nearly all his favorite ideas. He devoted to it all the resources of his mighty intellect. He {122} had read extensively, pondered deeply, and taken immense pains in polishing his style. He could scarcely, indeed, be called a learned man, in the technical sense of the term, but he was well informed. We could have wished that he had possessed wider sympathies with earnest seekers after truth in all ages, but this was not in the nature of the man. His knowledge of Greek was very imperfect at this time (he afterwards renewed his acquaintance with that language); what he knew of Greek philosophy was chiefly through Cicero (his very pictures of the Stoics and Epicureans are Roman rather than Grecian), and he never entered into the spirit of such deep and earnest thinkers as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, -- he tells us somewhere that the fame of Aristotle is utterly decayed. In respect even of modern writers, he never comprehended the profundity of such men as Cudworth and Descartes in the previous century; and he had no appreciation of the speculations of Clarke and Leibnitz, who lived in the age immediately preceding his own. He belongs to the cold, elegant, doubting, and secular eighteenth century; and, setting little value on antiquity, he builds for the present and the future on the philosophy of his own time.
As to style, which he greatly cultivated, the models which he set before him were the Roman prose writers, the French authors of his own day, and the Englishmen who were introducing the French clearness and point, such as Shaftesbury, Bolingbroke, and Pope, -- he says: " The first polite prose we have was written by Swift." Though he took great pains, he never altogether succeeded in weeding out his Scotticisms, nor in acquiring a genuine English idiom; but his style is always clear, manly, and elegant, and worthy of his weighty thoughts. When he broke down his elaborate treatise into smaller ones, he endeavored to catch the ease and freedom of the lighter French literature; but neither the subjects discussed nor the ideas of the author admit of such treatment; and though the essays are more ornate, and have more attempts at smartness and repartee, the student will ever betake himself to the treatise, as containing the only systematic, and by far the most satisfactory statement of his views.
He is now publicly committed to a theory, and he adheres to it resolutely and doggedly. In after years he said: " So {123} great an undertaking, planned before I was one-and-twenty, and composed before twenty-five, must necessarily be very defective. I have repented my haste a hundred and a hundred times." But this refers to the form and style, not the matter. He never abandoned nor modified the scepticism advanced in the early work. When he failed in obtaining a hearing for his views in the more elaborate treatise, he set them forth in " Essays," which might be more attractive to the general reader. He had instituted an inquiry, and satisfied himself that speculative truth was unattainable, either in philosophy or theology , owing to the weakness of the human intellect, and he did not wish to be disturbed with questionings. He seems to have studiously abstained from speaking on such subjects in social intercourse, except at times, in a tone of playful humor, not meant to be offensive; and on becoming an author he formed the resolution " never to reply to anybody." He rather delighted to associate with ministers of religion, such as Robertson, Blair, and Carlyle, whom he reckoned moderate and tolerant, and helpful in producing a religious indifference; but he never allowed them to try to convert him to the truths of natural and revealed religion which they held by; and when Dr. Blair ventured on one occasion to make the attempt, he received such a reply as prevented the repetition of it on any future occasion. There are traditions of him and Adam Smith conversing familiarly on such subjects on the sands of Kirkcaldy, and of Hume succeeding in bringing his friend over to infidelity; but we have no authenticated record of Hume ever opening to any human being the religious or irreligious convictions of his soul. A good-natured and sociable man, kind and indulgent to those with whom he came in contact, he passed through life a solitary being, certainly with no God, and apparently with no human being to whom to unbosom himself.
Having set the matured and confirmed man before our readers, we have no intention of detailing minutely the events of his future life. Having published his work, he retired to Ninewells to wait the result. "Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my `Treatise of Human Nature.' It fell deadborn from the press without reaching such distinction as even to create a murmur among the zealots." He evidently felt the {124} disappointment. "I am out of humor with myself." He was amazed that the liberty he had taken with all established truth had not created a sensation. But he was conscious of intellectual power: he had laid his plan for life; and he indomitably persevered in his literary career. Next year he published the third volume of his treatise, that on ethics, with no better success. In 1741 he printed at Edinburgh the first, and in 1742 the second, of his " Essays Moral and Political." The work was favorably received and he was encouraged. In 1744 he was anxious to be appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, but public sentiment could not bear the idea of one so sceptical being appointed a teacher of youth. He was a younger brother without a profession, and he wished to have a competency; and so in 1745, the year of the rebellion of Prince Charles, he became the companion and guide of the weak-minded Marquis of Annandale. The engagement brought him some accession of fortune, but terminated abruptly from the caprice of the Marquis. In 1747 he attended General St. Clair in his military embassy to the Courts of Vienna and Turin. There he saw a variety of life; and he congratulates himself that when the engagement closed, he was " master of near a thousand pounds." In 1748 he cast the first part of his unfortunate treatise in a new form, in the "Inquiry concerning Human Understanding," but the work failed to excite any interest. His brother at Ninewells having married in 1751, his place of residence was now Edinburgh, where he was appointed to, and held for five years, the office of librarian to the advocates' library, a situation which brought him little or no emolument. In 1752 he published in Edinburgh the second part of his essays, being his " Political Discourses." This work was immediately received with acclamation; and, being translated into French, it procured him a high reputation, and in fact awakened those discussions which issued in making political economy a science in the " Wealth of Nations." Whatever merit Hume may have in demolishing error, he has, I believe, established very little positive truth: what he effected in this way was done in political economy. The same year he published his " Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals," being an improved version of the third part of his treatise. " Meanwhile my bookseller, A. Millar, informed me that my {125} former publications (all but the unfortunate treatise) were beginning to be the subject of conversation, that the sale of them was gradually increasing, and that new editions were demanded. Answers by reverends and right reverends came out two or three in a year; and I found, by Dr. Warburton's railing, that the books were beginning to be esteemed in good company." He had long had the idea of writing some historical work, and from the time of his being appointed librarian to the well-stored advocates' collection of books, he formed the plan of writing the " History of England." The first volume commenced with the accession of the house of Stuart, but was received so coldly that in a twelvemonth the publisher sold only forty-five copies. Nevertheless he persevered, bringing out volume after volume, till at last the great merits of the work were acknowledged. This perseverance in his life plan, in spite of discouragements, I reckon as the noblest feature in Hume's character. It does not concern us here to speak of the excellencies and defects of the history. It could be shown that the prejudices running throughout it were his constitutional and hereditary ones, and that the work, as a whole, is an illustration of his metaphysical and ethical theory.
In 1763 he received from the Earl of Hertford an invitation to attend him on his embassy to Paris. His visit to the capital of France on this occasion deserves a special notice. It may be doubted whether there ever were such compliments paid to any literary man. Dukes, mareschals, foreign ambassadors, vied with each other in honoring him. The famous men, whose persons and conversations he liked best, were D'Alembert, Marmontel, Diderot, Duclos, Helvetius, and old President Henault; and he writes to Dr. Blair, and bids him tell Dr. Robertson that there was not a single deist among them, meaning that there was none of them but went farther. He met also with Buffon, Malesherbes, Crebillon, Holbach, Renauld, Suard, and Turgot.
But he was the special favorite of the ladies, who at that time ruled the fashion in Paris. In particular, he was flattered and adored by the Countess de Boufflers. His correspondence with that lady had commenced in 1761. She addressed him first, declaring the admiration which, your sublime work (the `History of England') has awakened in me." "I know no terms {126} capable of expressing what I felt in reading the work. I was moved, transported; and the emotion which it caused me, is in some measure painful by its continuance. It elevates the soul it fills the heart with sentiments of humanity and benevolence it enlightens the intellect, by showing that true happiness is closely connected with virtue; and discovers, by the same light, what is the end, the sole end, of every reasonable being"! In truth, I believed I had before my eyes the work of some celestial being, free from the passions of humanity, who, for the benefit of the human race, has designed to write the events of these latter times"! The philosopher is evidently gratified. " What new wonder is this which your letter presents to me? I not only find a lady, who, in the bloom of beauty and height of reputation, can withdraw herself from the pleasures of a gay court, and find leisure to cultivate the sciences, but deigns to support a correspondence with a man of letters, in a remote country, and to reward his labors by a suffrage the most agree able of all others to a man who has any spark of generous sentiment or taste for true glory." This lady, it is proper to say in plain terms, was the wife of the Comte de Boufflers, still alive, but the mistress of the Prince of Conti, who superintended for the king that mean diplomatic correspondence which he carried on unknown to his ministers. Hume might also be seen attending the evening of Madame Geoffrin, who had been the daughter of a , and was now the centre of a circle of artists and men of letters. He also waited on the entertainments of the famous Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse, who, originally an illegitimate child, had raised herself by being, first, the humble companion, and then the rival of Madame Du Deffaud, and was well known to have been the mistress of a number of successive or contemporaneous lovers. There must have been something in the philosophy of Hume which recommended him to so many ladies of this description. We believe they were glad to find so eminent a philosopher, with a system which did not seem to bear bard upon them. The courtiers told him that Madame de Pompadour " was never heard to say so much to any man."
He says of himself: " I eat nothing but ambrosia, drink nothing but nectar, breathe nothing but incense, and tread on nothing but flowers. Every man I meet, and still more every lady, {127} would think they were wanting in the most indispensable duty if they did not make a long and elaborate harangue in my praise." Lord Charlemont has given us a picture, or rather a caricature, of his person as he met him at Turin some years before this. " His face was broad and flat, his mouth wide, and without any other expression than that of imbecility. His eyes vacant and spiritless, and the corpulence of his whole person was far better fitted to communicate the idea of a turtle-eating alderman than of a refined philosopher. His speech in English was tendered ridiculous by the broadest Scotch accent, and his French was, if possible, still more laughable." This was the man who was made by the Parisian ladies to take the part, in an acted tableau, of a sultan assailed by two female slaves: " On le place sur un sopha entre les deux plus jolies femmes de Paris, il les regarde attentivement, il se frappe le ventre et les genoux A plusieurs reprises, et ne trouve jamais autre chose a leur dire que, -- `Eh bien! mes demoiselles. . . . Eh bien! nous voila donc. . . . Eh bien ! vous voila. . . . vous voila ici.'" His good sense led him to see the vanity of all this: but he was pleased with it; and he often expresses a wish to settle in Paris, or somewhere in France.
When he was introduced to the Dauphin, his son, afterwards the unfortunate Louis XVI., but then a boy of nine, stepped forth, evidently by instruction, and told him how many friends and admirers he had in the country, and that he reckoned himself among the number from the reading of many passages in his works. The Comte de Provence (who, after his long exile, became Louis XVIII.),a year or so younger, now approached Hume, and told him he had been long and impatiently expected in France, and that he anticipated great pleasure from reading his fine history. Even the Comte d'Artois, afterwards Charles X., but then a boy of six, had to mumble a panegyric. A wise man learned in providence might have seen that awful miseries must issue from a state of things in which, as Horace Walpole pointedly expresses it, " There is a God and the king to be pulled down first, and men and women are devoutly employed in the demolition," while princes were taught to cherish the viper that was to sting them. It would have been an appropriate punishment to have got Hume placed, half a century later, in the scenes of the French Revolution, to let him eat the fruit of the seed he had helped to sow. {128}
But what, it may be asked, did be think of the state of society in which he had to mingle? It is evident that he was horrified at times with the proclaimed atheism of men and women. But what did he think of the morality of the circles in which he moved, more especially of the loose relationship of the marriage tie? Did his utilitarian theory of morals, of which he surely knew the bearing and tendency, allow of such a state of things? It is certain that Hume uttered no protest at the time, and he has left behind no condemnation of the morality of France, while he was fond of making sly and contemptuous allusions to the manifestations of religious zeal in his own country. The tone of morality in France could never have been amended by him, nor, we venture to say, by any utilitarian. When the husband of Madame Boufflers dies, he writes to her as a person now within reach of honor and felicity; that is, as likely to be married to the Prince de Conti. However, the prince declines, and Hume gives her wise enough counsel: gradually to diminish her connection with the prince, and at last to separate from him; and, he says: " If I could dispose of my fate, nothing would be so much my choice as to live where I might cultivate your friendship. Your taste for travelling might also afford you a plausible pretence for putting this plan in execution; a journey to Italy would loosen your connections here; and, if it were delayed, I would, with some probability, expect to have the felicity of attending you thither." One can picture the scene; the countess travelling with Hume attending her. But the prospect had not such attractions as to induce her to leave the prince. Hume continued his correspondence with her; and, on hearing of the death of the Prince of Conti, wrote her within a few days of his own death, knowing he was dying, and expresses no condemnation of her past conduct. The question arises whether this would be the moral tone allowed in a community in which the word of God is discarded, and utilitarian principles are adopted?
We do not mean to discuss the miserable quarrel between him and Rousseau. His attention was called to the alleged ill usage of Rousseau by Madame de Boufflers, who described him as a noble and disinterested soul, " flying from intercourse with the world," and " feeling pleasure only in solitude." Hume, believing him to be persecuted, exerted himself to help him. {129} But his morbid vanity and intolerable habits (he insisted in taking his disgusting governante with him when he visited a family) rendered it impossible to befriend him. Unwilling to allow himself to think, or let others conclude, that he was indebted to any one, he repaid Hume's manly and delicate kindness with suspicion; and Hume, who began by describing him as a man whose modesty proceeded from ignorance of his own excellence," ended by declaring him to be " the blackest and most atrocious villain beyond comparison that now exists in the world." It is justice to Hume to say that he was always kind to persons of literary ability. Thus, he interested himself much in Thomas Blacklock, a blind man, of some poetical talent, when the people of Kirkcudbright declined to accept him as their minister. He also did all in his power to bring into notice the publications of Robertson, Adam Smith, and Ferguson.
By his connection with the embassy and the sale of his works, which had become great, he now attained a competency which made him feel independent. He had many temptations to settle in France, but old associations drew him back to Scotland. It was proposed by Lord Hertford to send him to Ireland as Secretary; but the Irish would not receive him, because he was a Scotchman. It was on this occasion that the Princess Amelia said that she thought the affair might be easily accommodated. "Why may not Lord Hertford give a bishopric to Mr. Hume?" In 1767-68 he was appointed by Lord Conway Under-Secretary of State, and had charge of Scottish affairs, including the patronage of churches But his residence was now mainly in Edinburgh, first in the old town, afterwards in a house which he built in the new town, in St. David Street, so called as the name had been chalked on the wall by a witty young lady as she passed. Here he was the acknowledged chief of a literary circle, embracing men of considerable eminence, such as Robertson, Blair, Lord Kames, Adam Ferguson, and Adam Smith at Kirkcaldy, who all looked up to him with respect. He rather enjoyed being an object of wonder to the multitude beyond the favored circle in which he mingled, and made many jocular remarks about the unpopularity of his opinions. Good-natured, sociable, and avoiding controversy, he suffered few annoyances {130} because of his scepticism -- certainly none that deserved to be called persecution. For we suppose it will be scarcely reckoned as such, that, on one occasion, in picking his steps from his lodging in the old town to the house he was building in the new, he fell into a swamp, and, observing some Newhaven fishwives passing, he called to them for help, but on learning that it was Hume the unbeliever who was in such a plight, they refused to aid him till he said the Lord's prayer. He carried on a pleasant correspondence with Sir Gilbert Elliott of Minto, with Mure of Caldwell, and others of a literary or philosophic taste. He lived on familiar terms with several of the moderate clergy, such as Robertson and Blair, and at times mingled in their ecclesiastical counsels. Many of the younger ministers reckoned it an honor to be admitted to his society, and he encouraged them to associate with him. These circumstances have led some to think that the leading moderate ministers of that period must have been infidels in secret, and acting hypocritically in professing Christianity; but there is no ground for such a charge: they believed sincerely in the doctrines of natural religion, and in the Word of God as inspired to teach a pure morality and the immortality of the soul. But it is equally clear, that they had no faith in the peculiar Bible doctrines of grace; and Hume was delighted to find them frowning on all religious earnestness, and advancing so rapidly on the road to deism and philosophic indifference.
By April, 1776, Hume knew that he would not recover from the disease with which he had been afflicted for two years, being a disorder in the bowels. He bought a piece of ground in the new church-yard in the Calton Hill as a burying-place, and left money for the erection of a small monument, with the simple inscription, " David Hume." lie wrote " My Own Life," giving an account of his literary career. In his will Adam Smith had been appointed his literary executor, and two hundred pounds had been bequeathed to him for the pains he might take in correcting and publishing his " Dialogues on Natural Religion," a work written before 1751, but not yet given to the world. But he had ground for fearing that Smith might be unwilling to take the odium of editing such a work, and so he took effectual steps to guard against its suppression. He came to {131} an understanding with Smith on the subject, and in a codicil to his will, dated August 7, he left the manuscripts to Strahan the publisher, ordaining " that if my `Dialogues' from whatever cause be not published within two years and a half after my death, as also the account of my life, the property shall return to my nephew David, whose duty in publishing them, as the last request of his uncle, must be approved of by all the world." Strahan was as indisposed as Smith to undertake the responsibility of publishing so offensive a work. The truth is, Hume's Scottish friends, though they had abandoned Christianity, were most anxious to have left to them a natural religion, in which they might find a refuge and some comfort; and in the "Dialogues" Hume had undermined this last support. The " Dialogues " were published in 1779 by the author's nephew.
In April he took a journey to Bath for the benefit of his health, but with no hope of ultimate recovery. John Home, the author of " Douglas, a Tragedy," travelled with him, and has preserved a diary. He talked cheerfully of the topics of the day, and of his favorite subjects, lamenting over the state of the nation, and predicting that the national debt must be the ruin of Britain. He returned to Edinburgh about the beginning of July. Dr. Cullen reports: " He passed most part of the day in his drawing-room: admitted the visits of his friends, and with his usual spirits conversed with them upon literature, politics, or whatever was accidentally started." Colonel Edmonstoune had come to take leave of him Hume said he had been reading a few days before, Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead," and, among all the reasons for not entering readily into Charon's boat, he could not find one that fitted him, and he invented several peculiar ones to give the boatman. " I might urge, I Have a little patience, good Charon: I have been endeavoring to open the eyes of the public. If I live a few years longer, I may have the satisfaction of seeing the downfall of some of the prevailing systems of superstition.' But Charon would then lose all temper and decency: `You loitering rogue, that will not happen these many hundred years. Do you fancy I will grant you a lease for so long a term ? Get into the boat this instant, you lazy, loitering rogue.'" All this is evidently very gratifying to the colonel. Dr. Black reports that he " passes his time very well with the assistance of amusing books." {132} Dr. Cullen continues: "For a few days before his death, he became more averse to receive visits; speaking, became more and more difficult to him; and for twelve hours before his death his speech failed him altogether. His senses and judgment did not fail till the last hour of his life. He constantly discovered a strong sensibility to the attention and care of his friends, and, amidst great uneasiness and languor, never betrayed any peevishness or impatience."
This was the account left by his literary friends, and it was matter of triumph to them that he betrayed no signs of fear in his hour of weakness. Are we to allow, that, as in the early ages of the world's history, those who did not like to retain God in their knowledge continued all their lives in the most abject superstition , so in these last days, under other influences, there may be persons so bewildered that they die as they live, without any fixed religious belief? The fact, if it be a fact, is not flattering to the race; nor is the prospect encouraging. Good Christians had hoped, that ere he left the world there might be a change of sentiment, and an acknowledgment of the existence of God, and the need of a Saviour. Many of them maintained that it was impossible for an infidel to die in peace, and it was reported among religious circles, that, though he was cheerful when his unbelieving friends visited him, he had terrible uneasiness when left alone. Some of these rumors utterly break down when we try to trace them to their original sources. The statement, however, of Mr. Robert Haldane of Airthrey, as to what he learned from his neighbor, Mr. Abercromby of Tullibody, must contain some truth. Mr. Abercromby was travelling to Haddington in a lumbering stage-coach. " The conversation during the tedious journey turned on the death-bed of the great philosopher, and as Mr. Abercromby's son-in-law, Colonel Edmonstoune of Newton, was one of Hume's intimate friends, he had heard from him much of the buoyant cheerfulness which had enlivened the sick room of the dying man. Whilst the conversation was running on in this strain, a respectable- looking female, dressed in black, who made a fourth in the coach, begged permission to offer a remark: `Gentlemen,' she said, `I attended Mr. Hume on his death-bed, but, I can assure you, I hope never again to attend the death-bed of a philosopher.' {133} They then cross-examined her as to her meaning; and she told them that, when his friends were with him, Mr. Hume was cheerful even to frivolity, but that when alone be was often overwhelmed with unutterable gloom, and had in his hours of depression declared that he had been in search of light all his life, but was now in greater darkness than ever." This is Mr. Haldane's statement, as taken from Mr. Abercromby.[35] We confess we should like to know more of this woman in black, and to have taken part in the cross-questioning. The question is left in that region of doubt where Hume himself left all religion. He died on Monday, August 26, 1776, at four o'clock in the afternoon.
Everybody knows that Hume was a sceptic. It is not so generally known that he has developed a full system of the human mind. Students of philosophy should make themselves acquainted with it. It has in fact been the stimulating cause of all later European philosophy: of that of Reid and his school of that of Kant, and the powerful thinkers influenced by him and of that of M. Cousin, and his numerous followers in France, in their attempt to combine Reid and Kant. Nor is it to be omitted that Mr. J. S. Mill, in his " Examination of Hamilton," has reproduced to a large extent the theory of Hume, but without so clearly seeing or candidly avowing the consequences. I rather think that Mr. Mill himself is scarcely aware of the extent of the resemblance between his doctrines and those of the Scottish sceptic; as he seems to have wrought out his conclusions from data supplied him by his own father, Mr. James Mill, who, however, has evidently drawn much from Hume. The circumstance that Mr. Mill's work was welcomed by such declamations by the chief literary organs in London is a proof, either that the would-be leaders of opinion are so ignorant of philosophy that they do not see the consequences; or that the writers, being chiefly young men bred at Oxford or Cambridge, are fully prepared to accept them in the reaction against the revived mediaevalism which was sought to be imposed upon them. In no history of philosophy that we are acquainted with is there a good account of the system of Hume. As few persons now read, or in fact ever did read, through his weighty {134} volumes, we are in hopes that some may feel grateful to us, if in short space we give them an expository and critical account of his philosophy, with a special facing towards the philosophy which has been introduced among us by the British section of the nescient school of Comte.
Hume begins thus his famous "Treatise of Human Nature:" "All the perceptions of the human mind resolve themselves into two distinct kinds, which I call and . The difference betwixt them consists in the degrees of force and liveliness with which they strike upon the mind, and make their way into our thought or consciousness. Those perceptions which enter with most force and violence, we may name , and under this name I comprehend all our sensations, passions, and emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul. By , I mean the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning; such, for instance, are all the perceptions excited by the present discourse, excepting only those which arise from the sight and touch, and excepting the immediate pleasure or uneasiness it may occasion." He tells us, that, in the use of terms, " I rather restore the word to its original sense, from which Mr. Locke had perverted it, in making it stand for all our perceptions." This theory is certainly very simple, but surely it is lamentably scanty. It will not do to place under the same bead, and call by the one name of , two such things as the affections of the senses on the one hand, and the mental emotions of hope, fear, joy, and sorrow, on the other. Nor can we allow him to describe all our sense-perceptions by the vague name of impressions. What is meant by impressions? If the word bas any proper meaning, it must signify that there is something impressing, without which there would be no impression, and also something impressed. If Hume admits all this to be in the impression we ask him to go on with us to inquire what is in the thing impressed and in the thing that impresses, and we are at once in the region of existences, internal and external. " I never," he says, " catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception." His very language contradicts itself. He talks of catching . What is this that he catches? But he may say it is only a perception. I reply that there is more. We never observe {135} a perception alone. We always observe self as perceiving. It is true that I never can catch myself at any time without a perception; but it is quite as certain, and we have the same evidence for it, that we never observe a perception except when we observe self perceiving. Let us unfold what is in this self, and we shall find that it no way resembles an impression, like that left by a seal upon wax.[36] In regard to certain of our perceptions, those through the senses, we observe not only the self perceiving, but an object perceived.
He now explains the way in which appear. By memory the impressions come forth in their original order and position as ideas. This is a defective account of memory, consciousness being the witness. In memory, we have not only a reproduction of a sensation, or, it may be, a mental affection, we recognize it as . Of all this we have as clear evidence as we have of the presence of the idea.[37] In imagination the ideas are more strong and lively, and are transposed and changed. This, he says, is effected by an associating quality; and he here develops his account of the laws of association, which has been so commended. But the truth is, his views on this subject, so far from being an advance on those of Hutcheson, are rather a retrogression: they are certainly far behind those of his contemporary Turnbull. He seems to confine the operation of association to the exercise of imagination: he does not see that our very memories are regulated by the same principle; nay, he allows that the imagination can join two ideas without it. The associating qualities are said by him to be three in number: resemblance, contiguity in time or place, and cause or effect. "I do not find," he says, "that {136} any philosopher has attempted to enumerate all the principles of association." But the classification propounded by him bears so close a resemblance to that of Aristotle, that we must believe that the one given by the Stagyrite had, in the course of his reading, fallen under his notice, though he had forgotten the circumstance. The difference between the two lies in Hume giving us cause and effect, instead of contrast as proposed by the Greek philosopher. It has often been remarked that Hume's arrangement is redundant, inasmuch as cause and effect, according to him, are nothing but contiguity in time and place.
He now shows how our complex ideas are formed. Following Locke, he represents these as consisting of substances, modes, and relations. He dismisses substance very summarily. He proceeds on the view of substance given by Locke, one of the most defective and unsatisfactory parts of his philosophy. Locke stood tip for some unknown thing, called substance, behind the qualities. Berkeley had shown that there is no evidence of the existence of such a substratum. Hume assumes that we have no idea of external substance different from the qualities, and he proceeds to show that we have no notion of the substance mind distinct from particular perceptions. " I believe none will assert that substance is either a color, or a sound, or a taste. The idea of substance must therefore be derived from an impression of reflection, if it really exist. But the impressions of reflection resolve themselves into our passions and emotions, none of which can possibly represent a substance." A substance is thus nothing else than a collection of particular qualities united by the imagination. He thus suits the idea to his preconceived theory, instead of looking at the peculiar idea, and suiting his theory to the facts. I give up the idea of an unknown substratum behind the qualities. I stand up only for what we know. In consciousness, we know self, and in sense- perception we know the external objects as . In this is involved what I reckon the true idea of substance. We can as little know the qualities apart from an object exercising them, as we can an object apart from qualities. We know both in one concrete act, and we have the same evidence of the one as the other.
When he comes to modes, he examines them by the doctrine {137} of abstract or general ideas propounded by Berkeley, which he characterizes "as one of the greatest and most valuable discoveries that has been made of late years in the republic of letters." According to this very defective theory (as it appears to us), all abstract or general ideas are nothing but particular ones annexed to a certain term. Like Locke, Hume confounds abstract and general ideas, which should be carefully distinguished: the former meaning the notion of the part of an object as a part, more particularly an attribute; the other, the notion of objects possessing common attributes, the notion being such that it embraces all the objects possessing the common attributes. Abstraction and generalization are most important intellectual operations, the one bringing specially to view what is involved in the concrete knowledge (not impression) of the individual, and the other exhibiting the qualities in respect of which objects agree. Without such elaborative processes, we should never know all that is involved in our original perceptions by sense and consciousness. Nor is it to be forgotten, that when the concrete is a real object, the abstract is a real quality existing in the object; and that when the singulars are real, the universal is also real, that is, a class all the objects in which possess common qualities. Here again we find Hume overlooking one of the most essential of our mental attributes, and thus degrading human intelligence. In relation to the particular end for which he introduces his doctrine, I hold that substance and mode are known in one concrete act and that we can separate them by abstraction for more particular consideration; the one having quite as real an existence as the other, and both having their reality in the singular object known by sense and consciousness.
He goes on to a very subtle discussion as to our ideas of space and time. He says, that "it is from the disposition of visible and tangible objects we receive the idea of space, and from the succession of ideas and impressions we form the idea of time." The statement requires to be amended. It is not from the disposition of separate objects we have the idea of space, but in the very perception of material objects we know them as extended, that is, occupying space; and in the very remembrance of events we have time in the concrete, that is, events happening in time past. He is therefore wrong in the {138} sceptical conclusion which he draws, that the ideas of space and time are no distinct ideas; for they are ideas formed by a high intellectual process from things immediately known. Taking a defective view of the nature and function of abstraction, he denies that we can form any idea of a vacuum or extension without matter. He maintains that the idea we form of any finite quality is not infinitely divisible. The dispute, he says, should not be about the nature of mathematical points, but about our ideas of them; and that, in the division of our ideas, we come to a minimum, to an indivisible idea. This whole controversy seems to me to arise from a misapprehension. Our idea of space, it is evident, is neither divisible nor indivisible and as to space, it is not divisible either finitely or infinitely for while we can divide matter, that is, have a space between, we cannot separate any portion of space from all other space: space is and must be continuous. He is evidently jealous of the alleged certainty of mathematics, which seemed to be opposed to his universal scepticism. He maintains that the objects of geometry are mere ideas in the mind. I admit that surfaces, lines, points, have no independent existence, but they have all an existence in solid bodies. By an excess of ingenuities and subtleties, he would drive us to the conclusion that space and time are mere ideas, for which we need not seek a corresponding reality; a conclusion unfortunately accepted by Kant, who thus opened the way to the empty idealism which so long reigned in the German philosophy.[38] {139}
The result reached is summed up in the statement: "As long as we confine our speculations to the of objects to our senses, without entering into disquisitions concerning their real nature and operations, we are safe from all difficulties, and can never be embarrassed by any question; " but, " if we carry our inquiry beyond the appearances of objects to the senses, I am afraid that most of our conclusions will be full of scepticism and uncertainty." The intelligent reader will here perceive the source whence Kant derived his doctrine that the senses give us, not things, but , that is appearances, and that we are involved in contradiction when we suppose that they furnish more. However great the logical power of the German metaphysician, it is clear that he did not possess the shrewdness of the common-sense philosopher of Scotland, when he adopted the conclusion of the sceptic as his starting-point.
He has now to face the important subjects of existence and knowledge. Proceeding on his assumption that nothing is present to the mind but perceptions, he argues, I think logically (if the premises be allowed), that we can never advance a step beyond ourselves, and that it is " impossible for us so much as to conceive or form an idea of any thing specifically different from ideas or impressions." As knowledge had been represented by Locke as consisting in comparison (I reckon this a false and dangerous doctrine), Hume has to consider the relations which the mind of man can discover.
These he represents as being seven: those of resemblance, identity, space and time, quantity, degree, contrariety, cause and effect. This is a very good enumeration of the relations perceivable by man: it is certainly very much superior to that of many later metaphysicians, British and Continental. " These relations may be divided into two classes, into such as depend entirely on the ideas which we compare together, and such as may be changed without any change in the ideas." In the first class he places resemblance, contrariety, degree, proportion. These depend solely on our ideas. These only can be the objects of knowledge and certainty, but they can never go beyond our ideas, which can never go beyond our impressions. The other four do not depend on our ideas, and might seem to carry us beyond them; but this he shows {140} is an illusion. In identity, and time and space, we can never ,,go beyond what is immediately present to the senses," and thus can never discover the real existence or the relations of objects. And so "`tis only causation which produces such a connection as to give us assurance, from the existence or action of one object, that 'twas followed or preceded by any other existence or action." He devotes the whole energy of his intellect to the task of showing that we know nothing of the nature of the relation between cause and effect; that we know their conjunction within our experience, but not their connection.
In discussing this question, and kindred ones, he finds it necessary to explain the nature of belief. " The belief of the existence of an object joins no new ideas to those which compose the idea of the object." What then is the difference between belief and incredulity? It consists solely in the liveliness of the former. " We must not be contented with saying that the vividness of the idea produces the belief, we must maintain that they are individually the same." " The belief or assent which always attends the memory and senses is nothing but the vivacity of those perceptions they represent, and this alone distinguishes them from imagination." The theory is surely palpably false here, for our imaginations, in which there is no faith, are often livelier than our memories, in which there is belief. But, by this theory, he would account for all our beliefs. He would establish it as a general maxim in the science of human nature, that when any impression becomes present to us, it not only transports the mind to such ideas as are related to it, but likewise communicates to them a share of its force and vivacity. " A present impression being vivid, conveys its vividness to all the ideas which are associated with it by such general laws as those of resemblance, contiguity, and causation." " A person that has lost a leg or an arm by amputation, endeavors, for a long time afterwards, to serve himself with them. After the death of any one, 'tis a common remark of the whole family, but especially the servants, that they can scarce believe him to be dead, but still imagine him to be in his chamber, or in any other place where they were accustomed to find him." The explanation may seem a very ingenious, but it is a very feeble one. We may {141} believe that we saw a particular person yesterday, though we have no lively impression or idea retarding him; and we do not believe in the existence of Achilles, though the reading of Homer has given us a vivid conception of him.[39]
But this theory is employed to give an explanation of our {142} belief in the relation of cause and effect. The one having always been with the other in our experience, we are led by habit, and proceeding on the principle of association, when we find the one to look for the other, and thus, too, the effect being present, that is an impression, gives its vividness to the cause as an associating idea. "The idea of cause and effect is derived from experience, which, presenting us with certain objects constantly conjoined with each other, produces such a habit of surveying them in that relation, that we cannot, with out a sensible violence, survey them in any other." This is his explanation of what is implied in efficacy, agency, power, force, energy, connection, productive quality. The essence of necessity is " the propensity which custom produces to pass from an object to the idea of its usual attendant." " When any object is presented to it, it immediately conveys to the mind a lively idea of that object which is usually found to attend it, and this determination forms the necessary connection of these objects." His definition of cause is "an object precedent and contiguous to another, and so united with it that the idea of the one determines the mind to form the idea of the other, and the impression of the one to form a more lively idea of the other."
Hume's doctrine is founded on his favorite principle, " that all our ideas are copied from our impressions but the necessary connection of cause and effect cannot be in the impression, for " when I cast my eye on the known qualities of objects, I immediately discover that the relation of cause and effect depends not the least on them." Not being in the impression, it cannot be found in the idea. Now it is here, I apprehend, that Hume is to be met. I have disputed his theory that the mind begins with mere impressions; it commences with the perception or knowledge of objects within itself, and without itself. Now, in its primitive perception of objects, it knows them as having power; it knows self as a power, and it knows the not-self as a power, -- as a power in resisting and impressing the self. Here is the , if any one will call it so (I call it knowledge), that gives rise to the idea which may be separated in thought by abstraction, and put in the form of- - a maxim by generalization.
Unfortunately, as I think, the opponents of Hume have {143} not always met him at the proper point. They have allowed him that we have no original knowledge of power in the objects, and having given this entrance to the sceptic, they find great difficulty in resisting his farther ravages. Sometimes they have endeavored to discover a of some kind the cause and its effect, but have always failed to tell what the bond is. Causation is not to be regarded as a cause and effect, but a power in the object, that is, substance (or objects and substances), acting as the cause to produce the effect. Kant labored to oppose the scepticism of the Scotchman by supposing that the mind, by its own forms, bound together events in its contemplation of them. But when he allowed that the power was not in the objects, he introduced a more subtle and perilous scepticism than that which he sought to overthrow. We avoid this subjective idealism by insisting that it is on the bare contemplation of a thing becoming, and not by the mere association of ideas and custom (which may aid), that we declare that it must have had a cause.
He is now prepared to discuss two questions: "Why we attribute a continued existence to objects even when they are not present to the senses, and why we suppose them to have an existence distinct from the mind and perception?" He shows, as to the first, the senses give us nothing but a present perception; and, as to the second, that our perceptions being of ourselves, can never give us the least intimation of any thing beyond. He dwells in the usual manner on the acknowledged unreality of what have been called the secondary qualities of matter, and as we naturally look upon the primary qualities, such as motion and solidity, and the secondary qualities, such as colors, sound, heat and cold, as alike real, so we must philosophically consider them as alike unreal. After the manner of the times, he rejects the notion that we can immediately perceive our bodily frame, and not mere impressions, and that we can know both the" objects and ourselves." But whence, it is asked, the coherence and constancy of certain impressions? He accounts for it on the
principle that the thought, according to the laws of association, slides from one impression to others with which it has been joined, and reckons them the same, and mistakes the succession of images for an identity of objects. {144}
The result reached by him is," All our distinct perceptions are distinct existences," and ,the mind never perceives any real connection among distinct existences." "What we call mind is nothing but a heap or collection of different impressions united together by certain relations, and supposed, though falsely, to be endowed with a perfect simplicity and identity." He gives the same account of what we call matter. He shows that having nothing but impressions, we can never, on the mere ground of a conjunction which we have never witnessed, argue from our perceptions to the existence of external continued objects; and he proves (very conclusively, I think, on his assumption), that we could never have any reason to infer that the supposed objects resemble our sensations.[40] He now draws his sceptical conclusion: " There is a direct and total opposition betwixt our reason and our senses, or, more properly speaking, betwixt those conclusions which we form from cause and effect, and those that persuade us of the continued and independent existence of body. When we reason from cause and effect, we conclude that neither color, sound, taste, nor smell have a continued and independent existence. When we exclude these sensible qualities, there remains nothing in the universe which has such an existence."
The question is: How is such a scepticism to be met? Reid opposed it by showing that the sensation leads us intuitively to believe in the existence of the external thing, and that the states of self, known by consciousness, imply a thinking substance. {145} The more correct statement seems to me to be, that we know at once the external objects; that intuitively we know our own frame and objects affecting it; that we are conscious, not of states arguing a self, but of self in a certain state; and that, on comparing a former self recalled by memory and a present self known by consciousness, we declare them to be the same. Kant certainly did not meet the scepticism of Hume in a wise or in an effective manner, when he supposed that the unity was given to the scattered phenomena by forms in the mind.
It is clear that all the usual psychological arguments for the immateriality and immortality of the soul are cut up and destroyed by this theory. We cannot speak of the soul as either material or spiritual, for we know nothing either of matter or spirit except as momentary impressions. The identity which we ascribe to the mind of man is only a fictitious one." Identity is nothing really belonging to these different perceptions, but is merely a quality which we attribute to them because of the union of their ideas in the imagination, when we reflect upon them.
His theory of causation undermines the argument for the divine existence. He carefully abstains from dwelling on this in his great philosophic work, but he expounds it at great length, and with all his intellectual power, in his " Dialogues on Natural Religion." We know nothing of cause, except that it has been observed to be the antecedent of its effect; when we have noticed an occurrence usually preceded by another occurrence, we may on discovering the one look for the other. But when we have never seen the events together, we have really nothing to guide us in arguing from the one to the other. We can argue that a watch implies a watchmaker, for we have observed them together; but never having had any experience of the making of a world, we cannot argue that the existence of a world implies the existence of a world maker. There is no effective way of answering this objection, but by maintaining that an effect necessarily implies a cause. It was on this ground that he was met by Reid, who argues that traces of design in God's works argue an intelligent cause. Kant deprived himself of the right to argue in this way, by making the mind itself impose the relation of causation on events, {146} so that we cannot argue that there is a corresponding law in the things themselves. Hume urges with great force and ingenuity, as Kant did after him, that if we are compelled to seek for a cause of every object, we must also seek for a cause of the Divine Being. This is to be met by showing that our intuitive conviction simply requires us to seek for a cause of a new occurrence. He argues, as Kant also did after him, that the existence of order in the universe could at best prove merely a finite and not an infinite cause. The reply is, that we must seek for the evidence of the infinity of God in the peculiar conviction of the mind in regard to the infinite and the perfect.[41]
This may be the most expedient place for stating and examining his famous argument against miracles, as advanced in his essay on the subject. It is clear that he could not argue, as some have done, that a miracle is an impossibility, or that it is contrary to the nature of things. He assails not the possibility of the occurrence of a miraculous event, but the proof of it. Experience being with him the only criterion of truth, it is to experience he appeals. He maintains that there has been an invariable experience in favor of the uniformity of nature, and that a miracle being a violation of a law of nature, can never be established by as strong proof as what can be urged against it. He then exerts his ingenuity in disparaging the evidence usually urged in behalf of miraculous occurrences, by showing how apt mankind are to be swayed on these subjects by such principles as fear, wonder, and fancy. We are not {147} sure whether Hume has always been opposed in a wise or judicious manner by his opponents on this subject. It is of little use showing that there is some sort of original instinct leading us to believe in testimony; for this instinct, if it exists, often leads us astray, and we must still go to experience to indicate what we are to trust in and what we are to discard. But the opponents of Hume were perfectly right when they showed, that in maintaining that nature always acted according to certain mundane laws, he was assuming the point in dispute. Let us admit that the whole question is to be decided by experiential evidence. Let us concede that in the present advanced state of science there is ample evidence that there is a uniformity in nature; but then let us place alongside of this a counterpart fact, that there is a sufficient body of evidence in favor of there being a supernatural system. For this purpose let the cumulative proofs in behalf of Christianity, external and internal, be adduced; those derived from testimony and from prophecy, and those drawn from the unity of design in the revelation of doctrine and morality, and from the character of Jesus; and we shall find that in their consistency and congruity they are not unlike those which can be advanced in behalf of the existence of a natural system.
In Book Second of his Treatise, Hume treats of the passions. It is the most uninteresting part of his writings. The reading of it is like travelling over an immense plain, which looks inviting at the distance, but in which we find no spots of fertility or of historical interest. It looks as if the good-humored but phlegmatic man were incapable of discussing the nature of the passions. The composition, though clear and sustained, is never elevated by bursts of feeling or irradiated by gleams of genius. He has a theory to support, and he defends it by wiredrawn ingenuity. When he treats of the understanding, if be does not establish much truth, he at least overthrows venerable error, and we are constrained to admire his intellectual energy and courage; but, in dealing with the feelings of our nature, he wastes his strength in rearing a baseless fabric, which, so far as I know, no one has ever adopted, and no one has been at the trouble to assail. He has no proper analysis of man's original springs of action. He says only in a general way, that "the chief spring or actuating {148} principle of the human mind is pleasure and pain." He gives no psychological account of the place which the idea or apprehension of an object as good or evil, or rather as appetible or inappetible, has in all feeling. Of course, all passions are according to him impressions, only he calls them reflective impressions, to distinguish them from sensations. The reflective impressions are of two kinds, the calm and the violent; the first including beauty and deformity, and the latter such passions as love and hatred, grief and joy, pride and humility. He connects his theory of the passions throughout with his theory of the understanding. There are associations among the passions, as there are associations among ideas; only he says, that while ideas are associated by resemblance, contiguity, and causation, impressions are associated only by resemblance. There has as yet been no thorough examination, so it appears to me, of the laws of succession of feeling, as distinguished from that of ideas; I am not convinced that the theory of Hume, that feelings are associated only by resemblance, is the correct one. He draws a distinction between the cause and the object of passion. Thus if a man has made a beautiful house, the object of the passion is himself, and the cause is the beautiful house. The idea of ourselves is always present with, and conveys a' sensible degree of vivacity to the idea of any other object to which we are related; in short, turns the idea into an impression. Some other person is the object of love, but the cause of that passion is the relation of that person to self. Out of this may proceed the desire of happiness or misery of others, which he describes "," - - I put the language in italics, as I may have occasion again to refer to it. In this way he constructs an elaborate, but by no means clear, theory of the passions. He divides them into direct and indirect. By direct, he understands such as arise immediately from good or evil, that is, from pain or pleasure. He says of them: " The direct passions frequently arise from a natural . Of this kind is the desire of punishment to our enemies and of happiness to our friends, hunger, lust, and a few other bodily appetites." Under the direct, he includes desire, aversion, grief, joy, hope, fear, despair, and security. The indirect proceed {149} from the same principles, but by conjunction with other qualities; and he comprehends under them pride, humility, ambition, vanity, love, hatred, envy, pity, malice, generosity, with their dependents. It may be said of his exposition of the passions generally, that he has often seized on important circumstances which modify their action, but has altogether failed in his explanation of their nature. Thus he has some just remarks upon the transition of one idea to another, upon the effects thus produced, and upon the predominant passion swallowing up the inferior; but after all we have no proper evolution of the psychological process.
He occasionally refers to beauty, but the account he gives of it is very inadequate. "Beauty is such an order and construction of parts, as either by the primary constitution of our nature, or by custom, or by caprice, is fitted to give a pleasure and satisfaction to our souls." "The conveniency of a house, the fertility of a field, the
strength of a horse, the capacity, security, and swift- sailing of a vessel, form the principal beauty of these several objects." It is clear that the aesthetic tastes of one satisfied with such a theory could not have been keen, and we do not wonder to find that in the letters written during his travels, he never makes a single allusion to a fine statue or painting.
The account which he gives of the will is still more defective. "The will is the internal impression we feel and are conscious of, when we knowingly give rise to any new motion of our body." Surely we may have will in regard to our mental operations as well as in regard to our bodily motions. The will, he says, is an impression, but surely it is an impression of a very peculiar kind; and he should have inquired, which he has not done, into its nature, when he would have seen that it possesses an essential freedom. As not perceiving this, he has left nothing to save man from being driven on by an iron necessity.
In Book Third, he treats of morals, and starts his utilitarian theory, which, however, he develops more fully, and in a livelier, more pointed, and ornate manner, in his essay, ,An Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals." He says of this work, that it is " of all my writings, historical, philosophical, or literary, incomparably the best." In respect of practical influence, {150} it has certainly been the most important. By his speculative doubts in regard to the operations of the under standing he has furnished a gymnastic to metaphysicians ever since his time; but by his theory of virtue he has swayed belief and practice.
He shows that we cannot distinguish between good and evil by reason alone, defining reason as the discovery of truth or false hood, and truth and falsehood as consisting in the agreement or disagreement, either to the real relation of ideas, or to real existence and matter of fact. Taking reason in this sense, it certainly cannot be said to discern the morally good. But then it may be maintained that the mind has a power of discerning moral good and evil analogous to the reason which distinguishes truth and falsehood, and all that he could urge in opposition would be, that such a view is inconsistent with his theory of impressions and ideas. It is by no means clear what is the faculty or feeling to which he allots the function of perceiving and approving the morally good. Sometimes he seems to make man a selfish being, swayed only by motives of pleasure or pain; and in this view virtue is to be regarded as good, because associated directly or indirectly with the pleasure it would bring to ourselves. But in other places he calls in a " benevolent sentiment, leading us to approve what is useful." Hume's general theory might certainly seem op posed to every thing , and yet, in criticising Locke, he is obliged to say: " I should desire to know what can be meant by asserting that self-love or resentment of injuries, or passion between the sexes, is not innate." We have already quoted passages in which he appeals to instincts. He says elsewhere, "The mind, by an instinct, tends to unite itself with the good, and avoid the evil." At times he seems to adhere to the theory of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, as to the existence of a moral sense. "The mind of man is so formed by nature, that upon the appearance of certain characters, dispositions, and actions, it immediately feels the sentiment of approbation or blame." He tells us expressly that he is inclined to think it probable that the final sentence in regard to moral excellence "depends on some internal sense or feeling which nature has made universal in the whole species." I believe that we cannot account for the ideas in the mind except by calling in {151} such a faculty or feeling; and it was his business, as an experimental inquirer, to ascertain all that is in this power, and to determine its mode of operation and its laws. But such an investigation would have overthrown his whole theory, metaphysical as well as ethical.
According to Hume, virtue consists in the agreeable and useful. "Vice and virtue may be compared to sounds, colors, heat and cold, which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the mind." " Virtue is distinguished by the pleasure, and vice by the pain, that any action, sentiment, or character gives us by the mere view and contemplation." This theory goes a step farther than that of Hutcheson in the same direction. Hutcheson placed virtue in benevolence, thereby making the intention of the agent necessary to virtue; whereas Hume does not regard it as necessary that it should be voluntary, and requires us to look merely to the act and its tendency. His definition might lead one to think that an easy road or a pleasant carriage should be regarded as virtuous. But he will not admit that because an inanimate object may be useful as well as a man, that therefore it ought also to merit the appellation of virtuous; for he says: ,The sentiments excited by utility are in the two cases very different, and the one is mixed with affection, esteem, approbation, and not the other." This language, more particularly the phrases "esteem" and "approbation," might leave led him to discover that there is a peculiar judgment or sentiment attached to virtuous action not produced by mere utility.
He easily satisfies himself that he can show that benevolence is a virtue because it is so agreeable and useful; but he never faces the real difficulty, which is to account for the sense of obligation which we feel, and the obligation actually lying upon us, to do good to others.[42] He strives to show that justice is commended by us because of its beneficial tendency. justice can have a meaning, he maintains, only in regard to society and arrangements made with others. True, the giving to every one his due, implies beings to whom the due is to be {152} given; but the due arises from the relation in which we stand to these beings. Thus the first man and woman having children, had duties to discharge towards them as soon as they were born, and independent of any promise. He labors to prove that our obligation to keep a promise arises from utility. " Fidelity is no natural virtue, and promises have no force antecedent to human conventions." True, a promise implies a person to whom it is made, but, once made, the obligation is complete.
This leads us at once to the fundamental objections which may be taken to the utilitarian theory. Whence the obligation lying on us to promote the happiness of others? to give others their due? to keep our promises? From their utility, it is answered. But why are we bound to attend to what is useful? is the question that immediately occurs; why the reproach that follows, and which justifies itself when we have failed to keep our word? These questionings bring us to a justice which guards conventions, to a law which enjoins love.
The practical morality sanctioned by the system, and actually recommended by Hume, excludes all the higher virtues and loftier graces. The adoration of a Supreme Being, and love to him, are represented as superstition. He has no God to sanction the moral law, and no judgment day at which men have to give in an account. Repentance has and can have no place in a system which has no fixed law and no conscience. Humility, of which he treats at great length, is disparaged. The stern virtues of justice, of self-sacrifice, of zeal in a good cause, of faithfulness in denouncing evil, and of courage in stemming the tide of error and corruption, these are often so immediately disagreeable, that their ultimate utility will never be perceived except by those who are swayed by a higher principle. It is certain that they were not valued by Hume, who speaks of them as superstition and bigotry, and characterizes those who practise them as zealots and fanatics. His view of the marriage relation was of a loose and flexible character, and did not profess to discountenance the evil practices of his time. "A man in conjoining himself to a woman is bound to her ac cording to the terms of his engagement: in begetting children, he is bound by all the ties of nature and humanity to provide for their sustenance and education. When he has performed {153} these two parts of duty, no one can reproach him with injustice or injury." Not acknowledging a God bestowing the gift of life, and requiring us to give an account of the use we make of it, and setting no value on courage in difficulties, he argues that a man may take away his life when it is no longer useful.
The state of society which he aimed at producing is thus described: " But what philosophical truths can be more advantageous .to society than those here delivered, which represent virtue in all her genuine and most engaging charms, and make us approach her with ease, familiarity, and affection? The dismal dress falls off with which many divines, and some philosophers, have covered her, and nothing appears but gentleness, humanity, beneficence, affability; nay, even at proper intervals play, frolic, and gayety. She talks not of useless austerities and rigors, suffering and self-denial." People have often speculated as to what Hume would have taught had he been elected professor of moral philosophy in Edinburgh. I believe he would have expounded a utilitarian theory, ending in the recommendation of the pleasant social virtues; speaking always respectfully of the Divine Being, but leaving his existence an unsettled question.
And what, it may be asked, is the conclusion to which he wishes to bring us by his whole philosophy? I am not sure that he has confessed this to himself. Sometimes it looks as if his sublime aim was to expose the unsatisfactory condition of philosophy, in order to impel thinkers to conduct their researches in a new and more satisfactory manner. " If, in order to answer the doubts started, new principles of philosophy must be laid, are not these doubts themselves very useful? Are they not preferable to blind and ignorant assent? I hope I can answer my own doubts; but, if I could not, is it to be wondered at? " I verily believe that this was one of the alternatives he loved to place before him to justify his scepticism. " I am apt," he says, in writing to Hutcheson, " to suspect in general that most of my reasonings will be more useful in furnishing hints, and exciting people's curiosity, than as containing any principles that will augment the stock of knowledge that must pass to future ages." But I suspect that the settled conviction reached by him was that no certainty could be attained in speculative philosophy; he was sure {154} that it had not been attained in time past. The tone of the introduction to his great work is: " There is nothing which is not the subject of debate, and in which men of learning are not of contrary opinions. If truth be at all within the reach of human capacity, it is certain it must be very deep and abstruse; and to hope we shall arrive at it without pains, while the greatest geniuses have failed with the utmost pains, must certainly be esteemed sufficiently vain and presumptuous." As being thus deep, he feels as if the great body of mankind need not trouble themselves much about it. He seems at times complacently to contemplate this as the issue to which he would drive mankind for he sees at once that if men become convinced that they cannot reach certainty in such speculations, they will give up inquiry. " For nothing is more certain than that despair has almost the same effect upon us as enjoyment, and that we are no sooner acquainted with the impossibility of satisfying any desire than the desire itself vanishes and he thinks it a satisfactory condition of things when men discover the impossibility of making any farther progress, and make a free confession of their ignorance. Considered in this light, Hume's philosophy, in its results, may be considered as an anticipation of the positive school of M. Comte, which in the British section of it approaches much nearer the position of Hume than most people are aware of.
He allows that man should, as indeed he must, follow his natural impulses, and the lessons of experience, as far as this world is concerned. But he will grant nothing more. He thus closes his inquiry into the understanding: "When we trace up the human understanding to its first principles, we find it to lead us into such sentiments as seem to turn into ridicule all our past pains and industry, and to discourage us from future inquiries." "The understanding, when it acts alone, and according to its general principles, entirely subverts itself, and leaves not the lowest degree of confidence in any proposition, either in philosophy or common life." In common life this scepticism meets with insuperable barriers, which we should not try to overcome. But it is different with philosophical, and, we may add, theological truths, which are supported solely by speculative considerations. In these departments {155} we may discuss and doubt as we please, without doing any injury. " What injury can ever come from ingenious reasoning and inquiry? The worst speculative sceptic I ever knew was a much better man than the best superstitious devotee." Those who think they can reach truth in these matters are at liberty to cherish their conviction, provided always that they do not thereby disturb their neighbors. But the time is coming, and already wise men see that it is coming, when mankind will not concern themselves with such speculative questions, or will engage in them only as a gymnastic to the intellect, or as a means of showing that ultimate truth is unattainable by man.
It was, I believe, on such grounds as these that Hume justified himself in his sceptical doubts, and his sceptical solution of these doubts. He thought they might stir up inquiry on subjects on which no truth had been reached; and tend to confound the dogmatism and restrain the disputations in philosophy, and the fanaticism and superstition in religion, which had wrought such mischief; and prepare the way for a reign of universal toleration. As to religious belief, it could be supported only by speculative arguments, derived from an absolute causation, or from miracles which cannot stand a searching investigation. So far as men follow a moderate and tolerant religion, Hume was rather pleased with them, and he evidently shrank from the fanatical atheism avowed by some of the more advanced followers of the system in France. If there be a world to come, it will clear up itself when it comes; and, meanwhile, there are duties which we must perform, from a regard to ourselves and our relation to others. There had hitherto been no science of metaphysics; but there could be a science of ethics (and also of politics) founded on the circumstance, that certain acts are found to be agreeable and useful to ourselves and others.
It is in this way we are to reconcile certain seeming inconsistencies in his character. He had no settled faith in any religion, yet he went to church, at least at times; he wished his servant to go to church, and he mingled in the counsels of the Church of Scotland. He never committed himself to deism or atheism. He wrapped up his thoughts on these subjects in his bosom, perhaps with some feeble hope that he {156} might get light; but the cloud seems only to have settled more deeply upon him. When the pert Mrs. Mallet met him one night at an assembly, and boldly accosted him, " Mr. Hume, give me leave to introduce myself to you: we deists ought to know each other," " Madam," replied he, " I am no deist: I do not style myself so, neither do I desire to be known by that appellation." He did not avow himself an atheist in Paris. Sir Samuel Romilly has detailed a characteristic anecdote told of him by Diderot. He dined with a large company at the house of Baron D'Holbach. "As for atheists," said Hume, " I do not believe one exists: I have never seen one." " You have been a little unfortunate," said the baron: " here you are with seventeen of them at the table for the first time." We may suppose there was some sincerity in the statement he made: " I have surely endeavored to refute the sceptic with all the force of which I am master, and my refutation must be allowed to be sincere because drawn from the capital principles of my system," only he was not prepared to review his system. In writing to Elliott, he says he wishes to make Cleanthes, the theist, the hero of the dialogue. Adam Ferguson told his son, who reports the incident, that one clear and beautiful night, when they were walking home together, Hume suddenly stopped, looked up to the starry sky, and said, " O Adam, can any one contemplate the wonders of that firmament, and not believe there is a God! " Dr. Carlyle tells us, that when his mother died he was found in deepest affliction and a flood of tears, upon which Mr. Boyle said to him that his uncommon grief arose from his having thrown off the principles of religion; to which he replied: " Though I throw out my speculations to entertain the learned and metaphysical world, yet in other things I do not think so differently from the rest of the world as you imagine." In whatever way we may account for it, there was evidently a consistency in the character of Hume which made him respected by his worldly friends, who thought a man might be good, though he had no godliness.
The all-important question is, How is this spirit to be corrected, this error to be met?
. It must be firmly maintained that an honest mind can spontaneously attain such truth, secular, moral, and religious, {157} as is needful to its peace and progress. This truth does not lie deep down in some pit, which can be reached only by deep down, or whence it can be drawn only by the cords of lengthened ratiocination; it lies on the surface, and may be seen by immediate perception, or picked up by brief discursive processes. By this spontaneous exercise of our faculties and common observation, we reach the existence of God, the accountability of man, and a day of judgment. By such an easy method we rise to a belief in the Word of God, and in the spiritual verities there set forth. We should hold that man reaches all this by as natural a procedure as that by which he comes to know what path he should take in the common affairs of this life. No doubt be will at times meet with difficulties, but this only as he may be beset by perplexities in the affairs of this world; and in the one case, as in the other, the sincere mind has commonly enough of light to guide it.
Secondly. It should be held that he who undermines the fundamental truth spontaneously discovered, is doing an injury to humanity. Scepticism, as Hume delights to show, can produce no mischief in the common secular affairs of life, because there are circumstances which keep men right in spite of their principles, or want of principles. But it is very different in respect of those questions which fall to be discussed in higher ethics and theology. A man will not be tempted by any sophistry to doubt the connection of cause and effect when he is thirsty and sees a cup of water before him; in such a case he will put forth his hand and take it, knowing that the beverage will refresh him. But he may be led by a wretched sophistry to deny the necessary relation of cause and effect when it would lead him upward from God's works to God himself, or induce him to seek peace in Him. Hence the importance of not allowing fundamental truth to be assailed; not because the attack will have any influence on the practical affairs of this life, but because it may hold back and damp our higher aspirations, moral and religious. Hume hoped that his scepticism might soften asperities, but he did not wish to think that any bad influences could follow from it. On one occasion he was told of a banker's clerk in Edinburgh, of good reputation, who had eloped with a sum of money; and the philosopher wondered greatly what could {158} induce such a man thus to incur, for an inconsiderable sum, such an amount of guilt and infamy. "I can easily account for it," said John Home, "from the nature of his studies, and the kind of books he was in the habit of reading." "What were they," said the philosopher. He was greatly annoyed when told, Boston's "Fourfold State," and Hume's "Essays." Certainly the youth must have been in a perplexed state who had been converted from a belief in the " Fourfold State" by Hume's " Essays," or who was hesitating between them. Thirdly. The philosopher must undertake a more important work. He must inquire into the nature of fundamental truth; he must endeavor to unfold the mental powers that discover it, and to expound their mode of operation, and their laws. He cannot indeed prove first truths by mediate evidence, for if they were capable of probation they could not be first truths; but he can show that they are first truths perceived by immediate cognition of the objects, and in no need of external support. He must as far as possible clear tip the difficulties and perplexities in which the discussions in regard to them have become involved. In particular, he must show that while the reflex consideration of the ultimate principles of knowledge often lands us in difficulties, the principles them selves never lead us into positive contradictions; and that, therefore, while we allow that the human faculties are limited, we cannot admit that they are deceptive. This is what has been attempted by one philosopher after another since the days of Hume.
In fact, all later philosophy springs directly or indirectly from the thorough-going examination to which the Scotch sceptic had subjected received truths. It has been the aim of the Scottish school, as modified and developed by Reid, to throw back the scepticism of Hume. Reid tells us that he once believed the received doctrine of ideas so firmly as to embrace the whole of Berkeley's system along with it, till, on discovering the consequences to which it had been driven by Hume, he was led to review the whole theory and abandon it. Kant declares that he was roused from his dogmatic slumbers by the assaults of the Scottish sceptic, and was thus impelled to the task of repelling the attack. It is scarcely necessary to say that all other philosophies, deserving the name, which have {159} originated within the last hundred years, have ramified directly or indirectly from the Scottish and the German schools; one school, the French school of M. Cousin, seeking to combine the two.
It is interesting to observe the respective ways in which the Scottish and the German metaphysician sought to meet the great sceptic. It is evident that his assaults might be repelled at one or other of two places: either where the foe has entered, or after he has made certain advances. That the mind begins with impressions and goes on to ideas, which are mere reproductions of impressions,-this is the fundamental principle of Hume. Now this may be denied, I think should be denied. On what ground, we ask, does he allow the existence of impressions and ideas? When he answers, we can show him that on the same ground he must admit more; that he must allow that the mind has convictions in regard to its own existence, and the existence of external objects, and perceptions of moral goodness. But again, he may be met at the farther stages of his progress. He asserts that the mind can reach no truth except such as it gets from experience. It may be shown in opposition that it has an original furniture in the shape of tendencies and laws which lead to and guarantee necessary and eternal truth. It is interesting to observe that Reid met him at both these points. Reid made a very careful inquiry into the nature of the senses as inlets of knowledge; and showed that accompanying the sensation there is always an intuitive perception of an external world. He showed too, though he did not make so much of it as he might, that consciousness is a mental faculty and a source of knowledge. He farther met the sceptic at the more advanced point, and proved that the mind has a primitive reason or common-sense which decides at once that things are so and so; that every effect, for instance, must have a cause. I am not of opinion that Reid has thoroughly cleared up these subjects, that he has detected all that is in the senses, that he has unfolded fully the laws of intuition and its mode of operation; but he has established enough to repel the assaults of the sceptic.
Reid possessed many of the best qualities of his countrymen; in particular, he was shrewd and independent: but he was not {160} endowed with great powers of logical analysis. On the other hand, Kant was strong where Reid was weak; that is, in power of dissection and construction: but was deficient where Reid excelled, in patient observation. He neglected, as I think most unfortunately, to oppose the fundamental principle of Hume. He allows that the mind begins with in the sense of appearances, and these phenomena are just the of Hume. But if it be allowed that in the original inlet we have only impressions or phenomena, it never can be satisfactorily shown how we can reach reality by any composition or decomposition of these. Kant exercised his vast powers in meeting Hume at the other point; that is, in showing that there is an priori furniture in the mind, independent of all experience. But what he built with the one hand he took down with the other. For these forms could not, in his theory, guarantee any objective reality. He accepts the conclusion of Hume, and allows that the speculative reason could not guide to truth; he goes so far as to maintain that it lands us in contradictions. This philosophy, intended to overthrow the scepticism of Hume, has thus led to a scepticism which has had a more extensive sway than that of the cold Scotchman ever had. He endeavored to save himself from such an issue by calling in a practical reason, which guaranteed as its corollaries the freedom and immortality of the soul, and the Divine existence. But it was immediately asked how it could be shown that the practical reason does not deceive, after it has been conceded that the speculative reason leads to illusion? Thus the insecure mound, raised with such labor to stem the flood, only aggravated the outburst and overflow as it gave way.
Sir W. Hamilton sought to unite Reid and Kant, but was never able to weld thoroughly together the principles which he took from two such different sources. His doctrines of the relativity of knowledge, and of causation as a mere impotency of the mind, have prepared the way for a doctrine of nescience now largely espoused. Some of his pupils have betaken themselves to a sort of confused Berkeleyanism mingled with Kantism, which will furnish an easy passage to the nescient theory in so shrewd a nation as Scotland, and among so practical a people as the English. Mr. Mill, in his examination {161} of Hamilton's Philosophy, has brought us to a joined to Comtism. This is the dismal creed provided for those who choose to follow the negative criticisms. of the day in philosophy and theology. What we need in these circumstances is a new Thomas Reid, not to do over again the work which the common-sense philosopher did, but a corresponding service in this age to what he did in his time.
XX.-BOOKS ADVERTISED IN " SCOT'S MAGAZINE." T/HE\ "S/COT'S\ M/AGAZINE\" begins in 1739. The works mentioned and the topics discussed will give us a better idea of the times, than any thing else that can be produced. In January is advertised " A Treatise of Human Nature," the work that revolutionized all modern philosophy. For years, we have papers about Whitefield, who revolutionized religion in England, and had a mighty influence in Scotland and America. The magazine has a series of papers, lasting for years, under the head of " Common Sense." In March, there is an advertisement of a " Second Volume of Common Sense Letters collected," showing that we have no need to go to remote quarters to find the source from which Reid and the Aberdeen school got the phrase, "common sense," which had been in constant use since the time of Shaftesbury (P. 31). It is curious to notice that, in January, comedians are prosecuted before the Court of Session, and, in February, are found guilty, and "decerned for the penalties in the late Act against strollers." In March, there is an advertisement, " A View of the Necessitarian or Best Scheme, freed from the Objections of M. Crouzaz in his Examinations of Pope's I Essay on Man."' In June, "The Necessity of Revelation," by Archibald Campbell, PP. 45, 3d-- in sheets, showing that revelation needed to be defended. In October, an attack on Campbell's book, and, in December, a reply by Campbell. In October, " A Treatise of Ancient Painting," by Dr. Turnbull, 41. 4s. in sheets. In February, 1740, "The Principles of Moral Philosophy;" in December, "A Methodical System of Universal Law; " and, in May, -- A Curious Collection of fifty Ancient Paintings," 1L. 8s., all by Turnbull, showing that there was a taste in the country for ethical and aesthetic discussions, -- the failure of Turnbull's works proving that it was not to be gratified by the excellent commonplace of that author. In 1740, Simson, whose views in regard to the Trinity raised such discussion, passes away from this world, after having lived in retirement since his suspension in 1728. In May, we have "The Principles and Connection of Natural and Revealed Religion," by A. Ashley Sykes; and "The Divine Authority of the Old and New Testament asserted," by J. Leland, D.D., 25S.; and, in July, " Discourses concerning {162} the Being and Natural Perfections of God," by J. Abernethy, M. A-, 5s- - 6d-; all showing that there were men ready to defend natural and revealed religion on sound, sensible principles. That deism is alive, appears from May, when " Physico, Theologico, Philosophico, Moral Disquisition concerning Human Nature, Free Agency, Moral Government, and Divine Providence," by T. Morgan, M.D., 5s. 6d., appears. In June, " Remarks on the Inquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul," is. In December, among preferments, Adam Smith, Comptroller of the Customs at Kirkcaldy, Inspector-General of the Customs; showing that a competent man was being prepared to discuss political economy. In April, 1741, " The Temper, Character, and Duty of a Minister of the Gospel," a sermon by William Leechman, M. A., 6d.; indicating the introduction of Moderatism into the Church of Scotland in its most plausible form, denying no orthodox doctrine, and yet recommend, in graceful language, only the truths of natural religion, and the common moralities of life, -- an evidence that the attacks of deistical writers had made many ashamed of the deeper doctrines of Scripture. In January, 1744, there is an abstract of the associate presbytery for renewing the Covenants, dated at Stirling, Dec. 23, 1743, "complaining of several immoralities, and the repealing of the penal statutes against witches. The penal statutes against witches have been repealed by the parliament, contrary to the express law of God: by which a holy God may be provoked in a way of righteous judgment, to leave those who are already ensnared to be hardened more and more, and to permit Satan to tempt and seduce others to the same wicked and dangerous snares." The above list shows clearly an age of great intellectual activity, a strong tendency to philosophical discussion among Scotchmen, a vigorous attack on Christianity, a respectable defence of it and of natural religion, a revival of evangelical religion under Whitefield, and a strong love of it on the part of the common people, along with the appearance of intemperance and strolling players. It was in the midst of this ferment that Hume's work appeared, to shake all that was thought to be established in philosophy and in natural religion.
XXI.-ADAM SMITH.[43] H/IS\ is perhaps the most illustrious name appearing in these sketches. But he has a higher reputation in political economy than in metaphysics, in which latter department he comes before us as the author of a theory of moral sentiments, and of very interesting fragmentary histories of certain departments of philosophy. {163}
He was born June 5, 1723, in the "lang toun" of Kirkcaldy, which lies on the opposite side of the Frith of Forth from Edinburgh. His father was comptroller of the customs there and his mother, a benignant Christian lady, watched over his sickly childhood with tenderness, which he repaid her by a corresponding kindness for the long period of sixty years, for the greater part of which the two lived together. When about three years old he was stolen by a party of tinkers, who took him to the woods, but was fortunately rescued. We should have liked to hear him, in his later years, speculating as to what might have been his place in the gypsy camp had he been brought up among them. We can conceive that, while fashioning spoons out of horns and mending tin dishes, his comprehensive head would have been spinning a theory of the organization of the tribe. But it would have been beyond the capacity even of the explorer of the nature and causes of national wealth to determine what he himself or any other might have become if trained in such different circumstances. He seems to have received an excellent education in his native place, at a school which reared a number of eminent men. Unable from his weak bodily constitution to join in active amusements, he gave himself to reading, and, even at that early age, was noted for speaking to himself when alone, and falling into absent fits in company. At the premature age of fourteen, he went to the University of Glasgow, where his favorite studies seem to have been mathematics and natural philosophy. But before he left he attended the lectures of Hutcheson, whom he greatly admired, and who, no doubt, helped to direct him to philosophic pursuits. From Glasgow he went, on a salary provided by the Snell Foundation, to Baliol College, Oxford, where he resided for seven years, and seems to have given himself specially to the studies of polite literature. " He employed himself frequently in the practice of translation (particularly from the French), with a view to the improvement of his own style." Every one knows that the French authors were the models to which the greater part of the Scottish writers looked at that time. Hume and Smith entertained a feeling of admiration for French prose and poetry, but had no appreciation (as Adam Ferguson remarked) of Shakespeare or Milton. {164}
His original destination had been to the Church of England, but he did not find the profession to suit him. When at Oxford, the heads of the college found him reading Hume's Treatise of Human Nature," and they seized the work, and reprimanded the youth. ("Life," by M'Culloch.) On leaving Oxford he spent two years at Kirkcaldy, uncertain as to what he might do. In 1748 he removed to Edinburgh, where he delivered lectures on rhetoric and belles-lettres; the commencement, I believe, of that instruction in polite literature and English composition which has ever since been a distinguishing feature of the collegiate education in Scotland. In 1748 he was elected professor of logic, and in 1752 professor of moral philosophy, in the University of Glasgow. In the former, after an exposition, apparently brief (as we might expect from the spirit of the times), of the ancient logic, he devoted the rest of his time to rhetoric and belles-lettres. In the latter he divided his course into four parts: (1) Natural theology; (2) Ethics, unfolding the views he afterwards published in his " Theory of Moral Sentiments; " (3) Justice, that part of morality which can be expressed in precise rules; (4) Political science in which he delivered the thoughts and observations which were afterwards embodied in his great work, " The Wealth of Nations." In the later years of his Glasgow life, he expanded this last part more and more. An eminent pupil, Dr. Millar, afterwards professor of law in the university, describes him as a lecturer. " In delivering his lectures, he trusted almost entirely to extemporary elocution. His manner, though not graceful, was plain and unaffected; and, as he seemed to be always interested in the subject, he never failed to interest his hearers. Each discourse consisted commonly of several distinct propositions, which he successively endeavored to prove and illustrate. These propositions, when announced in general terms, had, from their extent, not unfrequently something of the air of a paradox. In his attempts to explain them, he often appeared at first not to be sufficiently possessed of the subject, and spoke with some hesitation. As he advanced, however, the matter seemed to crowd upon him: his manner became warm and animated, and his expression easy and fluent. In points susceptible of controversy, you could easily discover that he secretly conceived an opposition to his opinions, and that he {165} was led upon this account to support them with greater energy and vehemence. By the fulness and variety of his illustrations, the subject gradually swelled in his hands, and acquired a dimension which, without a tedious repetition of the same views, was calculated to seize the attention of his audience, and to afford them pleasure, as well as instruction, in following the same object through all the diversity of shades and aspects in which it was presented, and afterwards in tracing it backwards to that original proposition or general truth from which this beautiful train of speculation had proceeded."
The thirteen years he spent in this office, he looked back upon as the happiest in his life. He published, in 1759, his " Theory of Moral Sentiments," to which was appended an article on Johnson's Dictionary for the then " Edinburgh Review." While in Glasgow he collected a large body of the observations and facts which he afterwards embodied in his immortal work. He was stimulated and aided in these studies by his attending a weekly club founded by Provost Cochran, a Glasgow merchant, who furnished him with much valuable information on mercantile subjects.
In 1763 he gave up his chair in Glasgow, and, at the invitation of Mr. Charles Townsend, became travelling tutor to the young Duke of Buccleuch. One wonders, in these times, at so intellectual a man abandoning the influential position he held in Glasgow to become the teacher of a single youth, however eminent in station. But it was undoubtedly a great advantage to Smith that he was thus enabled to see more of mankind and of the world, and was brought into immediate contact with eminent men of kindred tastes and pursuits in France. Proceeding to France in the spring of 1764, he and his pupil spent eighteen months at Toulouse, and lived on terms of intimacy with some of the principal members of their parliament, and is supposed to have gathered there further materials for his great projected work. On leaving this place, he took an extensive tour in the south of France; spent two months at Geneva; and then went to Paris, and, having recommendations from Hume, he enjoyed the society of such men as Turgot, Quesnay, Morellet, Necker, D'Alembert, Heivetius, Marmontel, and Madame Riccoboni. He is supposed to have derived special benefit from his intercourse with Turgot and Quesnay, {166} who were engaged in political studies similar to his own. In October, to Great Britain, and spent the 1766, he returned next ten years with the mother whom he so much loved, in Kirkcaldy. There are traditions of David Hume visiting him there from time to time, and of their holding earnest conversations on questions of political economy, and, it is supposed, of religion, as they walked on the sands of the Frith of Forth. From this retreat issued, in 1776, his " Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," -- the work which made political economy a science.
In 1778 he was appointed, at the request of the Duke of Buccleuch, one of the commissioners of his majesty's customs in Scotland, and removed to Edinburgh, taking his mother with him: it is scarcely necessary to mention that he continued all his life a bachelor. Here he spent the last twelve years of his life. Henceforth he became an object of curiosity to all people of literary culture; and his person was scrutinized, as he walked the streets, by the curious, and his peculiar habits reported. Many a youth, studying in Edinburgh, was proud to relate in after years that he had seen him, -- a fine gentleman of the old school, a little above the ordinary size, with a manly countenance lighted by large gray eyes, wearing a cap, a long, wide great-coat, breeches, and shoebuckles; and they remarked that, when "he walked, his head had a gentle motion from side to side, and his body, at every step, a rolling or vermicular motion, as if he meant to alter his direction, or even turn back. In the street, or elsewhere, he always carried his cane on his shoulder, as a soldier does his musket." ("Lives," by Smellie.) Dr. Carlyle gives a graphic picture of his manner in company. " Adam Smith was far superior to Hume in conversational talents. In that of public speaking they were equal. David never tried it; and I never heard Adam but once, which was at the first meeting of the Select Society, when he opened up the design of the meeting. His voice was harsh, and enunciation thick, approaching to stammering. His conversation was not colloquial, but like lecturing, in which, I have been told, he was not deficient, especially when he grew warm. He was the most absent man in company that I ever saw; moving his lips, and talking with himself, and smiling, in the midst of large companies. If you awaked him from his reverie {167} and made him attend to the subject of conversation, he immediately began to harangue, and never stopped till he told you all he knew about it, with the utmost philosophical ingenuity. He knew nothing of characters, and yet was ready to draw them on the slightest invitation. But when you checked him, or doubted, he retracted with the utmost ease, and contradicted all he had been saying." Carlyle tells us that " David Hume, like Smith, had no discernment at all of character."
Dugald Stewart mentions it as an interesting circumstance that all Hume's works were written with his own hands, whereas Smith dictated to a secretary as he walked up and down his apartment, and hints that we may perceive, in the different styles of these two classical writers, the effects of these different modes of study: as he wrote with his own pen, Hume, gave a greater terseness and compactness to his style, whereas I Smith, in dictating to an amanuensis, kept himself more in sympathy with his reader, and was more disposed, like a speaker, to flow and fluency. It may have been from the same circumstance that Hume wrote with great rapidity, whereas Smith composed as slowly, and with as great difficulty, at last as at first.
In Edinburgh, his studies were much interrupted by his official duties, and often -- as he mentions in a letter written on his being elected by the students lord rector of his old University-did he cast a longing eye back upon the academic leisure he enjoyed in Glasgow. Like most men of high aims, he regretted, when he saw death approaching, that he had done so little. " I meant to have done more, and there are materials in my papers of which I could have made a great deal. But that is now out of the question." Shortly before his death, he gave orders to destroy all his manuscripts, which were supposed to contain his lectures on rhetoric, on natural religion, and on jurisprudence. He died in July, 1790.
Let us turn to his philosophy. His mind was essentially a reflecting one, a self-revolving one. He was always thinking, and talking to himself, gathering facts, forming theories, and seeking out events to confirm them; thus building up a system which was always ingenious, sometimes too ingenious, but {168} ever worthy of being weighed. His "Theory of Moral Sentiments " has commonly been a favorite with students, because of the eloquence of its language, modelled after the best philosophic writers of ancient Rome and modern France, and of the fertility of his resources in confirming his positions from his varied observation and reading. But his theory has gained the assent of few, and has often been prescribed by professors as a subject on which to exercise the critical acumen of their pupils. Adam Smith is always a discursive writer, and in the work now before us he wanders like a river amidst luxuriant banks, and it is not easy to define his course. Dugald Stewart in his "Memoir" has given the clearest account of it I have seen; and I mean to make free use of what he has written, in the shorter abstract which I submit.
According to the common moral theories, men first judge of their own actions, and then those of their neighbors. Smith reverses this, and maintains that the primary objects of our moral perceptions are the actions of other men. We put ourselves in their position, and partake with them in their affections by what he calls or fellow- feeling, which is the grand principle of his system. We thus judge of their conduct, and then apply to ourselves the decisions which we have passed on our neighbors, and which we may conceive they would pronounce on us. Our moral judgments, both with respect to others and ourselves, include two perceptions: first, of conduct as right or wrong; and, secondly, of the merit or demerit of the agent. When the spectator of another man's situation, upon bringing home to himself all its various circumstances, feels himself affected in the same manner with the person principally concerned, he approves of the affection or passion of this person as just, proper, and suitable to its object. We judge of the propriety of the affection of another only by its coincidence with that which we feel when we put ourselves in the same circumstances, and the perception of this coincidence is the foundation of the perception of moral obligation. Now this is a very circuitous way of gendering our moral ideas and judgments. Whether we look to ourselves or others, the mind pronounces a judgment upon the act, -- say a deed of benevolence or cruelty, -- and must do so according to some law which is the true basis of morality. We are more likely to {169} pronounce first upon ourselves. But it may be acknowledged that it does help us in forming a correct judgment, to put ourselves in the position of others, and inquire how they would view us; and hence the important rule: " Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them." This is the element of truth in Smith's theory. In illustrating his views, he is particularly happy in showing how circumstances affect our moral judgments; that, for example, when there is no envy in the case, our sympathy with joy is much stronger than our sympathy with sorrow, and that in consequence it is more easy to obtain the approbation of mankind in prosperity than in adversity. From the same principle he traces the origin of ambition, or of the desire of rank and pre-eminence the great object of which passion is to attain that situation which sets a man most in view of general sympathy and attention, and gives an easy empire over the affections of others.
Having thus shown how we come to a sense of propriety (as he calls moral excellence), he proceeds to analyze our sense of merit and demerit, which have always a respect to the effect which the affection tends to produce. The only actions which appear to us deserving of reward are actions of a beneficial tendency, proceeding from proper motives, with which we can sympathize; the only actions which seem to us to deserve punishment are actions of a hurtful tendency, proceeding from improper motives. He accounts for our sense of justice by the circumstance that, if I wish to secure the sympathy and approbation of my fellow-men, -- represented by Smith as the strongest desire of our natures, -- it is necessary for me to regard my happiness not in that light in which it appears to myself, but that in which it appears to mankind in general, as if in all justice there was not an inflexible rule for judging of the conduct both of ourselves and others.
He then shows how our sense of duty comes to be formed in consequence of an application to ourselves of the judgments we have previously passed on others. In doing this we lay down rules of morality which become universally applicable. He allows to Hume that every thing approved of by the mind is useful and agreeable; but he insists that it is not the view of this utility which is either the first or principal source of moral approbation. {170}
Most people have felt that this theory is too artificial, -- is too ingenious to be true. It contains some elements of truth, but they are not put in their proper place; and the fabric is left without a sure foundation, -- virtue has no other foundation than the sympathy and approbation of men. The beauty of the building lies not in the structure as a whole, but in portions, often subordinate portions of it. His illustrations are abundant, and always felicitous; and many of them show a very nice and delicate perception of the peculiarities of human nature. We see this very specially in his chapter " Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon our Notions of Beauty and Deformity," -- perhaps the most valuable part of his work, as being that in which he sketches the various moral systems, such as those of the Stoics and Epicureans. Here he shows erudition, and enters thoroughly into the spirit of the authors and their times. The work will continue to be read for its style and these adjuncts, by persons who set no value on the theory which be expounds.
Smith intended to write a connected history of the liberal sciences and elegant arts, but found the plan far too extensive. He has left us only a few fragments, which were published posthumously by Joseph Black and James Hutton. In these be discusses, always ingeniously, such topics as the nature of the imitation which takes place in what are called the imitative arts; the affinity between music, dancing, and poetry; the affinity between English and Italian verses. But the most valuable of these papers, are three on the principles which lead and direct philosophical inquiries, Illustrated by the history of astronomy, of ancient physics, of ancient logic and metaphysics, and one on the external senses.
The three philosophico-historical essays exhibit all the peculiarities of his mind: they are theoretical, they inquire into causes, and display an enlarged acquaintance with the sciences. He begins with showing that wonder called forth by the new and singular, surprise excited by what is unexpected, and admiration raised by what is great and beautiful, these -- and not any expectation of advantage, or the love of truth for its own sake-are the principles which prompt mankind to try to discover the concealed connections that unite the various appearances of nature, which give rise to the study of philosophy, {171} which is defined as the science of the connecting principles of nature. " Nature, after the largest expenditure that common observation can acquire, seems to abound with events which appear solitary and incoherent with all that go before them, which therefore disturb the easy movement of the imagination; and philosophy aims at discovering the invisible chains which bind together all the disjointed objects. Hence, in astronomy, the invention of eccentric spheres, of epicycles, and of the revolution of the centres of the eccentric spheres; in physics, the four elements; and in metaphysics and logic, species, essence, and ideas, -- all these give the imagination something to rest on." These motives have no doubt helped to create a taste for science, and often given it a particular direction; but many other causes have been in operation. It appears to me that, had Smith been able to devote as much time to a history of philosophy as he did to the "Wealth of Nations," and been in circumstances to review his theories from time to time, he might have written a better work than any produced in that century. No doubt he would at times have added a thought of his own to the account given of a philosophic opinion; but, following out his favorite principle of sympathy, he would always have put himself with the authors and their times.
His paper "Of the External Senses" is characterized by much sound sense and a profound study of the subject. He goes over the senses one by one. He has a glimpse of the important distinction -- afterwards carefully elaborated by Sir William Hamilton, and Miller the physiologist -- between the perception of the organ and of objects beyond the body. Tasting, smelling, hearing, and certain sensations of touch, are altogether in the organ, and nowhere else but in the organ. But in regard to touching, " the thing which presses and resists I feel as something altogether different from these affections, as external to my hand, and as altogether independent of it." He represents the objects of touch as solidity, and those modifications of solidity which we consider as essential to it and inseparable from it, -- solid extension, figure, divisibility, and mobility." He defines the impenetrability of matter as " the absolute impossibility that two solid, resisting substances should occupy the same place at the same time." He expounds {172} a doctrine in regard to the so-called secondary qualities of matter or, to speak more properly, these four classes, of sensations heat and cold, taste, smell, and sound being felt not as resisting or pressing on the organ, but as in the organ." He says that they "are not naturally perceived as external and independent substances, but as mere affections of the organ, and what can exist nowhere but in the organ." This is perhaps a more philosophical account than that given by Locke, Reid, or Hamilton, who proceed on the distinction drawn between the primary and secondary qualities of matter. In regard to sight, he says the objects of it are color, and those modifications of color which in the same manner we consider as essential to it and inseparable from it, -- colored extension, figure, divisibility, and mobility." The tangible world has three dimensions, -- length, breadth, and depth; the visible world, only two, -- length and breadth. He recognizes Berkeley's theory of vision as "one of the finest examples of philosophical analysis that is to be found either in our own or in any other language; " and he quotes the Chiselden case. He notices the fact that, antecedent to all experience, the young of at least the greater part of animals possess some instinctive perception of distance. "The young partridge, almost as soon as it comes from the shell, runs about among the long grass and corn." He is inclined to think that the young of the human race may have some instinctive perception of the same kind, which does not come forth or manifest itself so strongly as in the lower animals, because mankind have greater aids from intelligence and education. He thinks that other senses, " antecedently to all observation and experience, may obscurely suggest a vague notion of some external thing which excites it. The smell not only excites the appetite, but directs to the object which can alone gratify that appetite. But, by suggesting the direction towards that object, the smell must necessarily give some notion of distance and externality, which are necessarily involved in the idea of direction." These hints are worthy of being carried out: they will certainly not be despised by those who in our day are studying hereditary instinct.
It does not consist with our purpose to give an account of his labors in political economy. I may remark, however, that in his work, and in every other, there is an omitted chapter, {173} which will require to be written by some one before the science is completed. In speaking of soil, labor, money, rent, and other external agents, there is no searching estimate of the internal motives which impel men to the acquisition and distribution of wealth. Some writers, such as James Mill, represent all men as swayed only by self-love; others dwell fondly on such principles as a taste for literature or the fine arts: but there has been no discriminating computation of the springs of action, general and special, which lead men to make acquisitions, and which have produced different results in different ages and nations; for instance, to one form of civilization in Italy or in France, to others in Germany or in Scotland. Smith might have been tempted to set too high a value on certain influences which were favorites with him, but he was eminently fitted to begin the undertaking; and had he done so, he would have left us admirable illustrations of the power of motives actually swaying mankind.
XXII.-HENRY HOME (LORD KAMES).[44] H/E\ was the son of George Home, of Kames, a country gentleman of small fortune, in Berwickshire, married to a granddaughter of Principal Baillie. He was born in 1696, and was educated at home, under a private tutor. It was in after life that he devoted himself to the study of Greek and Latin, to which be added mathematics, natural philosophy, logic, ethics, and metaphysics. He was never at any university. He showed an early taste for philosophical speculation. It seems that he came in contact with Andrew Baxter, who was tutor to a son of Mr. Hay, of Drumelzier, and lived at that time at Dunse Castle, within a few miles of Kames, and the two had a correspondence; Home arguing that motion was not a single effect, but a continued succession of effects, each requiring a new or a successive repetition of the cause to produce it. Like so many others in the same age, he had a thrust at Clarke's " Demonstration {174} of the Existence of God," and wrote, in 1723, a letter to the doctor. Already he is drawing up arguments against liberty of will. Having chosen the law as his profession, he was called to the bar 1723-24. As a pleader he began with a very short and distinct statement of the facts f the cause and a plain enunciation of the question of law thence arising, abandoning all the weaker points of the case. He excelled more in making an opening statement than in reply. We have a picture of his habits. He rose at five or six, and spent his morning in preparation for the business of the court. In the forenoon he was at the Court of Session, which, at that time, rose soon after mid-day. He did not go much out to dinner, as he needed all his time for business and study. In the evening, if he had leisure, he joined the ladies in the drawing-room, or took part in a game of cards, or might be seen at the concert or the assembly room. "The evening was generally closed by a small domestic party, where a few of his intimate friends assembled, for the most part without invitation; found a plain but elegant little supper , and where, enlivened often by some of Mrs. Home's female acquaintance, the hours were passed in the most rational enjoyment of sensible and spirited conversation, and easy social mirth, till after midnight."
Throughout his life he published various works on law and jurisprudence; beginning, in 1728, with a folio volume of " Remarkable Decisions of the Court of Session " from 1716 down to that period. In 1752 he was appointed a judge of the Court of Session, by the title of Lord Kames.
But his tastes ever led him towards metaphysical speculation. From 1727 he had been acquainted with David Hume, and he carefully studied his writings as they were published. It seems he had dissuaded the sceptic from publishing his "Philosophical Essays," and he felt himself called to oppose what he believed to be the extreme views there propounded. This gave rise, in 1751, to a work which produced a great noise in his own day, " Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion." It was published under the name of "Sopho." He shows that man is influenced by a great number and variety of principles, such as self-love, benevolence, sympathy, and utility, consonance to the divine will; and that his actions are most frequently the combined result of the opposite {175} springs, tempering and restraining each other's powers. He shows that man has, as a separate principle, in his nature and constitution, a moral feeling or conscience, the function of which is to judge with unerring rectitude of all his motives to action, and direct his conduct to one great and beautiful end, -- the utmost happiness of his nature. In expounding these views, he examines Hume's theory, and shows that it annihilates all real distinction between right and wrong in human actions, and makes our preference of one or other depend on the fluctuating opinions of men in respect to the general good. In particular, he opposes Hume's view of justice, and shows that the idea of property is coeval with society, and that its violation is universally attended with a feeling of a breach of duty, which is the sentiment of justice. He sets himself specially to oppose Hume's attempt to undermine the arguments in behalf of the Divine Existence.
In developing his moral and esthetic views, in this and in other works, he enunciates his metaphysical principles. He maintains that man can acquire intuitive knowledge from a single act of perception. "It is an undoubted truth that man has an original feeling or consciousness of himself and of his existence." He maintains (" History of Man,") that there is a sense by which we perceive the truth of many propositions: such as that every thing which begins to exist must have a cause; that every effect adapted to some end or purpose proceeds from a designing cause; and that every effect adapted to a good end or purpose proceeds from a designing and benevolent cause. A multitude of axioms in every science, particularly in mathematics, are equally perceived to be true. By a peculiar sense we know that there is a Deity. From all this it is evident that he stood up for intuitive principles.
There must surely be truth in the account he gives of power; so different from that of Locke on the one hand, and that of the high philosophers on the other. " Every action we perceive gives a notion of power; for a productive cause is implied in every action or event, and the very idea of a cause comprehends the power of producing its effects. Let us only reflect on the perception we have when we see a stone thrown into the air out of one's hand." "As I discover power in external objects by the eye, so I discover power in {176} my mind by an internal sense." "This feeling is involved in the very perception of the action, without taking in either reason or experience." "We cannot discover power in any object as we discover the object itself, merely by intuition; but the moment an alteration is produced by any object, we perceive that the object has a power to produce that alteration, which leads us to denominate the one a cause and the other an effect." It is generally acknowledged that we know objects within and without us only by their properties; but what are properties but powers, which must thus be known intuitively with the objects that possess them.
But the doctrine which startled the public was that of philosophical necessity, as expounded and defended by him. It is a circumstance worthy of being noted that this doctrine was upheld by three men, who arose about the same period and in much the same district of country, -- David Dudgeon, David Hume, and Henry Home; it looks as if it were the residuum left by the doctrine of predestination, when the flowing waters of the stream have been dried up by an and period. " With respect to instinctive actions, no person, I presume, thinks that there is any freedom; an infant applies to the nipple, and a bird builds a nest, no less necessarily than a stone falls to the ground. With respect to voluntary actions done in order to produce some effect, the necessity is the same, though less apparent at first view. The external action is determined by the will; the will is determined by desire , and desire, by what is agreeable or disagreeable. Here is a chain of causes and effects, not one link of which is arbitrary, or under command of the agent. He cannot will but according to his desire; he cannot desire but according to what is agreeable or disagreeable in the objects perceived. Nor do these qualities depend on the inclination or fancy: he has no power to make a beautiful woman appear ugly, nor to make a rotten carcase smell sweetly." "Thus, with regard to human conduct, there is a chain of laws established by nature, no one link of which is left arbitrary. By that wise system man is made accountable; by it he is made a fit subject for divine and human government; by it persons of sagacity foresee the conduct of others; and by it the presence of the Deity with respect to human actions is clearly established." He founds the responsibility of man upon this very doctrine. {177} "The final cause of this branch of our nature is admirable. If the necessary influence of motives had the effect either to lessen the merit of a virtuous action, or the demerit of a crime, morality would be totally unhinged." In regard to liberty, man acts with the conviction of his being a free agent, and is quite as much accountable as if he were truly free. The answer to all this is, that man has an intuition in regard to his possessing freedom quite as deep and ineradicable as his intuition about cause and effect. If we attend to the latter of these, and adhere to it, as Home does, we should equally hold by the other.
The friends of religion, unenlightened and enlightened, felt at once that there was something here repugnant to all that they had been led to believe about God and man; and Henry Home came to be put in the same class with David Hume, to whom he was in many respects opposed. In 1753, there appeared " An Estimate of the Profit and Loss of Religion, illustrated with References to Essays on Morality and Natural Religion." The author was Rev. George Anderson, who had been an army officer, and was now chaplain to Watson's Hospital in Edinburgh, and who wrote some tracts against the stage, and a " Remonstrance against Bolingbroke's Philosophical Religion." He is described, by Home's biographer, as " a man of a bold spirit and irascible temperament, and considerable learning." This gave rise to other pamphlets, as " A Letter to the Author of a late Book entitled an I Estimate of the Profit and Loss of Religion."' Anderson sets him self in opposition to those who say that Christianity is not founded on argument, and to Sopho, Hume, and Hutcheson. " Feelings being so uncertain and variable, it is most ridiculous to found upon them a law so important and extensive as is the law of nature." He prefers the ground taken by Clarke and Cumberland. As to the scheme of necessity, it is no other than that of Collins. " That Sopho's (Home's) principles serve the cause of atheism will be plain enough to any who duly consider the consequences of his scheme of necessity, which excludes a providence and binds up the Almighty in the same chain of fate with all other intelligent beings."[45] There appeared in 1755 "An Analysis {178} of the Moral and Religious Sentiments contained in the Writings of Sopho and David Hume, Esq., addressed to the Consideration of the Reverend and Honorable Members of the General Assembly.[46] The author denounces Home as maintaining that man is a mere machine, under an irresistible necessity in all his actions, and yet, " though man be thus necessarily determined in all his actions, yet does he believe himself free, God having planted in his nature this deceitful feeling of liberty," this deceitful feeling being the only foundation of virtue. He argues that from this doctrine it follows, as a necessary consequence, that there can be no sin or moral evil in the world.[47] As to Hume, he is charged with making all distinction betwixt virtue and vice as merely imaginary: "Adultery is very lawful, but sometimes not expedient." This letter was met by a pamphlet, " Observations on the Analysis," generally attributed to Blair, "who is believed likewise to have lent his aid to the composition of a formal reply made by Mr. Home himself, under the title of "Objections against the `Essays on Morality and Natural Religion' examined, 1756." {179}
In all this we have an able and legitimate discussion. But the opponents of the rising scepticism resorted to other and more doubtful steps. Henry Home, it is presumed, was a member of the Church of Scotland, and it would have been quite within the province of that church to summon him before it, and inquire into the opinions which 'he was believed to be propagating. Over David Hume, it is clear that the church had no jurisdiction. But the Church of Scotland claimed to be the guardian of religion in the country, and to have an authority to prevent the circulation of error. So a motion was made in the committee of overtures of the General Assembly that the body should take into their consideration how far it was proper to call before them and censure the authors of infidel books. "There is one person, styling himself David Hume, Esq., hath arrived at such a degree of boldness as publicly to avow himself the author of books containing the most rude and open attacks on the glorious gospel of Christ, and principles evidently subversive even of natural religion and the foundations of morality, if not establishing direct atheism: therefore, the Assembly appoint the following persons as a committee to inquire into the writings of this author. to call him before them, and prepare the matter for the next General Assembly." `I here was a keen debate in the committee for two days. It was moved in opposition, " that although all the members have a just abhorrence of any principles tending to infidelity or to the prejudice of our holy religion; yet, on account of certain circumstances in this case, they drop the overture, because it would not, in their judgment, serve the purpose of edification." The question being put, "transmit the overture to the Assembly or not," it passed in the negative by a majority of fifty to seventeen votes. After this, Mr. Anderson gave in a petition and complaint to the Presbytery of Edinburgh against the printer and publisher of the " Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion," requiring that the presbytery should summon them to appear before them and declare the name of the author of that work, that he might be censured according to the law of the gospel and the practice of this and all other well- governed churches." The defenders appeared by counsel. Meanwhile Mr. Anderson was summoned away by death from the scene. The case, however, goes on to a decision on the {180} merits, and the complaint is rejected. These incidents give us a more vivid picture of the times than any generalized statements. It is evidently the good function of the rising Moderate party in the church to restrain the intemperate zeal of those who would lay restraint on liberty of thought and writing, who would claim for the church a power not committed to it, and meet error with other weapons than argument.
Meanwhile there are able thinkers preparing to meet the scepticism both of Hume and Home, by well-established philosophic principles. We shall see that Reid and James Gregory, in particular, came forth to defend the doctrine of the freedom of the will. A curious cross-fight was produced at this stage by the introduction into Scotland of Edwards' " Treatise on the Will." In the pamphlet published in defence of Home, it is urged that, " among the list of subscribers to Edwards' book are many members of this church; and it was dispersed last year in this city by the most zealous friends to religion and true Calvinism." It is clear that Home and his friends wished to shelter themselves under the Calvinism of the Church of Scotland; and the pamphlet quotes Calvin, Turretin, and Pictet. It might have been urged in reply that Calvin stands up for an essential freedom of the will, possessed by all responsible beings; and that the reformers generally, in holding by a slavery of the will, meant a slavery produced by the fall of man and by sin. As to Edwards' doctrine, it is a metaphysical one not before the mind of the reformers; and it is so explained and illustrated by the author as to make it have a very different aspect and practical tendency from that propounded by the Scottish necessarians.
The " Essays on Morality" was the work of Home that produced the greatest sensation. It was followed by other philosophical works. In 1761, he published his "Introduction to the Art of Thinking," in which shrewd metaphysics and practical remarks are grafted on the old logic. For several years be had meditated an extensive work on the principles of criticism, which would inquire into the causes of that pleasure which is derived from the production of poetry, painting, sculpture, music, and architecture. The work appeared in I 762, under the title of " Elements of Criticism." It is gracefully {181} written: it treats of all the subjects usually discussed in books of rhetoric, and shows an extensive reading in the great classical writers of ancient and modern times. He professes to found the whole upon a philosophic basis. But his analysis of the mental principles involved does not seem to me to be very searching or profound. What is the use of telling us, What is now said about the production of emotion or passion resolves into a very simple proposition, that we love what is agreeable and hate what is disagreeable"? He does not follow the Scottish metaphysicians in resolving beauty into association of ideas. He discovers a beauty that is intrinsic as well as a relative beauty.
For years he was collecting materials for a work on man, which appeared in 1774 under the title of " Sketches of the History of Man." This work is meant to describe the progress made by man, in respect of language, food, commerce, the arts, science, government, morality, and religion. He is inclined to think that, as there are different climates, so there are different species of men fitted for these climates, and argues that we cannot account for the differences of mankind by climate or by external agencies. He would believe that there must have been an original difference of languages; but, yielding to the Scriptures, he accounts for the diversities by the confusion of tongues at Babel. He is fond of discovering every where a final cause on the part of God, and a progress on the part of man. He has collected what seems a wide induction of facts; but there is a great want of what Bacon insists on as a necessary part of all legitimate induction, -- " the necessary rejections and exclusions."
He was married to Miss Drummond, by whom he became possessed of one of the most beautiful places in Scotland, Blair Drummond, -- on the banks of the Teith, half way between hill and dale, -- in the south of Perthshire. Home was one of the earliest of those agricultural improvers who became very numerous, from this time onward, for an age or two among those lawyers of Edinburgh who possessed landed estates. He took a lead first at Kames, and then at Blair Drummond, in summer-fallow, and in raising green crops and sown grass. His great agricultural work, which made him famous all over Scotland, consisted in clearing the moss of Kincardine, which {182} extended four miles in length and one or two miles in breadth, and was covered with turf, eight or nine feet in thickness, and underneath which was a rich soil. He effected this by giving the land for a time to moss-planters, who floated away the turf by means of ditches which he dug. He was a leading member of the Board of Trustees for the Encouragement of the Fisheries, Arts, and Manufactures of Scotland, and of the Commission for the Management of Forfeited Estates, the rents of which were to be applied to the improvement of the highlands and islands of Scotland. By means of these boards he did much to stimulate the industry of Scotland. It is asserted that he did more than any man in his time in encouraging the introduction of " new modes and instruments of industry, the enclosure and culture of wastes and moors, the rearing of forest timber, the draining and cultivation of moss lands, the raising and spinning of flax, the growth and storing of winter fodder for cattle, the improvement of the breed of sheep, and the manufacture of coarse woollen stuffs."
In his old age he published " Loose Hints on Education." He thought that religion should form a main branch of education even in the earliest period of infancy, and that the parents or preceptor should acquaint the child with the fundamental doctrines of revealed religion. The common opinion of him was, that he must be a man devoid of all religion. But a clergyman writes " I have heard him mention the light of immortality as an excellence peculiar to the doctrine of Christ. He gave unqualified praise to Butler's `Analogy,' which is a defence of revealed as well as of natural religion. He was regular in his attendance upon public worship; and during my abode with him he had divine worship in his family every evening." It is interesting to notice that he defends the Scottish view of the Sabbath. " This consideration leads me necessarily to condemn a practice authorized among Christians, with very few exceptions; that of abandoning to diversion and merriment what remains of Sunday after public worship, parties of pleasure, dancing, gaming, any thing that trifles away the time without a serious thought; as if the purpose were to cancel every virtuous impression made at public worship." (" Sketches of the History of Man," B. III.) {183}
In his person he was tall and of a thin and slender make. His portrait shows a high, marked brow; a long nose; and a shrewd, humorous face, -- altogether a strong-marked countenance. "In his manners there was a f rankness amounting to bluntness, and in his conversation a humorous playfulness." He died Dec. 27, 1782, in the eighty-seventh year of his age.
XXIII. -- AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY. -- JOHN WITHERSPOON.
A/MERICA\ was now reaching such a settled condition that reflective thought could make its appearance. Underneath the Puritan action and self-sacrifice, there was a Puritan faith which required men to judge and reason. American philosophy put forth at that time its greatest representative. Jonathan Edwards was born in Connecticut, in 1703; was a tutor in Yale in 1724; was pastor and missionary from 1726 to 1757; and died President of Princeton College, in 1758. From his very childhood he pondered the profoundest subjects, and penetrated as far as -- at times farther, some think, than -- human thought could carry him. Possessed of no great variety of reading, he reached his very definite opinions, by revolving every subject in his own mind. I am inclined to think that his opinions might have been modified, had he been brought more fully into contact and collision with other thinkers. His " Freedom of the Will " is the acutest work ever written on that perplexing subject; but many think that he has overlooked an essential freedom in the mind, acknowledged by Calvin, Owen, and the great Calvinistic divines, and revealed by consciousness. He is known more as a theologian than a philosopher; but the fact is, his metaphysics, always along with his deep spiritual insight, are the valuable element in his divinity. Contemporaneously with Berkeley, he arrives at a doctrine of power and of body,-not the same with that of the ideal bishop, but coming close to it and perhaps of a more consistently philosophic structure. Cause he explains to be " that after or upon the existence of which, or its existence after such a manner, the existence of another thing follows. The connection between these two existences, or between the cause and effect is what is called power." "When we say that grass is green, all that we can mean is, that, in a constant course, when we see grass, the idea of green is excited by it" " What idea is that which we call by the name of body? I find color has the chief share in it. `Tis nothing but color, and figure, which is the termination of this figure, together with some powers, such as the power of resisting and motion, that wholly takes up what we call body, and if that which we principally mean by the thing itself cannot be said to be in the thing itself, I think {184} nothing can be. If color exists not out of the mind, then nothing be longing to body exists out of the mind, but resistance, which is solidity, and the termination of this resistance with its relations, which is figure, and the communication of this resistance from place to place, which is motion; though the latter are nothing, but modes of the former. Therefore, there is nothing out of the mind but resistance; and not that either, when nothing is actively resisted. Then there is nothing but the power of resistance. And, as resistance is nothing but the actual exertion of God's power, so the power can be nothing else but the constant law or method of that actual exercise." (Notes on Mind, in Dwight's " Life of Edwards.")
It could be shown that, at this time, there was everywhere a tendency towards idealism among the higher minds, which had been trained under the philosophy of Locke. The Rev. Samuel Johnson, the tutor of Edwards in Yale, who afterwards wrote " Elementa Philosolphica," welcomed Berkeley on his coming to Rhode Island, and adopted his philosophy. Berkeley was personally beloved by all who came in contact with him, and gained some devoted adherents to his theory. In Princeton College, Mr. Meriam, a tutor, defended the system. But idealism has never struck deep into the American soil. The " Scottish Philosophy," coming in with the great Scotch and Scotch-Irish migration, which, next to the Puritan, has had the greatest power for good on the American character, has had much greater influence. Edwards was acquainted with the moral theory of Hutcheson, which makes virtue consist in benevolence; but propounded one of his own, somewhat akin to it, but much more profound, making virtue consist in love to being as being. I feel that I must take a passing notice of the energetic man who actually introduced Scottish thought into the new world.
John Witherspoon[48] was the son of a minister of the Church of Scotland, and was born February 5, 1722, in the parish of Yester, in East Lothian, the probable birthplace of Knox. He entered the university of Edinburgh, at the age of fourteen, and pursued his studies there for seven years, with such fellow-students as Blair, Robertson, and John Erskine. Carlyle, who could not have been specially inclined towards him, is obliged to say that " he was open, frank, and generous, pretending to what he was, and sup porting his title with spirit." " At the time I speak of, he was a good scholar, far advanced for his age, very sensible and shrewd, but of a disagreeable temper, which was irritated by a flat voice and awkward manner, which prevented his making an impression on his contemporaries at all adequate to his abilities." Descended from Knox, through his heroic daughter, Mrs. Welch, who told King James that she would rather " kep his head in her lap" than have him submit to the king's supremacy in {185} religion," young Witherspoon inherited the spirit of the reformer,[49] -- his devoted piety, his keen perception of abounding evil, his undaunted courage, his unflinching perseverance, and, I may add, his vigorous sense and his broad humor. He was settled as minister, first in Beith in Ayrshire, famous for its cheese, and then in Paisley, famous for its shawls and for the piety of its older inhabitants; and in both places was an effective, popular preacher, and wrote works -- such as his Treatises on justification, and on Regeneration -- which continue to be read with profit to this day.
He perceived clearly and felt keenly the great change which was coming over the Church of Scotland: he watched carefully the rise and progress of moderatism, tracing it to the restoration of church patronage, and to the philosophy of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, favored by a young race of divines, who seemed to him to be addicted to levity in their whole character, to be ready to abandon the old truths, and to trample on the spiritual rights of the people. He did not scruple to satirize it in a work, published anonymously, and distinguished for its plain speaking and its humor, scarcely inferior in power to the sarcasm of Swift, and having a much higher aim, -- " Ecclesiastical Characteristics, or the Arcana of Church Policy: Being an humble attempt to open the mystery of moderation, wherein is shown a plain and easy way of attaining to the character of a moderate man, as at present in repute in the Church of Scotland," " Oh, yes! fierce for moderation." " When any man is charged with loose practices or tendencies to immoralities, he is to be screened and protected as much as possible; especially if the faults laid to his charge be -- as they are incomparably termed in a sermon, preached by a hopeful youth, that made some noise lately -- `good-humored vices."' " It will serve further for the support of this maxim, that, according to modern discoveries, there is a great analogy between the moral virtues, or, if you will, the science of morals, and the fine arts: and it is on account of this analogy that most of the present reigning expressions upon the subject of morals are borrowed from the arts; as, beauty, order, proportion, harmony." "Another thing strongly pleads for gentlemen having the chief hand in settling kirks, that nowadays very few of our principal gentry attend ordinances, or receive any benefit by a minister after he is settled, unless perhaps talking of the news at a private visit or playing a game at backgammon." " As for logic, it is well known this part of education is fallen into great contempt, and it is not to be expected that such brisk and lively spirits, who have always hated every thing that looked scholastic-like, can bear to be tied down to the strict rules of argumentation." " It illustrates the truth of Mr. H -- 's doctrine: that virtue is founded upon instinct and affection, and not upon reason; that benevolence is its source, support, and perfection; and that all the particular rules of conduct are to be suspended when they seem to interfere with the general good." This satire cut deep, and he was attacked on all hands, for resorting to such a weapon. He {186} defended himself in a " Serious Apology for the Ecclesiastical Characteristics,' by the real author of that performance." One other reason I shall mention for making choice of this way of writing was drawn from the modern notions of philosophy, which had so greatly contributed to the corruption of the clergy. The great patron and advocate for these was Lord Shaftesbury, one of whose leading principles it is, that I ridicule is the test of truth.' This principle of his had been adopted by many of the clergy; and there is hardly any man conversant in the literary world, who has not heard it a thousand times defended in conversation. I was there fore willing, to try how they themselves could stand the edge of this weapon." Taking his part in the controversy raised by the publication of Home's " Douglas," he published "A Serious Inquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Stage." Robertson, now acknowledged as the consummately able leader of the moderate party, found at times a powerful opponent in Witherspoon. Dr. Robertson had remarked that, with a real minority, the moderate party had been able to carry their measures; whereupon Witherspoon said: `We allow you whatever merit you may be entitled to for your skill, but remember the authority which says, I the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.' " One day after Witherspoon had carried some important questions in the General Assembly, Dr. Robertson said to him in a pleasant and easy manner: " I think you have your men better disciplined than formerly," a remark showing how much value lie set on skilful leadership. " Yes," replied Witherspoon, "by urging your politics too far, you have compelled us to beat you with your own weapons." He acts in character throughout, and as if be still lived in the seventeenth century. On the night before the communion sabbath, it is reported that a set of youths, following the example set in the " hell-fire clubs," to which I have referred (p. 19), held a meeting for mock preaching and praying. This was an awful scene to been acted, in so godly a town as Paisley, where, on a sabbath morning, family praise might be heard rising from every dwelling; and Witherspoon a fortnight after, Feb. 21, 1762, preaches " a seasonable advice to young persons," and publishes it with the names of the offenders. But he is living in the eighteenth and not the seventeenth century, and a lawyer started an action and got costs, which greatly embarrassed the doctor. All these things -- the enemies raised up by the " Characteristics," and these local troubles -- must have made Scotland somewhat too hot for him, the more so that the law was against him, and the church party opposed to him was increasing in power and in imperiousness. He had a brave heart and could have stood it all. But it was at this juncture that there came an invitation to him to become president of the college of New Jersey, Princeton. He did not listen to that call when it was first made in 1766; but he accepted it in 1768, and was inducted as president, Sept. 28 of that year. He had now a far wider field opened to him than ever he could have had in his own country, where all the civil patronage and the literature of the age were against him He has evidently fallen into his predestined sphere, and feels that he has a fitness, a taste, and a talent for the work.
The course of instruction followed in the college during his administration {187} was a good one. "In the first year, they read Latin and Greek, with the Roman and Grecian antiquities and rhetoric. In the second, continuing the study of languages, they learn a complete system of geography with the use of the globes, the first principles of philosophy, and the elements of mathematical knowledge. The third, though the languages are not wholly omitted, is chiefly employed in mathematics and natural Philosophy, and the senior year is employed in reading the higher classics, proceeding in the mathematics and natural philosophy, and going through a course of moral philosophy." In addition, Dr. Witherspoon delivered lectures to the juniors and seniors upon chronology and history, and upon composition and criticism, and taught Hebrew and French to those who wished it. During the whole course of their studies, the three younger classes, two or three every evening, were called to pronounce an oration on a stage erected for the purpose, immediately after prayers, " that they may learn, by early habit, presence of mind and proper pronunciation and gesture in public speaking." " The senior scholars, every five or six weeks, pronounce orations of their own composition, to which all persons of any note in the neighborhood are invited or admitted." (" Address by Witherspoon in behalf of the College of New Jersey.") It will be observed that in this last provision, that for public speaking, there is something not found in the European colleges. The course as a whole is good; but the State of New Jersey would not furnish funds, and private benevolence did not supply sufficient means to procure an adequate number of instructors. By means of this instruction, even with its scanty staff of teachers, the college in that age raised, not only a large body of devoted ministers. but a great number of the ablest statesmen and lawyers of which America can boast, and furnished professors to a great many colleges, west and south.[50] Witherspoon took four different departments, composition, taste, and criticism; chronology and history; moral philosophy; and divinity. Many of his pupils have testified to the benefit which they derived from his instructions, so sagacious, so stimulating and practically useful. In particular, James Madison, perhaps the most philosophical of all the founders and framers of the American constitution, acknowledges his obligations to the study of moral philosophy under Witherspoon. "The increased attention paid to the study of the nature and constitution of the human mind, and the improvements which had been introduced into this fundamental department of knowledge by the philosophical inquiries of his own countrymen, constituted a marked and most important feature of Dr. Witherspoon's reforms. Mr. Madison formed a taste for these inquiries, which entered deeply, as we shall hereafter have occasion to remark, into the character and habits of his mind, and gave to his political writings in after life a profound and philosophic cast, which distinguished them eminently and favorably from the production of the ablest of his contemporaries." (" Life and Times of Madison," by William C. Rives.)
President Ashbel Green tells us, "The Berkeleyan system of metaphysics was in repute in the college when he entered. The tutors were zealous {188} believers in it, and waited on the president with some expectation of either confounding him, or making him a proselyte. They had mistaken their man. He first reasoned against the system, and then ridiculed it till he drove it out of the college. The writer has heard him state, that, before Reid or any other author of their views had published any theory on the ideal system, lie wrote against it, and suggested the same trains of thought which they adopted, and that he published his essay in a Scotch magazine." He refers in his moral philosophy to the common-sense school of Scotland. " Some late writers have advanced, with great apparent reason, that there are certain first principles or dictates of common-sense, which are either simple perceptions or seen with intuitive evidence. These are the foundation of all reasoning, and, without them, to reason is a word with out a meaning. They can no more be proved than you can prove an axiom in mathematical science. These authors of Scotland have lately produced and supported this opinion, to resolve at once all the refinement and metaphysical objections of some infidel writers. (" Moral Philosophy," sect. v.) His son-in-law, and his successor as president, Samuel Stanhope Smith, at one time inclined to Berkeleyanism, formally renounces idealism. " Whatever medium, in the opinion of these philosophers (Locke, Berkeley, and Hume), nature may employ to connect the object with the organ of sense, whether image or idea, or any other sensible phantasm, it is, beyond a doubt the object itself, not its idea, which is discovered by the sense; any image or phantasm, in the case, being either unknown or unperceived, and at the time wholly unthought of. An idea is merely a conception of the fancy, or the reminiscence of the object."[51] From this date, the Scottish became the most influential philosophy in America.
His work on moral philosophy is not particularly profound or interesting. But I suppose we have only the skeleton of his course; and, as he illustrated it orally by his reading and wide observation of mankind, I believe it was useful and attractive. He discussed such authors as Leibnitz, Clarke, Hutcheson, Wollaston, Collins, Nettleton, Hume, Kames, Adam Smith, Reid, Balfour, Butler, Balguy, Beattie. He had vigorously opposed Hutcheson in Scotland, and he sees the logical result of his view of virtue in the systems of Hume and Home, who are criticised by him. He refers to the theory of his predecessor in office, Edwards, that " virtue consists in the love of being as such," but without approval. His own view is summed up in these words: " There is in the nature of things a difference between virtue and vice; and, however much virtue and happiness are connected by the divine law and in the event of things, we are made so as to feel towards them and conceive of them as distinct, -- we have the simple perceptions of duty and interest." " The result of the whole is, that we ought to take the rule of duty from conscience, enlightened by reason, experience, and every way by which we can be supposed to learn the will of our Maker." {189}
But Witherspoon was a man of action, rather than reflection. His administration of the college seems to have been successful. Following the original theory of the American college, Princeton college was placed in a village supposed to be away from the temptations of great cities. " It is not," Witherspoon says, " in the power of those who are in great cities to keep the discipline with equal strictness where boys have so many temptations to do evil, and can so easily and effectually conceal it after it is done. With us, they live all in college, under the inspection of their masters; and the village is so small that any irregularity is immediately and certainly discovered, and therefore easily corrected." The rules of government which he explained to the tutors are admirable. " Govern, govern always, but beware of governing too much. Convince your pupils, for you may convince them, that you would rather gratify than thwart them; that you wish to see them happy; and desire to impose no restraints but such as their real advantage, and the order and welfare of the college, render indispensable. Put a wide difference between youthful follies and foibles, and those acts which manifest a malignant spirit or intentional insubordination. Do not even notice the former, except it be by private advice. Overlook them entirely, unless they occur in such a public manner that it is known that you must have observed them. Be exceeding careful not to commit your own authority or that of the college, in any case that cannot be carried through with equity. But having pursued this system, then, in every instance in which there has been a manifest intention to offend or resist your authority, or that of the college, make no compromise with it whatever: put it down absolutely and entirely. Maintain the authority of the laws ,in their full extent. and fear no consequences."
But his influence was exerted and felt far beyond the college walls. As might have been expected from his love of liberty, and his impetuous spirit, and the part he took in Scotland, be early threw himself into the struggle for independence, and he was elected a representative in Congress for the State of New Jersey, in 1776, and declared there the way by which he had been led. " We were contending for a restoration of certain privileges under the government of Great Britain, and were praying for a reunion with her. But in the beginning of July, with the universal approbation of all the States now united, we renounced this conviction, and declared our selves free and independent." His is one of the names -- the most honored of any in America-attached to the Declaration of Independence, and his portrait adorns Independence Hall. I rather think that-if we except Washington, Franklin, and perhaps half a dozen others -- none bad so important an influence as Witherspoon in guiding the American Revolution. It will be remembered that one of the decisive battles of the war was fought at Princeton; and, in 1783, the Congress sat for months in the college, presided over by one of the trustees, and with Witherspoon as a member. When in Congress, he exerted himself to secure a firm, central government, and a gold instead of a paper standard. He retired from Congress in 1783, to give himself to his college work. He died, Nov. 15, 1794. {190} From the picture of him by the elder Peale in Princeton college, and the account given by Ashbel Green, we learn that " his stature was of middle size, with some tendency to corpulence. His limbs were well-proportioned, and his complexion was fair. His eyes were strongly indicative of intelligence. His eyebrows were large, hanging down at the ends next his temples, occasioned, probably, by a habit he had contracted of pulling them when he was under excitement." His whole air is that of a man of strong character; and we see traces of his being naturally a man of strong passion, which, however, he was able to subdue. Scotland did not allow him, what would have been for her good, to become a leader of men; and Scotland's loss became America's gain.
XXIV.-JAMES BALFOUR. H/E\ was a member of the Scotch bar, and one of the many Edinburgh lawyers who devoted themselves to philosophy. He was one of the first to write against the ethical principles of Hume, which he did in his " Delineations of the Nature and Obligations of Morality," published anonymously, 1752 or 1753. He sets out with the principle that private happiness must be the chief end and object of every man's pursuit; shows how the good of others affords the highest happiness; and then to sanction natural conscience be calls in the authority of God, who must approve of what promotes the greatest happiness. This theory does not give morality a sufficiently deep foundation in the constitution of man or the character of God, and could not have stood against the assaults of Hume. In 1754, he was appointed professor of moral philosophy in the university of Edinburgh, the chair which David Hume had wished to fill some years before, -- and continued to hold it till 1764, when be became professor of the law of nature and nations, and held the office till about 1779. In 1768, he published a second work, written against Hume and Lord Kames and in defence of active power and liberty. Like all enlightened opponents of the new scepticism, he felt it necessary to oppose the favorite theory of Locke, that all our ideas are derived from sensation and reflection. " It may indeed be allowed that the first notions of things are given to the mind by means of some sensation or other; but then it may also be true that after such notions are given the mind, by the exertion of some inherent power, may be able to discover some remarkable qualities of such things, and even things of a very different nature, which are not to be discovered merely by any sense whatever." He published " Philosophical Dissertations," in 1782.
He was born in 1705, and died 1795. His father was a merchant in Edinburgh, and his mother a daughter of Hamilton of Airdrie, from which family Sir William Hamilton was descended. He seems to have received his education first in Edinburgh College, and then, like so many scholars of the preceding ages, at Leyden. {191}
XXV. -- ALEXANDER GERARD. H/E\ was the son of the minister of a parish, called the chapel of Garioch, in Aberdeenshire, and was born in 1728. In July, 1752, lie was admitted professor of moral philosophy in Marischal College. In August, 1755, he submits in a printed paper an improved plan of education for the college. He argues powerfully against the established practice of reaching logic in the early years of the course. He recommends that the curriculum consist: First year, classics; second year, history and elementary mathematics; third year, natural philosophy, with belles-lettres and mathematics; fourth year, pneumatology, or natural philosophy of spirit, including the doctrine of the nature, faculties, and states of the human mind, and natural theology; moral philosophy, containing ethics, jurisprudence, and politics, -- the study of these being accompanied with a perusal of some of the best ancient moralists; logic, or the laws and rules of inventing, proving, retaining, and communicating knowledge; and metaphysics. This is, in many respects, an enlightened course, but confines the attention of every student too exclusively to one department for the year, -- whereas the mind works better with some variety, -- and does not give a sufficient space to classics and English. This course was substantially adopted by the college, which thus came to differ from the other Scotch universities.
It is indicative of a strong desire on the part of an enlightened body of men to promote elegance and refinement in their country, that the Edinburgh Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Sciences, Manufactures, and Agriculture offered a premium for the best essay on "Taste," the phrase " taste " having come unfortunately into use as the translation of the French "gout" The prize was gained by Gerard, and the work was published in 1759, the publisher adding three dissertations by Voltaire, D'Alembert, and Montesquieu. Anxious to promote the objects of the above- named society, he offered through it a gold medal on style in composition. In the same year, he was chosen professor of divinity in Marischal, and, in 1773, he became professor of divinity in King's College, and his attention was thus called away from philosophy. In 1766, he published " Dissertations on Subjects relating to the Genius and Evidences of Christianity." Still cherishing his old tastes, he published, in 1774, an " Essay on Genius," meant to be the complement of his work on ,Taste." He wrote also "Sermons," in two volumes; "The Pastoral Care;" and "The Evidences of the Christian Religion."
He is best known by his work on " Taste." He enlarges the number of senses or tastes far beyond what Hutcheson or any other has done, -- illustrating the sense or taste of novelty, sublimity, beauty, imitation, harmony, oddity and ridicule, and virtue, and shows bow they all enter into fine taste He calls them internal or reflex senses, as distinguished from external senses. He does not enter upon a searching inquiry into their psychological nature, nor seek to determine what objective reality is implied in them: he contents himself with a graceful pleasant exposition and illustration. {192} In his other philosophical work, he describes genius as the faculty of invention, treats of such interesting subjects as the influence of habit and passion on association, and quotes largely from the best writers of Greece and Rome, France and England; but shows little analytic or metaphysical acumen. By his lectures and works, he helped to create and foster a literary taste in the region of which Aberdeen claims to be the capital, and is believed to have had influence on the studies and teaching of Beattie. Beattie is said to allude to him, when he speaks of a person who "by two hours' application could fix a sermon in his mind so effectively as to be able to recite it in public without the change, omission, or transposition of a single word." He died in 1795 [52]
XXVI. -- THOMAS REID.[53]
I/F\ he was not the founder, he is the fit representative of the Scottish philosophy. He is in every respect, a Scotchman of the genuine type: shrewd, cautious, outwardly calm, and yet with a deep well of feeling within, and capable of enthusiasm; not witty, but with a quiet vein of humor. And then he has the truly philosophic spirit: seeking truth modestly, humbly, diligently; piercing beneath the surface to gaze on the true nature of things; and not to be caught by sophistry, or misled by plausible representations. He has not the mathematical consecutiveness of Descartes, the speculative genius of Leibnitz, the sagacity of Locke, the of Berkeley, or the {193} detective skill of Hume; but he has a quality quite as valuable as any of these, even in philosophy; he has in perfection that common-sense which he so commends, and this saves him from the extreme positions into which these great men have been tempted by the soaring nature of their inexorable logic. It is genius, and not the want of it, that adulterates philosophy." He looks steadily and inquires carefully into the subjects of which he is treating; and if he does not go round them he acknowledges that he has not done so; and what he does see, he sees clearly and describes honestly. " The labyrinth may be too intricate, and the thread too fine to be traced through all its windings; but if we stop when we can trace it no farther, and secure the ground we have gained, there is no harm done, and a quicker eye may at times trace it farther." Speculative youths are apt to feel that, because he is so sober, and makes so little pretension, he cannot possibly be far-seeing or profound; but this is at the time of life when they have risen above taking a mother's counsel, and become wiser than their fathers; and, after following other and more showy lights for a time, they may at last be obliged to acknowledge that they have here the true light of the sun, which it is safer to follow than that of the flashing meteor. M. Cousin, in his preface to the last edition of his volume on the Scottish philosophy, declares that the true modern Socrates has not been Locke, but Reid. " Kant," he says, " has commenced the German philosophy, but he has not governed it. It early escaped him, to throw itself in very opposite directions. The name of Kant rests only on the ruins of his doctrines. Reid has impressed on the Scottish mind a movement less grand, but this movement has had no reactions." " Yes," he adds, " Reid is a man of genius, and of a true and powerful originality; so we said in 1819, and so we say in 1857, after having held long converse with mighty systems, discovered their secret, and taken their measure." There is profound truth in this; but it is scarcely correct to say that there have been no reactions against Reid in Scotland. There was a reaction by Brown against his indiscriminate admission of first principles. Again, there is a reaction in the present day on the part of those who dislike his appeal to consciousness as revealing to us a certain amount of truth, and who deal, in consequence, solely with {194} historical sketches of philosophic systems, or who make the philosophy of the human mind a branch of physiology. Still Reid has continued to exercise a greater influence than any other metaphysician on the thought of his country. It is true, that in some respects he resembles Socrates; but in others he differs from him quite as much as the Scotch mind differs from the Greek. Both have very much the same truth-loving spirit, the same homely sense, and contempt for pretension: but Socrates has vastly more subtlety and dialectic skill, and reaches the conclusion that truth cannot be found except in moral subjects; whereas Reid firmly maintains and resolutely proclaims that settled truth can be attained by observation, in the kingdoms both of mind and matter. Reid's style will not please those who are seeking for flashes of genius, of wit or eloquence. But it always clearly expresses his ideas; and some prefer his plain statements, his familiar idioms, commonly purely English, to the stateliness of Stewart, -- who cannot express a commonplace thought except in a rounded period, -- and the perpetual rhetoric of Brown.
Thomas Reid was born, April 26, 1710, at Strachan, which is situated about twenty miles from Aberdeen, on the banks of a lively mountain stream, which rises on the high Grampians, and flows down the hollows of their northern slope into the Dee. The place is rather tame, and must have been bleak enough in winter; but it is quite a spot in which a thoughtful student might profitably pass the long summer vacations which the Scotch colleges allow, and have enjoyable rambles among the heath-clad and rocky mountains above him, including Clochnaben with the conspicuous stone on the top. His father, the Rev. Lewis Reid, was minister of the place for fifty years, and stood by the whig and reformation cause at the great crisis of the Revolution of 1688, when the people of that region, still under strong landlord influence, might have been readily swayed to the one side or the other. He was descended from a succession of Presbyterian ministers in Banchory-Ternan on the Dee, who traced their descent from an old county family, and go as far back as the Reformation. His mother was Margaret Gregory of Kinnairdie in Banffshire, and be longed to the family of that name, which was so illustrious in Scotland during the whole of last century and the beginning {195} of this. On both sides of his house were persons who had risen to eminence in literature and science. On his father's side, Dugald Stewart mentions Thomas Reid, who, on finishing his education at home, went to the continent, and maintained public discussions in several universities, and afterwards collected his theses in a volume; who published some Latin poems to be found in the " Delitim Poetarum Scotorum; " who became Secretary in the Greek and Latin tongues to James I., and, along with Patrick Young, translated the works of that monarch into Latin. A brother of his, Alexander Reid, was physician to King Charles I., and published several books on medicine; and another brother, Adam, translated into English Buchanan's " History of Scotland." On the side of the Gregorys the subject of our memoir could claim as grand- uncle, James Gregory, the inventor of the reflecting telescope, and as uncles David Gregory, -- Savilian professor of astronomy at Oxford, and an intimate friend of Sir Isaac Newton's, -- and two others, professors of mathematics respectively at St. Andrews and Edinburgh. Such a kinsmanship must have given a powerful stimulus towards literature and science to a thoughtful youth like Thomas Reid.
The boy was two years at the parish school of Kincardine when the teacher foretold " that he would turn out to be a man of good and well-wearing parts." He was then sent to Aberdeen to prosecute his classical studies. He entered Marischal College, Aberdeen, in 1722, when he was only twelve years of age. He was in the first Greek class taught by Dr. Thomas Blackwell, afterwards principal, who took such pains to revive the study of the Greek tongue in the north of Scotland; and the pupil seems to have caught somewhat of the spirit of his master, for in after life he was known to recite in his class demonstrations of Euclid in the Greek language. But his special instructor was Dr. George Turnbull, who conducted him and other thirty-nine pupils through a three years' course in what was called philosophy.
He has left us in a letter written in 1779, an account of a curious youthful experience.
"About the age of fourteen, I was almost every night, unhappy in my sleep, from frightful dreams -- . sometimes hanging over a dreadful hemisphere and just ready to drop down; sometimes pursued for my life and {196} stopped by a wall, or by a sudden loss of all strength; sometimes ready to be devoured by a wild beast. How long I was plagued with such dreams, I do not now recollect. I believe it was for a year or two at least; and I think they had quite left me before I was fifteen. In those days, I was much given to what Mr. Addison, in one of His "Spectators," calls castle building; and, in my evening solitary walk, which was generally all the exercise I took. my thoughts would hurry me into some active scene, where I generally acquitted myself much to my own satisfaction; and, in these scenes of imagination, I performed many a gallant exploit. At the same time, in my dreams, I found myself the most arrant coward that ever was. Not only my courage, but my strength, failed me in every danger; and I often rose from my bed in the morning in such a panic that it took some time to get the better of it. I wished very much to be free of these uneasy dreams, which not only made me unhappy in sleep, but often left a disagreeable impression in my mind, for some part of the following day. I thought it was worth trying whether it was possible to recollect that it was all a dream, and that I was in no real danger. I often went to sleep with my mind as strongly impressed as I could with this thought, that I never in my lifetime was in any real danger, and that every fright I had was a dream. After many fruitless endeavors to recollect this when the danger appeared, I effected it at last, and have often, when I was sliding over a precipice into the abyss, recollected that it was all a dream, and boldly jumped down. The effect of this commonly was, that I immediately awoke. But I awoke calm and intrepid, which I thought a great acquisition. After this, my dreams were never very uneasy; and, in a short time, I dreamed not at all. During all this time I was in perfect health; but whether my ceasing to dream was the effect of the recollection above mentioned, or of any change in the habit of my body, which is usual about that period of life, I cannot tell. I think it may more probably be imputed to the last. How ever, the fact was that, for at least forty years after, I dreamed none, to the best of my remembrance; and, finding from the testimony of others that this is somewhat uncommon, I have often, as soon as I awoke, endeavored to recollect without being able to recollect any thing that passed in my sleep. For some years past, I can sometimes recollect some kind of dreaming thoughts, but so incoherent that I can make nothing of them. The only distinct dream I ever had since I was about sixteen, as far as I remember, was about two years ago. I had got my head blistered for a fall. A plaster, which was put on it after the blister, pained me excessively for a whole night. In the morning I slept a little, and dreamed very distinctly that I had fallen into the bands of a party of Indians, and was scalped. I am apt to think that as there is a state of sleep and a state wherein we are awake, so there is an intermediate state which partakes of the other two. If a man peremptorily resolves to rise at an early hour for some interesting purpose, he will of himself awake at that hour. A sick-nurse gets the habit of sleeping in such a manner that she bears the least Whisper of the sick person, and yet is refreshed by this kind of half sleep. The same is the case of a nurse who sleeps with a child in her arms. I have slept on horseback, but so as to preserve my balance; and, if the horse stumbled, I {197} could make the exertion necessary for saving me from a fall, as if I was awake. I hope the sciences at your good university are not in this state. Yet, from so many learned men so much at their ease, one would expect something more than we hear of." He graduated in 1726 at the age of sixteen. His college life was prolonged by his being appointed librarian to the university, which office he continued to hold till 1736. Ever a student, and busied with solid work, he joined eagerly with his friend John Stewart, afterwards professor in Marischal College, in pursuing mathematical studies, specially the " Principia " of Newton. His life was varied by his taking with his friend Stewart an excursion into England, and visiting London, Oxford, and Cambridge. Through his relative David Gregory he got access to the house of Martin Folkes, where he met with " the most interesting objects which the metropolis had to offer to his curiosity. At Cambridge he saw Dr. Bentley, -- who delighted him with his learning and amused him with his vanity,-and enjoyed repeatedly the conversation of the blind mathematician Saunderson, a phenomenon in the history of the human mind to which he has referred more than once in his philosophical speculations."
In 1737, he was presented by King's College, Aberdeen, to the living of New Machar, -- a country parish about a dozen miles from Aberdeen, lying on the level agricultural land of the county, but with glorious views of the distant mountains towards the west. The circumstances connected with his settlement furnish a vivid picture of the age. By this time there was a keen antagonism between the Evangelical and the Moderate parties in the Church of Scotland and this was fiercely manifested on this occasion. In order to his being settled, the probationer or minister had not only to receive a presentation from the patron, but a "call " from the people, which, however, was by this time becoming a mere form, as the ecclesiastical courts falling under the influence of the patronage spirit contrived to avoid insisting on a concurrence from the members of the congregation. We have preserved "A Sermon preached before the Reverend the Presbytery of Aberdeen in the Church of New Machar, Feb. 10, 1737, at the Moderation of a Call to a Minister for that vacant Church, by Mr. John Bisset, Minister of the Gospel at Aberdeen." Mr. Bisset had {198} formerly been minister of New Machar, and was known all over the north as a popular preacher, a defender of evangelical religion, and an opponent of patronage. In this discourse, which is full of stirring appeals, he warns the people against the fear of man which bringeth a snare," against being intimidated by their landlords, and acting on the slavish principle, 'I am for the man the laird is for." Expressing his affection for a people to whom he had been minister for twelve years, he reminds them that when he left them their landlords had persuaded them to take a minister who had fallen into fornication and absconded. He complains of persons not residing in the parish, or though residing in it not attending gospel ordinances, interfering to serve a friend, referring, it is supposed, to a near relative of Dr. Reid's. He asserts that the election of a minister is a Christian right, and that " the poor Christian in vile raiment may claim the same regard that is paid to him who wears the gay clothing, the gold ring and the goodly apparel." It is a poor and worthless story for any man to say, that you, the people, are tenants at will, and to improve this as if you were to have no will but theirs in the work of this day. Well may you reply that you are tenants at God's will, who can take them away with His stroke when they are thinking to have their wills of you. He exhorts them to trust in God and do what is right, and warns them that, even though they should by acting an unconscientious part secure an earthly habitation, yet they might soon be driven out of it." The appeal produced a powerful effect. The people, having no hope of getting their rights protected by the church courts, adopted a mode of expressing their feelings characteristic of the times. The tradition is that, when their minister came to the place, men dressed in women's clothes, ducked him in a pond; and that, on the sabbath on which he preached his first sermon, an uncle of his who resided at Rosehill, two miles off, defended him on the pulpit stair with a drawn sword.
I am not sure that the sphere to which Reid was now appointed was the one exactly suited to him, or that he was the fittest man to preach the gospel of Christ to a country congregation, or indeed that the old Scotch theory of connecting the church and the colleges so closely was the best either for the church or the colleges. For the first seven years he was in {199} the way of preaching the sermons of others, a practice very obnoxious to the people. The tradition is that on one occasion when at Fintray, three miles off, the lady of Sir -- Forbes thanked him for preaching on the previous sabbath so excel lent a sermon from Tillotson; whereupon he denied in strong terms that he had taken a sermon from Tillotson. To his confusion he found, on retiring to his bedroom, a volume of Tillotson's on his table, lying open at the place where was the discourse he had preached. Ashamed, not of the fact of his preaching another man's sermons, but of his being supposed capable of uttering a falsehood, he hastened to inform the lady that he had taken the discourse not from Tillotson's published sermons, but from a packet which he had otherwise.[54]
But while thus obnoxious at his first settlement, he is said to have gradually won the good opinion of his parishioners by the propriety of his conduct, his conscientiousness, and his kindness. His popularity was increased when, in 1740, he married Elizabeth, -- the daughter of his uncle Dr. George Reid, physician in London, -- who endeared herself to the people by her kind offices to the sick and poor. There is reason to believe that in the later years of his ministry he became earnest in his Master's service. The tradition is that, in dispensing the sacrament of the supper, tears rolled from his eyes, when he spoke of the loveliness of the Saviour's character. The following dedication of himself to God is preserved in the manuscripts,[55] and lets us see more clearly than any thing that has been printed by Dugald Stewart the deep feeling that lay beneath that calm outward demeanor. It is dated March 30, 1746.
" O God: I desire humbly to supplicate thy Divine Majesty in behalf of my distressed wife, who is by thy hand brought very low, and in imminent danger of death, if thou, who alone dost wonders, do not in mercy interpose thy Almighty arm, and bring her back from the gates of death. I deserve justly, O Lord, that thou shouldst deprive me of the greatest comfort of my life, because I have not been so thankful to thee as I ought for giving me such a kind and affectionate wife. I have forgot thy goodness in bringing us happy together by an unforeseen and undesigned train of events, and blessing us with so much love and harmony of affections and so many of the {200} comforts and conveniences of life. I have not been so careful as I ought to have been to stir her up to piety and Christian virtues. I have not taken that pains with my children and servants and relatives as I ought. Alas ! I have been too negligent of my pastoral duty in my private devotions, too much given to the pleasures and satisfactions of this world, and too little influenced by thy promises and the hopes of a future state. I have employed my studies, reading, and conversation, rather to please myself than to edify myself and others. I have sinned greatly in neglecting many opportunities of making private applications to my flock and family in the affairs of their souls, and in using too slight preparation for my public exercises. I have thrown away too much of my time in sloth and sleep, and have not done so much for the relief of the poor and destitute as I might Dave done. The means that Providence has afforded me of correcting any evil inclinations I have abused to panper and feed them, n various instances. For these and many other sins which have escaped my memory, thou mightst justly inflict so great a chastisement upon me, as to make my children motherless, and deprive me of my dear wife. O Lord, for thy mercy's sake, accept of my humble and penitent confession of these my offences, which I desire to ac knowledge with shame and sorrow, and am resolved by thy grace to amend. If thou art pleased to Hearken to the voice of my supplications, and grant my request in behalf of my dear wife in restoring her to health, I do promise and covenant through grace to turn from these backslidings, to express my thankfulness by a vigorous discharge of my duty as a Christian, a minister, and master of a family; and by an alms of ten pounds sterling to the poor, in meal and money. Lord, pardon, if there is any thing in this over presumptuous, or unbecoming a humble, penitent sinner; and, Lord, accept of what is sincerely designed as a new bond upon my soul to my duty, through Jesus Christ, my Lord and Saviour."
Stewart tells us that, " during his residence at New Machar, the greater part of his time was spent in the most intense study; more particularly in a careful examination of the laws of external perception, and of the other principles which form the groundwork of human knowledge. His chief relaxations were gardening and botany, to both of which pursuits he retained his attachment in old age." It was while he was minister, and at the mature age of thirty- eight, that he published in the " Transactions of the Royal Society of London," " An Essay on Quantity, occasioned by reading a Treatise in which Simple and Compound Ratios are applied to Virtue and Merit." Francis Hutcheson had spoken of the benevolence of an agent which with him constitutes virtue-as "proportional to a fraction, having the moment of good for the numerator and the ability of the agent for denominator." I suspect that he meant this to be little more than an illustration, and did not seriously propose {201} to apply mathematical demonstration to moral subjects. But Pitcairn and Cheyne had been applying mathematical reasoning to medicine; and Reid thought it of importance to show what it is that renders a subject susceptible of mathematical demonstration. It is interesting to notice that the first publications both of Reid and Kant had a relation to mathematical subjects. But it was the publication of Hume's " Treatise of Human Nature" that first directed his intellectual abilities to independent philosophic research. In his " Essays on the Intellectual Powers," published in 1785, he says, " having long believed the prevailing doctrine of ideas, it came into my mind more than forty years ago to put the question, What evidence have I for this doctrine, that all the objects of my knowledge are ideas of my own mind? From that time to the present, I have been candidly and impartially, as I think, seeking for the evidence of this principle; but can find none, excepting the authority of philosophers." It is clear that the professors of King's College put one so employed in the fitting place, when, in 1752, they elected him professor of philosophy.
" Immediately on Dr. Reid's appointment to the place of one of the regents of King's College, he prevailed on his colleagues to make great improvements in their system of university education. The session was extended from five to seven months; a humanity class was added, on a higher scale than had been taught previously; and the teaching of the elements of Latin, by the professor of humanity, discontinued; some of the small bursaries were united, and an account of these alterations was given to the public, in 1754. Dr. Reid was in favor of one professor teaching the whole or the greater part of the curriculum, and therefore did not follow the plan of confining the professors to separate branches, as had been done in Glasgow since 1727, and at Marischal College since 1723. The plan of a seven- months' session, after a trial of five years, was abandoned." [56] In Aberdeen he was surrounded by an able body of colleagues in the two universities, by not a few thoughtful and accomplished men, ministers and professional men of the town and neighborhood and he had under him a succession {202} of shrewd students, whom he conducted, in a series of years, through all the higher branches. He managed to bring together the literary and scientific men by means of the famous "Aberdeen Philosophical Society," which he was the main instrument in founding, and which helped to call forth and combine what may be called the Aberdeen branch of the Scottish philosophy. To that society he contributed a series of papers containing most of the views which were afterwards embodied in the work which established his reputation, "An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense." That work was published in 1764.
In the end of 1763, he was invited by the University of Glasgow to the professorship of moral philosophy there, and entered upon his duties the following year. In this new sphere he confined his instructions to the intellectual and active powers of man, and unfolded a system of ethics comprising some general views with respect to natural jurisprudence and the fundamental principles of politics; he delivered, besides, a few lectures on rhetoric to an advanced class. We have here a sketch of him by his most distinguished pupil and biographer: " In his elocution and mode of instruction there was nothing peculiarly attractive. He seldom, if ever, indulged himself in the warmth of extempore discourse; nor was his manner of reading calculated to increase the effect of what he had committed to writing. Such, however, was the simplicity and perspicuity of his style, such the gravity and authority of his character, and such the general interest of his young hearers in the doctrines which he taught, that, by the numerous audiences to which his instructions were addressed, he was heard, uniformly, with the most silent and respectful attention. On this subject I speak from personal knowledge, having had the good fortune during a considerable part of the winter of 1772 to be one of his pupils."
We have preserved letters [57] of his to his old Aberdeen friends, Dr. Andrew Skene and Dr. David Skene, which give us glimpses of the Glasgow college life of the period. -- " Glasgow, Nov. 14, 1764. I must launch forth in the morning so as to be at the college (which is a walk of eight minutes), half an hour after seven o'clock, when I speak for an hour, without interruption, {203} to an audience of about a hundred. At eleven, I examine for an hour upon my morning prelection, but my audience is little more than a third part of what it was in the morning. In a week or two, for three days of the week, I have a second prelection at twelve, upon a different subject, when my audience will be made up of those who hear me in the morning, but do not attend at eleven. My hearers attend my class two years at least. The first session they attend the morning prelection and the time of examination at eleven; the second and subsequent years they attend the two prelections, but not the hour of examination. They pay fees for the first two years; and then they are caves of that class, and may attend gratis as many years as they please. Many attend the moral philosophy class four or five years, so that I have many preachers and students of divinity and law of considerable standing, before whom I stand in awe to speak without more preparation than I have leisure for. I have great inclination to attend some of the professors here, several of whom are very eminent in their way, but I cannot find much leisure. Much time is consumed in our college in business meetings, of which we have, commonly, four or five in the week. We have a literary society once a week, consisting of the masters and two or three more, where each of the members has a discourse once in the session. The professors of humanity, Greek, logic, and natural philosophy, have as many as I have, some of them more. All the other professors, except one, teach at least one hour a day, and we are no less than fourteen in number. The hours of the different professors are different, so far as can be, that the same student may attend two or three, or perhaps more, at the same time. Near a third part of our students are Irish. Thirty came over lately in one ship, besides those that went to Edinburgh. We have a good many English, and some foreigners. Many of the Irish, as well as Scotch, are poor and came up late to save money, so that we are not fully convened, though I have been teaching ever since the 10th of October. Those who pretend to know say that the number of students this year, when fully convened, will amount to 300. The masters live in good habits with one another, and manage their political differences with good manners, although with a good deal of intrigue and secret caballing when there is an election." {204}
A year after we have another picture of his collegiate position. "Our college is considerably more crowded than it was last session. My class indeed is much the same as last year, but all the rest are better. I believe the number of our students of one kind or other may be between four and five hundred. But the College of Edinburgh is increased this year much more than we are. The professor, Ferguson, is indeed as far as I can judge a man of noble spirit, of very elegant manners, and has a very uncommon flow of eloquence. I hear he is about to publish, I do not know under what title, a natural history of man, exhibiting a view of him in the savage state, and in the several successive states of pasturage, agriculture, and commerce." " The most disagreeable thing in the teaching part is to have a great number of stupid Irish teagues who attend classes for two or three years, to qualify them for teaching schools or being dissenting teachers. I preach to these as St. Thomas did to the fishes. I do not know what pleasure he had in his audience; but I should have none in mine if there was not in it a mixture of reasonable creatures. I confess I think there is a smaller portion of these in my class this year than there was the last, although the number on the whole was not less. I have long been of opinion that in a right constituted college there ought to be two professors for each class, one for the dunces, and another for those who have parts. The province of the former would not be the most agreeable; but perhaps it would require the greatest talents, and therefore ought to be accounted the post of honor. There is no part of my time more disagreeably spent than that which is spent in college meetings, of which we have often five or six a week." "These meetings are become more disagreeable by an evil spirit of party, that seems to put us in a ferment; and I am afraid will produce bad consequences." We have here glimpses of the evils arising from the college patronage being so largely vested in a limited self-elected body, who turned it to party and family ends. As to the roughness of the Irish (colts) which seems partly to have amused, and partly to have alarmed him, the blame of it is partly to be charged on the college itself, which received these students too eagerly, and allowed them to graduate too easily after a shorter period of attendance than the Scottish youths. The Presbyterian youth of {205} Ulster-shut out from Dublin University, owing to its sectarian character -- received from Glasgow, if not a refined, a very useful education, which enabled them, as ministers, doctors, and teachers, to raise their province above the other districts of Ireland in industry and intelligence.
As it is interesting to notice the Aberdeen philosopher's view of the frolicsome Irish youth, so it is instructive to observe the estimate by the Aberdeen moderate of the Calvinistic religion of the land of the covenant. Writing to Aberdeen, July 13, 1765: ,I think the common people here and in the neighborhood, greatly inferior to the common people with you. They are Boeotian in their understandings, fanatic in their religion, and clownish in their dress and manners. The clergy encourage this fanaticism too much, and find it the only way to popularity. I often hear a gospel here which you know nothing about; for you neither hear it from the pulpit nor will you find it in the Bible." Possibly this gospel was the very gospel of grace so valued by the people of the west of Scotland. It is possible, too, that at this time, when the contest between the refined moral system and the evangelical system was the closest and keenest, Dr. Reid may have been kept at a distance from the latter. In another letter he sees some of the more favorable features of the western character. " The common people have a gloom in their countenance which I am at a loss whether to ascribe to their religion or to the air and climate. There is certainly more of religion among the common people in this town than in Aberdeen, and although it has a gloomy enthusiastic cast, yet I think it makes them tame and sober. I have not heard either of a house or head broke, of a pocket pict [picked], or of any flagrant crime, since I came here. I have not heard any swearing in the streets, nor seen a man drunk (excepting, , one prof -- r), since I came here." The Aberdeen moderate is not prepossessed in favor of the west-country religion, but testifies in behalf of the west-country morality. He has an idea that the morality may somehow be connected with the religion; and possibly he might have seen more amiability and cheerfulness in the piety of the common people had he come in closer contact with it. It is significant that the drunk man is to be found in the class which had risen above the national faith. We shall have to look at a very {206} different picture half a century later, when Chalmers begins his moderate labors in Glasgow. By that time, under the regime, both morality and religion have disappeared from the region (Drygate) in which Reid lived. The Glasgow professors may not have been directly responsible for the growing wickedness; but there was nothing in their teaching, moral or theological, adequate to the task of purifying the pollution coagulating all around them.
There are indications in these letters of the interest taken by Reid in every sort of scientific pursuit. He confidentially reports to Dr. David Skene Dr. Black's theory of heat before it was made known to the world. He is aiding a Turin professor of medicine who comes to Glasgow in his inquiries about the petrifaction of stones. He sends philosophical instruments to his friends in Aberdeen (Feb. 25, 1767). " For my part, if I could find a machine as proper for analyzing ideas, moral sentiments, and other materials belonging to the Fourth Kingdom, I believe I should find in my heart to bestow the money for it. I have the more use for a machine of this kind, because my alembic for performing these operations -- I mean my cranium-has been a little out of order this winter by vertigo, which has made my studies go on heavily, though it has not hitherto interrupted my teaching."
Thus flowed along, quietly and honorably, the remaining days of Dr. Reid. He corresponded with Lord Kames and Dr. James Gregory on such subjects as liberty, cause, motives, and volition. The letters have been published. Many of them are controversial, but they are conducted in an admirable spirit. He wrote a number of papers of some value, apparently for the literary society of Glasgow. In particular, be has " Some Observations on the Modern System of Materialism," meaning by Materialism that advanced by Dr. Priestley in his " Disquisitions relating to Matter and Spirit" (1777), and "A free Discussion of the Doctrines of Materialism and Philosophical Necessity" (1777). This paper appears in no fewer than five forms, showing what pain she had taken with it. One or two of the forms look like mere notes or preparations, the other three are fully written out. It is of a thorough and searching character, distinguished for acuteness beyond almost any of his published writings, and written with great point and . He {207} also wrote " Miscellaneous Reflections on Priestley's Account of Hartley's "Theory of the Human Mind." He speaks with great fondness and respect of Hartley, but shows that his doctrines were unfounded hypotheses. He is severe upon Priestley's application of Hartley's theories, and examines the attempt to explain the memory, and the mental faculties generally, and the passions and volitions, by association.[58] But the principal work of his declining life consisted in writing his " Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man," published in 1785, and the " Essays on the Active Powers," which appeared in 1788.
Underneath the calm, unpretentious demeanor, there was a deep fountain of devout feeling ready to burst out on certain occasions. Again we are told that, in dispensing the sacrament of the Lord's supper, he could not refer to the love of Christ without tears running down his eyes.[59] In the autumn Of 1796, he had repeated strokes of palsy, and he died Oct. 7th. His daughter Mrs. Carmichael writes: " His piety and resignation never forsook him in times of deepest affliction, and in all his distress during his last illness. Such is the blessed effect of the power of religion, and of a conscience void of offence towards God and man."[60]
Turning now to the philosophy of Reid, we find it distinguished throughout by independence of thought and a love of truth. He admires the genius of those who were rulers in the world of speculation in his time, but he does not follow them. He might have been inclined to do so, but he was staggered by the consequences which had been drawn by Hume; and this led him to review the philosophy that prevailed in his time, and which claimed as its authors the illustrious names of Descartes, Locke, and Berkeley. The consequence is, that his works, though expository throughout, have all along a polemical front, but always bearing a calm, a polite, and benignant aspect. We cannot understand his philosophy, and we cannot appreciate his originality, unless we bear this circumstance in mind, which, I may add, we are not likely to forget, as he is constantly referring to some one or other of these authors. He claims {208} credit in regard to two points, gone in examining and under mining the ideal theory of sense- perception, the other in establishing the doctrine of common sense. These are the topics on which I mean chiefly to dwell in the exposition and criticism of his two works.
His "Inquiry" is occupied almost exclusively with the senses. It is one of the excellencies of his philosophy as compared with those that have gone before, and most of those that have appeared since his time, that he so carefully inquired into these original inlets of knowledge. In doing so, he shows that be is acquainted with all that had been done in physiology down to his time, and that he had been in the way of making original observations. He goes over the senses one by one, beginning with the simpler, smelling and tasting; and going on to the more complex, hearing, touch, and seeing. Under smelling he announces a number of general principles applicable to all the senses, as in regard to sensation considered absolutely, and the nature of judgment and belief. Under hearing he speaks of natural language; and under touch, of natural signs and primary qualities. He dilates at greatest length on sight: discussing such topics as color, visible figure, extension, the parallel motion of the eyes, squinting, and Berkeley's theory of vision. He treats them physiologically, so far as physiology could then carry him; but he treats them also, which so many later German and British psychologists do not, in the light of the revelations of consciousness. He takes up the same subject in the earlier parts of his " Essays."
" All philosophers, from Plato to Hume, agree in this that we do not perceive external objects immediately, and that the immediate object of perception must be some image present to the mind." He shows that no solid proof has been advanced of the existence of the ideas; that they are a mere fiction and hypothesis, contrived to solve the phenomena of the human understanding; that they do not at all answer this end; and that this hypothesis of ideas or images of things, in the mind or in the sensorium, is the parent of foolish paradoxes.
Let us try to determine precisely his doctrine as to perception by the senses. Negatively: he denies, first, that we perceive by means of ideas, in the mind or out of it, coming between the mind and the material object perceived; secondly, that we {209} reach a knowledge of the external object by means of reasoning; and, thirdly, that, in order to the conception of any thing it is necessary to have some impression or idea in our minds which resembles it, particularly setting himself against the doctrine of Locke, that Our ideas of the primary qualities are resemblances of them. What he advances on these points seems to me clear, full, and satisfactory. He has done special service to philosophy by removing these confusing and trouble some intermediaries which were called . It may be that the great body of philosophers had not drawn out for their own use such a doctrine of ideas as Reid exposes; it may be that some of them, if the question had been put to them, would have denied that they held any such doctrine; it may be, as Hamilton has tried to show, that some few held a doctrine of perception without ideas: but I believe that Reid was right in holding that mental philosophers generally did bring in an idea between the mind perceiving and the external object; that some objectified the internal thought, and confounded it with the object perceived that others created an image in the mind or in the brain and that some had not clearly settled what they meant by the term they employed. I believe he is right when he says generally, that " ideas being supposed to be a shadowy kind of beings, intermediate between the thought and the object of thought, sometimes seem to coalesce with the thought, sometimes with the object of thought, and sometimes to have a distinct existence of their own." I am sure that the discussion in which he engaged has been of great utility in compelling those philosophers who still use the word "idea" to tell us what they mean by it, and of still greater utility in leading so many to abandon the use of the phrase altogether in strictly philosophic investigations.
I am not to enter deeply into the interminable discussions as to the sense in which the word "idea" has been used by Descartes and Locke. Hamilton says that by the phrase Descartes " designated two very different things; viz., the proximate bodily antecedent and the mental consequence." ("Works," p. 273.) As to the meaning which Locke attached to the term, I must content myself with referring to the discussions of Stewart, Brown, and Hamilton. After reading these with care, I am convinced that the following observations of Reid are as just as {210} they are important: " Perhaps it was unfortunate for Mr. Locke that he used the word idea so very frequently as to make it very difficult to give the attention necessary to put it always to the same meaning. And it appears evident that, in many places, be means nothing more by it but the notion or conception we have of any object of thought; that is, the act of the mind in conceiving it, and not the object conceived." But then he frequently uses it to signify " the images of external things in the mind." " There is a third sense in which he uses the word not unfrequently,-to signify objects of thought that are not in the mind, but external." " Thus we see that the word idea has three different meanings in the `Essay;' and the author seems to have used it sometimes in one, sometimes in another, without being aware of any change in the meaning. The reader slides easily into the same fallacy, that meaning occurring most readily to his mind which gives the best sense to what he reads." It is specially true of Locke what Reid affirms generally: "The way in which philosophers speak of ideas seems to imply that they are the only objects of perception " (P. 263).
The service which Reid has done to philosophy by banishing these intermediaries between perception and its external object cannot be over-estimated. He has also been successful in proving that it cannot be by a process of reasoning that we reach the conception of, and belief in, the existence of body. There is nothing in any organic affection of the nerves or brain, nothing in the sensation in the mind, to entitle us to believe in an extended resisting object. He also deserves great credit for showing so clearly that the conceptions of the qualities of matter are not to be supposed to have a resemblance to the qualities themselves. Locke acknowledges as to the secondary qualities of matter that the ideas are not to be regarded as being like them; but he still talked of ideas of the primary qualities as being resemblances. This may have been little else than loose language on the part of Locke, to indicate that there was a correspondence or relation of some kind; but it was desirable to correct it, as it was fitted to convey a very erroneous impression. In a later age, Hamilton exposed thoroughly the more general error, that like can only influence like, and that like can only be known by like. It is disheartening to think how much of the energy of our greatest thinkers has {211}been spent in correcting errors which other great thinkers have introduced. It looks as if it were only by a continued struggle that truth is to gain a victory over error.
He has not been so Successful in establishing a doctrine of his own as in opposing the errors of others. But his view of perception, whether we approve of it or not, can be understood by us. He maintains that there is first a sensation in the mind, and that this sensation suggests a perception. The word to denote the rise of a thought in the mind, was employed by earlier philosophers, but was adopted by Reid from Berkeley, who again took it from Locke. Reid maintains that there are natural suggestions; particularly that sensation suggests the notion of present existence, and the belief that what we perceive or feel does now exist; that memory suggests the notion of past existence, and the belief that what we remember did exist in time past; and that our sensations and thoughts do also suggest the notion of a mind, and the belief of its existence and of its relation to our thoughts. By a like natural principle it is, that a beginning of existence, or any change in nature, suggests to us the notion of a cause and compels our belief in its existence.... And, in like manner, certain sensations of touch, by the constitution of our nature, suggest to us extension, solidity, and motion." (" Works," p.111.) Closely connected or rather identical with this theory of suggestion is his doctrine of natural language and signs, -- a phraseology also taken from Berkeley. He maintains that there are natural signs, " which, though we never had any notion or conception of the thing signified, do suggest it, or conjure it up, as it were by a natural kind of magic, and at once give us a conception and create a belief in it." He calls " our sensations signs of external objects." The operations are represented by him as " simple and original, and therefore inexplicable, acts of the mind."
The whole account seems to me unsatisfactory, nearly as much so as the ideal hypothesis. There is no evidence that sensation comes before perception. The two are thus distinguished by Reid: " When I smell a rose, there is in this operation both sensation and perception. The agreeable odor I feel, considered by itself, without relation to any external object, is merely a sensation." The quality in the rose which {212} produces the sensation "is the object perceived, and that act of my mind by which I have the conviction and belief of this quality is what I call perception." (310.) These two seem to me to constitute one concrete act, and they can be separated only by a process of abstraction. There is not first a sensation of a colored surface, and then a perception of it; but we have the two at once. This does away with the necessity of signs and suggestions, which might be quite as troublesome intermediaries as ideas. It would be better to say that, upon certain affections of sense being conveyed to the mind, it (this is a better phrase than , or than at once the colored surface.
Hamilton, when he began to edit Reid, thought that Reid's doctrine was the same as his own. But, as he advances, he sees that it is not so; and he comes to doubt whether, after all, Reid held the doctrine to which he himself adhered so tenaciously, that of immediate perception. Reid does, indeed, represent perception as immediate; meaning that it is direct, and with out a process of reasoning. Yet he tells us that, " although there is no reasoning in perception, yet there are certain means and instruments, which, by the appointment of nature, must intervene between the, object and our perception of it; and by these our perceptions are limited and regulated." Surely Hamilton himself will admit that there are such means in the action of the senses, of the nerves, and the brain, without which there can be no perception. Reid indeed calls in more of such anterior processes than Hamilton does; in particular, he calls in signs and suggestions, and makes sensation come before perception. But, after all, the two agree in the main point. While both allow, as all men do, that there are processes prior to the perception, both agree that when the mind is perceiving, it is perceiving not an idea, or even a sensation or suggestion, but an external extended object.
On one point, however, and this not an unimportant one, Reid and his commentator do differ; and that is as to what should be represented as the object of perception. Locke means by idea, " whatever is the object of the understanding when it thinks." But the word