B. (2)

The principle of short Parliaments was solemnly declared at the Revolution. On the 29th of January 1689, seven days after the Convention was assembled, the following resolution was adopted by the House of Commons:—“That a committee be appointed to bring in general heads of such things as are absolutely necessary to be considered, for the better securing our Religion, Laws, and Liberties.” Of this Committee Mr. Somers was one. On the 2d of February, Sir George Treby, from the Committee thus appointed, reported the general heads on which they had agreed. The 11th article of these general heads was as follows:—“That the too long continuance of the same Parliament be prevented.” On the 4th of February it was ordered, “That it be referred to the Committee to distinguish such general heads as are introductive of new laws, from those that are declaratory of ancient rights.” On the 7th of the same month, the Committee made their Second Report; and, after going through the declaratory part, which constitutes the Bill of Rights as it now stands, proposed the following, among other clauses, relating to the introduction of new laws:—“And towards the making a more firm and perfect settlement of the said Religion, Laws, and Liberties, and for remedying several defects and inconveniences, it is proposed and advised by [blank left for ‘Lords’] and Commons, that there be provision, by new laws, made in such manner, and with such limitations, as by the wisdom and justice of Parliament shall be considered and ordained in the particulars; and in particular, and to the purposes following, viz. for preventing the too long continuance of the same Parliament.” The articles which required new laws being thus distinguished, it was resolved on the following day, on the motion of Mr. Somers, “that it be an instruction to the said Committee, to connect, to the vote of the Lords, such parts of the heads passed this House yesterday as are declaratory of ancient rights; leaving out such parts as are introductory of new laws.” The declaratory articles were accordingly formed into the Declaration of Rights; and in that state were, by both Houses, presented to the Prince and Princess of Orange, and accepted by them, with the crown of England. But the articles introductive of new laws, though necessarily omitted in a Declaration of Rights, had been adopted without a division by the House of Commons; who thus, at the very moment of the Revolution, determined, “that a firm and perfect settlement of the Religion, Laws, and Liberties,” required provision for a new law, “for preventing the too long continuance of the same Parliament.”

But though the principle of short Parliaments was thus solemnly recognised at the Revolution, the time of introducing the new law, the means by which its object was to be attained, and the precise term to be fixed for their duration, were reserved for subsequent deliberation. Attempts were made to give effect to the principle in 1692 and 1693, by a Triennial Bill. In the former year, it passed both Houses, but did not receive the Royal Assent: in the latter, it was rejected by the House of Commons. In 1694, after Sir John Somers was raised to the office of Lord Keeper, the Triennial Bill passed into a law. It was not confined, like the bills under the same title, in the reigns of Charles I. and Charles II., (and with which it is too frequently confounded,) to provisions for securing the frequent sitting of Parliament: it for the first time limited its duration. Till the passing of this bill, Parliament, unless dissolved by the King, might legally have continued till the demise of the Crown,—its only natural and necessary termination.

The Preamble is deserving of serious consideration:—“Whereas, by the ancient laws and statutes of this kingdom, frequent Parliaments ought to be held; and whereas frequent and new Parliaments tend very much to the happy union and good agreement of the King and People.” The Act then proceeds, in the first section, to provide for the frequent holding of Parliaments, according to the former laws; and in the second and third sections, by enactments which were before unknown to our laws, to direct, that there shall be a new Parliament every three years, and that no Parliament shall have continuance longer than three years at the farthest. Here, as at the time of the Declaration of Rights, the holding of Parliaments is carefully distinguished from their election. The two parts of the Preamble refer separately to each of these objects: the frequent holding of Parliaments is declared to be conformable to the ancient laws; but the frequent election of Parliament is considered only as a measure highly expedient on account of its tendency to preserve harmony between the Government and the People.

The principle of the Triennial Act, therefore, seems to be of as high constitutional authority as if it had been inserted in the Bill of Rights itself, from which it was separated only that it might be afterwards carried into effect in a more convenient manner. The particular term of three years is an arrangement of expediency, to which it would be folly to ascribe any great importance. This Act continued in force only for twenty years. Its opponents have often expatiated on the corruption and disorder in elections, and the instability in the national councils which prevailed during that period: but the country was then so much disturbed by the weakness of a new government, and the agitation of a disputed succession, that it is impossible to ascertain whether more frequent elections had any share in augmenting the disorder. At the accession of George I. the duration of Parliament was extended to seven years, by the famous statute called the “Septennial Act,” 1 Geo. I. st. 2. c. 38, the preamble of which asserts, that the last provision of the Triennial Act, “if it should continue, may probably at this juncture, when a restless and Popish faction are designing and endeavouring to renew the rebellion within this kingdom, and an invasion from abroad, be destructive to the peace and security of the government.” This allegation is now ascertained to have been perfectly true. There is the most complete historical evidence that all the Tories of the kingdom were then engaged in a conspiracy to effect a counter-revolution,—to wrest from the people all the securities which they had obtained for liberty,—to brand them as rebels, and to stigmatise their rulers as usurpers,—and to re-establish the principles of slavery, by the restoration of a family, whose claim to power was founded on their pretended authority. It is beyond all doubt, that a general election at that period would have endangered all these objects. In these circumstances the Septennial Act was passed, because it was necessary to secure liberty. But it was undoubtedly one of the highest exertions of the legislative authority. It was a deviation from the course of the constitution too extensive in its effects, and too dangerous in its example, to be warranted by motives of political expediency: it could be justified only by the necessity of preserving liberty. The Revolution itself was a breach of the laws; and it was as great a deviation from the principles of monarchy, as the Septennial Act could be from the constitution of the House of Commons:—and the latter can only be justified by the same ground of necessity, with that glorious Revolution of which it probably contributed to preserve—would to God we could say perpetuate—the inestimable blessings.

It has been said by some, that as the danger was temporary, the law ought to have been passed only for a time, and that it should have been delayed till the approach of a general election should ascertain, whether a change in the temper of the people had not rendered it unnecessary. But it was necessary, at the instant, to confound the hopes of conspirators, who were then supported and animated by the prospect of a general election: and if any period had been fixed for its duration, it might have weakened its effects, as a declaration of the determined resolution of Parliament to stand or fall with the Revolution.

It is now certain, that the conspiracy of the Tories against the House of Hanover, continued till the last years of the reign of George II. The Whigs, who had preserved the fruits of the Revolution, and upheld the tottering throne of the Hanoverian Family during half a century, were, in this state of things, unwilling to repeal a law, for which the reasons had not entirely ceased. The hostility of the Tories to the Protestant succession was not extinguished, till the appearance of their leaders at the court of King George III. proclaimed to the world their hope, that Jacobite principles might re-ascend the throne of England with a monarch of the House of Brunswick.

The effects of the Septennial Act on the constitution were materially altered in the late reign, by an innovation in the exercise of the prerogative of dissolution. This important prerogative is the buckler of the monarchy: it is intended for great emergencies, when its exercise may be the only means of averting immediate danger from the throne: it is strictly a defensive right. As no necessity arose, under the two first Georges, for its defensive exercise, it lay, during that period, in a state of almost total inactivity. Only one Parliament, under these two Princes, was dissolved till its seventh year. The same inoffensive maxims were pursued during the early part of the reign of George III. In the year 1784, the power of dissolution, hitherto reserved for the defence of the monarchy, was, for the first time, employed to support the power of an Administration. The majority of the House of Commons had, in 1782, driven one Administration from office, and compelled another to retire. Its right to interpose, with decisive weight, in the choice of ministers, as well as the adoption of measures, seemed by these vigorous exertions to be finally established. George II. had, indeed, often been compelled to receive ministers whom he hated: but his successor, more tenacious of his prerogative, and more inflexible in his resentment, did not so easily brook the subjection to which he thought himself about to be reduced. When the latter, in 1784, again saw his Ministers threatened with expulsion by a majority of the House of Commons, he found a Prime Minister who, trusting to his popularity, ventured to make common cause with him, and to brave that Parliamentary disapprobation to which the prudence or principle of both his predecessors had induced them to yield. Not content with this great victory, he proceeded, by a dissolution of Parliament, to inflict such an exemplary punishment on the majority, as might deter all future ones from following their dangerous example.

The ministers of 1806 gave some countenance to Mr. Pitt’s precedent, by a very reprehensible dissolution: and in 1807, its full consequences were unfolded. The House of Commons was then openly threatened with a dissolution, if a majority should vote against Ministers; and in pursuance of this threat, the Parliament was actually dissolved. From that moment, the new prerogative of penal dissolution was added to all the other means of ministerial influence.

Of all the silent revolutions which have materially changed the English government, without any alteration in the latter of the law, there is, perhaps, none more fatal to the constitution than the power thus introduced by Mr. Pitt, and strengthened by his followers. And it is the more dangerous, because it is hardly capable of being counteracted by direct laws. The prerogative of dissolution, being a means of defence on sudden emergencies, is scarcely to be limited by law. There is, however, an indirect, but effectual mode of meeting its abuse:—by shortening the duration of Parliaments, the punishment of dissolution will be divested of its terrors. While its defensive power will be unimpaired, its efficacy, as a means of influence, will be nearly destroyed. The attempt to reduce Parliament to a greater degree of dependence, will thus be defeated; due reparation be made to the constitution; and future ministers taught, by a useful example of just retaliation, that the Crown is not likely to be finally the gainer, in struggles to convert a necessary prerogative into a means of unconstitutional influence.—Ibid. p. 494.

The Miscellaneous Works of the Right Honourable Sir James Mackintosh, 3 vols. 8vo., London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1846.

These remarks are extracted from the Edinburgh Review, vol. xxvii. p. 180; vol. xxxvi. p. 829.—Ed.

Advancement of Learning, book ii.

He himself who alone was qualified, has described the genius of his philosophy both in respect to the degree and manner in which he rose from particulars to generals: “Axiomata infima non multum ab experientiâ nudâ discrepant. Suprema vero illa et generalissima (quæ habentur) notionalia sunt et abstracta, et nil habent solidi. At media sunt axiomata illa vera, et solida, et viva, in quibus humanæ res et fortunæ sitæ sunt, et supra hæc quoque, tandem ipsa illa generalissima, talia scilicet quæ non abstracta sint, sed per hæc media verè limitantur.”—Novum Organum, lib. i. aphoris. 104.

Cowley, Ode to the Royal Society.

“Under the same head of Ethics, may be mentioned the small volume to which he has given the title of ‘Essays,’—the best known and most popular of all his works. It is also one of those where the superiority of his genius appears to the greatest advantage; the novelty and depth of his reflections often receiving a strong relief from the triteness of the subject. It may be read from beginning to end in a few hours; and yet, after the twentieth perusal, one seldom fails to remark in it something unobserved before. This, indeed, is a characteristic of all Bacon’s writings, and is only to be accounted for by the inexhaustible aliment they furnish to our own thoughts, and the sympathetic activity they impart to our torpid faculties.” Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. i. p. 36.

Of the Interpretation of Nature.

New Atlantis.

Advancement of Learning, book i.

Orme’s Memoirs of Dr. Owen, pp. 99—110. In this very abie volume, it is clearly proved that the Independents were the first teachers of religious liberty. The industrious, ingenious, and tolerant writer, is unjust to Jeremy Taylor, who had no share (as Mr. Orme supposes) in the persecuting councils of Charles II. It is an important fact in the history of Toleration, that Dr. Owen, the Independent, was Dean of Christchurch in 1651, when Locke was admitted a member of that College, “under a fanatical tutor,” as Antony Wood says.

“We have need,” says he, “of more generous remedies than have yet been used in our distempers. It is neither declarations of indulgence, nor acts of comprehension such as have yet been practised or projected amongst us, that can do the work among us. Absolute liberty, just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty, is the thing that we stand in need of. Now, though this has indeed been much talked of, I doubt it has not been much understood,—I am sure not at all practised, either by our governors towards the people in general, or by any dissenting parties of the people towards one another.” How far are we, at this moment [1821], from adopting these admirable principles! and with what absurd confidence do the enemies of religious liberty appeal to the authority of Mr. Locke for continuing those restrictions on conscience which he so deeply lamented!

“Non cujuslibet ratio facit legem, sed multitudinis, aut principis, vicem multitudinis gerentis.”—Summa Theologiæ, pars i. quæst 90.

“Opinionem jam factam communem omnium Scholasticorum.” Antonio de Dominis, De Republicâ Ecclesiasticâ, lib. vi. cap. 2. Antonio de Dominis, Archbishop of Spalato in Dalmatia, having imbibed the free spirit of Father Paul, inclined towards Protestantism, or at least towards such reciprocal concessions as might reunite the churches of the West. During Sir Henry Wotton’s remarkable embassy at Venice, he was pursuaded to go to England, where he was made Dean of Windsor. Finding, perhaps, the Protestants more inflexible than he expected, he returned to Rome, possibly with the hope of more success in that quarter. But, though he publicly abjured his errors, he was soon, in consequence of some free language in conversation, thrown into a dungeon, where he died. His own writings are forgotten; but mankind are indebted to him for the admirable history of the Council of Trent by Father Paul, of which he brought the MSS. with him to London.

“J’ai taché d’abord de prouver que notre esprit est au commencement ce qu’on appelle un tabula rasa, c’est-à-dire, sans idées et sans connoissances. Mais comme ce n’a été que pour détruire les préjugés de quelques philosophes, j’ai cru que dans ce petit abrégé de mes principes, je devois passer toutes les disputes préliminaires qui composent le livre premier.” Bibliothèque Universelle, Janv. 1688.

Philosophical Essays, essay i. chap. 2.

Mr. Thomas Wedgwood; see Life of Mackintosh, vol. i. p. 289.

This remarkable passage of Descartes is to be found in a French translation of the preface and notes to the Principia Philosophiæ, probably by himself.—(Lettres de Descartes, vol. i. lett. 99.) It is justly observed by one of his most acute antagonists, that Descartes does not steadily adhere to this sense of the word “innate,” but varies it in the exigencies of controversy, so as to give it at each moment the import which best suits the nature of the objection with which he has then to contend.—Huet, Censura Philosophiæ Cartesianæ. p. 93.

Lettres, vol. ii. lett. 54.

Dr. Lee, an antagonist of Mr. Locke, has stated the question of innate ideas more fully than Shaftesbury, or even Leibnitz: he has also anticipated some of the reasonings of Buffier and Reid.—Lee’s Notes on Locke, folio. London, 1702.

Essay on Human Understanding, book i. chap. 3. § 3.

Chap. 4. § 24.

This word “experimental,” has the defect of not appearing to comprehend the knowledge which flows from observation, as well as that which is obtained by experiment. The German word “empirical,” is applied to all the information which experience affords; but it is in our language degraded by another application. I therefore must use “experimental” in a larger sense than its etymology warrants.

A stronger proof can hardly be required than the following sentence, of his freedom from physiological prejudice. “This laying up of our ideas in the repository of the memory, signifies no more but this, that the mind has the power in many cases to revive perceptions, with another perception annexed to them, that it has had them before.” The same chapter is remarkable for the exquisite, and almost poetical beauty, of some of its illustrations. “Ideas quickly fade, and often vanish quite out of the understanding, leaving no more footsteps or remaining characters of themselves than shadows do flying over a field of corn.”—“The ideas, as well as children of our youth, often die before us, and our minds represent to us those tombs to which we are approaching; where, though the brass and marble remain, yet the inscriptions are effaced by time, and the imagery moulders away. Pictures drawn in our minds are laid in fading colours, and, unless sometimes refreshed, vanish and disappear,”—book ii. chap. 10. This pathetic language must have been inspired by experience; and, though Locke could not have been more than fifty-six when he wrote these sentences, it is too well known that the first decays of memory may be painfully felt long before they can be detected by the keenest observer.

Novum Organum, lib. i. § civ.

Gray, De Principiis Cogitandi.

This discourse was the preliminary one of a course of lectures delivered in the hall of Lincoln’s Inn during the spring of the year 1799. From the state of the original MSS. notes of these lectures, in the possession of the editor, it would seem that the lecturer had trusted, with the exception of a few passages prepared in extenso, to his powerful memory for all the aid that was required beyond what mere catchwords could supply.—Ed.

See “A Syllabus of Lectures on the Law of England, to be delivered in Lincoln’s Inn Hall by M. Nolen, Esq.”

Advancement of Learning, book ii. I have not been deterred by some petty incongruity of metaphor from quoting this noble sentence. Mr. Hume had, perhaps, this sentence in his recollection, when he wrote a remarkable passage of his works. See his Essays, vol. ii. p. 352.

The learned reader is aware that the “jus naturæ” and “jus gentium” of the Roman lawyers are phrases of very different import from the modern phrases, “law of nature” and “law of nations.” “Jus naturale,” says Ulpian, “est quod natura omnia animalia docuit.” “Quod naturalis ratio inter omnes homines constituit, id apud omnes peræque custoditur; vocaturque jus gentium.” But they sometimes neglect this subtle distinction—“Jure naturali quod appellatur jus gentium.” “Jus feciale” was the Roman term for our law of nations. “Belli quidem æquitas sanctissimè populi Rom. feciali jure perscripta est.” De Officiis, lib. i. cap. ii. Our learned civilian Zouch has accordingly entitled his work, “De Jure Feciali, sive de Jure inter Gentes.” The Chancellor D’Aguesseau, probably without knowing the work of Zouch, suggested that this law should be called, “Droit entre les Gens” (Œuvres, vol. ii. p. 337), in which he has been followed by a late ingenious writer, Mr. Bentham, (Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, p. 324.) Perhaps these learned writers do employ a phrase which expresses the subject of this law with more accuracy than our common language; but I doubt whether innovations in the terms of science always repay us by their superior precision for the uncertainty and confusion which the change occasions.

This remark is suggested by an objection of Vattel, which is more specious than solid. See his Preliminaries. § 6.

“Est quidem vera lex recta ratio, naturæ congruens, diffusa in omnes, constans, sempiterna; quæ vocet ad officium jubendo, vetando à fraude deterreat, quæ tamen neque probos frustra jubet aut vetat, neque improbos jubendo aut vetando movet. Huic legi neque obrogari fas est, neque derogari ex hac aliquid licet, neque tota abrogari potest. Nec verò aut per senatum aut per populum solvi hac lege possumus: neque est quærendus explanator aut interpres ejus alius. Nec erit alia lex Romæ, alia Athenis, alia nunc, alia posthac; sed et omnes gentes et omni tempore una lex et sempiterna, et immutabilis continebit; unusque erit communis quasi magister et imperator omnium Deus, ille legis hujus inventor, disceptator, lator: cui qui non parebit ipse se fugiet et naturam hominis aspernabitur, atque hoc ipso luet maximas pœnas, etiamsi cætera supplicia, quæ putantur, effugerit.”—De Repub. lib. iii. cap. 22.

Ecclesiastical Polity, book i. in the conclusion.

“Age verò urbibus constitutis, ut fidem colere et justitiam retinere discerent, et aliis parere suâ voluntate consuescerent, ac non modò labores excipiendos communis commodi causâ, sed etiam vitam amittendam existimarent; qui tandem fier potuit, nisi homines ea, quæ ratione [Editor: illegible word] eloquentiâ persuadere potuissent?”—De Invent Rhet. lib. i. cap. 2.

Cujacius, Brissonius, Hottomannus, &c., &c.—See Gravina Origines Juris Civilis (Lips. 1737), pp. 132—138. Leibnitz, a great mathematician as well as philosopher, declares that he knows nothing which approaches so near to the method and precision of Geometry as the Roman law.—Op. vol. iv. p. 254.

“Proavia juris civilis.” De Jure Belli ac Pacis, proleg. § xvi.

Dr. Paley, Principles of Moral and Politica. Philosophy, pref. pp. xiv. xv.

De Jure Belli, proleg. § 40.

I do not mean to impeach the soundness of any part of Puffendorff’s reasoning founded on moral entities: it may be explained in a manner consistent with the most just philosophy. He used, as every writer must do, the scientific language of his own time. I only assert that, to those who are unacquainted with ancient systems, his philosophical vocabulary is obsolete and unintelligible.

I cannot prevail on myself to pass over this subject without paying my humble tribute to the memory of Sir William Jones, who has laboured so successfully in Oriental literature; whose fine genius, pure taste, unwearied industry, unrivalled and almost prodigious variety of acquirements,—not to speak of his amiable manners, and spotless integrity,—must fill every one who cultivates or admires letters with reverence, tinged with a melancholy which the recollection of his recent death is so well adapted to inspire. I hope I shall be pardoned if I add my applause to the genius and learning of Mr. Maurice, who treads in the steps of his illustrious friend, and who has bewailed his death in a strain of genuine and beautiful poetry, not unworthy of happier periods of our English literature.

Especially those chapters of the third book, entitled, “Temperamentum circa Captivos,” &c.

“Natura enim juris explicanda est nobis, eaque ab hominis repetenda naturâ.”—De Leg. lib. i. c. 5.

“Est autem virtus nihil aliud, quam in se perfecta atque ad summum perducta natura.” Ibid. lib. i. c. 8.

Advancement of Learning, book ii.

Light of Nature, vol. i. pref. p. xxxiii.

Advancement of Learning, book ii.

Sermon, lib. i. Serm. iii. 105.

C. Licinius Calvus.

See on this subject an incomparable fragment of the first book of Cicero’s Economics, which is too long for insertion here, but which, if it be closely examined, may perhaps dispel the illusion of those gentlemen, who have so strangely taken it for granted that Cicero was incapable of exact reasoning.

This progress is traced with great accuracy in some beautiful lines of Lucretius:—

The introduction to the first book of Aristotle’s Politics is the best demonstration of the necessity of political society to the well-being, and indeed to the very being, of man, with which I am acquainted. Having shown the circumstances which render man necessarily a social being, he justly concludes, “Καὶ ὅτι ἄνθρωτος φύσει πολιτιϰὸν ζῶον.” The same scheme of philosophy is admirably pursued in the short, but invaluable fragment of the sixth book of Polybius, which describes the history and revolutions of government.

To the weight of these great names let me add the opinion of two illustrious men of the present age, as both their opinions are combined by one of them in the following passages: “He (Mr. Fox) always thought any of the simple unbalanced governments bad; simple monarchy, simple aristocracy, simple democracy; he held them all imperfect or vicious, all were bad by themselves; the composition alone was good. These had been always his principles, in which he agreed with his friend, Mr. Burke.”—Speech on the Army Estimates, 9th Feb. 1790. In speaking of both these illustrious men, whose names I here join, as they will be joined in fame by posterity, which will forget their temporary differences in the recollection of their genius and their friendship, I do not entertain the vain imagination that I can add to their glory by any thing that I can say. But it is a gratification to me to give utterance to my feelings; to express the profound veneration with which I am filled for the memory of the one, and the warm affection which I cherish for the other, whom no one ever heard in public without admiration, or knew in private life without loving.

Privilege, in Roman jurisprudence, means the exemption of one individual from the operation of a law. Political privileges, in the sense in which I employ the terms, mean those rights of the subjects of a free state, which are deemed so essential to the well-being of the commonwealth, that they are excepted from the ordinary discretion of the magistrate, and guarded by the same fundamental laws which secure his authority.

See an admirable passage on this subject in Dr. Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (vol. ii. pp. 101—112), in which the true doctrine of reformation is laid down with singular ability by that eloquent and philosophical writer. See also Mr. Burke’s Speech on Economical Reform; and Sir M. Hale on the Amendment of Laws, in the Collection of my learned and most excellent friend, Mr. Hargrave, p. 248.

Pour former un gouvernement modéré, il faut combiner les puissances, les régler, les tempérer les faire agir; donner pour ainsi dire un lest à l’une, pour la mettre en état de résister à une autre; c’est un chef-d’œuvre de législation que le hasard fait rarement, et que rarement on laisse faire à la prudence. Un gouvernement despotique au contraire saute, pour ainsi dire, aux yeux; il est uniforme partout: comme il ne faut que des passions pour l’établir, tout le monde est bon pour cela.—Montesquieu, De l’Esprit de Loix, liv. v. c. 14.

Bacon, Essay xxiv. (Of Innovations.)

The reader will perceive that I allude to Montesquieu, whom I never name without reverence, though I shall presume, with humility, to criticise his account of a government which he only saw at a distance.

Probably book iii. cap. 11.—Ed.

This principle is expressed by a writer of a very different character from these two great philosophers,—a writer, “qu’on n’appellera plus philosophe, mais qu’on appellera le plus éloquent des sophistes,” with great force, and, as his manner is, with some exaggeration. “Il n’y a point de principes abstraits dans la politique. C’est une science des calculs, des combinaisons, et des exceptions, selon les lieux, les tems, et les circonstances.”—Lettre de Rousseau au Marquis de Mirabeau. The second proposition is true; but the first is not a just inference from it.

“The casuistical subtilties are not perhaps greater than the subtilties of lawyers; but the latter are innocent, and even necessary.”—Hume, Essays, vol. ii. p. 558.

“Law,” said Dr. Johnson, “is the science in which the greatest powers of the understanding are applied to the greatest number of facts.” Nobody, who is acquainted with the variety and multiplicity of the subjects of jurisprudence, and with the prodigious powers of discrimination employed upon them, can doubt the truth of this observation.

Burke, Works, vol. iii. p. 134.

On the intimate connection of these two codes, let us hear the words of Lord Holt, whose name never can be pronounced without veneration, as long as wisdom and integrity are revered among men:—“Inasmuch as the laws of all nations are doubtless raised out of the ruins of the civil law, as all governments are sprung out of the ruins of the Roman empire, it must be owned that the principles of our law are borrowed from the civil law, therefore grounded upon the same reason in many things.”—12 Mod. Rep. 482.

De l’Esprit des Loix, liv. i. c. 3.

Cic. Orat. pro L. Corn. Balbo, c. vi.

Cic De Repub. lib. ii.

Burke, Works, vol. iii. p. 207.

“In Sir Thomas More’s epitaph, he describes himself as ‘born of no noble family, but of an honest stock,’ (or in the words of the original, familiâ non celebri, sed honestâ natus,) a true translation, as we here take nobility and noble; for none under a baron, except he be of the privy council, doth challenge it; and in this sense he meant it; but as the Latin word nobilis is taken in other countries for gentrie, it was otherwise. Sir John More bare arms from his birth; and though we cannot certainly tell who were his ancestors, they must needs be gentlemen.”—Life of More (commonly reputed to be) by Thomas More, his great grandson, pp. 3, 4. This book will be cited nenceforward as “More.”

“Homo civilis, innocens, mitis, integer.”—Epitaph.

Dodd’s Church History, vol. i. p. 141. The Roman Catholics, now restored to their just rank in society, have no longer an excuse for not continuing this useful work. [This has been accordingly done since this note was written, by the Rev. M. A. Tierney.—Ed.]

Roper’s Life of Sir T. More, edited by Singer. This book will be cited henceforward as “Roper.”

History of Richard III.

More, p. 25.

Athenæ Oxonienses, vol. i. p. 79.

See this Letter in the Appendix to the second volume of Jortin’s Life of Erasmus.

For Latimer, see Dodd, Church History, vol. i. p. 219.: for Grocyn, Ibid. p. 227: for Colet and Linacre, all biographical compilations.

“Delibavimus et olim has literas, sed summis duntaxat labiis; at nuper paulo aliius ingressi, videmus id quod sæpenumero apud gravissimos auctores legimus,—Latinam eruditionem, quamvis impendiosam, citra Græcismum mancam esse ac dimidiatam. Apud nos enim rivuli vix quidam sunt, et lacunulæ lutulentæ; apud illos fontes purissimier flumina aurum volventia.”—Opera. Lug. Bat. 1703. vol. iii. p. 63.

Ibid. vol. iii. p. 293.

“Gratulatur quod eam repererit incolumem quam olim fermè puer amaverat.”—Not, in Poem. It does not seem reconcilable with dates, that his lady could have been the younger sister of Jane Colt. Vide infrà.

Inn was successively applied, like the French word hotel, first to the town mansion of a great man, and afterwards to a house where all mankind were entertained for money.

Doctor and Student (by St. Germain) and Diversité des Courtes were both printed by Rastell in 1534.

Nullus causidicus nisi clericus.

Roper, p. 5.

More, p. 44.

“Suavissime More.” “Charissime More.” “Mellitissime More.”

“Maluit maritus esse castus quam sacerdos impurus.” Erasmus, Op. vol. iii. p. 475.

Roper, p. 6.

More, p. 30.

Erasmus. Op. vol. iii. p. 475.

“In a few months,” says Erasmus, Op. vol. iii. p. 475.:—“within two or three years,” according to his great grandson.—More, p. 32.

Erasmus, vol. iii. p. 475.

Roper, p. 25.

Op. vol. iii. p. 1812.

Dedication of Utopia to Peter Giles, (Burnet’s translation,) 1684.

Erasmus, Op. vol. iii. p. 476.

“In urbe suâ pro shyrevo dixit.”—Epitaph.

Erasmus, Op. vol. iii. p. 220.

From communications obtained for me from the records of the City, I am enabled to ascertain some particulars of the nature of More’s appointment, which have occasioned a difference of opinion. On the 8th of May, 1514, it was agreed by the common council, “that, Thomas More, gentleman, one of the under-sheriffs of London, should occupy his office and chamber by a sufficient deputy, during his absence as the king’s ambassador in Flanders.” It appears from several entries in the same records, from 1496 to 1502 inclusive, that the under-sheriff was annually elected, or rather confirmed; for the practice was not to remove him without his own application or some serious fault. For six years of Henry’s reign, Edward Dudley was one of the under-sheriffs; a circumstance which renders the superior importance of the office at that time probable. Thomas Marowe, the author of works on law esteemed in his time, though not published, appears also in the above records as under-sheriff.

Roper, p. 7. There seems to be some forgetfulness of dates in the latter part of this passage, which has been copied by succeeding writers. Margaret, it is well known, was married in 1503; the debate was not, therefore, later than that year: but Henry VII. lived till 1509.

More, p. 38.

“Postquam pugnatum est apud Actium, magna illa ingenia cessere.”—Tacitus, Hist. lib. i. cap. 1.

Erasmus, Op. vol. iii. p. 476.

History of Richard III.

De Clar. Orat. cap. 17.

Holinshed, vol. iii. p. 360. Holinshed called More’s work “unfinished.” That it was meant to extend to the death of Richard III. seems probable from the following sentence:—“But, forasmuch as this duke’s (the Duke of Gloucester) demeanour ministereth in effect all the whole matter whereof this book shall entreat, it is therefore convenient to show you, as we farther go, what manner of man this was that could find in his heart such mischief to conceive.”—p. 361.

The following specimen of Utopian etymologies may amuse some readers:—

Some are intentionally unmeaning, and others are taken from little known language in order to perplex pedants. Joseph Scaliger represents Utopia as a word not formed according to the analogy which regulates the formation of Greek words.

Burnet’s translation, p. 13, et seq.

Burnet’s translation, p. 57. Happening to write where I have no access to the original, I use Burnet’s translation. There can be no doubt of Burnet’s learning or fidelity.

Erasmi Opera, vol. iii. p. 267.

Ibid. p. 321.

Ibid. p. 591. To this theory neither of the parties about to contend could have assented; but it is not on that account the less likely to be in a great measure true.

Records of the Common Council of London.

In a letter to Erasmus, 30th April, 1516.

Erasmus, Op. vol. iii. p. 476.

Roper, p. 12.

More, p. 49.

Roper, pp. 21, 22. Compare this insight into Henry’s character with a declaration post of an opposite nature, though borrowed also from castles and towns, made by Charles V. when he heard of More’s murder.

Records of the city of London.

Est quod Moro gratuleris; nam Rex hunc nec ambientem nec flagitantem munere magnifico honestavit, addito salario nequaquam penitendo: est enim principi suo à thesauris. . . Nec hoc contentus, equitis aurati dignitatem adjecit.—Erasmus, Op. vol. iii. p. 378.

“Then died Master Weston, treasurer of the exchequer, whose office the King, of his own accord, without any asking, freely gave unto Sir Thomas More.”—Roper, 13.

The minute verbal coincidences which often occur between Erasmus and Roper, cannot be explained otherwise than by the probable supposition, that copies or originals of the correspondence between More and Erasmus were preserved by Roper after the death of the former.

Op. vol. ii. p. 357.

Op. vol. iii. p. 589.

Ibid. From the dates of the following letters of Erasmus, it appears that the hopes of More were disappointed.

14 Henry VIII.

This conjecture is almost raised above that name by what precedes. “Sir Thomas More made an oration, not now extant, to the king’s highness, for his discharge from the speakership, whereunto when the king would not consent, the speaker spoke to his grace in the form following: —It cannot be doubted, without injustice to the honest and amiable biographer, that he would have his readers to understand that the original of the speeches, which actually follow, were extant in his hands.

Roper, pp. 13—21.

Roper, p. 20.

More, p. 53. with a small variation.

Such is the information which I have received from the records in the Tower. The accurate writer of the article on More, in the Biographia Britannica, is perplexed by finding Sir Thomas More, chancellor of the duchy, as one of the negotiators of a treaty in August, 1526, which seems to the writer in the Biographia to bring down the death of Wingfield to near that time; he being on all sides acknowledged to be More’s immediate predecessor. But there is no difficulty, unless we needlessly assume that the negotiation with which Wingfield was concerned related to the same treaty which More concluded. On the contrary, the first appears to have been a treaty with Spain; the last a treaty with France.

State Papers, Hen. VIII. vol. i. p. 196. Wolsey’s words are,—“He expressly affirmed, that however displeasantly the queen took this matter, yet the truth and judgment of the law must take place. I have instructed him how he shall order himself if the queen shall demand his counsel, which he promises me to follow.”

State Papers, Hen. VIII. vol. i. p. 168.

Records in the Tower.

More’s answer to Tyndal, part i. p. 128.—(Printed by John Rastell, 1532.)

Op. vol. iii. p. 1811.

More’s Apology, chap. 36.

Such was then the mode of curing insanity!

Apology, chap. 36.

There is a remarkable instance of this observation in More’s Dialogue, book iii. chap. xvi., where he tells, with some prolixity, the story of Richard Dunn, who was found dead, and hanging in the Lollard’s Tower. The only part taken by More in this affair was his share as a privy councillor in the inquiry, whether Dunn hanged himself, or was murdered and then hanged up by the Bishop of London’s chancellor. The evidence to prove that the death could not be suicide, was as absurd as the story of the bishop’s chancellor was improbable. He was afterwards, however, convicted by a jury, but pardoned, it should seem rightly, by the King.

History of the Reformation (Lond. 1820), vol. iii. part i. p. 45.

The change of opinion in Erasmus, and the less remarkable change of More in the same respect, is somewhat excused by the excesses and disorders which followed the Reformation. “To believe,” says Bayle, “that the church required reformation, and to approve a particular manner of reforming it, are two very different things. To blame the opponents of reformation, and to disapprove the conduct of the reformers, are two things very compatible. A man may then imitate Erasmus, without being an apostate or a traitor.”—Dictionary, art. Castellan. These are positions too reasonable to be practically believed, at the time when their adoption would be most useful.

In the Apology, More states that four-tenths of the people were unable to read; probably an overrated estimate of the number of readers.

Dialogue of Sir Thomas More, touching the pestilent sect of Luther, composed and published when he was chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, “but newly oversene by the said Sir T. More, chancellor of England,” 1530.

A violent exaggeration.

Dialogue, book iv. chap. 8.

Switzerland, Holland, Scotland, English puritans, New England, French Huguenots, &c.

This wish is put into the mouth of the adverse speaker in the Dialogue.

In More’s metrical inscription for his own monument, we find a just but long, and somewhat laboured, commendation of Alice, which in tenderness is outweighed by one word applied to the long-departed companion of his youth.

“Chara Thomæ jacet hic Joanna uxorcula Mori.”

Thorpe, in 1371, and Knivet, in 1372, seem to be the last exceptions.

Ducange and Spelman, voce Cancellarius, who give us the series of Chancellors in both countries.

“Non facile est digito monstrare quibus gradibus, sed conjecturam accipe.”—Spelman, voce Cancellarius.

Blackstone, book iii. chap. 4.

Calendars of Proceedings in Chancery, temp. Eliz. London 1827. Of ten of these suits which occurred in the last ten years of the fourteenth century, one complains of ouster from land by violence; another, of exclusion from a benefice, by a writ obtained from the king under false suggestions; a third, for the seizure of a freeman, under pretext of being a slave (or nief); a fourth, for being disturbed in the enjoyment of land by a trespasser, abetted by the sheriff; a fifth for imprisonment on a false allegation of debt. No case is extant prior to the first year of Henry V., which relates to the trust of lands, which eminent writers have represented as the original object of this jurisdiction. In the reign of Henry VI. there is a bill against certain Wycliffites for outrages done to the plaintiff, Robert Burton, chanter of the cathedral of Lincoln, on account of his zeal as an inquisitor in the diocese of Lincoln, to convict and punish heretics.

From a letter of Lord Bacon (Lords’ Journals, 20th March, 1680,) it appears that he made two thousand decrees and orders in a year; so that in his time the bills and answers amounted to about two-thirds of the whole business.

The numbers have been obligingly supplied by the gentlemen of the Record Office in the Tower.

Account of Proceedings in Parliament relative to the Court of Chancery. By C. P. Cooper, Esq. (Lond. 1828,) p. 102, &c.—A work equally remarkable for knowledge and acuteness.

Table Talk, (Edinb. 1809,) p. 55.

Blackstone, book iii. chap. 27. Lord Hardwicke’s Letter to Lord Kames, 30th June, 1757.—Lord Woodhouselee’s Life of Lord Kames, vol. i. p. 237.

More, pp. 156, 163.

More, p. 163.

Leviticus, chap. xix. v. 15.

“Thomas Morus, doctrinâ et probitate spectabilis vir, cancellarius in Wolsæi locum constituitur. Neutiquam Regis causæ æquior.”—Thuanus, Historia sui Temporis, lib. ii. c. 16.

“Margarita Francisci soror, spectatæ formæ et venustatis fœmina, Carolo Alenconio duce marito paulo ante mortuo, vidua permanserat. Ea destinata uxor Henrico: missique Wolsæus et Bigerronum Præsul qui de dissolvendo matrimonio cum Gallo agerent. Ut Caletum appulit, Wolsæus mandatum à rege contrarium accipit, rescivitque per amicos Henricum non tam Galli adfinitatem quam insanum amorem, quo Annam Bolenam prosequebatur, explere velle.”—Ibid. No trace of the latter part appears in the State Papers just (1831) published.

Leviticus, chap. xx. v. 22. But see Deuteronomy, chap. xxv. v. 5. The latter text, which allows an exception in the case of a brother’s wife being left childless, may be thought to strengthen the prohibition in all cases not excepted. It may seem applicable to the precise case of Henry. But the application of that text is impossible; for it contains an injunction, of which the breach is chastised by a disgraceful punishment.

Pallavicino, lib. ii. c. 15.

Ibid.

The description of the period appears to suit the year 1529, before the peace of Cambray and the recall of the legate Campeggio.

Probably in the beginning of 1527, after the promotion of More to be chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster.

Roper, p. 32.

Ibid. p. 48.

“Honorificè jussit rex de me testatum reddere quod ægrè ad preces meas me demiserit.”—More to Erasmus.

Apology, chap. x.

Roper, pp. 51, 52.

Letter to Cromwell, probably written in the end of 1532.

Of whom some were afterwards executed.

25 H. viii. c. 12.

Such as Hall and Holinshed.

p. 62.

Like a slave or a villain. The word in the mouth of these gentlemen appears to have been in a state of transition, about the middle point between the original sense of “like a slave,” and its modern acceptation of mean or malignant offenders. What proof is not supplied by this single fact in the history of the language of the masters, of their conviction, that the slavery maintained by them doomed the slaves to depravity!

The House of Lords addressed the King, praying him to declare whether it would be agreeable to his pleasure that Sir Thomas More and others should not be heard in their own defence before “the lords in the royal senate called the Stere Chamber.” Nothing more appears on the Journals relating to this matter. Lords’ Journals, 6th March, 1533. The Journals prove the narrative of Roper, from which the text is composed, to be as accurate as it is beautiful.

He spoke to her in his conversational Latin,—“Quod differtur non aufertur.”

Lords’ Journals, vol. i. p. 82.

Roper tells us that the King, who had intended to desist from his importunities, was exasperated by Queen Anne’s clamour to tender the oath at Lambeth; but he detested that unhappy lady, whose marriage was the occasion of More’s ruin: and though Roper was an unimpeachable witness relating to Sir Thomas’ conversation, he is of less weight as to what passed in the interior of the palace. The ministers might have told such a story to excuse themselves to Roper: Anne could have had no opportunity of contradiction.

26 H. VIII. c. 2.

25 Id. c. 22. § 9. Compare Lords’ Journals, vol. i. p. 82.

26 H. VIII. c. 22, 23.

Roper, p. 78.

Nares’ Glossary, London, 1822.

English Works, vol. i. p. 1430.

His waiting-man, Ibid. p. 1431. Bedesman—one who prays for another.

Roper, p. 72.

1 & 2 Phil. and Mar. c. 10.

English Works, vol. i. p. 1446.

Ibid. p. 1447.

English Works, vol. i. p. 1452.

25 H. VIII. c. 22.

Sir T. Palmer, Sir T. Bent, G. Lovell, esquire. Thomas Burbage, esquire, and G. Chamber, Edward Stockmore, William Brown, Jasper Leake, Thomas Bellington, John Parnell, Richard Bellamy, and G. Stoakes, gentlemen, were the jury.

Roper, p. 90.

Ibid. p. 90.

Ibid. p. 92.

Spectator, No. 349.

She survived her father about nine years.

One of them, Mr. James Hinten Baverstock, inserted his noble pedigree from Margaret, in 1819, in a copy of More’s English Works, at this moment before me.

Hunter’s South Yorkshire, vol. i. pp. 374, 375.

Eilis’ Original Letters, 2d series, lett. cxvii.

Ibid. lett. cx. “Ter maximus ille Morus.”

Instead of Heywood, perhaps we ought to read “Heron?” In that case the three daughters of Sir Thomas More would be present: Mrs. Roper was the eldest, Mrs. Clement the second, and Cecilia Heron the youngest.

Rolls of Parliament in Lords’ Journals, vol. i.

Notitia Parliamentaria, vol. iii. p. 112.

Contributed to the Edinburgh Review (vol. xliv. p. 1.) as a review of “Who wrote Εἰϰὼν Βατιλιϰὴ?” by Christopher Wordsworth, D. D., Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. London, 1824.—Ed.

Milton, Goodwyn, Lilly, &c.

See Wagstaffe’s Vindication of King Charles, pp. 77—79. London, 1711.

The Journals say nothing of the tankard, which was probably the gift of some zealous members, but bear, “That the thanks of this house be given to Mr. Gaudy and Mr. Morley for their sermons last Sunday, and that they be desired, if they please, to print the same.” Vol. ii. p. 40.

The Religious and Loyal Protestation of John Gauden, &c. London, 1648.

Kennet, Register, p. 773.

Biographia Britannica, article “Gauden.”

Wordsworth, Documentary Supplement, p. 9.

Ibid. pp. 11—13.

Wordsworth, Documentary Supplement, p. 14.

Duppa.

It is not to be inferred from this and the like passages, that Gauden doubted the previous communication of Morley to Clarendon: he uses such language as a reproach to the Chancellor for his silence.

Evidently by Morley.

Doc. Sup. p. 30. We have no positive proof that these two letters were sent, or the memorial delivered. It seems (Ibid. p. 27) that there are marks of the letters having been sealed and broken open; and it is said to be singular that such letters should be found among the papers of him who wrote them. But as the early history of these papers is unknown, it is impossible to expect an explanation of every fact. A collector might have found them elsewhere, and added them to the Gauden papers. An anxious writer might have broken open two important letters, in which he was fearful that some expression was indiscreet, and afterwards sent corrected duplicates, without material variation. Gauden might have received information respecting the disposal of Winchester and Worcester, or about the state of parties at Court, before the letters were dispatched, which would render them then unseasonable. What is evident is, that they were written with an intention to send them,—that they coincide with his previous statements,—and that the determination not to send them was not occasioned by any doubts entertained by the Chancellor of his veracity; for such doubts would have prevented his preferment is the bishopric of Worcester,—one of the most coveted dignities of the Church.

In the Oxford Edition of 1826.

The first letter of the second Earl of Clarendon to Wagstaffe in 1694, about twenty years after the event, has not, as far as we know, been published. We know only the extracts in Wagstaffe. The second letter written in 1699 is printed entire in Wagstaffe’s Defence, p. 37.

His formal reconciliation probably took place at Cologne in 1658, under the direction of Dr. Peter Talbot, Catholic Archbishop of Armagh.

Carte, Life of Ormonde, vol. ii. pp. 254—256.

13 Car. 2. st. 1.

“Who wrote,” &c. p. 93. Wagstaffe’s Vin dication, p. 19.

Ibid. p. 80.

Vol. v. p. 484.

Ibid. vol. vii. p. 432.

Ibid. vol. v. p. 495.

Dr. Wordsworth admits, that if Clarendon had consulted Duppa, Juxon, Sheldon, Morley, Kendal, Barwick, Legge, Herbert, &c. &c.; nay, if he had consulted only Morley alone, he must have been satisfied,—(Dr. Wordsworth, of course, says for the King.) Now, it is certain, from the message of Morley to Clarendon in 1674, that previous discussion had taken place between them. Does not this single fact decide the question on Dr. Wordsworth’s own admission?

Clarendon, vol. v. p. 476; and Warburton’s note.

Memoirs, p. 69. How much this coincides with Gauden’s account, that his wife had disguised the writing of the copy sent to the Isle of Wight.

He was made a baronet at the Restoration, for his personal services to Charles I.

Who wrote, &c. p. 138.

Memoirs, p. 68.

Doc. Sup. pp. 42, 48.

Who wrote, &c. p. 156.

Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, pp. 51—76.

Ibid. Appendix. No. 1.

Clarendon, vol. vii. p. 591.

Birch, Inquiry, p. 68. The King’s warrant, on 12th March, 1645, gives Glamorgan power “to treat with the Roman Catholics upon necessity, wherein our Lieutenant cannot so well be seen”—p. 20.

Harleian Miscellany, vol. iv. p. 494.

See a curious letter published by Leland (History of Ireland, book v. chap. 7), which clearly proves that the blindness of Ormonde was voluntary, and that he was either trusted with the secret, or discovered it; and that the imprisonment of Glamorgan was, what the Parliament called it, “a colourable commitment.” Leland is one of those writers who deserve more reputation than they enjoy: he is not only an elegant writer, but, considering his time and country, singularly candid, unprejudiced, and independent.

After sketching the above, we have been convinced, by a reperusal of the note of Mr. Laing on this subject (History of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 565), that if he had employed his great abilities as much in unfolding facts as in ascertaining them, nothing could have been written for the Icôn, or ought to have been written against it, since that decisive note. His merit, as a critical inquirer into history, an enlightened collector of materials, and a sagacious judge of evidence, has never been surpassed. If any man believes the innocence of Queen Mary, after an impartial and dispassionate perusal of Mr. Laing’s examination of her case, the state of such a man’s mind would be a subject worthy of much consideration by a philosophical observer of human nature. In spite of his ardent love of liberty, no man has yet presumed to charge him with the slightest sacrifice of historical integrity to his zeal. That he never perfectly attained the art of full, clear, and easy narrative was owing to the peculiar style of those writers who were popular in his youth, and may be mentioned as a remarkable instance of the disproportion of particular talents to a general vigour of mind.

Philosophical Works, (Edinb. 1826,) vol. iv. pp. 420, 422.

“On convient le plus souvent de ces instincts de la conscience. La plus grande et la plus same partie du genre humain leur rend témoignage. Les Orientaux, et les Grecs, et les Romains conviennent en cela; et il faudroit être aussi abruti que les sauvages Américains pour approuver leurs coutumes, pleines d’une cruauté qui passe même celle des bétes. Cependant ces mêmes sauvages sentent bien ce que c’est que la justice en d’autres occasions; et quoique il n’y ait point de mauvaise pratique peut-être qui ne soit autorisée quelque part, il y en a peu pourtant qui ne soient condamnées le plus souvent, et par la plus grande partie des hommes.”—Leibnitz, Œuvres Philosophiques, (Amst. et Leipz. 1765, 4to.) p. 49. There are some admirable observations on this subject in Hartley, especially in the development of the 49th Proposition:—“The rule of life drawn from the practice and opinions of mankind corrects and improves itself perpetually, till at last it determines entirely for virtue, and excludes all kinds and degrees of vice.”—Observations on Man, vol. ii. p. 214.

Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy. Compare book i. chap. v. with book ii. chap. vi.

Introduction to the Principles of Morality and Legislation, chap. ii.

Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, part iv. Even Hume, in the third book of his Treatise of Human Nature, the most precise, perhaps, of his philosophical writings, uses the following as the title of one of the sections: “Moral Distinctions, derived from a Moral Sense.”

Diog. Laert. lib. vi. Ælian, lib. ix. cap. 35.

Heyse, Init. Phil. Plat. 1827;—a hitherto in complete work of great perspicuity and elegance, in which we must excuse the partiality which belongs to a labour of love.

The most probable etymology of “ϰαλός” seems to be from ϰάιω to burn. What burns commonly shines. “Schön,” in German, which means beautiful, is derived from “scheinen,” to shine. The word ϰαλός was used for right, so early as the Homeric Poems. Ιλ. xvii. 19. In the philosophical age it became a technical term, with little other remains of the metaphorical sense than what the genius and art of a fine writer might sometimes rekindle. “Honestum” the term by which Cicero translates the “ϰαλόν,” being derived from outward honours, is a less happy metaphor. In our language, the terms, being from foreign roots, contribute nothing to illustrate the progress of thought.

Let it not be forgotten, that for this terrible description, Socrates, to whom it is ascribed by Plato (Πολ. I.) is called “Præstantissimus sapientiæ,” by a writer of the most masculine understanding, the least subject to be transported by enthusiasm.—Tac. Ann. lib. vi. cap. 6. “Quæ rulnera!” says Cicero, in alluding to the same passage.—De Off. lib. iii. cap. 21.

There can hardly be a finer example of Plato’s practical morals than his observations on the treatment of slaves. “Genuine humanity and real probity,” says he, “are brought to the test, by the behaviour of a man to slaves, whom he may wrong with impunity.” Διάδηλος γὰρ ὁ φύσει ϰαὶ μὴ πλαστῶς σέϐων τὴν δίϰην, μισῶν δὲ ὄντως τὸ ἄδιϰον ἐν τούτοις τῶν ὰνθρώπων ἐν οἱς αὺτῷ ῤᾴδιον ἀδιϰεῖν,—Νομ. lib. vi. cap. 19. That Plato was considered as the fountain of ancient morals, would be sufficiently evident from Cicero alone: “Ex hoc igitur Platonis, quasi quodam sancto augustoque fontenostra omnis manabit oratio.”—Tusc. Quæst. lib. v. cap. 12. Perhaps the sober Quintilian meant to mingle some censure with the highest praise: “Plato, qui eloquendi facultate divinâ quâdam et Homericâ, multum supra prosam orationem surgit.” De Inst. Orat. lib. x. cap. 1.

“Una et consentiensduobus vocabulis philosophiæ forma instituta est, Academicorum et Peripateticorum; qui rebus congruentes nominibus differebant.”—Cic. Acad. Quæst. lib. i. cap. 4. Βούλεται (Απιστοτελης) διττὸν εἶνα τὸν ϰατὰ φιλοσοφίαι λόγον· τὸν μὲν πραϰτιϰόν, τὸν δὲ ϑεωοητιϰόν ϰαὶ τοῦ πραϰτιϰοῦ, τόν τε ἠθιϰὸν ϰαὶ πολιτιϰόν· τοῦ δὲ ϑεωρητιϰοῦ, τόν τε φυσιϰὸν, ϰαὶ λογιϰὸν.—Diog. Laert. lib. v. § 28.

Diog. Laert. lib. x. § 132.

Τὴν φιλιαν διὰ τῆς χρείας.—Diog. Laert. lib. x. § 120. “Hic est locus,” Gassendi confesses, “ob quem Epicurus non parum vexatur, quando nemo non reprehendit, parari amicitiam non sui, sed utilitatis gratiâ”.

It is due to him to observe, that he treated humanity towards slaves, as one of the characteristics of a wise man. Ὄυτε χιλάσειν οἰχέτας, ἐλεήσειν μέν τω, χαὶ συγγνώμην τινὶ ἕξειν τῶι σπουδ αίων.—Diog. Laert. lib. x. § 118. It is not unworthy of remark, that neither Plato nor Epicurus thought it necessary to abstain from these topics in a city full of slaves, many of whom were men not destitute of knowledge.

“Nil generosum, nil magnificum sapit.”—De Fin. lib. i. cap. 7.

“Chrysippus, qui fulcire putatur porticum Stoicorum.”—Acad. Quæst. lib. ii. cap. 24. Elsewhere (De Orat. lib. i. cap. 12.—De Fin. lib. iv. cap. 3.), “Acutissimus, sed in scribendo exilis et jejunus, scripsit rhetoricam seu potiùs obmutescendi artem;”—nearly as we should speak of a Schoolman.

“Patience, sovereign o’er transmuted ill.” But as soon as the ill was really “transmuted” into good, it is evident that there was no longer any scope left for the exercise of patience.

Of all testimonies to the character of the Stoics, perhaps the most decisive is the speech of the vile sycophant Capito, in the mock impeachment of Thrasea Pætus, before a senate of slaves: “Ut quondam C. Cæsarem et M. Catonem, ita nunc te, Nero, et Thraseam, avida discordiarum civitas loquitur . . . . . Ista secta Tuberones et Favonios, veteri quoque reipublicæ ingrata nomina, genuit.”—Tacit. Ann. lib. xvi. cap. 22. See Appendix, .

The progress of commonplace satire on sexes or professions, and (he might have added) on nations, has been exquisitely touched by Gray in his Remarks on Lydgate; a fragment containing passages as finely thought and written as any in English prose. General satire on mankind is still more absurd; for no invective can be so unreasonable as that which is founded on falling short of an ideal standard.

The change attempted by Julian, Porphyry, and their friends, by which Theism would have become the popular Religion, may be estimated by the memorable passage of Tacitus on the Theism of the Jews. In the midst of all the obloquy and opprobrium with which he loads that people, his tone suddenly rises, when he comes to contemplate them as the only nation who paid religious honours to the Supreme and Eternal Mind alone, and his style swells at the sight of so sublime and wonderful a scene. “Summum illud et æternum, neque mutabile, neque interiturum.” Hist. lib. v. cap. 5.

The punishment of death was inflicted on Pagans by a law of Constantius. “Volumus cunctos sacrificiis abstinere: si aliquid hujusmodi perpetraverint, gladio ultore sternantur.” Cod. Just. lib. i. tit. xi. ‘de Paganis.’ From the authorities cited by Gibbon, (note, chap. xi.) as well as from some research, it should seem that the edict for the suppression of the Athenian schools was not admitted into the vast collection of laws enacted or systematized by Justinian.

King Alfred.

The steps of this important progress, as far as relates to Athens and Rome, are well remarked upon by one of the finest of the Roman writers. “Quem enim Romanorum pudet uxorem ducere in convivium? aut cujus materfamilias non primum locum tenet ædium, atque in celebritate versatur? quod multo fit aliter in Græciâ: nam neque in convivium adhibetur, nisi propinquorum; neque sedet nisi in interiore parte ædium, quæ Gynæconitis appellatur, quo nemo accedit, nisi propinquâ cognatione conjunctus.” Corn. Nep. in Præfat.

Tennemann, Geschichte der Philosophie. Cousin, Cours de Philosophie, Paris, 1828. My esteem for this last admirable writer encourages me to say, that the beauty of his diction has sometimes the same effect on his thoughts that a sunny haze produces on outward objects; and to submit to his serious consideration, whether the allurements of Schelling’s system have not betrayed him into a too frequent forgetfulness that principles, equally adapted to all phenomena, furnish in speculation no possible test of their truth, and lead, in practice, to total indifference and inactivity respecting human affairs. I quote with pleasure an excellent observation from this work: “Le moyen âge n’est pas autre chose que la formation pénible, lente et sanglante, de tous les élémens de la civilisation moderne; je dis la formation, et non leur développement.” (2nd Lecture, p. 27.)

See .

Born, 1033; died, 1109.

Born, 1224; died, 1274. See .

Born about 1265; died at Cologne (where his grave is still shown) in 1308. Whether he was a native of Dunston in Northumberland, or of Dunse in Berwickshire, or of Down in Ireland, was a question long and warmly contested, but which seems to be settled by his biographer, Luke Wadding, who quotes a passage of Scotus’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, where he illustrates his author thus: “As in the definition of St. Francis, or St. Patrick, man is necessarily presupposed.” Scott. Op. i. 3. As Scotus was a Franciscan, the mention of St. Patrick seems to show that he was an Irishman. See .

Born about 1290; died 1349; the contemporary of Chaucer, and probably a fellow-student of Wicliffe and Roger Bacon. His principal work was entitled, ‘De Causâ Dei contra Pelagium, et de Virtute Causarum, Libri tres.’

See .

See .

A passage to this effect, from Ockham, with nearly the same remark, has, since the text was written, been discovered on a reperusal of Cudworth’s Immutable Morality, p. 10.

“Remitto ad quod Occam de hâc materiâ in Lib. Sentent. dicit, in quâ explicatione si rudis judicetur, nescio quid appellabitur subtilitas.”—De Vitâ Spirit. Op. iii. 14.

Bossuet and Fenelon.

See Aquinas.—“Utrum Deus sit super omnia diligendus ex caritate.”—“Utrum in dilectione Dei poesit haberi respectus ad aliquam mercedem.”—Opera, ix. 322, 325. Some illustrations of this memorable anticipation, which has escaped he research even of the industrious Tenneman, will be found in the .

See .

See .

Locke speaks on this subject inconsistently; Reid calls himself a conceptualist; Kant uses terms so different, that he ought perhaps to be considered as of neither party. Leibnitz, varying in some measure from the general spirit of his speculations, warmly panegyrizes the Nominalists: “Secta Nominalium, omnium inter scholasticos profundissima, et hodiernæ reformatæ philosophandi rationi congruentissima.”—Op. iv. 59.

“Maximi vir ingenii, et eruditionis pro ille ævo summæ, Wilhelmus Occam, Anglus.” Ib. 60. The writings of Ockham, which are very rare, I have never seen. I owe my knowledge of them to Tennemann, who however quotes the words of Ockham, and of his disciple Biel.

“In Martini Lutheri scriptis prioribus amor Nominalium satis elucet, donec procedente tempore erga omnes monachos æqualiter affectus esse cœpit.”—Leibnitz, Opp. iv. 60.

See especially the excellent Preface of Leibnitz to Nizolius, § 37.—Ib. 59.

Many of the separate dissertations, on points of this nature, are contained in the immense collection entitled “Tractatus Tractatuum,” published at Venice in 1584, under the patronage of the Roman See. There are three De Bello; one by Lupus of Segovia, when Francis I. was prisoner in Spain; another, more celebrated, by Francis Arias, who, on the 11th June, 1532, discussed before the College of Cardinals the legitimacy of a war by the Emperor against the Pope. There are two De Pace; and others De Potestate Regiâ, De Pœnâ Mortis, &c. The most ancient and scholastic is that of J. de Lignano of Milan, De Bello. The above writers are mentioned in the prolegomena to Grotius, De Jure Belli. Pietro Belloni, Counsellor of the Duke of Savoy (De Re Militari), treats his subject with the minuteness of a Judge-Advocate, and has more modern examples, chiefly Italian, than Grotius.

Born, 1494; died, 1560.—Antonii Bib. Hisp. Nov. The opinion of the extent of Soto’s knowledge entertained by his contemporaries is expressed in a jingle, Qui scit Sotum scit totum.

See .

“Indis non debere auferri imperium, ideo quia sunt peccatores, vel ideo quia non sunt Christiani,” were the words of Victoria.

See .

“Neque discrepantia (ut reor) est inter Christianos et infideles, quoniam jus gentium cunctis gentibus æquale est.”

De Just, et Jure, lib. iv. quæst. ii. art. 2.

Born, 1538; died, 1617.

“Tantæ subtilitatis philosophum et theologum, ut vix quemquam habeat parem.”—Grotii Epist. apud Anton. Bib. Hisp. Nov.

“Nunquam enim civitates sunt sibi tam sufficientes quin indigeant mutuo juvamine et societate, interdum ad majorem utilitatem, interdum ob necessitatem moralem. Hâc igitur ratione indigent aliquo jure quo dirigantur et recte ordinentur in hoc genere societatis. Et quamvis magnâ ex parte hoc fiat per rationem naturalem, non tamen sufficienter et immediatè quoad omnia, ideoquc specialia jura poterant usu earundem gentium introduci.”—De Leg., lib. ii. cap. ii.

Born in the March of Ancona, 1550; died at London, 1608.

De Jur. Bell., lib. i. cap. i. § 14.

Prolegomena. His letter to Vossius, of 1st August, 1625, determines the exact period of the publication of this famous work.—Epist. 74.

The same commonplace paradoxes were retailed by the Sophists, whom Socrates is introduced as chastising in the Dialogues of Plato. They were common enough to be put by the Historian into the mouth of an ambassador in a public speech. Ἀνδρὶ δὲ τυράννῳ ἢ πόλυ αρχὴν ἐχοὺσῃ εὐδὲν ἄλογον ὃ τι ξυμϕέρον. Thucyd. lib. vi. cap. 85.

“Et hæc quidem locum aliquem haberent, enamsi daretur (quod sine summo scelere dari nequit) non esse Deum, aut non curari ab eo negotia humana.”—Proleg. 11. And in another place, “Jus naturale est dictatum rectæ rationis, indicans actui alicui, ex ejus convenientia aut disconvenientia cum ipsa natura rationali et sociali, messe moralem turpitudinem aut necessitatem, moralem, ac consequenter ab auctore naturæ Deo talem actum ant vetari aut præcipi.” “Actus de quibus rare exstat dictatum, debiti sunt aut illiciti per se, atque ideo a Deo necessario præcepii aut vetin intelliguntur.”—De Jur Bell. lib. i. cap. i. § 10.

Born, 1588; died 1679.

Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, and Grotius. The writings of the first are still as delightful and wonderful as they ever were, and his authority will have no end. Descartes forms an era in the history of Metaphysics, of Physics, of Mathematics. The controversies excited by Grotius have long ceased, but the powerful influence of his works will be doubted by those only who are unacquainted with the disputes of the seventeenth century.

The prevalence of freethinking under Louis XIII., to a far greater degree than it was avowed, appears not only from the complaints of Mersenne and of Grotius, but from the disclosures of Guy Patin; who, in his Letters, describes his own conversations with Gassendi and Naude, so as to leave no doubt of their opinions.

“Another error,” says the Master of Wisdom, “is the over-early and peremptory reduction of knowledge into arts and methods, from which time commonly receives small augmentation.”—Advancement of Learning, book i. “Method,” says he, “carrying a show of total and perfect knowledge, has a tendency to generate acquiescence.” What pregnant words!

See De Corpore Politico, Part i. chap. ii. iii. iv. and Leviathan, Part i. chap. xiv. xv. for remarks of this sort, full of sagacity.

“The laws of Nature are immutable and eternal; for injustice, ingratitude, arrogance, pride, iniquity, acception of persons, and the rest, can never be made lawful. For it can never be that war shall preserve life, and peace destroy it.”—Leviathan, Part i. chap. xv.—See also Part ii. chap. xxvi. xxviii. on Laws, and on Punishments.

See Encyc. Brit. i. 42. The political state of England is indeed said by himself to have occasioned his first philosophical publication.

The conference between the ministers from Athens and the Melean chiefs, in the 5th book, and the speech of Euphemus in the 6th book of that historian, exhibit an undisguised Hobbism, which was very dramatically put into the mouth of Athenian statesmen at a time when, as we learn from Plato and Aristophanes, it was preached by the Sophists.

Spinoza adopted precisely the same first principle with Hobbes, that all men have a natural right to all things.—Tract. Theol. Pol. cap. ii. § 3. He even avows the absurd and detestable maxim, that states are not bound to observe their treaties longer than the interest or danger which first formed the treaties continues. But on the internal constitution of states he embraces opposite opinions. Servitutis enim, non pacis, interest omnem potestatem ad unum transferre.—(Ibid. cap. vi. § 4.) Limited monarchy he considers as the only tolerable example of that species of government. An aristocracy nearly approaching to the Dutch system during the suspension of the Stadtholdership, he seems to prefer. He speaks favourably of democracy, but the chapter on that subject is left unfinished. “Nulla plane templa urbium sumptibus ædificanda, nec jura de opinionibus statuenda.” He was the first republican atheist of modern times, and probably the earliest irreligious opponent of an ecclesiastical establishment.

This doctrine is explained in his tract on Human Nature, c. vii. “Conception is a motion in some internal substance of the head, which proceeding to the heart, where it helpeth the motion there, is called pleasure; when it weakeneth or hindereth the motion, it is called pain.” The same matter is handled more cursorily, agreeably to the practical purpose of the work, in Leviathan, part i. chap. vi. These passages are here referred to as proofs of the statement in the text. With the materialism of it we have here no concern. If the multiplied suppositions were granted, we should not advance one step towards understanding what they profess to explain. The first four words are as unmeaning as if one were to say that greenness is very loud. It is obvious that many motions which promote the motion of the heart are extremely painful.

“Voluntas semper sequitur ultimum judicium intellectûs practici.”—[See Spinozæ Cog. Met. pars. ii. cap. 12. Ed.]

See the passages before quoted.

Human Nature, chap. viii. The ridiculous explanation of the admiration of personal beauty, “as a sign of power generative,” shows the difficulties to which this extraordinary man was reduced by a false system.

Ibid. chap. ix. I forbear to quote the passage on Platonic love, which immediately follows: but, considering Hobbes’ blameless and honourable character, that passage is perhaps the most remarkable instance of the shifts to which his selfish system reduced him.

Which he calls the “pulchrum,” for want, as he says, of an English word to express it.—Leviathan, part. i. c. vi.

“Et tale aliquid potuisset, vel ab incomparabilis Grotii judicio et doctrina, vel à profundo Hobbii ingenio præstari; nisi illum multa distraxissent; hie verò prava constituisset principia.”—Leib. Op. iv. pars. iii. 276.

Born, 1632; died, 1718.

De Leg. Nat. chap. i. § 12, first published in London, 1672, and then so popular as to be reprinted at Lubeck in 1683.

Ibid. cap. v. § 19.

Ibid. cap. ii. § 20.

“Whoever determines his Judgment and his Will by Right Reason, must agree with all others who judge according to Right Reason in the same matter.”—Ibid. cap. ii. § 8. This is in one sense only a particular instance of the identical proposition, that two things which agree with a third thing must agree with each other in that, in which they agree with the third. But the difficulty entirely consists in the particular third thing here introduced, namely, “Right Reason,” the nature of which not one step is made to explain. The position is curious, as coinciding with “the universal categorical imperative,” adopted as a first principle by Kant.

Leib. Op. pars. iii. 271. The unnamed work which occasioned these remarks (perhaps one of Thomasius) appeared in 1699. How long after this Leibnitz’s Dissertation was written, does not appear.

Born 1617; died, 1688.

See the the beautiful account of them by Burnet, (Hist. of His own Time, i. 321. Oxford, 1823) who was himself one of the most distinguished of this excellent body; with whom may be classed, notwithstanding some shades of doctrinal difference, his early master, Leighton, Bishop of Dunblane, a beautiful writer, and one of the best of men. The earliest account of them is in a curious contemporary pamphlet, entitled, “An Account of the new Sect of Latitude-men at Cambridge,” republished in the collection of tracts, entitled “Phœnix Britannicus.” Jeremy Taylor deserves the highest, and perhaps the earliest place among them: but Cudworth’s excellent sermon before the House of Commons (31st March 1647) in the year of the publication of Taylor’s Liberty of Prophesying, may be compared even to Taylor in rharity, piety, and the most liberal toleration.

De Cive, 1642.

“Dantur boni et mali rationes æternæ et indispensabiles.” Thesis for the degree of B. D. at Cambridge in 1664.—Birch’s Life of Cudworth, prefixed to his edition of the Intellectual System. (Lond. 1743.) i. 7.

A curious account of the history of these MSS. by Dr. Kippis, is to be found in the Biographia Britannica, iv. 549.

8vo. Lond. 1731.

“There are many objects of our mind which we can neither see, hear, feel, smell, nor taste, and which did never enter into it by any sense; and therefore we can have no sensible pictures or ideas of them, drawn by the pencil of that inward limner, or painter, which borrows all his colours from sense, which we call ‘Fancy:’ and if we reflect on our own cogitations of these things, we shall sensibly perceive that they are not phantastical, but noematical: as, for example, justice, equity, duty and obligation, cogitation, opinion, intellection, volition, memory, verity, falsity, cause, erfect, genus, species, nullity, contingency, possibility, impossibility, and innumerable others.”—Ibid. 140. We have here an anticipation of Kant.

Ευσέϐει, ω τέϰνον, ὁ γαρ ευσέϐων ἄχρως Χριστιανίζει.—(Motto affixed to the sermon above mentioned.)

The following doctrine is ascribed to Cudworth by Nelson, a man of good understanding and great worth: “Dr. Cudworth maintained that the Father, absolutely speaking, is the only Supreme God; the Son and Spirit being God only by his concurrence with them, and their subordination and subjection to him.”—Life of Bull, 339.

Turner’s discourse on the Messiah, 335.

Moralists, part ii. § 3.

Etern. and Immut. Mor. 11. He quotes Ockham as having formerly maintained the same monstrous positions. To many, if not to most of these opinions or expressions, ancient and modern, reservations are adjoined, which render them literally reconcilable with practical Morals. But the dangerous abuse to which the incautious language of ethical theories is liable, is well illustrated by the anecdote related in Plutarch’s Life of Alexander of the sycophant Anaxarchas consoling that monarch for the murder of Clitus, by assuring him that every act of a ruler must be just. Πᾶν [Editor: illegible word]ο πραχθεν ὑπο του ϰρατοῦντος δίϰαιον.—Op. i. 639.

Born, 1675; died, 1729.

This admirable person had so much candour as in effect to own his failure, and to recur to those other arguments in support of this great truth, which have in all ages satisfied the most elevated minds. In Proposition viii. (Being and Attributes of God, 47) which affirms that the first cause must be “intelligent” (wherein, as he truly states, “lies the main question between us and the atheists”), he owns, that the proposition cannot be demonstrated strictly and properly à priori.—See .

“Those who found all moral obligation on the will of God must recur to the same thing, only they do not explain how the nature and will of God is good and just.”—Being and Attributes of God, Proposition xii.

Evidence of Natural and Revealed Religion, p. 4. Lond. 1724.

Ibid. p. 42.

Lowman on the Unity and Perfections of God, p. 29. Lond. 1737.

Evid. of Nat. and Rev. Rel. p. 4.

Mr. Wollaston’s system, that morality consisted in acting according to truth, seems to coincide with that of Dr. Clarke. The murder of Cicero by Popilius Lenas, was, according to him, a practical falsehood; for Cicero had been his benefactor, and Popilius acted as if that were untrue. If the truth spoken of be that gratitude is due for benefits, the reasoning is evidently a circle. If any truth be meant, indifferently, it is plain that the assassin acted in perfect conformity to several certain truths;—such as the malignity of Antony, the ingratitude and venality of Popilius, and the probable impunity of his crime, when law was suspended, and good men without power.

Born. 1671: died. 1713.

See Minute Philosopher, Dialogue iii.; but especially his Theory of Vision Vindicated, Lond. 1733 (not republished in the quarto edition of his works), where this most excellent man sinks for a moment to the level of a railing polemic.

It is remarkable that the most impure passages of Warburton’s composition are those in which he lets loose his controversial zeal, and that he is a fine writer principally where he writes from generous feeling. “Of all the virtues which were so much in this noble writer’s heart, and in his writings, there was not one he more revered than the love of public liberty. . . . The noble author of the Characteristics had many excellent qualities, both as a man and a writer: he was temperate, chaste, honest, and a lover of his country. In his writings he has shown how much he has imbibed the deep sense, and how naturally he could copy the gracious manner of Plato.—(Dedication to the Freethinkers, prefixed to the Divine Legation.) He, however, soon relapses, but not without excuse; for he thought himself vindicating the memory of Locke.

Op. iii. 39—56.

[With regard to this story, authorised as it is, the Editor cannot help, on behalf of his own “nursing mother,” throwing out some suspiction that the Chancellor’s politics must have been made use of somewhat as a scapegoat; else the nature of boys was at that time more excitable touching their schoolmates’ grandfathers than it is now. There is a rule traditionally observed in College, “that no boy has a right to think till he has forty juniors;” upon which rock the cockboat of the embryo metaphysician might have foundered.]

Characteristics, treatise iv.

I am not without suspicion that I have overlooked the claims of Dr. Henry More, who, notwithstanding some uncouthness of language, seems to have given the first intimations of a distinct moral faculty, which he calls “the Boniform Faculty:” a phrase against which an outcry would now be raised as German. Happiness, according to him, consists in a constant satisfaction, εν τῳ ἀγαθοεἶδει της ψυχῆς.—Enchiridion Ethicum, lib. i. cap. ii.

“It is the height of wisdom no doubt to be rightly selfish.”—Charact. i. 121. The observation seems to be taken from what Aristotle says of Φιλαυτία: Τον μεν ἀγαθον δει φίλαυτον εἰ̑ναι.—Ethics, lib. ix. c. viii. The chapter is admirable, and the assertion of Aristotle is very capable of a good sense.

Inquiry, book i. part iii. § 3. So Jeremy Taylor; “He that is grown in grace pursues virtue purely and simply for its own interest. When persons come to that height of grace, and love God for himself, that is but heaven in another sense.”—(Sermon on Growth in Grace.) So before him the once celebrated Mr. John Smith of Cambridge: “The happiness which good men shall partake is not distinct from their godlike nature. Happiness and holiness are but two several notions of one thing. Hell is rather a nature than a place, and heaven cannot be so well defined by any thing without us, as by something within us.”—(Select Discourses, 2d edit. Cambridge, 1673.) In accordance with these old authorities is the recent language of a most ingenious as well as benevolent and pious writer. “The holiness of heaven is still more attractive to the Christian than its happiness. The desire of doing that which is right for its own sake is a part of his desire after heaven.”—(Unconditional Freeness of the Gospel, by T. Erskine, Esq. Edinb. 1828, p. 32. 33.) See also the Appendix to Ward’s Life of Henry More, Lond. 1710, pp. 247—271. This account of that ingenious and amiable philosopher contains an interesting view of his opinions, and many beautiful passages of his writings, but unfortunately very few particulars of the man. His letters on Disinterested Piety (see the Appendix to Mr. Ward’s work), his boundless charity, his zeal for the utmost toleration, and his hope of general improvement from “a pacific and perspicacious posterity,” place him high in the small number of true philosophers who, in their estimate of men, value dispositions more than opinions, and in their search for good, more often look forward than backward.

Born, 1651; died, 1715.

Born, 1627; died, 1704.

Bausset, Histoire de Fénelon, i. 252.

Bausset, Histoire de Fénelon, ii. 220, note.

Œuvres de Bossuet, viii. 308.—(Liege, 1767.)

De Summi Pontificis Auctoritate Dissertatio.

“Hæc est natura voluntatis humanæ, ut et beatitudinem, et ea quorum necessaria connexio cum beatitudine clare intelligitur, necessario appetat. . . Nullus est actus ad quem revera non impellimur motivo beatitudinis, explicite vel implicite;” meaning by the latter that it may be concealed from ourselves, as he says, for a short time, by a nearer object.—Œuvres de Bossuet, viii. 80. “The only motive by which individuals can be induced to the practice of virtue, must be the feeling or the prospect of private happiness.”-Brown’s Essays on the Characteristics, p. 159. Lond. 1752. It must, however, be owned, that the selfishness of the Warburtonian is more rigid; making no provision for the object of one’s own happiness slipping out of view for a moment. It is due to the very ingenious author of this forgotten book to add, that it is full of praise of his adversary; which, though just, was in the answerer generous; and that it contains an assertion of the unbounded right of public discussion, unusual even at the tolerant period of its appearance.

Born, 1646; died, 1716.

“Nouveaux Essais sur l’Entendement Hitmain,” liv. i. chap. ii. These Essays, which form the greater part of the publication entitled “Œuvres Philosophiques,” edited by Raspe-Amst. et Leipz. 1765, are not included in Dutens. edition of Leibnitz’s works.

Codex Juris Gentium Diplomaticus.—Hanov. 1695.

See .

See .

Born, 1638; died, 1715.

Traité de Morale. Rotterdam, 1684.

Author of the Theory of the Ideal World, who well copied, though he did not equal, the clearness and choice of expression which belonged to his master.

“Il faut aimer l’Etre infiniment parfait, et non pas un fantôme épouvantable, un Dieu injuste, ab solu, puissant, mais sans bonté et sans sagesse, S’il y avoit un tel Dieu, le vrai Dieu nous défendroit de l’adorer et de l’aimer. Il y a peut-être plus de danger d’offenser Dieu lorsqu’on lui donne une forme si horrible, que de mépriser son fantôme”—Traité de Morale, chap. viii.

Ibid. chap. xxii.

Born in 1703, at Windsor in Connecticut; died in 1758, at Princeton in New Jersey.

See .

On Religious Affections, pp. 4, 187.

The coincidence of Malebranche with this part of Edwards, is remarkable. Speaking of the Supreme Being, he says, “Il s’aime invinciblement.” He adds another more startling expression, “Certainement Dieu ne peut agir que pour lui-même: il n’a point d’autre motif que son amour propre.”—Traité de Morale, chap. xvii.

Born, 1661 died, 1737.

Cours de Sciences. Paris, 1732.

The doctrine of the Stoics is thus put by Cicero into the mouth of Cato: “Placet his, inquit, quorum ratio mihi probatur, simul atque natum sit animal (hinc enim est ordiendum), ipsum sibi conciliari et commendari ad se conservandurn, et ad suum statum, et ad ea, quæ conservantia sunt ejus status, diligenda; alienari autem ab interitu, iisque rebus quæ interitum videantur afferre. Id ita esse sic probant, quod, antequam voluptas aut dolor attigerit, salutaria appetant parvi, aspernenturque contraria: quod non fieret, nisi statum suum diligerent, interitum timerent: fieri autem non posset, ut appeterent aliquid, nisi sensum haberent sui, eoque se et sua diligerent. Ex quo intelligi debet, principium ductum esse a se diligendi sui.”—De Fin. lib. iii. cap. v. We are told that diligendo is the reading of an ancient MS. Perhaps the omission of “a” would be the easiest and most reasonable emendation. The above passage is perhaps the fullest and plainest statement of the doctrines prevalent till the time of Butler.

Born, 1692; died, 1752.

Memoirs of Geo. II., i. 129.

“Ejus (analogia) vis est; ut id quod dubium est ad aliquid simile de quo non quæritur, referat; ut incerta certis probet.”

See Sermons i. ii. iii. On Human Nature; v. On Compassion; viii. On Resentment; ix. On Forgiveness; xi. and xii. On the Love of Our Neighbour; and xiii. On the Love of God; together with the excellent Preface.

Sermon xiii.—“On the Love of God.”

“The part in which I think I have done most service is that in which I have endeavoured to slip in a foundation under Butler’s doctrine of the supremacy of Conscience, which he left baseless.”—Sir James Mackintosh to Professor Napier.—Ed.

The very able work ascribed to Mr. Hazliti, entitled “Essay on the Principles of Human Action.” Lond. 1805, contains original views on this subject.

Compare this statement with the Stoical doctrine explained by Cicero in the book De Finibus, quoted above, of which it is the direct opposite.

Born in Ireland, 1694; died at Glasgow, 1747.

The first edition of Butler’s Sermons was published in 1726, in which year also appeared the second edition of Hutcheson’s Inquiry into Beauty and Virtue. The Sermons had been preached some years before, though there is no likelihood that the contents could have reached a young teacher at Dublin. The place of Hutcheson’s birth is not mentioned in any account known to me. Ireland may be truly said to be “incuriosa suorum.”

Woodhouselee’s Life of Lord Kames, vol. i. Append. No. 3.

Inquiry, p. 152.

Essay on the Passions, p. 17.

Ibid. p. 8.

The character given of the Scotch by the famous and unfortunate Servetus (edition of Ptolemy. 1533,) is in many respects curious: “Gallis amicissimi, Anglorumque regi maximê infesti.*** Subita ingenia, et in ultionem prona, ferociaque.*** In bello fortes; inediæ, vigiliæ, algoris patientissimi; decenti formâ sed cultu negligentiori; invidi naturâ, et cæterorum mortalium contemptores; ostentant plus nimio nobilitatem suam, et in summâ etiam egestate suum genus ad regiam stirpem referunt; nec non dialecticis argutiis sibi blandiuntur.” “Subita ingenia” is an expression equivalent to the “Præfervidum Scotorum ingenium” of Buchanan. Churchill almost agrees in words with Servetus:

The strong antipathy of the late King George III. to what he called “Scotch Metaphysics,” proves the permanency of the last part of the national character.

Life by Dr. Leechman, prefixed to the System of Moral Philosophy.

Born near Thomastown, in Ireland, 1684; died at Oxford, 1753.

Epilogue to Pope’s Satires, dialogue 2.

Duncombe’s Letters, pp. 106, 107.

Wharton on Pope, i. 199.

See his Querist, 358; published in 1735.

Ibid., 255.

April, 1829.

Siris, or Reflections on Tar Water.

Sermon in Trinity College chapel, on Passive Obedience, 1712.

See Gentleman’s Magazine for January, 1777.

Born at Edinburgh, 1711; died there, 1776.

Dr. Smith’s Letter to Mr. Strahan, annexed to the Life of Hume.

See .

Mirror, Nos. 42, 43, 44.

Mackenzie’s Life of John Home, p. 21.

Sextus, a physician of the empirical, i. e. antitheoretical school, who lived at Alexandria in the reign of Antoninus Pius, has preserved the reasonings of the ancient Sceptics as they were to be found in their most improved state, in the writings of Ænesidemus, a Cretan, who was a professor in the same city, soon after the reduction of Egypt into a Roman province. The greater part of the grounds of doubt are very shallow and popular: there are, among them, intimations of the argument against a necessary connection of causes with effects, afterwards better presented by Glanville in his Scepsis Scientifici.—See .

The Works of the Learned for Nov. and Dec. 1739, pp. 353—404. This review is attributed by some (Chalmer’s Biogr. Dict., voce Hume to Warburton, but certainly without foundation.

This maxim, which contains a sufficient answer to all universal scepticism, or, in other words, to all scepticism properly so called, is significantly conveyed in the quaint title of an old and rare book, entitled, “Scivi; sive Sceptices et Scepticorum a Jure Disputationis Exclusio,” by Thomas White, the metaphysician of the English Catholics in modern times. “Fortunately,” says the illustrious sceptic himself, “since Reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, Nature herself suffices for that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical delirium.”—Treat. of Hum. Nat., i. 467; almost in the sublime and immortal words of Pascal: “La Raison confond les dogmatistes, et la Nature les sceptiques.”

It would be an act of injustice to those readers who are not acquainted with that valuable volume entitled, “Essays on the Formation of Opinions,” not to refer them to it as enforcing that neglected part of morality. To it may be added, a masterly article in the Westminster Review, vi. 1, occa sioned by the Essays.

Woodhouselee’s Life of Kames, i. 86, 104.

These commendations are so far from being at variance with the remarks of the late most ingenious Dr. Thomas Brown, on Mr. Hume’s “mode of writing,” (Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect, 3d ed. p. 327,) that they may rather be regarded as descriptive of those excellencies of which the excess produced the faults of Mr. Hume, as a mere searcher and teacher, justly, though perhaps severely, animadverted on by Dr. Brown.

Inquiry, § ii. part. i., especially the concluding paragraphs; those which precede being more his own.

“Si nobis, cum ex hac vita migraverimus, in beatorum insulis, ut fabulæ ferunt, immortale ævum degere liceret, quid opus esset eloquentia, cum judicia nulla fierent? autipsis etiam virtutibus? Nec enim fortitudine indigeremus, nullo proposito aut labore aut periculo; nec justitia, cum esset nihil quod appeteretur alieni; nec temperantia, quæ regeret eas quæ nullæ essent libidines: ne prudentia quidem egeremus, nullo proposito delectu bonorum et malorum. Una igitur essemus beati cognitione rerum et scientia.”—Frag. Cic. Hortens. apud Augustine de Trinitate. Cicero is more extensive, and therefore more consistent than Hume; but his enumeration errs both by excess and defect. He supposes Knowledge to render beings happy in this imaginary state, without stooping to inquire how. He omits a virtue which might well exist in it, though we cannot conceive its formation in such a state—the delight in each other’s well-being; and he omits a conceivable though unknown vice, that of unmixed ill-will, which would render such a state a hell to the wretch who harboured the malevolence.

Essays and Treatises, vol. i.

See .

“In hâc quæstione primas tenet Voluntas, quâ, ut ait Angustinus, peccatur, et recte vivitut,”—Erasmus, Diatribe adversus Lutherum.

Essays and Treatises, vol. ii.

Born, 1723; died, 1790.

See .

Lucret. lib. iii.

This remark is chiefly applicable to Hume’s Essays. His Treatise of Human Nature is more Hobbian in its general tenor, though it has Ciceronian passages.

Theory of Moral Sentiments, Edinb. 1801, ii. 304.

There is some confusion regarding this point in Butler’s first sermon on Compassion.

The feelings of beauty, grandeur, and whatever else is comprehended under the name of Taste, form no exception, for they do not lead to action, but terminate in delightful contemplation; which constitutes the essential distinction between them and the moral sentiments, to which, in some points of view, they may doubtless be likened.

Essays and Treatises, vol. ii.

Born, 1723; died, 1791.

The third edition was published at London in 1787.

The following sentences will illustrate the text, and are in truth applicable to all moral theories on merely intellectual principles: “Reason alone, did we possess it in a higher degree, would answer all the ends of the passions. Thus there would be no need of parental affection, were all parents sufficiently acquainted with the reasons for taking upon them the guidance and support of those whom Nature has placed under their care, and were they virtuous enough to be always determined by those reasons.”—Review, p. 121. A very slight consideration will show, that without the last words the preceding part would be utterly false, and with them it is utterly insignificant.

Born, 1705; died, 1757.

London, 1749.

Among them was G. E. Stahl, born, 1660; died, 1734;—a German physician and chemist of deserved eminence.

Born, 1715; died, 1780.

Traité sur l’Origine des Connoissances Humaines, 1746; Traité des Systèmes, 1749; Traité des Sensations, 1754. Foreign books were then little and slowly known in England. Hartley’s reading, except on theology, seems confined to the physical and mathematical sciences: and his whole manner of thinking and writing is so different from that of Condillac, that there is not the least reason to suppose the work of the one to have been known to the other. The work of Hartley, as we learn from the sketch of his life by his son, prefixed to the edition of 1791, was begun in 1730, and finished in 1746.

Born, 1720; died, 1793.

The following note of Condillac will show how much he differed from Hartley in his mode of considering the Newtonian hypothesis of vibrations, and how far he was in that respect superior to him. “Je suppose ici et ailleurs que les perceptions de l’âme ont pour cause physique l’ébranlement des fibres du cerveau; non que je regarde cette hypothèse comme démontrée, mais parcequ’elle est la plus commode pour expliquer ma pensée.”—Œuvres de Condillac, Paris, 1798, i. 60.

Human Nature, chap. iv. v. vi. For more ancient statements, see .

“Ce que les logiciens ont dit des raisonnements dans bien des volumes, me paroit entièrement superflu, et de nul usage.”—Condillac, i. 115; an assertion of which the gross absurdity will be apparent to the readers of Dr. Whateley’s Treatise on Logic, one of the most important works of the present age.

See .

Condillac, iii. 21; more especially Traité des Sensations, part ii. chap. vi. “Its love for outward objects is only an effect of love for itself.”

Traité des Sensations, part iv. chap. iii.

Hartley’s preface to the Observations on Man. The word “intellectual” is too narrow. Even “mental” would be of very doubtful propriety. The theory in its full extent requires a word such as “inorganic” (if no better can be discovered), extending to all gratification, not distinctly referred to some specific organ, or at least to some assignable part of the bodily frame.

It has not been mentioned in its proper place, that Hutcheson appears nowhere to greater advantage than in some letters on the Fable of the Bees, published when he was very young, at Dublin, with the signature of “Hibernicus.” “Private vices—public benefits,” says he, “may signify any one of these five distinct propositions: 1st. They are in themselves public benefits; or, 2d. They naturally produce public happiness; or, 3d. They may be made to produce it; or, 4th. They may naturally flow from it; or, 5th. At least they may probably flow from it in our infirm nature.” See a small volume containing Thoughts on Laughter, and Remarks on the Fable of the Bees, Glasgow, 1758, in which these letters are republished.

A very ingenious man, Lord Kames, whose works had a great effect in rousing the mind of his contemporaries and countrymen, has indeed fancied that there is “a hoarding instinct” in man and other animals. But such conclusions are not so much objects of confutation, as ludicrous proofs of the absurdity of the premises which lead to them.

“Justitia est constans et perpetua voluntas suum cuique tribuendi:” an excellent definition in the mouth of the Stoical moralists, from whom it is borrowed, but altogether misplaced by the Roman jurists in a body of laws which deal only with outward acts in their relation to the order and interests of society.

See suprà, section on Butler.

Born, 1705; died, 1774.

“I have found in this writer more original thinking and observation upon the several subjects that he has taken in hand than in any other,—not to say than in all others put together. His talent also for illustration is unrivalled.”—Paley, Preface to Moral and Political Philosophy. See the excellent preface to an abridgment, by Mr. Haslitt, of Tucker’s work, published in London in 1807. May I venture to refer also to my own Discourse on the Law of Nature and Nations, London, 1799? Mr. Stewart treats Tucker and Hartley with unwonted harshness.

This disposition to compromise and accommodation, which is discoverable in Paley, was carried to its utmost length by Mr. Hey, a man of much acuteness, Professor of Divinity at Cambridge.

Perhaps no philosopher ever stated more justly, more naturally, or more modestly than Tucker, the ruling maxim of his life. “My thoughts,” says he, “have taken a turn from my earliest youth towards searching into the foundations and measures of Right and Wrong; my love for retirement has furnished me with continual leisure; and the exercise of my reason has been my daily employment.”

Light of Nature, vol. ii. chap. xviii., of which the conclusion may be pointed out as a specimen of unmatched fruitfulness, vivacity, and felicity of illustration. The admirable sense of the conclusion of chap. xxv. seems to have suggested Paley’s good chapter on Happiness. The alteration of Plato’s comparison of Reason to a charioteer, and the passions to the horses, in chap. xxvi., is of characteristic and transcendent excellence.

Much of Tucker’s chapter on Pleasure, and of Paley’s on Happiness (both of which are invaluable), is contained in the passage of the Traveller, of which the following couplet expresses the main object:

“Unknown to them when sensual pleasures cloy, To fill the languid pause with finer joy.”

“An honest man,” says Hume, (Inquiry concerning Morals, § ix.) “has the frequent satisfaction of seeing knaves betrayed by their own maxims.” “I used often to laugh at your honest simple neighbour Flamborough, and one way or another generally cheated him once a year: yet still the honest man went forward without suspicion, and grew rich, while I still continued tricksy and cunning, and was poor, without the consolation of being honest.”—Vicar of Wakefield, chap. xxvi.

Born, 1743; died, 1805.

See Animal Mechanics, by Mr. Charles Bell, published by the Society for the diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

Essay on Man. Ep. iii.

Book i. chap. vii.

“Government may be too secure. The greatest tyrants have been those whose titles were the most unquestioned. Whenever, therefore, the opinion of right becomes too predominant and superstitious, it is abated by breaking the custom. Thus the Revolution broke the custom of succession, and thereby moderated, both in the prince and in the people, those lofty notions of hereditary right, which in the one were become a continual incentive to tyranny, and disposed the other to invite servitude, by undue compliances and dangerous concessions.”—Book vi. chap. 2.

Born, 1748; died, 1832.—Ed.

They were addressed to Mr. George Wilson, who retired from the English bar to his own country, and died at Edinburgh in 1816;—an early friend of Mr. Bentham, and afterwards an intimate one of Lord Ellenborough, of Sir Vicary Gibbs, and of all the most eminent of his professional contemporaries. The rectitude of judgment, purity of heart, elevation of honour, the sternness only in integrity, the scorn of baseness, and indulgence towards weakness, which were joined in him with a gravity exclusive neither of feeling nor of pleasantry, contributed still more than his abilities and attainments of various sorts, to a moral authority with his friends, and in his profession, which few men more amply possessed, or more usefully exercised. The same character, somewhat softened, and the same influence, distinguished his closest friend, the late Mr. Lens. Both were inflexible and incorruptible friends of civil and religious liberty, and both knew how to reconcile the warmest zeal for that sacred cause, with a charity towards their opponents, which partisans, often more violent than steady, treated as lukewarm. The present writer hopes that the good-natured reader will excuse him for having thus, perhaps unseasonably, bestowed heartfelt commendation on those who were above the pursuit of praise, and the remembrance of whose good opinion and good-will help to support him under a deep sense of faults and vices.

Digest. lib. i. tit. 16. De Verborum Significatione.

See a beautiful article on Codification, in the Edinburg Review, vol. xxix. p. 217. It need no longer be concealed that it was contributed by Sir Samuel Romilly. The steadiness with which he held the balance in weighing the merits of his friend against his unfortunate defects, is an example of his union of the most commanding moral principle with a sensibility so warm, that, if it had been released from that stern authority, it would not so long have endured the coarseness and roughness of human concerns. From the tenderness of his feelings, and from an anger never roused but by cruelty and baseness, as much as from his genius and his pure taste, sprung that original and characteristic eloquence, which was the hope of the afflicted as well as the terror of the oppressor. If his oratory had not flowed so largely from this moral source, which years do not dry up, he would not perhaps have been the only example of an orator who, after the age of sixty, daily increased in polish, in vigour, and in splendour.

An excellent medium between those who absolutely require new codes, and those who obstinately adhere to ancient usages, has been pointed out by M. Meyer, in his most justly celebrated work, Esprit, &c. des Institutions Judiciares des Principaux Pays de l’Europe, La Haye, 1819, tome i. Introduction, p. 8.

See .

Mill, Analysis of the Human Mind, vol. ii. p. 237. It would be unjust not to say that this book, partly perhaps from a larger adoption of the principles of Hartley, holds out fairer opportunities of negotiation with natural feelings and the doctrines of former philosophers, than any other production of the same school. But this very assertion about courage clearly shows at least a forgetfulness that courage, even if it were the offspring of prudence, would not for that reason be a species of it.

See .

According to Cicero’s definition of fortitude, “Virtus pugnans pro æquitate.” The remains of the original sense of “virtus,” manhood, give a beauty and force to these expressions, which cannot be preserved in our language. The Greek “ὀρετή,” and the German “tugend,” originally denoted “strength,” afterwards “courage,” and at last “virtue.” But the happy derivation of “virtus” from “vir” gives an energy to the phrase of Cicero, which illustrates the use of etymology in the hands of a skilful writer.

Anal. Hum. Mind. vol. ii. p. 222.

For a description of vanity, by a great orator, see the Rev. R. Hall’s Sermon on Modern Infidelity.

Horat. Epistol. lib. i. 16.

Probably quoted memoriter from De Fin. lib. iv. cap. 23.—Ed.

Lycidas, l. 78.

Encyc. Brit., article “Government.”

The same mode of reasoning has been adopted by the writer of a late criticism, on Mr. Mill’s Essay. See Edinburgh Review, vol. xlix. p. 159.

Encyc. Brit., article “Education.”

Born, 1753; died, 1828.

Burns.

As an example of Mr. Stewart’s school may be mentioned Francis Horner, a favourite pupil, and, till his last moment, an affectionate friend. The short life of this excellent person is worthy of serious contemplation, by those more especially, who, in circumstances like his, enter on the slippery path of public affairs. Without the aids of birth or fortune, in an assembly where aristocratical propensities prevail,—by his understanding, industry, pure taste, and useful information,—still more by modest independence, by steadiness and sincerity, joined to moderation,—by the stamp of unbending integrity, and by the conscientious considerateness which breathed through his well-chosen language, he raised himself, at the early age of thirty-six, to a moral authority which, without these qualities, no brilliancy of talents or power of easoning could have acquired. No eminent speaker in Parliament owed so much of his success to his moral character. His high place was therefore honourable to his audience and to his country. Regret for his death was expressed with touching unanimity from every part of a divided assembly, unused to manifestations of sensibility, abhorrent from theatrical display, and whose tribute on such an occasion derived its peculiar value from their general coldness and sluggishness. The tears of those to whom he was unknown were shed over him; and at the head of those by whom he was “praised, wept, and honoured,” was one, whose commendation would have been more enhanced in the eye of Mr. Horner, by his discernment and veracity, than by the signal proof of the concurrence of all orders, as well as parties, which was afforded by the name of Howard.

Those who may doubt the justice of this description will do well to weigh the words of the most competent of judges, who, though candid and even indulgent, was not prodigal of praise. “It is certainly very rare that a piece so deeply philosophical is wrote with so much spirit, and affords so much entertainment to the reader. Whenever I enter into your ideas, no man appears to express himself with greater perspicuty. Your style is so correct and so good English, that I found not any thing worth the remarking. I beg my compliments to my friendly adversaries Dr. Campbell and Dr. Gerard, and also to Dr. Gregory, whom I suspect to be of the same disposition, though he has not openly declared himself such.”—Letter from Mr. Hume to Dr. Reid: Stewart’s Biographical Memoirs, p. 417. The latter part of the above sentences (written after a perusal of Dr. Reid’s Inquiry, but before its publication) sufficiently shows, that Mr. Hume felt no displeasure against Reid and Campbell, undoubtedly his most formidable antagonist, however he might resent the language of Dr. Beattie, an amiable man, an elegant and tender poet, and a good writer on miscellaneous literature in prose, but who, in his Essay on Truth,—(an unfair appeal to the multitude of philosophical questions) indulged himself in the personalities and invectives of a popular pamphleteer.

Fragments of his lectures have been recently published in a French translation of Dr. Reid, by M. Jonffroy: Œuvres Completes de Thomas Reid, vol iv. Paris, 1828.

1831.—Ed.

Cours de Philosophie, par M. Cousin, leçon xii. Paris, 1828.

Philosophical Essays, part ii. essay i., especially chap. vi. The condensation, if not omission, of the discussion of the theories of Buffier, Reynolds, Burke, and Price, in this essay, would have lessened that temporary appearance which is unsuitable to a scientific work.

Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind (1792, 4to.), vol. i. p. 281.

Ibid. p. 383.

Ibid. p. 385.

Philosophical Essays, part ii. essay i. chap. xi.

Outlines of Moral Philosophy, p. 93.

Outlines, p. 117. “This is the most important question that can be stated with respect to the theory of Morals.”

In the Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers of Man (vol. i. p. 164.), Mr. Stewart has done more manifest injustice to the Hartleian theory, by calling it “a doctrine fundamentally the same with the Selfish system,” and especially by representing Hartley, who ought to be rather classed with Butler and Hume, as agreeing with Gay, Tucker, and Paley.

Elem Philos. Hum. Mind, vol. i. pp. 340—352.

Ibid. vol. i. p. 502.

Ibid. vol. ii. p. 57.

pp. 76—118.

Born, 1778; died. 1820.

Welsh’s Life of Brown, p. 43;—a pleasingly affectionate work, full of analytical spirit and metaphysical reading,—of such merit, in short, that I could wish to have found in it no phrenology. Objections a priori in a case dependent on facts are, indeed, inadmissible: even the allowance of presumptions of that nature would open so wide a door for prejudices, that at most they can be considered only as maxims of logical prudence, which fortify the watchfulness of the individual. The fatal objection to phrenology seems to me to be, that what is new in it, or peculiar to it, has no approach to an adequate foundation in experience.

“Bayle, a writer who, pervading human nature at his ease, struck into the province of paradox, as an exercise for the unwearied vigour of his mind; who, with a soul superior to the sharpest attacks of fortune, and a heart practised to the best philosophy, had not enough of real greatness to overcome that last forble of superior minds, the temptation of honour, which the academic exercise of wit is conceived to bring to its professor.” So says Warburton (Divine Legation, book i. sect. 4), speaking of Bayle, but perhaps in part excusing himself, in a noble strain, of which it would have been more agreeable to find the repetition than the contrast in his language towards Hume.

See Sir H. Moncreiff’s Life of the Reverend Dr. Erskine.

Welsh’s Life of Brown, p. 77, and App. p. 498.

A part of the first day’s minutes is here borrowed from Mr. Welsh:—“7th January, 1797.—Present, Mr. Erskine, President,—Mr. Brougham, Mr. Reddie, Mr. Brown, Mr. Birbeck, Mr. Leyden,” &c. who were afterwards joined by Lord Webb Seymour, Messrs. Horner, Jeffrey, Sidney Smith, &c. Mr. Erskine, who thus appears at the head of so remarkable an association, and whom diffidence and untoward circumstances have hitherto withheld from the full manifestation of his powers, continued to be the bosom friend of Brown to the last. He has shown the constancy of his friendship for others by converting all his invaluable preparations for a translation of Sultan Baber’s Commentaries, (perhaps the best, certainly the most European work of modern Eastern prose) into the means of completing the imperfect attempt of Leyden, with a regard equally generous to the fame of his early friend, and to the comfort of that friend’s surviving relations. The review of Baber’s Commentaries, by M. Silvestre de Sacy, in the Journal des Savans for May and June 1829, is perhaps one of the best specimens extant of the value of literary commendation when it is bestowed with conscientious calmness, and without a suspicion of bias, by one of the greatest orientalists, in a case where he pronounces every thing to have been done by Mr. Erskine “which could have been performed by the most learned and the most scrupulously conscientious of editors and translators.”

His accomplished friend Mr. Erskine confesses that Brown’s poems “are not written in the language of plain and gross emotion. The string touched is too delicate for general sympathy. They are in an unknown tongue to one half” (he might have said nineteen twentieths) “of the reading part of the community.”—Welsh’s Life of Brown, p. 431.

Brown’s Lectures, vol. ii. pp. 1—49.

Ibid. vol. i. p. 220.

Ibid. vol. i. p. 222.

Dr. Brown always expresses himself best where he is short and familiar. “An hypothesis is nothing more than a reason for making one experiment or observation rather than another.”—Lectures, vol. i. p. 170. In 1812, as the present writer observed to him that Reid and Hume differed more in words than in opinion, he answered, “Yes, Reid bawled out, we must believe an outward world, but added in a whisper, we can give no reason for our belief: Hume cries out, we can give no reason for such a notion, and whispers, I own we cannot get rid of it.”

Brown’s Lectures, vol. ii. pp. 335—347.

Ibid. vol. ii. p. 349.

Ibid. vol. ii. p. 218.

Ibid. vol. ii. p. 270.

Brown’s Lectures, vol. iii. p. 248.

Ibid. vol. iv. p. 82.

Ibid. vol. iii. p. 282.

Ibid. vol. iv. p. 87.

Brown’s Lectures, vol. iv. p. 87.

Ibid. vol. iv. pp. 94—97.

Ibid. vol. iii. p. 231.

Lectures, vol. iv. p. 45. The unphilosophical word “perhaps” must be struck out of the proposition, unless the whole be considered as a mere conjecture; it limits no affirmation, but destroys it, by converting it into a guess. See the like concession, vol. iv. p. 33, with some words interlarded, which betray a sort of reluctance and fluctuation, indicative of the difficulty with which Brown struggled to withhold his assent from truths which he unreasonably dreaded.

Ibid. vol. iii. p. 567.

Ibid. vol. iii. p. 621.

Lectures, vol. iv. p. 38.

See suprà, p. 97.

Mémoires de Montlosier, vol. i. p. 50.

See suprà, p. 142.

See suprà p. 149, et seq.

See the Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties, a discourse forming the first part of the third volume of the Library of Entertaining Knowledge, London, 1829. The author of this essay, for it can be no other than Mr. Brougham, will by others be placed at the head of those who, in the midst of arduous employments, and surrounded by all the allurements of society, yet find leisure for exerting the unwearied vigour of their minds in every mode of rendering permanent service to the human species; more especially in spreading a love of knowledge, and diffusing useful truth among all classes of men. These voluntary occupations deserve our attention still less as examples of prodigious power than as proofs of an intimate conviction, which binds them by unity of purpose with his public duties, that (to use the almost dying words of an excellent person) “man can neither be happy without virtue, nor actively virtuous without liberty, nor securely free without rational knowledge.”—Close of Sir W. Jones’ last Discourse to the Asiatic Society of Calcutta.

See suprà, p. 178.

See suprà, p. 151.

Lord Kames, in his Essays on Morality and Natural Religion, and in his Sketches of the History of Man.

The remarks of Cicero on the Stoicism of Cato are perhaps the most perfect specimen of that refined raillery which attains the object of the orator without general injustice to the person whose authority is for the moment to be abated:—

“Accessit his tot doctrina non moderata, nec mitis, sed, ut mihi videtur, paulo asperior et durior quam aut veritas aut natura patiatur.” After an enumeration of the Stoical paradoxes, he adds: “Hæc homo ingeniosissimus, M. Cato, auctoribus eruditissimis inductus, arripuit; neque disputandi causa, ut magna pars, sed ita vivendi . . . Nostri autem isti (fatebor enim, Cato, me quoque in adolescentia diffisum ingenio meo quæsisse adjumenta doctrinæ) nostri, inquam, illi a Platone atque Aristotele moderati homines et temperati aiunt apud sapientem valere aliquando gratiam; viri boni esse miseren; . . . omnes virtutes mediocritate quadam esse moderatas. Hos ad magistros si qua te fortuna, Cato, cum ista natura detulisset, non tu quidem vir melior esses, nec fortior, nec temperantior, nec justior (neque enim esse potes), sed paulo ad lenitatem propensior.”—Pro Murena.—Cap. xxix.—xxxi.

The greater part of the following extract from Grotius’ History of the Netherlands is inserted as the best abridgment of the ancient history of these still subsisting controversies known in our time. I extract also the introduction as a model of the manner in which an historian may state a religious dispute which has influenced political affairs; but far more because it is an unparalleled example of equity and forbearance in the narrative of a contest of which the historian was himself a victim:—

“Habuit hic annus (1608) haud spernendi quoque mali semina, vix ut arma desierant, exorto publicæ religionis dissidio, latentibus initiis, sed ut paulatim in majus erumperet. Lugduni sacras literas docebant viri eruditione præstantes Gomarus et Arminius; quorum ille æternâ Dei lege fixum memorabat, cui hominum salus destinaretur, quis in exitium tenderet; inde alios ad pietatem trahi, et tractos custodiri ne elabantur; relinqui alios communi humanitatis vitio et suis criminibus involutos: hic vero contrà integrum judicem, sed eundem optimum patrem, id reorum fecisse discrimen, ut peccandi pertæsis fiduciamque in Christum reponentibus veniam ac vitam daret, contumacibus pœnam: Deoque gratum, ut omnes resipiscant, ac meliora edocti retineant; sed cogi neminem. Accusabantque invicem; Arminius Gomarum, quod peccandi causas Deo ascriberet, ac fati persuasione teneret immobiles animos; Gomarus Arminium, quod longius ipsis Romanensium scitis hominem arrogantiâ impleret, nec pateretur soli Deo acceptam ferri, rem maximam, bonam mentem. Constat his queis cura legere veterum libros, antiquos Christianorum tribuisse hominum voluntati vim liberam, tam in acceptandâ, quam in retinendâ disciplinà; unde sua præmiis ac suppliciis æquitas. Neque iidem tamen omisere cuncta divinam ad bonitatem referre, cujus munere salutare semen ad nos pervenisset, ac cujus singulari auxilio pericula nostra indigerent. Primus omnium Augustinus, ex quo ipsi cum Pelagio et eum secutis certamen (nam ante aliter et ipse senseret), acer disputandi, ita libertatis vocem relinquere, ut ei decreta quædam Dei præponeret, quæ vim ipsam destruere viderentur. At per Græciam quidem Asiamque retenta vetus illa ac simplicior sententia. Per Occidentem magnum Augustini nomen multos traxii in consensum, repertis tamen per Galliam et alibi qui se opponerent, postcrioribus sæculis, cum schola non alio magis quam Augustino doctore uteretur, quis ipsi sensus, quis dexter pugnare visa conciliandi modus, diu inter Francisci et Dominici familiam disputato, doctissimi Jesuitarum, cum exaction subtilitate nodum solvere laborassent, Romæ accusati ægrè damnationem effugere. At Protestantium princeps, Lutherus, egressus monasterio quod Augustini ut nomen, ita sensus sequebatur, parte Augustini arreptâ, id quod is reliquerat, libertatis nomen, cœpit exscindere; quod tam grave Erasmo visum, ut cum cætera ipsius aut probaret aut silentio transmitteret, hic objiciat sese: cujus argumentis motus Philippus Melanchthon, Lutheri adjutor, quæ prius scripserat immutavit, auctorque fuit Luthero, quod multi volunt, certe quod constat Lutheranis, deserendi decreta rigida et conditionem respuentia; sic tamen ut libertatis vocabulum quam rem magis perhorrescerent. At in alterâ Protestantium parte dux Calvinus, primis Lutheri dictis in hac controversiâ inhærescens, novis ea fulsit præsidiis, addiditque intactum Augustino, veram ac salutarem fidem rem esse perpetuam et amitti nesciam: cujus proinde qui sibi essent conscii, eos æternæ felicitatis jam nunc certos esse, quos interim in crimina, quantumvia gravia, prolabi posse non diffitebatur. Auxit sententiæ rigorem Genevæ Beza, per Germaniam Zanchius, Ursinus, Piscator, sæpe eo usque provecti, ut, quod alii anxiè vitaverant, apertius nonnunquam traderent, etiam peccandi necessitatem a primâ causâ pendere: quæ ampla Lutheranis criminandi materia.”—Lib. xvii. p. 552.

The Calvinism, or rather Augustimanism, of Aquinas is placed beyond all doubt by the following passages: “Prædestinatio est causa gratiæ et gloriæ.”—Opera, (Paris, 1664.) vol. vii. p. 356. “Numerus prædestinatorum certus est.”—p. 363. “Præscientia meritorum nullo modo est causa prædestinationis divinæ.”—p. 370. “Liberum arbitrium est facultas quâ bonum eligitur, gratiâ assistente, vel malum, eâdem desistente.”—vol. viii. p. 222. “Deus inclinat ad bonum administrando virtutem agendi et monendo ad bonum. Sed ad malum dicitur inclinate in quantum gratiam non præbet, per quam aliquis a malo retraheretur.”—p. 364. On the other side: “Accipitur fides pro eo quo creditur, et est virtus, et pro eo quod creditur, et non est virtus. Fides quâ creditur, si cum caritate sit, virtus est.”—vol. ix. p. 236. “Divina bonitas est primum principium communicationis totius quam Deus creaturis largitur.” “Quamvis omne quod Deus vult justum sit, non tamen ex hoc justum dicitur quod Deus illud vult.”—p. 697.

The Augustinian doctrine is, with some hesitation and reluctance, acquiesced in by Scotus, in that milder form which ascribes election to an express decree, and considers the rest of mankind as only left to the deserved penalties of their transgressions. “In hujus quæstionis solutione mallem alios audire quam docere.”—Opera, Lugd. 1639. vol. v. p. 1329. This modesty and prudence is foreign to the dogmatical genius of a Schoolman; and these qualities are still more apparent in the very remarkable language which he applies to the tremendous doctrine of reprobation. “Eorum autem non miseretur (scil. Deus) quibus gratiam non præbendam esse æquitate occultissimâ et ab humanis sensibus remotissimâ judicat.”—p. 1329. In the commentary on Scotus which follows, it appears that his acute disciple Ockham disputed very freely against the opinions of his master. “Mala fieri bonum est” is a startling paradox, quoted by Scotus from Augustin.—p. 1381. It appears that Ockham saw no difference between election and reprobation, and considered those who embraced only the former as at variance with themselves.—p. 1313. Scotus, at great length, contends that our thoughts (consequently our opinions) are not subject to the will.—vol. vi. pp. 1054—1056. One step more would have led him to acknowledge that all erroneous judgment is involuntary, and therefore inculpable and unpunishable, however pernicious. His attempt to reconcile foreknowledge with contingency (vol. v. pp. 1300—1327), is a remarkable example of the power of human subtlety to keep up the appearance of a struggle where it is impossible to make one real effort. But the most dangerous of all the deviations of Scotus from the system of Aquinas is, that he opened the way to the opinion that the distinction of right and wrong depends on the mere will of the Eternal Mind. The absolute power of the Deity, according to him, extends to all but contradictions. His regular power (ordinata) is exercised conformably to an order established by himself: “si placet voluntati, sub quâ libera est, recte est lex.”—p. 1368, et seq.

Ἀλλα μὴν ψυχήν γε ἴσμεν ἄϰουσαν πᾶσαν πᾶν αγνοοῦσαν. Plat. Op. (Bipont. 1781.) vol. ii. p. 224.—Πᾶσαν ἀϰουσιον ἀμαθίαν ειναι.—p. 227. Plato is quoted on this subject by Marcus Aurelius, in a manner which shows, if there had been any doubt, the meaning to be, that all error is involuntary. Πᾶσα ψυχὴ ἄϰουσα στερε̃ιται τῆς ἀληθεὶας, ὡς λέγει Πλάτων. Every mind is unwillingly led from truth.—Epict. Dissert, lib. i. cap. xxviii. Augustin closes the long line of ancient testimony to the in, voluntary character of error: “Quis est qui [Editor: illegible word] decipi? Fallere nolunt boni; falli autem nec boni volunt nec mali.”—Sermo de Verbo.

From a long, able, and instructive dissertation by the commentator on Scotus, it appears that this immoral dogma was propounded in terms more bold and startling by Ockham, who openly affirmed, that “moral evil was only evil because it was prohibited.”—Ochamus, qui putat quod nihil posset esse malum sine voluntate prohibitiva Dei, hancque voluntatem esse liberam; sic ut posset eam non habere, et consequenter ut posset fieri quod nulla prorsus essent mala.”—Scot. Op. vol. vii. p. 859. But, says the commentator, “Dico primo legem naturalem non consistere in juesione ullâ quæ sit actus voluntatis Dei. Hæc est communissima theologorum sententia.”—p. 858. And indeed the reason urged against Ockham completely justifies this approach to unanimity. “For,” he asks, “why is it right to obey the will of God? Is it because our moral faculties perceive it to be right? But they equally perceive and feel the authority of all the primary principles of morality; and if this answer be made, it is obvious that those who make it do in effect admit the independence of moral distinctions on the will of God.” “If God,” said Ockham, “had commanded his creatures to hate himself, hatred of God would have been praiseworthy.”—Domin. Soto de Justitiâ et Jure, lib. ii. quæst. 3. “Utrum præcepta Decalogi sint dispensabilia;”—a book dedicated to Don Carlos, the son of Phillip II. Suarez, the last scholastic philosopher, rejected the Ockhamical doctrine, but allowed will to be a part of the foundation of Morality. “Voluntas Dei non est tola ratio bonitatis aut malitiæ.—De Legibus, (Lond. 1679.) p. 71. As the great majority of the Schoolmen supported their opinion of this subject by the consideration of eternal and immutable ideas of right and wrong in the Divine Intellect, it was natural that the Nominalists, of whom Ockham was the founder, who rejected all general ideas, should also have rejected those moral distinctions which were then supposed to originate in such ideas. Gerson was a celebrated Nominalist; and he was the more disposed to follow the opinions of his master because they agreed in maintaining the independence of the State on the Church, and the superiority of the Church over the Pope.

It must be premised that Charitas among the ancient divines corresponded with Εροις of the Platonists, and with the φιλία of later philosophers, as comprehending the love of all that is loveworthy in the Creator or his creatures. It is the theological virtue of charity, and corresponds with no term in use among modern moralists. “Cum objectum amoris sit bonum, dupliciter potest aliquis tendere in bonum alicujus rei; uno modo, quod bonum illius rei ad alterum referat, sicut amat quis vinum in quantum dulcedinem vini peroptat; et hic amor vocatur a quibusdam amor concupiscentiæ. Amor autem iste non terminatur ad rem quæ dicilur amari, sed reflectitur ad rem illam cui optatur bonum illius rei. Alio modo amor fortior in bonum alicujus rei, ita quod ad rem ipsam terminatur; et hic est amor benevolentiæ. Quâ bonum nostrum in Deo perfectum est, sicutin causâ universali bonorum; ideo bonum in ipso esse magis naturaliter complacet quam in nobis ipsis: et ideo etiam amore amicitiæ naturaliter Deus ab homine plus seipso diligitur.” The above quotations from Aquinas will probably be sufficient for those who are acquainted with these questions, and they will certainly be thought too large by those who are not. In the next question he inquires, whether in the love of God there can be any view to reward. He appears to consider himself as bound by authority to answer in the affirmative; and he employs much ingenuity in reconciling a certain expectation of reward with the disinterested character ascribed by him to piety in common with all the affections which terminate in other beings. “Nihil aliud est merces nostra quam perfrui Deo. Ergo charitas non solum non excludit, sed etiam facit habere oculum ad mercedem.” In this answer he seems to have anticipated the representations of Jeremy Taylor (Sermon on Growth in Grace), of Lord Shaftesbury (Inquiry concerning Virtue, book i. part iii. sect. 3), of Mr. T. Erskine (Freeness of the Gospel, Edin. 1828), and more especially of Mr. John Smith (Discourses, Lond. 1660). No extracts could convey a just conception of the observations which follow, unless they were accompanied by a longer examination of the technical language of the Schoolmen than would be warranted on this occasion. It is clear that he distinguishes well the affection of piety from the happy fruits, which, as he cautiously expresses it, “are in the nature of a reward;”—just as the consideration of the pleasures and advantages of friendship may enter into the affection and strengthen it, though they are not its objects, and never could inspire such a feeling. It seems to me also that he had a dimmer view of another doctrine, by which we are taught, that though our own happiness be not the end which we pursue in loving others, yet it may be the final cause of the insenion of disinterested affections into the nature of man. “Ponere mercedem aliquam finem amoris ex parte amati, est contra rationem amicitiæ. Sed ponere mercedem esse finem amoris ex parte amantis, non tamen ultimam, prout scilicet ipse amor est quædam operatio amantis, non est contra rationem amicitiæ. Possum operationem amoris amare propter aliquid aliud, salva amicitià. Potest habeas charitatem habere oculum ad mercedem, uti ponat beatitudinem creatam finem amoris, non aulem finem amali.” Upon the last words my interpretation chiefly depends. The immediately preceding sentence must be owned to have been founded on a distinction between viewing the good fruits of our own affections as enhancing their intrinsic pleasures, and feeling love for another on account of the advantage to be derived from him; which last is inconceivable.

“Potestas spiritualis et secularis utraque deducitur a potestate divinâ; ideo in tantum secularis est sub spirituali, in quantum est a Deo supposita; scilicet, in his quæ ad salutem animæ pertinent. In his autem quæ ad bonum civile spectant, est magis obediendum potestati seculari; sicut illud Matthæi, ‘Reddite quæ sunt Cæsaris Cæsari.’ ” What follows is more doubtful. “. . . Nisi fortè potestati spirituali etiam potestas secularis conjungatur, ut in Papa, qui utriusque potestatis apicem tenet.”—Op. vol. viii. p. 435. Here, says the French editor, it may be doubted whether Aquinas means the Pope’s temporal power in his own dominions, or a secular authority indirectly extending over all for the sake of religion. My reasons for adopting the more rational construction are shortly these:—1. The text of Matthew is so plain an assertion of the independence of both powers, that it would be the height of extravagance to quote it as an authority for the dependence of the state. At most it could only be represented as reconcilable with such a dependence in one case. 2. The word ‘forte’ seems manifestly to refer to the territorial sovereignty acquired by the Popes. If they have a general power in secular affairs, it must be because it is necessary to their spiritual authority, and in that case to call it fortuitous would be to ascribe to it an adjunct destructive of its nature. 3. His former reasoning on the same question seems to be decisive. The power of the Pope over bishops, he says, is not founded merely in his superior nature, but in their authority being altogether derived from his, as the proconsular power from the imperial. Therefore he infers that this case is not analagous to the relation between the civil and spiritual power, which are alike derived from God. 4. Had an Italian monk of the twelfth century really intended to affirm the Pope’s temporal authority, he probably would have laid it down in terms more explicit and more acceptable at Rome. Hesitation and ambiguity are here indications of unbelief. Mere veneration for the apostolical See might present a more precise determination against it, as it caused the quotation which follows, respecting the primacy of Peter.—A mere abridgment of these very curious passages might excite a suspicion that I had tinctured Aquinas unconsciously with a colour of my own opinions. Extracts are very difficult, from the scholastic method of stating objections and answers, as well as from the mixture of theological authorities with philosophical reasons.

The debates in the first assembly of the Council of Trent (ad 1546) between the Dominicans who adhered to Aquinas, and the Franciscans who followed Scotus on Original Sin, Justification, and Grace, are to be found in Fra Paolo (Istoria del Concilio Tridentino, lib. ii.) They show how much metaphysical controversy is hid in a theological form; how many disputes of our times are of no very ancient origin, and how strongly the whole Western Church, through all the divisions into which it has been separated, has manifested the same unwillingness to avow the Augustinian system, and the same fear of contradicting it. To his admirably clear and short statement of these abstruse controversies, must be added that of his accomplished opponent Cardinal Pallavicino (Istoria, &c. lib. vii. et viii.), who shows still more evidently the strength of the Augustinian party, and the disposition of the Council to tolerate opinions almost Lutheran, if not accompanied by revolt from the Church. A little more compromising disposition in the Reformers might have betrayed reason to a prolonged thraldom. We must esteem Erasmus and Melanchthon, but we should reserve our gratitude for Luther and Calvin. The Scotists maintained their doctrine of merit of congruity, waived by the Council, and soon after condemned by the Church of England; by which they meant that they who had good dispositions always received the Divine grace, not indeed as a reward of which they were worthy, but as aid which they were fit and willing to receive. The Franciscans denied that belief was in the power of man. “I Francescani lo negavano seguendo Scoto, qual vuole che siccome dalle dimostrazioni per necessità nasce la scienza, cosdallè persuasioni nasca la fede; e ch’ essa è nell’ intelletto, il quale è agente naturale, e mosso naturalmente dall’ oggetto. Allegavano l’ esperienza, che nessuno può credere quello che vuole, ma quello che gli par vero.”—Fra. Paolo, Istoria, &c. (Helmstadt, 1763, 4to.), vol. i. p. 193. Cardinal Sforza Pallavicino, a learned and very able Jesuit, was appointed, according to his own account, in 1651, many years after the death of Fra Paolo, to write a true history of the Council of Trent, as a corrective of the misrepresentations of the celebrated Venetian. Algernon Sidney, who knew this court historian at Rome, and who may be believed when he speaks well of a Jesuit and a cardinal, commends the work in a letter to his father, Lord Leicester. At the end of Pallavicino’s work is a list of three hundred and sixty errors in matters of fact, which the Papal party pretended to have detected in the independent historian, whom they charge with heresy or infidelity, and in either case, with hypocrisy.

“Hoc tempore, Ferdinando et Isabella regnantibus, in academiâ Salmantinâ jacta sunt robustioris theologiæ semina; ingentis enim famæ vir Franciscus de Victoria, non tam lucubrationibus editis, quamvis hæc non magnæ molis aut magni pretii sint, sed doctissimorum theologorum educatione. quamdiu fuerit sacræ scientiæ honos inter mortales, vehementer laudabitur.”—Antonio, Bibliotheca Hispanica Nova. (Madrid, 1783,) in præf. “Si ad morum instructores respicias, Sotus iterum nominabitur.”—Ibid.

The title of the published account of the conference at Valladolid is, “The controversy between the Bishop of Chiapa and Dr. Sepulveda; in which the Doctor contended that the conquest of the Indies from the natives was lawful, and the Bishop maintained that it was unlawful, tyrannical, and unjust, in the presence of many theologians, lawyers, and other learned men assembled by his Majesty.”—Bibl. Hisp. Nova, tom. i. p. 192.

Las Casas died in 1566, in the 92d year of his age; Sepulveda died in 1571, in his 82d year. Sepulveda was the scholar of Pomponatius, and a friend of Erasmus, Cardinal Pole, Aldus Manutius, &c. In his book “De Justis Belli Causis contra Indos suscepti,” he contended only that the king ought justly “ad dinonem Indos, non herilem sed regiam et civilem, lege belli redigere.”—Antonio, voce Sepulveda, Bibl. Hisp. Nova, tom. i. p. 703. But this smooth and specious language concealed poison. Had it entirely prevailed, the cruel consequence of the defeat of the advocate of the oppressed would alone have remained; the limitations and softenings employed by their opponent to obtain success would have been speedily disregarded and forgotten. Covarruvias, another eminent Jurist, was sent by Philip II. to the Council of Trent, at its renewal in 1560, and, with Cardinal Buoncampagni, drew up the decrees of reformation. Francis Sanchez, the father of philosophical grammar, published his Minerva at Salamanca in 1587;—so active was the cultivation of philosophy in Spain in the age of Cervantes.

“Alors en repassant dans mon esprit les diverses opinions qui m’avoient tour-à-tour entrainé depuis ma naissance, je vis que bien qu’aucune d’elles ne fût assez évidente pour produire immédiatement la conviction, elles avoient divers degrés de vraisemblancé, et que l’assentiment intérieur s’y prétoit ou s’y refusoit à différentes mesures. Sur cette première observation, comparant entr’elles toutes ces différentes idées dans le silence des préjugés, je trouvai que la première, et la plus commune, étoit aussi la plus simple et la plus raisonnable; et qu’il ne lui manquoit, pour réunir tous les suffrages, que d’avoir été proposée la dernière. Imaginez tous vos philosophes anciens et modernes, ayant d’abord épuisé leur bizarres systèmes de forces, de chances, de fatalité, de nécessité, d’atomes, de monde animé, de matière vivante, de matérialisme de toute espèce; et après eux tous l’illustre Clarke, éclairant le monde, annoncant enfin l’Etre des êtres, et le dispensateur des choses. Avec quelle universelle admitation, avec quel applaudissement unanime n’eût point été reçu ce nouveau système si grand, si consolant, si sublime, si propre à élever l’âme à donner une base à la vertu, et en même tems si frappant, si lumineux, si simple, et, ce me semble, offrant moins de choses incompréhensibles à l’esprit humain, qu’il n’en trouve d’absurdes en tout autre système! Je me disois, les objections insolubles sont communes à tous, parceque l’esprit de l’homme est trop borné pour les résoudre; elles ne prouvent donc rien contre aucun par préférence: mais quelle différence entre les preuves directes!”—Rousseau. Œuvres, tome ix. p. 25.

“Est autem jus quædam potentia moralis, et obligatio necessitas moralis. Moralem autem intelligo, quæ apud virum bonum æquipollet naturali: Nam ut præclarè jurisconsultus Romanus ait, quæ contra bonos mores sunt, ea nec facere nos posse credendum est. Vir bonus autem est, qui amat omnes, quantum ratio permittit. Justitiam igitur, quæ virtus est hujus affectus rectrix, quem Φιλανθρωπίαν Græci vocant, commodissimè, ni fallor, definiemus caritatem sapientis, hoc est, sequentem sapientiæ dictata. Itaque, quod Carneades dixisse fertur, justitiam esse summam stultitiam, quia alienis utilitatibus consuli jubeat, neglectis proprtis, ex ignoratâ ejus definitione natum est. Caritas est benevolentia universalis, et benevolentia amandi sive diligendi habitus. Amare autem sive diligere est felicitate alterius delectari, vel, quod eodem redit, felicitatem alienam adsciscere in suam. Unde difficilis nodus solvitur, magni etiam in Theologia momenti, quomodo amor non mercenarius detur, qui sit a spe metuque et omni utilitatis respectu separatus: scilicet, quorum utilitas delectat, eorum felicitas nostram ingreditur; nam quæ delectant, per se expetuntur. Et uti pulchrorum contemplatio ipsa jucunda est, pictaque tabula Raphaelis intelligentem afficit, etsi nullos census ferat, adeo ut in oculis deliciisque feratur, quodam simulacro amoris; ita quum res pulchra simul etiam felicitatis est capax, transit affectus in verum amorem. Superat autem divinus amor alios amores, quos Deus cum maximc successu amare potest, quando Deo simul et felicius nihil est, et nihil pulchrius felicitateque dignius intelligi potest. Et quum idem sit potentiæ sapientiæque summæ, felicitas ejus non tantum ingreditur nostram (si sapimus, id est, ipsum amamus), sed et facit. Quia autem sapientia caritatem dirigere debet, hujus quoque definitione opus erit. Arbitror autem notioni hominum optimè satisfieri, si sapientiam nihil aliud esse dicamus, quam ipsam scientiam felicitatis.”—Leibnitii Opera, vol. iv. pars iii. p. 294. “Et jus quidem merum sive strictum nascitur ex principio servandæ pacis; æquitas sive caritas ad majus aliquid contendit, ut, dum quisque alteri prodest, quantum potest, felicitatem suam augeat in aliena; et, ut verbo dicam. jus strictum miseriam vitat, jus superius ad felicitatem tendit, sed qualis in hanc mortalitatem cadit. Quod verò ipsam vitam, et quicquid hanc vitam expetendam facit, magno commodo alieno posthabere debeamus, ita ut maximos etiam dolores in aliorum gratiam perferre oporteat; magis pulchre præcipitur a philosophis quàm solidè demonstratur. Nam decus et gloriam, et animi sui virtute gaudentis sensum, ad quæ sub honestatis nomine provocant, cogitationis sive mentis bona esse constat, magna quidem, sed non omnibus, nec omni malorum acerbitati prævalitura, quando non omnes æquè imaginando afficiuntur; præserum quos neque educatio liberalis, neque consuetudo vivendi ingenua, vel vitæ sectæve disciplina ad honoris æstimationem, vel animi bona sentienda assuefecit. Ut verò universali demonstrationi conficiatut: omne honestum esse utile, et omne turpe damno sum, assumenda est immortalitas animæ et rector universi Deus. Ita fit, ut omnes in civitate perfectissima vivere intelligamur, sub monarcha, qui nec ob sapientiam falli, nec ob potentiam vitari potest; idemque tam amabilis est, ut felicitas sit tali domino servire. Huic igitur qui animam impendit, Christo docente, eam lucratur. Hujus potentia providentiaque efficitur, ut omne jus in factum transeat, ut nemo lædatur nisi a se ipso, ut nihil rectè gestum sine præmio, sit, nallum peccatum sine pœna.”—p. 296.

The writer of this Discourse was led, on a former occasion, by a generally prevalent notion, to confound the theological doctrine of Predestination with the philosophical opinion which supposes the determination of the Will to be, like other events, produced by adequate causes. (See a criticism on Mr. Stewart’s Dissertation, Edinb. Review, vol. xxxvi. p. 225.) More careful reflection has corrected a confusion common to him with most writers on the subject. What is called “Sublapsarian Calvinism,” which was the doctrine of the most eminent men, including Augustin and Calvin himself, ascribed to God, and to man before the Fall, what is called “free-will,” which they even own still to exist in all the ordinary acts of life, though it be lost with respect to religious morality. The decree of election, on this scheme, arises from God’s foreknowledge that man was to fall, and that all men became thereby with justice liable to eternal punishment. The election of some to salvation was an act of Divine goodness, and the pretention of the rest was an exercise of holiness and justice. This Sublapsarian predestination is evidently irreconcilable with the doctrine of Necessity, which considers free-will, or volitions not caused by motives, as absolutely inconsistent with the definition of an intelligent being,—which is, that he acts from a motive, or, in other words, with a purpose. The Supralapsarian scheme, which represents the Fall itself as fore-ordained, may indeed be built on necessitarian principles. But on that scheme original sin seems wholly to lose that importance which the former system gives it as a revolution in the state of the world, requiring an interposition of Divine power to remedy a part of its fatal effects. It becomes no more than the first link in the chain of predestined offences. Yet both Catholic and Protestant predestinarians have borrowed the arguments and distinctions of philosophical necessitarians. One of the propositions of Jansenius, condemned by the bull of Innocent X. in 1653, is, that “to merit or demerit in a state of lapsed nature, it is not necessary that there should be in man a liberty free from necessity; it is sufficient that there be a liberty free from constraint.”—Dupin, Histoire de l’Eglise en abrégé, livre iv. chap. viii. Luther, in his once famous treatise De Servo Arbitrio against Erasmus (printed in 1526), expresses himself as follows: “Hie est fidei summus gradus, credere illum esse clementem qui tam paucos salvat, tam multos damnat; credere justum qui suâ voluntate nos necessario damnabiles facit, ut videatur, ut Erasmus refert, delectari cruciatibus miserorum, et odio potius quam amore dignus.” (My copy of this stern and abusive book is not paged.) In another passage, he states the distinction between co-action and necessity as familiar a hundred and thirty years before it was proposed by Hobbes, or condemned in the Jansenists. “Necessario dico, non coactè, sed, ut illi dicunt, necessitate immutabilitatis, non coactionis; hoc est, homo, cum vocat Spiritus Dei, non quidem violentiâ, velut raptus obtorto collo, nolens facit malum, quemadmodum fur aut latro nolens ad pœnam ducitur, sed sponte et liberâ voluntate facit.” He uses also the illustration of Hobbes, from the difference between a stream forced out of its course, and freely flowing in its channel.

[The following is the whole of the passage in the Edinburgh Review, referred to above: the reader, while bearing in mind the modification of opinion there announced, may still find sufficient interest in the general statement of the argument to justify its admission here.—Ed.]

“. . . It would be inexcusable to revive the mention of such a controversy as that which relates to Liberty and Necessity, for any other purpose than to inculcate mutual candour, and to censure the introduction of invidious topics. If there were any hope of terminating that endless and fruitless controversy, the most promising expedient would be a general agreement to banish the technical terms hitherto employed on both sides from philosophy, and to limit ourselves rigorously to a statement of those facts in which all men agree, expressed in language perfectly purified from all tincture of system. The agreement in facts would then probably be found to be much more extensive than is often suspected by either party. Experience is, and indeed must be, equally appealed to by both. All mankind feel and own, that their actions are at least very much affected by their situation, their opinions, their feelings, and their habits; yet no man would deserve the compliment of confutation, who seriously professed to doubt the distinction between right and wrong, the reasonableness of moral approbation and disapprobation, the propriety of praising and censuring voluntary actions, and the justice of rewarding or punishing them according to their intention and tendency. No reasonable person, in whatever terms he may express himself concerning the Will, has ever meant to deny that man has powers and faculties which justify the moral judgments of the human race. Every advocate of Free Will admits the fact of the influence of motives, from which the Necessarian infers the truth of his opinion. Every Necessarian must also admit those attributes of moral and responsible agency, for the sake of which the advocate of Liberty considers his own doctrine as of such unspeakable importance. Both parties ought equally to own, that the matter in dispute is a question of fact relating to the mind, which must be ultimately decided by its own consciousness. The Necessarian is even bound to admit, that no speculation is tenable on this subject, which is not reconcilable to the general opinions of mankind, and which does not afford a satisfactory explanation of that part of common language which at first sight appears to be most at variance with it.

“After the actual antecedents of volition had been thus admitted by one party, and its moral consequences by another, the subject of contention would be reduced to the question,—What is the state of the mind in the interval which passes between motive and action? or, to speak with still more strict propriety, By what words is that state of the mind most accurately described? If this habit of thinking could be steadily and long preserved, so evanescent a subject of dispute might perhaps in the end disappear, and the contending parties might at length discover that they had been only looking at opposite sides of the same truth. But the terms “Liberty” and “Necessity” embroil the controversy, inflame the temper of disputants, and involve them in clouds of angry zeal, which render them incapable not only of perceiving their numerous and important coincidences, but even of clearly discerning the single point in which they differ. Every generous sentiment, and every hostile passion of human nature, have for ages been connected with these two words. They are the badges of the oldest, the widest, and the most obstinate warfare waged by metaphysicians.—Whoever refuses to try the experiment of renouncing them, at least for a time, can neither be a peace-maker nor a friend of dispassionate discussion; and, if he stickles for mere words, he may be justly suspected of being almost aware that he is contending for nothing but words.

“But if projects of perpetual peace should be as Utopian in the schools as in the world, it is the more necessary to condemn the use of weapons which exasperate animosity, without contributing to decide the contest. Of this nature, in our opinion, are the imputations of irreligion and immorality which have for ages been thrown on those divines and philosophers who have espoused Necessarian opinions. Mr. Stewart, though he anxiously acquits individuals of evil intention, has too much lent the weight of his respectable opinion to these useless and inflammatory charges. We are at a loss to conceive how he could imagine that there is the slightest connection between the doctrine of Necessity and the system of Spinoza. That the world is governed by a Supreme Mind, which is invariably influenced by the dictates of its own wisdom and goodness, seems to be the very essence of theism; and no man who substantially dissents from that proposition, can deserve the name of a pure theist. But this is precisely the reverse of the doctrine of Spinoza, which, in spite of all its ingenious disguises, undoubtedly denies the supremacy of mind. This objection, however, has already been answered, not only by the pious and profound Jonathan Edwards (Inquiry, part iv. chap. 7.), an avowed Necessarian, but by Mr. Locke, (whose opinions, however, about this question are not very distinct,) and even by Dr. Clarke himself, the ablest and most celebrated of the advocates of liberty. (Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God.)

“The charge of immoral tendency, however, deserves more serious consideration, as it has been repeatedly enforced by Mr. Stewart, and brought forward also by Dr. Copplestone. (Discourses, Lond. 1821),—the only writer of our time who has equally distinguished himself in paths so distant from each other as classical literature, political economy, and metaphysical philosophy. His general candour and temperance give weight to his accusation; and it is likely to be conveyed to posterity by a volume, which is one of the best models of philosophical style that our age has produced,—a Sermon of Archbishop King, republished by Mr. Whately, an ingenious and learned member of Oriel College. The Sermons of Dr. Copplestone do indeed directly relate to theology; but, in this case, it is impossible to separate that subject from philosophy. Necessity is a philosophical opinion relating to the human will: Predestination is a theological doctrine, concerning the moral government of the world. But since the writings of Leibnitz and Jonathan Edwards, all supporters of Predestination endeavour to show its reasonableness by the arguments of the Necessarian. It is possible, and indeed very common, to hold the doctrines of Necessity, without adopting many of the dogmas which the Calvinist connects with it: but it is not possible to make any argumentative defence of Calvinism, which is not founded on the principle of Necessity. The moral consequences of both (whatever they may be) must be the same; and both opinions are, accordingly, represented by their opponents as tending, in a manner very similar, to weaken the motives to virtuous action.

“There is no topic which requires such strong grounds to justify its admission into controversy, as that of moral consequences; for, besides its incurable tendency to inflame the angry passions, and to excite obloquy against individuals, which renders it a practical restraint on free inquiry, the employment of it in dispute seems to batray apprehensions derogatory from the dignity of Morals, and not consonant either to the dictates of Reason or to the lessons of experience. The rules of Morality are too deeply rooted in human nature, to be shaken by every veering breath of metaphysical theory. Our Moral Sentiments spring from no theory: they are as general as any part of our nature; the causes which generate, or unfold and nourish them, lie deep in the unalterable interests of society, and in those primitive feelings of the human heart which no circumstance can eradicate. The experience of all ages teaches, that these deep-rooted principles are far less affected than is commonly supposed, by the revolutions of philosophical opinion, which scarcely penetrate beyond the surface of human nature. Exceptions there doubtless are: the most speculative opinions are not pretended to be absolutely indifferent in their moral tendency; and it is needless to make an express exception of those opinions which directly relate to practice, and which may have a considerable moral effect. But, in general, the power of the moral feelings, and the feebleness of speculative opinions, are among the most striking phenomena in the history of mankind. What teacher, either philosophical or religious, has ever been successful in spreading his doctrines, who did not reconcile them to our moral sentiments, and even recommend them by pretensions to a purer and more severe morality? Wherever there is a seeming, or a real repugnance between speculative opinions and moral rules, the speculator has always been compelled to devise some compromise which, with whatever sacrifice of consistency, may appease the alarmed conscience of mankind. The favour of a few is too often earned by flattering their vicious passions; but no immoral system ever acquired popularity. Wherever there is a contest, the speculations yield, and the principles prevail. The victory is equally decisive, whether the obnoxious doctrine be renounced, or so modified as no longer to dispute the legitimate authority of Conscience.

“Nature has provided other guards for Virtue against the revolt of sophistry and the inconstancy of opinion. The whole system of morality is of great extent, and comprehends a variety of principles and sentiments,—of duties and virtues. Wherever new and singular speculation has been at first sight thought to weaken some of the motives of moral activity, it has almost uniformly been found, by longer experience, that the same speculation itself makes amends, by strengthening other inducements to right conduct. There is thus a principle of compensation in the opinions, as in the circumstances of man; which, though not sufficient to level distinction and to exclude preference, has yet such power, that it ought to appease our alarms, and to soften our controversies. A moral nature assimilates every speculation which it does not reject. If these general reasonings be just, with what increased force do they prove the innocence of error, in a case where, as there seems to be no possibility of difference about facts, the mistake of either party must be little more than verbal!

“We have much more ample experience respecting the practical tendency of religious than of philosophical opinions. The latter were formerly confined to the schools, and are still limited to persons of some education. They are generally kept apart from our passions and our business, and are entertained, as Cicero said of the Stoical paradoxes, “more as a subject of dispute than as a rule of life.” Religious opinions, on the contrary, are spread over ages and nations; they are felt perhaps most strongly by the more numerous classes of mankind; wherever they are sincerely entertained, they must be regarded as the most serious of all concerns; they are often incorporated with the warmest passions of which the human heart is capable; and, in this state, from their eminently social and sympathetic nature, they are capable of becoming the ruling principle of action in vast multitudes. Let us therefore appeal to experience, on the moral influence of Necessarian opinions in their theological form. By doing so, we shall have an opportunity of contemplating the principle in its most active state, operating upon the greatest masses, and for the longest time. Predestination, or doctrines much inclining towards it, have, on the whole, prevailed in the Christian churches of the West since the days of Augustine and Aquinas. Who were the first formidable opponents of these doctrines in the Church of Rome? The Jesuits—the contrivers of courtly casuistry, and the founders of lax morality. Who, in the same Church, inclined to the stern theology of Augustine? The Jansenists—the teachers and the models of austere morals. What are we to think of the morality of Calvinistic nations, especially of the most numerous classes of them, who seem, beyond all other men, to be most zealously attached to their religion, and most deeply penetrated with its spirit? Here, if any where, we have a practical and a decisive test of the moral influence of a belief in Necessarian opinions. In Protestant Switzerland, in Holland, in Scotland, among the English Nonconformists, and the Protestants of the north of Ireland, in the New England States, Calvinism long was the prevalent faith, and is probably still the faith of a considerable majority. Their moral education was at least completed, and their collective character formed, during the prevalence of Calvinistic opinions. Yet where are communities to be found of a more pure and active virtue? Perhaps these, and other very striking facts, might justify speculations of a somewhat singular nature, and even authorize a retort upon our respectable antagonists. But we have no such purpose. It is sufficient for us to do what in us lies to mitigate the acrimony of controversy, to teach disputants on both sides to respect the sacred neutrality of Morals, and to show that the provident and parental care of Nature has sufficiently provided for the permanent security of the principles of Virtue.

“If we were to amuse ourselves in remarks on the practical tendency of opinions, we might with some plausibility contend, that there was a tendency in infidelity to produce Toryism. In England alone, we might appeal to the examples of Hobbes, Bolingbroke, Hume, and Gibbon; and to the opposite cases of Milton, Locke, Addison, Clarke, and even Newton himself; for the last of these great men was also a Whig. The only remarkable example which now occurs to us of a zealous believer who was a bigoted Tory, is that of Dr. Johnson; and we may balance against him the whole, or the greater part of the life of his illustrious friend, Mr. Burke. We would not, however, rest much on observations founded on so small an experience, that the facts may arise from causes wholly independent of the opinion. But another unnoticed coincidence may serve as an introduction to a few observations on the scepticism of the eighteenth century.

“The three most celebrated sceptics of modern times have been zealous partisans of high authority in government. It would be rash to infer, from the remarkable examples of this coincidence, in Montaigne, Bayle, and Hume, that there is a natural connection between scepticism and Toryism; or, even, if there were a tendency to such a connection, that it might not be counteracted by more powerful circumstances, or by stronger principles of human nature. It is more worth while, therefore, to consider the particulars in the history of these three eminent persons, which may have strengthened or created this propensity.

“Montaigne, who was methodical in nothing, does not indeed profess systematic scepticism. He was a freethinker who loosened the ground about received opinions, and indulged his humour in arguing on both sides of most questions. But the sceptical tendency of his writings is evident; and there is perhaps nowhere to be found a more vigorous attack on popular innovations, than in the latter part of the 22d Essay of his first book. But there is no need of any general speculations to account for the repugnance to change, felt by a man who was wearied and exasperated by the horrors of forty years’ civil war.

“The case of Bayle is more remarkable. Though banished from France as a Protestant, he published, without his name, a tract, entitled, “Advice to the Refugees,” in the year 1690, which could be considered in no other light than that of an apology for Louis XIV., an attack on the Protestant cause, and a severe invective against his companions in exile. He declares, in this unavowed work, for absolute power and passive obedience, and inveighs, with an intemperance scarcely ever found in his avowed writings, against “the execrable doctrines of Buchanan,” and the “pretended sovereignty of the people,” without sparing even the just and glorious Revolution, which had at that moment preserved the constitution of England, the Protestant religion, and the independence of Europe. It is no wonder therefore, that he was considered as a partisan of France, and a traitor to the Protestant cause; nor can we much blame King William for regarding him as an object of jealous policy. Many years after, he was represented to Lord Sunderland as an enemy of the Allies, and a detractor of their great captain, the Duke of Marlborough. The generous friendship of the illustrious author of the Characteristics,—the opponent of Bayle on almost every question of philosophy, government, and, we may add, religion,—preserved him, on that occasion, from the sad necessity of seeking a new place of refuge in the very year of his death. The vexations which Bayle underwent in Holland from the Calvinist ministers, and his long warfare against their leader Jurieu, who was a zealous assertor of popular opinions, may have given this bias to his mind, and disposed him to “fly from petty tyrants to the throne.” His love of paradox may have had its share; for passive obedience was considered as a most obnoxious paradox in the schools and societies of the oppressed Calvinists. His enemies, however, did not fail to impute his conduct to a design of paying his court to Louis XIV., and to the hope of being received with open arms in France;—motives which seem to be at variance both with the general integrity of his life, and with his favourite passion for the free indulgence of philosophical speculation. The scepticism of Bayle must, however, be distinguished from that of Hume. The former of these celebrated writers examined many questions in succession, and laboured to show that doubt was, on all of them, the result of examination. His, therefore, is a sort of inductive scepticism, in which general doubt was an inference from numerous examples of uncertainty in particular cases. It is a kind of appeal to experience, whether so many failures in the search of truth ought not to deter wise men from continuing the pursuit. Content with proving, or seeming to himself to prove, that we have not attained certainty, he does not attempt to prove that we cannot reach it.

“The doctrine of Mr. Hume, on the other hand, is not that we have not reached truth, but that we never can reach it. It is an absolute and universal system of scepticism, professing to be derived from the very structure of the Understanding, which, if any man could seriously believe it, would render it impossible for him to form an opinion upon any subject,—to give the faintest assent to any proposition,—to ascribe any meaning to the words ‘truth’ and ‘falsehood,’—to believe, to inquire, or to reason, and, on the very same ground, to disbelieve, to dissent, or to doubt,—to adhere to his own principle of universal doubt, and lastly, if he be consistent with himself, even to think. It is not easy to believe that speculations so shadowy, which never can pretend to be more than the amusements of idle ingenuity, should have any influence on the opinions of men of great understanding, concerning the most important concerns of human life. But perhaps it may be reasonable to allow, that the same character which disposes men to scepticism, may dispose them also to acquiesce in considerable abuses, and even oppressions, rather than to seek redress in forcible resistance. Men of such a character have misgivings in every enterprise; their acuteness is exercised in devising objections,—in discovering difficulties,—in foreseeing obstacles; they hope little from human wisdom and virtue, and are rather secretly prone to that indolence and indifference which forbade the Epicurean sage to hazard his quiet for the doubtful interests of a contemptible race. They do not lend a credulous ear to the Utopian projector; they doubt whether the evils of change will be so little, or the benefits of reform so great, as the sanguine reformer foretells that they will be. The sceptical temper of Mr. Hume may have thus insensibly moulded his political opinions. But causes still more obvious and powerful had probably much more share in rendering him so zealous a partisan of regal power. In his youth, the Presbyterians, to whose enmity his opinions exposed him, were the zealous and only friends of civil liberty in Scotland; and the close connection of liberty with Calvinism, made both more odious to him. The gentry in most parts of Scotland, except in the west, were then Jacobites; and his early education was probably among that party. The prejudices which he perhaps imbibed in France against the literature of England, extended to her institutions; and in the state of English opinion, when his history was published, if he sought distinction by paradox, he could not so effectually have obtained his object by the most startling of his metaphysical dogmas, as by his doubts of the genius of Shakespeare, and the virtue of Hampden.”

Afterwards Bishop of Llandaff.—Ed.

Afterwards Archbishop of Dublin.—Ed.

Though some parts of the substance of the following letter have already appeared in various forms, perhaps the account of Mr. Hume’s illness, in the words of his friend and physician Dr. Cullen, will be acceptable to many readers. I owe it to the kindness of Mrs. Baillie, who had the goodness to copy it from the original, in the collection of her late learned and excellent husband, Dr. Baillie. Some portion of what has been formerly published I do not think it necessary to reprint.