almost every page in the subsequent history of this controversy may be regarded as an additional illustration of the soundness of Clarke's reasonings, and of the sagacity with which he anticipated the fatal errors likely to issue from the system which he opposed.

"Thus," says a very learned disciple of Leibnitz, who made his first appearance as an author about thirty years after the death of his master,*" Thus the same chain embraces the physical and moral worlds, binds the past to the present, the present to the future, the future to eternity."

"That wisdom which has ordained the existence of this chain, has doubtless willed that of every link of which it is composed. A CALIGULA is one of those links, and this link is of iron: A MARCUS AURELIUS is another link, and this link is of gold. Both are necessary parts of one whole, which could not but exist. Shall God then be angry at the sight of the iron link? What absurdity! God esteems this link at its proper value: He sees it in its cause, and he approves this cause, for it is good. God beholds moral monsters, as he beholds physical monsters. Happy is the link of gold! Still more happy if he know that he is only fortunate. He has attained the highest degree of moral perfection, and is nevertheless without pride, knowing that what he is, is the necessary result of the place which he must occupy in the chain.'

"The gospel is the allegorical exposition of this system; the simile of the potter is its summary." (Bonnet, T. VIII. pp. 237, 238.)

In what essential respect does this system differ from that of Spinoza? Is it not even more dangerous in its practical tendency, in consequence of the high strain of mystical devotion by which it is exalted?

Charles Bonnet, born 1720, died 1793.

†The words in the original are, " 'Heureux le chaînon d'or! plus heureux encore, s'il sait qu'il n'est qu'heureux." The double meaning of heureux, if it render the expression less logically precise, gives it at least an epigrammatic turn, which cannot be preserved in our language.

See Note (K k.)

Among the various forms which religious enthusiasm assumes, there is a certain prostration of the mind, which, under the specious disguise of a deep humility, aims at exalting the Divine perfections, by annihilating all the powers which belong to Human Nature. Nothing is more usual for fervent devotion," says Sir James

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This objection, however, does not apply to the quotations which follow. They exhibit, without any colorings of imagination or of enthusiasm, the scheme of necessity pushed to the remotest and most alarming conclusions. which it appeared to Clarke to involve; and as they express the serious and avowed creed of two of our contemporaries (both of them men of distinguished talents), may be regarded as a proof, that the zeal displayed by Clarke against the metaphysical principles which led ultimately to such results, was not so unfounded as some worthy and able inquirers have supposed.

May I be permitted to observe farther on this head, that, as one of these writers spent his life in the pay of a German prince, and as the other was the favorite philosopher of another sovereign, still more illustrious, the sentiments which they were so anxious to proclaim to the world, may be presumed to have been not very offensive (in their judgments) to the ears of their protectors.

"All that is must be," says the Baron de Grimm, addressing himself to the Duke of Saxe-Gotha,“ All that is must be, even because it is; this is the only sound philosophy; as long as we do not know this universe a priori (as they say in the schools), ALL IS NECESSITY.* Liberty is a word without meaning, as you shall see in

the letter of M. Diderot."

Mackintosh, in speaking of some theories current among the Hindoos, " than to dwell so long and so warmly on the meanness and worthlessness of created things, and on the all-sufficiency of the Supreme Being, that it slides insensibly from comparative to absolute language, and in the eagerness of its zeal to magnify the Deity, seems to annihilate every thing else." (See Philosophy of the Human Mind, Vol. II. p. 529, 2d Ed.)

This excellent observation may serve to account for the zeal displayed by Bonnet, and many other devout men, in favor of the Scheme of Necessity. "We have nothing," they frequently and justly remind us, "but what we have received."-But the question here is simply a matter of fact, whether we have or have not received from God the gift of Free-Will; and the only argument, it must be remembered, which they have yet been able to advance for the negative proposition, is, that this gift was impossible, even for the power of God; nay, the same argument which annihilates the power of Man, annibilates that of God also, and subjects him, as well as all his creatures, to the control of causes which he is unable to resist. So completely does this scheme defeat the pious views in which it has sometimes originated. I say sometimes; for the very same argument against the liberty of the Will is employed by Spinoza, according to whom the free-agency of man involves the absurd supposition of an imperium in imperio in the universe. (Tractat. Polit. Cap. II. § 6.)

*The logical inference ought undoubtedly to have been, "As long as we know nothing of the universe a priori, we are not entitled to say of any thing, that it either is, or is not, necessary."

The following passage is extracted from Diderot's letter here referred to:

"I am now, my dear friend, going to quit the tone of a preacher to take, if I can, that of a philosopher. Examine it narrowly, and you will see that the word Liberty is a word devoid of meaning;* that there are not, and that there cannot be free beings; that we are only what accords with the general order, with our organization, our education, and the chain of events. These dispose of us invincibly. We can no more conceive a being acting without a motive, than we can one of the arms of a balance acting without a weight. The motive is always exterior and foreign, fastened upon us by some cause distinct from ourselves. What deceives us, is the prodigious variety of our actions, joined to the habit which we catch at our birth, of confounding the voluntary and the free. We have been so often praised and blamed, and have so often praised and blamed others, that we contract an inveterate prejudice of believing that we and they will and act freely. But if there is no liberty, there is no action that merits either praise or blame; neither vice nor virtue, nothing that ought either to be rewarded or punished. What then is the distinction among men? The doing of good and the doing of ill! The doer of ill is one who must be destroyed, not punished. The doer of good is lucky, not virtuous. But though neither the doer of good or of ill be free, man is nevertheless a being to be modified: it is for this reason the doer of ill should be destroyed upon the scaffold. From thence the good cffects of education, of pleasure, of grief, of grandeur, of poverty, &c.; from thence a philosophy full of pity, strongly attached to the good, nor more angry with the wicked, than with the whirlwind which fills one's eyes with dust. Strictly speaking, there is but one sort of causes, that is, physical causes. There is but one sort of necessity, which is the same for all beings. This is what reconciles me to human kind: it is for this reason I exhorted you to philanthropy. Adopt these principles if

* Does not this remark of Diderot apply with infinitely greater force to the word necessity, as employed in this controversy?

you think them good, or show me that they are bad. If you adopt them, they will reconcile you too with others and with yourself: you will neither be pleased nor angry with yourself for being what you are. Reproach others for nothing, and repent of nothing; this is the first step to wisdom. Besides this, all is prejudice and false philosophy."

The prevalence of the principles here so earnestly inculcated among the higher orders in France, at a period somewhat later in the history of the monarchy, may be judged of from the occasional allusions, to them in the dramatic pieces then chiefly in request at Paris. In the Mariage de Figaro (the popularity of which was quite unexampled,) the hero of the piece, an intriguing valet in the service of a Spanish courtier, is introduced as thus moralizing, in a soliloquy on his own free-agency and personal identity. Such an exhibition upon the English stage would have been universally censured as out of character and extravagant, or rather, would have been completely unintelligible to the crowds by which, our theatres are filled.

"Oh bizarre suite d'événemens! Comment cela m'a-t-il arrivé? Pourquoi ces choses et non pas d'autres? Qui les a fixées sur ma tête? Forcé de parcourir la route le je suis entré sans le savoir, comme j'en sortirai sans où vouloir, je l'ai jonchée d'autant de fleurs que ma gaieté me la permit; encore je dis ma gaieté, sans savoir si elle est à moi plus que le reste, ni même qui est ce moi dont je m'occupe."

That this soliloquy, though put into the mouth of Figaro, was meant as a picture of the philosophical jargon at that time affected by courtiers and men of the world, will not be doubted by those, who have attended to the importance of the roles commonly assigned to confiden

* Nearly to the same purpose, we are told by Mr. Belsham, that "the fallacious feeling of remorse is superseded by the doctrine of necessity." (Elem. p. 184.) And, again," Remorse supposes free-will. It is often of little or no use in moral discipline. In a degree it is even pernicious." (Ibid. p. 406.)

Nor does the opinion of Hartley seem to have been different. "The doctrine of Necessity has a tendency to abate all resentment against men. Since all they do against us is by the appointment of God, it is rebellion against him to be offended with them."

For the originals of the quotations from Grimm and Diderot, see Note (L I.)

tial valets in French comedies; and to the habits of familiarity in which they are always represented as living with their masters. The sentiments which they are made to utter may, accordingly, be safely considered as but an echo of the lessons which they have learned from their superiors.*

My anxiety to state, without any interruption, my remarks on some of the most important questions to which the attention of the public was called by the speculations of Locke, of Leibnitz, of Newton, and of Clarke, has led me, in various instances, to depart from the strict order of chronology. It is time for me, however, now to pause, and, before I proceed farther, to supply a few chasms in the foregoing sketch.

SECTION IV.

Of some Authors who have contributed by their Critical or Historical Writings, to diffuse a taste for Metaphysical Studies-Bayle-Fontenelle-Addison. Metaphysical Works of Berkeley.

AMONG the many eminent persons who were either driven from France, or who went into voluntary exile, in consequence of the revocation of the edict of Nantz, the most illustrious by far was Bayle; † who, fixing his residence in Holland, and availing himself, to the utmost extent, of the religious toleration then enjoyed in that country, diffused from thence over Europe, a greater mass of accurate and curious information, accompanied by a more splendid display of acute and lively criticism, than had ever before come from the pen of a single individual.‡

* A reflection of Voltaire's on the writings of Spinoza may, I think, be here quoted without impropriety. "Vous êtes très confus, Baruc Spinoza, mais êtes-vous aussi dangereux qu'on le dit? Je soutiens que non, et ma raison c'est que vous êtes confus, que vous avez écrit en mauvais Latin, et qu'il n'y a pas dix personnes en Europe qui vous lisent d'un bout à l'autre. Quel est l'auteur dangereux ? C'est celui qui est lu par les Oisifs de la Cour, et par les Dames." (Quest. sur l'Encyclop. Art. Dieu.)

Had Voltaire kept this last remark steadily in view in his own writings, how many of those pages would he have cancelled which he has given to the world! ↑ Born in 1647, died 1705.

The erudition of Bayle is greatly undervalued by his antagonist Le Clerc. "Toutes les lumières philosophiques de M. Bayle consistoient en quelque peu de Péripatétisme, qu'il avoit appris des Jésuites de Toulouse, et un peu de Cartesianisme, qu'il n'avoit jamais approfondi." (Bib. Choisie, Tom. XII. p. 106.)