tion, Whether the principle of moral approbation is to be ultimately resolved into Reason, or into Sentiment?-a question, which has furnished the chief ground of difference between the systems of Cudworth and of Clarke, on the one hand; and those of Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith, on the other. The remarks which I have to offer on this controversy must evidently be delayed, till the writings of these more modern authors shall fall under review.

The Intellectual System of Cudworth, embraces a field much wider than his treatise of Immutable Morality. The latter is particularly directed against the ethical doctrines of Hobbes, and of the Antinomians; but the former aspires to tear up by the roots all the principles, both physical and metaphysical, of the Epicurean philosophy. It is a work, certainly, which reflects much honor on the talents of the author, and still more on the boundless extent of his learning; but it is so ill suited to the taste of the present age, that, since the time of Mr. Harris and Dr. Price, I scarcely recollect the slightest reference to it in the writings of our British metaphysicians. Of its faults (beside the general disposition of the author to discuss questions placed altogether beyond the reach of our faculties,) the most prominent is the wild hypothesis of a plastic nature; or, in other words, " of a vital and spiritual, but unintelligent and necessary agent, created by the Deity for the execution of his purposes." Notwithstanding, however, these, and many other abatements of its merits, the Intellectual System will for ever remain a precious mine of information to those whose curiosity may lead them to study the spirit of the ancient theories; and to it we may justly apply what Leibnitz has somewhere said, with far less reason, of the works of the schoolmen, "Scholasticos agnosco abundare ineptiis; sed aurum est in illo cœno."*

Before dismissing the doctrines of Hobbes, it may be worth while to remark, that all his leading principles are traced by Cudworth to the remains of the ancient scep

*The Intellectual System was published in 1678. The Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality, did not appear till a considerable number of years after the author's death.

tics, by some of whom, as well as by Hobbes, they seem to have been adopted from a wish to flatter the uncontrolled passions of sovereigns. Not that I am disposed to call in question the originality of Hobbes; for it appears, from the testimony of all his friends, that he had much less pleasure in reading than in thinking. "If I had read," he was accustomed to say, " as much as some others, I should have been as ignorant as they are." But similar political circumstances invariably reproduce similar philosophical theories; and it is one of the numerous disadvantages attending an inventive mind, not properly furnished with acquired information, to be continually liable to a waste of its powers on subjects previously exhausted.

The sudden tide of licentiousness, both in principles and in practice, which burst into this island at the moment of the Restoration, conspired with the paradoxes of Hobbes, and with the no less dangerous errors recently propagated among the people by their religious instructors, to turn the thoughts of sober and speculative men towards ethical disquisitions. The established clergy assumed a higher tone than before in their sermons; sometimes employing them in combating that Epicurean and Machiavellian philosophy which was then fashionable at court, and which may be always suspected to form the secret creed of the enemies of civil and religious liberty;-on other occasions, to overwhelm, with the united force of argument and learning, the extravagancies by which the ignorant enthusiasts of the preceding period had exposed Christianity itself to the scoffs of their libertine opponents. Among the divines who appeared at this era, it is impossible to pass over in silence the name of Barrow, whose theological works (adorned throughout by classical erudition, and by a vigorous, though unpolished eloquence,) exhibit, in every page, marks of the same inventive genius, which, in mathematics, has secured to him a rank second alone to that of Newton. As a writer, he is equally distinguished by the redundancy of his matter, and by the pregnant brevity of his expression; but what more peculiarly characterizes his manner, is a certain air of powerful and of conscious facility in the execution of whatever he under

takes. Whether the subject be mathematical, metaphysical, or theological, he seems always to bring to it a mind which feels itself superior to the occasion; and which, in contending with the greatest difficulties, "puts forth but half its strength." He has somewhere spoken of his Lectiones Mathematica (which it may, in passing, be remarked, display metaphysical talents of the highest order,) as extemporaneous effusions of his pen; and I have no doubt that the same epithet is still more literally applicable to his pulpit discourses. It is, indeed, only thus we can account for the variety and extent of his voluminous remains, when we recollect that the author died at the age of forty-six.*

To the extreme rapidity with which Barrow committed his thoughts to writing, I am inclined to ascribe the hasty and not altogether consistent opinions which he has hazarded on some important topics. I shall confine myself to a single example, which I select in preference to others, as it bears directly on the most interesting of all questions connected with the theory of morals. "If we scan," says he, "the particular nature, and search into the original causes of the several kinds of naughty dispositions in our souls, and of miscarriages in our lives, we shall find inordinate self-love to be a main ingredient, and a common source of them all; so that a divine of great name had some reason to affirm,―that original sin (or that innate distemper from which men generally become so very prone to evil, and averse to good,) doth consist in selflove, disposing us to all kinds of irregularity and excess." In another passage, the same author expresses himself thus: "Reason dictateth and prescribeth to us, that we should have a sober regard to our true good and welfare; to our best interests and solid content; to that which (all things being rightly stated, considered, and computed) will,

* In a note annexed to an English translation of the Cardinal Maury's Principles of Eloquence, it is stated, upon the authority of a manuscript of Dr. Doddridge, that most of Barrow's sermons were transcribed three times, and some much oftener. They seem to me to contain very strong intrinsic evidence of the incorrectness of this anecdote.-Mr. Abraham Hill, (in his Account of the Life of Barrow, addressed to Dr. Tillotson,) contents himself with saying, that "Some of his sermons were written four or five times over; "-mentioning, at the same time, a circumstance which may account for this fact, in perfect consistency with what I have stated above,—that " Barrow was very ready to lend his sermons as often as desired.”

in the final event, prove most beneficial and satisfactory to us: a self-love working in prosecution of such things, common sense cannot but allow and approve."

Of these two opposite and irrreconcilable opinions, the latter is incomparably the least wide of the truth; and accordingly Mr. Locke, and his innumerable followers, both in England and on the Continent, have maintained, that virtue and an enlightened self-love are one and the same. I shall afterwards find a more convenient opportunity for stating some objections to the latter doctrine, as well as to the former. I have quoted the two passages here, merely to show the very little attention that had been paid, at the era in question, to ethical science, by one of the most learned and profound divines of his age. This is the more remarkable, as his works every where inculcate the purest lessons of practical morality, and evince. a singular acuteness and justness of eye in the observation. of human character. Whoever compares the views of Barrow, when he touches on the theory of Morals, with those opened about fifty years afterwards by Dr. Butler, in his Discourses on Human Nature, will be abundantly satisfied, that, in this science, as well as in others, the progress of the philosophical spirit during the intervening period was not inconsiderable.

The name of Wilkins, (although he too wrote with some reputation against the Epicureans of his day,) is now remembered chiefly in consequence of his treatises concerning a universal language and a real character. Of these treatises, I shall hereafter have occasion to take some notice, under a different article. With all the ingenuity displayed in them, they cannot be considered as accessions of much value to science; and the long period since elapsed, during which no attempt has been made to turn them to any practical use, affords of itself no slight presumption against the solidity of the project.

A few years before the death of Hobbes, Dr. Cumberland (afterwards Bishop of Peterborough) published a book, entitled, De Legibus Naturæ, Disquisitio Philosophica; the principal aim of which was to confirm and illustrate, in opposition to Hobbes, the conclusions of Grotius, concerning Natural Law. The work is executed

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with ability, and discovers juster views of the object of moral science, than any modern system that had yet appeared; the author resting the strength of his argument, not, as Grotius had done, on an accumulation of authorities, but on the principles of the human frame, and the mutual relations of the human race. The circumstance, however, which chiefly entitles this publication to our notice is, that it seems to have been the earliest on the subject which attracted, in any considerable degree, the attention of English scholars. From this time, the writings of Grotius and Puffendorf began to be generally studied, and soon after made their way into the Universities. In Scotland, the impression produced by them was more peculiarly remarkable. They were every where adopted as the best manuals of ethical and of political instruction that could be put into the hands of students; and gradually contributed to form that memorable school, from whence so many philosophers and Philosophical Historians were afterwards to proceed.

From the writings of Hobbes to those of Locke, the transition is easy and obvious; but, before prosecuting farther the history of philosophy in England, it will be proper to turn our attention to its progress abroad, since the period at which this section commences. In the first place, however, I shall add a few miscellaneous remarks

*

*Through the whole of this Discourse, I have avoided touching on the discussions which, on various occasions, have arisen with regard to the theory of government, and the comparative advantages or disadvantages of different political forms. Of the scope and spirit of these discussions it would be seldom possible to convey a just idea, without entering into details of a local or temporary nature, inconsistent with my general design. In the present circumstances of the world, besides, the theory of government (although, in one point of view, the most important of all studies) seems to possess a very subordinate interest to inquiries connected with political economy, and with the fundamental principles of legislation. What is it, indeed, that renders one form of government more favorable than another to human happiness, but the superior security it provides for the enactment of wise laws, and for their impartial and vigorous execution? These considerations will sufficiently account for my passing over in silence, not only the names of Needham, of Sydney, and of Milton, but that of Harrington, whose Oceana is justly regarded as one of the boasts of English literature, and is pronounced by Hume to be "the only valuable model of a commonwealth that has yet been offered to the public." (Essays and Treatises, Vol. I. Essay xvi.)

A remark which Hume has elsewhere made on the Oceana, appears to me so striking and so instructive, that I shall give it a place in this note. Harrington," he observes, "thought himself so sure of his general principle, that the balance of power depends on that of property, that he ventured to pronounce it impossible ever to reestablish monarchy in England: but his book was scarcely published when the King was restored; and we see that monarchy has ever since subsisted on