Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub

Scottish Metaphysicians; early years of Brown, 216;
student life; reviews, Darwin's "Zoonomia," 217;
contributes to the "Edinburgh Review;" pub-
lishes two volumes of poetry in 1803; writes an
Essay on Cause and Effect," 218; lectures for
Dugald Stewart; chosen Stewart's colleague in
1810, ib.; Brown as a lecturer, 218, 219; pre-
pares a text-book for his students; declining
health and death, 219, 220; popularity of his pub-
lished lectures, 220; systems influencing Brown,
221; excellencies of Brown's philosophy, ib.; his
deficiencies and errors, 222, 223; comparison be-
tween Brown and Hamilton, 223-225; opposition
to Hamilton, 225; birth and parentage of Hamil-
ton; student life; appointed Professor of Uni-
versal History in the University of Edinburgh;
writes various papers; appointed to the chair of
logic in 1836, 225, 226; Hamilton as a lecturer,
226; philosophers influencing Hamilton, 227; his Thackery, Mr., extracts from, 96.
intellectual features, 227, 228; superior attain-Tissot's opinion of Watts's Logic, 22, n.
ments as a scholar, 228, 229; excellencies of his Trench, Mr., sacred Latin poetry, 107, 108.
philosophy, 229, 230; Lord Jeffrey's opinion of Turretine, suppesed views of, 194.
Hamilton, 230; defects of his philosophy, 230-233;

of the "Times;" public opinion of Europe, 248;
moral aversion of the northern states to the slave
system, ib.; elevation and education of the slave,
249; Christian civilization, 249, 250.

Songs, early Christian, in the east and west, 103;
song of the martyrs, 104; consoling power of
Christian psalmody, 105; hymns of Ephraim
Syrus, 105-107; Latin hymns, 107; prosody of,
108, 109; subjectivity of, 109, 110; symbolism
of, 110, 111; terseness of, 111; hymn by Augus-
tine, 112; poem by Bernard, ib.; sequences, 113;
Dies Ira of Celo, 113, 114.

evils arising from transcendental speculation,

233-234.

Spain, Sir A. Alison's remarks upon the succession
to the crown of, 170.

War, Chinese, 55.

Slavery and the Slave States, 234; the Anglo-Saxon Unity in religion, 2.
race, 234-235; Great Britain and America,
235-237 progress of slavery in the United
States, 237; distribution of American population,
238; gradations of the slave race, 238, 239; ele-
vation of the free black, 239; legal condition of
the slave, ib.; their social condition, 240, 241;
numerical strength of the planters, 241; political
influence of planters; the geographical question,
241, 242; the progress of freedom, 242; exten-
sion of the Union, 243; the natural termination
of slavery, ib.; Mr. Sterling's letters, 244; Mr.
Chambers on American slavery and colour, 244,
245; American prospects, 245; Mr. Chambers'
conclusion; Mr. Sterling's conclusion, 246; causes
of emancipation, ib.; contrast between free and
slave states, 247; effects of abolition of slavery
in the West Indies, ib.; commercial influence,
247, 248; opinion of the American correspondent

T

U

W

Watts, Isaac, 13; early piety, ib.; the dissenting
academy, 14; born a poet, ib.; a poet's nurture,
15; first hymns, 16; publishes his poems and
hymns, ib.; characteristics, 17, 18; the father of
English hymnology, 19; specimens, 19, 20; songs
for children, 20; call to the ministerial office;
state of health; guest of Sir Thomas and Lady
Abney, 21; improvement of Christian literature,
ib.; colleague in the ministry-consecrates liter-
ature to the Gospel, 21, 22; forte was explana-
tion, 22; lesson of his life, 23.
Whately. See Bacon.

West Indies, effects of abolition of slavery in the,

247.

THE

NORTH BRITISH REVIEW,

No. LIII.

FOR AUGUST, 1857.

ART. I.-Bacon's Essays, with Annotations. | mainly devoted himself, and partly by the By RICHARD WHATELY, D.D., Archbishop manner in which he has executed his task. of Dublin. London, 1856. 8vo, pp. 517.

Neither his material nor his workmanship is such as critics like to meddle with. TheoAFTER the novelists, and after Mr. Macaulay, logy, morals, and metaphysics, are the tritest Archbishop Whately is, perhaps, the Eng- portions of human knowledge. During thoulish writer of the nineteenth century who sands of years, the attributes of the Deity, has been most read. Between his first and the affections of the human heart, and the his last publication forty-six years have faculties of the human mind, were the fapassed, during few of which, perhaps during vourite subjects of philosophical inquiry. none, has his pen been unemployed. The They engrossed the attention of the acutest mere catalogue of his works fills six pages. and the most diligent thinkers. Reason was Several of them have reached a tenth edi- enlightened by Revelation; and, for more tion-one a fourteenth; many are text-books than 1800 years, the Revelation itself has in our universities and schools, and, from been commented on by the whole civilthe elementary nature of their subjects-ized world. To be original in such matfrom their containing the rudiments of most of the mental sciences and of the mental arts-they have exercised, and continue to exercise, more influence over the opinions and over the moral and intellectual habits of those who are now actively engaged in public and in professional life, than can be attributed to the labours of any other living author.

And yet, when we attempted, in 1844, almost at the commencement of our career, to give a general view of his works, we had to remark, that a writer so widely popular had been almost ignored by the periodical critics. "He has been scarcely mentioned," we then said, "by any of the prouder and more august arbiters of destiny, and jour. nalists of humbler pretensions have been slow to notice his publications."*

With one or two remarkable exceptions, this is still generally true. It may be ac counted for, partly by the nature of the studies to which Archbishop Whately has

[blocks in formation]

ters-to discover inferences and analogies of any value, which shall have escaped undetected by so long and so careful an examination-is an attempt from which the most sanguine may well recoil. The bulk of our writers prefer gleaning from fields which have been less carefully reaped. They turn to political economy, to legislation, to criticism, to history, to biography, to physical science,-in short, to studies which are so recent, that their most accessible treasures are still unexhausted, or which, depending rather on observation than on consciousness, rather on testimony than on inference, are practically inexhaustible. Working on such materials, they may expect to inform or to amuse. As expounders of Archbishop Whately's reasonings, all that they can hope is to instruct to lead the reader to admit propositions which, though unperceived, had been implied in his previous knowledge.

This, without doubt, can be done. Trite as are his subjects, the Archbishop's works are eminently original. They are full of new analogies, of subtle discriminations, and

of inferences, of which the reader recognises and simplicity of diction, seldom found in both the truth and the novelty, feels that the writings of those who have the fear of they had never struck him before, but that critics before their eyes, and an exuberance they follow necessarily from premises with of classical quotation, which was natural which he is familiar.

when the bulk of our literature was Roman But a critic is not satisfied by acting the or Greek. But, though Bacon's essays repart of a mere expounder. He wishes not quire little explanation, they are susceptible, to follow, or even to accompany, but to as this volume shows, of great development. precede, his author; to clear up his con- They were intended, as the Archbishop refusion; to expose his fallacies; and to show marks, and as the word essay in its original that even when he is right, he is right im- acceptation expresses, to be tentamina, not perfectly-that he has seen the truth, but finished treatises, but sketches, to be filled not, the whole truth, and has left it to his up by the reader-hints, to be pursued— reviewer to draw from his premises their full thoughts, thrown out irregularly, to suggest conclusions. further inquiries and reflections. It is true We have all studied Bacon's advice-" In that his sketches and hints are worth far seconding another, yet to add somewhat of more than the most elaborate performances one's own; as, if you will grant his opinion, of other men, but they never have been let it be with some distinction; if you will turned to better account than when they follow his motion, let it be with condition; if have been expanded and illustrated by you allow his counsel, let it be with alleging Archbishop Whately. further reason."*

In reviewing a work without unity, or The victim whom we delight to immolate even continuity, it is difficult to find a prinis a puzzle-headed, ingenious rhetorician, ciple to follow in the selection of topics. whose absurdities and inconsistencies may We will begin by the essay on Unity in serve as pegs for our own theories, and as Religion, partly on account of the peculiar foils to them. But against this treatment importance of its subject, and partly beArchbishop Whately's works are proof. cause, in his annotations to that essay, the They have been carefully elaborated in a Archbishop has noticed some speculations capacious and patient intellect, animated by for which the author of this article is rea love of truth, and a hatred of disguise, sponsible, and has subjected them to stricamounting almost to passion. They con- tures so serious, that he feels bound either tain few premises thrown out rashly, none to admit that they are well-founded, and, in assumed insincerely, and no inferences which that case, to retract, or to show that they the author does not believe to be legitimate; are undeserved. and small indeed are the chances of finding a flaw in the logic.

Bacon had the misfortune to live in a bigoted and a persecuting age-in an age The work, of which we have prefixed the which believed that, in religious matters, title, is not peculiarly fit for criticism. Its error, though merely speculative, though tofragmentary nature makes it impossible to tally incapable of influencing human congive any general view of it. But, though duct, though relating to things far beyond it has already reached a third edition, it is the reach of the human faculties, is not only the newest of the Archbishop's works; sin, but sin for which men "without doubt and though, without doubt, already widely shall perish everlastingly;" and, still furknown, it is probably less so than anything ther, believed it to be the duty of the civil that he has published since 1844. We shall incur less danger of encumbering our pages with quotations with which the reader is already familiar, and of pronouncing judg. ments which he has himself anticipated.

governor, in the words of the English Liturgy, "to execute justice, and to maintain truth;" that is to say, to maintain truth by the execution of justice. From bigotry, however, he appears to have been free. In his advertisement on Church Controversies,* he The essays of Bacon do not require an reprobates the "curious questions and the annotator for the purpose of explaining strang anatomies of the natures and person obscurities; for, as is the case with almost of Christ," which divided the Christian all clear thinkers, he is an eminently perspi- churches in the first centuries, when ingencuous writer. Nor is there much that is iosa res fuit esse Christianum; and still obsolete in his language. Like Shakspeare, more those "about ceremonies, and things he seems to have anticipated many modern indifferent, and the external policy and gov refinements. Whole pages occur in which ernment of the Church." He suggests a nothing betrays antiquity except a naïveté doubt-a doubt which, in those days, must

* Essay on Ceremonies and Respects.

* Works, vol. ii., p. 501.

but of circumstance, this 'He that is not against us, is with us;' as it is excellently alluded to by that father that noted, that Christ's garment was without seam, and yet was of divers colours; and thereupon setteth down for a rule, 'In veste varietas sit, scissura non sit.'

have shocked the majority of his readers-churches, they be left at large. And therewhether, "in the general demolition of the fore it is good we return unto the ancient Church of Rome, there were not, as men's bounds of unity in the Church of God, which actions are imperfect, some good purged was, 'One faith, one baptism,' and not, 'One with the bad ;" and he ends his "considera- hierarchy, one discipline;' and that we obtions on the pacification of the Church" by serve the league of Christians, as it is penned a passage which we quote below, and which by our Saviour, which is, in substance of well deserves to be pondered by our modern doctrine, this-He that is not with us, is ecclesiastical factions. But he cannot be as against us,' but, in things indifferent, and fully exonerated from the charge of having been, to some degree, intolerant. He disapproved, indeed, of "the propagation of religion by wars, or by sanguinary persecutions, to force consciences;" but he adds, that "there be two swords among Christians, the spiritual and the temporal, and both have their due office in the maintenance of religion;" and "that the temporal sword is to be drawn with great circumspection in cases of religion." He objected, therefore, not to the use, but merely to the abuse of persecution. He did not perceive that any employment whatever of the temporal sword in cases of religion, whether rashly or with circumspection, is opposed not merely to the spirit, but to the express precepts, of Christianity to the formal renunciation by our Lord of all temporal dominion, and of all coercive influence.

"Heresies and schisms are of all others the greatest scandals, yea, more than corruption of manners; for as, in the natural body, a wound or solution of continuity is worse than a corrupt humour, so in the spiritual; so that nothing doth so much keep men out of the Church, and drive men out of the Church, as breach of unity; and, therefore, whensoever it cometh to that pass, that one saith, 'Ecce in deserto,' another saith, 'Ecce in penetralibus ;'-that is, when some men seek Christ in the conventicles of heretics, and others in an outward Ilis desire for unity, indeed, in "points face of a church, that voice had need contifundamental, and of substance in religion," nually to sound in men's ears, 'Nolite exire.' was very earnest. "For the point," he The Doctor of the Gentiles (the propriety says, "that there should be put one form of whose vocation drew him to have a speof discipline in all churches, and that im- cial care of those without) saith, 'If a heaposed by necessity of a commandment and then come in, and hear you speak with seprescript out of the word of God, is a matter veral tongues, will he not say that volumes have been compiled of, and there- mad?' and, certainly, it is little better. fore cannot receive a brief redargution. I, When atheists and profane persons do hear for my part, do confess that, in revolving of so many discordant and contrary opinions the Scriptures, I could never find any such in religion, it doth avert them from the thing; but that God had left the like liberty Church, and maketh them 'to sit down in to the Church government as He had done the chair of the scorners.' It is but a light to the civil government-to be varied ac- thing to be vouched in so serious a matter; cording to time, and place, and accidents: but yet it expresseth well the deformity. which, nevertheless, His high and Divine There is a master of scoffing that, in his cataprovidence doth order and dispose. For logue of books of a feigned library, sets all civil governments are restrained from down this title of a book, The Morris God unto the general grounds of justice and Dance of Heretics; for, indeed, every sect manners; but the policies and forms of of them hath a diverse posture, or cringe, them are left free; so that monarchies and by themselves, which cannot but move deri. kingdoms, senates and seignories, popular sion in worldlings and depraved politics, states and communalties, are lawful, and, who are apt to contemn holy things. where they are planted, ought to be maintained inviolate.

"So likewise in Church matters, the substance of doctrine is immutable, and so are the general rules of government; but for rites and ceremonies, and for the particular hierarchies, policies, and disciplines of

[blocks in formation]

you are

[ocr errors]

To this passage the Archbishop has appended the following note :*

"There occurs, in a late number of a leading periodical, a remark, which one may find also in the mouths of many, and in the minds of very many more, that the great diversity of religious opinions prevailing in the world, and the absence of all superhuman pro

* P. 31.

vision against them, is a proof that it is the universal application-one to which a Mowill of the Almighty that such should be the hammedan or a Pagan must yield, as well case--that men were designed to hold all as a Roman Catholic or a Protestant. It diversities of religious belief. Now, the in- consists in the impossibility, in almost all ference which will naturally be drawn, on cases, of demonstrating that what is persefurther reflection, from this is, that it is no cuted is really error. We have already rematter whether we hold truth or falsehood; marked, that most of the disputes which and next, that there is no truth at all in any separate Christian sects relate, not to pracreligion. tical morality, but either to questions re"But this is not all. The same reasoning specting Church discipline and government, would go to prove that, since there is no in- which may receive different answers among fallible and universally accessible guide in different nations, and at different times; or morals, and men greatly differ in their judg- to questions as to the nature and attributes ments of what is morally right and wrong, of the Deity, and as to His dealings with hence we are to infer that God did not de- mankind, which depend on the interpretasign men to agree on this point neither, and tion given to certain portions of Scripture, that it matters not whether we act on right as to which men have been differing for or wrong principles; and, in short, that eighteen centuries, with a tendency rather to there is no such thing as right and wrong, further divergence than to agreement." but only what each man thinks. The two "The Trinitarians think that the eternal opposite errors (as we think them), from the co-existence of God the Father and God the same source, are—' -If God wills all men to Son is the Scriptural doctrine: the Arians believe, and to act rightly, He must have think that the Begetter must have existed given us an infallible and accessible guide before the Begotten. The Latin Church befor belief and practice. (1.) But He does lieves that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the so will; therefore, there is such a guide; and Father and the Son: the Greek Church be(2.) He has not given us any such guide; lieves that the Holy Spirit proceeds only therefore He does not will all men to believe from the Father. Each of these opinions and act rightly.' has been supported by hundreds of learned, "Now, this is to confound the two senses conscientious, and diligent inquirers; each of WILL, as distiguished in the concluding has been adopted by millions of enthusiastic paragraph of the 17th article of the Church votaries; each has been propagated by of England. In a certain sense, the most violence, and resisted by endurance; each absurd errors, and the most heinous crimes, has had its doctors, its persecutors, and its may be said to be according to the Divine will martyrs."

since God does not interpose His omnipotence "It is possible that many of the opinions to prevent them. But, in our doings,' says for which we persecute one another, relate that article, that will of God is to be fol- to matters which our faculties are unable to lowed which we have expressly declared in comprehend. It is possible that, if our conHoly Writ.

[ocr errors]

troversies could be submitted to the deciThe passage thus referred to is to be sion of beings of higher knowledge and infound in an article in the Edinburgh Review, telligence than those of man, they would tell on Sir George Lewis's Essay "on the Influ- us that, for the most part, we are disputing ence of Authority in Matters of Opinion," about words which signify no realities, and contained in the number for April 1850: debating propositions which, being unmean"If," says the author of that article, re-ing, possess neither truth nor falsehood. ligious faith be favourable, and religious er- One thing at least seems clear that, if the ror unfavourable, to the welfare of a people; Being who inspired the texts on which differif it be in the power of the State, by means ent sects found their arguments, had intended of persecution, to diffuse the former, and to us to agree in one interpretation of them, He extirpate, or at least to discourage, the lat- would not have left them susceptible of many." ter; and if it be the duty of the State to do all that it can do to promote the welfare of its subjects, on what ground ought it to abstain from persecution?"

"The fact, then, on which the expediency of persecution depends-the falsehood of the persecuted doctrine-being, in general, incapable of demonstration, it follows, as a The able author of the "Letters on the general rule, that persecution is not expeChurch," admits "that he can find no argu- dient. We say, in general; for there are ments against persecution which ought to some religious opinions so obviously misconvince a Mohammedan or a Pagan ruler." chievous, that the magistrate may be bound We believe "that the duty of abstaining to put them down. Such are the doctrines from the forcible propagation of religious once attributed to the Church of Rometruth may be maintained by an argument of that faith is not to be kept with heretics;

« PoprzedniaDalej »