Another coincidence between the Hobbists and the Antinomians, may be remarked in their common zeal for the scheme of necessity; which both of them stated in such a way as to be equally inconsistent with the moral agency of man, and with the moral attributes of God.* The strongest of all presumptions against this scheme is afforded by the other tenets with which it is almost universally combined; and, accordingly, it was very shrewdly observed by Cudworth, that the licentious system which flourished in his time (under which title, I presume, he comprehended the immoral tenets of the fanatics, as well as of the Hobbists,) "grew up from the doctrine of the fatal necessity of all actions and events, as from its proper root." The unsettled, and, at the same time, disputatious period, during which Cudworth lived, afforded him peculiarly favorable opportunities of judging from experience, of the practical tendency of this metaphysical dogma; and the result of his observations deserves the serious attention of those who may be disposed to regard it in the light of a fair and harmless theme for the display of controversial subtilty. To argue, in this manner, against a speculative principle from its palpable effects, is not always so illogical as some authors have supposed. "You repeat to me incessantly," says Rousseau to one of his correspondents, "that truth can never be injurious to the world. I myself believe so as firmly as you do; and it is for this very reason I am satisfied that your proposition is false."+

But the principal importance of Cudworth, as an ethical writer, arises from the influence of his argument concerning the immutability of right and wrong on the various theories of morals which appeared in the course of the eighteenth century. To this argument may, more particularly, be traced the origin of the celebrated ques

cate Aristotle against the misrepresentations of some of his present idolaters, who, in their anxiety to secure to him all the credit of Locke's doctrine concerning the Origin of our Ideas, have overlooked the occasional traces which occur in his works, of that higher and sounder philosophy in which he had been educated.

"The doctrines of fate or destiny were deemed by the Independents essential to all religion. In these rigid opinions, the whole sectaries, amidst all other differences, unanimously concurred." Hume's History, chap. lvii.

"Vous répétez sans cesse que la vérité ne peut jamais faire de mal aux hommes; je le crois, et c'est pour moi la preuve que ce que vous dites n'est pas la vérité."

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 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