And led his thousands to your pleasant groves And all the lessons of your noble age, But ye, nor we, may mourn, for His behest, November 30, 1839. MORAL PHILOSOPHY CHAIR. HUTCHESON, SMITH, REID, AND MYLNE. [Ir is always to be regretted when the spirit of political partizanship is allowed to interfere in any degree with the progress of Scientific investigation. The interests of Science are of far too sacred a character to be mixed up with the squabbles of political factions, and hence, to men of independent minds, it is a source of the sincerest pleasure to have opportunities of acknowledging literary worth, though associated with political sentiments which they cannot but strongly condemn. The political principles of the late Professor Mylne are well known to have been diametrically opposed to those which will be advocated in the "Peel Club Papers." But we are not on that account insensible to the great excellencies of his character as a Man, a Professor, and a Philosopher. We believe him to have been an ornament to the University with which he was so long connected, and we cheerfully record this conviction. The following remarks upon his character, and also upon that of his illustrious predecessors, Hutcheson, Smith, and Reid, which have been kindly furnished by the Author, are extracted from the Introductory Lecture, delivered at the commencement of the present Session, by Dr. Fleming, who has been translated from the Chair of Oriental Languages to that of Moral Philosophy.] Of my ability to be your guide in this important and interesting department of your enquiries, I will not boast. I will rather confess that when I think of the mighty themes which lie before me, and of the master-minds by whom they have been handled in this very place, I have much cause for humility and self-distrust. During a considerable part of last century, this Chair was filled, in close and brilliant succession, by Hutcheson, Smith, and Reid; and the benignant light which then flowed from it may now be found in the improving virtue, diffusing happiness, and increasing wealth of nations. I have no sympathy with the boldness of the man who could complacently bring his own name into comparison with names like these. I would rather seek for consolation and encouragement in the fact, that, while these great men have stamped the sovereign impress of their great minds on the themes which they more especially selected, there still remain, within the wide range of Moral Philosophy, humbler, but not less useful themes, to receive illustration from humbler minds. The fame of Hutcheson rests chiefly on his enquiries into what he called our finer powers of perception, and more especially into the power by which we perceive the difference between right and wrong; or, in the language of his philosophy, the Moral Sense. Adam Smith has also constructed a Theory of Moral Sentiments, which is expounded in one of the most eloquent and ingenious works in the whole range of our philosophical literature. But he is perhaps more widely known by his enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, a work which may be said to have given birth and growth to many of the recent improvements in Political Economy. The wise and virtuous Reid set himself to oppose the scepticism of Berkeley and the infidelity of Hume, and to establish the Philosophy of Mind on principles of common sense. His labours were great and meritorious. The fruit of them is to be found in the acceptance, or rather, the ascendancy, which the Scotch Philosophy (as it has been called) has gradually been gaining in our own country. And the advance which has been made, during the present century, in France, from the narrow sensational views of Condillac and De Tracy, to the more enlarged and spiritual views of Royer Collard, Jonffroy, and Cousin, is very much owing to the translation and diffusion of the writings of Reid and of his scarcely less distinguished pupil and follower, Dugald Stewart. Among the Germans, no one, perhaps, has rendered more important service to Mental Philosophy than Immanuel Kant. Yet of his great work, (the Criticism of Pure Reason) in which he defines the a priori conceptions of the human mind, the chief merit is, that it gives logical form and precision to the First Truths of Buffier, and the Common Sense Principles of Reid. The humble reverence which rises in every true lover of Philosophy, at the remembrance of these illustrious names, is great: and great also is the respect and gratitude with which I must ever cherish the memory of my immediate predecessor, Mr. Mylne. For nearly half a century he occupied this Chair with distinguished ability and success. The philosophic calmness and candour which characterized his Lectures could only be excelled by the gentle and kindly criticism by which he directed and encouraged the enquiries of his Students. How muchsoever they might differ in opinion as to the difficult topics which were brought before them, they were all cordially united in cherishing sentiments of respect for the talents, and of gratitude for the instructions of their Teacher. Of the frankness of his manners and the benevolence of his dispositions,-of the cordiality of his attachments, and the steadiness of his friendships,-of the sincerity with which he rejoiced in the good of others, and the readiness with which he sought to promote it, of the genuine philanthropy with which he hailed every measure which promised to increase the happiness of mankind, and the ardent enthusiasm with which he cherished the hope of their continual progress in knowledge and liberty and virtue of the patience and and equanimity, the sound sense and practical philosophy which he manifested in the conduct of life, and of the calm confidence with which he habitually reposed in the wisdom and goodness of the Great First Cause; of these features of his character I would willingly speak in language which could be strongly attested by all who knew him. But I am here, not so much to give utterance to the feelings which his early and long-continued kindness would prompt me to indulge towards his memory, as, with the impartiality of history and the strictness of philosophy, to mark the place which his labours entitle him to hold, as no unworthy successor of the illustrious men who had gone before him. His views with regard to the nature and origin of our knowledge of an external world were ingenious and acute; and he seems to have anticipated De Tracy in giving philosophical form and consistency to the theory of Locke and Condillac. He reduced our intellectual faculties to three-Sensation, Memory, and Judgment; and one of the most animated and interesting parts of his course was that in which he endeavoured to shew that many of the most complex operations of intellect may be resolved into these elements variously modified and combined. He thus differed from the philosophy of Reid, in regarding our perceptions of an external world as empirical and acquired, rather than natural and intuitive. But the leaning which he had to the views The "Elemens d' Ideologie" were published in 2 vols Paris, 1801-1804. Mr. Mylne's Lectures were first delivered in 1797. of Locke did not lead him into those extravagancies which others have endeavoured to graft upon them. For, while he strenuously maintained that our knowledge of external nature comes through the hard and horny gate of sense, he did not prosecute the vain attempt to trace all our loftiest conceptions of the absolute and the infinite, of the fair, the true and the good, to the same humble inlet, but seemed rather willing to acknowledge that the mind of man has thoughts which assert a higher origin; and that there is within us a living fountain of conceptions which the plummet of sense cannot fathom. In like manner, his sympathy with some of the harsh opinions of Hobbes and his followers did not lead him to refer all human conduct to self-love as its ultimate and single spring; but he warmly maintained the benevolent and disinterested nature of our social affections. In short, by a kindly critic, his philosophy may be characterized as Eclectic; for, instead of surrendering to the exclusive influence of any leading tenet, he rather liked to cull from the various systems what seemed to be true and good. Next to the opinion that our perceptions of external nature are empirical, rather than intuitive, the doctrine which he maintained with most earnestness was that of the connection which subsists between our powers of knowledge and our principles of action. The boldness and success with which he laboured to break down the partition which philosophers have set up between the powers of the Understanding and the powers of the Will,—the skill and ingenuity with which he endeavoured to shew that many of those principles of action which have been called Mechanical and Instinctive, do yet admit of being considered as in some sense Rational,-the strength and subtilty of argument with which he came to the conclusion that our feelings, affections, and passions, even the most sudden, fantastic, and apparently lawless, do yet proceed upon a judgment passed in the Intellect, and the natural and glowing eloquence with which, on all occasions, he urged the important truth that Reason is the dominant faculty in man, the supreme guide and ultimate arbiter of his conduct;-these were characteristics of the Lectures of my distinguished predecessor, which will not soon be forgotten by those who heard them. At the distance of more than twenty years, I have still a student's recollection of them: and this recollection, shared, as I know it to be, by so many, makes me feel and fear the disadvantage at which any labours of mine can be compared with his, or with the recorded fame of those who preceded him. But although it may not be given me to add to the celebrity of a Chair which has long been among the most distinguished in the Universities of Scotland, it cannot be denied me--unless the freedom of our will be a dream, and the forming of our purposes a delusion-it cannot be denied me to use my best endeavours to justify the kindness of my patrons and colleagues, and to secure the confidence of my pupils and friends. ON THE DEATH OF THE LADY HESTER STANHOPE. SHE left behind her dearest friends, in other lands to roam, The Syrian brings his golden fruit and all his spicy store, From Ethiopia's torrid clime, to Sinai's hoary height, But Lady! hast thou never thought, amid thy pomp and power, Oh! did thy fatherland entwine no chord around thy heart, Or did thy friends of early youth, like flowers untimely fall, Say, did thy friends deceive thy love and rend thy youthful heart 'Tis vain to ask! "The desert Queen" hath reached the peaceful shore, |