poffeffes. On the whole of this fubject his Lordship reafons with much perfpicuity, and turns his knowledge of Ariftotle and Plato to great account. But in his predilection for Aristotle over Locke, he has not done the latter perfect juftice. For he tells us, in p. 167, "As to Syllogifm, I do not remember that in either of his two volumes, he (meaning Locke] has fo much as named the word." This is to little the fact, that Syllogifm is treated of in the 17th chapter of the fourth book through many pages. The following remarks upon the fources of happinefs, will place the author's feelings in a very honourable light.

"I have faid fo much of the happiness or mifery of men, that I think it will not be improper to fay fomething of what the antients called the Summum Bonum, or fupreme happiness of men in this life, about which the Stoics and Epicureans differed fo much. The Epicureans made it confift wholly in bodily pleafures, whereas the Stoics placed it in the enjoyments of the mind: And the Stoics were certainly in the right; for as the mind (they mean the intellectual) is the governing principle in man, and makes him truly man, by diftinguithing him from the other animals on this earth, the perfection of it must be the perfection of his nature, and confequently his greatest happinefs. What the intellect perceives in the fubject which gives it delight, is the To xalov, or the Beautiful; in the contemplation of which they made the happiness of man to confift, and therefore they faid it was his only good. That it is the Beautiful, and the Beautiful only, which gives delight to the intellect, I think I have proved in the chapter upon Beauty. I will, therefore, proceed to confider the feveral things which give pleasure to our minds in this life.

"As all the pleafure, as well as the pain of mind, muft proceed from thinking, the queftion to be confidered here is, What fubjects of our thoughts give us pleafure? And, from what has been faid, it is evident that they must have beauty in them; and the more beautiful they are the greater pleafure they will give the mind. Now, it is evident that the works of God, in the production of this univerfe, being the work of fupreme wifdom and goodness, must be the most beautiful of all things exifting. We fhould, therefore, endeavour to perceive, as far as our limited faculties will permit, what the great creator perceived after he had finished his work, that all was beautiful, for fo the Hebrew word is tranflated by the Septuagint.

"But, as this Beauty can only be perceived by men of great genius, and genius must be cultivated by the ftudy of philofophy, we must defcend to the works of the only intelligent being on this earth, man, and confider what beauty is to be found in them. And we should begin at home, and reflect whether we have done any thing that has wif dom and goodnefs in it; and if we have, by reflecting upon fuch actions, we may be faid to enjoy, in fome degree, a pleasure which the Almighty enjoyed in contemplating his own works. I will add further upon this fubject, that every man who performs any virtuous action, will not only enjoy the pleasure of it when he does it, but it will be a conftant fource of delight to him while he lives; as,

on

on the contrary, if the action be vitious, it will give him pain, upon reflection, during his whole life.

"Next to our own good actions, thofe of our ear relations, and particularly of our parents, fhould give us the greateft pleasure; and if we ourselves are the fubject of fuch actions, they ought to inspire us with a kind of veneration for them, and for their memories, after they are gone; and it is my particular good fortune to have a recol lection of that kind which gives me the greatest pleasure. I had a father, whom I can praife, for the care he took of my education, with as great pleasure, and as much gratitude, as Horace praifes his father. He fold a part of his eftate to give me an education, the fruits of which, I now, in my old age, enjoy; and they make me happier than if he had left me a Dukedom with the greatest fortune. I had likewife a mother, who was a moft tender and affectionate parent. Of her I have a precious memorial, which 1 moft carefully preferve: It is a letter, which she wrote me fome days before her death, which happened when I was out of the country. In this letter, fhe expreffes the greatest love and affection for me, acknowledging, at the fame time, the marks of attention and refpect I had shown to her during her life. I have a like pleasure in thinking of the many virtues of some of my friends, who are now gone, and of the many good offices I received from them, and alfo from fome friends that are ftill living, and who, I hope, fhall out live me; and, indeed, there is no man living, that I know, who is more obliged to friends than I am. Some men, I know, are unwilling to acknowledge the obligations they owe to friends, and think it below them to do fo: But, for my part, I am proud of these obligations, because I think the perfons who bestowed them perceived fome worth and goodness in me, which they thought deferved their favour.-In fhort, the friendship of men of worth is one of the greatest pleasures we enjoy in this life.

"But, befides works of goodness and beneficence, there are works of intelligence, which, if well-executed, muft neceffarily please an intelligent creature: The works I mean are thofe of art and science. The study of thefe, therefore, make a neceffary part of the Summum Bonum, for our intellectual mind must have exercife as well as our animal and our body; and its only proper exercife is in matters of art and science, and particularly philofophy. A great part of the pleature which I now enjoy, in my old age, I owe to Plato and Ariftotle, who are at prefent, when I write this, my companions in the country; for it is to the Greek philofophy that I apply, and which is all we have of the philofophy of Egypt, the parent country of all arts and fciences. It was not hereditary among the Greeks as it was in Egypt, where it was tranfmitted from father to fon, like our estates in this country, and where it was cultivated by men, who, both by nature and education, were fitted for the study of it. It was, however, very much cultivated among the Greeks, who had focieties of men that applied to it: I mean fects of philofophers, fuch as the Platonics and Peripatetics, who taught their followers, not only by their writings, but by their converfation, which I hold to be the best way of teaching of any; as I find, by experience, when I have the benefit of converfa. tion with my learned friends in London,

"Among

Among the Greeks, philofophy appears to have been the study not only of learned and elderly men, but of young men ; and it seems to have been a paffion among them, which made them neglect their domeftic affairs. This appears from a paffage in one of Terence's plays, where he makes Simo fay, in praifing his fon, "That he was not addicted to horfes, dogs, nor to philofophers.

"Now, let us confider, whether in Britain, or in any nation in Europe at prefent, philofophy can be invented or cultivated. We have no focieties of men, or fects of philofophers, fuch as they had in Greece: And there is certainly not that paffion for philofophy fuch as was even among the young men of Athens; nor does it appears to be the purfuit of men of any age or profeffion among us. As, therefore, we cannot invent philofophy, we must learn it from the Greeks, otherwife we cannot enjoy that greatest blefling, which, Plato fays, the Gods have bestowed upon mortal men.

"And here we may obferve one great advantage which the Greeks had over us with refpect to the ftudy of philofophy; and which, of itfelf, is fufficient to how that they must have excelled us in that study; and it is this, that the Greeks had no language to learn in order to qualify themselves for the study of philofophy, as their own language was fufficient for that purpofe, in which all the philofophy of thofe days was written: So that after they had gone through what they called the synonia pampara, that is Grammar, and the grammar only of their own language, Mufic and the exercises of the Palæítra, they had no other branch of learning to apply to but philofophy. Whereas we, before we can be fit to learn the Greek philofophy, are obliged to employ feveral of the most docible years of our life (eight years at school in England, and four years at the univerfity) in the study of the Greek learning and language.

"As to the excellency of the Greek philofophy, above any thing that we call philofophy, I think I have proved it moft clearly in the Queries concerning philofophy, which I have published in volume 5 of Origin of Language. And if my readers are not convinced by what I have there faid, I have nothing further to add upon the fubject, but leave them to make the bet they can of the philofophy of Mr. Locke, Mr. David Hume, or Dr. Priestley." 221.

Many questions of population, &c. are ftarted in the latter part of the volume; and the author concludes with expreffing his belief in a decrease, and an eventual extinction of the fpecies. To this he fubjoins the following juft and fatisfactory

obfervation.

"I have only further to add, that fome of my readers may think it inconfiftent with the goodnels and mercy of God, that the civilized ftate, in which he has placed us, fhould have produced fo much mifery, as I fay it has done. But it was not God who placed us in that state; it was man himself that did fo by his fall, which made that itate neceffary for recovering the intelligence that he had loft: For I fhall prove, in the next volume, where I am to inquire concerning the origin of evil, that as man loft the use of his intellect by the abuse he made Z z of BRIT, CRIT. VOL. XI, JUNE, 1798.

of that free-will, which is effential to every intelligent animal, he could not recover it but by a better use of his free-will, and by the cultivation of his intellect by arts and fciences, which could not be except in a flate of civil fociety. So that if man had been otherwife restored to the ufe of it, it would have been contrary to the natural order of things, and to that fyftem, which we muft fuppofe in the univerfe, as it is the production of infinite wisdom.

"Nor fhould we be furprised that man fhould be changed from the state of civil fociety, in which he is at prefent, to another ftate, when we confider what changes have been on this earth by land being turned into water and water into land, and even in the heavens, by ftars appearing and difappearing. Now, thefe are the works of God in which thofe changes have happened. But civil fociety is the work of man, for a most useful purpose indeed; but still it is his work. Now,

Debemur morti nos noftraque.

Horat. Ars Poetica.

As man, therefore, in his present state must have an end, so muft his works." P. 321.

As our opinion has been already delivered fo much at large upon the general merits of Lord Monboddo's writings, the public will not expect us to lengthen out this article by any attempts at claborate criticifm upon them. As an author, his reputation will probably be greatly inferior to his ufe. His Metaphyfics will always be valuable, without receiving their due estimation. Multitudes will borrow from thefe mifcellanies of ancient literature, while few will be found fo patient as to read, or fo extravagant as indifcriminately to admire them.

ART. XV. A Sermon, preached in the Chapel of Trinity College, Dublin, February 16, 1797, being the Day appointed for a national Thanksgiving, on Account of the providential Deliverance of this Kingdom from the late threatened Invasion, &c. By William Magee, B. D. Junior Fellow of Trinity College, &c. Published by Defire. 8vo. 38 pp. Watsons, Dublin. 1797.

IS.

E have lately commended this eloquent preacher, with that warmth which his efforts in the caufe of piety, and good order, appeared to demand from us (Brit. Crit. vol. xi, p. 265). Again we are gratified by his pious eloquence, in a difcourfe upon Proverbs xxi, 30, 31. He states, that while a general fuperintending controul, exercifed by the Supreme Being, in the conduct of human affairs, is maintained by all

who

who are poffeffed of the first principles of religious belief; yet it has been contended by fome, that its operations being conducted by fixed and general laws, no events are, confequently, to be afcribed to its peculiar interference; and that all being equally fubject to its uniform and univerfal influence, it follows, that no particular occurrences can be confidered as providential. (PP. 7, 8.)

"New, this pofition, fo far as it goes to eftablish, the neceffary fubjection of all events, to an over-ruling Providence, is perfectly confiftent with the deductions of reason, and the difcoveries of revelationbut, inafmuch as it prefumes, that the workings of Providence are uniform, and that by the fame unvaried means all its ends are attained it is found directly contradictory to fact; and, in our daily experience, meets the fulleft refutation-for whilft we obferve the great majority of events, proceeding according to general rules, and anfwering to common expectation; do we not frequently difcover others, that feem to defy all previous calculation, and even to baffle all fubfequent analyfis, of their caufes-difappointing the toils, and the hopes, of the moft perfevering, and fagacious contrivers-and often the very reverfe, of what the best-devifed, and beft executed schemes, of human policy, had laboured to accomplish?

"Now of this inequality in the ways of Providence, what shall we venture to pronounce? what fhall we fay of effects, for which no adequate caufes feem to exift-of thofe, which flow from causes, altogether independent of human agency-or of thofe, which human agents have been found inftrumental in producing, by the very means defigned for their counteraction ?-for what purpofe fhall we fuppofe thefe events to have been brought about, in a manner different from the ordinary course of nature; when that all powerful Being-in whose hands are the iffues of life, and whofe creative word could inftantly fupply, agents and inftruments, to his will-might have permitted them to arife, from the common operation of obvious, and familiar causes? is it not clear, that these occafional deviations, from the ufual procefs of things, must have been purposely ordained, to awaken mankind to reflexion-to remind them of the true fource of all their poffeffions-and to fix their attention, on that Supreme Cause, which in the exact, and regular fucceffion of worldly occurrences, might have paffed unnoticed ;-That fo, while on the one hand, a general uniformity has furnished a ground for reasonable expectation, and an incitement to induftrious exertion-the anomalies of Providence, on the other, by pointing out the mover of the great machine, should draw back the thoughts of man, from fecond caufes, to the firft fpring and principle of all-and thus, whilst we admit all events to be equally providential, as to their caufe-they are clearly not fo as to their effect. Thofe, which depart from the common courfe of things-like the comet, breaking in upon the uniformity of our fyftem, though its feeming irregularities are derived from the fame force, and influenced by the fame law, with the planetary movements-moft powerfully arrefting our attention, and directing us to the contemplation of their fource." P. 8.