common way of thinking and talking on moral and mental subjects which is so firmly rivetted in the judgments of the mass of mankind. According to his notions, the simple act of perceiving a man standing at my window, and that act of the understanding which enables me to demonstrate the truth of the difficult problem in mathematics, or the most complicated questions in morals and legislation, are just to be considered merely as different states of the mind. And in moral subjects, the man who performs the every-day virtue of paying his servant what is due, and the man who, by his skill or bravery, diffuses happiness over thousands of his fellow-men, are only to be distinguished from one another, as differing in a greater or lesser degree of liveliness, or vividness of feeling, or of moral emotion. And, in like manner, the man who commits a slight assault upon my person, and he who deluges a whole country with blood, are only removed a few degrees from each other in the scale of emotion or feeling. This is all that is meant by moral obligation, and virtue, and vice, and merit, and demerit, and rewards and punishments, both in this life and that which is to come! does all this sound in our ears. O philosophy! what strange notions are put forth under your

How odd

name and under your authority. Instead of being the handmaid to common sense, how often have you played the harlequin! and in the room of being the lover of wisdom, as your name would seem to imply, how often have you coquetted with the chimeras of an ill-regulated imagination, and fostered error at the expense of truth!

But notwithstanding these defects as to principle, the "Lectures" are entitled to hold a respectable station on moral subjects. There is a vein of pure piety and virtue running through the whole; and no reader can rise from the perusal of Dr. Brown's volumes, without feeling respect for the character of the author, though he may dissent from his doctrines. The great defect, however, in Dr. Brown's Lectures, is their want of perspicuity. What a striking contrast does he exhibit to his predecessor and tutor Dugald Stewart! In perusing the writings of the former, our attention is perpetually upon the rack to catch his precise meaning; in the latter, it very rarely happens indeed that we have any trouble to understand the author, or to see the whole drift of his argument. Dr. Brown is always wishful to appear the Professor, and to avoid familiarity of language, as if he considered it fatal to his reputation. Like a thorough

paced courtier, he never likes to be seen but in full dress. However simple and natural the idea he wishes to convey to his readers may be, he must, in the expression of it, appear either as the subtile and profound philosopher, or the poet and man of sentiment and feeling. Some of his most ingenious illustrations, and finest thoughts, groan beneath the weight of words. Had he not been so ambitious of being considered an original thinker, his great natural talents, and varied acquirements, would have made him a much pleasanter, and a more instructive writer than he is. But he was fired with the prospect of exploring new regions of thought and feeling, and by a natural train of thinking he was led to imagine, that new views and ideas would not look well in old garments, and he would have therefore to weave a more modern dress to correspond with their fancied novelty and importance. Hence it is, that in spite of his rich stores of polite literature and vigorous imaginative powers, it is a perfect herculean task to get through his Lectures; and many time and oft does the mind, like some weary pilgrim in a sultry climate, sigh for some convenient resting-place, to renovate its exhausted energies, from the overstrained exertions to which it has been subjected.

CHAPTER XXXII.

DR. DEWAR.

ELEMENTS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY AND
CHRISTIAN ETHICS.

THE REV. DANIEL DEWAR, D. D. has, for some years past, been minister of the Tron Church in Glasgow; but has very recently been promoted to fill the situation of Principal to Marischal College, Aberdeen.

Modern philosophers on morality, have, in general, exhibited in their writings, great shyness in recognising the authority of the moral rules and precepts found in the Scriptures. Many of the most eminent theoretical moralists have so carefully excluded every allusion and remark to the divine record of truth, that if we had not known

the fact through some other channel than their writings, we might have lived and died without the knowledge that such a book as the Bible was in existence. Yet their systems are put forth to exhibit the value of morality, to strengthen our moral principles, and to point out the path of happiness to man! What strange inconsistency! But it unfortunately happens that the motive for this total silence about the nature of the Scriptures is, in many writers, but too apparent; they have been more eager to publish their own fancies and conceits, than the words of truth and soberness.

There are, however, other writers, who have recognised the authenticity of the Scriptures, and yet have not thought it necessary to make every use of the doctrines and moral rules contained in them to strengthen or elucidate their respective moral theories. But Dr. Dewar is free from a charge of this nature. His "Elements of Moral Philosophy and Christian Ethics," is grounded upon the principle that the Scriptures are the true and genuine revelation of the will of God to man; and the author incorporates religious doctrines and rules of duty with moral precepts, and pointedly shows the light which they mutually reflect upon each other.