dence. In proceeding in the way of observation, both discover natural laws or principles, and both call them by the name of "common-sense." "Common-sense is certainly sufficient to teach those who think of the matter, with tolerable seriousness and attention, all the duties and offices of human life; all our obligations to God and our fellow-creatures; all that is morally fit and binding. And there is no need of words to prove that to be morally fit and obligatory, which common-sense and reason clearly show to be so." Reid holds that all active power implies mind. This was the expressed doctrine of Turnbull before him. "It is, therefore, will alone that produces both power and productive energy." "To speak of any other activity and power, is to speak without any meaning at all; because experience, the only source of all our ideas (and of the materials of our knowledge), does not lead us to any other conception or idea of power." Nor should it be omitted that both — in this respect, however, like all the other Scotch metaphysicians ever speak with profound reverence of Scripture; ever, however, dwelling most fondly on those doctrines of the word which are also truths of natural religion; such as the existence of God, the obligations of morality, and the immortality of the soul.

I have been at pains to trace these agreements, not with the view of depreciating the originality and still less the independence of Reid, who may have had some of these views suggested to him by his teacher, but who may have afterwards found them in other writers, and who no doubt thought them all for himself, and adopted them because they seemed to him to be sound. We have seen that in one or two points, Reid fell behind his master, who had clearer apprehensions than his pupil of mingling deductive with inductive observation, and of the laws of the association of ideas. But in other and more important philosophic doctrines, Reid passed far beyond his 'teacher. Reid claims to be original in rejecting the ideal theory of sense perception; which had been the received one for two thousand years, which had been adopted by Locke, and pursued to its logical consequences by Berkeley. But Turnbull evidently adheres to the old view. "Properly speaking, what we call matter and space are but certain orders of sensible 1 It does seem rather strange that Reid should nowhere have acknowledged what he owed to Turnbull.

ideas produced in us, according to established rules of nature, by some external cause; for when we speak of material effects. and of space, we only mean, and can indeed only mean, certain sensible perceptions excited in our mind according to a certain. order, which are experienced to be absolutely inert and passive, and to have no productive force." He speaks of the "external material world" as unperceived by us, and in itself absolutely unperceivable, as all philosophers acknowledge." When, in speaking of the material world, he says it may be called the "external cause or occasion of those sensible ideas, and their connections, which make to each of us what we call the sensible world," we see that this is the doctrine which Reid set aside; and yet we may notice that the phrase "occasion" is used by Turnbull, as by Reid, to designate the relation of the external action to the internal perception. In another point, Reid made a more important advance upon Turnbull. Living at a later age, Reid had to meet the objections of the great modern revolutionist, and had in consequence to dive down. into profounder depths of the human constitution. The scepticism of Hume brought out to view the superficialities of the philosophy of Shaftesbury, partly by following its principles to their legitimate consequences, but mainly by making all men feel that it is nothing wherewith to meet the assaults of the new and formidable enemy. Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and Turnbull had all appealed to common-sense; but Reid behoved to take a deeper and more searching view of the principles which constitute common-sense, in order to meet the exigencies of the new era.

Turnbull's works had no great circulation in their own day, and they speedily disappeared from public view. It might have been different had he continued in Aberdeen, and gathered around him a body of young men ready to receive and to propagate the lessons he taught them. But he departed into other fields, into the literary circle of England, and a church which set more value on liturgy than on abstract doctrine, and there he met with few to appreciate his gifts. A Presbyterian Scot might have urged, with some plausibility, that his name has perished because he forsook the country and the church in which his philosophic labors would have been valued. It might even have been different, had he published his meta

physical treatises a dozen of years earlier; for then they might have run their course with those of Hutcheson and Butler. But at the very time that Turnbull advertised his work on "Moral Philosophy," Hume published his “Treatise of Human Nature," which, as it forced its way to the front, required philosophy to deepen its foundations and give a new facing to its buttresses. Turnbull is remembered because he had, for three years, when he was himself a very young man, a diligent and thoughtful pupil, who in due time wrestled with the great sceptic, and is acknowledged by Scotland as the representative of its native philosophy.

XIII. DAVID FORDYCE.

He was born in Aberdeen in 1711, entered Marischal College in 1742, and was drowned at sea, as he was returning from travel, in September, 1751. During that age and the next there was a strong disposition towards the study of mental philosophy. In 1748, R. Dodsley began the publication of the "Preceptor," in London, and Fordyce wrote the article on " Moral Philosophy." He was appointed professor of moral philosophy in the college in which he had been educated, in 1742. In 1745, he published "Dialogues concerning Education," a very pleasantly written book. He discusses the question whether nature or training does most, and inquires whether the Socratic method is fitted to bring forth what is in our nature. He dwells fondly, like most of the philosophers of the Scottish school, on the influence of the association of ideas. The religion he recommends was evidently the moderate type: "As the religion of Christ was designed as a plain, consistent rule of life, and not a system of abstracted reasonings and speculations, to influence the heart more than fill the head, I would endeavor above all things a high spirit of disinterested and extensive virtue." He was author also of an essay on "Action of the Pulpit." After his death there was published a work of his, "Theodorus, a Dialogue concerning the Art of Preaching," to which was added "A discourse on the Eloquence of the Pulpit, by James Fordyce." His "Elements of Moral Philosophy" was published in 1754. There is little that is original in his works, but much that is judicious and useful. It is evident that he was acquainted with the works of Butler and Hutcheson. "Moral philosophy contemplates human nature, its moral powers and connections, and deduces the laws of action." "Moral philosophy has this in common with natural

1" Preceptor," vol. ii., 1748; Darling's "Cyclopædia;" Mackie's "Index Funererius;" Kennedy's "Annals of Aberdeen."

philosophy that it appeals to nature or to fact." He finds passions or affections, some private, some public, and above these; (1) reason or reflection; (2) conscience, by which we denominate some actions and principles of conduct honest and good, and others wrong, dishonest, or ill." "We came by the idea of moral obligation or duty in the same way as our other original and primary perceptions: we receive them from the Author of our nature." We employ reason in moral cases, in “examining the condition, relations, and other circumstances of the agent, and patient." "Therefore, when we use these terms, obligation, duty, ought, and the like, they stand for a simple idea." He opposes those who establish morals on the divine will, and those who place it in the natures and reasons, truths and fitnesses, of things."

He was born in Aberdeen, July, 1717, and was the son of a respectable tradesman. He received his education partly at Aberdeen and partly at Foveran. He entered Marischal College in 1733, and took his degree in 1737. Originally, he was designed for the gospel ministry; but not finding an inclination for the work, he went, as so many Scottish youths have done in like circumstances, to London (in 1739), and devoted himself to literature; translating "Select Orations of Cicero" and "Cæsar's Commentaries," which were long found useful by youths averse to turn over the leaves of a dictionary. He wrote for Dodsley's "Preceptor" the article on "Logic;" and this was afterwards published in a separate volume, and continued for an age or two to furnish, not very philosophical but very useful, instruction to Scottish and other youths. The work is partly psychological partly logical. In Book First he treats of the origin and division of ideas, and of language; in the Second, of judgment, self-evident and demonstrable; in the Third, of reasoning and demonstration; and in the Fourth, of invention, science, and the parts of knowledge. He was appointed professor of philosophy in Marischal College, May 18, 1752, and entered the professorship, Aug. 21, 1753. He was drowned when bathing, May, 1760.

XV. - JOHN STEVENSON.2

FROM the date at which we have now arrived, we have a succession of distinguished men testifying to the benefit they received from the instruction imparted in the departments of logic and moral philosophy in the Scotch colleges. As being among the eminently successful teachers of his age, we have to give a place to John Stevenson, professor of Logic or

1 "Scottish Register," January, February, March, 1794.

2 "Scot's Magazine," August, 1841; Somerville's "Life and Times."

"Rational and Instrumental philosophy" in the University of Edinburgh. Dugald Stewart says of him that to his "valuable prelections, particularly to his illustrations of Aristotle's "Poetics," and of Longinus on the "Sublime," Dr. Robertson has been often heard to say, that he considered him. self as more deeply indebted than to any other circumstance in his academic studies." "I derived," says Dr. Somerville, "more substantial benefit from these exercises and lectures than from all the public classes I attended at the university." Similar testimony is borne by the famous leader of the evangelical party in the Church of Scotland, Dr. Erskine (see Life by Sir Henry W. Moncreiff). The course of instruction followed by Stevenson is given in the Scots Magazine, and is well worthy of being quoted as an exhibition of the highest style of education imparted in the age. He gives lectures upon "Heineccii Elementa Philosophiæ Rationalis,” and Wynne's abridgment of Locke's "Essay upon the Human Understanding: " in which he explains all the different forms of reasoning, the nature of certainty both mathematical and moral, with the different degrees of probability; and shows how the understanding is to be conducted in our inquiries after truth of all kinds. He likewise explains the fundamental rules to be observed in the interpretation of the texts of very ancient authors. He teaches metaphysics in lectures upon De Vries's " Ontologia," in which he explains the several terms and distinctions which frequently occur in the writings of the learned. He also lectures upon Longinus, πɛpì ʊpovç, in which he illustrates the several precepts of oratory given by Cicero and Quintilian; and also, upon Aristotle, Tepi TonTikhs, in which he illustrates his rules by examples from ancient and modern poets, and explains the grounds of criticism in eloquence and poetry. He gives likewise a course upon "Heineccii Historia Philosophica," in which he gives an account of the most famous philosophers ancient and modern, and the several opinions by which the different sects were distinguished. Each of his students is required to make a discourse upon a subject assigned him, and to impugn and defend a thesis, for his improvement in the art of reasoning. These exercises are performed before the principal and some of the professors with open doors. The students met him two hours daily; one of them was devoted to lectures on logic, delivered in the Latin tongue. It is stated that the college opens about the 10th of October, and rises about the end of May. The shortening of the length of the session in the colleges of Scotland, in later years, has done much to lower the standard of attainment.

John Stevenson was appointed professor in Edinburgh, in 1730, and died Sept. 12th, 1775, in the eighty-first year of his age. It is mentioned to his credit, by Stewart, that at the age of seventy he gave a candid reception to the philosophy of Reid, which was subversive of the theories which he had taught for forty years; and that "his zeal for the advancement of knowledge prompted him, when his career was almost finished, to undertake the laborious task of new-modelling that useful compilation of elementary instruction to which a singular diffidence of his powers limited his literary exertions." (Stewart's "Life and Writings of Reid.")