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poetry, no drama, no original philosophy, no fine compositions, no secular literature, now worth reading. The only men of real influence, were the clergy. They governed the nation, and the pulpit was the chief engine of their power. From the pulpit, they moved all classes and all sorts of intellects; the highest, as well as the lowest. There, they instructed them, and threatened them; saying whatever they liked, and knowing that what they said would be believed.1 But all their we derive from Scotch writers down to this time (1682) contain nothing but accounts of the popular fancies regarding them. Practical astronomy seems to have then been unknown in our country; and hence, while in other lands, men were carefully observing, computing, and approaching to just conclusions regarding these illustrious strangers of the sky, our diarists could only tell us how many yards long they seemed to be, what effects were apprehended from them in the way of war and pestilence, and how certain pious divines improved' them for spiritual edification. Early in this century Scotland had produced one great philosopher, who had supplied his craft with the mathematical instrument by which complex problems, such as the movement of comets, were alone to be solved. It might have been expected that the country of Napier, seventy years after his time, would have had many sons capable of applying his key to such mysteries of nature. But no one had arisen-nor did any rise for fifty years onward, when at length Colin Maclaurin unfolded in the Edinburgh University the sublime philosophy of Newton. There could not be a more expressive signification of the character of the seventeenth century in Scotland. Our unhappy contentions about external religious matters had absorbed the whole genius of the people, rendering to us the age of Cowley, of Waller, and of Milton, as barren of elegant literature, as that of Horrocks, of Halley, and of Newton, was of science." Chambers' Domestic Annals of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 444, 445.

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Thus, during the whole seventeenth century, the English were gradually refining their language and their taste; in Scotland, the former was much debased, and the latter almost entirely lost." History of Scotland, book viii., in Robertson's Works, p. 260.

"But the taste and science, the genius and the learning of the age, were absorbed in the gulph of religious controversy. At a time when the learning of Selden, and the genius of Milton, conspired to adorn England, the Scots were reduced to such writers as Baillie, Rutherford, Guthrie, and the two Gillespies." Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 510. "From the Restoration down to the Union, the only author of eminence whom Scotland produced was Burnet." Ibid., vol. iv. p. 406.

"The seventeenth century, fatal to the good taste of Italy, threw a total night over Scotland." "Not one writer who does the least credit to the nation flourished during the century from 1615 to 1715, excepting Burnet, whose name would, indeed, honour the brightest period. In particular, no poet whose works merit preservation arose. By a singular fatality, the century which stands highest in English history and genius, is one of the darkest in those of Scotland. Ancient Scotish Poems, edited by John Pinkerton, vol. i. pp. iii. iv., Loudon, 1786.

Ray, who visited Scotland in 1661, could not suppress a little pro

sermons, and all their controversial writings, are eminently deductive; not one of them attempts an inductive argument. The bare idea of such a thing never entered their heads. They assumed the truth of their own religious and moral notions, most of which they had borrowed from antiquity; they made those notions the major premises of their syllogisms, and from them they reasoned downwards, till they obtained their conclusions. They never suspected that premises, taken from ancient times, might be the result of the inductions of those times, and that, as knowledge advanced, the inductions might need revising. They assumed, that God has given to us first principles, and that He, having revealed them, it would ill become us to scrutinize them. That He had revealed them, they took for granted, and deemed it unnecessary to prove.5 Their method being thus entirely deductive, all they were concerned with was, to beware that no error crept in between the premises and the conclusions. And this part of their task they accomplished with great ability. They were acute dialecticians, and rarely blundered in what is termed the formal part of logic. In dealing with their premises after they obtained them, they were extremely skilful; how they obtained them, they were very heedless. That was a point they never examined with any thing approaching to impartiality. According to their method, all that was requisite was, to draw inferences from what had been supernaturally communicated. On the other hand, the inductive method would have taught them

fessional envy, when he saw how much higher ecclesiastics were rated there than in England. He says, "the people here frequent their churches much better than in England, and have their ministers in more esteem and veneration. Ray's Memorials, edited by Dr. Lankester for the Ray Society, p. 161.

"Believing ignorance is much better than rash and presumptuous knowledge. Ask not a reason of these things, but rather adore and tremble at the mystery and majesty of them." Binning's Sermons, vol. i. p. 143. Even Biblical criticism was prohibited; and Dickson says of the different books of the Bible, "We are not to trouble ourselves about the name of the writer, or time of writing of any part thereof, especially because God of set purpose concealeth the name sundry times of the writer, and the time when it was written." Dickson's Explication of the Psalms, p. 291.

that the first question was, whether or not they had been supernaturally communicated? They, as deductive reasoners, assumed the very preliminaries which inductive reasoners would have disputed. They proceeded from generals to particulars, instead of from particulars to generals. And they would not allow either themselves or others to sift the general propositions, which were to cover and control the particular facts. It was enough for them that the wider propositions were already established, and were to be treated according to the rules of the old and syllogistic logic. Indeed, they were so convinced of the impropriety of the inductive method, that they did not hesitate to assert, that it was by means of the syllogism that the Deity communicated His wishes to man."

It was naturally to be expected, that the clergy, holding these views respecting the best means of arriving at truth, should do all in their power to bring over the nation to their side, and should labour to make their own method of investigation entirely supersede the opposite method. Nor was this a very difficult task. The prevailing credulity was one great point in their favour, inasmuch as it made men more willing to accept propositions than to scrutinize them. When the propositions were accepted, nothing was left but to reason from them; and the most active intellects in Scotland, being constantly engaged in this process, acquired complete mastery over it, and the dexterity they displayed increased its repute. Besides this, the clergy, who were its zealous champions, ⚫had monopolized all the sources of education, both public and private. In no other Protestant country, have they exercised such control over the universities; not only the doctrines taught, but also the mode of teaching them, being, in Scotland, placed under the supervision of the

"Christ from heaven proposeth a syllogism to Saul's fury." Rutherford's Christ Dying, p. 180. "The conclusion of a practical syllogism, whereby the believer concludeth from the gospel that he shall be saved." Durham's Law Unsealed, p. 97. "All assurance is by practical syllogism, the first whereof must needs be a Scripture truth." Gray's Precious Promises, p. 139.

Church. This power they, of course, used to propagate their own plan of obtaining truth; and, as long as their power remained undiminished, it was hardly possible that the opposite, or inductive, plan should gain a hearing. Over grammar-schools, the clergy possessed an authority fully equal to that which they had in the universities. They also appointed and removed, at their own pleasure, teachers of every grade, from village schoolmasters to tutors in private families. In this way, each generation, as it arose, was brought under their influence, and made subject to their notions. Taking the mind of Scotland while it was young and flexible, they bent it to their own method. Hence, that method became supreme; it reigned every where; not a voice was lifted up against it; and no one had an idea that there was more than one path by which truth could be reached, or that the human understanding was of any use, except to deal deductively with premisses, which were not to be inductively examined.

The inductive or analytic spirit being thus unknown,

Bower (History of the University of Edinburgh, vol. i. p. 217) says, The history of the universities and of the church is, in modern Europe, and perhaps in every other civilized portion of the globe, very nearly connected. They are more nearly connected in Scotland than in any other civilized country called Protestant; because the General Assembly have the legal power of inquiring into the economy of the institutions, both as it respects the mode of teaching, and the doctrines, whether religious, moral, or physical, which are taught." Spalding, under the year 1639, gives an instance of the power of the General Assembly in "the College of Old Aberdeen." Spalding's History of the Troubles, vol. i. p. 178. See also, on the authority exercised by the General Assembly over the universities, a curious little book, called The Government and Order of the Church of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1690, p. 25.

In 1632, the "ministers" of Perth were greatly displeased because John Row was made master of the grammar-school without their consent. The Chronicle of Perth, p. 33, where it is stated that, consequently, "thair wes much outcrying in the pulpett."

The

See, for instance, Minutes of the Presbyteries of St. Andrews and Cupar, pp. 66, 83, 84, 118. One of the entries is, that in January 1648, Presbyterie ordained that all young students, who waittes on noblemen or gentlemen within thir bounds, aither to teach ther children, or catechise and pray in ther families, to frequent the Presbyterie, that the brether may cognosce what they ar reading, and what proficiencie they make in ther studies, and to know also ther behaviour in the said families, and of their affectioue to the Covenant and present religione." p. 118. Compare Selections from the Registers of the Presbytery of Lanark, pp. 56, 65.

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and the deductive or synthetic spirit being alone favoured, it happened that, when, early in the eighteenth century, the circumstances already mentioned gave rise to a great intellectual movement, that movement, though new in its results, was not new in the method by which the results were obtained. A secular philosophy was, indeed, established, and the ablest men, instead of being theological, became scientific. But so completely had the theological plan occupied Scotland, that even philosophers were unable to escape from its method, and, as I am about to show, the inductive method exercised no influence over them. This most curious fact is the key to the history of Scotland in the eighteenth century, and explains many events which would otherwise appear incompatible with each other. It also suggests an analogy with Germany, where the deductive method has, for a long period, been equally prevalent, owing to precisely the same causes. In both countries, the secular movement of the eighteenth century was unable to become inductive; and this intellectual affinity between two such otherwise different nations, is, I have no doubt, the principal reason why the Scotch and German philosophies have so remarkably acted and reacted upon each other; Kant and Hamilton being the most finished specimens of their intercourse. To this, England forms a complete contrast. For more than a hundred and fifty years after the death of Bacon, the greatest English thinkers, Newton and Harvey excepted, were eminently inductive; nor was it until the nineteenth century that signs were clearly exhibited of a counter-movement, and an attempt was made to return in some degree to the deductive method.10 This,

10 This I have already touched upon in the first volume, pp. 808, 809. Hereafter, and in my special history of the English mind, I shall examine it carefully and in detail. The revival of the old logic is a great symptom of it. Works like those of Whately, De Morgan, and Mansel, could not have been produced in the eighteenth century, or, at all events, if by some extraordinary combination of events they had been produced, they would have found no readers. As it is, they have exercised a very extensive and very salutary influence; and, although Archbishop Whately was not well acquainted with the history of formal logic, his exposition of its ordinary pro