tion, that the Prescience of God does not extend to all future contingencies: But, on the contrary, we are disposed to embrace both doctrines, and with sincerity to bear testimony to their truth, the one that our faith may be sound; the other that our lives may be good."* [See above, p. 392, Note 1.] [Nor should the observation, in connexion with St. Austin, be omitted, that the Scottish Church asserts with equal emphasis, the doctrine of the Absolute Decrees of God, and the doctrine of the Moral Liberty of Man. The theory of Jonathan Edwards, touching the Bondage of the Will, is, on the Calvinistic standard of the Westminster Confession, not only heterodox but heretical; and yet, we have seen the scheme of Absolute Necessity urged, by imposing authority, and even apparently received with general acquiescence, as that exclusively conformable to the recognised tenets of our Ecclesiastical Establishment! But Mr. Stewart did not, like so many northern divines, imagine that the opinion of Human Liberty which he so zealously advocated as the necessary basis of religion and morality, was not, equally, the one philosophically true, and the one theologically orthodox. See Dissertation, ut supra, p. 575.—Ed.] [Here follow in the MS., as a portion of the text, the observations upon Locke, which, with additions, will be found as finally modified by Mr. Stewart, in the second part of Note D, or its correlatives.] NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. NOTE A, (Book I. p. 146.)-On Posthumous Fume and Immortality. THERE is a remarkable coincidence between this passage of Wollaston and the following one from Montaigne's Essays. "Let us pry a little narrowly into, and in God's name examine upon what basis we erect this glory and reputation, for which the world is turned topsy-turvy Wherein do we place this renown that we hunt after with so much trouble? It is in conclusion Peter or William that carries it, takes it into his possession, and whom it only concerns. Oh, what a courageous faculty is hope, that in a mortal subject, and in a moment, proceeds to usurp infinity and immensity, and to supply her master's indigence, at her pleasure, with all things he can imagine or desire! Nature has given us this passion for a pretty toy to play withal. And this Peter or William, what is it but a sound when all is said and done? or three or four strokes of a pen, so easy to be varied in the first place, that I would fain know to whom is to be attributed the glory of so many victories, to Guesquin, to Glesquin, or to Guasquin? . . . The question is, which of these letters ought to be rewarded for so many sieges, battles, imprisonments, and services done to the crown of France by this her famous constable ? Who Secondly, these are dashes of the pen common to a thousand people. How many persons are there in all races of the same name and surname ! hinders my groom from calling himself Pompey the Great? But, after all, what virtue or what springs are there that fixed upon my deceased groom, or the other Pompey who had his head cut off in Egypt, this glorious renown, or these so much honoured flourishes of the pen, so as to be of any advantage to them?" "Id cinerem, et manes credis curare sepultos ?"1 Fontenelle, in his Dialogues of the Dead, (see Dialogue between Berenice and Cosmo II. of Medicis,) has taken up the same argument. "Les hommes sont plaisans; ils ne peuvent se dérober à la mort, et ils tachent à lui dérober deux ou trois syllabes qui leur appartiennent. Voilà une belle chicane qu'ils s'avisent de lui faire. Ne vaudroit-il pas mieux qu'ils consentissent de bonne grace à mourir, 1 Cotton's Translation. [In the original, Livre I. chap. xlvi.] eux et leurs noms? . . . Du moins, ce qui peut manquer à nos noms, c'est une mort, pour ainsi dire grammaticale; quelques changemens de lettres les mettent en état de ne pouvoir plus servir qu'à donner de l'embarras aux sçavans,” &c. &c. A thought substantially the same with that of Wollaston occurs in Cowley's Ode entitled Life and Fame. "Great Cæsar's self a higher place does claim In the seraphic entity of fame. He, since that toy his death, Does fill each mouth and breath. 'Tis true, the two immortal syllables remain ; But oh, ye learned men, explain, What essence-substance-what hypostasis In those alone does the great Cæsar live. 'Tis all the conquer'd world could give." Notwithstanding the merit of these lines, I should hardly have thought it worth while to quote them, if Dr. Hurd (a critic of no common ingenuity as well as learning) had not shown, by his comment upon them, how completely he had misapprehended the reasoning both of the poet and of the philosopher. “This lively ridicule,” says Hurd, "on posthumous fame, is well enough placed in a poem or declamation; but we are a little surprised to find so grave a writer as Wollaston diverting himself with it. In reality," says he, "the man is not known ever the more to posterity, because his name is transmitted to them. He does not live, because his name does. When it is said, 'Julius Cæsar subdued Gaul,' &c., &c., the sophistry is apparent. Put Cato in the place of Cæsar, and then see whether that great man do not live in his name substantially, that is, to good purpose, if the impression which these two immortal syllables make on the mind be of use in exciting posterity, or any one man to the love and imitation of Cato's virtue."-Hurd's Cowley, Vol. I. p. 179. In this remark Hurd plainly proceeds on the supposition, that Wollaston's sophistry is directed against the utility of the love of posthumous glory, whereas the only point in dispute relates to the origin of this principle, which Wollaston seems to have thought, if it could not be resolved into the rational motive of selflove, must be the illegitimate and contemptible offspring of our own stupidity and folly. How very different must Cowley's feelings have been when he wrote the metaphysical ode referred to by Hurd, from those which inspired that fine burst of juvenile emotion which forms the exordium to his Poetical Works! |