ing occurred for him in 1780, when Dr Adam Fergusson retired from the moral philosophy chair. Stewart was appointed his successor, and continued to discharge the duties of the office till 1810, when Dr Thomas Brown was conjoined with him as colleague. The latter years of his life were spent in literary retirement at Kinneil House, on the banks of the Firth of Forth, about twenty miles from Edinburgh. His political friends, when in office in 1806, created for him the sinecure office of Gazette writer for Scotland, with a salary of £600 per annum. Mr Stewart died in Edinburgh on the 11th of June 1828. No lecturer was ever more popular than Dugald Stewart-his taste, dignity, and eloquence rendered him both fascinating and impressive. His writings are marked by the same characteristics, and can be read with pleasure even by those who have no great partiality for the metaphysical studies in which he excelled. They consist of Philosophy of the Human Mind, one volume of which was published in 1792, a second in 1813, and a third in 1827; also Philosophical Essays, 1810; a Dissertation on the Progress of Metaphysical and Ethical Philosophy, written in 1815 for the Encyclopædia; and a View of the Active and Moral Powers of Man, published only a few weeks before his death. Mr Stewart also published Outlines of Moral Philosophy, and wrote memoirs of Robertson the historian, and Dr Reid. All the years I remained about Edinburgh,' says Mr James Mill, himself an able metaphysician, I used, as often as I could, to steal into Mr Stewart's class to hear a lecture, which was always a high treat. I have heard Pitt and Fox deliver some of their most admired speeches, but I never heard anything nearly so eloquent as some of the lectures of Professor Stewart. The taste for the studies which have formed my favourite pursuits, and which will be so to the end of my life, I owe to him.'

on the Philosophy of the Human Mind are highly popular, and form a class-book in the university. In some of his views Dr Brown differed from Reid and Stewart. His distinctions have been pronounced somewhat hypercritical; but Mackintosh considers that he rendered a new and important service to mental science by what he calls secondary laws of suggestion or association-circumstances which modify the action of the general law, and must be distinctly considered, in order to explain its connexion with the phenomena.'

[Desire of the Happiness of Others.]

[From Dr Brown's Lectures.]

It is this desire of the happiness of those whom we love, which gives to the emotion of love itself its principal delight, by affording to us constant means of gratification. He who truly wishes the happiness of any one, cannot be long without discovering some mode of contributing to it. Reason itself, with all its light, is not so rapid in discoveries of this sort as simple affection, which sees means of happiness, and of important happiness, where reason scarcely could think that any happiness was to be found, and has already by many kind offices produced the happiness of hours before reason could have suspected that means so slight could have given even a moment's pleasure. It is this, indeed, which contributes in no inconsiderable degree to the perpetuity of affection. Love, the mere feeling of tender admiration, would in many cases have soon lost its power over the fickle heart, and in many other cases would have had its power greatly lessened, if the desire of giving happiness, and the innumerable little courtesies and cares to which this desire gives birth, had not thus in a great measure diffused over a single passion the variety of many emotions. The love itself seems new at every moment, because there is every moment some new it is at once, by the most delightful of all combinawish of love that admits of being gratified; or rather tions, new, in the tender wishes and cares with which occupies us, and familiar to us, and endeared the more by the remembrance of hours and years of wellknown happiness.

DR THOMAS BROWN (1778-1820), the successor of Stewart in the moral philosophy chair of Edinburgh, was son of the Rev. Samuel Brown, minister of Kirkmabreck, in Galloway. His taste for meta-it physics was excited by the perusal of Professor Stewart's first volume, a copy of which had been lent to him by Dr Currie of Liverpool. He appeared as an author before his twentieth year, his first work being a Review of Dr Darwin's Zoonomia. On the establishment of the Edinburgh Review, he became one of the philosophical contributors; and when a controversy arose in regard to Mr Leslie, who had, in his essay on heat, stated his approbation of Hume's theory of causation, Brown warmly espoused the cause of the philosopher, and vindicated his opinions in an Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect. At this time our author practised as a physician, but without any predilection for his profession. His appointment to the chair of moral philosophy seems to have fulfilled his destiny, and he continued to discharge its duties amidst universal approbation and respect till his death. Part of his leisure was devoted to the cultivation of a talent, or rather taste for poetry, which he early entertained; and he published The Paradise of Coquettes, 1814; The Wanderer of Norway, 1815; and The Bower of Spring, 1816. Though correct and elegant, with occasionally fine thoughts and images, the poetry of Dr Brown wants force and passion, and is now utterly forgotten. As a philosopher he was acute and searching, and a master of the power of analysis. His style wants the rich redundancy of that of Dugald Stewart, but is also enlivened with many eloquent passages, in which there is often a large infusion of the tenderest feeling. He quoted largely from the poets, especially Akenside; and was sometimes too flowery in his illustrations. His Lectures

desire always attendant on love, does not, however,
The desire of the happiness of others, though a
necessarily suppose the previous existence of some
love. This feeling is so far from arising necessarily
one of those emotions which may strictly be termed
from regard for the sufferer, that it is impossible
for us not to feel it when the suffering is extreme,
and before our very eyes, though we may at the same
time have the utmost abhorrence of him who is
agonizing in our sight, and whose very look, even
in its agony, still seems to speak only that atro-
cious spirit which could again gladly perpetrate the
very horrors for which public indignation as much as
public justice had doomed it to its dreadful fate. It
is sufficient that extreme anguish is before us; we
wish it relief before we have paused to love, or with-
out reflecting on our causes of hatred; the wish is
the direct and instant emotion of our soul in these
circumstances-an emotion which, in such peculiar
circumstances, it is impossible for hatred to suppress,
and which love may strengthen indeed, but is not
necessary for producing. It is the same with our
general desire of happiness to others. We desire, in
a particular degree, the happiness of those whom we
love, because we cannot think of them without ten-
der admiration. But though we had known them
for the first time simply as human beings, we should
still have desired their happiness; that is to say, if
no opposite interests had arisen, we should have
wished them to be happy rather than to have any dis-
tress; yet there is nothing in this case which cor

revere, and whose kindness has been to us no small part of the happiness of our life.

Is it possible to perceive this general proportion of our desire of giving happiness, in its various degrees, to the means which we possess, in various circumstances of affording it, without admiration of an arrangement so simple in the principles from which it flows, and at the same time so effectual-an arrangement which exhibits proofs of goodness in our very wants, of wisdom in our very weaknesses, by the adaptation of these to each other, and by the ready resources which want and weakness find in these affections which everywhere surround them, like the

responds with the tender esteem that is felt in love. There is the mere wish of happiness to them-a wish which itself, indeed, is usually denominated love, and which may without any inconvenience be so denominated in that general humanity which we call a love of mankind, but which we must always remember does not afford, on analysis, the same results as other affections of more cordial regard to which we give the same name. To love a friend is to wish his happiness indeed, but it is to have other emotions at the same instant, emotions without which this mere wish would be poor to constant friendship. To love the natives of Asia or Africa, of whose individual virtues or vices, talents or imbecility, wisdom or igno-presence and protection of God himself? rance, we know nothing, is to wish their happiness; but this wish is all which constitutes the faint and feeble love. It is a wish, however, which, unless when the heart is absolutely corrupted, renders it impossible for man to be wholly indifferent to man; and this great object is that which nature had in view. She has by a provident arrangement, which we cannot but admire the more the more attentively we examine it, accommodated our emotions to our means, making our love most ardent where our wish of giving happiness might be most effectual, and less gradually and less in proportion to our diminished means. From the affection of the mother for her new-born infant, which has been rendered the strongest of all affections, because it was to arise in circumstances where affec-ings! what gratitude do those blessings demand! If tion would be most needed, to that general philanthropy which extends itself to the remotest stranger on spots of the earth which we never are to visit, and which we as little think of ever visiting as of exploring any of the distant planets of our system, there is a scale of benevolent desire which corresponds with the necessities to be relieved, and our power of relieving them, or with the happiness to be afforded, and our power of affording happiness. How many opportunities have we of giving delight to those who live in our domestic circle, which would be lost before we could diffuse it to those who are distant from us!

Our love, therefore, our desire of giving happiness, our pleasure in having given it, are stronger within the limits of this sphere of daily and hourly intercourse than beyond it. Of those who are beyond this sphere, the individuals most familiar to us are those whose happiness we must always know better how to promote than the happiness of strangers, with whose particular habits and inclinations we are little if at all acquainted. Our love, and the desire of general happiness which attends it, are therefore, by the concurrence of many constitutional tendencies of our nature in fostering the generous wish, stronger as felt for an intimate friend than for one who is scarcely known to us. If there be an exception to this gradual scale of importance according to intimacy, it must be in the case of one who is absolutely a stranger-a foreigner who comes among a people with whose general manners he is perhaps unacquainted, and who has no friend to whose attention he can lay claim from any prior intimacy. In this case, indeed, it is evident that our benevolence might be more usefully directed to one who is absolutely unknown, than to many who are better known by us, that live in our very neighbourhood, in the enjoyment of domestic loves and friendships of their own. Accordingly we find, that by a provision which might be termed singular, if we did not think of the universal bounty and wisdom of God-a modification of our general regard has been prepared in the sympathetic tendencies of our nature for this case also. There is a species of affection to which the stranger gives birth merely as being a stranger. He is received and sheltered by our hospitality almost with the zeal with which our friendship delights to receive one with whom we have lived in cordial union, whose virtues we know and

Men

"O humanity!' exclaims Philocles in the Travels of Anacharsis, 'generous and sublime inclination, announced in infancy by the transports of a simple tenderness, in youth by the rashness of a blind but happy confidence, in the whole progress of life by the facility with which the heart is ever ready to contract attachment! O cries of nature! which resound from one extremity of the universe to the other, which fill us with remorse when we oppress a single human being; with a pure delight when we have been able to give one comfort! love, friendship, beneficence, sources of a pleasure that is inexhaustible! are unhappy only because they refuse to listen to your voice; and, ye divine authors of so many blessall which was given to man had been a mere instinct, that led beings, overwhelmed with wants and evils, to lend to each other a reciprocal support, this might have been sufficient to bring the miserable near to the miserable; but it is only a goodness, infinite as yours, which could have formed the design of assembling us together by the attraction of love, and of diffusing, through the great associations which cover the earth, that vital warmth which renders society eternal by rendering it delightful.'

The Discourse on Ethical Philosophy (already alluded to), by SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH, and his review of Madame de Staël's Germany in the Edinburgh Review, unfold some interesting speculations on moral science. He agrees with Butler, Stewart, and the most eminent preceding moralists, in admitting the supremacy of the moral sentiments; but he proceeds a step further in the analysis of them. He attempts to explain the origin and growth of the moral faculty, or principle, derived from Hartley's Theory of Association, and insists repeatedly on the value of utility, or beneficial tendency, as the great test or criterion of moral action. Some of the positions in Mackintosh's Discourse were combated with unnecessary and unphilosophical asperity by JAMES MILL, author of an able Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, 1829, in an anonymous Fragment on Mackintosh. Mill was a bold and original thinker, but somewhat coarse and dogmatical. Among the recent works on mental philosophy may be mentioned Abercrombie's Inquiry into the Intellectual Powers, and his Philosophy of the Moral Feelings. A Treatise on the Formation and Publication of Opinions, by MR BAYLEY, follows out some of the views of Dr Brown in elegant and striking language. The Essay on the Nature and Principles of Taste, by the REV. ARCHIBALD ALISON, is an elegant metaphysical treatise, though the doctrine which it aims at establishing partakes of the character of a paradox, and has accordingly failed to enter into the stock of our established ideas. The theory of Alison is, that material objects appear beautiful or sublime in consequence of their association with our moral feelings-that it is as they are significant of mental qualities that they become entitled to these appellations. This theory was ably illustrated by Mr Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review,

Dr Thomas Brown, in like manner, speaks of latent propensities; that is to say, powers not in action. Vice already formed,' says he, is almost beyond our power: it is only in the state of latent propensity that we can with much reason expect to overcome it by the moral motives which we are capable of present

of human nature requisite to enable us to distinguish
this propensity before it has expanded itself, and even
before it is known to the very mind in which it exists,
and to tame those passions which are never to rage.'
In Crabbe's Tales of the Hall a character is thus de-
scribed :-

He seemed without a passion to proceed,
Or one whose passions no correction need;
Yet some believed those passions only slept,
And were in bounds by early habit kept.'
'Nature,' says Lord Bacon, will be buried a great

in a paper which was afterwards expanded into an Essay on Beauty for the Encyclopædia Britannica. The book and the essay can now only be considered as remarkable examples of that misapplication of talent and labour which is incidental to the infancy of science-the time of its dreams. The Scottish metaphysical school, of whiching:' and he alludes to the great extent of knowledge Stewart, Brown, and Alison may be said to have been the last masters, will ever hold a high place in public estimation for the qualities which have been attributed to it; but it must be owned to have failed in producing any permanent impression on mankind: nor have we been brought by all its labours nearer to a just knowledge of mind as the subject of a science. The cause of this assuredly is, that none of these writers have investigated mind as a portion of nature, or in connexion with organization. Since the Scottish school began to pass out of immediate notice, this more philosophical mode of inquiry has been pursued by Dr Gall and his fol-time, and yet revive upon the occasion or temptation; like as it was with Esop's damsel, turned from a cat lowers, with results which, though they have exto a woman, who sat very demurely at the board's end cited much prejudice, are nevertheless received by a considerable portion of the public. till a mouse ran before her.' In short, it is plain that we The leading doctrines of Gall are, that the brain is the organ of may have the capability of feeling an emotion-as anger the mind, that various portions of the encephalon fear, or pity-and that yet this power may be inactive, are the organs of various faculties of the mind, and insomuch that, at any particular time, these emotions that volume or size of the whole brain and its various may be totally absent from the mind; and it is no less plain, that we may have the capability of seeing, parts is, other circumstances being equal, the measure of the powers of the mind and its various facul-tasting, calculating, reasoning, and composing music, without actually performing these operations. ties in individuals. This system is founded upon observation-that is to say, it was found that large brains, unless when of inferior quality, or in an abnormal condition, were accompanied by superior intellect and force of character; also that, in a vast number of instances which were accurately noticed, a large development of a special part of the brain was accompanied by an unusual demonstration of a certain mental character, and never by the opposite. From these demonstrations the fundamental character of the various faculties was at length eliminated. Thus it happens that phrenology, as this system has been called, while looked on by many as a dream, is the only hypothesis of mind in which scientific processes of investigation have been followed, or for which a basis can be shown in nature. Among the British followers of Gall, the chief place is due to Mr George Combe of Edinburgh, author of a System of Phrenology, The Constitution of Man Considered in Relation to External Objects, &c.

[Distinction between Power and Activity.]

It is equally easy to distinguish activity from action and power. When power is exercised, the action may be performed with very different degrees of rapidity. Two individuals may each be solving a problem in arithmetic, but one may do so with far greater quickness than the other; in other words, his faculty of Number may be more easily brought into action. He who solves abstruse problems slowly, manifests much power with little activity; while he who can quickly solve easy problems, and them alone, has much activity with little power. The man who cal culates difficult problems with great speed, manifests in a high degree both power and activity of the faculty

of Number.

As commonly employed, the word power is synony mous with strength, or much power, instead of denot ing mere capacity, whether much or little, to act; while by activity is usually understood much quickness of action, and great proneness to act. As it is desirable, however, to avoid every chance of ambi guity, I shall employ the words power and activity in the sense first before explained; and to high degrees of power I shall apply the terms energy, intensity, strength, or vigour; while to great activity I shall apply the terms vivacity, agility, rapidity, or quick

In physics, strength is quite distinguishable from quickness. The balance-wheel of a watch moves with much rapidity, but so slight is its impetus, that a hair would suffice to stop it; the beam of a steam-engine progresses slowly and massively through space, but its energy is prodigiously great.

[From the System of Phrenology."]
There is a great distinction between power and acti-
vity of mind; and it is important to keep this diffe-
rence in view. Power, strictly speaking, is the capabi-ness.
lity of thinking, feeling, or perceiving, however small
in amount that capability may be; and in this sense it
is synonymous with faculty: action is the exercise of
power; while activity denotes the quickness, great or
small, with which the action is performed, and also
the degree of proneness to act. The distinction be-
tween power, action, and activity of the mental facul-
ties, is widely recognized by describers of human na-
ture. Thus Cowper says of the more violent affective
faculties of man :-

'His passions, like the watery stores that sleep
Beneath the smiling surface of the deep,
Wait but the lashes of a wintry storm,

To frown, and roar, and shake his feeble form.'-Hope.

Again:

'In every heart

Are sown the sparks that kindle fiery war;
Occasion needs but fan them, and they blaze.'

-The Task, B. 5.

In muscular action these qualities are recognized with equal facility as different. The greyhound bounds over hill and dale with animated agility; but a slight obstacle would counterbalance his momentum, and arrest his progress. The elephant, on the other hand, rolls slowly and heavily along; but the impetus of his motion would sweep away an impediment suffi cient to resist fifty greyhounds at the summit of their speed.

In mental manifestations (considered apart from organization), the distinction between energy and vivacity is equally palpable. On the stage Mrs Siddons and Mr John Kemble were remarkable for the solemn deliberation of their manner, both in declama

tion and in action, and yet they were splendidly gifted with energy. They carried captive at once the sympathies and the understanding of the audience, and made every man feel his faculties expanding, and his whole mind becoming greater under the influence of their power. Other performers, again, are remarkable for agility of action and elocution, who, nevertheless, are felt to be feeble and ineffective in rousing an audience to emotion. Vivacity is their distinguishing attribute, with an absence of vigour. At the bar, in the pulpit, and in the senate, the same distinction prevails. Many members of the learned professions display great fluency of elocution and felicity of illustration, surprising us with the quickness of their parts, who, nevertheless, are felt to be neither impressive nor profound. They exhibit acuteness without depth, and ingenuity without comprehensiveness of understanding. This also proceeds from vivacity with little energy. There are other public speakers, again, who open heavily in debate their faculties acting slowly but deeply, like the first heave of a mountain-wave. Their words fall like minute-guns upon the ear, and to the superficial they appear about to terminate ere they have begun their efforts. But even their first accent is one of power; it rouses and arrests attention; their very pauses are expressive, and indicate gathering energy to be embodied in the sentence that is to come. When fairly animated, they are impetuous as the torrent, brilliant as the lightning's beam, and overwhelm and take possession of feebler minds, impressing them irresistibly with a feeling of gigantic power.

The distinction between vivacity and energy is well illustrated by Cowper in one of his letters. The mind and body,' says he, have in this respect a striking resemblance of each other. In childhood they are both nimble, but not strong; they can skip and frisk about with wonderful agility, but hard labour spoils them both. In maturer years they become less active but more vigorous, more capable of fixed application, and can make themselves sport with that which a little earlier would have affected them with intolerable fatigue.' Dr Charlton also, in his Brief Discourse Concerning the Different Wits of Men, has admirably described two characters, in one of which strength is displayed without vivacity, and in the other vivacity without strength; the latter he calls the man of nimble wit,' the former the man of 'slow but sure wit.' In this respect the French character may be contrasted with the Scotch.

As a general rule, the largest organs in each head have naturally the greatest, and the smallest the least, tendency to act, and to perform their functions with rapidity.

The temperaments also indicate the amount of this tendency. The nervous is the most vivacious, next the sanguine, then the bilious, while the lymphatic is characterised by proneness to inaction.

In a lymphatic brain, great size may be present and few manifestations occur through sluggishness; but if a strong external stimulus be presented, energy often appears. If the brain be very small, no degree of stimulus, either external or internal, will cause great power to be manifested.

A certain combination of organs-namely, Combativeness, Destructiveness, Hope, Firmness, Acquisitiveness, and Love of Approbation, all large-is favourable to general vivacity of mind; and another combination- namely, Combativeness, Destructiveness, Hope, Firmness, and Acquisitiveness, small or moderate, with Veneration and Benevolence large is frequently attended with sluggishness of the mental character; but the activity of the whole brain is constitutionally greater in some individuals than in others, as already explained. It may even happen that, in the same individual, one organ is naturally

Occurrence.

·

more active than another, without reference to size,
just as the optic nerve is sometimes more irritable
than the auditory; but this is by no means a common
Exercise greatly increases activity as
well as power, and hence arise the benefits of educa-
tion. Dr Spurzheim thinks that long fibres produce
more activity, and thick fibres more intensity.'
The doctrine, that size is a measure of power, is not
to be held as implying that much power is the only
or even the most valuable quality which a mind in
all circumstances can possess. To drag artillery over
a mountain, or a ponderous wagon through the streets
of London, we would prefer an elephant or a horse of
great size and muscular power; while, for graceful
motion, agility, and nimbleness, we would select an
Arabian palfrey. In like manner, to lead men in
gigantic and difficult enterprises-to command by
native greatness, in perilous times, when law is
trampled under foot-to call forth the energies of a
people, and direct them against a tyrant at home, or
an alliance of tyrants abroad-to stamp the impress
of a single mind upon a nation-to infuse strength
into thoughts, and depth into feelings, which shall
command the homage of enlightened men in every
age-in short, to be a Bruce, Bonaparte, Luther,
Knox, Demosthenes, Shakspeare, Milton, or Cromwell
-a large brain is indispensably requisite. But to
display skill, enterprise, and fidelity in the various
professions of civil life-to cultivate with success the
less arduous branches of philosophy- to excel in
acuteness, taste, and felicity of expression-to acquire
extensive erudition and refined manners--a brain of
a moderate size is perhaps more suitable than one
that is very large; for wherever the energy is intense,
it is rare that delicacy, refinement, and taste are pre-
sent in an equal degree. Individuals possessing mo-
derate-sized brains easily find their proper sphere, and
enjoy in it scope for all their energy. In ordinary
circumstances they distinguish themselves, but they
sink when difficulties accumulate around them. Per-
sons with large brains, on the other hand, do not
readily attain their appropriate place; common oc-
currences do not rouse or call them forth, and, while
unknown, they are not trusted with great undertak-
ings. Often, therefore, such men pine and die in ob-
scurity. When, however, they attain their proper
element, they are conscious of greatness, and glory in
the expansion of their powers. Their mental energies
rise in proportion to the obstacles to be surmounted,
and blaze forth in all the magnificence of self-sustain-
ing energetic genius, on occasions when feebler minds
would sink in despair.

WRITERS IN DIVINITY.

Critical and biblical literature have made great progress within the last half century, but the number of illustrious divines is not great. The early fathers of the Protestant church had indeed done so much in general theology and practical divinity, that comparatively little was left to their successors.

DR PALEY.

The greatest divine of the period is DR WILLIAM PALEY, a man of remarkable vigour and clearness of intellect, and originality of character. His acquirements as a scholar and churchman were grafted on a homely, shrewd, and benevolent nature, which no There was circumstances could materially alter. no doubt or obscurity either about the man or his works: he stands out in bold relief among his brother divines, like a sturdy oak on a lawn or parterre -a little hard and cross-grained, but sound, fresh, and massive-dwarfing his neighbours with his weight and bulk, and intrinsic excellence.

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