by the operations of the labouring classes, it was their bounden duty in return to make them as comfortable as a state of contending interests and passions will admit. In short, his impressive and eloquent address, suited nevertheless to the varying capacities of a public auditory, contained an epitome of the personal and social duties of every station of life, shewing that Providence had wisely ordained that individual and public happiness should be governed by the same unerring laws, founded on the immutable principles of justice, truth, and mutual co-operation.

After this address, the candidates for the rewards, amounting to twelve in each division, and who had been already classed on each side of the stage, were announced separately for the reception of their prizes, and brought forward to the public view. The orchestra struck up, on each nomination, a spirited popular air; and when each case was thus disposed of, and they were all again arranged, an appropriate address was made to them, praising the good conduct that had thus drawn upon them the animating approbation of the public, and exhorting them to a cheerful and persevering continuance in the same meritorious path; and concluding with an encouraging appeal to others whom similar circumstances in life might, by their efforts, place hereafter in the same honourable and conspicuous station.

The report of the committee was then read, stating the plan they had pursued to obtain the best information, their assurance to the public that the most rigid impartiality had guided their decisions, and the high gratification they had experienced in the examination of the merits of the candidates: that having so far accomplished the objects for which they had been elected, and which they hoped had the complete acquiescence of their constituents, they would now retire in order that others as well disposed might have the opportunity afforded them of emulating their predecessors in this case of practical philanthropy: that they could not, however, retire without saying, that the complete success attending their endeavours had stimulated them to enlarge their views on the subject of the happiness and morals of the lower classes, so as to take in a wider range of the means to be employed for this patriotic purpose that their speculations being so far the result of experience, they would be happy to communicate them to their successors and lend a willing hand to promote them, and that they were well convinced that the countenance, protection, and friendly regard of the higher classes, towards their inferiors, would do more towards improving their morals, their habits, and their comforts, than all the laws already in existence, or all the reproaches and coercion that a mistaken authority could possibly devise.

The thundering applause with which this sentiment was received shook "the baseless fabric of my vision."" I awoke, and behold it was a dream." Alas! that it should be but a dream, when so much anticipated good might be accomplished at an expense not exceeding the amount of one of the superb and luxurious feasts which vanity and custom have riveted upon the two principal officers annually chosen for the government of the

town.

JAMES LUCKCOCK.

DUGALD STEWART.*

THE appearance of this publication, so nearly coincident with the decease of its distinguished author, naturally suggests the propriety of some attempt. to form a general estimate of his character and merits as a professor of his favourite science; more especially as they seem to us to be not less unjustly cried down by some, than they have been extravagantly overrated by others. This marked diversity in the state of public opinion may be ascribed in a great measure to the sectarian spirit which has always distinguished the cultivators of mental and moral science, and to the decided manner in which Mr. Stewart has himself assumed the character of a partizan on some of the disputed questions which have been the leading subjects of controversy. It might perhaps have been supposed that the abstracted nature of many of these questions, so little connected with any personal interests of the disputants, addressed almost exclusively to the understanding, and not to the imagination or the passions, would have given them some chance of a fair and calm examination; we find, however, that even in these discussions the baneful influence of party feelings makes its way, and that grave philosophers too often shew themselves animated by a very unphilosophical spirit.

Owing to the influence of these feelings both in his admirers and opponents, we think it will yet be some time before the rank which Mr. Stewart is permanently to occupy in the rolls of philosophical and literary fame is fairly ascertained and generally acknowledged. That in both these characters his merits are very considerable, we imagine will be almost universally admitted. The attractive graces of his style, which, though somewhat diffuse, has been justly recommended as a model of that purity, correctness, and perspicuity, which ought to be the distinguishing characteristics of philosophical composition, have done much to promote, especially among his own countrymen, the increasing popularity of metaphysical studies. He possessed the great advantage of very extensive reading, an accomplishment which he has turned to excellent account, in what may perhaps be considered as his most valuable performance, the dissertation prefixed to the first volume of the supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica. Here it is applied to its proper purpose in enabling him to give an interesting, and, on the whole, (except in the latter parts, where personal predilection and national or party prejudice have in some measure perverted his judgment,) a correct view of the progress of thought and discovery on some of the most important subjects that can occupy the human faculties. In a treatise, however, in which we naturally look for original speculation, it not unfrequently occasions us a disappointment, by leading the author to imagine he has presented us with a new discovery, when he has only reconciled the apparent contradictions, exposed the inconsistencies and mistakes, or drawn a nice and almost evanescent line of distinction between the tenets of former writers.

It is in the character of a man of letters rather than of science, that we think Mr. Stewart will be most highly estimated by posterity. Many of his speculations on metaphysical questions appear to us very superficial and unsatisfactory, and his conclusions very far from correct; while at other times, in the midst of the lengthened discussions and diversified illustrations in which he indulges himself, it is by no means easy to ascertain his precise object. But his dissertations on subjects connected with polite literature

The Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers of Man. By Dug. Stewart, Esq., &c., &c. 2 Vols. 8vo. Longman and Co.

and the fine arts are almost always ingenious and valuable; and his chapter on association contains some of the happiest and most successful applications of this principle to illustrate these interesting departments of mental philosophy that are any where to be met with. When to this it is added, that his views on all the more practical questions of morals were just and enlightened, and that in political and economical science he espoused the most liberal and enlarged principles and powerfully recommended them by his eloquence, we shall be prepared to admit that his claims on the public gratitude for important services rendered to the cause of philosophy and the best interests of man are by no means inconsiderable.

The present work is an expansion of the more general view given of its subject in the author's Outlines of Moral Philosophy, and in fact, contains the substance of the lectures which he was accustomed to deliver in the University of Edinburgh, and of which that publication constituted the groundwork. This circumstance may, perhaps, in some degree, account for the frequent repetitions, the diffuseness, and the somewhat annoying egotism, which indeed characterize most of Mr. Stewart's writings, but are particularly remarkable in this. It is divided into four books, in the first of which the author treats of what he calls instinctive principles of action; including, under this designation, the appetites, desires, and affections; the second is entitled, of our rational and governing principles, and is devoted to the consideration of the principle of self-love and the moral sense or faculty; the third and fourth books relate to the various branches of human duty which arc considered according to the commonly received division of duties to God, to our fellow-creatures, and to ourselves. At the end of the fourth book is introduced, not in conformity with any very strict or methodical principle of arrangement, a chapter on the different theories which have been formed concerning the object of moral approbation.

In the first book, as will be expected by those who know any thing of the distinguishing tenets of the metaphysical school of which Mr. Stewart was so bright an ornament, he enters pretty largely into the argument in favour of the doctrine which refers the greater part of our active principles to instincts originally implanted in the human mind, in opposition to the opinion of those who see in these states of mind nothing but the results of education and experience operating, it is true, upon the original frame of the mind, but in a mode reducible to certain general laws. To this question, which has often been the subject of keen and eager debate, it may perhaps be found that an undue degree of importance has been attached, and that no practical conclusions of much value are materially affected by our adopting either side of the argument. We suspect it will even be found in some cases that the difference between the parties is more apparent than real. It is admitted by the opponents of instinctive principles, that there exists an original constitution of human nature upon which external circumstances are to operate in producing the development of the mental and moral powers; and, (though their language is not always consistent or reconcileable to this supposition,) it is not in general contended by the patrons of this doctrine that original instincts would produce the effects we observe independently of education. "The question respecting innate ideas," says Lord Shaftsbury, in a passage quoted and approved by Mr. Stewart, "is not about the time the ideas entered, but whether the constitution of man be such, that being adult and grown up, at such or such a time, sooner or later, (no matter when,) the idea and sense of order, administration, and a God, will not infallibly, inevitably, necessarily, spring up in him?"

If this be indeed the question, it never was really a subject of question. No one ever denied or doubted it. The original constitution of man, and the circumstances in which he is afterwards placed, are doubtless such as inevitably to lead to certain notions and feelings; and in the same way the original formation of the eyes, and the external impressions to which they are afterwards subjected, are such as inevitably to produce the notions of light and colour; but it would be an abuse of terms to call either of them innate. But if this be the true state of the question respecting innate ideas and instinctive principles, it is difficult to see what practical difference can exist between the parties. It appears, however, more philosophical and satisfactory if we are able to reduce the various phenomena of our intellectual nature to a single principle, simple and luminous in itself; the reality and wonderful extent of whose operations is admitted on all hands, and which is found on a careful examination to be capable of explaining all the appear

ances.

"It is not to be understood," says Mr. Stewart, "that all the benevolent affections particularly specified are stated as original principles, or ultimate facts in our constitution. On the contrary, there can be little doubt that several of them may be analyzed into the same general principle differently modified, according to the circumstances in which it operates. This, however, (notwithstanding the stress which has been sometimes laid upon it,) is chiefly a question of arrangement. Whether we suppose these principles to be all ultimate facts, or some of them to be resolvable into other facts more general, they are equally to be regarded as constituent parts of human nature, and, upon either supposition, we have equal reason to admire the wisdom with which that nature is adapted to the situation in which it is placed. The laws which regulate the acquired perceptions of sight are surely as much a part of our frame as those which regulate any of our original perceptions; and although they require for their development a certain degree of experience and observation in the individual, the uniformity of the result shews that there is nothing arbitrary or accidental in their origin."-Vol. I. p. 76.

In the second book the author treats at great length on the moral faculty, with the view of shewing that it is " an original principle of our nature, and not resolvable into any other principle or principles more general." Here also it will be found, if we mistake not, that the dispute, as the question is occasionally stated by Mr. Stewart, is in a great measure of a verbal nature. It might therefore be supposed to be altogether insignificant; but the misfortune is, that the language employed by the advocates of instinctive principles is extremely liable to be misunderstood. It is not always used by themselves in the same sense; and not unfrequently misleads the writers, as well as their readers, into opinions and statements which are not only verbally incorrect, but substantially erroneous. It is from the blending together of two very distinct questions that the argument of Mr. Stewart, and other writers who contend for the existence of innate moral principles, derives the whole of its plausibility. One inquiry is, whether there is not such a uniformity in the constitution of the human frame and of human society, that amidst great and important diversities there will be a considerable resemblance in the moral sentiments and feelings prevalent in all ages and nations; the other is, do these principles exist originally in the mind as a part of its constitution independently of experience? Our author's reasoning, for the most part, goes to establish an affirmative answer to the former of these questions; but then it is a question to which no one ever thought of returning any other answer. But the other is the point really in dispute; and it appears to us that a sound philosophy, aided by correct observation, not

merely of the present state, but of the history, the origin and progress of the moral sense will lead us to the conclusion, that it results from the general constitution of our rational and intellectual nature, in consequence of which we are able to compare together different objects of pursuit, in respect of their value and influence on our happiness, and also to judge of the adaptation of different modes of conduct as means for the attainment of these objects. Such is the wisdom of Providence in arranging the circumstances of our present lot, so as to promote our moral education, that in a state of society in any tolerable measure favourable to the development of the human understanding, it is next to impossible that dispositions on the whole favourable to virtue should not be generated. But these dispositions can, in no proper sense of the word, be represented as an original part of our constitution, since they arise from the influence of external circumstances. It might as well be maintained that the truths of arithmetic and geometry are a part of our nature, because all men who have come to the age and use of reason bave formed the same conclusions on these subjects.

While the general uniformity observable in the moral feelings and principles of men in all ages and nations is strongly insisted on by those who represent them as forming a part of our original constitution, the equally remarkable diversity of opinion with respect to the morality of particular actions has been alleged, on the other hand, as a proof that they are to be referred to education and experience.

"In order to form a competent judgment on facts of this nature, it is necessary," says Mr. Stewart, (p. 176,) "to attend to a variety of considerations which have been too frequently overlooked by philosophers, and in particular to make proper allowances for the three following:-1. For the different situations in which mankind are placed, partly by the diversity in their physical circumstances, and partly by the unequal degrees of civilization which they have attained. 2. For the diversity of their speculative opinions, arising from their unequal measures of knowledge or of capacity; and 3. For the different moral import of the same action under different systems of external behaviour."

In illustrating these positions, Mr. Stewart has collected, with his usual diligence, a great variety of curious and interesting facts. They are valuable in themselves, (though it should be observed that they are not all of equal authenticity,) but they can scarcely be admitted as bearing upon the question, if that question be one upon which two opinions can be seriously maintained. If, as has already been stated, the thing to be proved is merely that the human mind is so constituted that men are led, in the course of their education, to form in a considerable degree the same notions of moral distinctions, it is done; but then this was never called in question. All men believe that human nature all over the world is fundamentally the same, though variously influenced by a multitude of circumstances, such as climate, religion, civil policy, the more or less extensive diffusion of knowledge, &c.; and hence they infer, what experience testifies, that in the views of mankind upon points of practical morality, there will be a considerable similarity, diversified by a variety of accidental causes. The facts enumerated by Mr. Stewart, supposing them all to be received with the credit which some of them deserve, cannot be admitted as proving any more than this. They serve the purpose certainly for which they were adduced, of illustrating the causes of diversity here stated in our moral judgments and sentiments; but we are not aware that the philosophers to whom our author opposes himself have ever shewn any indisposition to make the due allowance for these causes.