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man Mind, of which a second volume appeared in 1813, and a further continuation in 1827. He was also the author of Outlines of Moral Philosophy, for the Use of Students (1793), Philosophical Essays (1810), and some compositions of less importance. His writings, though, by his own confession, they leave a true and complete philosophy still in expectation, have been received with the highest marks of public approbation, on account of the singular elegance of their composition, and the cheerful, benevolent, and elevating views of human nature, and the progress of man as a social being, which they present. While Stewart was spending his latter years in retirement, DR. THOMAS BROWN, (1778-1820,) who, though nominally only his assistant in the chair of moral philosophy, had undertaken the entire performance of his duties, developed views considerably at variance with those of Reid, and gave a new turn to this line of philosophic inquiry. Without that majestic and eloquent flow of language, from which much of the celebrity of Stewart has arisen, Dr. Brown excelled him in those acute and discriminating powers of intellect which are best fitted for the prosecution of metaphysical investigations. The latter was thus able to trace back some of the mental faculties assumed and named by Reid, to others more primitive and elementary. He taught that all feelings and thoughts are the mind itself, existing in certain conditions, and that consciousness is not a distinct faculty, but a general term for all the states of the intellect. The philosophy of Brown, of which it is impossible here to give a more minute account, is comprehended in his lectures, which were published after his death, and continue to be used as a class-book.

At the time when Brown was endeavouring to analyze the mind into its primitive powers, the same task was undertaken by a class of inquirers, originating in Germany, and afterwards extended into France, Britain, and America, who professed to have ascertained by observation that each of those powers resides in a particular portion of the brain, the extent or volume of which, in ordinary circumstances, indicates the comparative energy of the faculty. The phrenologists, as these inquirers are called, divide the mind into upwards of thirty dis

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tinct powers and dispositions, each of which they assert to be capable of exertion, independently, or in combination with others; and to these simple or compound operations they trace every action and expression, or other manifestation of character, exemplified by human beings, every individual being understood to have the various powers and dispositions in different degrees of energy. The most eminent expositor of this science is MR. GEORGE COMBE of Edinburgh, author of a System of Phrenology, an Essay on the Constitution of Man, and other works.

In the United States, during this period, no metaphysical work has been produced equal to the Treatise on the Freedom of the Will; yet there has been much metaphysical discussion ever since the time of Edwards. If few elaborate, extended works can be named; still, single essays, or metaphysical disquisitions in the form of sermons, possessing much merit, have appeared, and large numbers of well-written articles that have turned on metaphysical topics, have been embodied in various. periodicals. JONATHAN EDWARDS (1745-1801), son of the Jonathan Edwards already spoken of, and president of Union College, was inferior only to his father as a metaphysical writer. He had similar endowments of mind, and was truly a great man. His manner of argumentation had more attractions than that of the first Edwards; while for acuteness and extent of comprehension, he had no superior among his contemporaries. His Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity is a clear and powerful production, as is also the work entitled The Salvation of all Men strictly Examined and Refuted, in answer to Dr. Chauncy. JOHN Smalley (1734–1820) a Congregational clergyman in Connecticut, wrote a celebrated metaphysical work on Natural and Moral Inability. This production properly belongs to a former age, but the larger portion of Dr. Smalley's writings, which are of a metaphysical cast, are much more recent. Two volumes of his sermons were published at different times. In many of these discourses, the peculiar powers of his mind appear to advantage. The work on Natural and Moral Inability was republished in England, and, as is supposed, translated into the German lan

guage. It has thrown much light on several important principles or operations of the human mind in reference to religion. STEPHEN WEST, SAMUEL SPRING, SAMUEL AUSTIN, NATHANIEL EMMONS, and others, have shown, in their writings, much talent on topics of a metaphysical and speculative kind. Many of the papers which appeared in the Connecticut Evangelical Magazine, published at Hartford, in the latter part of the last century and the beginning of the present, were calculated to advance metaphysical truth, but as they were published anonymously, we have no means of identifying their authors. The same is true, also, in respect to the discussions of a polemic and metaphysical nature, which have been carried on of late years, in the Quarterly Christian Spectator, published in New Haven. They have excited much attention, and some philosophical theories or explanations respecting the doctrines of religion have been ably sustained.*

Treatises on Mental and Moral Science have not been common, as compared with most other classes of literary productions. A few books of the kind, are, however, works of merit. LEVI FRISBIE, who died in 1822, wrote ably on the subject. A Collection of his Miscellaneous Writings, in which were extracts from the manuscript notes of his Lectures, was published after his death. GEORGE PAYNE published, in 1829, Elements of Mental and Moral Science. This book consists, in a great measure, of comments on the Lectures of Dr. Thomas Brown. In 1835, FRANCIS WAYLAND gave to the public a work entitled The Elements of Moral Science. ` This more nearly accords with its title, than the one above named, as an elementary treatise on the particular science which he has aimed to illustrate. In general, it is ably executed. Dr. Wayland's work proceeds on the supposition which has been controverted of late, that 'a careful study of human nature, as now manifested in its various states of comparative vice and virtue, may, and indeed will lead us so far as it will lead us at all, to right results as to its true character; just as a careful study of any other portion of God's creation, will enable us to ascertain much that is true concerning it, and need not

* Ax. ED.

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conduct us to any thing that is erroneous.' Mental Philosophy, in two volumes, by THOMAS C. UPHAM, is a work of merit. He has written other works which have

been favourably received.*

WRITERS IN DIVINITY.

It is impossible, in the present little treatise, to give a particular account of all the clergymen and laymen who have distinguished themselves since 1780 by their writings on religious topics. We can only attempt a brief sketch of a few whose names are somewhat more conspicuous than the rest.

BEILBY PORTEUS (1731-1803), Bishop of London, a divine of the highest personal worth, obtained a lasting reputation by his sermons, published in various forms, and by a great variety of other works, treating chiefly of the doctrines and discipline of the Church. SAMUEL HORSLEY (1733-1806), Bishop of St. Asaph, is celebrated as a keen and enthusiastic advocate of some of those tenets of the Church, which in all ages have been most exposed to controversy. His chief antagonist was the equally celebrated DR. JOSEPH PRIESTLEY (1733-1804), whose publications in favour of the Unitarian views of Christianity attracted more attention, in his own time, than those scientific inquiries and discourses, for which he is now chiefly esteemed. Another of Bishop Horsley's opponents was GILBERT WAKEFIELD (1756–1801), a most industrious scholar and biblical critic, who had retired, for conscientious reasons, from a charge in the established Church. Mr. Wakefield's principal works are An Enquiry into the Opinions of the Three First Centuries concerning the Person of Jesus Christ (1784), A Translation of the New Testament, with Notes (1792), and a pamphlet against the interference of Great Britain with the French Revolution, for which he suffered two years' imprisonment.

Perhaps the most extensively useful religious writer of the period was DR. WILLIAM PALEY (1743–1805), who rose from a humble origin to be Archdeacon of Carlisle, and was a man of extraordinary single-heart

*AM. ED.

edness and worth. His first work, The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785), is one of great value, though its conclusions on the foundation of moral distinctions, on subscription to articles of religion, on the British constitution, and several other topics, have been frequently assailed by equally able writers. His Hora Paulina (1790), Evidences of Christianity (1794), and Natural Theology (1802), ought to be read in the reverse order of their publication;-the Natural Theology, as a most ingenious, familiar, and convincing demonstration of the existence of a Deity from his works; the Evidences, as an equally ingenious argument for the truth of the revelations attributed to him in the Old and New Testament; and the Horæ Paulinæ, as following up the whole with a very powerful exposition of that department of the evidences of Christianity which rests upon the Epistles of St. Paul. The writings of Paley, all of which refer to the highest and most important questions upon which human reason can be exercised, are less remarkable for eloquence than for minute and elaborate reasoning, an easy and familiar style of illustration, and a vigilant and comprehensive sagacity, which pursues an argument through all its details, and never fails to bring it clearly out at last. His works have been very extensively circulated and read; and the Evidences must still be considered, notwithstanding many rivals, as the standard book on the subject.

RICHARD WATSON (1737-1816), Bishop of Llandaff, and, like Paley, liberal in his views both of church and state, was another of the great divines who adorned the latter portion of the eighteenth century. His principal works are An Apology for Christianity (1776), written in one month, for the purpose of defending religion against the attack_made upon it in Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and An Apology for the Bible, published in 1796, as a refutation of the infidel writings of Thomas Paine. The other compositions of this eminent prelate are principally sermons, and charges to the clergy of his diocese.

The Established Church has more recently derived honour from the labours of JOHN OWEN, rector of Pa

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