of the worth or value of the thing itself." He remarks very justly:-"By building a future state on the ruins of virtue, religion in general, and the cause of a deity, is betrayed; and by making rewards and punishments the principal motives to duty, the Christian religion in particular is overthrown, and its greatest principle, that of love, rejected and exposed." He admits, however, that a good God, as a model, has an effect on our views of morals and conduct; and allows that "fear of future punishment and hope of future reward, how mercenary and servile however it may be accounted, is yet, in many circumstances, a great advantage, security, and support to virtue."

Such is his view of the nature of virtue. But Shaftesbury is quite aware that the question of the character of the virtuous act is not the same as that of the mental faculty which looks at it and appreciates it. This faculty he represents as being of the nature of a sense. Locke had allowed the existence of two senses, an external and an internal; and had laboured in vain to derive all men's ideas from these two sources. Hutcheson, perceiving that the inlets to the mind were too few according to the theory of Locke, calls in other senses. These senses become very numerous in the systems of some of the Scottish metaphysicians, such as Gerard. In the writings of Shaftes-bury, two occupy an important place, the sense of beauty and the moral sense.

"No sooner," he says, "does the eye open upon figures, the ear to sounds, than straight the Beautiful results, and grace and harmony are known and acknowledged. No sooner are actions viewed, no sooner the human affections and passions discerned (and they are most of them as soon discerned as felt), than straight an inward eye distinguishes and sees the fair and shapely, the amiable and admirable, apart from the deformed, the foul, the odious, or the despicable." Though in all this advancing quite beyond the "Essay on the Human Understanding," yet he seems to be anxious to connect his view of the moral sense with the reflection or inward sense of Locke. "In a creature capable of forming general notions of things, not only the outward beings which offer themselves to the sense are the objects of the affections, but the very actions themselves, and the affections of pity, kindness, gratitude; and their contraries, being brought into the mind by reflection, become objects. So that by means of this reflected sense, there arises another kind of affection towards these very affections themselves, which have been already felt, and are now become the subject of a new liking or dislike." Conscience is represented by him "as the reflection in the mind of any unjust action or behaviour, which he knows to be naturally odious and illdeserving. No creature can maliciously and intentionally do

ill, without being sensible, at the same time, that he deserves ill. And in this respect, every sensible creature may be said to have a conscience.

He has evidently been smitten with some of the Platonic views of beauty. "We have," he says, a sense of order and proportion; and having a sensation, reason can give this account of it, that whatever things have order, the same have unity of design and concur in one, are parts constituent of one whole, or are in themselves one system. Such is a tree with all its branches, an animal with all its members, an edifice with all exterior and interior ornaments." He is fond of connecting or identifying the beautiful and the good; in fact, virtue is represented by him as a higher kind of beauty. "It is, I must own, on certain relations or respective proportions, that all natural affection does in some measure depend." The same numbers, harmony, and proportions have a place in morals." He evidently clings fondly to the idea that "beauty and good are one and the same.'

We have given so full an account of the philosophy of Shaftesbury, because of the influence which it exercised on the Scottish Philosophy. Francis Hutcheson did little more than expound these views, with less versatility, but in a more equable, thorough, and systematic manner. Turnbull, who founded the Aberdeen branch of the school, and influenced greatly the mind of Reid, avowedly drew largely from Hutcheson in his theories of taste and virtue. Reid and Beattie got their favourite phrase, “common sense," I have no doubt, directly or indirectly from the treatise so entitled in the "Characteristics." Hume was evidently well acquainted with the writings of Shaftesbury; and I am inclined to think that they may have helped to form his style, and to suggest some of his essays. We have an anticipation of the spirit of Hume in the miscellany entitled, "Philocles to Palemon":-" You know that in this Academic Philosophy I am to present you with, there is a certain way of questioning and doubting, which in no way suits the genius of Men love to take party instantly. They can't bear

our age.

The intelligent reader will see how much indebted Bishop Butler was to Shaftesbury, for the views propounded in his Sermons on Human Nature. Shaftesbury, before Butler, had spoken of human nature as a "constitution," had shown that to live according to nature implied a respect to the conscience. He complains of those who speak much of nature, without explaining its meaning (Wit and Humour, iii. 2). He had divided our affections into personal, and public, and the moral power, and represented that power as a principle of reflection. Butler goes beyond Shaftesbury in showing that our personal affections are not in themselves selfish, and that the moral faculty is not only in our soul, but claims supremacy there. Butler declines to say whether the moral faculty is a sense, or what else; and he will not say that moral good consists in benevolence.

Gershom Carmichael.

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being kept in suspense. The examination torments them." Theocles observes, that "if there be so much disorder in the present state of things, he would not be disposed to think better of the future." Lord Monboddo declares that "Shaftesbury's Inquiry is the best book in English on the subject of morals." His Draught or Tablature of the Judgment of Hercules, and his Disquisitions on Taste, originated the theories of Beauty, which formed an essential part of Scottish metaphysics for more than a century.

GERSHOM CARMICHAEL.

Sir William Hamilton says that Gershom Carmichael "may be regarded, on good grounds, as the real founder of the Scottish school of philosophy." We are disposed to retain the honour for Francis Hutcheson, to whom it is usually ascribed. Carmichael does not possess the full characteristics of the school. He seems to us to be the bond which connects the old philosophy with the new in Scotland.

He was descended from a genuine covenanting stock. His father was Alexander Carmichael, the son of Frederick Carmichael, who had been minister in various places in Fifeshire, and who died in 1667; his mother was relict (she had been the second wife) of Fraser of Bray. Alexander was minister at Pittenain, and had at one time been attached to prelacy, but abandoned it to join the suffering ministers. Early in 1672, he is in the tolbooth of Edinburgh. On February 22. he is before the Council, charged with keeping conventicles, and is ordered to depart the kingdom, never to return without license; and February 26. he is transported in a ship to London, where he was useful as a minister, and died about the year 1676 or 1677. In 1677, shortly after his death, there was published, from the copy which he had left, a treatise, entitled "The Believer's Mortification of Sin by the Spirit," edited by Thomas Lye, who says in the preface, "As for that flesh of his flesh, and the fruit of his loins, as for that Ruth and Gershom he hath left behind him, I question not but as long as the saints among you continue to bear your old name, Philadelphia (so the old Puritans of England have used to style you), you will not, you cannot, forget to shew kindness to Mephibosheth for Jonathan's sake." Gershom, so called by his father because he was "a stranger in a strange land," seems to have been born in London about 1672. It may be supposed that the family returned to Scotland after the father's death. We certainly find Gershom enrolled a Master of Arts in the University of Edinburgh, July 31. 1691. He afterwards became Regent at St Andrews, where he took the oath of alle

giance, and subscribed the Assurance. On November 22. 1694, he is elected and admitted Master in the University of Glasgow, having been brought in by public dispute, that is, by disputation on comparative trial, through the influence of Lord Carmichael, afterwards the first Earl of Hyndford. About the same time he lost his mother, and "married a good woman, the daughter of Mr John Inglis." Wodrow, who tells us this, was his pupil, and describes him as at that time possessed of little reading, as dictating several sheets of peripatetic physics de materia prima, as teaching Rohault, and being very much a Cartesian-this seven years after the publication of Newton's "Principia." Afterwards he made himself master of the mathematics and the new philosophy, and Wodrow used to jest with him on this matter of his juvenile teaching. From these notices it appears that, by parentage, and birth, and training, and ancestral prepossessions, he belongs to the seventeenth, but catches the spirit of the eighteenth century. He exhibits in his own personal history the transition from the old to the new thought of Scotland.

He is represented as a hard student, a thinking, poring man, his favourite study being moral philosophy. At the commencement of his professional life, a Master took up the batch of students as they entered on the study of philosophy, and carried them in successive years through all the branches, including logic, pneumatology, moral philosophy, and natural philosophy. This system required the teacher to be a wellinformed man in various departments, but was a hindrance to eminence in any one branch of learning. But from 1727 the Masters are restricted to their several classes, and to Carmichael is consigned moral philosophy. It appears that, in 1796, there were thirty-six students in the third year's class, and nineteen in that of the fourth year; in the latter days of Carmichael the numbers were larger. The classes were swelled by nonconforming students from England, who, shut out from the English universities by their tests and their churchified influence, betook themselves to the Scottish colleges. Many of these were attracted to Glasgow by the fame of Carmichael. college session lasted from the beginning of November to the end of May. On the Lord's day the Masters met with their classes, to take an account of the sermons, and this was a work in which Carmichael felt a special interest.

The

Carmichael was a most affectionate, friendly man, but withal a little warm in his temper, and became involved in consequence in scenes which seem somewhat inconsistent with the supposed calm of an academic life. The college corporation was evidently much agitated by internal feuds, and Carmichael takes his part in them, commonly siding with the party of

Gershom Carmichael.

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independence against the principal. In 1704, joined by Mr Loudon, he protests that several things minuted as Acts of Faculty were written and signed privately by the Principal. The Faculty finds the charge unfounded, and suspends the two from their functions. Subsequently they ask forgiveness, and are restored. In 1705, Mr Law, one of the Regents, complains that some expressions had been uttered against him by Mr Carmichael, who is gravely admonished, and exhorted to avoid everything irritating towards his colleagues in time to come. In 1717, there are hot disputes as to who should elect the Rector. The Masters combine against the Principal, call the students to the common hall, and choose their man. But, in 1718, the Commission for the Visitation of the College finds some of the Masters, including Carmichael, guilty of great disorder in the election of the rector, and they are discharged for a time from exercising any part of their office (such as choosing professors), except the ordinary discipline in the class. In 1722, a bonfire was kindled by the students on a decision in favour of the election of Lord Molesworth (we shall meet with him again in these articles) to Parliament, and Carmichael rushes into the heart of the mob, and gets into trouble in extinguishing the flames. In November 1728, we find him joining in a protest against the claim of the chancellor to sit and vote. It was by such disputes that the constitution of the Scottish colleges came to be settled.

Patriotic exertions helped to relieve the sameness of the college life, and in these the collegiate body in Glasgow (it was different in Aberdeen) are of one mind. In 1708, the kingdom is threatened with "an invasion of French and Irish papists,' and the Masters agree each to maintain a number of foot soldiers; and Carmichael signs for five men. In September 1715, the rising in the north of Scotland in favour of the pretender becomes known. The Faculty agrees to raise fifty men at sixpence a day; the principal provides eight, the professor of divinity five, and Carmichael subscribes for four. It was by such active exertions in the south of Scotland that the progress of the Rebellion was so speedily arrested.

In his later years, as he became known, Carmichael carried on a correspondence with Barbeyrac and other learned men. He had a numerous family, "who were all a comfort to him, except one, who was a cause of great distress." Wodrow says, that "in his advanced years he was singularly religious. I know he was under great depths of soul exercise, and much the worse that he did not communicate his distress to any body almost." This is the only record we have of a Scottish metaphysician having had his "soul exercises;" but surely there must have been others who had their conflicts as they