Besides these general and speculative grounds, there were special reasons, in the circumstances of the times, which led Mr. Stewart to give to his prelections so comprehensive a character, in particular to bestow so much space on Natural Theology, the highest branch of Metaphysics Proper. These are presented in his Preface to The Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers, published in 1828, the year of his death, where he says:-"Before proceeding to my proper subject, I may be permitted to say something in explanation of the large, and perhaps disproportionate space which I have allotted in these volumes to the Doctrines of Natural Religion. To account for this I have to observe, that this part of my Work contains the substance of Lectures given in the University of Edinburgh, in the year 1792-93, and for almost twenty years afterwards, and that my hearers comprised many individuals, not only from England and the United States of America, but not a few from France, Switzerland, the north of Germany, and other parts of Europe. To those who reflect on the state of the world at that period, and who consider the miscellaneous circumstances and characters of my audience, any farther explanation on this head is, I trust, unnecessary. 66 The danger with which I conceived the youth of this country to be threatened, by that inundation of sceptical or rather atheistical publications which were then imported from the Continent, was immensely increased by the enthusiasm which, at the dawn of the French Revolution, was naturally excited in young and generous minds. A supposed connexion between an enlightened zeal for Political Liberty and the reckless boldness of the uncompromising free-thinker, operated powerfully with the vain and the ignorant in favour of the publications alluded to. "Another circumstance concurred with those which have been mentioned in prompting me to a more full and systematical illustration of these doctrines than had been attempted by Preface, S. ii. Compare Stewart's Works, vol. x. Life of Reid, pp. 278280; Works, vol. ii, Elements, vol. i., Introduction; Phil. Essays, Works, vol. v. p. 49; Dissertation, Works, vol. i p. 19; Hamilton's Reid, pp. 216-218. any of my predecessors. Certain divines in Scotland were pleased, soon after this critical era, to discover a disposition to set at nought the evidences of Natural Religion, with a professed, and, I doubt not, in many cases, with a sincere view to strengthen the cause of Christianity. Some of these writers were probably not aware that they were only repeating the language of Bayle, Hume, Helvetius, and many other modern authors of the same description, who have endeavoured to cover their attacks upon those essential principles on which all religion is founded, under a pretended zeal for the interests of Revelation. It was not thus, I recollected, that Cudworth, and Barrow, and Locke, and Clarke, and Butler reasoned on the subject; nor those enlightened writers of a later date, who have consecrated their learning and talents to the farther illustration of the same argument. 'He,' says Locke, who has forcibly and concisely expressed their common sentiments, 'He that takes away Reason to make way for Revelation puts out the light of both, and does much the same as if we would persuade a man to put out his eyes, the better to receive the light of an invisible star by a telescope."1 "This passage from Locke brought to my recollection the memorable words of Melanchthon, so remarkably distinguished from most of our other Reformers by the mildness of his temper and the liberality of his opinions: Wherefore our decision is this; that those precepts which learned men have committed to writing, transcribing them from the common reason and common feelings of human nature, are to be accounted as not less divine than those contained in the tables given to Moses; and that it could not be the intention of our Maker to supersede, by a law graven upon stone, that which is written with his own finger on the table of the heart."" On the grounds now mentioned, Mr. Stewart's lectures assumed a very wide compass. From Psychology as its centre, and with the Psychological method as its guiding principle, his course embraced Metaphysics, or the philosophy of First Principles, 1 Essay on the Human Understanding, book iv. chap. xix. sect. 4. and the application of those principles in Natural Theology; Ethics proper; the theory of Taste; Politics, including the theory of Government, and the science of Political Economy, which latterly constituted a distinct course of lectures at a separate hour. Space was also allotted to the theory of Induction and Syllogism.1 Mr. Stewart conducted the Class of Moral Philosophy exclusively by means of lectures2-the Outlines serving to keep in view the order and connexion of the varied and comprehensive discussions embraced in the course.3 Tradition is unanimous in ascribing to Stewart the first place as a powerful and impressive lecturer. Like his predecessor in the Chair, whom Mr. Stewart resembled in many features of character, intellectual and moral, and whose mode of teaching he appears in great measure to have followed, he was in the habit of speaking from notes, not reading lectures formally prepared and fully committed to writing. This practice, had his manner of dealing 1 See the Outlines of Moral Philosophy, first published in 1793. The attention bestowed by Mr. Stewart on special topics of lecture, was regulated by the space appropriated to their discussion in his published works. 2 Besides giving a lecture, or a spoken discourse of an hour's duration daily, during the session, so as to form a systematical discussion of the subjects proper to the Chair, Mr. Stewart was in the habit of prescribing, at least during the earlier part of his professorial teaching, subjects of essay in connection with the class. Walter Scott, while a student of Moral Philosophy, recommended himself to the notice of the Professor by an Essay on "The Manners and Customs of the Northern Nations." 3 The Outlines have been happily characterised by Jouffroy as a text-book of meditations on the most important points of the science of man."-Esquisses de Philosophie Morale. Traduit de l'Anglais, par Th. Jouffroy, Paris, 1826. Préface du Traducteur, p. 151. This translation of the Outlines, with the Preface by the translator, was at once a cause and the sign of the progress of a more elevated philosophy than had before prevailed in France. Cf. Cousin, Fragmens Philosophiques, which contain a detailed analysis and appreciation of the Outlines. Were it needed, reference might be made to the express testimonies of Scott, Horner, Jeffrey, Thomas Brown, Cockburn-all pupils; the elder Mill, a frequent hearer, and Sir James Mackintosh. The least elaborate, but by no means the least emphatic testimony to Stewart's powers as a lecturer, is the saying of the late Dr. John Thomson, Professor of General Pathology in the University of Edinburgh, who adorned eminent professional attainments by the higher accomplishment of liberal studies -viz., that the two things by which he was most impressed in the course of his life, were the acting of Mrs. Siddons, and the oratory of Dugald Stewart. with philosophical questions been more exact and dogmatic than it really was, would not have so well secured the ends of his course. It was, however, unquestionably the mode of lecturing best adapted to his peculiar powers. It allowed full scope to his imagination and feelings, and left him to the free course and ready promptings of an eloquence which he knew so well to vary, in harmony with the tenderness, the grace, or the sublimity of his theme.1 Stewart's aim and influence as a teacher of philosophy was doubtless less purely speculative than moral and practical. His lectures do not appear any more than his writings2 to have formed exhaustive discussions of the more abstract philosophical questions. Merely to make thinkers, or to offer a speculative system complete in all its parts, was entirely foreign from his aim, whether as a teacher or writer. Observational rather than severely analytic, or deductive, dealing with facts 1 The author of the Memorials of his Time-a student of Stewart's moral and political courses about the beginning of the present century-has left a graphic portraiture of his personal appearance and manner in the class-room. The affectionate and admiring tribute to Mr. Stewart, of which this sketch is a part, confers honour alike on master and pupil. "Stewart," says Lord Cockburn, " was about the middle size, weakly limbed, and with an appearance of feebleness which gave an air of delicacy to his gait and structure. His forehead was large and bald, his eyebrows bushy, his eyes grey and intelligent, and capable of conveying any emotion from indignation to pity, from serene sense to hearty humour; in which they were powerfully aided by his lips, which, though rather large perhaps, were flexible and expressive. The voice was singularly pleasing; and, as he managed it, a slight burr only made its tones softer. His ear both for music and for speech was exquisite; and he was the finest reader I have ever heard. The portrait of Mr. Stewart, by Wilkie, an engraving from which is prefixed to the present volume, is regarded by those who knew him as a faithful likeness. His published works, with the exception, at least in great part, of the Dissertation, are but the leisurely and careful elaboration of the matter he made use of in lecturing. as they are presented in their integrity rather than with their last elements, or their theoretical relations, he habitually opened up comprehensive fields of thought, and thus set the higher minds around him in a course of original speculation; but his was not a power that subjugated intellectual activity by the boldness and force of finished philosophical theory. Stewart's influence, indeed, regarded in a purely speculative aspect, was more powerful by what he cautioned against attempting, and suggested as a legitimate aim, than by the new and definite results which he produced. The philosophical ideal, comprehensive and yet restrained, which he constantly inculcated as the ultimate aim of the thinker, had a marvellous power over the finer minds with whom he came into contact. Nor was this wonderful, for we can conceive no nobler object of ambition, especially as presented to ardent and ingenuous youth, than the intellectual empire to which it points. To some minds, and these the finest of the race, fragmentary science, however splendid, is as nothing. They pursue always either the impossible ideal of an absolute totality in science, or such completeness as is compatible with the actual limits of human knowledge. Even this latter aim-that which Stewart indicated-is too great for actual realisation by the individual. While nothing is grander than the thought, nothing, at the same time, is meaner than the execution. But the ideal is not, on that account, the less legitimate or valuable. The completeness of science is no measure of the perfection of the man. On the contrary, individual effort is higher and more prolonged as science is remote. And if knowledge is chiefly to be prized as it affords the condition of activity, that pursuit is above all valuable which keeps a man continually in the presence of a lofty ideal, some part of which his utmost effort must still leave uncompassed. Intellectually as spiritually, we must live by faith, and in both regions our highest inspiration is from the outreaching and invisible. Nor need the thinker repine though he should have to adopt the language of one who, sitting at the feet of Stewart, felt the powerful spell, and confessed that in the pursuit of universal science he was somewhat of a visionary, conscious that he was pressing |