script, but neither the original nor the copy has been found. The original was probably destroyed by the widow of this great-nephew of Bishop Butler, agreeably to his request, that his sermons and manuscripts, which were numerous, should be burned after his decease. The dean of Salisbury, who was so good as to communicate with his diocesan upon the subject, thus speaks of the result of the inquiry after the copy, in a letter to the writer of this Memoir.

"My dear Sir,

66

Deanery, Salisbury, Dec. 2, 1835.

"I did not fail to mention the subject of your letter to our venerable bishop; but, as he seemed doubtful whether he could throw any light upon it, I thought it better to wait, and renew the conversation. His lordship perfectly recollects the paper referred to in the letter, which I return to you enclosed; but he has no distinct remembrance of the copy which he mentions as having been made for himself. The bishop inclines to think, that either the original, or his copy of the paper in question, may have been sent to St. David's College.

"I shall be very glad to hear that you have succeeded in recovering the paper referred to, as it must ever be a subject of regret that so little is known of the life of the incomparable author of the Analogy;—a work to which, in common with

multitudes, I owe, perhaps, more than to any other uninspired production.

I remain, dear Sir, very faithfully yours,

H. PEARSON."

In consequence of the conjecture of the bishop of Salisbury, that he might have transmitted the lost paper to St. David's College, a letter was addressed to the Rev. Dr. Ollivant, vice-principal of the college, who immediately made the necessary search, but without success.

From some remarks, however, which Bishop Burgess subsequently made, in reference to the manuscript in question, it is supposed to have been both very brief and meagre of incident.

A hope was also entertained of discovering a correspondence, between Bishop Butler and a gentleman in Cornwall, upon the subject of slavery, but this hope has ended in disappointment. Nearly a century ago, a gentleman in that county, a Mr. Vassal, became possessed of a large property in Jamaica, but felt great doubts about the lawfulness of retaining a possession which was to be cultivated by slave labour. Oppressed with this feeling, he made the bishop acquainted with his scruples. A correspondence followed, which the son of the gentleman in question perfectly remembers to have met with, and read, among his father's papers. Upon making a search, however, for the purpose of recovering these letters,

they were not to be found. Whatever letters from the bishop, too, might have been in the possession of his nephew, Joseph Butler, were, together with his own sermons and MSS., destroyed by his wife, after his decease, at his particular and express injunction. This nephew, from his frequent intercourse with his uncle, was more likely, than any other relative, to have had literary relics of him worthy of preservation.

The remarks which are prefixed to the Oxford edition of Bishop Butler's works, printed at the Clarendon press, in 1807, show the estimation in which he is held by that university.-"The object of the following publication has been to give to the world, a complete edition of the works of that eminent prelate, Dr. Joseph Butler, which are too well-known to make any commendation of them on this occasion necessary, either for the noble examples which they furnish of sound reasoning, or for the service which has been done to the cause of natural and revealed religion by the arguments contained in them. The delegates of the Clarendon press, therefore, have thought it expedient to present the world with a new edition of the writings of this distinguished person; not only as he is ever to be ranked amongst the chief ornaments of the university of Oxford, but especially, because the treasures of knowledge to be found in them can never be too widely diffused."

“Oxford, July 6, 1807.”

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CHAPTER XVI.

Butler and Paley's Theory of Morals.-Sir J. Mackintosh upon Butler's style. The correctness of Sir James's remarks questioned.-Diversity of opinion upon Butler's tyle.Butler's theory of morals superseding Paley's.-Professor Whewell's testimony.-American Professor Alden's ditto.

VARIOUS testimonies to the veneration and gratitude due to Bishop Butler, as the great elucidator of the true theory of morals, as well as the unanswerable vindicator of our common Christianity against the assaults of infidelity, have been adduced in this Memoir, in the order of the writings to which they respectively relate. It will not, perhaps, be deemed irrelevant now, at the close of the Memoir, to notice the gradual triumph of the sound moral theory of Butler, over the erroneous moral theory of Paley.

When Sir James Mackintosh wrote his Essays upon the Foundations of a more just Theory of Ethics, the popularity of Paley was as its zenith. Many were conscious of his defects, but few possessed sufficient moral courage to enter their protest against the injurious tendency of some of his doctrines. His system, by almost universal consent, was permitted to reign in the schools; and while there were not wanting those who foresaw

the baneful influence which his principles would necessarily exert upon the public mind, the warning voice was not so loudly and distinctly raised, as to induce the student to reject the pleasing banquet which was placed before him, and to seek a more wholesome and a safer diet. The fact, that, at that period, the unscriptural system of Paley had many followers, and the Scriptural system of Butler comparatively few, is traced, by Sir James Mackintosh, to the want of transparency in Butler's style. "There are few circumstances," he says, (p. 4,) "more remarkable than the small number of Butler's followers in ethics; and it is, perhaps, still more observable, that his opinions were not so much rejected as overlooked. It is an instance of the importance of style. No thinker so great was ever so bad a writer. Indeed, the ingenious apologies which have been lately attempted for this defect, amount to no more than, that his power of thought was too much for his skill in language. How general must the reception have been of truths so certain and momentous as those contained in Butler's discourses; with how much more clearness must they have appeared to his own great understanding, if he had possessed the strength and distinctness with which Hobbes enforces odious falsehood, or the unspeakable charm of that transparent diction which clothed the unfruitful paradoxes of Berkeley."