HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION 
 IN ENGLAND 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE 
 
 WITH AN INTRODtrCnON BY 
 
 ARTHUR BRISBANE 
 
 VOLUME JI 
 PART II 
 
 PROM THE SECOND LONDON EDITION 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED AN 
 
 ALPHABETICAL INDEX 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HEARST’S INTERNATIONAL LIBRARY CO. 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CONDITION OP SCOTLAND DUEING THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH 
 
 CENTUEIE8. 
 
 Scarcely had James mounted the throne of England, when he 
 began seriously, and on a large scale, to attempt to subjugate 
 the Scotch Church, which, as he clearly saw, was the principal 
 obstacle that stood between him and despotic power. While 
 he was merely King of Scotland, he made several efforts, which 
 were constantly baffled ; hut now that he wielded the vast re- 
 sources of England, the victory seemed easy,* As early as 
 1584, he had gained a temporary triumph, by forcing many of 
 the clergy to recognize episcopacy But that institution was 
 so repugnant to their levelling and democratic principles, that 
 nothing could overcome their abhorrence of it and, completely 
 overawing the king, they compelled him to give way, and to re- 
 trace his steps. The result was, that, in 1592, an Act of Par- 
 liament was passed, which subverted the authority of the 
 bishops, and established Presbyterianism ; a scheme based on 
 the idea of equality, and, therefore, suited to the wants of the 
 Scotch Church.^ 
 
 * Lord Dartmouth says (Note in Burnet's History of his own Time^ vol. i. p. 15) : 
 “ The Earl of Seafield told me that King James frequently declared that he never 
 looked upon himself to be more than King of Scotland in name, till he came to be 
 King of England ; but now, he said, one kingdom would help him to govern the 
 other, or he had studied kingcraft to very little purpose from his cradle to that 
 time.” Compare Burnet's Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton^ Oxford, 1862, p. 36. 
 “ No sooner was he happily settled on the throne of England, but he went more 
 roundly to work.” 
 
 Compare Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. vi. p. 430, with Acts of the Parlia- 
 merits of Scotland, vol. hi. p. 303, § 20; also the Act (p. 293, § 4), likewise in 1684, 
 limiting the power of the General Assemblies. James, who flattered himself that 
 he had now settled every thing, signalized his triumph by personally abusing the 
 clergy ; “ calling them lownes, smaicks, seditious knaves, and so furth.” See a let- 
 ter, dated 2d of January, 1585-6, in Miscellany of the Wodrow Society, p. 438, Edin- 
 burgh, 1 844. 
 
 ® “ Bishops were alwayes looked at with a frown.” Kirkton's History of the 
 Church of Scotland, p. 120. 
 
 * See this remarkable statute, in Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. iii. 
 
206 
 
 CONDITION OF SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 To this statute, James had assented with the greatest re^. 
 luctance.® Indeed, his feeling respecting it was so strong, that 
 he determined, on the first opportunity, to procure its repeal, 
 even if he used force to effect his purpose. The course he 
 adopted, was characteristic both of the man and of the age. In 
 December 1596, one of those popular tumults arose ^ in Edin- 
 burgh, which are natural in barbarous times, and which, under 
 ordinary circumstances, would have been quelled, and nothing 
 more thought of it,® But James availed himself of this, to 
 strike what he deemed a decisive blow. His plan was nothing 
 less than to turn into the capital of his own monarchy, large 
 bodies of armed and licensed banditti, who, by threatening to 
 plunder the city, should oblige the clergy and their flocks to 
 agree to whatever terms he chose to dictate. This magnani- 
 mous scheme was well worthy of the mind of J ames, and it was 
 strictly executed. From the north, he summoned the Highland 
 nobles, and from the south, the border barons, who were to be 
 accompanied by their fierce retainers, — men who lived by pillage, 
 and whose delight it was to imbrue their hands in blood. At 
 
 pp. 641, 2. As some of the historians of the Scotch Church have greatly misrepre- 
 sented it, I will quote that part which expressly repeals the Act of 1584, in favour 
 of the bishops. “Item oure said soueranc lord and estaittis of Parliament foirsaid, 
 abrogatis cass and anullis the xx act of the same pliamet haldin at Edinburgh the 
 said zeir 1684 zeiris granting comissioun to bishoppis and vtheris iuges constitute in 
 ecclesiastical causs To ressaue his hienes presentatioun to benefices. To gif collatioun 
 thairvpoun and to put ordo'' in all causs ecclesiasticall qlk his Maiestie and estaittis 
 foirsaid declairis to be expyrit in the self and to be null in tyme cuming and of nane 
 availl force nor effect.^ 
 
 ® “ The King repented after that he had agreed unto it.” Caldetwood^ s History 
 of the Kirk, vol. v. p. 162. But this gives a faint idea of his real feelings. It is 
 perhaps hardly necessary to adduce evidence of the opinions entertained on this 
 point, by a prince, one of whose favourite sayings was, “ No Bishop, no King.” The 
 reader will, however, find, in the Glarendon State Papers (vol. ii. p. 260, Oxford, 
 1773, folio), a letter from Charles I., which is worth looking at, because it frankly 
 avows that James, in loving episcopacy and hating presbyterianism, was actuated 
 rather by political motives, than by religious ones. Charles writes : “ The pruden- 
 tiall part of any consideration will never be found opposit to the conscientious, nay 
 heere, they go hand in hand ; for (according to lawyers lodgique) show me any presi- 
 dent where ever Presbiteriall governement and Regall was together, without per- 
 petual rebellions. Which was the cause that necessitated the King, my Father, to 
 change that governement in Scotland.^' Compare what is said by a Scotch Presbyte- 
 rian of the seventeenth century, in Biographies, edited for the Wodrow Society by the 
 Rev. W. K. Tweedie, Edinburgh, 1846, vol. i. p. 13. “ The reason why King James 
 
 was so violent for Bishops was neither their divine institution (which he denied they 
 had), nor yet the profit the Church should reap by them (for he knew well both the 
 men and their communications,) but merely because he believed they were useful in- 
 struments to turn a limited monarchy into absolute dominion, and subjects into 
 slaves, the design in the world he minded most.” 
 
 ® “ Had it not been laid hold of by designing politicians as a handle for accom- 
 plishing their measures, it would not now have been known that such an event had 
 ever occurred.” M''Crie's Life of Melville, vol. ii. p. 85. “Harmless as this uproar 
 was, it afforded the court a pretext for carrying into execution its designs against 
 the liberties and government of the Church.” P. 89. 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 207 
 
 the express command of James, these ferocious brigands, on 
 the 1st of J anuary 1597, appeared in the streets of Edinburgh, 
 gloating over the prospect before them, and ready, when their 
 sovereign gave the word, to sack the capital, and raze it to 
 the ground.^ Eesistance was hopeless. Whatever the king 
 demanded, was conceded ; and James supposed that the time 
 was now come, in which he could firmly establish the authority 
 of the bishops, and, by their aid, control the clergy, and break 
 their refractory spirit.® 
 
 In this undertaking, three years were consumed. To insure 
 its success, the king, supported by the nobles, relied, not only 
 on force, but also on an artifice, which now seems to have been 
 employed for the first time. This was, to pack the General 
 Assemblies, by inundating them with clergymen drawn from 
 the north of Scotland, where, the old clannish and aristocratic 
 spirit being supreme, the democratic spirit, found in the south, 
 was unknown. Hitherto, these northern ministers had rarely 
 attended at the great meetings of the church ; but James, in 
 1597, sent Sir Patrick Murray on a special mission to them, 
 urging them to be present, in order that they might vote on his 
 side.® They being a very ignorant body, knowing little or noth- 
 ing of the questions really at issue, and being, moreover, accus- 
 tomed to a state of society in which men, notwithstanding their 
 lawlessness, paid the most servile obedience to their immediate 
 superiors, were easily worked upon, and induced to do what 
 they were bid. By their help, the crown and the nobles so 
 strengthened their party in the General Assembly, as to obtain 
 in many instances a majority ; and innovations were gradually 
 introduced, calculated to destroy the democratic character of 
 the Scotch Church.^® 
 
 In 1597, the movement began. From then, until 1600, 
 
 ’ Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. vii. pp. 342-345. Calderwood's History of the 
 KirJc, vol. V. pp. 614, 615, 630, 631. 
 
 ® “Intimidated by these menaces, and distressed at the loss of the courts of jus- 
 tice, they came to the resolution of making surrender of their political and religious 
 hberties to the King.” MHrie's Life of Melville, vol. ii. p. 92. This is said of the 
 magistrates of Edinburgh. Among other threats, one was, the “ razing and plough- 
 ing of Edinburgh, and sowing it with salt.” Wodrow's Life of Bruce, p. 48, prefixed 
 to Bruce's Sermons, edited by the Rev. William Cunningham, Edinburgh, 1843. On 
 this occasion, Elizabeth wrote a letter to James, which is printed in Letters of Queen 
 Elizabeth and James VI., 1849, 4to, pp. 120, 121. 
 
 ® M^'Crie's Life of Melville, vol. ii. p. 100. Scot {Apologetical Narration of the 
 State of the Kirk, p. 88) says, “ Sir Patrick Murray, the diligent apostle of the North, 
 made their acquaintance with the King.” Also, The Autobiography and Diary of 
 James Melville, p. 403. 
 
 Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. vii, pp. 350, 359. But by far the best account 
 of the infiuence of these northern clergy, will be found in M'' Erie's Life of Melville 
 (vol. ii. pp. 100-105, 109, 131, 162), drawn, in several instances, from manuscript 
 authorities. Compare Calderwood's History of the Kirk, vol. v. p. 695. 
 
208 
 
 CONDITION OF SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 successive Assemblies sanctioned different changes, all of which 
 were marked hy that aristocratic tendency which seemed about 
 to carry every thing before it. In 1600, the General Assembly 
 met at Montrose ; and government determined on making a 
 final effort to compel the Church to establish an episcopal polity. 
 Andrew Melville, by far the most influential man in the Church, 
 and the leader of the democratic party, had been elected, as 
 usual, a member of the Assembly ; but the king, arbitrarily 
 interposing, refused to allow him to take his seat.“ Still, nei- 
 ther by threats, nor by force, nor by promises, could the court 
 carry their point. All that they obtained was, that certain 
 ecclesiastics should be allowed to sit in parliament ; but it was 
 ordered that such persons should every year lay their commis- 
 sions at the feet of the General Assembly, and render an account 
 of their conduct. The Assembly was to have the power of 
 deposing them ; and, to keep them in greater subjection, they 
 were forbidden to call themselves bishops, but were to be con- 
 tent with the inferior title of Commissioners of the Church.*® 
 
 “ This is related by his nephew, James Melville. “ Mr. Andro Melvill come to 
 the Assembly, by Commissioune of his Presbytrie, but wes commandit to keip his 
 ludgeing ; quho, being callit to the King in private, and demandit, Quhy he was so 
 trublesume as to come to the Assembly being dischairgit ? He answerit. He had a 
 calling in the Kirk of God, and of Jesus Chryst, the King of kings, quhilk he behovit 
 to discbairge at all occasiounes, being orderlie callit thairto, as he wes at this tyme ; 
 and that for feir of a grytter punischment then could any earthly King inflict.” T}ie 
 Autobiography and Diary of James Melvill, p. 642. 
 
 As, owing to the passions of the rival classes, every step of this part of Scotch 
 history is the subject of angry controversy, and as even Mr. Tytler [History of Scot- 
 land, vol. vii. p. 360) asserts that “the final establishment of Episcopacy” took 
 place at the Assembly of Montrose, in 1600, I subjoin a few extracts from the 
 enactments of that Assembly, in order that the reader may judge for himself, and 
 may test the accuracy of what I have stated in the text. “ Concerning the maner 
 of choosing of him that sail have vote in Parliament in name of the Kirk : It is 
 condiscendit vpon, that he sail first be recommendit he the Kirk to his Majestic; and 
 that the Kirk sail nominat sixe for every place that sail have neid to be filled, of 
 quhom his Majestie sail choose ane, of quhom he best lykes; and his Majestie 
 promises, obleises, and binds himselfe to choose no vther but ane of that number : 
 And in cace his Majestie refuses the haill vpon ane just reason of ane insufficiency, 
 and of greater sufficiencie of vthers that are not recommendit, the Kirk sail make 
 ane new recommendatioun of men according to the first number, of the quhilk, ane 
 salbe chosin be his Majestie without any farther refuisall or new nominatioun; and 
 he that salbe chosin be his Majestie, salbe admittit be the Synods.” Acts of the 
 General Assemblies of the Kirk of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 954. “ As to the cautions to 
 
 keip him, that sail have vote in Parliament, from corruptiouns : They be these fol- 
 lowing : 1. That he presume not, at any tyme, to propone at Parliament, Counsell o" 
 Conventioun, in name of the Kirk, any thing without expresse warrand and directioun 
 from the Kirk, and sick things as he sail answer (for) to be for the weill of the 
 Kirk, vnder the paine of depositioun from his office.” .... 2. “ He sail be bound 
 at every Generali Assemblie, to give ane accompt anent the discharge of his com- 
 missioun sen the Assemblie gangand befor ; andsaM suhmitt himselfe to thair censure, 
 and stand at thair determinatioun quhatsumever, without appellatioun ; and sail seik 
 and obtain ratificatioun of his doings at the said Assemblie, vnder the paine of in- 
 famie and excommunicatioun." .... 6. “ In the administration of discipline, col- 
 latioun of benefices, visitatioun, and all vther points of ecclesiasticall government. 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 2 
 
 After sustaining this repulse, James seems to have been 
 disbeartened ; as he made no further effort, though he still 
 laboured underhand at the restoration of episcopacy. If he 
 had persevered, it might have cost him his crown. For, his 
 resources were few ; he was extremely poor and recent 
 events had shown that the clergy were stronger than he had 
 supposed. When he thought himself most sure of success, 
 they had subjected him to a mortifying defeat ; and this was 
 the more remarkable, as it was entirely their own work ; they 
 being by this time so completely separated from the nobles, 
 that they could not rely upon even a single member of that 
 powerful body. 
 
 While affairs were in this state, and while the liberties of 
 Scotland, of which the Church was the guardian, were trem- 
 bling in the balance, Elizabeth died, and the King of Scotland 
 became also King of England. James at once determined to 
 employ the resources of his new kingdom to curb his old one. 
 In 1604, that is, only the year after his accession to the Eng- 
 lish throne, he aimed a deadly blow at the Scotch Church, by 
 attacking the independence of their Assemblies ; and, by his 
 own authority, he prorogued the General Assembly of Aberdeen.*® 
 
 he sail neither vsurpe nor acclaime to himselfe any -power or jurisdictioun farther 
 than any -other of the rest of his breither, unlesse he be imployit be his breither, 
 vnder the paine of deprivatioun.” p. 965. “ Aiient his name that for the Kirk sail 
 
 (have) vote in Parliament: It is advyseit, be vniforme consent of the haill brether, 
 that he salbe callit Commissioner of such a place.” p. 966. “ Therfor the Generali 
 
 Assemblie having reasonit at length the said qnestiouii, tuiching the continuance of 
 him that sail have vote in Parliament, after votting of the same, finds and decernes, 
 that he sail annuatim give count of his cominission obtainit from the Assemblie, and 
 lay downe the samein at thair feitt, to be continuit or alterit therfra be his Maiestio 
 and the Assemblie, as the Assemblie, -with consent of his Maiestie, sail think most 
 expedient for the weill of the Kirk.” p. 959. 
 
 13 “ While James remained in Scotland, the scheme of introducing episcopacv, 
 though never lost sight of, was cautiously prosecuted.” M^Crie's Life of Melville 
 vol. ii. p. 178. 
 
 “ James, during the whole of his reign, was chiefly dependent on the money 
 which Elizabeth gave him, and which she dealt out rather niggardly. Such were 
 his necessities, that he was forced to pawn his plate, and, even then, he was often 
 unable to defray his ordinary household expenses. See Tytler's History of Scotland, 
 vol. vi. pp.__265, 266, 272; vol. vii. pp. 168, 378-380. Miscellany of the Spalding 
 Club, vol. ii. pp. xlv. 114. Gregory's History of the Western Highlands, pp. 241, 
 277. See also a clamorous begging-letter from James to Elizabeth, written in 1691, 
 in Letters of Queen Elizabeth and James VL, 1849, 4to, pp. 68, 69. In 1693, she 
 apologizes for sending him only a small sum : “ The small token you shall receave 
 from me I desire yt may serve to make you remember the tvme and my many 
 weighty alfairet:, wich makes it lea than else I would, and I dowt nothing but when 
 you heare all, yow will beare with this.” p. 84. A letter from James Hudson, 
 written about the year 1591, states that “both the king’s table and queen’s had 
 like to have been unserved by want ; and that the king had nothing he accounted 
 certain to come into his purse, but what he had from the Queen of England.” 
 liidpath's Border History, p. 465, Berwick, 1848, 4to. 
 
 “ Laing's Histm-y of Scotland, edit. 1819, vol. iii. p. 28. Calderwoodf s History 
 vf the Kirk, vol. vi. pp. 264, 323. Bower's History of the University of Edinburgh, 
 
 69 
 
210 
 
 CONDITION OF SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 In 1605, he again prorogued it ; and, to make his intentions 
 clear, he, this time, refused to fix a day for its future meeting.'® 
 Hereupon, some of the ministers, deputed by presbyteries, took 
 upon themselv^'es to convene it, which they had an undoubted 
 right to do, as the act of the king was manifestly illegal. On 
 the day appointed, they met in the session-house of Aberdeen, 
 They were ordered to disperse. Having, as they conceived, by 
 the mere fact of assembling, sufficiently asserted their privi- 
 leges, they obeyed. But James, now backed by the power of 
 England, resolved that they should feel the change of his posi- 
 tion, and, therefore, of theirs. In consequence of orders which 
 he sent from London, fourteen of the clergy were committed to 
 prison.'’' Six of them, who denied the authority of the privy- 
 council, were indicted for high treason. They were at once put 
 upon their trial. They were convicted. And sentence of death was 
 only deferred, that the pleasure of the king might first be taken, 
 as to whether he would not be satisfied with some punishment 
 that fell short of sacrificing the lives of these unhappy men.'® 
 Their lives, indeed, were spared ; but they were subjected 
 to a close imprisonment, and then condemned to perpetual 
 exile.'® In other parts of the country, similar measures were 
 
 vol. i. p. 175, Edinburgh, 181'7. Stevenson’s History of the Church of Scotland, 
 
 p. 88. 
 
 “ “ Adde thereunto, that the letter of the commissioner and last moderator, 
 conteaned no certane tyme nor day whereto the said Assembliesouldbe prorogued ; 
 so that it imported a casting loose and deserting, yea, and tyning of the possessioun 
 of our Assemblio ; than the which what could be more dangerous to the libertie and 
 freedom of the Kirk of Jesus Christ, at suche a tyme, namelie of the treatie of the 
 Unioun, when all the estates of the realme, and everie particular are zealous and 
 carefull of their rights and possessiouus ? ” Caltkrwood's History of the Kirk, vol. 
 vi. pp. 309, 310. 
 
 ” See a list of them in Calderwood’s History of the Kirk, vol. vi. p. 347, where 
 the fourteen names are preserved with pious care. 
 
 Pitcairn! s Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 494-602. Forbes' Certaine 
 Records touching the Estate of the Kirk, edit. Wodrow Society, Edinburgh, 1846, pp. 
 463-496. “ Delayed the giving forth of the sentence of condemnation till the King’s 
 
 mind were further knowne.” See also Calderwood!s History of the Kirk, vol. vi. pp. 
 434, 449. When they were found guilty, “ the peiple said, ‘ Certainely Uiis wes a 
 worke of darknes, to mak Chrystis faithfull Ministeres tratouris to the King ! God 
 grant he be niver in greater dangeris nor off sic traitouris.’ ” MelvilVs Autobiography 
 and Diary, p. 626. 
 
 M’Crie's Life of Melville, vol. ii. pp. 207, 208. Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, 
 vol. ii. p. 504. In connexion with these transactions, a letter is preserved in the 
 Winwood Papers, which is much too curious to be passed over in silence. It is ad- 
 dressed by the Earl of Salisbury to Sir Charles Cornwallis, and is dated 12th Septem- 
 ber 1605. Salisbury, who was then at the head of affairs, writes, “True it is that 
 his Majestie seeking to adorne that kingdome of Scotland with Prelates as they are in 
 England, some of the Ministers have spurned against it ; and althouge his Majestie 
 had ever warranted their calling of General Assemblies upon no other condition, 
 then that they should make him acquainted, receive his warrant, and a commissioner 
 for his Majestie resident in their councells, yet have they (followed with some poor 
 plebecall numbers) presumed to hold their General Assemblies in some parte of the 
 Realme contrarie to his commandement. Whereupon his Majestie hath shewed 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 211 
 
 adopted. Nearly all over Scotland, numbers of the clergy were 
 either irnprisoned or forced to fly.® ® Terror and proscription 
 v^ere universal. Such was the panic, that it was generally 
 believed that nothing could prevent the permanent establish- 
 rnent of despotism, unless there were some immediate and pro- 
 vidential interference on behalf of the Church and the people.®^ 
 Nor can it be denied that there were plausible grounds for 
 these apprehensions. The people had no friends except among 
 the^ clergy, and the ablest of the clergy were either in prison 
 or in exile.®® To deprive the Church entirely of her leaders, 
 Janies, in 1606, summoned to London, Melville and seven of his 
 colleagues, under pretence of needing their advice.®® Having 
 got possession of their persons, he detained them in England. ®< 
 They were forbidden to return to Scotland j and Melville, who 
 was most feared, was committed to custody. He was then 
 imprisoned in the Tower, where he remained four years, and 
 from which he was only liberated on condition of living abroad, 
 and. abandoning altogether his native country.®® The seven 
 ministers who had accompanied him to London, were also im- 
 
 ^'3 councell,” &c. Memorials 
 of airs of State, from the Papers of Sir Ralph Winwood, London, 17 26, folio, 
 vol u. p 132. And yet the man who could write such nonsense as this, and who 
 could only see, in the great democratic movement of the Scotch mind, a disinclina- 
 tion to the adornment of episcopacy, was deemed one of the most eminent states- 
 men ot his tunc, and his reputation has survived him. If great statesmen discern 
 so little ot what is before them and around them, we are tempted to inquire, how 
 much confidence ought to be placed in the opinions of those average statesmen by 
 whom countries are ruled. For my own part, I can only say, that I have had occa- 
 sion to read many thousand letters written by diplomatists and politicians, and I 
 have hardly ever found an instance of one of them who understood the spirit and 
 tendency of the age in whicli he lived. 
 
 Ministers in all parts of tlie country were thrown into prison, or declared 
 rebels, and lorced to abscond.” M^Crie's Life of Melville, vol. ii, p. 250. Liberty 
 o speech was so completely suppressed, that, in 1606, when the most zealous and 
 intelligent clergy were banished, “ a strait command” (was) “ gevin to magistrats, 
 and uther omciers of burrowis, that in cace any preacher sould speik opinlie aganis 
 that baneisment, or for defence or mentenence of that assemblie, or pray publiklie 
 tor ther saiftie, that they sould be noted and manifested to the secret councell, and 
 corrected for their fault.” The Historie of King James the Sext, p. 380. 
 
 bee an eloquent and touching passage, in Calderwood's History of the Kirk, 
 vol. VI. pp. 696, 697. •' ’ 
 
 godliest, wisest, learnedest, and most zealous men of the ministrie in 
 bcotland, were either banished, warded, or detained in Ingland, of purpose that they 
 might not be a lett to the grand designe in hand.” Row's History of the Kirk, p. 
 
 ^Pf}^ 9 ^^^oal Narration of the State of the Kirk, pp. 164, 165. Com- 
 pare^./^ Autobiography and Diary of James Melvill, pp. 642-645. 
 
 “ Quhen we wer gone out of the Palice a lytle way towardis Kingstoune, Mr. 
 Alexander Hay sendis back for us, and withall, in the Uttir Court, reidis to us a 
 cliai^e trom the King not to returne to Scotland, nor to com neire the King, Quein, 
 nor Lrmce their Courtis, without a speciall calling for and licence.” Melvill's AutO’ 
 biography, p. 661. 
 
 9 f Colville, xo\.\i. pp. 246, 262, 260, 337-339, 403, 407-411, 
 414. Ihis truly great and fearless man died in exile, in 1622, p. 458. 
 
212 
 
 CONDITION OF SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 prisoned ; but, being, considered less dangerous than theif 
 leader, they, after a time, were allowed to return home. The 
 nephew of Melville was, however, ordered not to travel more 
 than two miles from Newcastle ; and his six companions were 
 confined in different parts of Scotland.®® 
 
 Every thing now seemed ripe for the destruction of those 
 ideas of equality, of which, in Scotland, the Church was the 
 sole representative. In 1610, a General Assembly was held at 
 Glasgow ; and, as the members of it were nominated by the 
 crown,®’’ whatever the government wished, was conceded. By 
 their vote, episcopacy was established, and the authority of the 
 bishops over the ministers was fully recognized.®® A little 
 earlier, but in the same year, two courts of High Commission 
 were erected, one at St. Andrews, and one at Glasgow. To 
 them, all ecclesiastical courts were subordinate. They were 
 armed with such immense power, that they could cite any one 
 they pleased before them, could examine him respecting his 
 religious opinions, could have him excommunicated, and could 
 fine or imprison him, just as they thought proper.®® Finally, 
 
 Melvill's Autobiography and Diary, p. 7 09. Scot's Apologetical Narration, p. 
 194. M‘‘Crie's Life of Melville, vol. ii. pp. 262, 263, 267, 268. 
 
 ” “ Royal missives were sent to the presbyteries, nominating the individuals 
 whom they should chuse as their representatives to it.” M‘‘Crie's Life of Melville, 
 vol. ii. pp. 387, 388. On the character of its members, compare Wodrow's History 
 of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, edit. Glasgow, 1838, vol. i. p. 256. 
 Stevenson's History of the Church of Scotland, pp. 320, 321. Crookshanlc's Church 
 of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1812, vol. i. p. 28 ; and Calderwood's History of the Kirk, 
 vol. vii. pp. 97, 98. 
 
 Acts of the General Assemblies of the Kirk, vol. iii. pp. 1096, 1097. The As- 
 sembly even forbad the democratic notion of equality to be advocated. See p. 1101. 
 “ Because it is vncivill that laws and constitutiouns, either Civill or Ecclesiasticall, 
 being anes establischit and in force, by publick and opin consent, sould be controllit 
 and callit in questioun by any person ; therfor, it is statute by vniforme consent of 
 this haill Assemblie, that none of the Ministrie either in pulpitt in his preaching, or 
 in the publick exercise, speake and reason against the acts of this present Assem- 
 blie, nor dissobey the same, vnder the paine of deprivatioun, being tryit and convict 
 thereof; and spcciallie, that the questioun of equalitie and inequalitie in the Kirk, be 
 not treattit in pulpitt vnder the said paine." 
 
 Mr. Russell {History of the Church in Scotland, vol, ii. p. 88), misled, probably, 
 by a passage in Spottiswoode's History of the Church, vol. iii. p. 210, says, “ A Court 
 of High Commission was instituted.” But it is certain that there were two such 
 courts ; one for the diocese of Saint Andrews, and one for that of Glasgow. See 
 the “commissioun given under the great seale to the two archbishops,” dated 16th 
 of February 1610, in Calderwood's History of the Kirk, vol. vii. pp. 67-62. See 
 also p. 210. They were not united till December 1615. See Scot's Apologetical 
 Narration of the State of the Kirk, pp. 218, 239; and Crookshank's History of the 
 Sufferings f the Church of Scotland, vol. i. p. 28. By the royal commission, these 
 despotic tribunals were authorized {Calderwood, vol. vii. p. 69) “ to call before them 
 at suche tymes and places as they sail thinke meete, anie person or persons dwelling 
 and remaining within their provinces respective above writtin of St. Andrews or 
 Glasgow, or within anie dioceis of the same, being offenders ather in life or religioun, 
 whom they hold anie way to be scandalous, and that they take tryell of the same; 
 and if they find them guiltie and impenitent, refusing to acknowledge their offence, 
 they sail give command to the preacher of that parish where they dwell, to proceed 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 213 
 
 and to complete the humiliation of Scotland, the establishment 
 ot episcopcy was not considered complete, until an act was 
 performea, which nothing but its being very ignominious, could 
 have saved from being ridiculed as an idle and childish farce. 
 1 he archbishop of Glasgow, the bishop of Brechin, and the 
 bishop of Galloway, had to travel all the way to London in 
 order that they might be touched by some English bishops, 
 incredible as it may appear, it was actually supposed that 
 there was no power in Scotland sufficiently spiritual to turn a 
 Scotchman into a prelate. Therefore it was, that the arch- 
 bishop of Glasgow and his companions performed what was 
 then an arduous journey to a strange and distant capital, for 
 the sake of receiving some hidden virtue, which, on their return 
 home, they might communicate to their brethren. To the 
 grief and astonishment of their country, these unworthy priests 
 abandoning the traditions of their native land, and forgetting 
 e proiffi ^ spirit which animated their fathers, consented to 
 abjure their own independence, to humble themselves before 
 the^ English Church, and to submit to mummeries, which, in 
 their hearts, they must have despised, but which were now 
 intlicted upon them by their ancient and inveterate foes.®“ 
 
 We ^ay easily imagine what would be the future conduct 
 
 0 men, who, merely for their own aggrandizement, and to please 
 
 renounce the cherished independence 
 
 01 the Scotch Church. They who crouch to those who are 
 above them, always trample on those who are below them. 
 Directly they returned to Scotland, they communicated the 
 
 if it be protracted, and 
 
 8uche minister hefnre**tl not presentlie obeyed, they sail conveene anie 
 
 aiher ^ proceed in censuring of him for his disobedience, 
 
 thersaU hoirb^!'°r;- wairding, according as in their discretioun 
 
 funheJ tJ and refuse of their directioun to have deserved. And 
 
 bein- eonviXel at their discretiouns imprisoun, or warde anie suche persoun, who 
 Duiiishment ” U t^ioy sail hnd upon tryell to have deserved anie suche 
 
 n£eemo„n?i. 9flderwood justly remarks, p. 62: “This commissioun 
 
 that ever waq in yxalted the aspyring bishops farre above any prelat 
 
 Ion? tvme f ^ possessioun of that which he had 
 
 thelioE f 5 prerogative, and absolute power to use 
 
 eotnmnn Iqto ^ at pleasure, without forme or processe of the 
 
 tlipir narli ’ Lower Hous in England was compleaning in 
 
 So our bishops were fitt instruments to 
 overthrow the hberteis both of the Kirk and countrie.” 
 
 ior„ History of the Church of Scotland, p. 93, and Kirkton's His- 
 
 mpn’ tn nori On indignantly says, that James “perswaded a few unworthy 
 
 episcopall consecration by the English 
 an,i T exercise that odious office in Scotland against their own oath 
 
 Compare the contemptuous notice, in How's 
 on anoynting of oyle and other ceremonies,” and 
 
 cared for tbe\‘h Edeed, on this subject, every Scotch writer who 
 
 ffignatfoi ^ ^ country, expressed himself either with contempt or in- 
 
214 
 
 CONDITION OF SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 consecration they had received in England to their fellow- 
 bishops,®* who were of the like mould to themselves, in so far 
 as all of them aided James in his attempt to subjugate the 
 liberties of their native country. Being now properly ordained, 
 their spiritual life was complete ; it remained for them to secure 
 the happiness of their temporal life. This they did, by gradually 
 monopolizing all authority, and treating with unsparing sever- 
 ity those who opposed them. The full triumph of the bishops 
 was reserved for the reign of Charles I., when a number ot them 
 obtained seats in the privy-council, where they behaved with 
 such overbearing insolence, that even Clarendon, notwithstand- 
 ing his notorious partiality for their order, censures their con- 
 duct.®* In the time, however, of James I., they carried nearly 
 every thing before them.®® They deprived the towns of their 
 privileges, and forced them to receive magistrates ot their own 
 choosing.®* They accumulated wealth, and made an ostenta- 
 tious display of it ; which was the more disgraceful, as the 
 country was miserably poor, and their fellow-subjects were 
 starving around them.®® The Lords of the Articles, without 
 
 Calderwood, with ill-suppressed bitterness, says, “ efter the same maner that 
 they were consecrated themselfs, als neere as they could imitate.^' History of tht 
 Kirk, vol. vii. p. 162. Compare Wodrow's Collections, vol. i. parti, p. 293. “The 
 Bishops ordeaned in England keeped as near the manner taken with themselves 
 there as they could.” 
 
 “ Some of them, by want of temper, or want of breeding, did not behave 
 themselves, with that decency in their debates, towards the greatest men of the 
 kingdom, as in discretion they ought to have done, and as the others reasonably 
 expected from them.” Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, edit. Oxford, 1843, p. 
 36. In 1633, “nine of them were privy councillors; ” and “their pride was cried 
 out upon as unsupportable.” Burnet's Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton, p. 38. 
 Sir John Scot imputes to them “insolence, pride, and avarice.” Scot's Staggering 
 State of the Scots Statesmen, Edinburgh, 1764, p. 41. See also Spalding's History 
 of the Troubles, vol. i. pp. 46, 47, Edinburgh, 1828, 4to. 
 
 So early as 1613, a letter from James Inglish (preserved in Wodrow's Collec- 
 tions, vol. ii. part i. p. 110, Glasgow, 1846, 4to) complains that “the libertys ot the 
 Lord’s Kirk are greatly abridged by the pride of Bishops, and their power daily 
 increases over her.” Civil rights were equally set at nought by the bishops; and, 
 among other enactments which they obtained, one was, “ that no man should be 
 permitted to practice or profess any physic, unless he had first satisfied the bishop 
 of the diocese touching his religion.” Spottiswoode' s History of the Church of Scot- 
 land, vol. iii. p. 236. This at once gave them the control of the whole medical 
 profession. 
 
 “Not satisfied with ruling the church-courts, they claimed an extensive civil 
 authority within their dioceses. The burghs w^ere deprived of their privileges, and 
 forced to receive such magistrates as their episcopal superiors, in concert with the 
 court, were pleased to nominate.” .... “ Archbishop Gladstanes, in a letter 
 
 to the King, June the 9th, 1611, says: ‘It was your pleasure and direction, that I 
 sould be possessed with the like privileges in the electione of the magistrats there 
 (in St. Andrews), as my lord of Glasgow is endued with in that his city. Sir, whereas 
 they are troublesome, I will be answerable to your Majesty and Counsell for them, 
 after that I be possessed of my right.’ Ms. in Bibl. Jurid. Edin. M. 6, 9. n». 72.” 
 MCrie's Life of Melville, vol. ii. p. 422. 
 
 * And their prodigality was equal to their rapacity. When Archbishop Glad- 
 *tanes died, in 1616, it was ascertained that, “notwithstanding of the great rent of 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 215 
 
 t^hose sanction no measure could be presented to parliament, 
 had been hitherto elected by laymen but the bishops now 
 effected a change by virtue of which the right of nomination 
 devolved on themselves.®® Having thus gained possession of 
 the legislature, they obtaioed the enactment of fresh penalties 
 against their countrymen. Great numbers of the clergy they 
 suspended ; others they deprived of their benefices ; others they 
 imprisoned. The city of Edinburgh, being opposed to the rites 
 and ceremonies lately introduced, and being, hke the rest of the 
 country, hostile to episcopacy, the bishops fell on it also, dis- 
 placed several of its magistrates, seized some of the principal 
 citizens, and threatened to deprive it of the courts of justice, 
 and of the honour of being the seat of government.®’' 
 
 In the midst of all this, and while things seemed to be at 
 their worst, a great reaction was preparing. And the explana- 
 tion of the reaction is to be found in that vast and pregnant 
 principle, on which I have often insisted, but which our common 
 historians are unable to understand ; namely, that a bad gov- 
 ernment, bad laws, or laws badly administered, are, indeed, 
 extremely injurious at the time, but can produce no permanent 
 mischiet * in other words, they may harm a country, but can 
 never ruin it. As long as the people are sound, there is life, 
 and while there is life, there will be reaction. In such case, 
 tyranny provokes rebellion, and despotism causes freedom. But 
 if the people are unsound, all hope is gone, and the nation 
 perishes.^ In both instances, government is, in the long-run, 
 inoperative, and is nowise responsible for the ultimate result. 
 The ruling classes have, for the moment, immense power, which 
 they invariably abuse, except when they are restrained, either 
 by fear, or by shame. The people may inspire them with fear ; 
 
 his bishopric, he died in the debt of twentie thowsand pounds.” Ccdderwood's His- 
 tory of the Kirk, vol. vii. p. 197. See also p. 303. Also the case of the Bishop of 
 Galloway, who died in 1619, and of whom Calderwood says (History of the Kirk, toL 
 vii. p. 350),^ “It is thought, that if just calculation were made of the commoditie ex- 
 torted by him through his diocie, by advice of his two covetous counsellours, Andro 
 Couper, his brother, and Johne Gilmour, wrytter in Edinburgh, for his use and theirs, 
 by ractiug of rents, getting of grassoumes, setting of tacks, of teithes, and other 
 like pieanes, wold surmount the soume of an hundreth thousand merks, or, in the 
 opinion of others, almost the double ; so that manie within that diocie, and the an- 
 nexed prelacies, sail hardlie recover their estates in their time.” Compare Steven- 
 son's History of the Church, pp. 212, 392. 
 
 On this change, which was completed in 1621, see Laing's History of Scotland, 
 vol. iii. p. 88 ; G alder vooodHs History of the Kirk, vol. vii. p. 490 ; and Baillie's Let- 
 ters and Journals, vol. i. p. 486, edit. Laing, Edinburgh, 1841. 
 
 " Calderwood: s History of the Kirk, vol. vii. pp. 472-474, 507, 609, 511, 517-520, 
 630-643, 649-553, 666, 667, 614, 621. Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iii. pp. 90, 
 91. Lamg, very unjustly, accuses the bishops of being so merciful as to disapprove 
 of some of these transactions. But whoever has read much of the Scotch literature 
 of the seventeenth century, will cheerfully exonerate the bishops from a charge 
 which they would themselves have repelled, and to which they are nowise amenable. 
 
216 
 
 CONDITION OF SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 public opinion may inspire them with shame. But whether or 
 not that shall happen, depends on the spirit of the people, and 
 on the state of opinion. These two circumstances are them- 
 selves governed by a long chain of antecedents, stretching back 
 to a period, always very distant, and sometimes so remote to 
 baffle observation. When the evidence is sufficiently abur 
 those antecedents may be generalized ; and their genera 
 tion conducts us to certain large and powerful causes, on wLxv,.x 
 the whole movement depends. In short periods, the operation 
 of these causes is imperceptible, but in long periods, it is con- 
 spicuous and supreme ; it colours the national character ; it 
 controls the great sweep and average of affairs. In Scotland, 
 as I have already shown, general causes made the people love 
 their clergy, and made the clergy love liberty. As long as these 
 two facts coexisted, the destiny of the nation was safe. It 
 might be injured, insulted, and trampled upon. It might be 
 harmed in various ways ; but the greater the harm, the surer 
 the remedy, because the higher the spirit of the country would 
 be roused. All that was needed was, a little more time, and 
 a little more provocation. We, who, standing at a distance, 
 can contemplate these matters from an elevation, and see how 
 events pressed on and thickened, cannot mistake the regularity 
 of their sequence. Notwithstanding the apparent confusion, 
 all was orderly and methodical. To us, the scheme is revealed. 
 There is the fabric, and it is of one hue, and one make. The 
 pattern is plainly marked, and fortunately it was worked into 
 a texture whose mighty web was not to be broken, either by 
 the arts, or the violence, of designing men. 
 
 It was, therefore, of no avail that tyranny did her utmost. 
 It was of no avail that the throne was occupied by a despotic 
 and unscrupulous king, who was succeeded by another, more 
 despotic and more unscrupulous than himself. It was of no 
 avail that a handful of meddling and intrusive bishops, deriving 
 their consecration from London, and supported by the authority 
 of the English church, took counsel together, and conspired 
 against the liberties of their native land. They played the part 
 of spies and of traitors, but they played it in vain. Yet, every 
 thing that government could give them, it gave. They had the 
 law on their side, and they had the right of administering the 
 law. They were legislators, councillors, and judges. They had 
 wealth ; they had high-sounding titles ; they had all the pomp 
 and attributes for which they bartered their independence, and 
 with which they hoped to dazzle the eyes of the vulgar. Still, 
 they could not turn back the stream ; they could not even stop 
 it ; they could not prevent it from coining on, and swallowing 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 217 ' 
 
 them up in its course. Before that generation passed away, 
 these little men, big though they were in their own conceit, 
 succumbed, and fell. The hand of the age was upon them, and 
 they were unable to resist. They were struck down, and hum- 
 ’ ^hey were stripped of their offices, their honours, and 
 ^plendour ; they lost all which minds like theirs hold most 
 Their fate is an instructive lesson. It is a lesson, both 
 to the rulers of nations, and to those who write the history 
 of nations. To rulers, in so far as it is one of many proofs 
 how little they can do, and how insignificant is the part which 
 they play in the great drama of the world. To historians, the 
 result should be especially instructive, as convincing them that 
 the events on which they concentrate their attention, and which 
 they believe to be of supreme importance, are in reality of tri- 
 I fling value, and, so far from holding the first rank, ought to be 
 made subservient to those large and comprehensive studies, by 
 whose aid alone, we can ascertain the conditions which deter- 
 mine the tread and destiny of nations. 
 
 The events that now happened in Scotland, may be quickly 
 told. The patience of the country was well-nigh exhausted, and 
 the day of reckoning was at hand.®® In 1637, the people began 
 [ to rise. In the summer of that year, the first great riot broke 
 
 ' out in Edinburgh,®® The flame quickly spread, and noth- 
 
 j ing could stop it. By October, the whole nation was up, and 
 
 1 an accusation was preferred against the bishops, which was 
 
 signed by nearly every corporation, and by men of all ranks. 
 In November, the Scotch, in defiance of the Crown, organized 
 a system of representation of their own, in which every 
 class had a share. Early in 1638, the National Covenant 
 was framed ; and the eagerness with which it was sworn to, 
 showed that the people were determined, at all hazards, to 
 vindicate their rights,^® It was now evident that all was over. 
 
 In October 1637, Baillie, who was carefully watcbin" the course of affairs, 
 writes, “ No man may speak any thing in publick for the king’s part, except he would 
 have himself marked for a sacrifice to be killed one day. I think our people pos' 
 sessed with a bloody devill, farr above any thing that ever I could have imagined, 
 though the masse in Latine had been presented.” And, in a postscript, dated 8d 
 October, he adds : “ My fears in my former went no farther then to ane ecclesiastik 
 separation, but now I am more affrayit for a bloudie civill warr.” Baillie's Letters 
 and Journals, edit. Laing, Edinburgh, 1841, vol. i. pp. 23, 26. 
 
 Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 131. Chambers' Annals, vol. ii. pp. 
 101-104. Spalding's History of the Troubles in Scotland, vol. i. pp. 47, 48. 
 
 40 u rpjjg accusation, among themselves a bond of union, and to their enemies a 
 signal of hostility, was subscribed by the nobility, the gentry, the clergy, and after- 
 wards by all ranks, and almost by every corporation in the kingdom.” Laing's 
 History of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 137. 
 
 *' Ibid., vol. iii. p. 138. 
 
 “ It was signed by a large majority of the people, in a paroxysm of enthusiasm 
 beyond aU example in our history.” Cha7nbers' Annals, vol. ii. p. 106. Kirkton, 
 
218 
 
 CONDITION 0¥ SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 During the summer of 1638, preparations were made, and, in 
 the autumn, the storm broke. In November, the first General 
 Assembly seen in Scotland for twenty years, met at Glasgow.^ ^ 
 The Marquis of Hamilton, the king’s commissioner, ordered the 
 members to separate.^^ They refused.^® Nor would they dis- 
 band, until they had done the work expected from them,^® By 
 their vote, the democratic institution of presbyteries was restored 
 to its old power ; the forms of consecration were done away 
 with ; the bishops were degraded from their functions, and epis- 
 copacy was abohshed.'*’' 
 
 Thus, the bishops fell, even more rapidly than they had 
 risen. As, however, their fall was merely a part of the demo- 
 cratic movement, matters could not stop there.^® Scarcely had 
 
 who was a contemporary, says, “And though only eleven private men (and some of 
 them very inconsiderable) had the boldness first to begin this work, without ever 
 asking leave of king or council, yet was it very quickly taken by all the people of 
 Scotland, with hands lifted up in most solemn manner.” Kirkton'a History of the 
 Church of Scotland, p. 33. Lord Somerville, taking a somewhat different view of 
 affairs, remarks, that “the generalitie of the natione entered into a hellish covenant, 
 wherein they mutually obleidged themselves to extirpate episcopacy, and to defend 
 each other against all persones whatsoever, noe not excepting the persone of his 
 sacred majestie ; but upon conditiones of ther oune frameing.” Somerville's Memoh-ie 
 of the Somervilles, vol. ii. 18'7. 
 
 There had been no General Assembly since 1618. Argyll's Presbytery Exam- 
 ined, p. 102; and the Spottiswoode Miscellany, vol. i. p. 88. But, “the provincial 
 synods, presbyteries, and sessions still remained, and in these, good men mutually 
 comforted one another.” Stevenson's History of the Church of Scotland, p. 162. 
 
 ** “ The assembly went on at such a rate, that the marquis judged it no longer 
 fit to bear with their courses.” Burnet's Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton, p. 128. 
 “In end, seeing nothing said in reason did prevail, he, in his majesty’s name, dis- 
 solved the assembly, and discharged their further proceeding under pain of treason.” 
 p. 136. 
 
 ^ Stevenson's History of the Church of Scotland, p. 310. 
 
 “Notwithstanding the Proclamation, the Assembly presently thereafter met, 
 and sat daily for divers weeks, until they had done their affairs, and were themselves 
 pleas’d to dissolve.” Guthry's Memoirs, p. 41, edit. London, 1702. 
 
 ■*’' Acts of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, from 1638 to 1842, 
 Edinburgh, 1843, pp. 9-18. Stevenson's History of the Church of Scotland, pp. 332, 
 338. 
 
 See, on their fall, some highly characteristic remarks in Baillie's Letters and 
 Journals, vol. i. p. 168. In 1639, Howell writes from Edinburgh, “The Bishops are 
 all gone to wrack, and they have had but a sorry funeral ; the very name is grown 
 so contemptible, that a black dog, if he hath any white marks about him, is called 
 Bishop. Our Lord of Canterbury is grown here so odious, that they call him com- 
 monly in the pulpit, the Priest of Baal, and the Son of Belial.” Howell's Letters, edit. 
 London, 1764, p. 276. 
 
 “ That people, after they had once begun, pursued the business vigorously, and 
 wnth all imaginable contempt of the government.” Clarendon's History of the Rebel- 
 lion, p. 46. Now, for the first time, the English government began to tremble. On 
 the 13th December 1639, Secretary ’W'indebank writes, “His Majesty near these six 
 weeks last past hath been in continual consultations with a select Committee of some 
 of his Council (of which I have had the honour to be one), how to redress his affairs 
 in Scotland, the fire continuing there, and growing to that danger, that it threatens 
 not only the Monarchical Government there, but even that of this kingdom." Claren- 
 don State Papers, vol. ii. p. 81, Oxford, 1773, folio. This is the earliest intimation 
 I have met with of Charles and his advisers being aware of their real peril. But 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 219 
 
 the^ Scotch expelled their bishops, when they made war upon 
 their king. In 1639, they took up arms against Charles. In 
 1640, they invaded England. In 1641, the king, with the hope 
 of appeasing them, visited Scotland, and agreed to most of their 
 demands. It was too late. The people were hot, and a cry for 
 blood had gone forth. War again broke out. The Scotch united 
 with the English, and Charles was everywhere defeated. As a 
 last chance, he threw himself upon the mercy of his northern sub- 
 jects.®® But his offences were of that rank and luxuriant growth, 
 that it was impossible to forgive them. Indeed, the Scotch, instead 
 of pardoning him, turned him to profit. He had not only trampled 
 on their liberties, he had also put them to an enormous expense. 
 For the injury, he could offer no adequate atonement ; but the 
 expense they had incurred, might be defrayed. And as it is an 
 old and recognized maxim, that he who cannot pay with his 
 purse, shall pay with his body, the Scotch saw no reason why 
 they should not derive some advantage from the person of their 
 sovereign, particularly as, hitherto, he had caused them nothing 
 but loss and annoyance. They, therefore, gave him up to the 
 English, and, in return, received a large sum of money, which 
 they claimed as arrears due to them for the cost of maldng war 
 on him.®i By this arrangement, both of the contracting parties 
 
 though the king was capable of fear, he was incapable of compunction. There is 
 no evidence on record, to show that he even felt remorse for having planned and 
 executed those arbitrary and unprincipled measures, by which he inflicted immense 
 misery upon Scotland and England, but more especially upon Scotland. 
 
 “ The king was now so waik, haueing nether toune, fort, nor armie, and Ox- 
 ford being a waik and onfortified toune, from whence he looked daylie to be taken 
 perforce, he therefor resolues to cast himself into the arms of the Scots ; who, being 
 his natiue people, and of late so ongratfullie dealt with by the Inglish, he hoped their 
 particular credit, and the credit of the wholl natione depending thereupon, they 
 would not baslie rander him to the Inglish.” Gordon's Britane’s Distemper, p. 193, 
 published by the Spalding Club, Aberdeen, 1844, 4to. 
 
 ** That it may not be supposed, that, as an Englishman, I misrepresent this trans- 
 action by looking at it from an English point of view, I will merely quote what 
 Scotch writers have said respecting it. “ Giveing up the king to the will and pleas- 
 ure of the English parliament, that soe they might come by their money.” Somer- 
 ville's Memorie of the Somervilles, vol. ii. p. 366. “The Scots sold their unfortunate 
 king, who had fled to them for protection, to the commissioners of the English Pai'- 
 liament, for 200,000^. sterling.” Lyon's History of St. A.ndrews, vol. ii. p. 38 “ The 
 
 incident itself was evidence of a bargain with a quid pro quo." BurtorCs History of 
 Scotland, vol. i. p. 493. “The sale of the king to tlie parliament.” Napier's Life 
 of Montrose, Edinburgh, 1840, p. 448. “ The king was delivered up, or rather sold, 
 
 to the parhament’s commissioners.” Brown's History of Glasgow, vol. i. p. 91. 
 
 “ Their arrears were undoubtedly due ; the amount was ascertained before the dis- 
 pute concerning the disposal of his person, and the payment was undertaken by the 
 English parliament, five months previous to the delivery, or surrender of the king. 
 But the coincidenee, however unavoidable, between that event iind the actual dis- 
 charge and departure of their army, still affords a presumptive proof of the dis- 
 graceful imputation of having sold their king; ‘ as the Enghsh, unless previously 
 assured of receiving his person, would never have relinquished a sum so consider- 
 able as to weaken themselves, while it strengthened a people with whom such a 
 
220 CONDITION OF SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 benefited. The Scotch, being very poor, obtained what they 
 most lacked. The English, a wealthy people, had_ indeed to 
 pay the money, but they were recompensed by getting hold of 
 their oppressor, against whom they thirsted for revenge ; and 
 they took good care never to let him loose, until they had 
 exacted the last penalty of his great and manifold crimes.®^ 
 After the execution of Charles I., the Scotch recognized his 
 son as his successor. But before they would crown the new 
 king, they subjected him to a treatment which hereditary 
 sovereigns are not much accustomed to receive. They made 
 him sign a public declaration, expressing his regret for what 
 had happened, and acknowledging that his father, moved by 
 evil counsels, had unjustly shed the blood of his subjects. He 
 was also obliged to declare, that by these things he felt humbled 
 in spirit. He had, moreover, to apologize for his own errors, 
 which he ascribed partly to his inexperience, and partly to the 
 badness of his education.®® To evince the sincerity of this 
 confession, and in order that the confession might be generally 
 known, he was commanded to keep a day of fasting and humili- 
 
 material question remained to be discussed.” Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iii. 
 pp. 369, 870. 
 
 A letter from Sir Edw. Hyde to Lord Hatton, dated April 12, 1649 (in the 
 Clarendon Stale drapers, vol. ii. p. 479, Oxf. 1773, fol.), says of Charles II., that the 
 Scotch “ sold his father to those who murdered him.” But this is not true. Charles 
 I., though certainly bought by the English, was not murdered by them. He was 
 tried in the face of day ; he was found guilty ; he was executed. And inost as- 
 suredly never did a year pass, without men far less criminal than he, suffering the 
 same fate. Possibly, they are right who deem all capital punishment needless. 
 That, however, has never been proved ; and if this last and most terrible penalty is 
 ever to be exacted, I cannot tell where we should find a more fitting subject to un- 
 dergo it, than a despot who seeks to subjugate the liberties of the people over whom 
 he is called to rule, inflicts cruel and illegal punishment on those who oppose him, 
 and, sooner than renounce his designs, engages in a civil war, setting fathers against 
 their children, disorganizing society, and causing the land to run with blood. Such 
 men are outlaws ; they are the enemies of the human race ; who shall wonder if 
 they fall, or, having fallen, who shall pity them? 
 
 The declaration was signed by Charles on the 16th August, 1650. An abridg- 
 ment of it is given in Balfour's Annales of Scotland, vol. iv. pp. 92-94 ; but the 
 entire document is preserved by Sir Edward Walker. See Journal of Affairs in 
 Scotland, in Walker's Historical Discourses, London, folio, 1705, pp. 170-176. In 
 it, Charles is made to state that, “ though his Majesty as a dutiful son be obliged to 
 honor the memory of his Royal Father, and have in estimation the person of his 
 Mother; yet doth he desire to be deeply humbled and afflicted in spirit before God, 
 because of his Father’s hearkening unto and following evil councils, and his oppo.si- 
 tion to the work of reformation, and to the solemn league and covenant by which so 
 much of the blood of the Lord’s people hath been shed in these kingdoms.” He 
 went on to say, that though he might palliate his own misconduct by pleading “ his 
 education and age,” he thinks it better to “ ingeniously acknowledge all his own sins 
 and the sins of his father’s house.” Burnet {History of his own Time, vol. i. p. 97) 
 says of this declaration : “In it there were many hard things. The king owned the 
 sin of his father in marrying into an idolatrous family : he acknowledged the blood- 
 shed in the late wars lay at his father’s door : he expressed a deep sense of his own 
 ill education,” &c. 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 
 
 221 
 
 ation, in wliicb the whole nation would weep and pray for him, 
 in the hope that he might escape the consequences of the sins 
 committed by his family.®^ 
 
 The spirit, of which acts like these are but symptoms, con- 
 tinued to animate the Scotch during the rest of the seventeenth 
 century. And fortunately for them it did so. For, the reigns 
 of Charles II.- and James II. were but repetitions of the reigns 
 of James I. and Charles I. From 1660 to 1688, Scotland was 
 again subjected to a tyranny, so cruel and so exhausting, that 
 it would have broken the energy of almost any other nation.®® 
 The nobles, whose power had been slowly but constantly declin- 
 ing,®® were unable to resist the English, with whom, indeed, 
 
 ^ In reference to this event, the following entry occurs in Lament’s Journal : 
 “ 1660, Dec. 22. — The fast appointed by the commission of the kirke to be keiped 
 througe the kingdome before the coronatione, was keiped att Largo the forsaide day 
 by Mr. Ja. Magill; his lecture, Ren. 3. from v. 14 to the end of the chapt. ; his text 
 Ren. 2. 4, 6. Vpon the Thursday following, the 26 of this instant, the fast was 
 keiped in like maner; his lecture 2. Chro. 29 to v. 12; his text 2. Chron. 12, 12. 
 The causes of the first day (not read) was, the great contempt of the gospell, holden 
 forth in its branches; of the second day (which were read), the sinns of the king, 
 and of his father’s house, where sundry offences of K. James the 6 were acknowl- 
 edged, and of K. Charles the 1, and of K. Ch. the 2, nowe king.” The Diary of Mr. 
 John Lamont of Newton, p. 25, Edinburgh, 1830, 4to. See also Baillie's Letters and. 
 Journals, vol. iii. p. 107 ; Nicoll's Diary, Edinburgh, 4to, 1836, p. 38; Row's Con- 
 tinuation of Blair's Autobiography, edit. Wodrow Society, p. 256 ; Bower's History 
 of the University of Edinburgh, vol. i. p. 253 ; Presbytery Book of Strathbogie, edit. 
 Spalding Club, p. 169; and, above all, the Registers of the Presbytery of Lanark, 
 published by the Abbotsford Club, Edinburgh, 1839, 4to, pp. 88, 89. 
 
 Wodrow, who had before him the records of the Privy Council, besides other 
 evidence now lost, says, that the period from 1660 to 1688 was “a very horrid scene 
 of oppression, hardships, and cruelty, which, were it not incontestably true, and well 
 vouched and supported, could not be credited in after ages.” Wodrmo's History of 
 the Church of Scotland from the Restoration to the Revolution, vol. i. p. 57. And the 
 Reverend Alexander Shields, quaintly, but truly, observes, “ that the said Govern- 
 ment was the most untender, unpeaceable, tyrannical, arbitrary and wicked, that 
 ever was in Scotland in any age or period.” Shields' Scots Inquisition, Edinburgh, 
 1745, p. 24. 
 
 When James I. ascended the throne of England, “ the principal native nobil- 
 ity ” accompanied him ; and “ the very peace which ensued upon the union of the 
 crowns, may be considered as the commencement of an era in which many of our 
 national strongholds were either transformed into simple residences or utterly de- 
 serted.” Irving's History of Dumbartonshire, 4to, 1860, pp. 137, 166. The nobles 
 ‘‘had no further occasion to make a figure in war, their power in vassalage was of 
 little use, and their influence of course decayed. They knew little of the arts of 
 peace, and had no disposition to cultivate them.” The Interest of Scotland Consider- 
 ed, Edinburgh, 1733, p. 85. Under Cliarles I., the movement continued; “which 
 fell out, partly through the giddiness of the times, but more by the way his Majesty 
 had taken at the beginning of his reign; at which time he did recover from divers 
 of them their hereditary offices, and also pressed them to quit their tithes (which 
 formerly had kept the gentry in a dependance upon them), whereby they were so 
 weaken’d, that now when he stood most in need of them (except the chief of the 
 clans) they could command none but their vassals.” Guthry's Memoirs, edit. 1702, 
 pp. 127, 128. Then came the civil wars, and the rule of Cromwell, during which 
 they sufTered both in person and in property. Compare Chambers' Annals, vol. ii. 
 p. 225, with Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iii. pp. 615, 516. In 1654, Baillie 
 writes {Letters arid Journals, vol. iii. p. 249) : “ Our nobilitie, weell near all, are 
 
222 
 
 CONDITION OF SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 they rather seemed willing to combine, in order that they might 
 have a share in plundering and oppressing their own country.®’' 
 In this, the most unhappy period through which Scotland had 
 passed since the fourteenth century, the government was 
 extremely powerful ; the upper classes, crouching before it, 
 thought only of securing their own safety ; the judges were so 
 corrupt, that justice, instead of being badly administered, was 
 not administered at all and the parliament, completely 
 overawed, consented to what was termed the recissory act, by 
 which, at a single stroke, all laws were repealed which had been 
 enacted since 1633 ; it being considered that those twenty- 
 eight years formed an epoch of which the memory should, if 
 possible, be effaced.®® 
 
 wracked.” In 1656, “ Our nobles lying up in prisons, and under forfaultries, or 
 debts, private or publict, are for the most part either broken or breaking.” Ibid., 
 p. ax'?. And, in 1658, the same observer writes (vol. iii. p. 387): “Our noble 
 families are almost gone : Lennox hes little in Scotland unsold ; Hamilton’s estate, 
 except Arran and the Baronrie of Hamilton, is sold ; Argyle can pay little annuel- 
 rent for seven or eight hundred thousand merks ; and he is no more drowned in 
 debt than publict hatred, almost of all, both Scottish and English ; the Gordons are 
 gone ; the Douglasses little better ; Eglintoun and Glencairn on the brink of break- 
 ing ; many of our chief families estates are cracking ; nor is there any appearance of 
 any human relief for the tyme.” 
 
 The result of all this is thus described by Wodrow, under the year 1661 : “ Our 
 nobility and gentry were remarkably changed to the worse : it was but few of such, 
 who had been active in the former years, were now alive, and those few were mark- 
 ed out for ruin. A young generation had sprung up under the English government, 
 educate under penury and oppression ; their estates were under burden, and many 
 of them had little other prospect of mending their fortunes, but by the king’s favour, 
 and so were ready to act that part he was best pleased with.” Wodrow's History 
 of the (Jhurch of Scotland, vol. i. p. 89. 
 
 “ At the Restoration, Charles II. regained full possession of the royal pre- 
 rogative in Scotland; and the nobles, whose estates were wasted, or their spirit 
 broken, by the calamities to which they had been exposed, were less able and less 
 willing than ever to resist the power of the crown. During his reign, and that of 
 James VII., the dictates of the monarch were received in Scotland wiih most abject 
 submission. The povertv to which many of the nobles were reduced, rendered them 
 meaner slaves and more intolerable tyrants than ever. The people, always ne- 
 glected, were now odious, and loaded with every injury, on account oi their attach- 
 ment to religious and political principles extremely repugnant to those adopted by 
 their princes.” Hobertson's History of Scotland, book viii. pp. 267, 258. 
 
 A writer of great authority, speaking of the time of William III., says : “ It 
 is scarcely possible to conceive how utterly polluted the fountain of justice^ had be- 
 come during the two preceding reigns. The Scottish bench had been profligate and 
 subservient, to the utmost conceivable extent of profligacy and subserviency.” 
 BurtorCs History of Scotland, from 1689 to 1748, London, 1853, vol. i. p. 72. Sea 
 also vol. ii. p. 37 ; and Brown's History of Glasgow, vol. i. p. 194, Glasgow, 1796 
 
 Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 10. Baillie's Letters atid Journals, vol. 
 iii. p. 458. As few persons take the trouble to read Scotch Acts of Parliament, I 
 will extract from this one, its most argumentative passage. “ And forasmuch as 
 now it hath pleased Almighty God, by the power of his oune right hand, so mi- 
 racoulously to restore the Kings Maiestie to the Government of his Kingdomes, and 
 to the exercise of his Royall power and Soveranity over the same The estates of 
 Parlia*' doe conceave themsclft’s obleidged in dischairge of ther duetie and conscience 
 to God and the Kings Maiestie, to imploy all their power and interest for viridi- 
 •ateing his Maiesties Authority from all these violent invasions that have been made 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 223 
 
 But, though the higher ranks ignoniiniously deserted their 
 post, and destroyed the laws which upheld the liberties of Scot- 
 land, the result proved that the liberties themselves were inde- 
 structible. This was because the spirit remained, by which 
 the liberties had been won. The nation was sound at the core ; 
 and while that was the case, legislators could, indeed, abolish 
 the external manifestations of freedom, but could by no means 
 touch the causes on which the freedom depended. Liberty was 
 prostrate, hut yet it lived. And the time would surely come, 
 when a people, who loved it so dearly, would vindicate their rig hts. 
 The time would come, when, in the words of the great poet of 
 English liberty, the nation would rouse herself like a strong man 
 after sleep, and, shaking her invincible locks, would be as an 
 eagle muing her mighty youth, kindling her undazzled eyes at the 
 midday beam, and purging and unsealing her sight at the heav- 
 enly fountain ; while the timorous birds of her evil destiny, loving 
 the twilight, should flutter about, amazed at what she meant. 
 
 Still, the crisis was sad and dangerous. The people, desert- 
 ed by every one except their clergy, were ruthlessly plundered, 
 murdered, and hunted, like wild-beasts, from place to place. 
 From the tyranny of the bishops, they had so recently smarted, 
 that they abhorred episcopacy more than ever ; and yet that in- 
 stitution was not only forced upon them, but government put 
 at its head Sharp, a cruel and rapacious man, who, in 1661, 
 was raised to the archbishopric of St. Andrews.®® He set up a 
 court of ecclesiastical commission, which filled the prisons to 
 
 upon it ; And so fur as is possible to remove out of the way every thiny that may re- 
 taine any remembrance of these things which have been so enjurious to his Matie and 
 his Authority, so prejudiciall and dishonourable to the kingdome, and distructive 
 to all just and true interests within the same.” .... “Not to retaine any remem- 
 brance thairof, but that the same shall be held in everlasting oblivion." Acts of the 
 Parliaments of Scotland, vol. vii. p. 87, edit, folio, 1820. The date of this Act is 
 28th March, 16G1. 
 
 ““ He was made “primate” in 1601, but did not arrive in Scotland till April 
 1662. Wodrow's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 236, 247 ; and 
 NicoWs Diary j pp. 363, 364. “ That ho was decent, if not regular, in his deport- 
 
 ment, endued with the most industrious diligence, and not illiterate, was never dis- 
 puted; that he was vain, vindictive, perfidious, at once haughty and servile, ra- 
 pacious and cruel, his friends have never attempted to disown.” Laing's History of 
 Scotland, vol. iv. pp. 98, 99. The formal establishment of episcopacy was in the 
 autumn of 1661, as we learn from an entry in Lament’s Diary. “1661. Sept. 5 
 being Thursday, (the chancelour, Glencairne, and the E. of Rothes, haueing come 
 downe from court some dayes before,) the cownsell of state salt att Edb., and the 
 nixt day, being Fryday, they caused emitte and be proclaimed ouer the Crosse, a 
 proclamation in his Maj. name, for establishing Episcopacie againe in the church of 
 Scotlande ; which was done with great solemnitie, and was afterwarde printed. All 
 persons, wither men or weomen, were discharged to speake against that of ice, under the 
 paine of treason." The Diary of Mr, John Lamont, p. 140. This, as w'e learn 
 from another contemporary, was on account of “ the Kinges Majestic having sted- 
 fastlie resolvit to promove the estait, power, and dignitie of Bischops, and to remove 
 all impedimentes oontrarry thairto." NicoWs Diary, 4to, p. 353 ; on 21st November 
 
224 
 
 CONDITION OF SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 overflowing ; and wlien they would hold no more, the victims 
 were transported to Barbadoes, and other unhealthy settle- 
 ments.® ‘ The people, being determined not to submit to the 
 dictation of government respecting their religious worship, met 
 together in private houses ; and when that was declared illegal, 
 they fled from their houses to the fields. But there, too, the 
 bishops were upon them.®^ Lauderdale, who, for many years, 
 was at the head of affairs, was greatly influenced by the new 
 
 1661. This curious diary, written by John Nicoll, and extending from 1650 to 
 1667, was printed at Edinburgh, in 1836, by the Bannatyne Club, and is now not 
 ■often met with. 
 
 Wodrow's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 383, 390-395. Laing's 
 History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 38 ; “ A court of ecclesiastical commission was pro- 
 cured by Sharp.” See also p. 41 : “ Under the influence of Sharp and the prelates, 
 which Lauderdale’s friends were unable to resist, the government seemed to be ac- 
 tuated by a blind resentment against its own subjects.” Compare Burnett History 
 of his own Time, vol. i. p. 365. “The truth is, the whole face of the government 
 looked liker the proceedings of an inquisition, than of legal courts; and yet Sharp 
 was never satisfied.” Another contemporary, Kirkton, says of these Commissioners : 
 “ For ought I could hear, never one appeared before them that escapt without pun- 
 ishment. Their custom was, without premonition or lybell, to ask a man a question, 
 and judge him presently, either upon his silence or his answer.” ...... “They 
 
 many times doubled the legal punishment ; and not being satisfied with the fyne 
 appointed by law, they used to add religation to some remote places, or deportation 
 to Barbadoes, or selling into slavery.” Kirkton' s History of the Church of Scotland, 
 p. 206. See also Kaphtali, or the Wrestlings of the Church of Scotland, 1667,_pp< 
 126-130. But as particular cases bring such matters more clearly before the mind, 
 I will transcribe, from Crookshank’s History of the Church of Scotland, vol. i. p. 154, 
 the sentences pronounced on a single occasion by this episcopal court. “ The 
 treatment of some of the parishioners of Ancrum is not to be omitted. When their 
 excellent minister, Mr. Livingstone, was taken from them, one Mr. James Scot, who 
 was under the sentence of excommunication, was presented to that charge. On 
 the day fixed for his settlement, several people did meet together to oppose it; and 
 particularly a country woman, desiring to speak with him in order to dissuade him 
 from intruding himself upon a reclaiming people, pulled him by the cloak, intreating 
 him to hear her a little ; whereupon he turned and beat her with his staff.^ This 
 provoi^ed two or three boys to throw a few stones, which neither touched him nor 
 any of his company. However, it was presently looked upon as a treasonable tu- 
 mult, and therefoi’e the sheriff and justices of the peace in that bounds fined and 
 imprisoned some of these people, which, one would think, might atone for a crime 
 of this nature. But the high-commission, not thinking that sufficient, ordered those 
 criminals to be brought before them. Accordingly, the four boys and this woman, 
 with two brothers of hers of the name of Turnbull, were brought prisoners to Edin- 
 burgh. The four boys confessed, that, upon Scot’s beating the woman, they had 
 thrown each his stone. The commissioner told them that hanging was too good for 
 them. However, the sentence of this merciless court only was, that they should be 
 scourged through the city of Edinburgh, burnt in the face with a hot iron, and then 
 sold as slaves to Barbadoes. The boys endured their punishment like men and 
 Christians, to the admiration of multitudes. The two brothers were banished to 
 Virginia; and the wmman was ordered to be whipped through the town of Jed- 
 burgh. Burnet, bishop of Glasgow, when applied to that she might be spared lest 
 she°should be with child, mildly answered. That he would make them claw the itch 
 out of her shoulders.” 
 
 They were invested with such immense power, that “ the old set of bishops 
 made by the parliament, 1612, were but pigmies to the present high and mighty 
 lords.” Wodrow's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. i. p. 262. See also, at p. 
 286, the remarks of Douglas : “ It is no wonder then the complaint against their 
 bishops be, that their little finger is thicker than the loins of the former.” , 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 225 
 
 prelates, and aided them with the authority of the executive.** 
 Under their united auspices, a new contrivance was hit upon ; 
 and a body of soldiers, commanded by Turner, a drunken and 
 ferocious soldier, was let loose upon the people.®^ The sufferers, 
 galled to madness, rose in arms. This was made the pretence, 
 in 1667, for fresh military executions, by which some of the 
 fairest parts of western Scotland were devastated, house burned, 
 men tortured, women ravished.®® In 1670, an act of parliament 
 
 In 1663, Middleton was dismissed; and was succeeded by Lauderdale, who 
 “ was dependent upon the prelates, and was compelled to yield to their most furious 
 demands.” Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 33. “ The influence, or rather 
 
 the tyranny, which was thus at the discretion of the prelates, was unlimited ; and 
 they exercised it with an unsparing hand.” Bower's History of the University of 
 Edinburgh, vol. i. p. 284. 
 
 “ Sir James Turner, that commanded them, was naturally fierce, but was mad 
 when he was drunk ; and that was very often.” Burnet's History of his own Time, 
 vol. i. p. 364. Kirkton {History of the Church, p. 221) says: “Sir James Turner 
 hade made ane expedition to the west countrey to subdue it to the bishops, in the 
 year 1664; another in the year 1665 ; and a third in the year 1666 ; and this was 
 the worst.” Full particulars will be found in Wodi'ow's History of the Church of 
 Scotland, vol. i. pp. 3'73-3V5, 411, vol. ii. pp. 8, IT, vol. iii. pp. 264, 265. “This 
 method of dragooning people to the church, as it is contrary to the spirit of Chris- 
 tianity, so it was a stranger in Scotland, till Bishop Sharpe and the prelates brought 
 it in.” vol. i. p. 401. 
 
 Sir James Turner, whose Memoirs, written by himself, were not published till 
 thirty years ago, relates an anecdote of his own drunkenness in a strain of maudlin 
 piety well worthy of his career. Turner's Memoirs of his own Life, Edinburgh, 
 1829, 4to, pp. 42, 43. At p. 206, this impudent man writes : “ And yet I confesse, 
 my humour never was, nor is not yet, one of the calmest ; when it will be, God 
 onlie knoues ; yet by many sad passages of my life, I know that it hath beene good 
 for me to be afflicted." Perhaps, however, he may take the benefit of his assertion 
 (p. 144), “ that I was so farre from exceeding or transgressing my commission and 
 instructions, that I never came the full length of them.” Considering the cruelties 
 he committed, what sort of instructions could his superiors have given to him ? 
 
 “ Sir James Turner lately had forced Galloway to rise in arras, by his cruelty 
 the last and former years ; but he was an easy master, compared with General Dal- 
 ziel, his ruffians, and Sir William Bannatyne, this year.” Wodrow's Church of Scot- 
 land, vol. ii. p. 62. Dalziel “ cruelly tortured whom he would.” p. 63. One woman 
 “is brought prisoner to Kilmarnock, where she was sentenced to be let dow'n to a 
 deep pit, under the house of the dean, full of toads and other vile creatures. Her 
 shrieks thence were heard at a great distance.” p. 64. Two countrymen w'ere 
 “ bound together with cords, and hanged up by their thumbs to a tree, there to hang 
 all night.” Ibid. Sir William Banuatync’s soldiers seized a woman, “and bound 
 her, and put lighted matches betwixt her fingers for several hours ; the torture and 
 pain made her almost distracted ; she lost one of her hands, and in a few days she 
 died.” Ibid. “ Oppressions, murders, robberies, rapes.” p. 65. “ He made great 
 
 fires, and laid down men to roast before them, when they would not, or could not, 
 give him the money he required, or the information he was seeking.” p. 104. See 
 also Crookshank's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 204-20T. This His- 
 tory is based upon Wodrow’s great work, but contains many facts with which Wod- 
 row was unacquainted. See Crookshank, vol. i. p. 11. Respecting the outrages in 
 1667, there are some horrible details in a book published in that very year, under 
 the title of Naphtali, or the Wrestlings of the Church of Scotland. See, especially, 
 the summary at p. 174 : “ wounding, beating, stripping and imprisoning men’s per- 
 sons, violent breaking of their houses both by day and night, and beating and 
 wounding of wives and children, ravishing and deflowring of women, forcing wives 
 and other persons by fired matches and other tortures to discover their husbands 
 and nearest relations, although it be not within the compass of their knowledge, and 
 
226 
 
 CONDITION OF SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 was passed, declaring that whoever preached in the fields with-t 
 out permission should be put to death.®* Some lawyers were 
 found bold enough to defend innocent men, when they were 
 tried for their lives ; it was therefore determined to silence them 
 also, and, in 1674, a great part of the Faculty of Advocates 
 was expelled from Edinburgh.®^ In 1678, by the express com- 
 mand of government, the Highlanders were brought down from 
 their mountains, and, during three months, were encouraged to 
 slay, plunder, and burn at their pleasure, the inhabitants of the 
 most populous and industrious parts of Scotland. For centuries, 
 the bitterest animosity had existed between the Highlanders 
 and Lowlanders ; and now these savage mountaineers were called 
 from their homes, that they might take full revenge. And, 
 well they glutted their ire. During three months, they enjoyed 
 every license. Eight thousand®® armed Highlanders, invited by 
 the English government, and receiving beforehand an indemnity 
 for every excess,®® were left to work their will upon the towns 
 and villages of W estern Scotland. They spared neither age nor 
 sex. They deprived the people of their property ; they even 
 stripped them of their clothes, and sent them out naked to die 
 in the fields. Upon many, they inflicted the most horrible tor- 
 tures. Children, torn from their mothers, were foully abused ; 
 while both mothers and daughters were subjected to a fate, 
 compared to which death would have been a, joyful alternative.’’® 
 
 driving and spoiling all their goods that can be carried away, without respect to 
 guilt or innocency.” 
 
 That whosoever without licence or authoritie forsaid shall preach, expound 
 Scripture, or pray at any of these meetings in the ffeild, or in any house wher ther 
 be moe persons nor the house contains, so as some of them be without doors (which 
 is heerby declared to be a feild conventicle), or who shall convocat any number of 
 people to these meetings, shall be punished with death and confiscation of ther 
 goods.” Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. viii. p. 9, edit. 1820, folio. This 
 was on the 13th August 1670. 
 
 The immediate pretence being, to do away with appeals. See Lainq's Historv 
 o/ vol. iv. pp. 72-74. J 
 
 Savage hosts of Highlanders were sent down to depopulate the western shires 
 to the number of ten or eleven thousand, who acted most outrageous barbarities, 
 even almost to the laying some counties desolate.” A Cloud of TVitnesses for the 
 Royal Prerogatives of Jesus Christ, edit. Glasgow, 1779, p. 18. But most authori- 
 ties state tlie number to have been eight thousand. See Kirktords History, p. 386 ; 
 Arnot s History of Edinhurgh, p. 164 j Rurnet's History of his own Time, vol. ii. p. 
 134; Denholm s History of Glasgow, p. 67 ; and Life and Sufferings of John Hisbet, 
 in Select Biographies, published by the Wodrow Societv, vol. ii. p. 381. Chalmers, 
 however, in his Caledonia, vol. iii. p. 692, says 10,000. 
 
 (1 indemnified against all pursuits, civil and criminal, on account of 
 
 killing, wounding, apprehending, or imprisoning, such as should oppose them.” 
 Crookshank's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 337, 33S. 
 
 Short and imperfect notices of this “ Highland Host,” as it was called at the 
 time, may be found in Kirktord s History, pp. 385-390, and in Crookshank' s History, 
 vol. i. pp. 364, 366. But the fullest account of the enormities committed by these 
 barbarians, is in Wodrow’s great work, collected from authentic and official docu- 
 ments. See his History of the Church of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 376-413, 421-432, 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 
 
 227 
 
 It "was in tliis way, that the English government sought to 
 break the spirit, and to change the opinions, of the Scotch 
 people. The nobles looked on in silence, and, so far from re- 
 sisting, had not even the courage to remonstrate. The parlia- 
 ment was equally servile, and sanctioned whatever the govern- 
 ment demanded. Still, the people were firm. Their clergy, 
 
 drawn from the middle classes, clung to them ; they clung to 
 their clergy, and both were unchanged. The bishops were 
 hated as allies of the government, and were with reason regarded 
 as public enemies. They were known to have favoured, and 
 often to have suggested, the atrocities which had been com- 
 mitted and they were so pleased with the punishment in- 
 flicted upon their opponents, that no one was surprised, when, a 
 few years later, they, in an address to James II., the most cruel 
 of all the Stuarts, declared that he was the darling of heaven, 
 and hoped that God might give him the hearts of his subjects, 
 and the necks of his enemies.’’® 
 
 The character of the prince whom the bishops thus delight- 
 ed to honour, is now well understood. Horrible as were the 
 crimes which had been perpetrated, they were surpassed by 
 what occurred, when he, in 1680 , assumed the direction of 
 affairs.’® He had worked himself to that pitch of iniquity, as 
 
 vol. iii. pp. 1C>, 79, 486. They were provided beforehand with implements of tor- 
 ture. “ They had good store of iron shackles, as if they were to lead back vast 
 numbers of slaves, and thumb-locks, as they call them ” (z. e. thumb-screws), “ to 
 make their examination and trials with.” vol. ii. p. 389. “ In some places they tor- 
 
 tured people, by scorching their bodies at vast fires, and otherwise.” vol. ii, p. 422. 
 Compare Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 88. “ Neither age nor sex was 
 
 exempt from outrage, and torture was freely employed to extort a confession of 
 hidden wealth.” And, at p. 91, “The Highlanders, after exacting free quarters, 
 and wasting the country for three months, were dismissed to their hills with impu- 
 nity and wealth.” 
 
 “Indeed, the whole of the severity, hardships, and bloodshed from this year” 
 1661), “until the revolution, was either actually brought on by the bishops, pro- 
 cured by them, or done for their support.” Wodrow's History of the Church of 
 Scotland, vol. i. p. 223. “ It was our prelates who pushed the council to most of 
 
 their severities.” p. 247. “The bishops, indeed, violently pushed prosecutions.” 
 Crookshank's History of the Church, vol. i. p. 298. In 1666, “ As to the prelates, 
 they resolved to use all severities, and to take all imaginable cruel and rigorous 
 ways and courses, first against the rest of the prisoners, and then against the whole 
 west of Scotland.” Row's Continuation of Blair's Autobiography, pp, 606, 606, 
 edit. Edinburgh, 1848. This interesting work is edited by Dr. M‘Crie, and published 
 by the Wodrow Society. 
 
 In 1688, “the bishops concurred in a pious and convivial address to James, 
 as the darling of heaven, that God might give him the hearts of his subjects and the 
 necks of his enemies.” Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 193. 
 
 “After the Duke of York came down in October (1680), “the persecution 
 turned yet more severe.” Wodrow' s History of the Church of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 
 225. “Persecution and tyranny, mainly promoted by the Duke of York’s instiga- 
 tion.” Shields' Hind let loose, \4Ti . “ Immediately upon his mounting the throne, 
 the executions and acts prosecuting the persecution of the poor wanderers, were 
 more cruel than ever.” p. 200. 
 
228 
 
 CONDITION OF SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 to derive actual enjoyment from witnessing the agonies of his 
 fellow-creatures. This is an abyss of wickedness, into which 
 even the most corrupt natures rarely fall. There have been, 
 and always will be, many men who care nothing for human 
 suffering, and who will inflict any amount of pain, in order to 
 gain certain ends. But to take delight in the spectacle, is a 
 peculiar and hideous abomination. James, however, was so 
 dead to shame, that he did not care even to conceal his horrible 
 taste. Whenever torture was inflicted, he was sure to be 
 present, feasting his eyes, and revelling with a fiendish joy.’'^ It 
 makes our flesh creep, to think that such a man should have 
 been the ruler of millions. But what shall we say to the Scotch 
 bishops, who applauded him, of whose conduct they were daily 
 witnesses ? Where can we find language strong enough to 
 stigmatize those recreant priests, who, having passed years in 
 attempting to subjugate the liberties of their country, did, 
 towards the close of their career, and just before their final fall, 
 band together, and employ their united authority, as ministers 
 of a holy and peaceful religion, to stamp with public approval, 
 a prince, whose malignant cruelty made him loathed by his 
 contemporaries, and whose revolting predilections, unless we 
 ascribe them to a diseased brain, are not only a slur upon the 
 age which tolerated them, but a disgrace to the higher instincts 
 of our common nature ? 
 
 So utterly corrupt, however, were the ruling classes in 
 Scotland, that such crimes seem hardly to have excited indig- 
 nation. The sufferers were refractory subjects, and against 
 them every thing was lawful. The usual torture, which was 
 called the torture of the boots, was to place the leg in a frame, 
 
 This was well known in Scotland ; and is evidently alluded to by a writer of 
 that time, the Rev. Alexander Shields, who calls James not a man, but a monster. 
 See Shields' Hind let loose, 168V, p. 365. “This man, or monster rather, that is 
 now mounted the throne.” And a monster surely he was. Compare Crookshank's 
 History of the Church of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 66, where it is mentioned that, when 
 Spreul was tortured, “the Duke of York was pleased to gratify his eyes with this 
 delightful scene.” Also, Wodrow's History, vol. iii. p. 253, and Laing's History of 
 Scotland, vol. iv. p. 116. According to Burnet, the duke’s pleasure at witnessing 
 human agony was a cold, and, as it were, a speculative pleasure, as if he were present 
 for the purpose of contemplating some curious experiment. But James was so ex- 
 citable a man, that this is hardly likely. At all events, the remarks of Burnet have 
 a painful interest for those who study these dark, and, as we may rejoice to think, 
 these very rare forms of human malignity. “ When any are to be struck in the 
 boots, it is done in the presence of the council ; and upon that occasion almost all 
 offer to run away. The sight is so dreadful, that without an order restraining such 
 a number to stay, the board would be forsaken. But the duke, while he had been 
 in Scotland, was so far from withdrawing, that he looked on all the while with an 
 unmoved indifference, and with an intention as if he had been to look on some curious 
 experiment. This gave a terrible idea of him to all that observed it, as of a man 
 that had no bowels nor humanity in him.” Burnet's History of his own Time, vol. ii. 
 pp. 416, 41V. 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 
 
 229 
 
 into which wedges were driven, until the hones were broken.’^® 
 But when James visited Scotland, an opinion began to grow up, 
 that this was too lenient, and that other means must be devised. 
 The spirit which he communicated to his subordinates, animat- 
 ed his immediate successors ; and, in 1684, during his absence, 
 a new instrument was introduced, termed the thumbikins. 
 This was composed of small steel screws, arranged with such 
 diabolical art, that not only the thumb, but also the whole 
 hand, could be compressed by them, producing pain more 
 exquisite than any hitherto known, and having, moreover, the 
 advantage of not endangering life ; so that the torture could be 
 frequently repeated on the same person,'^® 
 
 After this, little more need be saidJ^ From the mere 
 mention of such things, the mind recoils with disgust. The 
 reader of the history of that time, sickens and faints at the 
 contrivances by which these abject creatures sought to stifle 
 public opinion, and to ruin, for ever, a gallant and high-spirited 
 people. But now, as before, they laboured in vain. More yet 
 was, however, to be borne. The short reign of James II. was 
 ushered in by an act of singular barbarity. A few weeks after 
 this bad man came to the throne, all the children in Annandale 
 and Nithsdale, between the ages of six and ten, were seized by 
 the soldiers, separated from their parents, and threatened with 
 
 Shields (A Hind let loose, p. 186) describes the boots, as “a cruel engine of 
 iron, whereby, with wedges, the leg is tortured until the marrow come out of the 
 bone.” Compare Naphtali, or the Wrestlings of the Church of Scotland, 1667, p. 
 268 : “the extraordinary compression both of flesh, sinews, and bones, by the force 
 of timber wedges and hammer.” 
 
 In 1684, Carstairs was subjected to thi.s torture. See his own account, in a 
 letter printed in Wodrow's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. iv. pp. 96-100. 
 He writes (p. 99) : “ After this communing, the king’s smith was called in, to bring 
 in a new instrument to torture by the thumbkiiis, tliat had never been used before. 
 For whereas the former was only to screw on two pieces of iron above and below 
 with finger and thumb, these were made to turn about the screw with the whole 
 hand. And under this torture, I continued near an hour and a half.” See also the 
 case of Spence, in the same year, in Burnet's History of his own Time,Yo\. ii. p. 418. 
 “ Little screws of steel were made use of, that screwed the thumbs with so exquisite 
 a torment, that he sunk under this ; for Lord Perth told him, they would screw 
 every joint of his whole body, one after another, till he took the oath.” Laing 
 (History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 143) says, “the thumbikins; small screws of 
 steel that compressed the thumb and the whole hand with an exquisite torture ; an 
 invention brought by Drummond and Dalziel from Russia.” For other notices, see 
 FountainhalVs Notes of Scottish Affairs {vora 1680 till 1701, Edinburgh, 4to, 1822, 
 pp. 41, 97, 101; Bowers History of the University of Edinburgh, vol. ii. p. 30; 
 Crookshanic's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 192 : A Cloud of Wit- 
 nesses for the Royal Prerogatives of Jesus Christ, edit. Glasgow, 1779, p. 371 ; and 
 
 of Walter Smith, p. 85, in the second volume of Walker’s Biographia Presby- 
 teriana, Edinburgh, 1827. 
 
 ’’’’ “In 1684, the Scottish nation was in the most distressing and pitiable situation 
 that can be imagined.” . . . “ The state of society had now become such, that, in 
 Edinburgh, attention to ordinary business was neglected, and every one was jealous 
 of his neighbour.” Bower's History of the University of Edinburgh, vol. i. p. 307. 
 
230 
 
 CONDITION or SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 immediate death/* The next step was, to banish, by wholesale, 
 large numbers of adults who were shipped off to unhealthy 
 settlements ; many of the men first losing their ears, and the 
 women being branded, some on the hand, some on the cheek/® 
 Those, however, who remained behind, were equal to the emer- 
 gency, and were ready to do what remained to be done. In 
 1688, as in 1642, the Scotch people and the English people 
 united against their common oppressor, who saved himself by 
 sudden and ignominious flight. He was a coward as well as 
 a despot, and from him there was no further danger. The 
 bishops, indeed, loved him ; but they were an insignificant 
 body, and had enough to do to look to themselves. His only 
 powerful friends were the Highlanders. That barbarous race 
 thought, with regret, of those bygone days ■when the government 
 had not only allowed them, but had ordered them, to plunder 
 and oppress their southern neighbours. For this purpose, 
 Charles II. had availed himself of their services ; and it could 
 hardly be doubted, that if the Stuart dynasty were restored, 
 they would be again employed, and would again enrich them- 
 selves by pillaging the Lowlanders.® ® War was their chief 
 
 “ Upon the 10th of March, all freeholders, heritors, and gentlemen in Niths- 
 dale and Annandale, and, I suppose, in most other shires of the kingdom, but I name 
 those as being the scene of the severities now used, were summoned to attend the 
 king’s standard ; and the militia in the several shires were raised. 'Wherever Claver- 
 house came, he resolved upon narrow and universal work. He used to set his horse 
 upon the hills and eminences, and that in dilferent parties, that none might escape ; 
 and there his foot went through the lower, marshy, and mossy places, where the 
 horse could not do so well. The shire he parcelled out in so many divisions, and 
 six or eight miles square would be taken in at once. In every division, the whole 
 inhabitants, men and women, young and old, without distinction, were all driven 
 into one convenient place.” . . . “ All the children in the division were gathered 
 together by themselves, under ten years, and above six years of age, and a party of 
 soldiers were drawn out before them. Then they were bid pray, for they were go- 
 ing to be shot. Some of them would answer. Sir, we cannot pray.” . . . “At 
 other times, they treated them most inhumanly, threatening them with death, and 
 at some little distance would fire pistols wdthout ball in their face. Some of the 
 poor children were frighted almost out of their wits, and others of them stood all 
 out with a courage perfectly above their age. These accounts are so far out of the 
 ordinary way of mankind, that I would not have insert them, had I not before me 
 several informations agreeing in all these circumstances, written at this time by peo- 
 ple who knew the truth of them.” Wodrow's History of the Church of Scotland, vol. 
 iv. pp. 266, 256. 
 
 “Numbers were transported to Jamaica, Barbadoes, and the North American 
 settlements ; but the women were not unfrequently burnt in the cheek, and the ears 
 of the men were lopt off, to prevent, or to detect, their retui’n.” Lainfs History of 
 NcotZaW, vol. iv. p. 162. “Great multitudes banished.” Wodrow's History of the 
 Church, vol. iv. p. 211. In July 1686, “ the men are ordered to have their ears crept, 
 and the women to be marked in their hand.” p. 217. “ To have the following 
 
 stigma and mark, that they may be known as banished persons if they shall return 
 to this kingdom, viz., that the men have one of their ears cut off by the hand of the 
 hangman, and that the women be burnt by the same hand on the cheek with a 
 burned iron.” p. 218. These are extracts from the proceedings of the privy-council. 
 
 “ James II. favoured the Highland clans.” Note in FountainhaW s Scottish 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 231 
 
 amusement ; it was also their livelihood ; and it was the only 
 t mg that they understood.®* Besides this, the mere fact that 
 dames no longer possessed authority, wonderfully increased 
 their loyalty towards him. The Highlanders flourished by 
 rapine, and traded in anarchy.®* They, therefore, hated any 
 government which was strong enough to punish crime ; and 
 the btuarts being now far away, this nation of thieves loved 
 them with an ardour which nothing but their absence could 
 have caused. From William III., they feared restraint : but 
 the exiled prince could do them no hurt, and would look on 
 their excesses as the natural result of their zeal. Not that 
 they cared about the principle of monarchical succession, or 
 speculated on the doctrine of divine right.®® The only succes- 
 sion that interested them, was that of their chiefs. Their only 
 notion of right, was to do what those chiefs commanded. 
 Being miserably poor,®^ they, in raising a rebellion, risked 
 
 Affairs from 1680 till 1701, p. 100. He could hardly do otherwise. The alliance 
 was natural, and ready-made for him. 
 
 T robbing, which, however, in one form or other, is always a part of war. 
 
 In this, they were very apt. Burnet {History of his own Time, vol. i. p. 67) pithilv 
 describes^ them as good at robbing;” and Burton {Lives of Lovat and Forbes, p. 
 47) says, To steal even vestments was considerably more creditable than to make 
 them. Otherwise, they were completely absorbed by their passion for war. See 
 inomsons Memoirs of the Jacobites, vol. ii. pp. 176, 176, London, 1845. 
 
 Revenge was accounted a duty, the destruction of a neighbour a meritorious 
 exploit, and rapine an honourable employment.” Browne^s History of the Highlands, 
 vol. IV. p. 395. The spirit of rivalry between the clans kept up a taste for hostili- 
 ty and converted rapine into a service of honour.” Ihomson's Memoirs of the Jaco- 
 bites, vol. 11 . p. 229. •' 
 
 Hence, looking, as they did, merely at the physical qualities of individuals, the 
 appearance of the Pretender in 1715 disgusted them, notwithstanding his splendid 
 1 ® I’emarks in Burton's History of Scotland irom 1689 to 
 
 th f PP- 198. 199- At p. 383, Mr. Burton justly observes, 
 
 that those who really knew the itighlanders were aware that the followers were 
 ®**PPp’'ters of King James’s claim to the throne of Britain, than of 
 Maria Theresa s to the throne of Hungary. They went with the policy of the head 
 of the clan, whatever that might be ; and though upwards of half a century’s advo- 
 cacy of the exiled house’ (this refers to the last rebellion in 1745) “had made 
 dacobitism appear a political creed in some clans, it was among the followers, high 
 and lovv, little better than a nomenclature, which might be changed with circum- 
 stances. Since Robertson, Mr. Burton and Mr. Chambers are, I will venture to 
 say, the two writers who have taken the most accurate and comprehensive views of 
 the history of Scotland. Robertson’s History stops short where the most important 
 period begins; and his materials were scanty. But what he effected with those 
 ofh^s works ^ wonderful. To my mind, his History of Scotland is much the greatest 
 
 curious description of their appearance, given by the Derby Mercury va. 1746 
 (m Ihomsons Memoirs of the Jacobites, vol. iii. p. 115), may be compared with the 
 statement in Anderson's Brize Essay on the Highlands, Edinburgh, 
 in Cattle were the main resources of the tribe — the acquisition of 
 
 these the great object of their hostile forays. The precarious crops gave them 
 wherewithal to bake their oaten cakes, or distil their ale or whisky. When these 
 lailed, the crowded population suffered every extreme of misery and want. At one 
 time m particular, in Sutherland, they were compelled to subsist on broth made of 
 \iettles, thickened with a little oatmeal. At another, those who had cattle, to have 
 
232 
 
 CONDITION OF SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 nothing except their lives, of which, in that state of society, 
 men are always reckless. If they failed, they encountered a 
 speedy, and, as they deemed it, an honourable death. If they 
 succeeded, they gained fame and wealth. In either case, they 
 were sure of many enjoyments. They were sure of being able, 
 for a time at least, to indulge in pillage and murder, and to 
 practise, without restraint, those excesses which they regarded 
 as the choicest guerdon of a soldier’s career. 
 
 So far, therefore, from wondering at the rebellions of 1715 
 and 1745,®® the only wonder is, that they did not break out 
 sooner, and that they were not better supported. In 1745, 
 when the sudden appearance of the rebels struck England with 
 terror, and when they penetrated even to the heart of the king- 
 dom, their numbers, even at their height, including Lowland 
 and English recruits, never reached six thousand men. The 
 ordinary amount was five thousand ;®® and they cared so little 
 about the cause for which they professed to fight, that, in 1715 
 when they numbered much stronger than in 1745, they refused 
 to enter England, and make head against the government, until 
 they were bribed by the promise of additional pay.®’' So, too, 
 
 recourse to the expedient of bleeding them, and mixing the blood with oatmeal, 
 which they afterwards cut into slices and fried.” 
 
 Several writers erroneously term them “ unnatural.” See, for instance, Rag's 
 History of the Rebellion^ London, 1'746, pp. 168, 169 ; and Home's History of the 
 Rebellion, London, 1802, 4to, p. 347. 
 
 86 u the rebels began their march to the southward, they were not 6000 
 
 men complete.” Home's History of the Rebellion in the Year 1746, 4to, p. 137. 
 At Stirling the army, “ after the junction was made, amounted to somewhat more 
 than 9000 men, the greatest number that Charles ever had under his command.” p. 
 164. But the actual invaders of England were much fewer. “The number of the 
 rebels when they began their march into England, was a few above 6000 foot, with 
 about 500 on horseback.” Home, p. 331. Browne {History of the Highlands, vol. 
 iii. p. 140) says : “ When mustered at Carlisle, the prince’s army amounted only to 
 about 4500 men; and Lord George Murray states that, at Derby, “we were not 
 above five thousand fighting men, if so many.” Jacobite Memoirs of the Rebellion 
 of 1745, edited by Robert Chambers, Edinburgh, 1834, p. 54. Another writer, re- 
 lying mainly on traditional evidence, says, “ Charles, at the head of 4000 Highlanders, 
 marched as far as Derby.” Brown's History of Glasgow, vol. ii. p. 41, Edinburgh, 
 1797. Compare Johnstone's Memoirs of the Rebellion, 3d edit., London, 1822, pp. 
 xxxvii. xxxviii. 30-32, 62. Johnstone says, p. 60, “M. Patullo, our muster-master, 
 reviewed our army at Carlisle, when it did not exceed four thousand five hundred 
 men.” Afterwards, returning to Scotland, “our army was suddenly increased to 
 eight thousand men, the double of what it was when we were in England.” p. 111. 
 
 “ Orders were given to proceed in the direction of Carlisle, and recall the de- 
 tachment sent forward to Dumfries. The Highlanders, still true to their stagnant 
 principles, refused obedience.” .... “Pecuniary negotiations were now com- 
 menced, and they were offered sixpence a day of regular pay — reasonable remunera- 
 tion at that period to ordinary troops, but to the wild children of the mountain a 
 glittering bribe, which the most steady obstinacy would alone resist. It was partly 
 effective.” Burton's History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 168. “And from this day, the 
 Highlanders had sixpence a head per day payed them to keep them in good order 
 and under command.” Patten! s History of the late Rebellion, London, 1717, p. 73. 
 "-"ie also, on the unwillingness of the Highlanders to enter England, Roe's History 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 233 
 
 in 1745 after they had won the battle of Preston-pans, the only 
 result of that great victory was, that the Highlanders, instead 
 of^ striking a fresh blow, deserted in large bodies, that they 
 
 obtained, and which alone they 
 valued. They heeded not whether Stuart or Hanoverian gained 
 the day ; and at this critical moment they were unable, says 
 the historian, to resist their desire to return to their glens, and 
 decorate their huts with the spoil.®® ^ 
 
 There are, indeed few things more absurd than that lying 
 spirit of romance, which represents the rising of the Highland- 
 ers as the outburst of a devoted loyalty. Nothing was further 
 from their minds than this. The Highlanders have crimes 
 enough to account for, without being burdened by needless re- 
 proach. They were thieves and murderers ; but that was in 
 their way of life, and they felt not the stigma. Though they 
 were ignorant and ferocious, they were not so foolish as to be 
 personally attached to that degraded family, which, before the 
 accession ot William III., occupied the throne of Scotland To 
 love such men as Charles II., and James II., may, perhaps, be 
 excused as one of those peculiarities of taste of which one some- 
 times hears. But to love all their descendants ; to feel an 
 attection so comprehensive as to take in the whole dynasty, and 
 for the sake of gratifying that eccentric passion, not only to 
 undergo great hardships, but to inflict enormous evil upon two 
 
 of pie Rebellion ’London, 1Y46, 2d edit. pp. 2V0, 271. Browne says ( History of the 
 fj^lands vol. 11 . pp. 300, 304): “The aversion of the Highlanders, fr^m dita 
 ^ campaign in England, was almost insuperable but “ by the aid 
 
 up^ToVSTtirfortrs^o^f^ -- P--^>ed 
 
 productf of civilisatiL which 
 could not ®cch acquisitions, a considerable number 
 
 could b, brougM do4„ from the 
 
 and°8noll Th ^ expected from them, for ae soon as they were loaded with plunder 
 Imd Sed .Lr» o“" '"'‘“S >■»'«. “<i desert hose who 
 
 Hs 1 ttlf? fl -f- P- ^ '■ccent writer, drawing a veil over 
 
 delicacy, that “the Highlanders brave as 
 J ^ custom of returning home after a battle.” T^imsonh Memoirs of 
 
 bat.^ carried 
 
 /berieenriMMto «/ «« CM, yol. I. p 31% 
 
234 
 
 CONDITION OF SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 kingdoms, would have been a folly as well as a wickedness, and 
 would convict the Highlanders of a species of insanity alien to 
 their nature. They hurst into insurrection, because insurrection 
 suited their habits, and because they hated all government and 
 all order.*® But, so far from caring for a monarch, the very 
 institution of monarchy was repulsive to them. It was con- 
 trary to that spirit of clanship to which they were devoted ; 
 and, from their earliest childhood, they were accustomed to 
 respect none but their chiefs, to whom they paid a willing obe- 
 dience, and whom they considered far superior to all the poten- 
 tates of the earth.®® No one, indeed, who is really acquainted 
 with their history, will think them capable of having spilt their 
 blood on behalf of any sovereign, be he who he might ; still 
 less can we believe that they would quit their native land, and 
 
 88 “ Whoever desired, with the sword, to disturb or overturn a fixed government, 
 was sure of the aid of the chiefs, because a settled government was ruinous to their 
 power, and almost inimical to their existence. The more it cultivated the arts of 
 peace, and throve on industrially created well-being, the more did it drive into an 
 antagonist position a people who did not change their nature, who made no indus- 
 trial progress, and who lived by the swords which acquired for them the fruits of 
 other men’s industry. With their interests, a peaceful, strong government was as 
 inconsistent as a well-guarded sheepfold with the interest of wolves.” burtons 
 History of Scotland, vol. i. pp. 106, 106. “The Highlanders, in all reigns, have 
 been remarkable for disturbing the established government of Scotland by taking 
 up arms on every invasion for the invaders.” Merchant' s History of the present 
 lieheUion, London, 1746, p. 18. See also Machy's Journey through Scotland, Lon- 
 don, 173‘2, p. 129; and a short, but very curious account of the Highlanders, in 
 1744, in Miscellany of the Spalding Club, vol. ii. pp. 87-89. 
 
 An observer, who had excellent opportunities of studying their character be- 
 tween the rebellion of 1716 and that of 1745, writes, “The ordinary Highlanders 
 esteem it the most sublime degree of virtue to love their chief, and pay him^ a blind 
 obedience, although it be in opposition to the government, the laws of the kingdom, 
 or even to the law of God. He is their idol ; and as they profess to know no king 
 but him (I was going farther), so will they say, they ought to do whatever he com- 
 mands, without inquiry.” Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland, edit. 
 London, 1816, vol. ii. pp. 83, 84. “ The Highlanders in Scotland are, of all men in 
 
 the world, the soonest wrought upon to follow their leaders or chiefs into the fie’d, 
 having a wonderful veneration for their Lords and Chieftains,^ as they are called 
 there : Nor do these people ever consider the validity of the engaging cause, but blind- 
 ly follow their chiefs into what mischief they please, and that with the greatest pre- 
 cipitation imaginable.” Patterns History of the Rebellion, London, 1717, p. 151. 
 “ The power of the chiefs over their clans was the true source of the two relmlhons. 
 The clansmen cared no more about the legitimate race of the Stuarts, than they did 
 about the war of the Spanish succession.” . . . “ The Jacobite Highland chiefs 
 ranged their followers on the Jacobite side — the Hanoverians ranged theirs on the 
 side of government. Lovat’s conduct was a sort oi experimentum crucis ; he made 
 his clan Hanoverian in one rebellion, and Jacobite in another.” Burtons Lwes of 
 Lovat and Forbes, p. 160. Compare the change of side of the Mackintoshes, in 
 Browne's History of the Highlands, vol. ii. p. 286. Even so late as the American war, 
 the sovereign was deemed subordinate to the chief. “ One Captain Frazer from the 
 northern district, brought dowm a hundred of his clan, all of the narne of Frazer. 
 Few of them could understand a word of English ; and the only distinct idea they 
 had of all the mustering of forces which they saw around them, was that they were 
 going to fight for King Frazer and George ta Three.” Penny's Traditions of Perthy 
 pp. 49, 60, Perth, 1836. 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 235 
 
 undertake long and hazardous marches, with the object of re- 
 storing that corrupt and tyrannical dynasty, whose offences 
 smelt to heaven, and whose cruelties had, at length, kindled 
 the anger even of humble and meek-minded men. 
 
 The simple fact is, that the outbreaks of I7l5 and 1745 
 were, in our country, the last struggle of barbarism against 
 civilization. On the one side, war and confusion. On the other 
 side, peace and prosperity. These were the interests for which 
 men really fought ; and neither party cared for Stuarts or for 
 Hanoverians. The result of such a contest in the eighteenth 
 century, could hardly be doubtful. At the time, the rebellions 
 caused great alarm, both from their suddenness, and from the 
 strange and ferocious appearance of the Highland invaders.®^ 
 But the knowledge we now possess, enables us to see, that, from 
 the beginning, success was impossible. Though the govern- 
 rnent was extremely remiss, and, notwithstanding the informa- 
 tion it received, allowed itself on both occasions to be taken by 
 surprise, there was no real danger.®* The English, not being 
 particularly enamoured either with the Highlanders or with the 
 Stuarts, refused to rise j®® and it cannot be seriously supposed. 
 
 Which gave rise to a report that they were cannibals. “The late Mr. Halk- 
 ston of Rathillet, who had been in this expedition” (the Rebellion of 1745), “told 
 Mr. Young that the belief was general among the people of England, that the High- 
 landers ate children.” Johnstone's Memoirs of the Rebellion^ 8d edit. Lond. 1822, 
 p. Idl* Such a rumour, notwithstanding its absurdity, was made somewhat plausible 
 by the revolting conduct of the Highlanders in the first rebellion of 1716, when 
 they committed, in the Lowlands, horrible outrages on corpses which they dug up. 
 See the contemporary evidence, in Correspo7idence of the Rev. Robert Wodrow, pub- 
 lished by the Wodrow Society, vol. ii. pp. 86, 87, 93. “ They have even raised up 
 
 some of my Lord Rothes’s children and mangled their dead bodies” . . . “till the 
 stench put them away.” In 1746, they signalized their entrance into England in the 
 tollowing manner : “ The rebels, during their stay in Carlisle, committed the most 
 
 villanies ; for, not content with robbing families of their most 
 valuable eiFects, they scrupled not to act their brutal insolence on the persons of 
 some young ladies, even in the presence of their parents. A gentleman, in a letter 
 to his mend in London, writes thus : ‘ That, after being in a manner stripped of 
 every thing, he had the misery to see three of his daughters treated in such a man- 
 ner that he could not relate it’ ” Marchant's History of the present Rebellion. Lorn 
 don, 1746, pp. 181, 182. ^ J r . 
 
 ” Even when they had penetrated to Derby, the best informed of their own 
 party despaired of success. See the Jacobitical account in The Lockhart Pavers, 
 London, 4to, 1817, vol. ii. p. 468: “The next thing to be considered of, was what 
 was now to be done ; they were now at Derby, with an army not half the number of 
 what they were reported to be, surrounded in a manner with regular troops on all 
 sides, and more than double their number. To go forward, there was no encour- 
 agement, for their friends (if they had any) had kept little or no correspondence with 
 them irom the time they entered England.” The Chevalier De Johnstone, who took 
 an active part in the Rebellion, frankly savs, “ If we had continued to advance to 
 Eondon, and had encountered aU the troops of England, with the Hessians and Swiss 
 every appearance of our being immediately exterminated, with- 
 out the chance of a single man escaping.” Johnstone's Memoirs of the Rebellion in 
 1745 and 1746, p. 79. 
 
 Lord George Murray, the commander-in-chief in 1745, was unwilling to ad* 
 
236 
 
 CONDITION or HJOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 that a few thousand half-naked banditti had it in their power 
 to prescribe to the people of England what sovereign they should 
 obey, and under what sort of government they should live. 
 
 After 1745, there was no further interruption. The inter- 
 ests of civilization, that is, the interests of knowledge, of liberty, 
 and of wealth, gradually assumed the upper hand, and reduced 
 men like the Highlanders to utter insignificance. Koads were 
 cut through their country ; and, for the first time,^ travellers 
 from the south began to mingle with them in their hitherto in- 
 accessible wilds. In those parts, the movement was, indeed, 
 very slow j but, in the Lowlands, it was much more rapid. 
 For, the traders and inhabitants of towns were now becoming 
 prominent, and their authority helped to neutralize the old war- 
 like and anarchical habits. Towards the end of the seventeenth 
 century, a taste for commercial speculation sprung up, and a 
 large amount of the energy of Scotland was turned into this 
 new channel.®® Early in the eighteenth century, the same 
 
 vance far south of Carlisle, “ without more encouragement from the country than we 
 had hitherto got.” See his own account, in The Jacobite Memoirs of the Rebellion 
 of 1746, edited by R. Cliambers, Edinburgh, 1834, p. 48. But his prudent advice 
 was over-ruled. The Highlanders pressed on ; and that happened, which any one, 
 tolerably acquainted with England, might have foreseen. Johnstone {Memoirs of 
 the Rebellion, p. 7o) says, “ In case of a defeat in England, no one in our army could 
 bv any possibility escape destruction, as the English peasants were hostile towards us 
 in the highest degree ; and, besides, the army of Marshal Wade was in our rear, to 
 cut us off from all communication with Scotland.” And at page 81, “In every 
 place we passed through, we found the English very ill-disposed towards us, except 
 at Manchester, where there appeared some remains of attachment to the house of 
 Stuart.” The champion of arbitrary power would find a different reception now, in 
 that magnificent specimen of English prosperity, and of true open-mouthed, English 
 fearlessness. But a century ago, the men of Manchester were poor and ignorant ; 
 and the statement of Johnstone respecting them is confirmed by Home, who says, 
 “ At Manchester, several gentlemen, and about 200 or 300 of the common people, 
 joined the rebel army ; these were the only Englishmen {a few individuals^ excepted) 
 who joined Charles in his march through the country of England.f Home's History 
 of the Rebellion in 1746, Loudon, 1842, 4to, p. 145. In 1716, the English equally 
 held back, except at Manchester. See Patten's History of the late Rebellion, Lon- 
 don, 1717, pp. 89, 108. _ . . j 
 
 The establishment of roads caused great displeasure. Pennant, w'ho visited 
 Scotland in 1769, says, “ These publick works were at first very disagreeable to the 
 old chieftains, and lessened their influence greatly; for, by admitting strangers 
 among them, their clans were taught that the Lairds were not the first of men.” 
 Penrtant's Tour in Scotland, 4th edit. Dublin, 1776, vol. i. p. 204. Towards the 
 end of the eighteenth century, this feeling began to die away. “ Till of late, the 
 people of Kintail, as well as other Highlands, had a strong aversion to roads. The 
 more inaccessible, the more secure, was their maxim.” Sinclair's Statistical u4.c- 
 count of Scotland, vol. vi. p. 244, Edinburgh, 1793. 
 
 “ Soon after the establishment of the revolution settlement, the ardent feelings 
 of the Scottish people were turned out of their old channels of religious controversy 
 and war in the direction of commercial enterprise.” Burton's Criminal Trials in 
 Scotland, vol. i. p. 104. Compare Burnet's History of his own Time, vol. iv. pp. 
 286, 287, 418 ; and the note (at p. 419) : “ The lords and commons of Scotland were 
 then desirous of getting into trade.” This is under the year 1699. In 1698, Flet- 
 ther of Saltoun writes : “ By no contrivance of any man, but by an unforeseen and 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 237 
 
 tendency was displayed in literature ; and works on mercantile 
 and economical subjects became common.®® 
 
 rioH perceptible. About this pe- 
 
 j to lose something of that rugged ferocity 
 
 distinguished them of old. This improvement was 
 evinced in several ways ; one of the most remarkable being an 
 alteration which was first observed in 1710, when it was no- 
 ticed that men were leaving olf armour, which had hitherto 
 b^een worn by every one who could afford it, as a useful precau- 
 tion in a barbarous, and therefore a warlike, society.®^ 
 
 • A- general progress in its various parts, or even 
 
 to indicate the immediate consequences, would require a sepa- 
 
 be naRspd^^’ results is, however, too conspicuous to 
 
 imTinrif^ Tr/? ®dence, though it does not deserve all the 
 of Wrrf attached to it. This is, the abolition 
 
 of after all, was but a symptom 
 
 ot the great movement, and not a cause of it ; being itself due 
 
 dfm^-nnr industrial spirit, and partly to that 
 
 visiWe aristocracy, which had been 
 
 visible as early as the beginning of the seventeenth century. 
 
 ^uring many ages, certain persons of noble birth tad enioyed 
 the pnvilep of trying offences, and even of inflicting coital 
 punishment, sinaply because their ancestors had done so before 
 
 ^eing, in fact, part of their patrimony, 
 d descending to them like the rest of their property.®® An 
 
 “if uSed inclinations, 
 
 consdrHlpdtr I «Pon trade, and to 
 
 in Fletcher%f8altoun's pJmc7\Zks, Gkjo^'”' Tsf cf 
 
 Wodrows Correnpondence, Edinburgli, 1842, 8vo, vol. i. p. 67. ^In the iume vear 
 
 unon Wo^l ^ French, part of the loss fell upon Glasgow. Therel 
 upon, Wodrow writes: “It’s said that in all there is about eighty thousand nound 
 
 neTsnnf Glasgow has lost ten thousand pouni I wish trainer 
 
 aSrfrou™L'"«non ^ P^^idence. I am sure the Lord is remark- 
 
 room of respects than one, since it was put in the 
 
 vol“ J 2^^410 nnhf\ ‘constitution.” Wodrow's Analecta, 
 
 ■gB 4to, published by the Maitland Club. 
 
 {Histovy of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 296), under the year 1703, says- “Ever 
 
 ^r?c,£^7S1hf “”“".*'>egeniu.ot,he „Ji„„ had acquiLa new 
 
 ous nrSc? ons ®P‘”' «f the times, the numer- 
 
 ous productions on pohtical and commercial subjects, with which it daily teemed 
 
 land ^ nge.” Ur.fortunatJ^^r Seotl 
 
 be mien ^ supplanted. Still the movement was great, Ind not to 
 
 Boldk/toiSi?u^’ t^ey began to throw off their armour and allow the 
 pi n Pp. t ^ industrious craftsman.” Penny's Traditions of 
 
 «» On’ ufp^’ particularly applies to the citizens of Perth, 
 
 or T wonlH rffu hereditary or proprietary jurisdictions,” which conferred the right, 
 
 f .power of p,„,i„g people to death, see Bnrton’. 
 tcoUand, Yol. l p, 426, Yol. 11 . p. 402. The teehnieal term for so monstrous a pi mlfge. 
 
238 
 
 CONDITION OF SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 institution of this sort, which made a man a judge, not because 
 he was apt for the office, but because he was born under par- 
 ticular circumstances, was a folly which the revolutionary tem- 
 per of the eighteenth century was not likely to spare ihe 
 innovating spirit for which that age was remarkable, could hardly 
 fail to attack so preposterous a custom ; and its extinction was 
 facilitated, both by the decline of the nobles who possessed the 
 privilege, and by the rise of their natural opponents, the trading 
 Ld commercial classes. The decay of the Scotch nobility, in 
 the eighteenth century, may be traced to two special causes, in 
 addition to those general causes which were weakening the 
 aristocracy nearly all over Europe. With the general causes, 
 which were common to England and to most parts ot the 
 tinent, we are not now concerned. It is enough to say, that 
 they were entirely dependent on that advance of knowledge, 
 which, by increasing the authority of the intellectual class, 
 undermines, and must eventually overthrow, mere hereditary 
 and accidental distinctions. But those causes which were con- 
 fined to Scotland, had a more political character, and though 
 they were purely local, they harmonized with the whole tram 
 of events, and ought to be noticed, as links of a vast chai^ 
 which connects the present state of that singular country with 
 
 The first cause was the Union of Scotland with England, 
 in 1707, which struck a heavy blow at the Scotch aristocracy. 
 By it, the legislature of the smaller country was absorbed in 
 that of the larger, and the hereditary legislators suddenly sunk 
 into insignificance. In the Scotch parliament, there were a 
 hundred and forty-five peers, all of whom, except sixteen, were, 
 by the Act of Union, deprived of the power ot making laws. 
 
 was the right “ of pit and gallows.” Pitcairn's Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. ii. 
 p. 94; and Mackenzie's Laws and Customs of Scotland ^n 
 
 100 187, 210. This meant, that men were to be hung, and women to be downed. 
 See also Arnot's History of Edinburgh v 224 ; Founta^nhall « ^^5! 
 fairs, p 139 ; Hume's History of the House of Douglas, vol. i. p. 346 Lettice s Scot 
 £ ’p^ 271 ; SinclaiSs Scotland, vol. i. p. 417, vol. iv. p. 478, yol. vi. pp. 195^, 258 
 vol. viii. pp. 129, 348, vol. xui. p. 663, vol. xiv. p. 34, vol. zvu. pp. 442, 600, vol 
 
 {History of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 346) says, that in the co- 
 
 in the Scotdsh parliament were 160 ; the peers 145.” Of these peers, the Treaty of 
 Union declared that » sixteen shaU be the number to sit 
 
 Lords.” De Foe's History of the Union between England ^ 
 
 1786, 4to, pp. 205, 638. The English House of Lords jV l^s 
 
 See Ihe Lockhart Papers, London, 1817, 4to, vol. i. pp. 
 
 sible to mistake the result of this sweeping measure, by ' . , JTnion o 
 
 time, “ Scotland was to retrench her nobility.” De Foe's 
 
 495. Compare p. 471 : “ The nobUity being thereby, as it ^^re ^graded of ^ 
 
 characters.” In 1710, a Scotchman writes m his journal ; I* 
 
 lancholyest sights to any that have any sense of our antient Nobihty, to see the 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 
 
 239 
 
 These sixteen were sent off to London, and took their seats in 
 the House of Lords, of which they formed a small and miserable 
 fraction. On every subject, however important to their own 
 country, they were easily outvoted ; their manners, their ges- 
 ticulations, and particularly their comical mode of pronouncing 
 English, were openly ridiculed and the chiefs of this old 
 and powerful aristocracy found themselves, to their utter amaze- 
 ment, looked on as men of no account, and they were often 
 obliged to fawn and cringe at the levee of the minister, in order 
 to procure a place for some needy dependent. Their friends 
 and relations applied to them lor offices, and generally applied 
 in vain. Indeed, the Scotch nobles being very poor, wanted 
 for themselves more than the Enghsh government was inclined 
 to give, and in the eagerness of their clamour, they lost both 
 dignity and reputation. They were exposed to mortifying 
 
 going throu for votes, and making partys, and giving their votes to others who once 
 had their oun vote ; and I suspect many of them reu the bargain fhey made, in giv- 
 ing their oun pouer away.” Wodrow's Analecta, vol. i. p. 308. 
 
 ““ The Scotch, consequently, became so eager to do away with this source of 
 mirth, that even as late as the year 1761, when the notorious lecturer, Sheridan, 
 visited Edinburgh, “ such was the rage for speaking with an English accent, that 
 more than three hundred gentlemen, among whom were the most eminent in the 
 country for rank and learning, attended him.” Ritchie's Life of Hume, London, 
 1807, p. 94. It was, however, during about twenty years immediately after the 
 Union, that the Scotch members of Parliament, both Lords and Commons, were 
 most jeered at in London, and were treated with marked disrespect, socially and 
 politically. Not only were they mocked and lampooned, but they were also made 
 tools of. In September 1711, Wodrow writes {Analecta, vol. 1. p. 848, 4to, 1842): 
 “In the beginning of this (month), I hear a generall dissatisfaction our Nobilityj 
 that wer at last Parliament, have at their treatment at London. They complean 
 they are only made use of as tools among the English, and cast by when their party 
 designes are over.” The next year (1712), the Scotch members of 'the House of Com- 
 mons met together, and expressed their “high resentment of the uncivil, haughty 
 treatment they mett with from the English.” The Loclchart JPapevs, London, 1817, 
 4to, vol. i. p. 417. See, further. Burton's Historv if Scotland, vol. ii. p. 27! 
 “ Without descending to rudeness, the polished contemporaries of Wharton and St. 
 John could madden the sensitive and haughty Scots by light shafts of raillery, about 
 their pronunciation or knowledge of parliamentary etiquette.” Some curious ob- 
 servations upon the way in which the Scotch pronounced English, late in the seven- 
 teenth century, will be found in Mover's Short Account of Scotland, London, 1702, 
 pp. 13, 14. The author of this book was chaplain to a Scotch regiment. 
 
 Among many illustrations with which contemporary memoirs abound, the 
 following is by no means the worst. Burnet, as a Scotchman, thirdvs proper to say 
 that those of his countrymen who were sent to parliament, “were persons of such 
 distinction, that they very well deserved ” the respect and esteem with which they 
 were treated. To which. Lord Dartmouth adds : “ and were very importunate to 
 have their deserts rewarded. A Scotch earl pressed Lord Godolphin extremely for 
 a place. He said there was none vacant. The other said, his lordship could soon 
 make one so, if he pleased. Lord Godolphin asked him, if he expected to have any 
 body killed to make room ? He said. No ; but Lord Dartmouth commonly voted 
 against the court, and every body wondered that he had not been turned out before 
 now. Lord Godolphin told him, he hoped his lordship did not expect that he should 
 be the person to propose it ; and advised him never to mention it any more, for 
 fear the queen should come to hear of it j for if she did, his lordship would run 
 great risk never to have a place as long as she lived. But he could not forbear tell- 
 
240 
 
 CONDITION or SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 rebuffs, and tbeir true position being soon known, weakened 
 their influence at home, among a people already prepared to 
 throw off their authority. To this, however, they were com- 
 paratively indifferent, as they looked for future fortune, not to 
 Scotland, but to England. London became the centre of their 
 intrigues and their hopes. Those who had no seat in the 
 House of Lords, longed to have one, and it was notorious, that 
 the darling object of nearly every Scotch noble was to be made 
 an English peer.^“® The scone of their ambition being shifted, 
 they were gradually weaned from their old associations. Direct- 
 ing everywhere, how ill the lord treasurer had used him.” Burnet's History of his 
 own Time, vol. v. p. 349, Oxford, 1823. Compare the account, in 1710, in Wodrow's 
 Analecta, vol. i. p. 293. “Argyle is both picked {i. e. piqued) at Marlburrou, and 
 his brother Yla, for refuising him a regiment ; and Godolphin should have said to 
 the Queen that my Lord Yla was not to be trusted with a regiment ! The Earl of 
 Marr was one of the greatest cronnies Godolphine had, till the matter of his pension, 
 after the Secretary office was taken from him, came about. Godolphine caused 
 draw it during pleasure ; Marr expected it during life, which the Treasurer would not 
 yield to, and therefore they brake.” The history of the time is full of these wretch- 
 ed squabbles, which show what the Scotch nobles were made of. Indeed, their 
 rapacity was so shameless, that, in 1711, several of them refused to perform their 
 legislative duties in London, unless they received some offices w hich they expected. 
 
 “ About the midle of this moncth, I hear ther was a meeting of severall of our Scots 
 Peers, at the Viscount of Kilsyth’s, where they concerteU not to goe up to this par- 
 liament till peremptorily writ for ; and (also) some assurance be given of the places 
 they were made to hope for last session and have missed.” Wodrow's Analecta, vol. 
 i. p. 365. ha 1712, the same Scotchman writes {Analecta, vol. ii. p. 8): “ Our Scots 
 Peers’ secession from the House of Peers makes much noise; but they doe not hold 
 by it. They somtimes come and somtimes goe, and they render themselves base in the 
 eyes of the English." See also a letter “ concerning the Scots Peerage,” in Somers 
 Tracts, vol. xii. p. 607, edit. Scott, London, 1814, 4to. 
 
 A Scotch writer, twenty years after the Union, says: “Most of our gentle- 
 men and people of quality, who have the best estates in our country, live lor the 
 most part at London.” Reasons for improving the Fisheries and Linen Manufac- 
 ture of Scotland, London, 1727, p. 22. I do not know who wrote this curious little 
 treatise ; but the author was evidently a native of Scotland. See p. 26. I have, 
 however, still earlier evidence to adduce. A letter from Wodrow, dated 9th of 
 August, 1725, complains of “the general sending our youth of quality to England ; 
 and a letter to him, in 1716, describes the Anglicizing process going on among the 
 Scotch aristocracy, only nine years alter the Union. Most ol our Lords and 
 others here do so much depend on the English for thei-r posts, and seeking Homewhat 
 or other, that their mouths are almost quite stopped ; and re&Wy most of them go into 
 the English way in all things." WodrotTs Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 196, vok iii. p. 
 224. The Earl of Marr lost popularity in Scotland, on account of the court he paid 
 to Lord Godolphin ; for, he “ appears to have passed much more 'time in intrigues 
 in London than among the gardens of Alloa.” Thomson's Memoirs of the Jacobites, 
 vol. i. p. 36. Even Earl Hay, in his anxiety to advance himself at the English court, 
 “used to regret his being a Scots peer, and to wish earnestly he was a commoner. 
 Jjetters of Lord Grange, in The Miscellany of the Spalding Club, vol. iii. p. 89, Aber^ 
 deen, 4to, 1846. 
 
 Indeed, their expectation ran so high, as to induce a hope, not only that 
 those Commissioners of the Union who were Scotch peers should be made English 
 ones, but that “ the whole nobility of Scotland might in time be admitted.’’ Laing s 
 Histwy of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 346. Compare The Lockhart Papers, vol. i. pp. 298, 
 S43 : “ the Scots Peerage, many of whom had been bubled with the hopes of being 
 themselves created British Peers.” Also The Gordon Letters, in The Miscellany 
 of the Spalding Club, vol. iii. pp. 227, 228. 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 241 
 
 ly this was apparent, the foundation of their power was gone. 
 From that moment, their real nationality vanished. It became 
 evident that their patriotism was but a selfish passion. They 
 ceased to love a country which could give them nothing, and, 
 as a natural consequence, their country ceased to love them. 
 
 Thus it was that this great tie was severed. In this, as in 
 all similar movements, there were, of course, exceptions. Some 
 of the nobles were disinterested, and some of their dependents 
 were faithful. But, looking at the Lowlands as a whole, there 
 can be no doubt that, before the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, that bond of affection was gone, which, in former times, 
 made tens of thousands of Scotchmen ready to follow their 
 superiors in any cause, and to sacrifice their lives at a nod. 
 That spirit, which was once deemed ardent and generous, but 
 which a deeper analysis shows to be mean and servile, was now 
 almost extinct, except among the barbarous Highlanders, whose 
 ignorance of affairs long prevented them from being influenced 
 by the stream of events. That the proximate cause of this 
 change was the Union, will probably be denied by no one who 
 has minutely studied the history of the period. And that the 
 change was beneficial, can only be questioned by those senti- 
 mental dreamers, with whom life is a matter rather of feeling 
 than of judgment, and who, despising real and tangible inter- 
 ests, reproach their own age with its material prosperity, and 
 with its love of luxury, as if they were the result of low and 
 sordid desires unknown to the loftier temper of bygone days. 
 To visionaries of this sort, it may well appear that the barbar- 
 ous and ignorant noble, surrounded by a host of devoted retain- 
 ers, and living with rude simphcity in his own dull and wretched 
 castle, forms a beautiful picture of those unmercenary and 
 uncalculating times, when men, instead of seeking for knowl- 
 edge, or for wealth, or for comfort, were content with the frugal 
 innocence of their fathers, and when, protection being accorded 
 by one class, and gratitude felt by the other, the subordination 
 of society was maintained, and its different parts were knit 
 together by sympathy, and by the force of common emotions, 
 instead of, as now, by the coarse maxims of a vulgar and selfish 
 utility. 
 
 Those, however, whose knowledge gives them some acquaint- 
 ance with the real course of human affairs, will see that in 
 Scotland, as in all civilized countries, the decline of aristocratic 
 power forms an essential part of the general progress. It must, 
 therefore, be esteemed a fortunate circumstance, that, among 
 the Scotch, where that power had long been enormous, it was 
 weakened in the eighteenth century, not only by general causes. 
 
242 
 
 CONDITION OF SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 which were operating elsewhere, hut also hy two smaller and 
 more special causes. The first of these minor causes was, as 
 we have just seen, the Union with England, The other cause 
 was, comparatively speaking, insignificant, hut still it produced 
 decided effect, particularly in the northern districts. It con- 
 sisted in the fact, that some of the oldest Highland nobles were 
 concerned in the rebellion of 1745, and that, when that rebellion 
 was put down, those who escaped from the sword, were glad to 
 save their lives by flying abroad, leaving their dependents to 
 shift for themselves. They became attached to the court of 
 the Pretender, or, at all events, intrigued for him. That, indeed, 
 was their only chance, their estates at home being forfeited. 
 For nearly forty years, several great families were in exile, and 
 although, about 1784, they began to return, other associations 
 had been formed during their absence, and new ideas had arisen, 
 both in their own minds, and in the minds of their retainers. 
 A fresh generation had grown up, and fresh influences had been 
 brought to bear. Strangers, with whom the people had no 
 sympathy, had intruded upon the estates of the nobles, and 
 though they might receive obedience, it was an obedience unac- 
 companied by deference. The real reverence was gone ; the 
 homage of the heart was no more. And as this state of things 
 lasted for about forty years, it interrupted the old train of 
 thought ; and the former habits were so completely broken, 
 that, even when the chiefs were restored to their forfeited hon- 
 ours, they found that there was another part of their inheritance 
 which they were unable to recover, and that they had lost for 
 ever that unreserved submission, which, in times of yore, had 
 been willingly paid to their fathers. 
 
 The Chevalier de Johnstone, in his plaintive remarks on the battle of Cullo- 
 den, says : “ The ruin of many of the most illustrious families in Scotland imme- 
 diately followed our defeat.” Johnstone's Memoirs of the Rebellion in 1746, p. 211. 
 He, of course, could not perceive that, sad as such ruin was to the individual suf- 
 ferers, it was an immense benefit to the nation. Mr. Skene, referring to the year 
 1748, says of the Highlanders ; “ their long-cherished idea of clanship gradually 
 gave way under the absence and ruin of so many of their chiefs.” Skene's High- 
 landers^ vol. i. p. 147. 
 
 106 “ A.bout 1784, the exiled families began to return.” Penny's Traditions of 
 Perth, p. 41. See also MacphersorC s Annals of Commerce, vol. iv. p. 63. In 1784, 
 “a bill passed the Commons without opposition,” to restore the “Forfeited Estates” 
 in the north of Scotland. See Parliamentary History, vol. xxiv. pp. 1316-1322. On 
 that occasion, Fox said (p. 1321), the proprietors “had been sufficiently punished by 
 forty years’ deprivation of their fortunes for the faults of their ancestors.” 
 
 Dean Ramsay, in his Reminiscences (6th edit. Edinburgh, 1869, p. 67), notices 
 that, owing to “ transfers of property and extinction of old families in the Highlands, 
 as well as from more general causes,” the old clannish affection “is passing away.” 
 But this intelligent observer has not indicated the connexion between so important 
 a fact and the Rebellion of 1746. In 1792, Heron writes : “ The prejudices of clan- 
 ship have almost died away.” .... “The dependents of the family of Kenmure 
 are still attached t® its representative with much of that affection and respect with 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 243 
 
 Owing to these circumstances, the course of affairs in Scot- 
 land during the eighteenth century, and especially during the 
 first half of it, was marked by a more rapid decline of the 
 infiuence of the higher ranks than was seen in any other coun- 
 try. It was, therefore, an easy task for the English government 
 to procure a law, which, by ahohshing hereditary jurisdictions, 
 deprived the Scotch aristocracy, in 1748, of the last great ensign 
 of their power. The law, being suited to the spirit of the 
 times, worked well ; and in the Highlands, in particular, it was 
 one immediate cause of the establishment of something like the 
 order of a settled state. But in this instance, as in every 
 other, the real and overruling cause is to he found in the con- 
 dition of the surrounding society. A few generations earlier, 
 hardly any one would have thought of abolishing these mischiev- 
 ous jurisdictions, which were then deemed beneficial, and were 
 respected, as belonging to the great families by natural and 
 inalienable right. Such an opinion was the inevitable result of 
 the state of things then existing. This being the case, it is 
 certain that, if the legislature had, at that time, been so rash 
 as to lay its hand on what the nation respected, popular sym- 
 pathy would have been aroused, and the nobles would have been 
 strengthened by what was intended to weaken them.''’® In 
 1748, however, matters were very different. Public opinion 
 had changed ; and this change of opinion was not only the 
 cause of the new law, hut was the reason of the new law being 
 
 which the tribes of the Highlands have till lately been accustomed to adhere to 
 their lord.” Heron's Journey through the Western Counties of Scotland, 2d edit., 
 Perth, 1799, vol. i. p. 248, vol. ii. p. 154. See also the remarks made, in the same 
 year, in Lettice's Letters on a Tour through various Harts of Scotland, London, 1794, 
 p. 340. To trace the movement back still further. Pennant writes, in 1769 : “ But 
 in many parts of the Highlands, their character begins to be more faintly marked: 
 they mix more with the w'orld ; and become daily less attached to their chiefs." . . . 
 “During the Feudal reign, their love for their chieftain induced them to bear many 
 things, at present intolerable." These tw'o important passages are in the 4th edition 
 of Pennants Tour in Scotland, vol. i. p. 194, vol. ii. p. 307, Dublin, 1775. They 
 prove that, twenty-four years after the rebellion of 1745, the decay of affection was 
 so manifest, as to strike a candid, and careful, but by no means philosophic, ob- 
 server. For Pennant to have discerned these changes, they must already liave 
 risen to the surface. Other and corroborative evidence will be found in Sinclair's 
 Account of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 545, Edinburgh, 1792; and vol. iii. pp. 377, 437, 
 vol, xiii. p. 310, vol. xv. p. 592, vol. xx. p. 33. 
 
 Burton's History of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 535-537. Struthers' History of Scot- 
 land. Glasgow, 1828, vol. ii. pp. 519-525. 
 
 ““ Maepherson {^Annals of Commerce, vol. iii. p. 259) says, “ This excellent 
 statute may not unfitly be termed a new magna charta to the free people of Scotland.” 
 
 I cannot, therefore, agree with Maepherson, who asserts, in his valuable work, 
 that the abolition of these jurisdictions “ should undoubtedly have been made an 
 essential preliminary of the consolidating union of the two kingdoms of England and 
 Scotland, concluded forty years before.” Maepherson' s Annals of Commerce, vol. iii. 
 p. 257. Compare De Foe's History of the Union between England and Scotland, pp. 
 458, 459, London, 1786, 4to. 
 
244 
 
 CONDITION OF SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 eflfective. And so it always is. They, indeed, whose knowledga 
 is almost confined to what they see passing around them, and 
 who, on account of their ignorance, are termed practical men, 
 may talk as they will about the reforms which government has 
 introduced, and the improvement to he expected from legislation. 
 But whoever will take a wider and more commanding view of 
 afiairs, will soon discover that such hopes are chimerical. They 
 will learn that lawgivers are nearly always the obstructors or 
 society, instead of its helpers ; and that, in the extremely few 
 cases in which their measures have turned out well, their suc- 
 cess has been owing to the fact, that, contrary to their usual 
 custom, they have implicitly obeyed the spirit of their time, and 
 have been, as they always should be, the mere servants of the 
 people, to whose wishes they are hound to give a public and 
 legal sanction. 
 
 Another striking peculiarity of Scotland, during the remark- 
 able period we are now considering, was the sudden rise of trad- 
 ing and manufacturing interests. This preceded, by a whole 
 generation, the celebrated statute of 1748, and was one of the 
 causes of it, in so far as it weakened the great families, against 
 whom that statute was directed. The movement may be traced 
 back, as I have already noticed, to the end of the seventeenth 
 century, and it was in active operation before the first twenty 
 years of the eighteenth century had passed away. A mercan- 
 tile and money-making spirit was difiused to an extent formerly 
 unknown ; and men becoming valued for their wealth as well as 
 for their birth, a new standard of excellence was introduced, and 
 new actors appeared on the scene. Heretofore, persons were 
 respected solely for their parentage ; now they were also respect- 
 ed for their riches. The old aristocracy, made uneasy by the 
 change, did every thing they could to thwart and discourage 
 these young and dangerous rivals. ““ Nor can we wonder at 
 their feeling somewhat sore. The tendency which was exhibited, 
 was, indeed, fatal to their pretensions. Instead of asking who 
 was a man's father, the question became, how much he had got. 
 And certainly, if either question is to be put, the latter is the 
 more rational. Wealth is a real and substantial thing, which 
 ministers to our pleasures, increases our comfort, multiplies our 
 resources, and not unfrequently alleviates our pains. But birth 
 is a dream and a shadow, which, so far from benefiting either 
 body or mind, only pufis up its possessor with an imaginary 
 excellence, and teaches him to despise those whom nature has 
 
 “* In 1'740, “ the rising manufacturing and trading interests of the country” 
 were “ looked down upon and discouraged by the feudal aristocracy.” Burton's Lives 
 »/ Lovat and Forbes, p. 361. 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 245 
 
 made his superiors, and who, whether engaged in adding to our 
 knowledge or to our wealth, are, in either case, ameliorating 
 the condition of society, and rendering to it true and valuable 
 service. 
 
 This antagonism between the aristocratic and trading spirit, 
 lies in the nature of things, and is essential, however it may he 
 disguised at particular periods. Therefore it is, that the history 
 of trade has a philosophic importance in reference to the progress 
 of society, quite independent of practical considerations. On 
 this account, I have called the attention of the reader to what 
 otherwise would be foreign to the objects of the present intro- 
 duction ; and I will now trace, as briefly as possible, the begin- 
 ning of that great industrial movement, to the extension of 
 which the overthrow of the Scotch aristocracy is to be partly 
 ascribed. 
 
 The Union with England, which was completed in 1707 
 produced immediate and striking efiects on trade. Its flrst 
 effect was, to throw open to the Scotch a new and extensive 
 cornmerce with the English colonies in America. Before the 
 Union, no goods of any kind could be landed in Scotland from 
 the American plantations, unless they had first been landed in 
 England, and paid duty there ; nor even, in that case, might 
 they be conveyed by any Scotch vessel. This was one of 
 many foolish regulations by which our legislators interfered 
 with the natural course of affairs, and injured the interests of 
 their own country, as well as those of their neighbours. For- 
 merly, however, such laws were considered to be extremely 
 sagacious, and politicians were constantly contriving protective 
 schemes of this sort, which, with the best intentions, inflicted 
 incalculable harm. But if, as seems probable, one of their 
 objects, in this instance, was to retard the improvement of Scot- 
 land, they were more than usually successful in effecting the 
 purpose at which they aimed. For, the whole of the western 
 coast, being cut off from direct intercourse with the American 
 colonies, was debarred from the only foreign trade it could 
 
 Whereas Scotland had, before this, prohibited all the English woollen man- 
 ufactures, under severe penalties, and England, on the other hand, had excluded the 
 Scots from trading with Scots sliips to their colonies in America, directly from Scot- 
 land, and had confiscated even their own English ships trading to the said Colonies 
 from England, if navigated or manned with above one-third Scots seamen,” etc. 
 Be Foe’s History of the Union, p. 603. In 1696, the wise men in our English par- 
 liament passed a law, “that on no pretence whatever any kind of goods from the 
 English American plantations should hereafter be put on shore, either in the king- 
 doms of Ireland or Scotland, without being first landed in England, and having also 
 paid the duties there, under forfeiture of ship and cargo.” MacphersorC s Annals of 
 Uommercc, vol. ii. p. 684. Certainly, the more a man knows of the history of legis- 
 lation, the more he ■will wonder that nations should have been able to advance in 
 the face of the formidable impediments which legislators have thrown in their way. 
 
246 
 
 CONDITION OF SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 advantageously follow ; since the European ports lay to the 
 east, and could not be reached by the inhabitants of Western 
 Scotland without a long circumnavigation, which prevented 
 them from competing, on equal terms, with their countrymen, 
 who, sailing from the other side, were already near the chief 
 seats of commerce. The consequence was, that Glasgow and 
 the other western ports remained almost stationary ; having 
 comparatively few means of gratifying that enterprising spirit, 
 which rose among them late in the seventeenth century, and 
 not daring to trade with those prosperous colonies which were 
 just before them across the Atlantic, but from which they were 
 entirely excluded by the jealous precautions of the English par- 
 liament."* 
 
 When, however, by the Act of Union, the two countries be- 
 came one, these precautions were discontinued, and Scotland 
 was allowed to hold direct intercourse with America and the 
 West India Islands. The result which this produced on the 
 national industry, was almost instantaneous, because it gave 
 vent to a spirit which had begun to appear among the people 
 late in the seventeenth century, and because it was aided by 
 those still more general causes, which, in most parts of Europe, 
 predisposed that age to increased industry. The west of Scot- 
 land, being nearest to America, was the first to feel the move- 
 ment. In 1*707, the inhabitants of Greenock, without the 
 interference of government, imposed on themselves a voluntary 
 assessment, with the object of constructing a harbour. In this 
 undertaking, they displayed so much zeal, that, by the year 1710, 
 the whole of the works were completed ; a pier and capacious 
 harbour were erected, and Greenock was suddenly raised from 
 insignificance to take an important part in the trade of the 
 Atlantic. “• For a while, the merchants were content to carry 
 
 “ A spirit for commerce appears to have been raised among the inhabitants 
 of Glasgow between the periods of 1660 and 1707, when the Union with England 
 took place.” .... But, “ whatever their trade was, at this time, it could not be 
 considerable ; the ports to which they were obliged to trade, lay all to the eastward ; 
 the circumnavigation of the island would, therefore, prove an almost insurmount- 
 able bar to the commerce of Glasgow; the people upon the east coast, from their 
 situation, would be in possession of almost the whole commerce of Scotland.” Gib- 
 son's History of Glasgow, p. 205, Glasgow, 1777. 
 
 113 “The importance of the measure induced the inhabitants of Greenock to make 
 a contract with the superior, by which they agreed to an assessment of Is. 4<Z. ster- 
 ling on every sack of malt, brewed into ale, within the limits of the town ; the 
 money, so levied, to be applied in liquidating the expense of forming a proper har- 
 bour at Greenock. The work was begun, at the epoch of the Union, in 1707 ; and 
 a capacious harbour, containing upwards of ten Scotch acres, was formed by building 
 an extensive circular pier, with a straight pier, or tongue, in the middle, by which 
 the harbour was divided into two parts. This formidable work, the greatest of the 
 kind, at that time, in Scotland, incurred an expense of more than 100,000 marks 
 Scots.” Chaimers' Caledonia, vol. iii. p. 807, London, 1824, 4to. In M''CvXlocKi 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 247 
 
 on their traffic with ships hired from the English. Soon, how- 
 ever, they became bolder ; they began to build on their own 
 account ; and, in 1719, the first vessel belonging to Greenock 
 sailed for America. From that moment, their commerce in- 
 creased so rapidly, that, by the year 1740, the tax which the 
 citizens had laid on themselves sufficed, not only to wipe off the 
 debt which had been incurred, but also to leave a considerable 
 surplus available for municipal purposes."® At the same time, 
 and by the action of the same causes, Glasgow emerged from 
 obscurity. In 1718, its enterprising inhabitants launched in 
 the Clyde the first Scotch vessel which ever crossed the Atlan- 
 tic ; thus, anticipating the people of Greenock by one year."® 
 Glasgow and Greenock became the two great commercial out- 
 lets of Scotland, and the chief centres of activity. Comforts, 
 
 Geographical and Statistical Dictionary, London, 1849, vol. i. p. 930, it is stated, 
 that “the inhabitants took the matter (1'70'7) into their own hands, and agreed with 
 their superior to assess themselves at a certain rate, to build a proper pier and 
 harbour. The work was finished in 1'710, at an expense of 5,665/.” 
 
 m (1 ipjjg trade of Greenock has kept pace with the improvements made on its 
 harbour. The union of the kingdoms (1707) opened the colonies to the enterprising 
 inhabitants of this town, and generally of the west of Scotland; but it was not till 
 1719 that the first vessel belonging to Greenock crossed the Atlantic.” M'Cullocli's 
 Geographical and Statistical Dictionary, vol. i. p. 930. 
 
 “ Such was the effect of the new harbour in increasing the trade, and the 
 population, of the town, that the assessment, and port-dues, cleared off the whole 
 debt before 1740, and left, in that year, a clear surplus of 27,000 marks Scots, or 
 1,500/. sterling.” Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. iii. p. 807. “ After the Union, however, 
 the trade of the port increased so rapidly, that, in the year 1740, the whole debt was 
 extinguished, and there remained a surplus, the foundation of the present town’s 
 funds, of 27,000 merks.” Sinclair' s Statistical JLccount of Scotland, vol. v. o. 676 
 Edinburgh, 1793. J i , 
 
 U6 iigy Union, however, new views were opened up to the merchants of the 
 city ; they thereby obtained the liberty of a free commerce to America and the 
 West Indies, from which they had been before shut out; they chartered English 
 vessels for these voyages, having none at first fit for the purpose ; sent out cargoes 
 of goods for the use of the colonies, and returned home laden with tobacco. The 
 business doing well, vessels were built belonging to the city, and in the year 1718, 
 the first ship, the property of Glasgow, crossed the Atlantic.” Denholm's Histwy 
 of Glasgom, p. 405, 3d edit. Glasgow, 1804. Brown {History of Glasgow, vol. ii. p. 
 330, Edinburgh, 1797) says, that the Glasgow merchants “chartered Whitehaven 
 snips for many years; ’’but that, “in 1716, a vessel of sixty tons burden was 
 launched at Crawford’s dike, being the first Clyde ship that went to the British set- 
 tlements m America with goods and a supercargo.” But this date is probably two 
 years too early. Mr. M‘Culloch, in his excellent Geographical and Statistical Dic- 
 tionary, London, 1849, vol. ii. p. 669, says : “But fora while, the merchants of Glas- 
 gow, who first embarked in the trade to America, carried it on by means of vessels 
 belonging to English ports : and it was not tilt 1718 that a ship built in Scotland (in 
 the Clyde), the property of Scotch owners, sailed for the American colonies.” Gib- 
 son, also {History of Glasgow, 1777, p. 206), says : “ In 1718, the first vessel of the 
 property of Glasgow crossed the Atlantic.” And, to the same effect, Sinclair's 
 htatistical Account of Scotland, vol. v. p. 498, Edinburgh, 1793. 
 u progress was so rapid, that, in a work printed in 1732, it is stated, that 
 
 this city of Glasgow is a place of the greatest trade in the kingdom, especially to 
 the Plantations ; from whence they have twenty or thirty sail of ships every year, 
 laden with tobacco and sugar ; an advantage this kingdom never enjoyed till the 
 
248 
 
 CONDITION OF SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 and, indeed, luxuries, hitherto only attainable at enormous cost, 
 began to he diffused through the country. The productions of 
 the tropics could now be procured direct from the New World, 
 which, in return, offered a rich and abundant market for manu- 
 factured goods. This was a further stimulus to Scotch indus- 
 try, and its effects were immediately apparent. The inhabitants 
 of Glasgow, finding a great demand among the Americans for 
 linen, introduced its manufacture into their city in 1725, 
 whence it extended to other places, and, in a short time, gave 
 employment to thousands of workmen.^'® It is also from the 
 year 1725, that Paisley dates its rise. So late as the beginning 
 of the eighteenth century, this rich and prosperous city was still 
 a straggling village, containing only a single street.*^® But, 
 after the Union, its poor, and hitherto idle, inhabitants began 
 to be moved by the activity which they saw on every side. 
 Gradually, their views expanded ; and the introduction among 
 them, in 1725, of the manufacture of thread, was the first step 
 in that great career in which they never stopped, until they had 
 raised Paisley to be a vast emporium of industry, and a suc- 
 cessful promoter of every art by which industry is nurtured. 
 
 Nor was it merely in the west, that this movement was 
 displayed. In Scotland generally, the spirit of trade became 
 so rife, that it began to encroach on the old theological spirit, 
 which had long been supreme. Hitherto, the Scotch had cared 
 for little except religious polemics. In every society, these had 
 
 Union. They are purchasing a harbour on the Frith near Alloway, to which they 
 have but twelve miles by land ; and then they can re-ship their sugars and tobacco, 
 for Holland, Germany, and the Baltick Sea, without being at the trouble of sailing 
 round England or Scotland.” Macky's Journey through Scotland, pp. 294, 296, 2d 
 edit. London, 1732. The first edition of this book was also printed in 1732. See 
 Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica, vol. i. p. 631 m., Edinburgh, 1824, 4to. 
 
 Gibson, who was a Glasgow merchant, says in his History of Glasgow, p. 236, 
 “ that the commerce to America first suggested the idea of introducing manufac- 
 tures into Glasgow, is to me very evident ; and that they were only attempted to be 
 introduced about the year 1726 is apparent.” Denholm {History of Glasgow, p. 412) 
 says : “The linen manufacture, which began here in the year 1726, was, fora long 
 time, the staple, not only of this city, but of the west of Scotland.” Compare 
 Heron's Journey through the Western Counties of Scotland, Perth, 1799, vol. ii. p. 
 412. 
 
 “ Consisting only of one principal street about half a mile in length.” ;Sm- 
 clair's Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. vii. p. 62. But the local historian men- 
 tions, with evident pride, that this one street contained “handsome houses.” 
 Crawfurd's History of the Shire of Renfrew, partiii. p. 305, edit. Paisley, 1782, 4to, 
 
 Denholm's History of Glasgow, pp. 646, 547 ; and Sinclair's Statistical Ac- 
 count of Scotland, vol. vii. pp. 62-64. See also, on the rise of Paisley, Heroris 
 Journey through the Western Counties of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 399, 400 ; Pennant's 
 Tour in Scotland, vol. ii. p. 144; and CraufurJ s History of the Shire of Renfrew, 
 part iii. p. 321. At an earlier period. Paisley was famous in a different way. In 
 the middle ages, it swarmed with monks. {Catalogue of Scotch Bishops, p. 
 
 262, Edinburgh, 1756, 4to) tells us that, “it formerly was a Priory, and afterwards 
 changed into an Abbey of Black Monks.” 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 249 
 
 been the chief subject of conversation ; and on them, men had 
 wasted their energies, without the least benefit either to them- 
 selves or to others. But, about this time, it was observed, that 
 the improvement of manufactures became a common topic of 
 discourse. Such a statement, made by a well-informed 
 writer, who witnessed what he relates, is a curious proof of the 
 change which was beginning, though very faintly, to steal over 
 the Scotch mind. ^ It shows that there was, at all events, a 
 tendency to turn aside from subjects which are inaccessible to 
 our understanding, and the discussion of which has no eifect 
 except to exasperate those who dispute, and to make them 
 more intolerant than^ ever of theological opinions different from 
 their own. Unhappily, there were, as I shall presently point 
 out, other causes at work, which prevented this tendency from 
 producing all the good that might have been expected. Still, 
 80 far as it went, it was a clear gain. It was a blow to supersti- 
 tion, inasmuch as it was an attempt to occupy the human mind 
 with mere secular considerations. In a country like Scotland, 
 this alone was extremely important. We must also add, that’ 
 though it was the effect of increased industry, it, as often hap- 
 pens, re-acted upon, and strengthened, its cause. For, by 
 diminishing, however little, the inordinate respect formerly paid 
 to theological pursuits, it was, in the same proportion, an in- 
 ducement to ambitious and enterprising men to abstain from 
 those pursuits, and to engage in temporal matters, where ability, 
 being less fettered by prejudice, has more scope, and enjoys 
 more freedom of action. Of those men, some rose to the first 
 rank in literature j while others, taking a different but equally 
 useful turn, became as eminent in trade. Hence, Scotland, 
 during the eighteenth century, possessed, for the first time’ 
 two powerful and active classes, whose aim was essentially 
 secular ; the intellectual class, and the industrious class. 
 Before the eighteenth century, neither of these classes exercised 
 an independent sway, or could, indeed, be said to have a sepa- 
 rate existence. The intellect of the country was absorbed by 
 the church j the industry of the country was controlled by the 
 nobles. The effect which this change produced on the literature 
 of Scotland, will be traced in the last chapter oi the present 
 volume. Its effect on industry was equally remarkable, and, 
 for the well-being of the nation, was equally valuable. But it 
 does not possess that general scientific interest which belongs 
 
 f Interest of Scotland Considered, Edinburgh, I'ZSS, says 
 
 (p XVI.) that since 172t, y we have happily turned our eyes upon the improvemeut 
 ot our manuiactures, which is now a common subject in discourse, and this con- 
 tributes not a little to its success.” 
 
250 
 
 CONDITION OF SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 to the intellectual movement ; and I shall, therefore, in addi- 
 tion to the evidence already given, confine myself to a few more 
 facts illustrative of the history of Scotch industry down to the 
 middle of the eighteenth century, by which time there was no 
 longer any doubt that the flood of material prosperity had fairly 
 set in. 
 
 During the seventeenth century, the only Scotch manufac- 
 ture of any importance was that of linen, which, however, like 
 every other branch of industry, was very backward, and was 
 exposed to all sorts of discouragement. But, after the Union, 
 it received a sudden impetus, from two causes. One of these 
 causes, as I have already noticed, was, the demand from 
 America, consequent upon the trade of the Atlantic being 
 thrown open. The other cause was, the removal of the duty 
 which England had imposed upon the importation of Scotch 
 linen. These two circumstances, occurring nearly at the same 
 time, produced such effect on the national industry, that De Foe, 
 who had a wider knowledge of the details of trade than any 
 man of that age, said that it seemed as if, for the future, the 
 Scotch poor could never lack employment. Unfortunately, 
 this was not the case, and never will be, until society is radicalh’’ 
 changed. But the movement which provoked so bold a remark 
 from so cautious an observer as De Foe, must have been very 
 striking ; and we know, from other sources, that, between 1728 
 and 1738, the manufacture of linen for exportation alone was 
 more than doubled. After that period, this and other depart- 
 ments of Scotch industry advanced with a constantly accelerat- 
 ing speed. It is mentioned, by a contemporary who was likely 
 to be well informed, that, between 1715 and 1745, the trade 
 
 Morer, who was in Scotland in 1688 and 1689, says, “ But that which em- 
 ploys great part of their land is hemp, of which they have mighty burdens, and on 
 which they bestow much care and pains to dress and prepare it for making their 
 linen, the most noted and beneficial manufacture of the kingdom.” Merer' s Short 
 Account of Scotland^ London, 1702, pp. 3, 4. 
 
 123 u ipjjg duties upon linen from Scotland being taken off in England, made so 
 great a demand for Scots linen more than usual, that it seemed the poor could want 
 no employment.” De Foe's History of the Union between England and Scotland, p. 
 ti04. Compare MacphersorHs Annals of Commerce, vol. ii. p. 736: “ a prodigious 
 vent, not only in England, but for the American plantations.” This concerns a 
 later period. 
 
 124 u'pjjg surplus of linen made above the consumption, was, in 1728, 2,183,978 
 yards; in 1738, 4,666,011.” Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. i. p. 873. On the increase 
 between 1728 and 1732, see the Table in The Interest of Scotland Considered, Edin- 
 burgh, 1733, p. 97. In a work published in 1732, it is stated that “ they make a great 
 deal of linnen all over the kingdom, not only for their own use, but export it to 
 England, and to the Plantations. In short, the women are all kept employ’d, from 
 the highest to the lowest of them.” Macky's Journal through Scotland, London, 
 1732, p. 271. This refers merely to the women of Scotland, whom Macky repre- 
 jents as much more industrious than the men. 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 251 
 
 and manufactures of Scotland increased more than they had 
 done for ages before. Such a statement, though valuable as 
 corroborating other evidence, is too vague to be entirely relied 
 on; and historians, who usually occupy themselves with insio-- 
 nmcant details about courts and princes and statesmen, desert 
 us m matters which are really important, so that it is now 
 hardly possible to reconstruct the history of the Scotch people 
 during this, the first epoch of their material prosperity. I have 
 however, gathered a few facts, which appear to rest on good 
 authority, and which supply us with something like precise 
 information as to dates. In 1739, the manufacture of linen was 
 mtroduced into Kilbarchan,'*® and, in 1740, into Arbroath. 
 
 1 rom the year 1742, the manufactures of Kilmarnock date 
 their nse .»28 Jq ^ 1743 ^ manufactured 
 
 in Oullen and in the same year in Inverary. In 1749 
 this great branch of industry and source of wealth was estab- 
 lished, on a large scale, in Aberdeen while, about 1750 it 
 began to diffuse itself in Wemyss, in the county of Fife!'^* 
 These things happening, within eleven years, in parts of the 
 country so distant from each other, and so totally unconnected 
 indicate the existence of general causes, which governed the 
 whole ^ movement ; though in this, as in all instances, every 
 thing 18 popularly ascribed to the influence of a few powerful 
 individuals. We have, however, other proofs that the progress 
 was essentially national. Even in Edinburgh, where hitherto 
 no claims had been respected except those of the nobles or 
 clergy, the voice of this new trading interest began to be heard. 
 In that poor and warlike capital, a society was now first estab- 
 lished for the encouragement of manufactures; and we are 
 
 In 1'746, Craik writes to Lord Nithisdale, “ The present family have now 
 reigned over us these thirty years, and though during so long a time they may have 
 fallen into errors or may have committed faults, (as what Government is without?) 
 yett I will defy the most sanguine zealot to find in history a period equal to this in 
 which Scotland possessed so uninterrupted a felicity, in which liberty, civil and re- 
 ligious, was so universally enjoyed by all people of whatever denomination — nay by 
 the open and avowed ennemys of the family and constitution, or a period in which 
 all ranks of men have been so effectually secured in their property. Have not trade 
 manufactures, agriculture, and the spirit of industry in our country extended them- 
 ^Ives further during this period and under this family than for ages before ’ ” 
 Ihomsons Memoirs of the Jacobites, London, 1846, vol. ii. pp. 60 61. 
 
 CrawfurJs History of the Shire of Renfrew, part ii. p. 114. 
 
 .. Account of Scotland, vol. vii. p. 341, compared with voL 
 
 Xll« pp* ITo^ TiT» 
 
 Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. iii. p. 483. 
 
 Sinclair's Statistical A.ccount of Scotland, vol. xii p 146 
 
 Ibid., vol. V. p. 29Y. 
 
 Kennedy's Annals of Aberdeen, vol. ii. pp. 199, 200. 
 
 of Scotland, vol. xvi. p. 620: “About the year 
 1760. I need hardly say, that some of these dates, depending upon tradition are 
 given by the authors approximatively. ’ 
 
252 
 
 CONDITION OF SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 assured that this was but a single manifestation of the enthusi- 
 asm which was generally felt on the subject. Coinciding with 
 this movement, and indeed forming part of it, we can discern 
 the earliest symptoms of a monied class, properly so called. In 
 1749, there was established, at Aberdeen, the first county hank 
 ever seen in Scotland ; and, in the very same year, a similar 
 establishment was formed at Glasgow. These represented 
 the east and the west, and, by the advances which they were 
 able to make, each assisted the trade of its own district. Be- 
 tween eastern and western Scotland, the intercourse, as yet, was 
 difficult and costly. But this likewise was about to be reme- 
 died by an enterprise, the mere conception of which would for- 
 merly have excited ridicule. After the Union, the idea arose 
 of uniting the east with the west by a canal, which should join 
 the Forth to the Clyde. The plan was deemed chimerical, and 
 was abandoned. As soon, however, as the manufacturing and 
 commercial classes had gained sufficient influence they adopted 
 it, with that energy which is characteristic of their order, and 
 which is more common among them than among any other rank 
 of society. The result was, that, in 1768, the great work was 
 fairly begun and the first step was taken towards what, in 
 a material point of view, was an enterprise of vast importance, 
 but, in a social and intellectual point of view, was of still supe- 
 rior value, inasmuch as, by supplying a cheap and easy transit 
 through the heart of the most populous part of Scotland, it had 
 a direct tendency to make different districts and different places 
 feel that each had need of others, and thus encouraging the 
 
 “Betwixt the year 1750 and 1760, a great degree of patriotic enthusiasm 
 arose in Scotland to encourage arts and manufactures ; and the Edinburgh Society 
 was established in 1755 for the express purpose of improving these.” Bower’s His- 
 tory of the University of Edinburgh, vol. iii. pp. 126, 7. 
 
 i3t ii rpjjg country-bank that any where appeared, was the Aberdeen Bank, 
 which was settled in 1749: it was immediately followed by a similar establishment 
 in Glasgow during the same year.” Chalmers' Caledonia, vol. iii. p. 9, 4to, 1824. 
 Kennedy {Annals of Aberdeen, 4to, 1818, vol. ii. p. 195) says: “Banking was 
 originally projected in Aberdeen about the year 1762, by a few of the principal 
 citizens who were engaged in commerce and manufactures. They commenced busi- 
 ness, upon a limited scale, in an office on the north side of the Castle Street, issued 
 notes of hand, of five pounds and of twenty shillings sterling, and discounted bills 
 and promissory notes, for the accommodation of the public.” It is uncertain if Chal- 
 mers knew of this passage ; but he was a more accurate writer than Kennedy, and 
 I, therefore, prefer his authority. Besides, Kennedy vaguely says, “ about the year 
 1752.” 
 
 135 u having been frequently proposed, since the Union, this canal was at 
 length begun in 1768, and finished in 1790. The trade upon it is already great, 
 and is rapidly increasing.” Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 
 279, 280, Edinburgh, 1792. See also vol. xii. p. 126 ; Irving's History of Dumbar- 
 tonshire, 1860, 4to, p. 247 ; and an interesting contemporary notice in Nimmo's 
 History of Stirlingshire, Edinburgh, 1777, pp. 468-481. In 1767, Watt was em- 
 ployed as a surveyor. See Muirhead's Life of Watt, 2d edit. London, 1859, p. 
 167. 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 253 
 
 notion that all belonged to one common scheme, it assisted in 
 diminishing local prejudice and assuaging local jealousy ; while, 
 in the same proportion, by enticing men to move out of the 
 narrow circle in which they had habitually lived, it prepared 
 them for a certain enlargement of mind, which is the natural 
 consequence of^ seeing affairs under various aspects, and which 
 is never found in any country in which the means of travelling 
 are either very hazardous or very expensive. 
 
 Such was the state of Scotland towards the middle of the 
 eighteenth century ; and surely a fairer prospect was never 
 opened to any country. The land was at peace. It had noth- 
 ing to fear, either from foreign invasion, or from domestic tyran- 
 ny. ^ The arts, which increase the comfort of man, and minister 
 to his happiness, were sedulously cultivated ; wealth was being 
 created with unexampled speed, and the blessings which follow 
 in the train of wealth were being widely diffused ; while the 
 insolence ^ of the nobility was so effectually curbed, that indus- 
 trious citizens could, for the first time, feel their own indepen- 
 dence, could know that what they earned, that likewise they 
 should enjoy, and could hold themselves erect, and with a manly 
 brow, in the presence of a class before whom they had long 
 crouched in abject submission. 
 
 Besides this, a great bterature now arose, a literature of 
 rare and surpassing beauty. To narrate the intellectual achieve- 
 ments of the Scotch during the eighteenth century, in a manner 
 at all commensurate with their importance, would require a 
 separate treatise, and I cannot now stop even to mention what 
 all educated persons are at least partly acquainted with ; each 
 student recognizing the value of what was done in his own pur- 
 suit. In the last chapter of this volume, I shall, however, 
 attempt to give some idea of the general results considered as a 
 whole ; at present, it is enough to say, that in every branch of 
 knowledge this once poor and ignorant people produced original 
 and successful thinkers. What makes this the more remarkable, 
 is its complete contrast to their former state. Down even to 
 the beginning of the eighteenth century, Scotland could only 
 boast of two authors whose works have benefited mankind. They 
 were Buchanan and Napier, Buchanan was the first political 
 writer who held accurate views respecting government, and who 
 clearly defined the true relation between the people and their 
 rulers. He placed popular rights on a solid basis, and vindicated, 
 by anticipation, all subsequent revolutions. Napier, equally 
 bold in another department, succeeded by a mighty effort of 
 genius, in detecting, and pushing to its extreme consequence, a 
 law of the progression of numbers, which is so simple and yet so 
 
254 
 
 CONDITION OF SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 potent, that it unravels the most tedious and intricate calcula* 
 tions, and, thus economizing the labours of the brain, has saved 
 an enormous and incalculable waste. These two men were, 
 indeed, great benefactors of their species ; but they stand alone, 
 and if all the other authors Scotland produced down to the close 
 of the seventeenth century had never been born, or if, being 
 born, they had never written, society would have lost nothing, 
 but would be in exactly the same position as it now is. 
 
 Early, however, in the eighteenth century, a movement was 
 felt all over Europe, and in that movement Scotland participated. 
 A spirit of inquiry was abroad, so general and so searching, that 
 no country could entirely escape from its action. Sanguine men 
 were e:^cited, and even grave men were stirred. It seemed as 
 if a long night were about to close. Light broke forth where 
 before there was nothing but darkness. Opinions which had 
 stood the test of ages were suddenly questioned ; and in every 
 direction doubts sprung up, and proofs were demanded. The 
 human mind, waxing bold, would not be satisfied with the old 
 evidence. Things were examined at their foundation, and the 
 basis of every belief was jealously scrutinized. Eor a time, this 
 was confined to the higher intellects ; but soon the movement 
 spread, and, in the most advanced countries, worked upon nearly 
 aU classes. In England and in France, the result was extremely 
 beneficial. It might have been hoped, that in Scotland likewise, 
 the popular mind would gradually have become enlightened. 
 But not so. Time rolled on ; one generation succeeded another ; 
 the eighteenth century passed away ; the nineteenth century 
 came ; and still the people made no sign. The gloom of the 
 middle ages was yet upon them. While all around was light, 
 the Scotch, enveloped in mist, crept on, groping their way, 
 dismally, and with fear. While other nations were shaking off 
 their old superstitions, this singular people clung to theirs with 
 undiminished tenacity. Now, indeed, their grasp is gradually 
 slackening, but with extreme slowness, and threatening reac- 
 tions frequently appear. This, as it always has been, and still 
 is, the curse of Scotland, so also is it the chief difficulty with 
 which the historian of Scotland has to contend. Everywhere 
 else, when the rise of the intellectual classes, and that of the 
 trading and manufacturing classes, have accompanied each other, 
 the invariable result has been, a diminution of the power of the 
 clergy, and, consequently, a diminution of the influence of super- 
 stition. The peculiarity of Scotland is, that, during the eigh- 
 teenth century, and even down to the middle of the nineteenth 
 century, the industrial and intellectual progress has continued 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTUEIES. 255 
 
 without materially shaking the authority of the priestoood 
 btrange and unequalled combination ! The country of bold and 
 enterprising merchants, of shrewd manufacturers, of far-seeino- 
 men of business, and of cunning artificers ; the country, too of 
 
 George Buchanan, David Hume, and 
 dam Smith, is awed by a few noisy and ignorant preachers to 
 whom It allows a, license, and yields a submission, disgraceful 
 to the age, and incompatible with the commonest notions of 
 liberty. A people, in many respects very advanced, and holdinc>- 
 upon pohtica,! subjects enlightened views, do, upon all religious 
 subjects, display a littleness of mind, an illiberality of sentiment 
 
 ^ of persecuting others, which shows 
 that the Protestantism of which they boast has done them no 
 good ; that, in the most important matters, it has left them as 
 narrow as it found them ; and that it has been unable to free 
 Hiem from prejudices which make them the laughing-stock of 
 Hurope, and which have turned the very name of the Scotch 
 Kirk into a by- word and a reproach among educated men. 
 
 i shall now endeavour to explain how all this arose, and how 
 such apparent inconsistencies are to be reconciled. That they 
 may be reconciled, and that the inconsistencies are merely ap- 
 parent and not real, will be at once admitted by whoever is 
 capable of a scientific conception of history. For, in the moral 
 world, as in the physical world, nothing is anomalous ; nothing 
 18 unn^ural ; nothing^ is strange. All is order, symmetry, and 
 opposites, but there are no contradictions. In 
 the character of a nation, inconsistency is impossible. Such 
 however, is still the backward condition of the human mind, and 
 with so evil and jaundiced an eye do we approach the greatest 
 problems, that not only common writers, but even men from whom 
 better things might be hoped, are on this point involved in com 
 stant confusion, perplexing themselves and their readers by speak- 
 ing of mconsistency, as if it were a quality belonging to the sub- 
 ject which they investigate, instead of being, as it really is, a 
 measure of their own ignorance. It is the business of the histo- 
 rian to remove this ignorance, by showing that the movements of 
 nations are perfectly regular, and that, like all other movements, 
 they are solely determined by their antecedents. If he cannot 
 do this, he is no historian. He may be an annalist, or a biog- 
 rapher, or a chronicler, but higher than that he cannot rise, 
 
 an eLLTt ^ passage, the opinions of an eminent German and of 
 
 that ^ - when he last visited Scotland, remarked 
 
 p priest-ridden nation ik Europe; 
 
 stand the force of this observahon." Notes on the United States of North America 
 iy George Combe, Tol. iii. p. 32, Edinburgh, 1841. ' America 
 
256 CONDITION OF SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 unless he is imbued with that spirit of science which teaches, as 
 an article of faith, the doctrine of uniform sequence ; in other 
 words, the doctrine that certain events having already happened, 
 certain other events corresponding to them will also happen. 
 To seize this idea with firmness, and to apply it on all occasions, 
 without listening to any exceptions, is extremely difficult, but 
 it must be done by whoever wishes to elevate the study of his- 
 tory from its present crude and informal state, and do what he 
 may towards placing it in its proper rank, as the head and chief 
 of all the sciences. Even then, he cannot perform his task un- 
 less his materials are ample, and derived from sources of unques- 
 tioned credibility. But if his facts are sufficiently numerous ; 
 if they are very diversified ; if they have been collected from 
 such various quarters that they can check and confront each 
 other, so as to do away with all suspicion of their testimony 
 being garbled j and if he who uses them possesses that faculty of 
 generalization, without which nothing great can be achieved, he 
 will hardly fail in bringing some part of his labours to a prosper- 
 ous issue, provided he devotes all his strength to that one enter- 
 prise, postponing to it every other object of ambition, and sacri- 
 ficing to it many interests which men hold dear. Some of the 
 most pleasurable incentives to action, he must disregard. Not for 
 him, are those rewards, which, in other pursuits, the same en- 
 ergy would have earned j not for him, the sweets of popular ap- 
 plause ; not for him, the luxury of power ; not for him, a share 
 in the councils of his country ; not for him, a conspicuous and 
 honoured place before the public eye. Albeit conscious of what 
 he could do, he may not compete in the great contest ; he can- 
 not hope to win the prize ; he cannot even enjoy the excitement 
 of the struggle. To him, the arena is closed. His recompense 
 lies within himself, and he must learn to care little for the s} m- 
 pathy of his fellow-creatures, or for such honours as they are 
 able to bestow. So far from looking for these things, he should 
 rather be prepared for that obloquy which always awaits^ those, 
 who, by opening up new veins of thought, disturb the prejudices 
 of their contemporaries. While ignorance, and worse than igno- 
 rance, is imputed to him, while his motives are misrepresented 
 and his integrity impeached, while he is accused of denying the 
 value of moral principles, and of attacking the foundation of all 
 religion, as if he were some public enemy, who made it his busi- 
 ness to corrupt society, and whose delight it was to see what 
 evil he could do ; while these charges are brought forward, and 
 repeated from mouth to mouth, he must be capable of pursuing 
 in silence the even tenor of his way, without swerving, without 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTUEIES. 257 
 
 pausing, and without stepping from his path to notice the 
 angry outcries which he cannot hut hear, and which he is more 
 than human if he does not long to rebuke. These are the qual- 
 ities, and these the high resolves, indispensable to him, who, on 
 the most important of all subjects, believing that the old road 
 is worn out and useless, seeks to strike out a new one for him- 
 self, and, in the effort, not only perhaps exhausts his strength, 
 hut is sure to incur the enmity of those who are bent on main- 
 taining the ancient scheme unimpaired. To solve the great 
 problem of affairs to detect those hidden circumstances which 
 determine the march and destiny of nations ; and to find, in the 
 events of the past, a key to the proceedings of the future, is 
 nothing less than to unite into a single science all the laws of 
 the moral and physical world. Whoever does this, will build 
 up afresh the fabric of our knowledge, re-arrange its various 
 parts, and harmonize its apparent discrepancies. Perchance, 
 the human mind is hardly ready for so vast an enterprise. At 
 all events, he who undertakes it will meet with little sympathy, 
 and will find few to help him. And let him toil as he may, the 
 sun and noontide of his life shall pass by, the evening of his 
 days shall overtake him, and he himself have to quit the scene, 
 leaving that unfinished which he had vainly hoped to complete. 
 He may lay the foundation ; it will be for his successors to raise 
 the edifice. Their hands will give the last touch ; they will 
 reap the glory ; their names will be remembered when his is 
 forgotten. It is, indeed, too true, that such a work requires, 
 not only several minds, but also the successive experience of 
 several generations. Once, I own, I thought otherwise. Once, 
 when I first caught sight of the whole field of knowledge, and 
 seemed, however dimly, to discern its various parts and the relation 
 they bore to each other, I was so entranced with its surpassing 
 beauty, that the judgment was beguiled, and I deemed myself 
 able, not only to cover the surface, but also to master the de- 
 tails. Little did I know how the horizon enlarges as well as 
 recedes, and how vainly we grasp at the fleeting forms, which 
 melt away and elude us in the distance. Of all that I had 
 hoped to do, I now find but too surely how small a part I shall 
 accomplish. In those early aspirations, there was much that 
 was fanciful ; perhaps there was much that was foolish. Per- 
 haps, too, they contained a moral defect, and savoured of an 
 arrogance which belongs to a strength that refuses to recog- 
 nize its own weakness. Still, even now that they are defeated 
 and brought to nought, I cannot repent having indulged in 
 them, but, on the contrary, I would willingly recall them if I 
 62 
 
258 
 
 CONDITION OF SCOTLAND DURING THE 
 
 could. For, sucli hopes belong to that joyous and sanguine 
 period of life, when alone we are really happy ; when the emo- 
 tions are more active than the judgment ; when experience has 
 not yet hardened our nature ; when the affections are not yet 
 blighted and nipped to the core ; and when the bitterness of 
 disappointment not having yet been felt, difficulties are unheed- 
 ed, obstacles are unseen, ambition is a pleasure instead of a 
 pang, and the blood coursing swiftly through the veins, the 
 pulse beats high, while the heart throbs at the prospect of tlie 
 future. Those are glorious days ; but they go from us, and 
 nothing can compensate their absence. To me, they now seem 
 more like the visions of a disordered fancy, than the sober reali- 
 ties of things that were, and are not. It is painful to make 
 this confession ; but I owe it to the reader, because I would 
 not have him to suppose that either in this, or in the future 
 volumes of my History, I shall be able to redeem my pledge, 
 and to perform all that I promised. Something, I hope to 
 achieve which will interest the thinkers of this age ; and some- 
 thing, perhaps, on which posterity may build. It will, how- 
 ever, only be a fragment of my original design. In the two 
 last chapters I have attempted, and in the two next chapters I 
 shall still further attempt, to solve a curious problem in the 
 history of Scotland, which is intimately connected with other 
 problems of a yet graver import : but though the solution will, 
 I believe, be complete, the evidence of the solution will, most 
 assuredly, be imperfect. I regret to add, that such imperfec- 
 tion is henceforth an essential part of my plan. It is essential, 
 because I despair of supplying those deficiencies in my knowl- 
 edge, of which I grow more sensible in proportion as my views 
 become more extensive. It is also essential, because, after a 
 fair estimate of my own strength, of the probable duration of 
 my life, and of the limits to which industry can safely be push- 
 ed, I have been driven to the conclusion, that this Introduction, 
 which I had projected as a solid foundation on which the his- 
 tory of England might subsequently be raised, must either be 
 greatly curtailed, and consequently shorn of its force, or that, if 
 not curtailed, there will hardly be a chance of my being able to 
 narrate, with the amplitude and fulness of detail which they 
 richly deserve, the deeds of that great and splendid nation with 
 which I am best acquainted, and of which it is my pride to 
 count myself a member. It is with the free, the noble, and 
 the high-minded English people, that my sympathies are most 
 closely connected ; on them my affections naturally centre ; 
 from their literature, and from their example, my best lessons 
 
SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 
 
 259 
 
 Lave been learnt ; and it is now the most cherished and the 
 most sacred desire of my heart, that I may succeed in writing 
 their history, and in unfolding the successive phases of their 
 mighty career, while I am yet somewhat equal to the task, and 
 before my faculties have begun to dwindle', or the power oi con 
 tinuous attention has begun to decay. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 examination of the scotch intellect during the seventeenth 
 
 CENTURY. 
 
 The remaining part of this volume, I purpose to devote to an 
 attempt to unravel still further that twofold paradox, which 
 forms the prominent peculiarity of the history of Scotland. 
 The paradox consists, as we have seen, in the fact, first, that 
 the same people have long been liberal in politics, and illiberal 
 in religion j and, secondly, that the brilliant, inquisitive, and 
 sceptical literature, which they produced in the eighteenth 
 century, was unable to weaken their superstition, or to instil 
 into them wiser and larger maxims on religious matters. From 
 an early period, there were, as I have endeavoured to show, 
 many circumstances which predisposed the Scotch to supersti- 
 tion, and, so far, had a general connexion with the subject 
 before us. But the remarkable phenomenon with which we are 
 immediately concerned, may, I think, be traced to two distinct 
 causes. The first cause was, that, for a hundred and twenty 
 years after the establishment of Protestantism, the rulers of 
 Scotland either neglected the church or persecuted it, thereby 
 driving the clergy into the arms of the people, from whom alone 
 they could obtain sympathy and support. Hence an alliance 
 between the two parties, more intimate than would otherwise 
 have been possible ; and hence, too, the rise of that democratic 
 spirit which was the necessary consequence of such an union, 
 and which the clergy encouraged, because they were opposed 
 and thwarted by the upper classes. So far, the result was 
 extremely beneficial, as it produced a love of independence and 
 a hatred of tyranny, which, twice during the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, saved the country from the yoke of a cruel despotism. 
 But these very circumstances, which guarded the people against 
 political despotism, exposed them all the more to ecclesiastical 
 despotism. For, having uo one to trust except their preachers, 
 
AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT. 261 
 
 they trusted them entirely, and upon all subjects. The clergy 
 gradually became supreme, not only in spiritual matters, but 
 also in temporal ones. Late in the sixteeenth century, they 
 had been glad to take refuge among the people ; before the 
 middle of the seventeenth century, they ruled the people. How 
 shamefully they abused their power, and how, by encouraging 
 the worst kind of superstition, they prolonged the reign of 
 ignorance, and stopped the march of society, will be related in 
 the course of this chapter ; but, in fairness to them, we ought 
 to acknowledge, that the religious servitude into which the 
 Scotch fell during the seventeenth century, was, on the whole, 
 a willing one,^ and that, mischievous as it was, it had at least a 
 noble origin, inasmuch as the influence of the Protestant clergy 
 is mainly to be ascribed to the fearlessness with which they 
 came forward as leaders of the people, at a period when that 
 post was full of danger, and when the upper classes were ready 
 to unite with the crown in destroying the last vestiges of na- 
 tional liberty. 
 
 To trace the operation of this cause of Scotch superstition, 
 will be the business of the present chapter ; while, in the next 
 and concluding chapter, I shall examine the other cause, which 
 I have as yet hardly mentioned. This latter inquiry will in- 
 volve some considerations respecting the philosophy of method, 
 still imperfectly appreciated among us, and on which the his- 
 tory of the Scotch mind will throw considerable light. For, 
 it will appear, that, during the eighteenth century, the ablest 
 Scotchmen, with hardly an exception, adopted a method of in- 
 vestigating truth, which cut them off from the sympathies of 
 their countrymen, and prevented their works from producing 
 the effect which they might otherwise have done. The result 
 was, that though a very sceptical literature was produced, 
 scepticism made no progress, and therefore superstition was 
 undiminished. The highly-educated minds, indeed, were affect- 
 ed; but they formed a class apart, and there were no means of 
 communication between them and the people. That this was 
 owing to the method which literary men employed, I hope to 
 prove^ in the next chapter ; and if I succeed in doing so, it will 
 be evident, that I have been guilty of no exaggeration in term- 
 ing this the second great cause of the prolongation of Scotch 
 superstition, since it was sufficiently powerful to prevent the 
 intellectual classes from exercising their natural functions as 
 the disturbers of old opinions. 
 
 We have already seen, that, almost immediately after the 
 Reformation, ill-feeling arose between the upper classes and the 
 spiritual leaders of the Protestant church, and that this ill- 
 
262 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 feeling increased until, in 1580, it vented itself by the abolition 
 of episcopacy. This bold and decisive measure made the breach 
 irreparable. The preachers had now committed themselves too 
 far to recede, even if they had desired to do so ; and from that 
 moment, uniting themselves heartily with the people, they took 
 up a position which they have never since abandoned. During 
 the remaining twenty-three years that J ames was in Scotland, 
 they were occupied in exciting the people against their rulers ; 
 and as they became more democratic, so did the crown and 
 nobles grow more hostile, and display, for the first time, a dis- 
 position to combine together in defence of their common inter- 
 ests. In 1603, James ascended the throne of England, and the 
 struggle began in earnest. It lasted, with few interruptions, 
 eighty-five years, and, during its continuance, the Presbyterian 
 clergy never wavered ; they were always steady to the good 
 cause ; always on the side of the people. This greatly increased 
 their influence ; and what favoured it still more was, that, 
 besides being the champions of popular liberty, they were also 
 the champions of national independence. When James I. and 
 the two Charles’s attempted to force episcopacy upon Scotland, 
 the Scotch rejected it, not only because they hated the institu- 
 tion, but also because they looked on it as the mark of a foreign 
 domination, which they were determined to resist. Their near- 
 est and most dangerous enemy was England ; and they spurned 
 the idea of receiving bishops who must, in the first instance, be 
 consecrated in London, and who, it was certain, would never 
 have been admitted into Scotland unless England had been the 
 stronger country. It was, therefore, on patriotic, as well as 
 religious, grounds, that the Scotch clergy, during the seven- 
 teenth century, struggled against episcopacy ; * and when they 
 overthrew it, in 1638, their bold and determined conduct asso- 
 ciated, in the popular mind, the love of country with the love 
 of the church. Subsequent events strengthened this association.* 
 
 'In 1638, one of the most eminent of the Scotch clergy writes : “Our maine 
 feare ” is “ to have our religion lost, our throats cutted, our poore countrey made 
 ane English province, to be disposed upon for ever hereafter at the will of a Bishope 
 of Canterburie.” Baillie's Letters and Journals, vol. i. p. 66. Compare p. 450. 
 “This kirk is a free and independant kirk, no less then the kingdom is a free and 
 independant kingdom; and as our own Patriots can best judge what is for the good 
 of the kingdom, so our own Pastors should be most able to judge what form of 
 worship beseemeth our Reformation, and what serveth most for the good of the 
 People.” Two generations later, one of the most popular arguments against the 
 Union was, that it might enable the English to force episcopacy upon Scotland. See 
 Be Foe's History of the Union between England and Scotland, pp. 222, 284, 359. 
 “ The danger of the Church of Scotland, from the suffrages of English bishops,” &c. 
 
 * The hatred which the Scotch naturally felt against the English for having in- 
 flicted so much suffering upon them, was intense about the middle of the seventeenth 
 eentury, notwithstanding the temporary union of the two nations against Charles. 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 263 
 
 In 1650, Cromwell invaded Scotland, overthrew the Scotch in 
 the battle of Dunbar, and intrusted to Monk the task of curbing 
 their spirit, by building fortresses, and establishing a long chain 
 of military posts.® The nation, cowed and broken, gave way, 
 and, for the first time for three centuries, felt the pressure of 
 a foreign yoke. The clergy alone remained firm.^ Cromwell, 
 who knew that they were the chief obstacle to completing his 
 conquest, hated them, and did every thing he could to ruin 
 them.® But their power was too deeply seated to be shaken. 
 From their pulpits, they continued to influence and animate the 
 people. In face of the invaders, and in spite of them, the Scotch 
 church continued to hold its General Assemblies, until the sum- 
 mer of 1653. Then, indeed, they had to yield to brute force 
 and the people, to their unutterable grief, beheld the venerated 
 representatives of the Scotch kirk driven from their place of 
 meeting by English soldiers, and led hke criminals through the 
 streets of Edinburgh.® 
 
 In 1652, “ the criminal record is full of cases of murder of English soldiers. They 
 were cut off by the people whenever a fitting opportunity occurred, and were as 
 much detested in Scotland as the French soldiers were in Spain during the Peninsu- 
 lar war.” The Spottiswoode Mhcellany, vol. ii. p. 98, Edinburgh, 1845. See also p. 
 167 : “a nationall quarrell, and not for the Stuarts.” 
 
 “ Browne's History of the Highlands, vol. ii. pp. 75-77 : “the English army was 
 augmented to twenty thousand men, and citadels erected in several towns, and a 
 long chain of military stations drawn across the country to curb the inhabitants.” 
 Clarendon, under the year 1655, says, “Though Scotland was vanquished, and 
 subdued, to that degree, that there was no place nor person who made the least show 
 of opposing Cromwell ; who, by the administration of Monk, made the yoke very 
 grievous to the whole nation ; yet the preachers kept their pulpit license ; and, more 
 for the affront that was offered to presbytery, than the conscience of what was 
 due to majesty, many of them presumed to pray for the king ; and generally, though 
 secretly, exasperated the minds of the people against the present government.” 
 Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, p. 803. 
 
 ® And, what they must have felt very acutely, he would not go to hear them 
 preach. A writer of that time informs us that, even in 1648, when Cromwell was 
 in Edinburgh, “he went not to their churches; but it is constantle reported that 
 ewerie day he had sermons in his oune ludginge, himself being the preacher, when- 
 soewer the spirit came upon him ; which took him lyk the fitts of an ague, somtyms 
 twise, somtyms thryse in a day.” Gordon's Britane's Distemper, p. 212. In 1650, 
 according to another contemporary, “ he made stables of all the churches for hes 
 horsses quhersoeuer he came, and burned all the seatts and pewes in them ; riffled 
 the ministers housses, and distrayed ther comes.” Balfour's Annales of Scotland, 
 vol. IV. p. 88. The clergy, on the other hand, employing a resource with which their 
 profession has always been familiar, represented Cromwell as opposing Providence, 
 because he was opposing them. Rutherford {^Religious Betters, reprinted Glasgow, 
 1824, p. 346) says, that he fought “against the Lord’s secret ones;” and Row ((70/1- 
 tinuation of Blair's Autobiography, p. 335), under the year 1658, triumphantly ob- 
 serves : “ In the beginning of September this year, the Protector, that old fox, died. 
 
 It was observed, as a remarkable cast of divine providence, that he died upon the 
 3d of September, which he, glorying of routing of our armies at Dunbar and Wor- 
 cester on that day, used to call his day. On that same very day the Just Judge 
 called him to an account,” &c. 
 
 ® See contemporary notices of this, in Nicoll's Diary, p. 110; and in The Diary 
 tf Hr, John Bamont of Newton, pp. 56, 67. But the best account is that given by 
 
264 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 Thus it was that in Scotland, after the latter part of the 
 sixteenth century, every thing tended to increase the reputation 
 of the clergy, by raising them to the foremost rank among the 
 defenders of their country. And it was hut natural that the 
 spiritual classes, finding themselves in the ascendant, should 
 conduct the contest according to views habitual to their profes- 
 sion, and should he anxious for religious advantages, rather than 
 for temporal benefits. The war which the Scotch waged against 
 Charles I. partook more of the character of a crusade than any 
 war ever carried on by a Protestant nation.'^ The main object 
 w^as, to raise up presbyters, and to destroy bishops. Prelacy was 
 the accursed thing, and that must be rooted out at every haz- 
 
 Baillie, in a letter to Calamy, dated Glasgow, 2Yth July 1653. He writes: “That 
 on the 20th of July last, when our Generali Asseniblie was sett in the ordinarie tynie 
 and place, Lieutenant-Colonell Cotterall besett the church with some rattes of mus- 
 queteirs and a troup of horse; himself (after our fast, wherein Mr. Dickson and Mr. 
 Dowglas had two gracious sermons) entered the Assemblie-house, and, immediately 
 after Mr. Dickson the Moderator his prayer, required audience ; wherein he inquired. 
 
 If we did sitt there by the authority of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of 
 England? or of the Commanders-in-chiefe of the English forces? or of the English 
 Judges in Scotland? The Moderator replyed. That wm were ane Ecclesiasticall 
 synod, ane Spirituall court of Jesus Christ, which medled not with any thing Civile ; 
 that our authorise wes from God, and established by the lawes of the land yet stain- 
 ing unrepealed ; that, by the Solemn League and Covenant, the most of the English 
 army stood obliedged to defend our Generali Assemblie. When some speeches of 
 this kind had passed, the Lieutenant-Colonell told us, his order was to dissolve us ; 
 whereupon he commanded all of us to follow him, else he w'ould drag us out of the 
 rowme. When we had entered a Protestation of this unheard-of and unexampled 
 violence, we did ryse and follow him ; he ledd us all through the whole streets a 
 myle out of the towne, encompassing us with foot-companies of musqueteirs, and 
 horsemen without ; all the people gazing and mourning as at the saddest spectacle 
 they had ever seen. When he had ledd us a myle without the towne, he then 
 declared what further he had in commission. That we should not dare to meet any 
 more above three in number ; and that against eight o’clock to-morrow, we should 
 depart the towne, under paine of being guiltie of breaking the publick peace : And 
 the day following, by sound of trumpet, we were commanded off towne under the 
 paine of present imprisonment. Thus our Generali Assemblie, the glory and strength 
 of our Church upon earth, is, by your souldiarie, crushed and trod under foot, with- 
 out the least provocatione from us, at this time, either in word or deed.” Baillie's 
 Letters and Journals, vol. iii. pp. 225, 226. 
 
 ’ In August 1640, the army marched into England; and “it was very refreshfull 
 to remark, that after we came to ane quarter at night, there was nothing almost to 
 be heard throughout the whole army but singing of psalms, prayer, a“ reading of 
 Scripture by the souldiers in their severall hutts.” Select Biographies, edited by 
 Mr. Tweedie for the Wodrow Society, vol. i. p. 163. “The most zealous among 
 them boasted, they should carry the triumphant banners of the covenant to Rome 
 itself.” Arnot's History of Edinburgh, p. 124. In 1644, the celebrated divine, 
 Andrew Cant, was appointed by the Commissioners of the General Asseinbly “to 
 preach at the opening of the Parliament, wherein he satisfied their expectation fully. 
 For, the main point he drove at in his sermon, was to state an opposition betwixt 
 King Charles and King Jesus (as he was pleased to speak), and upon that account to 
 press resistance to King Charles for the interest of King Jesus. It may be wondered 
 that such doctrine should have relish’d with men brought up in the knowledge of 
 the Scriptures ; and yet, such was the madness of the times, that none who preach d 
 in public since the beginning of the Troubles, had been so cried up as he w as for 
 that sermon.” Guthry's Memoirs, pp. 136, 137. 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 265 
 
 ard. To this, all other considerations were subordinate.® The 
 Scotch loved liberty, and hated England. Yet, even these two 
 passions, notwithstanding their strength, were as nothing, in 
 comparison with their intense desire to extend and to propagate, 
 if need he at the point of the sword, their own Presbyterian 
 polity. This was their first and paramount duty. They fought, 
 indeed, for freedom, but, above aU, they fought for religion. In 
 their eyes, Charles was the idolatrous head of an idolatrous 
 church, and that church they were resolved to destroy. They 
 felt that their cause was holy, and they went forth full of confi- 
 dence, convinced that the sword of Gideon was drawn on their 
 side, and that their enemies would be delivered up to them. 
 
 The rebellion, therefore, against Charles, which, on the part 
 of the English, was essentially secular,® was, on the part of the 
 Scotch, essentially religious. This was because with us, the 
 laymen were stronger than the clergy ; while with them, the 
 clergy were stronger than the laymen. In 1643, both nations 
 having united against the king, it was thought advisable that 
 an intimate alliance should he concluded ; but, in the negotia- 
 tions which followed, it is noticed, by a contemporary observer, 
 that though the English merely wished for a civil league, the 
 Scotch demanded a religious covenant.^® And as they would 
 only continue the war on condition that this was granted, the 
 English were obliged to give way. The result was the Solemn 
 League and Covenant, by which what seemed a cordial union 
 was efiected between the two countries." Such a compact was, 
 however, sure to be short-lived, as each party had different ob- 
 jects ; the aim of the English being political, while that of the 
 
 ® “ The rooting out of prelacy and the wicked hierarchy therein so obyiously 
 described, is the main duty.” Naphtali, or the Wrestlings of the Church of Scot- 
 land, pp. 63, 64. This refers to the Covenant of 1643. So, too, the continuator of 
 Row's History of the Kirk, p. 621, says, under the year 1639, that the object of the 
 war was, “to withstand the prelaticall faction and malignant, countenanced by the 
 kinge in his owne persone.” Compare the outbreak of the Reverend Samuel Ruther- 
 ford, against “ the accursed and wretched prelates, the Antichrist’s first-born, and 
 the first fruit of his foul womb.” Rutherford's Religious Letters, p. I'JQ. 
 
 ® Onr civil war was not religious ; but was a struggle between the Crown and the 
 Parliament. See a note in Buckle's History of Civilization, vol. i. pp. 259, 260. 
 
 In September 1643, Baillie, writing an account of the proceedings of the 
 Westminster Assembly in the preceding month, says, “In our committees also we 
 had hard enough debates. The English were for a civill League, we for a religious 
 Covenant.” Letter to Mr. William Spang, dated 22d September 1643, in Baillie' s 
 Letters and Journals, vol. ii. p. 90. 
 
 “ “ The Solemn League and Covenant,” which “ is memorable as the first 
 approach towards an intimate union between the kingdoms, but, according to the 
 intolerant principles of the age, a federal alliance was constructed on the frail and 
 narrow basis of religious communion.” Laing's History of Scotland, vol. iii. pp. 268, 
 259. The passage, however, which I have quoted, in the last note, from Baillie, 
 shows that England was not responsible for the intolerant principles, or, cons*- 
 ^uently, for narrow baais. 
 
266 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 Bcotch was religious. The consequences of this difference were 
 soon apparent. In January 1645, negotiations having been 
 opened with the king, commissioners met at Uxbridge, with the 
 view of concluding a peace. The attempt failed, as might have 
 been expected, seeing that, not only were the pretensions of the 
 king irreconcilable with those of his opponents, but that the 
 pretensions of his opponents were irreconcilable with each other. 
 At Uxbridge, during the conferences, the Scotch expressed 
 their readiness to concede to him what he required, if he would 
 gratify them in regard to the Church ; while the English, occu- 
 pying themselves with civil and political questions, cared less, 
 says Clarendon, for what concerned the Church than for any 
 thing else.^^ A better illustration could hardly be found of the 
 secular character of the English rebellion, as compared with the 
 spiritual character of the Scotch rebellion. Indeed, the Scotch, 
 so far from concealing this, boasted of it, and evidently thought 
 that it proved how superior they were to their worldly-niinded 
 neighbours. In Februaiy 1645, the General Assembly issued 
 an address to the nation, including not only those who were at 
 home, but also those who served in armies out of Scotland. In 
 this document, which, proceeding from such a quarter, neces- 
 sarily exercised great influence, political considerations, as hav- 
 ing to do merely with the temporal happiness of men, are treat- 
 ed as insignificant, and almost despicable. That Eupert was 
 defeated, and that York and Newcastle were taken, were but 
 trifling matters. They were only the means of accomplishing 
 an end, and that end was the reformation of religion in England, 
 and the establishment there of the pure Presbyterian polity. 
 
 The Chancellor of Scotland “did as good as conclude ‘that if the king would 
 satisfy them in the business of the Church, they would not concern themselves in 
 any of the other demands.’” . . . “And it was manifest enough, by the private 
 conferences with other of the commissioners, that the parliament took none of the 
 points in controversy less to heart, or were less united in, than in what concerned 
 the Church.” Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, edit. Oxford, 1843, p. 522. See 
 also p. 627 : “ that the Scots would insist upon the whole government of the Church, 
 and in all other matters would defer to the king.” 
 
 See this extraordinary document in Acts of the General Assembly of the Church 
 of Scotland from 1638 to 1842, pp. 122-128, Edinburgh, 1843. It is entitled “A 
 Bolemne and seasonable warning to the noblemen, barons, gentlemen, burrows, 
 ministers, and commons of Scotland ; as also to armies without and within this king- 
 dom.” In it (p. 123) occurs the following passage : “ And for our part, our forces 
 sent into that kingdom, in pursuance of that Covenant, have been so mercifully and 
 manifestly assisted and blessed from heaven (though in the midsof many dangers and 
 distresses, and much want and hardship), and have been so farre instrumental! to 
 the foyling and scattering of two principall armies , first, the Marquesse of New 
 Castle his army; and afterward Prince Rupert’s and his together; and to the re- 
 ducing of two strong cities, York and Newcastle, that we have what to answer the 
 enemy that reproacheth us concerning that businesse, and that which may make in- 
 iquitie it self to stop her mouth. But which is more unto us than all victories or 
 whatsomever temporall blessing, the reformation of religion in England, and nniformi* 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 267 
 
 A war, undertaken with suck holy objects, and conceived in 
 so elevated a spirit, was supposed to be placed under the im- 
 mediate protection of the Deity, on whose behalf it was carried 
 on. In the language of the time, it was a war for God, and for 
 God’s church. Every victory that was obtained, was the result, 
 not of the skill of the general, nor of the valour of the troops, 
 hut was an answer to prayer. When a battle was lost, it was 
 
 either because God was vexed at the sins of the people,*® or else 
 to show them that they must not trust to the arms of the flesh.*® 
 
 ty therein between both kingdoms (a principal end of that Covenant), is so far 
 advanced, that the English Service-Book with the Holy-Dayes and many other cere- 
 monies contained in it, together with the Prelacy, the fountain of all these, are 
 abolished and taken away by ordinance of parliament, and a directory for the wor- 
 ship of God in all the three kingdoms agreed upon in the Assemblies, and in the 
 Parliaments of both kingdoms, without a contrary voice in either; the government 
 of the kirk by congregational elderships, classical presbyteries, provincial and na- 
 tional assemblies, is agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, which 
 is also voted and concluded in both Houses of the Parliament of England.” 
 
 In 1644, “God ansuered our Wednesday’s prayers: Balfour and Waller had 
 gotten a glorious victorie over Forth and Hopton, and routed them totallie, horse 
 £aillie's Letters and Journals, vol. ii. p. 155. In the same year, thanks- 
 givings being offered at Aberdeen for the victory of Leslie over Rupert, “ oure 
 minister Mr. Wiliiam Strathauchin declairit out of pulpit that this victory wes 
 miraculous, wrocht by the fynger of God.” Spalding^s History of the Troubles, vol. 
 ii. p. 254. In 1648, the Commissioners of the General Assembly, in an address to 
 the Prince of Wales, stated that the Deity had been “fighting for his people;” 
 meaning by his people, the Scotch people. They added, that the fact of their 
 enemies having been repulsed, was a proof “ how sore the Lord had been displeased 
 with their way.” Clarendon State Papers, vol. ii. p. 424, Oxford, I'T'iS, folio. 
 
 Two Scotch notices are now before me of the fatal battle of Dunbar. Accord- 
 ing to one, the defeat was intended to testify against “tlie great sin and wicked- 
 ness” of the people. Naphtali, or the Wrestlings «/ the Church of Scotland, p. 75. 
 According to the other, it was owing to the anger of the Deity at the Scotch show- 
 ing any favour to the partizans of Charles. For, says the Reverend Alexander 
 Shields, “ both at that time, and since that time, the Lord never countenanced an 
 expedition where that malignant interest was taken in unto tlie state of the quarrel. 
 Upon this, our land was invaded by Oliver Cromwell, who defeat our army at Dun- 
 bar, where the anger of the Lord was evidently seen to smoke against us, for espous- 
 ing that interest.” Shield’s Hind let loose, p. 75. These opinions were formed after 
 the battle. Before the battle, a different hypothesis was broached. Sir Edward 
 Walker, who was in Scotland at the time, tells us, that the clergy assured the people 
 that “they had an army of saints, and that they could not be beaten.” Journal of 
 Affairs in Scotland in 1650, in Walker's Historical Discourses, London, 1705, folio, 
 p. 165. 
 
 ** “Each new victory of Montrose was expressly attributed to the admonitory 
 ‘ indignation of the Lord ’ against his chosen people for their sin, in ‘ trusting too 
 much to the arm of flesh.’” Napier's lAfe of Montrose, Edinburgh, 1840, p. 283. 
 Compare Guthrie's Considerations contributing unto the Discovery of the Dangers 
 that threaten Religion, pp. 274, 275, reprinted Edinburgh, 1846. Guthrie was at the 
 height of his reputation in the middle of the seventeenth century. Lord Somerville 
 says of the Scotch, when they were making war against Charles I., that it was 
 “ ordinary for them, dureing the whoU tyme of this warre, to attribute ther great 
 successe to the goodnesse and justice of their cause, untill Divyne Justice trysted 
 them with some crosse dispensatione, and then you might have heard this language 
 from them, that it pleased the Lord to give his oune the heavyest end of the tree 
 to bear, that the saints and people of God must still be sufferers while they are here 
 away ; that that malignant party was God’s rod to punish them for their unthank- 
 fuUnesse,” &c. Somerville's Memorie of the S&mervilles, vol. ii. pp. 351, 352. 
 
268 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTElrHECT 
 
 Nothing was natural ; all was supernatural. The entire course 
 of affairs was governed, not by their own antecedents, but by 
 a series of miracles. To assist the Scotch, winds were changed, 
 and storms were lulled. Such intelligence as was important 
 for them to receive, was often brought by sea ; and, on those 
 occasions, it was expected that, if the wind were unfavourable. 
 Providence would interfere, would shift it from one quarter to 
 another, and, when the news had safely arrived, would allow it 
 to return to its former direction. 
 
 It was in this way that, in Scotland, every thing conspired 
 to strengthen that religious element which the force of circum- 
 stances had, at an early period, made prominent, and which now 
 threatened to absorb all the other elements of the national 
 character. The clergy were supreme ; and habits of mind, 
 natural and becoming to themselves, were diffused among all 
 classes. The theories of a single profession outweighed those 
 of all other professions j and not only war, but also trade, liter- 
 ature, science, and art, were held of no account unless they min- 
 istered to the general feeling. A state of society so narrow and 
 so one-sided, has never been seen in any other country equally 
 civilized. Nor did there appear much chance of abating this 
 strange monopoly. As the seventeenth century advanced, the 
 same train of events was continued ; the clergy and the people 
 always making common cause against the crown, and being, by 
 the necessity of self-preservation, forced into the most intimate 
 union with each other. Of this, the preachers availed themselves 
 to strengthen their own influence ; and for upwards^ of a cen- 
 tury their exertions stopped all intellectual culture, discouraged 
 all independent inquiry, made men in religious matters fearful 
 and austere, and coloured the whole national character with that 
 dark hue, which, though now gradually softening, it still retains. 
 
 The Scotch during the seventeenth century, instead of culti- 
 vating the arts of life, improving their minds, or adding to their 
 wealth, passed the greater part of their time in what were called 
 religious exercises. The sermons were so long and so frequent, 
 that they absorbed all leisure, and yet the people wer» never 
 weary of hearing them. When a preacher was once in the 
 pulpit, the only limit to his loquacity was his strength. Being 
 sure of a patient and reverential audience, he went on as long 
 
 " Baillie mentions, in 1644, an instance of these expectations being fulfilled. 
 He says {^Letters and Journals, vol. ii. p. 138), “These things were brought in at a 
 Tery important nick of time, by God’s gracious providence : Never a more quick 
 passage from Holy Island to Yarmouth in thirtie houres; they had not cast anchor 
 halfe an houre till the wind turned contrare.” Compare p. 142: “If this were past, 
 w© look for a new lyfe and vigoure in all affaires, especiallie if it please God to 
 send a sweet north-wind, carrying the certain news of the taking of Newcastle, 
 which we dailie expect.” 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 269 
 
 as he could. If he discoursed for two hours without intermis- 
 sion, he was valued as a zealous pastor, who had the good of 
 his flock at heart ^ and this was about as much as an ordinary 
 clergyman could perform, because, in uttering his sentiments, 
 he was expected to display great vehemence, and to evince his 
 earnestness by toiling and sweating abundantly. This bound- 
 ary was, however, often passed by those who were equal to the 
 labor ; and F orbes, w'ho was vigorous as well as voluble, thought 
 nothing of preaching for five or six hours. But, in the ordi- 
 nary course of nature, such feats were rare ; and, as the people 
 were in these matters extremely eager, an ingenious contrivance 
 was hit upon whereby their desires might be satisfied. On great 
 occasions, several clergymen were present in the same church, 
 in order that, when one was fatigued, he might leave the pulpit, 
 and be succeeded by another, who, in his turn, was followed by 
 a third ; the patience of the hearers being apparently inex- 
 haustible. Indeed, the Scotch, by the middle of the seven- 
 teenth century, had grown accustomed to look up to their min- 
 ister as if he were a god, and to dwell with rapture upon every 
 word that dropt from his lips. To hear a favourite preacher, 
 they would incur any fatigue, and would undertake long jour- 
 neys without sleep or food.*^* Their power of attention was 
 
 No one, perhaps, carried this further than John Menzies, the celebrated pro- 
 fessor of divinity at Aberdeen. “Such was his uncommon fervour in the pulpit, 
 that, we are informed, he ‘ used to change his shirt always after preaching, and to 
 wet two or three napkins with tears every sermon.’ ” Note in Wodrow's C(yrrespond- 
 ence, vol. ii. p. 222. James Forbes, also, was “an able and zealous preacher who 
 after every sermon behooved to change his shirt, he spoke with such vehemeucy 
 and sweating.” Select Biographies, published by the Wodrow Society, vol. i. p. 333. 
 Lord Somerville, who wrote in 1679, mentions “their thundering preachings.” 
 Memorie of the Somervilles, vol. ii. p. 88S. A traditionary anecdote, related by the 
 Dean of Edinburgh, refers to a later period, but is characteristic of the class. 
 
 Another description I have heard of an energetic preacher more forcible than 
 delicate— ‘Eh, our minister had a great power o’ watter, for he grat, and spat, and 
 swat like mischeef.’ ” Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character, bv E. B. Ram- 
 say, Dean of Edinburgh, p. 201. 
 
 He “ was a very learned and pious man ; he had a strange faculty of preaching 
 five or six hours at a time.” Burnet s History of his own Time, vol. i. p. 38. Even 
 early in the eighteenth century, when theological fervour was beginning to decline, 
 and sermons were consequently shorter, Hugh Thomson came near to Forbes. 
 
 He was the longest preacher ever I heard, and would have preached four (or) five 
 hours, and was not generally under two hours; that almost every body expected.” 
 
 • • ■ " .* ^ piouse good man, and a fervent affectionat preacher, and, when I 
 
 heard him, he had a vast deal of heads, and a great deal of matter, and generally 
 practicall, but very long.” Wodrovds A.naiecta, vol. iv. p. 203. 
 
 In 1663j Lamont casually mentions, in his journal, that “the one came doune 
 from the pulpit and the other went vp, in the tyme that the psalme after the first 
 sermon was singing, so that ther was no intermission of the exercise, nether were 
 the peopell dismissed till both sermons were ended.” The Diary of Mr. John 
 Lamont of^ Newton, p. 68. Burnet {History of his own Time, vol. i. p. 92) says, “ I 
 remember in one fast day there were six sermons preached without intermission. I 
 was there myself, and not a little weary of so tedious a service.” 
 
 When Guthrie preached at Fenwick, “ his church, although a large country 
 
270 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 marvellous. The same congregation would sometimes remain 
 together for ten hours, listening to sermons and prayers, inter- 
 spersed with singings and readings.*^^ In an account of Scot- 
 land in 1670, it is stated that, in a single church in Edinburgh, 
 thirty sermons were delivered every week.^® Nor is this at all 
 unlikely, considering the religious enthusiasm of the age. For, 
 in those times, the people delighted in the most harassing and 
 ascetic devotions. Thus, for instance, in 1653, when the sacra- 
 ment was administered, they pursued the following course. On 
 Wednesday, they fasted, and listened to prayers and sermons 
 for more than eight hours. On Saturday, they heard two or 
 three sermons ; and on Sunday, the number of sermons was^ so 
 great that they stayed in church more than twelve hours ; while, 
 to conclude the whole, three or four additional ones were 
 preached on Monday by way of thanksgiving.®^ 
 
 Such eagerness, and yet such patience, indicate a state of 
 society altogether peculiar, and for which we find no parallel in 
 the history of any civilized country. This intense desire to hear 
 whatever the preachers had to say, was, in itself, a homage of 
 the most flattering kind, and was naturally accompanied by a 
 belief that they were endowed with a light which was withheld 
 from their less gifted countrymen. It is not surprising that 
 
 one, was overlaid and crowded every Sabbath-day, and very many, without doors, 
 from distant parishes, such as Glasgow, Paisley, Hamilton, Laiierk, Kilbryde, Glas- 
 ford, Strathaven, Newmills, Egelsham, and many other places, who hungered for the 
 pure gospel preached, and got a meal by the word of his ministry. It was their 
 usual practice to come to Fenwick on Saturday, and to spend the greatest part of 
 the night in prayer to God, and conversation about the great conctyns of their souls, 
 to attend the public worship on the Sabbath, to dedicate the remainder of that holy 
 day in religious exercises, and then to go home on Monday the length of ten, twelve 
 or twenty miles, without grudging in the least at the long way, want of sleep or 
 other refreshments ; neither did they find themselves the less prepared for any other 
 business through the week.” Howie's JBiographia Scoticana, 2d edit., Glasgow, 1781, 
 p. 311. One woman went forty miles to hear Livingstone preach. See her own 
 statement, in Wodrow's Analecta, vol. ii. p. 249. 
 
 “ Spalding gives the following account of what happened at Aberdeen in 1644. 
 “So heir in Old Abirdene, upone the sevint of July, we had ane fast, entering the 
 churche be nyne houris, and continewit praying and preiching whill tua houris. 
 Efter sermon, the people sat still heiring reiding whill efternone s sermon began and 
 endit, whiche continewit till half hour to sex. Then the prayer bell rang to the 
 evening prayeris, and continewit whill seven.” Spalding's History of the Troubles, 
 vol. ii. p. 244, edit. Edinburgh, 1829, 4to. See also p. 42: ‘ the people keipit 
 churche all dav.” This was also at Aberdeen, in 1642. 
 
 “ Out of one pulpit now they have thirty sermons per week, all under one 
 roof.” A Modern Account of Scotland, in The Harleian Miscellany, voL iv. p. 138, 
 
 edit. Park, London, 1810, 4to. . , 
 
 “But where the greatest part was more sound, they gave the sacranaent with 
 a new and unusual solemnity. On the Wednesday before, they held a fast day, w'ltli 
 prayers and sermons for about eight or ten hours together : on the Saturday they 
 had two or three preparation sermons : and on the_ Lord’s day they had so very 
 many, that the action continued above twelve hours in some places : and all ended 
 with three or four sermons on Monday for thanksgiving.” Bur7iet s History of hu 
 own Time, vol. i. p. 108. 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 271 
 
 the clergy, who, at no period, and in no nation, have been 
 remarkable for their meekness, or for a want of confidence in 
 themselves, should under circumstances so eminently favourable 
 to their pretensions have been somewhat elated, and should 
 have claimed an authority even greater than that which was 
 conceded to them. And as this is intimately connected with 
 the subsequent history of Scotland, it will be necessary to col- 
 lect some evidence respecting their conduct, which will have 
 the further advantage of exhibiting the true character of spirit- 
 ual domination, and of showing how it works, not only on the 
 intellectual, but also on the practical life of a people. 
 
 According to the Presbyterian polity, which reached its 
 height in the seventeenth century, the clergyman of the parish 
 selected a certain number of laymen on whom he could depend, 
 and who, under the name of elders, were his councillors, or 
 rather the ministers of his authority. They, when assembled 
 together, formed what was called the Kirk- Session, and this 
 little court, which enforced the decisions uttered in the pulpit, 
 was so supported by the superstitious reverence of the people, 
 that it was far more powerful than any civil tribunal. By its 
 aid, the minister became supreme. For, whoever presumed to 
 disobey him was excommunicated, was deprived of his property, 
 and was believed to have incurred the penalty of eternal per- 
 dition.®® Against such weapons, in such a state of society, 
 resistance was impossible. The clergy interfered with every 
 
 “ The power of those kirk-sessions, which are now private assemblages, in 
 whose meetings and proceedings the public take no interest whatever, is defined to 
 be the cognizance of parochial matters and cases of scandal; but in the sixteenth 
 and seventeenth centuries, especially during the Covenanting reign of terror after 
 the outbreak of the Civil War against Charles L, the kirk-sessions of Scotland were 
 the sources of excessive tyranny and oppression — were arbitrary, inquisitorial, and 
 revengeful, to an extent which exceeds all belief. It is truly stated by the author 
 of the ‘ Memoirs of Locheill ’ — ‘ Every parish had a tyrant, who made the greatest 
 Lord in his district stoop to his authority. The kirk was the place where he kept 
 his court ; the pulpit his throne or tribunal from whence he issued out his terrible 
 decrees; and twelve or fourteen sour ignorant enthusiasts, under the title of Elders, 
 composed his council. If any, of what quality soever, had the assurance to disobey 
 his orders, the dreadful sentence of excommunication was immediately thundered 
 out against him, his goods and chattels confiscated and seized, and he himself being 
 looked upon as actually in the possession of the devil, and .irretrievably doomed 
 to eternal perdition.’ ” Introduction to The Kirk-Session Register of Perth, in The 
 Spottiswoode Miscellany, vol. ii. pp. 229, 230, Edinburgh, 1845. In regard to the 
 perdition which the sentence of excommunication was supposed to involve, one of 
 the most influential Scotch divines of that time merely expresses the prevailing 
 notion, when he asserts, that whoever was excommunicated was thereby given up 
 to Satan. “ That he who is excommunicated may be truly said to be delivered to 
 Sathan is undeniable.” Gillespie's Aaron's Rod Blossoming, or the Divine Ordinance 
 of Church Government Vindicated, 1646, 4to, p. 239. “Excommunication, which is a 
 shutting out of a Church-member from the Church, whereby Sathan commeth to get 
 dominion and power over him.” Rjid., p. 29Y. “ Sure I am an excommunicate 
 
 person may truly be said to be delivered to Sathan.” p. 424. 
 
272 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 man’s private concerns, ordered how he should govern his family, 
 and often took upon themselves the personal control of hia 
 household.^® Their minions, the elders, were every where ; for 
 each parish was divided into several quarters, and to each 
 quarter one of these officials was allotted, in order that he 
 might take special notice of what was done in his own district.®’ 
 Besides this, spies were appointed, so that nothing could escape 
 'their supervision.®® Not only the streets, hut even private 
 houses, were searched, and ransacked, to see if any one was 
 absent from church while the minister was preaching.®® To 
 him, all must listen, and him all must obey. Without the 
 
 Clarendon, under the year 1640, emphatically says {History of the Hebellion, 
 p. 67), “The preacher reprehended the husband, governed the wife, chastised the 
 children, and insulted over the servants, in the houses of the greatest men.” The 
 theory was, that “ ministers and elders must be submitted unto as fathers.” Shield's 
 Hnquh’y into Church Communion^ 2d edit., Edinburgh, 1747, p. 66. In the middle 
 of the seventeenth century, one of the most famous of the Scotch preachers openly 
 asserted the right of his profession to interfere in family matters, on the ground that 
 such was the custom in the time of Joshua. “ The Ministers of God’s house have 
 not only the ministry of holy things, as Word and Sacraments, committed to their 
 charge, but also the power of ecclesiastical government to take order with scanda- 
 lous offences within the familie ; both these are here promised to Joshua and the 
 Priests.” Hutcheson! s Exposition of the Minor Prophets^ vol. iii. p. 72, London, 
 1654. In 1603, the Presbytery of Aberdeen took upon themselves to order that 
 every master of a house should keep a rod, that his family, including his ser- 
 viuxts, might be beaten if they used improper language. “It is concludit that 
 thair salbe in ewerie houss a palmar.” Selections from the Records of the Kirk 
 Session, Presbytery, and Synod of Aberdeen, printed for the Spalding Club, 4to, 
 Aberdeen, 1846, p. 194. It also appears (p. 303) that, in 1674, the clergyman was 
 expected to exercise supervision over all visitors to private houses ; since he ought 
 to be informed, “iff ther be anie persone receaved in the familie without testimo- 
 niall presented to the minister.” 
 
 In 1650, it was ordered, “ That everie paroche be divydit in severall quarteris, 
 and each elder his owne quarter, over which he is to have special! inspectioun, and 
 that everie elder visit his quarter once everie month at least, according to the act 
 of the Generali Assemblie, 1649, and in thair visitatioun tak notice of all disorderlie 
 w^alkeris, especiallie neglectouris of God’s worship in thair families, sueareris, haunt- 
 eris of aill houses, especiallie at vnseasonable tymes, and long sitteris thair, and 
 drinkeris of healthis; and that he dilate these to the Sessioun.” Selections from the 
 Minutes of the Synod of Fife, printed for the Abbotsford Club, Edinburgh, 1837, 4to, 
 p. 168. “The elders each one in his own quarter, for trying the manners of the 
 people.” The Government and Order of the Church q/ Edinburgh, 1690, p. 
 14. This scarce little volume, is reprinted from the edition of 1641. See the adver- 
 tisement at the beginning. 
 
 In 1662, the Kirk-Session of Glasgow “ brot boyes and servants before them, for 
 breaking the Sabbath, and other faults. They had clandestine censors, and gave money 
 to some for this end.” Wodrow's Collections, vol. ii. part ii. p. 74, Glasgow, 1848, 4to. 
 
 “ It is thocht expedient that ane baillie with tua of the sessioun pas throw the 
 towne everie Sabboth day, and nott sic as thay find absent fra the sermones ather 
 afoir or efter none ; and for that effect that thay pas and sersche sic houss as they 
 think niaist meit, and pas athort the streittis.” Selections from the Records of the 
 Kirk Session, Presbytery, and Synod of Aberdeen, p. 26. “ To pas throw the towne 
 
 to cans the people resort to the hering of the sermones.” p. 59. “ Ganging throw 
 
 the towne on the ordinar preiching dayes in the wcik, als weill as on the Sabotk 
 day, to cans the people resort to the sermones.” p. 77. See also p. 94; and Wbd~ 
 row's Collections, vol. ii. part ii. p. 37 : “ the Session allous the searchers to go int* 
 houses and apprehend absents from the kirk.” 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 273 
 
 consent of his tribunal, no person might engage himself either 
 a domestic servant, or as a field labourer. If any one 
 incurred the displeasure of the clergy, they did not scruple to 
 summon • his ^ servants and force them to state whatever they 
 knew respecting him, and whatever they had seen done in his 
 house. To speak disrespectfully of a preacher was a grievous 
 offence to differ from him was a heresy even to pass him 
 in the streets without saluting him, was punished as a crime. 
 His very name was regarded as sacred, and not to he taken in 
 vain. And that it might he properly protected, and held in 
 due honour, an Assembly of the Church, in 1642 , forbad it to 
 be used in any public paper unless the consent of the holy man 
 had been previously obtained. 
 
 These and similar proceedings, being upheld by public opin- 
 
 Another peculiarity was the supervision wielded over the luovenients of peo- 
 ple to such a degree that they could neither obtain lodging nor employment except 
 by a licence from the Kirk-Session, or, by defying this police court, expose them- 
 selves to fine and imprisonment.” Lawson's Book of Perth, p. xxxvii Edinburo’h 
 1847. J > f o , 
 
 In 1662, Sir Alexander Irvine indignantly writes, that the presbytery of Aber- 
 deen, “ when they had tried many wayes, bot in vaine, to mak probable this their 
 vame imaginatione, they, at lenthe, when all other meanes failed thame, by ane un- 
 paralelled barbaritie, enforced my serwandis to reweall upon oathe what they sawe, 
 herd, or knewe done within my house, beyond which no Turkische inquisitione could 
 pase. 17ie Miscellany of the Spalding Club, vol. iii. p. 206, Aberdeen, 1846, 4to. 
 
 In 1656, a servant was ordered to be brought before the Kirk-Session of Aber- 
 deen ^ for her rayleing againest Mr, Andrew Cant, minister, in saying that becaus 
 the said Mr. Andrew spak againest Yuill, he spak lyke ane old fool.” Selections 
 from the Records of the Kirk Session, Presbytery, and Synod of Aberdeen, p. 138. 
 In 1642, the Presbytery of Lanark had up a certain James Baillie, because he stated 
 the extremely probable circumstance, “ that two fooles mett togither, when the 
 Minister and his sone mett togither.” Selections from the Registers of the Presby- 
 tery of Lanark, printed for the Abbotsford Club, Edinburgh, 1839, 4to, p. 30. 
 
 In 1644, If you dissent from them in a theological tenet, it is heresv." 
 1 resbytery Displayed, 1644, p. 39, reprinted London, 1663, 4to. In 1637, “If "ye 
 depai t from what L taught you in a hair-breadth for fear or favour of men, or desire 
 of case in this world, I take heaven and earth to witness, that ill shall come upon 
 you in end.” Rutherfordls Religious Letters, p. 116. In 1607, “Mr. William Cow- 
 pcr, Minister, complained upon Robert Keir that he had disdainfully spoken of his 
 doctrine. The (Kirk) Session ordained him to be warned to the morrow.” Law- 
 sovls Book of Perth, p. 247. 
 
 In 1619, a man was summoned before the Kirk -Session of Perth, because, 
 among other things, he would not perform “ that civil duty of salutation, as be- 
 conies him to his pastor j” but “passed by him without using any kind of rever- 
 ence. The Chronicle of Perth, Edinburgh, 1831, 4to, p. 80. The complaint was 
 preferred by the minister himself. Indeed, the Scotch clergy took these things so 
 much to heart, that they set up a theory to the effect that whoever showed them 
 any disrespect, was prompted thereto by Satan. “ It is Satan’s great engine to draw 
 men to contemne God and his word, under pretext of disrespect and prejudice 
 against the , Messengers only.” . . . . “ It may let us see their guilt who despise 
 most eminent ordinary Messengers.” Hutcheson's Exposition of the Minor Prophets, 
 vol. i. pp. 205, 233. r j r . 
 
 The General Assembly of St. Andrews, in 1642, passed “an act against using 
 ministers’ names in any of the public papers, without their own consent.” Steven- 
 son s History of the Church of Scotland, p. 603. 
 
274 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 ion, were completely successful. Indeed, they could hardly have 
 been otherwise, seeing that it was generally believed that who- 
 ever gainsaid the clergy, would be visited, not only with tempo- 
 ral penalties, but also spiritual ones. For such a crime, there 
 was punishment here, and there was punishment hereafter. 
 The preachers willingly fostered a delusion by which they bene- 
 fited. They told their hearers, that what was spoken in the 
 pulpit was binding upon aU believers, and was to be regarded 
 as immediately proceeding from the Deity.^® This proposition 
 being established, other propositions naturally followed. The 
 clergy believed that they alone were privy to the counsels of the 
 Almighty, and that, by virtue of this knowledge, they could 
 determine what any man’s future state would be.®’^ Groing still 
 further, they claimed the power, not only of foretelling his future 
 state, but also of controlling it ; and they did not scruple to 
 affirm that, by their censures, they could open and shut the 
 kingdom of heaven.®® As if this were not enough, they also 
 gave out that a word of theirs could hasten the moment ^ of 
 death, and by cutting off the sinner in his prime, could bring 
 him at once before the judgment-seat of God.®® 
 
 “ Directions for a believer’s walk, given by Christ’s ministers from his word, 
 are his own, and are accounted by him as if he did immediately speak them liimself. 
 Durham's Exposition of the Song of Solomon, p. 102. I quote irom the Glasgow 
 reprint of 1788. That my references may be easily verified, and any error, if error 
 there be, detected, I mention that the exact edidon used will, in every case, be 
 found specified in the List of Authors at the beginning of the volume. But, if it 
 will give the reader any additional confidence, I will venture to observe, that I am 
 always scrupulously careful in reference to quotations, having looked out each pas- 
 sage afresh, as the sheets came from the printer’s hands. Some of the circumstances 
 narrated in this chapter are so monstrous, that I hope to be excused in sa}ing that 
 I have taken all possible pains to secure their literal accuracy. ^ 
 
 “ Yea, such was their arrogance, that, as if they had been privy to the coun- 
 cils of God, or the dispensers of his vengeance to the world, they presumed to pro- 
 nounce upon their future state, and doomed them, both body and eteriim 
 
 torments.” Wishart's Memoirs of the Marquis of Montrose, p. 287. “Ye heard of 
 me the whole counsel of God.” Eutherford's Religious Letters, p. 16. I am free 
 from the blood of all men; for I have communicated to you the whole counsel of 
 God.” Ibid., p. 191. “ This is the great business of Gospel Ministers, to dedare the 
 
 whole counsel of God.” IlalyburtorC s Great Concern of Salvation, p. 4. ^ Assert- 
 ing that he had declared the whole counsel of God, and had keeped nothing back. 
 Life of the Rev. Alexander Peden, p. 41, in vol. i. of Walkers Biographia Presbyte- 
 
 riana. , , i -.u 
 
 “The power of the keys is given to the ministers of the church, wherewith 
 not only by the preaching of the word, but also to church censures, (sic) they open 
 and shut the kingdom of heaven.” Dickson's Truth's Victoi'y over Error, p. 282. 
 “To preach the Word, impugne, rebuik, admonishe, exhort and correct, and that 
 under no less painc then casting both bodie and soull into eternall hell s 
 Forbes' Certaine Records touching the Estate of the Kirk, p. 519. ^ The next words, 
 
 ‘ Whatsoever ye shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven, being spoken to the 
 Apostles, and in them to other Ministers of Jesus Christ.” Gillespies Aarons Rod 
 Blossoming, p. 8C6. “ The keys of the kingdom of Heaven .... are 
 
 mitted and intrusted to the pastors and other ruling officers of the Church. Ibid., 
 
 p. 260. ^ . 1. T 1 
 
 “ Gird up the loins of your mind, and make you ready for meeting the Lord; 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 275 
 
 Utterly horrible as such a pretension now appears, it was 
 made, not only with impunity, but with advantage ; and nu- 
 merous instances are recorded, in which the people believed 
 that it was strictly enforced. The celebrated John Welsh, sit- 
 ting one night at table, round which a party were assembled at 
 supper, began to discourse to the company respecting the state 
 of their souls. Those who were present listened with humility; 
 but to this general feeling there was one exception. For, it so 
 happened that a Roman Catholic was in the room, and he, of 
 course, disagreed with the opinions expressed by the Presby- 
 terian divine. If he had been a cautious man, he would have 
 kept his disapeement to himself ; but being a hot-headed 
 youth, and being impatient at seeing a single person engross 
 the conversation, he lost his temper, and not only ridiculed 
 W^elsh, but actually made faces at him. Thereupon, W^elsh 
 charged the company to take heed, and see what the Lord was 
 about to do to him who mocked. Scarcely had this threat been 
 uttered, when it was carried into execution. He who had dared 
 to jest at the minister, suddenly fell, sank under the table, and 
 died there in the presence of the whole party,^“ 
 
 I have often summoned you, and now I summon you again, to compear before your 
 Judge, ^to make a reckoning of your life.” Rutherford's Religious Letters, p. 235. 
 
 Mr. Cameron, musing a little, said, ‘ You, and all who do not know my God in 
 mercy, shall know him in his judgments, which shall be sudden and surprising in a 
 few days upon you ; and I, as a sent servant of Jesus Christ, whose commission I 
 bear, and whose badge I wear upon my breast, give you warning and leave you to 
 the justice of God.’ _ Accordingly, in a few days after, the said Andrew, being in 
 perfect health, took his breakfast plentifully, and before he rose fell a vomiting, and 
 vomited his heart’s blood in the very vessel out of which he had taken his break- 
 ^ most frightful manner.” Howie's Biographia Scoticana, p. 406. 
 
 _ Sitting at supper with the Lord Ochiltree (who was uncle to Mr. Welsh’s wife) 
 as his manner was, he entertained the company with godly and edifying discourse, 
 which was well received by all the company save only one debauched Popish 
 young gentleman, who sometimes laughed, and sometimes mocked and made faces ; 
 thereupon Air. W^elsh brake out into a sad abrupt charge upon all the company to 
 I)e silent, and observe the work of the Lord upon that profane mocker, which they 
 should presently behold : upon which immediately the profane wretch sunk down 
 and died beneath the table, but never returned to life again, to the great astonish- 
 company.” History of Mr. John Welsh, Minister of the Gospel at 
 Ayr, m Select Biographies, vol. i. p. 29. “ Air. Welsh being by the Captain(', set at 
 
 the^ upper end, intertained the company with grave and edifying discourse which all 
 delighted to hear, save this young Papist who wdth laughter and derision laboured 
 to silence him, which was little regarded by Mr. Welsh. But after supper while the 
 guests sate a little, this youth stood up at the lower end of the table, and while 
 Air. Welsh proceeded from grave to gracious entertainment of his company, the 
 youth came to that height of insolence as with the finger to point at him and with 
 the face to make flouting grimaces, whereby he grieved the holy man, so as on a 
 suddain he was forced to a silence. The whole company, who had heard him with 
 delight, were silent with him. Within a little, Mr. Welsh, as moved by the spirit of 
 God, broke forth into these wmrds : ‘ Gentlemen, the spirit of God is provoked 
 against us, and I shall intreat you not to be afraid to see what God shall do among 
 you before you rise from the table, for he will smite some of you with death before 
 
276 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 This happened early in the seventeenth century, and, being 
 bruited abroad, ic became a great terror to all evil-doers. But, 
 after a time, its effect appears to have been weakened ; since 
 another man was equally rash some forty or fifty years after- 
 wards. It seems that a Scotch clergyman, of considerable 
 repute, Mr. Thomas Hog, was, like Welsh, sitting at supper, 
 when it so chanced that the servant forgot to lay the knives. 
 Mr. Hog, thinking the opportunity a favourable one, observed 
 that such forgetfulness was of little moment, and that, while 
 we thought so much of our comforts here, it was far more 
 necessary to consider our condition hereafter. A gentleman 
 present, amused, either by the manner of Mr. Hog, or by the 
 skill with which he introduced the topics of his own profession, 
 was unable to restrain himself, and burst into a violent fit ot 
 laughter. The minister, however, was not to be checked, and 
 he continued after such a fashion that the laughter was repeat- 
 ed louder than ever. At length Mr. Hog turned round, and 
 told his merry comrade that very shortly he should seek for 
 mercy, but find it not. That same night, the scoffer was taken 
 ill, and in great alarm sent for Mr. Hog. It was, however, 
 useless. Before the clergyman could reach his room, the sinner 
 was lying dead, a lost and ruined man.^^ 
 
 you go hence.’ All were silently astonished, waiting to see the issue with fear. 
 And while every man feared himselfe, except the insolent youth, he fel down dead 
 suddenly at the foot of the table to shew the power of God’s jealousie against the 
 mockers of his Spirit and the offers of his grace.” Fleming's l^uljilling of the Scrip- 
 ture, pp. 3'74, 375. 
 
 “ When they sat doun to supper, it seems, knives were forgote ; and when the 
 servant was rebuked, Mr. Hogg said, there was noe matter, for he had one in his 
 pocket, and it was a necessary companion for a travailer; and, as his use was upon 
 evry thing, he took occasion to raise a spirituall discourse Iroin it ; ‘If we wer soe 
 carefull about accommodations in our way here, what care should we take in our 
 spirituall journey ! ’ and the like •, at which the factour takes a kink of laughing. 
 Mr. Hogg looked at him with a frown, and went on in his discourse. Within a 
 litle, at somewhat or other, he laughed out yet louder, and Mr. Hogg stoped a litle, 
 and looked him very stern in the face, and went on in his discourse, upon Ae free 
 grace of God ; and, at some expression or other, the man fell a laughing and flouting 
 very loud: Upon which Mr. Hogg stoped, and directed his discourse to him, to this 
 purpose : ‘ Alace ! ’ sayes he, ‘ my soul is afflicted to say what I must say to you, sii , 
 and I am constrained and pressed in spirit to say it, and cannot help it. Sir, you 
 nou dispise the grace of God, and mock at it ; but I tell you, in the name of the 
 Lord, that the time is coming, and that very shortly, when you (will) seek ane ofler 
 of grace, but shall not find it! ’ Upon which the man arose, laughing and flouting, 
 and went to his room. After he was away, the lady asked Mr. Hogg, 
 thought would come upon him ? He answered, he kneu noe more then he had 
 and that he was constrained and oblidgcd to say it against his inclination ; and he 
 could not accompt for some of these impressions he sometimes felt, and after Provi- 
 dences would clear, and that shortly ; but what it was, w'hen, or where, he kneu not; 
 The man told some of the servants that a phanatick Minister had been pronouncing 
 a curse on him, but he did not value him nor it either. After Mr. Hogg had been 
 somtime with the lady, he went to his room ; and after he had, as he used to doe, 
 Epent some time in prayer, he putt off his cloaths, and just as he was stepping into 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 277 
 
 Nor was it merely in private houses that such examples 
 were made. Sometimes the clergyman denounced the offender 
 from the pulpit, and the punishment was as public as the 
 offence. It is^ said that Gabriel Semple, when preaching, had 
 a strange habit of putting out his tongue, and that this excited 
 the mirth of a drunken man, who went into the church, and, by 
 way of derision, put out his tongue also. But, to his horW, 
 he found that, though he could put it out, he could not draw 
 it in again. The result was, that the tongue stiffened ; it lost 
 all sensibility ; and, paralysis coming on, the man died a few 
 days after his transgression,^® 
 
 Occasionally, the penalty was less severe, though the mir- 
 acle was equally conspicuous. In 1682, a certain woman took 
 upon herself to scold the famous divine, Peden, who was justly 
 regarded as^ one of the great lights of the Scotch Church. 
 
 I wonder, said that eminent man, “ I wonder your tongue is 
 not sore with so much idle clatter,” She indignantly replied, 
 that she had never suffered, either from a sore tongue, or from 
 a sore mouth. He told her that she soon would. And the 
 consequence of his saying so was, that her tongue and gums 
 swelled to that degree, that for some days she was unable to 
 take her usual food.^® 
 
 She escaped with her life ; others were more sharply han- 
 dled A clergyman was interrupted in the midst of his sermon 
 by three gentlemen leaving the church. It is not stated that 
 there was any thing offensive in their manner ; but their object 
 in going was to amuse themselves at some fair or race, and the 
 
 Ills bedd, a servant comes and knocks at the dore and crye.s, ‘For the Lord’s sake. 
 Ml. Hogg, come doun staires, presently, to the factour’s room!’ He put on his 
 cloaths as quickly as possible, and came doun, but tlie wretch was dead before he 
 Materials for a History of Remarkable Providences, 
 mostly relating to Scotch Ministers and Christians, by the Rev. Robert Wodrow 
 vol n pp. 265, 266. Compare Ihe Life of Mr. Thomas Hog, in Howie's Biographia, 
 version is given, slightly different, but essentially the same. 
 
 nni rl«. v country, he heard this story, which was 
 
 not doubted about Geddart” (i. e. Jedburgh) : “ jMr. Gabriel Semple had gote a hab- 
 ite, when speaking and preaching, of putting out his tongue, and licking his lipps 
 very frequently. Iher was a fellou that used to ape him, in a way of mock; and 
 one day, m a drukeu caball, he was aping him and putting out his tongue ; and it 
 turned stiffe and sensless, and he could not drau it in again, but in a feu dayes dyed. 
 This accompt is soe odd, that I wish I may have it confirmed from other hands ” 
 Wodrow' s Analecta, vol. ii. p. 187. 
 
 About the same time, wading Douglas-water very deep,” (he) “came to a 
 a goodwife of the house insisted (as most part of women do not keep 
 
 a bridle-hand) in chiding of him ; which made him to fret, and said, I wonder that 
 so much idle clatter. She said, I never had a sore 
 tongue nor mouth all my days. He said. It will not be long so. Accordingly, het 
 tongue and gooms swelled so, that she could get no meat taken for some days.” 
 Account of ^e Life and Heath of Mr. Walter Smith, p. 93, in vol. ii. of Waiker't 
 Biographia Presbyteriana. 
 
278 AN EXAMINATION OP THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 minister, no doulit, thought that they should, have been content 
 with the gratification of hearing him. At all events, he was 
 dissatisfied, and, after the sermon was over, he^ censured their 
 jonduct, and threatened them with the divine displeasure. 
 His words w’ere remembered, and, to the awe of his parishioners, 
 every tittle was fulfillod. Of the three gentlemen, all died vio-. 
 lent deaths ; one of them broke his neck hy falling from his 
 horse, and another was found in his room with his throat cut.^^ 
 Oases of this sort were frequent during the seventeenth^ cen- 
 tury ; and as in that credulous age they were firmly believed 
 and widely circulated, the power of the clergy was consolidated 
 by them. The Laird of Hilton once ventured to pull a minis- 
 ter out of a pulpit which was not his own, and into which he 
 had unlawfully intruded. “ For the injury you have done to 
 the servant of God,” cried the enraged preacher, “ you shall be 
 brought into this church like a sticked sow.” And so indeed 
 he was. Yet a little while, and Hilton became entangled in a 
 quarrel, was run through the body, and his corpse, still bleed- 
 ing, was carried into the very church where the outrage had been 
 committed.^® 
 
 ** “ I hear from Lady Henriett Campbell, who was present at a Communion at 
 Jeddart (Jedburgh), some years before Mr. Gabriel Semple’s death, that, either on 
 the fast day, or Saturnday, ther wer three gentlmen either in the parish or noturely 
 knouen thereabout, who rose in the time of the last sermon, and with their seryanta 
 went out of (the church), either to some fair or some race, not far off. After ser- 
 mon, when Mr. Semple rose to give the ordinary advertisments, he began with 
 taking nottice of this, and said, he had remarked three gentlmen rise in time of 
 sermon, and contemptuously and boldly leave God’s service to goe to a fair, or race, 
 as he supposed ; but saves, ‘ It’s born in upon me, and I am perswaded of it, the 
 Lord will not suffer them to goe off time, without some remarkable judgment, and I 
 am much mistaken if the most part that have seen them committ the sm, will not 
 hear of the punishment of such open despite to the ordinances of Christ.’ This per- 
 emptoryness did very much surprize Lady H(enriett), and coming home from ser- 
 mon with my Lord Lothian and his Lady, in coach, she expressed her surprize at it. 
 My Lord Lothian said, ‘ The Minister is a man of God, and I am perswaded not one 
 word of his will fall to the ground! ’ Within some feu moneths, my Lord or my 
 Lady, writing to Lady H(enriett), signifyed to her, that one of these gentlmen was 
 found in his room, (if I forgett not), with his throat cutt ^ and a second, being drunk, 
 fell off his horse, and broke his neck; and some while after, shee heard the third 
 had dyed some violent death.” Wodrovi’s Analecta, vol. i. pp. 344, 345. 
 
 “In the time of sermon, the Laird of Hiltoun comes in, and charges him in 
 the midst of his work, to come out of (the) pulpite, in the king’s name. Mr. Doug- 
 lasse refused; whereupon the Laird comes to the pulpit, and pulls him out by force! 
 When he sau he behoved to yeild, he said, ‘Hiltoun, for this injury you have done 
 to the servant of God, knou what you are to meet with! In a litle time you shall 
 be brought into this very church, like a sticked sou! ’ And in some litle time after, 
 Hilton was run throu the body, and dyed by, if I mistake not, Annandale s brother, 
 either in a douell or a drunken toilzie, and his corpes wer brought in, all bleeding, 
 into that church. ‘ Touch not mine annoynted, and doe my prophets noe harm ! ’ 
 W odrow's Analecta, vol. ii. p. 154. In the same work (vol. iv. p. 2f.8), the Reverend 
 Mr. Wodrow writes, that he had been subsequently informed, “that the story is 
 very true about the denuntiation upon the Laird ot Hiitoun, as I nave (I think) pub- 
 lished it; and ther is a man yet alive who was witnes to it, and in the church at the 
 time.” 
 
During the seventeenth century. 
 
 279 
 
 Even when a clergyman was in prison, he retained the same 
 power. His authority was delegated to him from on high and 
 no temporal misfortune could curtail it. In 1673, the Keverend 
 Alexander Peden, when in confinement, heard a younff girl 
 laughing at him outside the door of his room, while he was 
 engaged m those vociferous devotions, for which he was cele- 
 brated. The mirth of the poor child cost her dear. Peden 
 denounced against her the judgment of God. In consequence 
 01 that denunciation, the wind blew her from a rock on which 
 she was walking, and swept her into the sea, where she was 
 quickly drowned.^® 
 
 Sometimes the vengeance of the clergy extended to the 
 innocent offspring of the man who had offended them. A cer- 
 tain minister, whose ^ name has not been preserved, met with 
 opposition in his parish, and fell into pecuniary and other diffi- 
 culties. He applied for aid to a trader, who, being wealthy 
 ought, he thought, to afford him assistance. The trader how- 
 ever, thought otherwise, and refused. Upon this, the clergy- 
 man declared that God would visit him. The result was, that 
 his business not only declined, but his mind became impaired, 
 
 1 • idiot. He had two sons and two daughters 
 
 Poth his sons went mad. One of his daughters, likewise, lost 
 her reason. The other daughter being married, even her hus- 
 band became destitute, and the children of that marriage be- 
 came beggars, that the heinous crime might be visited to the 
 third generation.^’’ 
 
 worshinTf morning, being about the publick 
 
 ^ K ^ of thirteen or fourteen years, eame to 
 
 the chamber-door, mocking with loud laughter: He said. Poor thing, thou mocks 
 and laughs at the worship of God; but ere long, God shall write such k sudden sur- 
 Verv fhor^tfvTherP^ shall stay thy laughing, and thou shalt not escape it. 
 
 wind n ^d J upon the rock, and there came a blast of 
 
 45 ; 1 o T r of Walker's Biographia pLhytc- 
 
 ^ S' u XT Howie s Biographta Fresbifteriana, p. 487. 
 
 , , f J’ordyce, in Aberdeen) tells me this following accompt, which he 
 
 had from persoiiall observation: When he lived near ErazeSmrge in the North 
 ^cre was a Munster setled there jVe devoluto, the touu being big^otted against 
 
 f '7 encouragment from one Ougstoim, 
 
 1 thmi his name was, who had professed much respect for him and that wtv A 
 while after, in some difficulty, the Minister came to him, and desired his co^unte- 
 
 annithinTlftirrd ' “l f ^e at first put the Minister off with delay ; 
 
 and within a htle plainly mocked him, and would doe nothing. The Minister came 
 
 fount " litle from the place, and gave hinf aurfc! 
 
 rp™ ^“^*1 uud said, ‘I expected much from that man and 
 
 urP^ ^ assistance, in soe comfortless a setleraeiit as I have ven- 
 
 tured on; and he has not only disappointed me, but mocked me! ’ And the Minis- 
 ter was like to sink under the thoughts of this Carriage ; and after some s lenfe he 
 
 rod’SrbvTr'T.'p”;, 7"““’ Sme 
 
 and spoken by me. God wiU visite that man, and something more than ordinary 
 
280 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 To prosecute a minister, or even to assert one’s rights against 
 him before a civil tribunal, was not only a hazard, but a certain 
 ruin. About the year 1665, James Fraser was sued in a court 
 of law for a large sum of money, said to be due from his father s 
 estate. As usually happens in these cases, the party sued, con- 
 sidered that he was unjustly treated, and that his oppoimnt 
 had no right to make the claim. So far, all was natural. But 
 the peculiarity was, that Fraser, against whom the action was 
 brought, was a young man preparing for^ the ministry, and, 
 therefore, under the immediate protection ^ of Providence. 
 Such an one Was not to be vexed with impunity ; and we are 
 assured by Fraser himself, that God specially interposed to Pre- 
 vent his ruin ; that one of his opponents was made unable to 
 appear in court, and that the Lord, laying his hand upon the 
 others, put them to death, in order that every obstacle mig 
 be at once removed.^® 
 
 will befall him and his ! ’ My informer was very much stunned and grieved at such 
 a peremptory declaration. However, it was accomplished, to my inlormer s per- 
 sonal! knowledge. The man was a trader, who was very rich, worth near tour or 
 five thousand pounds sterling in stock. He had two sons and two daughters. 
 Within some litle time, one of his sons turned distracted, and I think continoues 
 soe stm. The other son, in some distemper, turned silly, and litle better, ana 
 dyed. His daughters, one was maryed, and her husband lost all his stock a 
 sea, twice or thrice; his good-father stocked him once or twice, and all was sUU 
 lost, and they and their children are miserable. The other daughter fell into a dis- 
 temper, wherein she lost her reason. The man himself, after that time never 
 throve; his means wasted away insensibly; and throu all things, he fell under 
 melancholy, and turned silly, and dyed stupide. All tliis fell out in some feu years 
 after what passed above ; and my relator kneu all this particularly, and had occasion 
 to be upon the man’s bussiness and affairs.” Wodrow's Analecta, vol. ii. pp. 176, 17 b. 
 See also, in another work by this eminent Scotch divine, an account of what happened, 
 when “a rash young man” having destroyed the property of a clergyman, named 
 Boyd, “ it was observed that that family did never thrive afterwards, bi^ were in 
 a decaying condition till they are reduced almost to nothing.” Wodrows Collections 
 uvon the Lives of Ministers of the Church of Scotland, vol. ii. part i. p. 215. 
 
 See Fraser’s Life of Himself, in vol. ii. of Select Biographies, edited by the 
 
 Rev W. K Tweedie. “Ncrthing now remained of all my father’s great fortune but 
 
 a siiall wadset of sixteen chalders, liferented likewise by my mother. And about 
 the same time a new (though an unjust) adversary charges both her and me 
 36 000 merks, and a reduction of our rights ; so that our whole livelihood was eithe 
 gone or at the stake. For four years did this adversary vex us, and w^ like to have 
 undone us as to our temporal condition, had not the Lord prevented, p. . > 
 
 ignorant what defences to make, had in my company a registrate horning, wbich l 
 accidentally and without premeditation (God putting it in my mind at the saine time) 
 did cast in, by which he, being the king’s rebel, was incapacitate from pursuing ma 
 And the Lord so ordered it that he never after compeared to trouble me, by which 
 means I was delivered from a loss and a fashery, and had but one court to wait 
 upon.” p. 202. “ My condition during this time was a wrestling condition with the 
 
 sons of Zeruiah that were too strong for me; little or no overcoming, yet violent 
 wrestlin"-.” .... “ For I humbled myself under the sense of the calamities ot our 
 family, and my own particular wants ; I besought him to keep us from utter destruc- 
 tion. And the Lord was pleased to hear ; he destroyed hy death rn.y chief adversa- 
 ries, I found shifts to pay my many petty debts, gained our law-action, and was re- 
 Stored to some of my ancient possessions again.” pp. 227, 228, 
 
DUEING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 281 
 
 While stories of this sort were generally believed, it was hut 
 natural that an opinion should grow up that it was dangerous to 
 meddle with a minister, or in any way to interfere with his con- 
 duct.^® The clergy, intoxicated hy the possession of power, 
 reached to sucH a pitch of arrogance, that they did not scruple 
 to declare, that whoever respected Christ, was hound, on that 
 very account, to respect them.®® They denounced the judg- 
 ments of God upon all who refused to hear the opinions they 
 propounded in their pulpits.® ‘ Nor did this apply merely to 
 persons who usually formed their audience. Such was their con- 
 ceit, and so greedy were they after applause, that they would not 
 allow even a stranger to remain in their parish, unless he, too, 
 came to listen to what they chose to say.®^ Because they had 
 
 “ So hazardous a thing it is to meddle with Christ’s sent servants.” Life of 
 Mr. William Guthrie^ Minister at Fenwick, by the Rev. William Dunlop, reprinted 
 in Select Biographies, vol. ii. p. 62. To arrest a clergyman on a civil or criminal 
 process, was an act full of danger, inasmuch as the Deity would hardly fail to avenge 
 it. This applied even to the officers who executed the arrest, as well as to him by 
 whom it was ordered. See, for instance, Some Remarkable Passages of the Life arid 
 Death of Mr. John Semple, Minister of the Gospel, p. 17 1 (in Walker's Biographia 
 Preshyteriana, vol. i.). “Some time thereafter, he gat orders to apprehend Mr. 
 Semple ; he intreated to excuse him, for Mr. Semple was the minister and man he 
 would not meddle with ; for he was sure, if he did that, some terrible mischief would 
 suddenly befal him. Mr. Arthur Coupar, who was Mr. Semple’s precentor, told these 
 passages to a Reverend Minister in the church, yet alive, worthy of all credit, who- 
 told me.” Durham boasts that, “ when Ministers have most to do, and meet with 
 most opposition, God often furnisheth them accordingly with more boldnesse, gifts, 
 and assistance than ordinary. Christ’s witnesses are a terrible party ; for as few as 
 these witnesses are, none of their opposits do gain at their hand; whoever hurteth 
 them shall in this manner be killed. Though they be despicable in sackcloth, yet 
 better oppose a king in his strength, and giving orders from his throne covered in 
 cloath of state, than them: though they may burn some and imprison others, yet 
 their opposers will pay sickerly for it. This is not because of any worth that is in 
 them, or for their own sake ; But 1. for His sake and for His authority that sendeth 
 them. 2. for the event of their word, which will certainly come to passe, and that 
 more terribly, and as certainly, as ever any temporall judgement was brought on by 
 Moses or Elias.” Durham! s Commentarie upon the Book of the Revelation, p. 416. 
 
 60 “These who are trusted by Christ to be keepers of the vineyard, and his min- 
 isters, ought also to be respected by the people over whom they are set ; and Christ 
 allows this on them. Where Christ is respected and gets his due, there the keepers 
 will be respected and get their due.” Durham's Exposition of the Song of Solomon, 
 pp. 450, 451. Fergusson complacently says, that to affront a clergyman by not be- 
 lieving his statement, or “ message,” as ho terms it, is a “ dishonour done to God,” 
 Fergusson' s Exposition of the Epistles of Paul, p. 422. 
 
 “As it is true concerning vs, that necessitie lyeth vpon vs to preach, and woe 
 will bee to vs if wee preach not ; so it is true concerning you, that a necessitie lyeth 
 vpon you to heare, and woe will be to you if you heare not." Cowper's Heaven 
 Opened, p. 166. 
 
 “ The following order was promulgated by the Kirk-Session of Aberdeen on the 
 12th July 1607. “ The said day, inrespect it wes delatit to the sessioun that thair 
 
 is sindrie landrart gentillmen and vtheris cum to this towne, quha mackis thair resi- 
 dence thairin, and resortis not to the preching nather on Saboth nor vlk dayes; 
 thairfor, it is ordanit that thrie elderis of everie quarter convene with the ministrie. 
 in the sessioun hous, immediatlie efter the ending of the sermone on Tuysday nixt, 
 and thair tak vp the names of the gentillmen and vtheris skipperis duelling in this 
 burgh, quha kepis nocht the Kirk, nor resortis not to the hering of Godis word;. 
 
282 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 adopted the Presbyterian polity, they asserted that the Almighty 
 had never failed to punish every one who tried to supersede 
 it and as this was the perfection of the church, those who 
 were blind to its merits, were given over to wrath, and were, 
 indeed, the slaves of Satan.® “ The clergy, who held this laii- 
 guage respecting their opponents, exhausted the choicest epi- 
 thet^ of praise on themselves, and on their own pursuits. 
 When one of them got into the pulpit, or took a pen in his 
 hand, he seemed as if he could not find words strong enough to 
 express his sense of the surpassing importance of that class of 
 
 and thair names being taken vp, ordains ane off the ministeris, with a baillie, to pas 
 vnto thaine and admoneis tharae to cum to the preichingis, and keip the Kirk, vther- 
 vayes to remowe thaniG aff the towne.” Selections fvoni the Records of the Kirk 
 Session, Presbytery and Synod of Aberdeen, p. 68. It was not enough to go occa- 
 sionally to church; the attendance must be regular; otherwise the clergy were dis- 
 satisfied, and punished the delinquents. In the Presbytery Book ot Strathbogie it 
 is recorded that, on the 29th September 1649, “Mr. Johne Reidfurd being posed 
 quhat diligence he had vsedto the Lady Frendraught, reported, shoe had hard three 
 sermons, and so, as he thought, shoe intended to contiuow ane heaiei. The breth- 
 eren, considering her long continowed contumacie and delay ot her process, by 
 heiring a sermon now and then, thought not that hind of heiring satisfactorie, quher- 
 for Mr. Robert Watson, and Mr. Robert Irving, ver ordained to goe with Mr. Johne 
 Reidfurd, and requyre the said Lady to subscryv the Covenant, quherby shoe might 
 testifie her conformitie vith the Kirk of Scotland, quhilk, if shoe refused, the said 
 Mr. Johne vas ordained to pronunce the sentence ot excommunicatioun against hir 
 before the Provinciall Assemblie, as he void be answerable therto.’’ Extracts from 
 the Presbytery Booh of Strathbogie, p. 115- Neither distance, nor illness, might be 
 pleaded as a valid excuse. Under no circumstances, would the preachers tolerate 
 the affront of any one displaying an unwillingness to hear their sermons. In _1650, 
 “ compeired the Lord Oliphant, being summondit for not keeping his parish kirk ot 
 Abercherdour, vho declared his inabilitie of bodie many tymes, and the want of 
 houses for accommodating him and his familie so farr distant trom the same, vas the 
 onlie cans, quhilk he promised to amend in tym comming. Mr. John Reidturd 
 ordained to report the same to the presbytrie, and vpon his continowed absence, to 
 processe him.” Presbytery Book of Strathbogie, p. 149. See more on this subject 
 in Registers of the Presbytery of Lanarh, pp. 5, 33, 67 ; Minutes of the Pre^yteries 
 of St. Andrews and Cupar, pp. 67, 68, 90, 163; Minutes of fie Synod of Bife, pp. 
 is, 66, 132; and Spalding's History of the Troubles, vol. ii. p. 67. Spalmng also 
 mentions (p. 114) that at Aberdeen, in 1643, the clergy discoursed every Tuesday, 
 Thursday, and Saturday, in the afternoon; on which occasions, “ the people is com- 
 pellit to attend their Lectiireis, or then cryit out aga-iiist.” , , , 
 
 “ And it may be truly said, as the Church of Scotland hath had no detractors, 
 but such as were ignorant of her, or mis-informed about her, yr whom faction, par- 
 tiality, prejudice, wickedness, or love of unlawful liberty did inspire; so no peison 
 or party hath endeavoured hithertil to root out Presbytery, but the Lord hath made 
 it a burdensome stone unto them.” Naphtali, sig. B 2 rev. “The Lords wrath 
 shall so meet his enemies in the teeth, wheresoever they turn, tnat they shall be 
 forced to forsake their pursuing of the Church.” Hickson's Explication of the Birst 
 
 B'ifty Psalms, T>. 115. „ „ , 
 
 54 a (.j.ue children of the Kirk are indeed the excellent ones of the earth, and 
 princes indeed, wherever they live, in comparison of all other men vdio are ^ 
 beastly slaves of Satan.” Hickson's Explication of the First Fifty Psfms, p. 312. 
 Another high authority carefully identifies “ the true religion’ with ‘ the true pres- 
 byterial profession.” See An Enquiry into Church Communion by Mr. Atexander 
 Shields, Minister of the Gospel at St. Andrews, p. 126. His remark applies to the 
 “ Burgess-oaths.” 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 283 
 
 which he was himself a member.®® They alone knew the truth ; 
 they alone were able to inform and enlighten mankind. They 
 had their instruction direct from heaven ; they were, in fact, 
 the ambassadors of Christ ; from him they received their ap- 
 pointment ; and since no one else could reward them, so no one 
 else had a right to rule them.®® As they were messengers sent 
 by the Almighty, they were rightly termed angels, and it was 
 the duty of the people to listen to their minister, as if he really 
 were an angel who had descended upon earth.®’' His parish- 
 
 M Fergusson gives an ingenious turn to this, and says that it was their duty to 
 praise their own profession, not for their own sake, but for the sake of others. “It 
 is the duty of Christ’s ministers to commend and magnify their office, not for gaining 
 praise and esteem to themselves, 2 Cor. iii. 1, but that the malice of Satan and his 
 instruments may be hereby frustrated; 2 Cor. xi. 12, who labours to bring that 
 sacred calling into contempt ; that so it may have the less of success upon people’s 
 hearts.” FergusHon's Exposition of the Epistles of Paul, p. 180. 
 
 “ Neither is there any mediate authoritie betweeue the Lord and his ambas- 
 sadours, in the affaires of their message ; he only sendeth them ; he alone gives 
 them to be pastors and doctors, etc. ; he alone shall judge them ; he alone shall re- 
 ward them ; to him alone they must give an accompt of their dispensation ; and he 
 himselfe alone doth immcdiatlie rule them by his spirit and word.” Forbes' Certains 
 Records touching the Estate of the Kirk, p. 435. In reference to these amazing pre- 
 tensions, the Scotch clergy were constantly terming themselves the ambassadors of 
 the Deity ; thereby placing themselves infinitely above all other men. See for in- 
 stance, Durham's Commentarie upon the Book of the Revelation, pp. 86, 100, 160. 
 Durham s Law Unsealed, pp. 85, 96. HalyhurtoEs Cheat Concern of Salvation, p. 
 402. Fergussonls Exposition of the Epistles of Paul, pp. 17, 273. Shields' Enquiry 
 into Church Communion, p. 72. Binning' s Sermons, vol. ii. p. 118, vol. iii. p. 178. 
 Ahernethy's Physicke for the Soule, p. 122. Monro's Sermons, p. 207. Gillespie's 
 Aaron s Rod Blossoming, pp. 240, 413. Cowper's Heaven Opened, p. 166. Ruther- 
 ford's B ree Disputation against Pretended Liberty of Conscience, p. 41. Dickson's 
 Pruth s Victor y over Lrror , p. 274. Gray's Great and Precious Promises, pp. 50, 
 74. Flemings Fulfilling of the Scripture, p. 429. Cockburn's Jacob's Vow, or 
 Maris Felicity and Duty, p. 401. Hutcheson's Exposition of the Booh of Job, pp. 
 461, 479. ./ > m 
 
 “ Ministers are called Angels, because they are God’s Messengers, intrusted 
 by Him with a high and heavenly imployment ; and it is a title that should put 
 Ministers in mind of their duty, to do God’s will on earth as the Angels do it in 
 heaven, in a spiritual and heavenly way, cheerfully, willingly and readily ; and it 
 shoiddput people in mind of their duty, to take this word off Ministers' hands, as from 
 Angels. Durhanis Commentarie upon the Book of the Revelation, p. 496. “Th('rc- 
 fore are Ministers called Angels, and Angels, Ministers.” p. 696. Cockburn says 
 that this is the reason why “ we should behave ourselves decently and reverently ” 
 in church; “ for if the presence of Kings overawe us, how much more should the 
 presence of God and Angels.” Cockburn's Jacob's Vow, or Mads F'elicity and Duty, 
 p. 356. Another Scotch divine asserts that he and his brethren are able to instruct 
 the angels, and free them from their ignorance. See the audacious passage in F'cr- 
 gusson s Exposition of the Epistles of Paid, p. 180: “ This may commend the min- 
 isters of the gospel not a little unto men, and beget reverence in them towards the 
 same, that even the blessed angels are in some sort bettered by it, and that it is 
 therefore respected by them : for Paul commendeth his office from this, that by 
 occasion thereof ‘ unto the principalities and powers, was made known the manifold 
 wisdom of God.’ Though angels be most knowing creatures, as enjoying the imme- 
 diate sight and presence of God, Matt, xviii. 10, yet they are ignorant of some things, 
 which, by God's way of dispensing the Gospel to his church, they come to a more full 
 knowledge off." After this, it is a slight matter to find Monro insisting tiiat “ the 
 people should consider our character as the most difficult and most sacred.” Mon- 
 ro's Sermons, p. 202. 
 
384 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 ionerSj therefore, were hound, not only to acknowledge him and 
 provide for him, hut also to submit to him.®® Indeed, no one 
 could refuse ohedience, who considered who the clergy were, 
 and what functions they performed. Besides being ambassadors 
 and angels, they were watchmen, who spied out every danger, 
 and whose sleepless vigilance protected the faithful.®® They 
 were the joy and delight of the earth. They were musicians, 
 singing the songs of sweetness 5 n^y? they were sirens, who 
 sought to allure men from the evil path, and save them from 
 perishing.®® They were chosen arrows, stored up in the quiver 
 of God.®‘ They were burning lights and shining torches, 
 ^^ithout them, darkness would prevail 5 but their presence illu- 
 mined the world, and made things clear.® ^ Hence they were 
 called stars, which title also expressed the eminence of their 
 office, and its superiority over all others.®® To make this stid 
 
 “He is obliged to minister unto them in the gospel; and they are obliged to 
 submit to him, strengthen him, acknowledge him, communicate to him in dl good 
 things, and to provide for him,” etc. Durham's Commentarie upon the Book oj the 
 Revelation, p. 90. That the clergy are “ rulers and governors, ’ and that their 
 business is “ ruling and watching over the flock,” is likewise affirmed \n Gillespies 
 Aaron's Rod Blossoming, pp. 172, 313. Compare The Correspondence of the Rev. 
 Robert Wodrow, vol. i. p. 181: “rule over the people and speak the word; and 
 Rutherford's Free Disputation against Pretended Liberty of Conscierice, p. 41: tne 
 
 commanding power in the Ambassadour of Christ.” See also the “ reverential esti- 
 mation ” inculcated in Boston's Sermons, p. 186. _ p i • 
 
 “Called watchmen by a name borrowed from the practice ot centmeis in 
 armies or cities.” They are “ Satan’s greatest eye-sores.” Hutcheson's Exposition 
 on the Minor Prophets, vol. ii. p. 158, vol. iii. p. 208. “Th^^being made watch- 
 men, do thereby blmome the butt of Satan’s malice.” . . . “The Enemy’s principal 
 design is sure to be against the watchman, because he prevents the surprising ot his 
 peode by Satan, at least ’tis his business to do so.” Halyburton s Great Cancan 
 of Salvation, p. 24. Compare Guthrie's Considerations coniributirig unto the Dis- 
 covery of the Dangers that threaten Religion, p. 259 ; Fergusson s Exposition of the 
 Epistles of Paul, pp. 97, 106; Durham's Exposition of the Song of Solomon, pp. 
 278, 443 ; and Wodrow's Correspondence, vol. i. pp. 84, 244. 
 
 One of the most popular of the Scotch preachers in the seventeenth cen^ry, 
 actually ranks himself, in this respect, as doing the same work as the Son ot Ood. 
 “ Christ and his ministers are the musicians that do apply their songs to catch mens 
 ears and hearts, if so be they may stop their course and not perish. Ihese art» 
 blessed syrens that do so.” Binning' s Sermons, vol. iii. p. 266.^ ^ 
 
 Kutherford terms himself, “a chosen arrow hid in his quiver. Howies Bio- 
 nraphia Scoticana, p. 230. To read the coarse materialism contained m this and 
 other extracts, will, I know, shock, and so far offend, many pure and reflned minds, 
 whose feelings I would not needles.sly wound. But no one can understand the his- 
 tory of the Scotch intellect, who refuses to enter into these matters; and it is tor 
 the reader to choose whether or not he will remain ignorant of what I, as an histo- 
 rian, am bound to disclose. His remedy is easy. He has only either to shut the 
 book, or else to pass on at once to the next chapter. . , • i. j ..x 
 
 “ The Lord calleth men to be preachers, and hath them m his hand as starres, 
 holding them out sometime to one part of the world, and sometime to another, that 
 we may communicate light to them that are sitting in darkness. ’ Cowper s Heaven 
 
 Opened, p. 360. , . , . . v 
 
 Ministers are called Stars, for these reasons : I. To signifie and point out the 
 eminence and dignity of the office, that it is a glorious and shineing office. 11. o 
 point out what is the especiall end of this office ; It is to give light ; as the use ot 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 285 
 
 more apparent, prodigies were vouchsafed, and strange lights 
 might occasionally be seen, which, hovering round the form of 
 the minister, confirmed his supernatural mission.®^ The pro- 
 fane wished to jest at these things, but they were too notorious 
 to be denied ; and there was a well-known case, in which, at 
 the death of a clergyman, a star was miraculously exhibited in 
 the firmament, and was seen by many persons, although it was 
 then midday.®® 
 
 Nor was this to be regarded as a solitary occurrence. On 
 the contrary, it usually happened, that when a Scotch minister 
 departed from this life, the event was accompanied by portents, 
 in order that the people might understand that something 
 terrible was going on, and that they were incurring a serious, 
 perhaps an irretrievable, loss. Sometimes the candles would 
 be mysteriously extinguished, without any wind, and without 
 any one touching them.®® Sometimes, even when the clergyman 
 was preaching, the supernatural appearance of an animal would 
 announce his approaching end in face of the congregation, who 
 might vainly mourn what they were unable to avert.® Some- 
 times the body of the holy man would remain for years un- 
 
 Stars is to give light to the world ; so it’s Ministers’ main imployment to shine and 
 give light to others ; to make the world, which is a dark night, to be lightsome.” 
 Durhani's Commentarie upon the Book of the Revelation, p. 43. See also pp. 161, 
 368 ; and Dickson's Truth! s Victory over Error, p. 176. 
 
 The Rev. James Kirkton says of the Rev. John Welsh, that some one who 
 observed him walking, “ saw clearly a strange light surround him, and heard him 
 speak strange words about his spiritual joy.” Select Biographies, edited by the Rev. 
 W. K. Tweedie, vol. i. p. 12. But more than this remains to be told. The hearts of 
 the Scotch clergy were so lifted up with pride, that they believed — horrible to relate 
 — that they had audible and verbal communications from the Almighty God, which 
 bystanders could hear. One of these stories, relating also to Welsh, will be found, 
 as tradition handed it down, in Howie's Biographia Scoticana, p. 148. I cannot 
 quote such blasphemy ; and those who doubt my statement had better refer to the 
 second edition of Bowie’s work, pubhshed at Glasgow in 1781. It may probably be 
 met with in the British Museum. 
 
 ®® “Mr. Johne M‘Birnie at Aberdeen, (but first at the South Ferrie, over aganis 
 the Castell of Broughtie,) a most zealous and painfull pastor, a great opposer of 
 hierarchie. He was a shyning torch and a burning starre ; wherefore the Lord mi- 
 raculouslie made, at his death, a starre to appeare in heaven at the noone-tyde of 
 the day ; whilk many yit alive testifies that they did evidentlie see it, (at Whitsun- 
 day 1609.”) Row's History of the Kirk of Scotland, p. 421. 
 
 ®® Mr. James Stirling, minister of Barony, Glasgow, writes respecting his father, 
 Mr. John Stirling, minister at Kilbarchan, that the “day he was burryed ther wer 
 two great candles burning in the chamber, and they did go out most surprisingly 
 without any wind causing them to go out.” Analecta, or Materials for a History 
 of Remarkable Providences, by the Rev. Robert Wodrow, vol. iii. p. 37. 
 
 ®’ “ This night, Glanderston told me, that it was reported for a truth at Bur- 
 roustoness, that about six weeks since Mr. David Williamson was preaching in his 
 own church in Edinburgh, and in the middle of the sermon, a ratton came and sat 
 doun on his Bible. This made him stope ; and after a little pause, he told the con- 
 gregation that this was a message of God to him, and broke off his sermon, and 
 took a formall fareweel of his people, and went borne, and continoues sick.” Wodr 
 row's Analecta, vol. i. p. 12. 
 
286 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 changed and undecayed ; death not having the power over it 
 which it would have had over the corpse of a common person.®* 
 On other occasions, notice was given him of his death, years 
 before it occurred and, to strike greater awe into the public 
 mind, it was remarked, that when one minister died, others 
 were taken away at the same time, so that, the bereavement 
 being more widely felt, men might, by the magnitude of the 
 shock, be rendered sensible of the inestimable value of those 
 preachers whose lives were happily spared.’'* 
 
 It was, moreover, generally understood, that a minister, dur- 
 ing his abode in this world, was miraculously watched over and 
 protected. He was peculiarly favoured by angels, who, though 
 they did good offices to all members of the true church, were 
 especially kind to the clergy and it was well known, that 
 the celebrated Rutherford, when only four years old, having 
 fallen into a well, was pulled out by an angel, who came there 
 for the purpose of saving his life.'’® Another clergyman, who 
 
 88 n pame person ” {i. e. the Rev. Mr. White) “ adds, that some years ago, 
 when Mr. Bruce’s grave was opened, to lay in his grandchild, his body was almost 
 fresh and uncorrupted, to the great wonder of many ; and if I right remember, the 
 grave was again filled up, and another made. The fresh body had no noisome smell. 
 It was then nearly eighty years after he was buried. My informer was minister of 
 Larbert when this happened.” Wod7'ow'’s Life of Bruce, p. 160, prefixed to Bruce’s 
 Sermons. 
 
 6» a jjg 11 (joPn Lockhart) “ tells me Mr. Robert Raton, minister at Barnweel, 
 his father-in-lau, had a particular for-notice, seven or eight years before, of his 
 death : That he signifyed so much to my informer.” . . . “ When my informer 
 came, he did not apprehend any hazard, and signifyed so much to his father-in-lau, 
 Mr. Raton. He answered, ‘ John, John, I am to dye at this time ; and this is the 
 time God warned me of, as I told you.’ In eight or ten dayes he dyed. Mr. Raton 
 was a man very much (beloved) and mighty in prayer.” Wodrow's Analecta, vol. 
 hi. p. 451. Compare the case of Henderson \VL{Wodrow's Correspondence, vol. hi. p. 
 33,) where the notice was much shorter, but “ all fell out as he had foretold.” 
 
 “ Generally, I observe that Ministers’ deaths are not single, but severall of 
 them together.” Wodi-ow's Analecta, vol. hi. p. 2Y5. 
 
 The Rev. William Row (in his Continuation of Blair's Autobiography, p. 153) 
 says, “ Without all doubt, though it cannot be proven from Scripture, that every 
 one has a tutelar angel, yet it is certain that the good angels do many good offices 
 to the people of God, especially to his ministers and ambassadors, which we do not 
 see, and do not remark or know.” 
 
 “ Mr. James Stirling, and Mr. Robert Muir, and severall others in the com- 
 pany, agreed on this accompt of Mr. Rutherford. When about four years old, he 
 was playing about his father’s house, and a sister of his, somewhat older than he, 
 with him. Mr. Rutherford fell into a well severall fathoms deep, and not full, but 
 faced about with heuen stone, soe that it was not possible for any body to get up 
 almost, far less a child. When he fell in, his sister ran into the house near by, and 
 told that Samuell was fallen into the well; upon which his father and mother ran 
 out, and found him sitting on the grasse beside the well ; and when they asked him, 
 Hou he gote out ? he said, after he was once at the bottome, he came up to the 
 tope, and ther was a bonny young man pulled him out by the hand. Ther w’as noe 
 body near by at the time ; and soe they concluded it was noe doubt ane angell. 
 The Lord had much to doe wdth him.” Wodrow's Analecta, vol. i. p. 67. See also 
 vol. iii. pp. 88, 89, where this circumstance is again mentioned as “ a tradition anent 
 him ” in the place of his birth. 
 
PURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 287 
 
 was in the habit of over-sleeping himself, used to be roused 
 to his duty in the morning, by three mysterious knocks at 
 his door, which, if they did not produce a proper effect, were 
 repeated close to his bed. These knocks never failed on Sunday, 
 and on days when he had to administer the communion ; and 
 they lasted during the whole of his ministry, until he became 
 old and infirm, when they entirely ceased.’'® 
 
 By the propagation of these and similar stories, in a coun- 
 try already prepared for their reception, the Scotch mind became 
 imbued with a belief in miraculous interposition, to an extent 
 which would be utterly incredible if it were not attested by a 
 host of contemporary and unimpeachable witnesses. The clergy, 
 partly because they shared in the general delusion, and partly 
 because they derived benefit from it, did every thing they could to 
 increase the superstition of their countrymen, and to familiarize 
 them with notions of the supernatural world, such as can only 
 be paralleled in the monastic legends of the middle ages.^^ 
 How they laboured to corrupt the national intellect, and how 
 successful they were in that base vocation, has been hitherto 
 known to no modern reader ] because no one has had the pa- 
 tience to peruse their interminable discourses, commentaries, 
 
 “Mr. William Trail, minister at***, tells me that his father, Mr. William 
 Trail, minister at Borthwick, used every morning, when he had publick work on his 
 hand, to hear three knocks at his chamber dore ; and if, throu wearynes, or heavi- 
 ness, he did sitt these, ther wer ordinarily three knocks at his bed-head, which he 
 never durst sitt, but gott up to his work. This was ordinarily about three in the 
 morning. This, at first, in his youth, frighted him ; but at tenth it turned easy to 
 him, and he believed these knocks and awakniugs proceeded from a good art. That 
 these never failed him on Sabbaths and at Communions, when he was oblidged to rise 
 early : That when he turned old and infirm, toward the close of his dayes, they in- 
 tirely ceased and left him.” Wodrow's Analecta, vol. ii. p. 307. This work, in four 
 quarto volumes, is invaluable for the history of the Scotch mind; being a vast reper- 
 tory of the opinions and traditions of the clergy, during the seventeenth, and early 
 part of the eighteenth century. Wodrow was a man of ability, certainly above the 
 average ; his honesty is unimpeachable, as the jealous scrutiny which the episco- 
 palians have made of his great work on the History ot the Church of Scotland, de- 
 cisively proves; and he was in the constant habit of personal and epistolary com- 
 munication with the leading characters of his age. I have, therefore, freely used 
 his Analecta; also his Collections upon the Lives of 'Ministers, which is likewise in 
 four quarto volumes ; and his Correspondence, in three thick octavo volumes.^ It 
 would be difficult to find a more competent witness respecting the sentiments of his 
 ecclesiastical brethren. It would be impossible to find a more candid one. 
 
 In illustration of this, a volume might be filled with extracts from the writings 
 of the Scotch divines of the seventeenth century. The following passage is, perhaps, 
 as good as any. “Yea, it can hardly be instanced any great change, or revolution 
 in the earth, which hath not had some such extraordinary herald going before. 
 Can the world deny how sometimes these prodigious signes have been shaped out 
 to point at the very nature of the stroke then imminent, by a strange resemblance 
 to the same, such as a flaming sword in the air, the appearance of armies fighting 
 even sometimes upon the earth, to the view of many most sober and judicious on- 
 lookers, also showers of blood, the noise of drummes, and such like, which are known 
 usually to go before warr and commotions.” Meming's Fulfilling of the Scripture^ 
 1681, p. 216. 
 
288 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 and the other religious literature in which their sentiments are 
 preserved. As, however, the preachers were, in Scotland, more 
 influential than all other classes put together, it is only hy com- 
 paring their statements with what is to he found in the general 
 memoirs and correspondence of the time, that we can at all 
 succeed in re-constructing the history of a period, which, to the 
 philosophic student of the human mind, is full of great, though 
 melancholy, interest. I shall, therefore, make no apology for 
 entering into still further details respecting these matters ; and 
 I hope to put the reader in possession of such facts as will con- 
 nect the past history of Scotland with its present state, and will 
 enable him to understand why it is, that so great a people are, 
 in many respects, still struggling in darkness, simply because 
 they still live under the shadow of that long and terrible night, 
 which, for more than a century, covered the land. It will also 
 appear, that their hardness and moroseness of character, their 
 want of gaiety, and their indifference to maoy of the enjoyments 
 •of life, are traceable to the same cause, and are the natural 
 product of the gloomy and ascetic opinions inculcated by their 
 rehgious teachers. For, in that age, as in every other, the clergy, 
 once possessed of power, showed themselves harsh and unfeel- 
 ing masters. They kept the people in a worse than Egyptian 
 bondage, inasmuch as they enslaved mind as well as body, and 
 not only deprived men of innocent amusements, but taught 
 them that those amusements were sinful. And so thoroughly 
 did they do their work, that, though a hundred and flfty years 
 have elapsed since their supremacy began to wane, the imprint 
 of their hands is every where discernible. The people still bear 
 the marks of the lash ; the memory of their former servitude 
 lives among them ; and they crouch before their clergy, as they 
 did of old, abandoning their rights, sacrificing their independ- 
 ence, and yielding up their consciences, to the dictates of an 
 intolerant and ambitious priesthood. 
 
 Of all the means of intimidation employed by the Scotch 
 clergy, none was more ef0.cacious than the doctrines they pro- 
 pounded respecting evil spirits and future punishment. On 
 these subjects, they constantly uttered the most appalling 
 threats. The language, which they used, was calculated to 
 madden men with fear, and to drive them to the depths of de- 
 spair. That it often had this consequence, and produced most 
 fatal results, we shall presently see. And, what made it more 
 effectual was, that it completely harmonized with those other 
 gloomy and ascetic notions which the clergy inculcated, and 
 according to which, pleasures being regarded as sinful, suffer- 
 ings were regarded as religious. Hence that love of inflicting 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 289 
 
 pain, and that delight in horrible and revolting ideas, which 
 characterized the Scotch mind during the seventeenth century. 
 A few specimens of the prevailing opinions will enable the 
 reader to understand the temper of the time, and to appreciate 
 the resources which the Scotch clergy could wield, and the 
 materials with which they built up the fabric of their power. 
 
 It was generally believed, that the world was overrun by 
 evil spirits, who not only went up and down the earth, but also 
 lived in the air, and whose business it was to tempt and hurt 
 mankind.'^® Their number was infinite, and they were to be 
 found at all places and in all seasons. At their head was Satan 
 himself, whose delight it was to appear in person, ensnaring or 
 terrifying every one he met.’'® With this object, he assumed 
 various forms. One day, he would visit the earth as a black 
 dog on another day, as a raven ;'’® on another, he would be 
 
 Durham, after mentioning “ old abbacies or monasteries, or castles when walls 
 stand and none dwelleth in them,” adds, “If it be asked. If there be such a thing, 
 as the haunting of evill spirits in these desolate places? We answer 1. That there 
 are evill spirits rangeing up and down through the earth is certain, even though hell 
 be their prison properly, yet have they a sort of dominion and abode both in the 
 earth and air; partly, as a piece of their curse, this is laid on them to wander; 
 partly, as their exercise to tempt men, or bring spirituall or temporall hurt to 
 them,” &c. Durham's Commentarie upon the Booh of the Revelation, p. 582. So 
 too, Hutcheson’s Exposition of the Book of Job, p. 9) : “We should remember that 
 we sojourn in a world where Devils are, and do haunt among us;” and Fleming 
 {^Fulfilling of the Scripture, p. 217): “But the truth itself is sure, that such a party 
 is at this day, encompassing the earth, and trafficking up and down there, to prove 
 which by arguments were to light a candle to let men see that it is day, while it is 
 known what ordinary familiar converse many have therewith." One of their favourite 
 abodes was the Shetland Islands, where, in the middle of the seventeenth century, 
 “ almost every family had a Brouny or evil spirit so called.” See the account given 
 by the Rev. John Brand, in his work entitled A Brief Description of Orkney, Zet- 
 land, Pightland Firth, and Caithness, pp. Ill, 112, Edinburgh, 1701. 
 
 78 jg uQt whom he assaulteth not.” Ahernethy's Physicke for the 
 
 Soule, p. 101. “On the right hand and on the left.” Cowper's Heaven Opened, p. 
 273. Even early in the eighteenth century, the “most popular divines” in Scotland, 
 affirmed that Satan “ frequently appears clothed in a corporeal substance.” Memoirs 
 of Charles Lee Lewes, written by Himself vol. iii. pp. 29, 80, London, 1805. 
 
 ” “This night James Lochheid told me, that last year, if I mistake not, at the 
 Communion of Bafron, he was much helped all day. At night, when dark some- 
 what, he went out to the feilds to pray ; and a terrible slavish fear came on him, 
 that he almost lost his senses. Houever, he resolved to goe on to his duty. By 
 (the time) he was at the place, his fear was off him ; and lying on a knou-side, a 
 black dogg came to his head and stood. He said he kneu it to be Satan, and 
 shooke his hand, but found nothing, it evanishing.” .... “ Lord, help against 
 his devices, and strengthen against them ! ” Wodrovds Analecta, vol. i. p. 24. The 
 Registers of the Presbytery cf Lanark, p. 77, contain a declaration, in 1650, that 
 “ the devill appeared like a little whelpe,” and afterwards, “ like a brown whelpe.” 
 
 '’® The celebrated Peden was present when “ there came down the appearance 
 
 of a raven, and sat upon one man’s head.” Thereupon, “ going home, 
 
 Mr. Peden said to his land-lord, I always thought there was Devilry among you, 
 but I never thought that he did appear visibly among you, till now I have seen it. 
 0, for the Lord’s sake quit this way.” The Life and Death of Mr. Alexander Peden, 
 late Minister of the Oospel at New Glenluce in Calloway, pp. Ill, 112, in vol, i. of 
 Walker's Biographia Presbyteriana, 
 
290 AN EXAMINATION OF TUB SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 heard in the distance, roaring like a hull.’’* He appeared some-, 
 times as a white man in black clothes and sometimes he 
 came as a black man in black clothes, when it was remarked 
 that his voice was ghastly, that he wore no shoes, and that one 
 of his feet was cloven.® ‘ His stratagems were endless. For, 
 in the opinion of divines, his cunning increased with his age ; 
 and having been studying for more than five thousand years, 
 he had now attained to unexampled dexterity.®^ He could, 
 and he did, seize both men and women, and carry them away 
 through the air.®® Usually, he wore the garb of laymen, but 
 it was said, that, on more than one occasion, he had impudently 
 
 “ I heard a voice just before me on the other side of the hedge, and it seemed 
 to be like the groaning of an aged man. It continued so some time. I knew no 
 man could be there ; for, on the other side of the hedge, where I heard the groan- 
 ing, there was a great stank or pool. I nothing doubted but it was Satan, and I 
 guessed his design ; but still I went on to beg the child’s life. At length he roared 
 and made a noise like a bull, and that very loud. From all this I concluded, that 1 
 had been provoking God some way or other in the duty, and that he was angry with 
 me, and had let the enemy loose on me, and might give him leave to tear me in 
 pieces. This made me intreat of God, to shew me wherefore he contended, and 
 begged he would rebuke Satan. The enemy continued to make a noise like a bull, 
 and seemed to be coming about the hedge towards the door of the summer-seat, 
 bellowing as he came along.” Stevenson' s Hare, Soul-Strengthenhig, and Comforting 
 Cordial for Old and Young Christians, p. ‘29. This book was published, and pre- 
 pared for the press, by the Rev. William Guppies. See Mr. Guppies’ letter at the 
 beginning. 
 
 ““ In 1684, with “black deaths, and a blue band, and white handcuffs.” Sin- 
 clair's Satan's Invisible World Discovered, p. 8. 
 
 “ He observed one of the black man’s feet to be cloven, and that the black 
 man’s apparel was black, and that he had a blue band about his neck, and white 
 hand-culfs, and that he had hoggers upon his legs without shoes ; and that the 
 black man’s voice was hollow and ghastly.” Satan's Invisible World Discovered, p. 9. 
 “ The devil appeared in the shape of a black man.” p. 31. See also Descrip- 
 
 tion of Orloiey, p. 126 : “ all in black.” 
 
 “ The acquired knowledge of the Devill is great, hee being an advancing stu- 
 dent, and still learning now above five thousand yeares.” Rutherford's Christ Dying 
 and Drawing Sinners to Himselfe, p. 204. “ He knowes very well, partly by the 
 
 quicknesse of his nature, and partly by long experience, being now very neere six 
 thousand yeeres old.” Cowper's Heaven Opened, p. 219. “Uee, being compared 
 with vs, hath many vantages ; as that he is more subtill in nature, being of greater 
 experience, and more ancient, being now almost sixe thousand yeeres old.” Ibid., 
 p. 403. “ The diuell here is both diligent and cunning, and (now almost of sixe 
 
 thousand yeeres) of great experience.” Abernethy's Physicke for the Soule, p. 142. 
 “ Satan, such an ingenious and experimental spirit.” Binning' s Sermons, vol. i. p. 67. 
 “Ilis great sleight and cunning.” Ibid., p. 110. Other eulogies of his skill may be 
 seen in Fergusson's Exposition of the Epistles of Paul, p. 476 ; and in Fleming's Ful- 
 filling of the Scripture, p. 45. A “ minister,” whose name is not mentioned, states 
 that he is “ of an excellent substance, of great natural parts, long experience, and 
 deep understanding.” Sinclair's Satan's Invisible World Discovered, p. 78. 
 
 In Professor Sinclair’s work {Satan's Invisible World Discovered, p. 141), we 
 find, in 1684, “ an evident instance, that the devil can transport the bodies of men 
 and women through the air. It is true, he did not carry her far off, but not for 
 want of skill and power.” Late in the seventeenth century, it was generally believed 
 that one of Satan’s accomplices was literally “ strangled in his chair by the devil, 
 least he should make a confession to the detriment of the service.” Crawfurd's 
 History of the Shire of Renfrew, part iii. p. 319. 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 291 
 
 attired himself as a minister of the gospel.®^ At all events, in 
 orie dress or other, he frequently appeared to the clergy, and 
 tried to coax them over to his side.®® In that, of course, he 
 failed ; hut, out of the ministry, few, indeed, could withstand 
 him. He could raise storms and tempests ; he could work, not 
 only on the mind, hut also on the organs of the body, making 
 men hear and see whatever he chose.®® Of his victims, some 
 
 See the account of a young preacher being deceived in this way, in Wodrow's 
 Analecta, vol. i. pp. 103, 104. The Rev. Robert Blair detected the cheat, and “ with 
 ane awful seriousness appearing in his countenance, began to tell the youth his 
 hazard, and that the man whom he took for a Minister was the Divel, who had tre- 
 panned him, and brought him into his net; advised him to be earnest with God in 
 prayer, and likewise not to give way to dispair, for ther was yet hope.” The 
 preacher had, on this occasion, been so far duped as to give the devil “ a written 
 promise” to do whatever he was requested. As soon as the Rev. Mr. Blair ascer- 
 tained this fact, he took the young man before the Presbytery, and narrated the 
 circumstance to the members. “ They were all strangely affected with it, and re- 
 solved unanimously to dispatch the Presbitry business presently, and to stay all 
 night in town, and on the morrow to meet for prayer in one of the most retired 
 churches of the Presbitry, acquainting none with their business, (but) taking the 
 youth alongst with them, whom they keeped alwise close by them. Which was 
 done, and after the Ministers had prayed all of them round, except Mr. Blair, who 
 prayed last, in time of his prayer there came a violent rushing of wind upon the 
 church, so great that they thought the church should have fallen down about their 
 ears, and with that the youth’s paper and covenant” {i. e. the covemint which he 
 had signed at the request of Satan) “droops down from the roof of the church 
 among the Ministers.” 
 
 Bo u devil strikes at them, that in them he may strike at the whole congre- 
 gation.” Boston's Sermons, p. 186. Fleming {Fulfilling of the Scripture, p. 379) 
 gives an account of his appearing to one of the Scotch clergy. Compare Wodrow's 
 Analecta, vol. iv. p. 110. In 1624, Bruce writes, “ I heard his voice as vively as 
 ever I heard any thing, not being sleeping, but waking.” Life of Bruce, p. 8, pre- 
 fixed to Bruce's Sermons. The only remedy was immediate re.sistance. “ It is the 
 duty of called ministers to go on with courage in the work of the Lord, notwith- 
 standing of any discouragement of that kind, receiving manfully the first onset 
 chiefly of Satan’s fury, as knowing their ceding to him will make him more cruel.” 
 Fergassoris Exposition of the Epistles of Paul, In the seventeenth century, 
 
 the Scotch clergy often complimented each other on having baffled him, and thereby 
 put him in a passion. Thus, in 1626, Dickson writes to Boyd: “The devil is mad 
 against you, he fears his kingdom.” Life of Robert Boyd, in Wodrow's Collections 
 upon the Lives of Ministers, vol. ii. part i. p. 238. See also pp. Kid, 236. 
 
 sa u delude ears, eyes, &c., either by misrepresenting external objects, or 
 
 by inward disturbing of the faculties and organes, whereby men and women may, 
 and do often, apprehend that they hear, see, &c. such and such things, which, in- 
 deed, they do not.” Durham's Commentarie upon the Book of Revelation, p. 128. 
 “Raise tempests.” Binning' s Sermons, yo\. i. p. 122. “ Ilis power and might, 
 
 wliereby through God’s permission, he doth raise up storms, commove the elements, 
 destroy cattle,” &c. Fergusson's Exposition of the Epistles of L^ aid, p. 264. “Hee 
 can work curiously and strongly on the walls of bodily organs, on the shop that the 
 understanding soule lodgeth in, and on the necessary tooles, organs, and powers 
 of fancie, imagination, memory, humours, senses, spirits, bloud,” &c. Rutherford's 
 Christ Dying, p. 212. Semple, giving notice of his intention to administer the 
 sacrament, told the congregation “that the Devil would be so envious about the 
 good work they were to go about, that he was afraid he would be permitted to 
 raise a storm in the air with a speat of rain, to raise the waters, designing to drown 
 some of them ; but it will not be within the compass of his power to drown any of 
 you, no not so much as a dog.” Remarkable Passages of the Life and Death of Mr. 
 John Semple, Minister of the Gospel, pp. 1C8, 169, in vol. i. of Walker's Biographia 
 Presbyteriana. 
 
292 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 he prompted to commit suicide,®’’ others to commit murder.®* 
 StiU, formidable as he was, no Christian was considered to have 
 attained to a full religious experience, unless he had literally 
 seen him, talked to him, and fought with him.®® The cler^ 
 were constantly preaching about him, and preparing their audi- 
 ence for an interview with their great enemy. The consequence 
 was, that the people became almost crazed with fear. When- 
 ever the preacher mentioned Satan, the consternation was so 
 great, that the church resounded with sighs and groans.®" The 
 aspect of a Scotch congregation in those days, is, indeed, hard 
 for us to conceive. Not unfrequently the people, benumbed 
 and stupefied with awe, were rooted to their seats by the hor- 
 rible fascination exercised over them, which compelled them to 
 listen, though they are described as gasping for breath, and 
 with their hair standing on end.®‘ Such impressions were not 
 easily effaced. Images of terror were left on the mind, and 
 followed the people to their homes, and in their daily pursuits. 
 They believed that the devil was always, and literally, at hand ; 
 that he was haunting them, speaking to them, and tempting 
 them. There was no escape. Go where they would, he was 
 there. A sudden noise, nay, even the sight of an inanimate 
 object, such as a stone, was capable of reviving the association 
 
 ^ Sinclair's Satan's Invisible World Discovered, p. IS^Z. Memoirs of the Life 
 and Experiences of Marion, Laird of Greenock, with a Preface by the Rev. Mr. Cock, 
 pp. 43, 44, 46, 84, 85, 172, 222, 223. 
 
 “ I shall next show how the murderer Satan visibly appeared to a wicked man, 
 stirred him up to stab me, and how mercifully I was delivered therefrom.” The 
 Autobiography of Mr. Robert Blair, Minister of St. Aiidrew's, p. 66. See also 
 Fleming's Fulfilling of the Scripture, pp. 37 9, 380. 
 
 “ One Mr. Thomas Hogg, a very popular presbyterian preacher in the North, 
 asked a person of great learning, in a religious conference, whether or not he had 
 seen the Devil? It was answered him, ‘That he had never seen him in any visible 
 appearance.’ ‘ Then, I assure you,’ saith Mr. Hogg, ‘ that you can never be happy 
 till you see him in that manner ; that is, untill you have both a personal converse 
 and combat with him.’” Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence, pp. 28, 29. 
 
 90 a Ye go to the kirk, and when ye hear the devil or hell named in the preach- 
 ing, ye sigh and make a noise.” The Last and Heavenly Speeches of John, Viscount 
 Kenmure, in Select Biographies, vol. i. p. 405. 
 
 Andrew Gray, who died in 1656, used such language, “ that his contemporary, 
 the foresaid Mr. Durham, observed. That many times he caused the very hairs of 
 their head to stand up.” Home's Biographia Scoticana, p. 217. James Hutcheson 
 boasted of this sort of success. “As he expressed it, ‘I was not a quarter of ane 
 hour in upon it, till I sau a dozen of them all gasping before me.’ He preached 
 with great freedorne all day, and fourteen or twenty dated their conversion from 
 that sermon.” Wodrow's Analecta, vol. i. p. 131. When Dickson preached, “many 
 were so choaked and taken by the heart, that through terroiir, the spirit in such a 
 measure convincing them of sin, in hearing of the word they have been made to fall 
 c /er, and thus carried out of the church.” Fleming's Fulfilling of the Scripture, p. 
 347. There was hardly any kind of resource which these men disdained. Alexan- 
 der Dunlop “ entered into the ministry at Paislay, about the year 1643 or 1644.” 
 .... “He used in the pulpit, to have a kind of groan at the end of some sentences. 
 Mr. Peebles called it a holy groan.” Wodrow's Analecta, vol. iii. pp. 16, 21. 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 293 
 
 of ideas, and of bringing back to the memory the language 
 uttered from the pulpit.®® 
 
 Nor is it strange that this should be the case. All over 
 Scotland, the sermons were, with hardly an exception, formed 
 after the same plan, and directed to the same end. To excite 
 fear, was the paramount object.®® The clergy boasted, that it 
 was their special mission to thunder out the wrath and curses 
 of the Lord.®^ In their eyes, the Deity was not a beneficent 
 being, but a cruel and remorseless tyrant. They declared that 
 all mankind, a very small portion only excepted, were doomed 
 to eternal misery. And when they came to describe what that 
 misery was, their dark imaginations revelled and gloated at the 
 prospect. In the pictures which they drew, they reproduced 
 and heightened the barbarous imagery of a barbarous age. 
 They delighted in telling their hearers, that they would be 
 roasted in great fires, and hung up by their tongues.®® They 
 
 A schoolmaster, recording his religious experiences ( Wodrow's Analecta^ vol. 
 i. p. 24G), says : “ If any thing had given a knock, I would start and shiver, the 
 seeing of a dogg made me affrayed, the seeing of a stone in the feild made me 
 afifrayed, and as I thought a voice in my head saying, ‘ It’s Satan.’ ” 
 
 Only those who are extensively read in the theological literature of that time, 
 can form an idea of this, its almost universal tendency. During about a hundred 
 and twenty years, the Scotch pulpits resounded with the most frightful denuncia- 
 tions. The sins of the people, the vengeance of God, the activity of Satan, and the 
 pains of hell, were the leading topics. In this world, calamities of every kind were 
 announced as inevitable ; they were immediately at hand ; that generation, perhaps 
 that year, should not pass away without the worst evils which could be conceived, 
 falling on the w’hole country. I will merely quote the opening of a sermon which is 
 now lying before me, and which was preached, in 1682, by no less a man than Alex- 
 ander Peden. “ There is three or four things that I have to tell you this day ; and 
 the first is this, A bloody sword, a bloody sword, a bloody sword, for thee, 6 Scot- 
 land, that shall reach the most part of you to the very heart. And the second is 
 this. Many a mile shall ye travel in thee, 0 Scotland ! and shall see nothing but 
 waste places. The third is this. The most fertile places in thee, 0 Scotland ! shall 
 be waste as the mountain tops. And fourthly. The women with child in thee, 0 
 Scotland 1 shall be dashed in pieces. And fifthly. There hath been many conventi- 
 cles in thee, O Scotland! but ere it be long, God shall have a conventicle in thee, 
 that shall make thee Scotland tremble. Many a preaching hath God wared on thee, 
 0 Scotland! but ere it be long God’s judgments shall be as frequent in Scotland as 
 these precious meetings, wherein he sent forth his faithful servants to give faithful 
 warning in his name of their hazard in apostatizing from God, and in breaking all 
 his noble vows. God sent out a Welsh, a Cameron, a Cargill, and a Semple to 
 preach to thee ; but ere long God shall preach to thee by a bloody sword.” Ser- 
 mons by Eminent Divines, pp. 4'7, 48. 
 
 To “thunder out the Lord’s wrath and curse.” Durham's Commentarie upon 
 the Book of the Revelation, p. 191. “ It is the duty of Ministers to preach judgments.” 
 Hutcheson's Exposition on the Minor Prophets, vol. i. p. 93. “ If ministers when 
 
 they threaten be not the more serious and fervent, the most terrible threatening 
 will but little affect the most part of hearers.” Fergusson's Exposition of the Epistles 
 of Paul, p. 421. 
 
 The clergy were not ashamed to propagate a story of a boy who, in a trance, 
 had been mysteriously conveyed to hell, and thence permitted to revisit the earth. 
 His account, which is carefully preserved by the Rev. Robert Wodrow {Analecta^ 
 vol. i. p. 61) was, that “ ther wer great fires and men roasted in them, and then cast 
 into rivers of cold water, and then into boyling water ; others hung up by the tongue.” 
 
294 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 were to be lashed with scorpions, and see their companions 
 writhing and howling around them.®® They were to be thrown 
 into boiling oil and scalding lead.®’' A river of fire and brim- 
 stone, broader than the earth, was prepared for them ;®® in that, 
 they were to be immersed ; their bones, their lungs, and their 
 liver, were to boil, but never be consumed.®® At the same time, 
 worms were to prey upon them ; and while these were gnawing 
 at their bodies, they were to be surrounded by devils, mocking 
 and making pastime of their pains.’®® Such were the first 
 stages of su:fering, and they were only the first. For the tor- 
 ture, besides being unceasing, was to become gradually worse. 
 So refined was the cruelty, that one hell was succeeded by 
 another ; and, lest the sufierer should grow callous, he was, 
 after a time, moved on, that he might undergo fresh agonies in 
 fresh places, provision being made that the torment should not 
 pall on the sense, but should be varied in its character, as well 
 as eternal in its duration.’®’ 
 
 All this was the work of the God of the Scotch clergy.’®* 
 It was not only his work, it was his joy and his pride. For, 
 according to them, hell was created before man came into the 
 world ; the Almighty, they did not scruple to say, having spent 
 his previous leisure in preparing and completing this place of 
 torture, so that, when the human race appeared, it might be 
 
 “ Scortched in hell-fire and hear the howling of their fellow-prisoners, and see 
 the ugly devils, the bloody scorpions with which Satan lasheth miserable soules.” 
 Rutherford s Christ Dying ^ pp. 491, 492. 
 
 “ Boiling oil, burning brimstone, scalding lead.” Sermons by Eminent 
 Divines, p. 362. 
 
 “A river of fire and brimstone broader than the earth.” Rutherford's Reli- 
 gious Letters, p. 35. “See the poor wretches lying in bundles, boiling eternally in 
 that stre:im of brimstone.” HalyhurtoiCs Great Concern of Salvation, p. 63. 
 
 “Tongue, lungs, and liver, bones and all, shall boil and fry in a torturing 
 fire.” Rutherfords Religious Letters, p. 17. “They will be universal torments, 
 every part of the creature being tormented in that flame. When one is cast into a 
 fiery furnace, the tire makes its way into the very bowels, and leaves no member 
 untouched : what part then can have ease, when the damned swim in a lake of fire 
 burning with brimstone ? ” Boston's Human Nature in its Fourfold State, p. 458. 
 
 100 u-yyj-ijjg wormes are sporting with thy bones, the devils shall make pastime 
 jof thy paines.” Abernethy's Physicke for the Soule, p. 97. “They will have the 
 society of devils in their torments, being shut up with them in hell.” Boston's 
 Human Nature in its Fourfold State, p. 442. “Their ears filled with frightful veil- 
 ings of the infernal crew.” Jbid., p. 460. 
 
 This fundamental doctrine of the Scotch divines is tersely summed up in Bhi- 
 ning's Sermons, vol. iii. p. 130: “You shall go out of one hell into a w'orse; eter- 
 nity is the measure of its continuance, and the degrees of itself are answerable to 
 its duration.” The author of these sermons died in 1653. 
 
 And, according to them, the barbarous cruelty was the natural result of His 
 Omniscience. It is with pain, that I transcribe the following impious passage. 
 “ Consider, Who is the contriver of these torments. There have been some very 
 exquisite torments contrived by the wit of men, the naming of which, if ye under- 
 stood their nature, were enough to fill your hearts with horror ; but all these fall as 
 far short of the torments ye are to endure, as the wisdom of man falls short of that oj 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 295 
 
 ready for their reception.*®® Ample, however, as the arrange- 
 ments were, they were insufficient ; and hell, not being hig 
 enough to contain the countless victims incessantly poured into 
 it, had, in these latter days, been enlarged.*®^ There was now 
 sufficient room. But in that vast expanse there was no void, 
 for the whole of it reverberated with the shrieks and yells of 
 undying agony.*®® They rent the air with horrid sound, and, 
 amid their pauses, other scenes occurred, if possible, still more 
 excruciating. Loud reproaches filled the ear : children re- 
 proaching their parents, and servants reproaching their masters. 
 Then, indeed, terror was rife, and abounded on every side. 
 For, while the child cursed his father, the father, consumed 
 by remorse, felt his own guilt ; and both children and fathers 
 made hell echo with their piercing screams, writhing in con- 
 vulsive agony at the torments which they sufiered, and knovf- 
 ing that other torments more grievous still were reserved for 
 them.*®® 
 
 Even now such language freezes the blood, when we consider 
 what must have passed through the minds of those who could 
 bring themselves to utter it. The enunciation of such ideas 
 unfolds the character of the men, and lays bare their inmost 
 spirit. We shudder, when we think of the dark and corrupted 
 fancy, the vindictive musings, the wild, lawless, and uncertain 
 thoughts which must have been harboured by those who could 
 
 GodP .... Infinite wisdom has contrived that evil." The Great Concern of Sal- 
 vation, hy the late Reverend Mr. Thomas Halyburton, edit. Edinburgh, 1722, p. 154. 
 
 “Men wonder what he could be doing all that time, if we call it time which 
 hath no beginning, and how he was employed.” . . . “ Remember that which a 
 godly man answered some M'anton curious wit, who, in scorn, demanded the same 
 of him — ‘ He was preparing hell for curious and proud fools,’ said he.” Binning' s 
 Sermons, vol. i. p. 194. 
 
 “Hell hath inlarged itselfe.” Aherneihy's Physielce for the Soule, p. 146. 
 
 105 “Eternal shriekings.” Sermons by Eminent Divines, p. 394. “Screakings 
 and howlings.” Gray's Great and Precious Promises, p. 20. “0! the screechs 
 
 and yels that will be in hell.” Durham's Commentarie upon the Book of the Rev- 
 elation, p. 654. “ The horrible scrieches of them who are burnt in it.” Cowper's 
 
 Heaven Opened, p. 175. 
 
 108 “ When children and servants shall go, as it were, in sholes to the Pit, cur.s* 
 ing their parents and their masters who brought them there. And parents and 
 masters of families shall be in multitudes plunged headlong in endless destruction, 
 because they have not only murdered their own souls, but also imbrued their hands 
 in the blood of their children and servants. 0 how doleful will the reckoning be 
 amongst them at that day ! When the children and servants shall upbraid their 
 parents and masters. ‘ Now, now, we must to the Pit, and we have you to blame 
 for it; your cursed example, and lamentable negligence has brought us to the Pit.’ ” 
 
 • . . “ And on the other hand, how will the shrieks of parents lill every ear ? ‘I 
 have damn’d myself, I have damn’d my children, I have damn’d my servants. 
 While I fed their bodies, and clotlied their backs, I have ruined their souls, and 
 brought double damnation on myself.’ ” Halyburton' s Great Concern of Salvation, 
 pp. 527, 628. See this further worked out in Bo sions Human Nature in its Four- 
 fold State, pp. 378, 379; “curses instead of salutation:!, and tearing of themselves, 
 4nd raging against one another, instead of the wonted embraces.” 
 
296 AN EXAMINATION OE THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 combine and arrange the different parts of tbis hideous schema 
 No hesitation, no compunction, no feelings of mercy, ever seem 
 to have entered their breasts. It is evident, that their noUons 
 were well matured ; it is equally evident, that they delighted 
 in them. They were marked by a unity of conception, and 
 were enfor^^ed with a freshness and vigour of language, 
 shows that their heart was in their work. But before this could 
 have happened, they must have been dead to every emotion 
 of pity and of tenderness. Yet, they were the teachers of a 
 o-reat nation, and were, in every respect, the most influential 
 persons in that nation. The people, credulous and grossly igno- 
 rant, listened and believed. We, at this distance of time, and 
 living in another realm of thought, can form but a faint concep- 
 tion of the effect which these horrible conceits produced upon 
 them. They were convinced that, in this world, they weie in- 
 cessantly pursued by the devil, and that he, and other evfl 
 spirits, were constantly hovering around them, in bodily and 
 visible shape, tempting them, and luring them on to destruction. 
 In the next world, the most frightful and unheard-of punish- 
 ments awaited them ; while both this world and the next 
 governed by an avenging Deity, whose wrath it was impossible 
 to propitiate. No wonder that, with these ideas before thein, 
 their reason should often give way, and that a religious mania 
 should set in, under whose influence they, in black despair, put 
 an end to their lives. 
 
 107 William Vetch, “preaching in the town of Jedburg to a great congregation, 
 said ‘There are two thousand of you here to day, but I am sure fourscore ot you 
 will’ not be saved;’ upon which, three of his ignorant hearers being m despair, 
 despatch’d themselves soon after.” Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence, y. 23. bee also 
 the life, or rather panegyric, of Vetch in Howie's Biographia Scoticana, where this 
 circumstance is not denied, but, on the contrary, is stated to be no ‘ disparagement 
 to him ” p. 606. The frame of mind which the teachings ot the clergy encouraged, 
 and which provoked self-murder, is vividly depicted by Samuel Rutherford, the most 
 popular of all the Scotch divines of the seventeenth century. Oh ! hee heth down, 
 &ud hell beddethwith him; hee sleepeth, and hell and hee dreame together , he 
 riseth, and hell goeth to the fields with him; hee goes to his garden, there is helh 
 “The man goes to his table, 0! hee dare not eat, hee hath no nght to the 
 creature ; to eat is sin and hell ; so hell is in every dish. To live is snme hee would 
 faine chuse strangling; every act of breathing is sin and hell. Hee goes to ch™, 
 there is a dog as great as a mountaine before his eye: Here be terrors. Ruther- 
 ford's Christ Hying, 1647, 4to, pp. 41, 42. Now, listen to the confessions of two 
 of the tortured victims of the doctrines enunciated by the clergy ; pctims who, 
 after undergoing ineifable agony, were more than once, according to their own ac- 
 count, tempted to put an end to their lives. “ The cloud lasted for two years and 
 some months.” . . . “The arrows of the Almighty did drink up my spirits; night 
 and day his hand lay heavy upon me, so that even my bodily moisture was turned 
 into the drought of summer. When I said sometimes that my couch would ease my 
 complaint, I was filled with tossings to the dawning of the day. . . . Amidst all 
 
 my downcastings, I had the roaring lion to grapple with who likes well to fish m 
 
 muddy waters. He strongly suggested to me that I should not eat, because I had 
 no right to food ; or if I ventured to do it, the enemy assured me, that the wrath ot 
 
DtJSiNG THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 291 
 
 ^ Little comfort, indeed, could men then gain from their re^ 
 hgion Not only the devil, as the author of all evil, but even 
 He whom we recognise as the author of all good, was, in the 
 eyes of the Scotch clergy, a cruel and vindictive being’ moved 
 with anger like themselves. They looked into their own hearts 
 and there they found the picture of their God. According to 
 them, He was a God of terror, instead of a God of love.^“® To 
 Him, they imputed the worst passions of their own peevish and 
 irritable nature. ^ They ascribed to him, revenge, cunning and 
 a constant disposition to inflict pain. While they declared that 
 nearly all mankind were sinners beyond the chance of redemp- 
 tion, and were, indeed, predestined to eternal ruin, they did not 
 scruple to accuse the Deity of resorting to artiflce against these 
 unhappy victims ; lying in wait for them, that He might catch 
 them unawares.^"® The Scotch clergy taught their hearers, that 
 ^e Almighty was ^ so sanguinary, and so prone to anger, that 
 Hg raged even against walls and houses and senseless creatureSj 
 wreaking His fury more than ever, and scattering desolation on 
 every side."® Sooner than miss His fell and malignant purpose, 
 
 God would go down with my morsel; and that I had forfeited a right to the divine 
 lavour, and, therefore, had nothing to do with any of God’s creatures.” . . . “ How- 
 ever, so violent were the temptations of the strong enemy, that I frequently forsjot 
 to eat my bread, and durst not attempt it; and when, through the persuasion of my 
 wife, I at any time did it, the enemy through the day did buffet me in a violent wav 
 assuring me that the wrath of God had gone over with what I had taken.” . 
 
 “ The enemy after all did so pursue me, that he violently suggested to my soul that* 
 some time or other, God would suddenly destroy me as with a thunder-clap: which 
 so filled my soul with fear and pain, that, every now and then, I looked about me 
 to receive the divine blow, still expecting it was a coming; yea, many a night I 
 durst not sleep, lest I had awakened in everlasting flames.” Stevenson's Rare Car- 
 PP’ Another poor creature, after hearing one of Smiton’s sermons, in 
 
 1740, says, “ Now, I saw myself to be a condemned criminal ; but I knew not the 
 day of my execution. I thought that there was nothing between me and hell, but the 
 brittle thread of natural life.” . . . “And in this drea(}ful confusion, I durst not sleep 
 
 lest i had awakened in everlasting flames “And Satan violently assaulted me to 
 
 take away my own life, seeing there was no mercy for me.” . . . “ Soon after this I was 
 again violently assaulted by the tempter to take away my own life ; he presented to 
 me a knife therewith to do it ; no person being in the house but myself. The enemv 
 pursued me so close, that I could not endure so much as to see the knife in my 
 sight, but laid it away.” . . . “One evening, as I was upon the street, Satan vio- 
 lently assaulted me to go into the sea and drown myself; it would be the easiest 
 death. Such a fear of Satan then fell upon me, as made my joints to shake, so that 
 It was much for me to walk home ; and when I camq to the door, I found nobody 
 within ; I was afraid to go into the house, lest Satan should get power over me.” 
 Memoirs of the Life and Experiences of Marion. Laird of Greenock, pp. 13 14 19 
 46, 223, 224. > Ft 
 
 ““ Binning says, that “since the first rebellion” (that is, the fall of Adam) 
 
 ‘ there is nothing to be seen but the terrible countenance of an angry God ” Bin- 
 ninc/'s Sermons, vol. iii. p. 264. 
 
 , „ ^ '''’6re, lie in wait to take all advantages of sinners to undo 
 
 them. Hutcheson s Exposition on the Minor Prophets, vol. i. p. 247. 
 
 His wrath rages against walls, and houses, and senselesse creatures mor« 
 now then at that time ” (i. e. at the time when the Old Testament was written). 
 
 See what desolation he hath wrought in Ireland, what eating of horses, of infants^ 
 
298 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 He would, they said, let loose avenging angels, to fall upon men 
 and upon their families Independently of this resource. He 
 had various ways whereby He could at once content Himself 
 and plague His creatures, as was particularly shown in the de- 
 vices which He employed to bring famine on a people."^ When 
 a country was starving, it was because God, in His anger, had 
 smitten the soil, had stopped the clouds from yielding their 
 moisture, and thus made the fruits of the earth to witheiG^® 
 All the intolerable sufferings caused by a want of food, the slow 
 deaths, the agony, the general misery, the crimes which that 
 misery produced, the anguish of the mother as she saw her 
 children wasting away and could give them no bread, all this 
 was His act, and the work of His hands. In His anger. He 
 would sometimes injure the crops by making the spring so back- 
 
 and of killed souldiers, hath beene in that land, and in Germany.” Rutherford’s 
 Free Disputation against Pretended Liberty of Conscience, pp. 244, 246. 
 
 m “Albeit there were no earthly man to pursue Christ’s enemies ; yet avenging 
 angels, or evil spirits shall be let forth upon them and their families to trouble 
 them.” Dickson's Explication of the First Fifty Psalms, p. 229. 
 
 “ God hath many waves and meanes whereby to plague man, and reach his 
 contentments." Hutcheson' s Exposition on the Minor Prophets, vol. i. p. 286. ‘‘ God 
 
 hath variety of means whereby to plague men, and to bring upon them any affliction 
 he intendeth against them ; and particularly he hath several wayes whereby to bring 
 on famine. He can arrne all his creatures to cut off men’s provision, one of them 
 after another ; he can make the change of aire, and small insects do that worke 
 when he pleaseth.” Ibid., vol. i. p. 422. The same divine, in another elaborate 
 treatise, distinctly imputes to the Deity a sensation of pleasure in injuring even the 
 innocent. “When God sends out a scourge, of sword, famine, or pestilence, sud- 
 denly to overthrow and cut people off, not only are the wicked reached thereby 
 (^which is here supposed), but even the innocent, that is such as are righteous and 
 free of gross provocations ; for, in any other sense, none are innocent, or free ot 
 sin, in this life. Yea, further, in trying of the innocent by these scourges, the Lord 
 seems to act as one delighted with it, and little resenting the great extremities where- 
 with they are pressed.” Hutcheson' s Exposition of the Book of Job, 1669, folio, p. 
 123. Compare p. 359. “ It pleaseth the Lord to exercise great variety in afflicting 
 
 the children of men,” &c. But, after all, mere extracts can give but a faint idea of 
 the dark and malignant spirit which pervades these writings. 
 
 113 u The present death and famine quhilk seases vpon many, quhairby God his 
 heavie wrath is evideatlie perceaved to be kindlit against vs.” Selections from the 
 Minutes of the Synod of Fife, p. 98. “ Smiting of the fruits of the ground.” Hutche- 
 
 sods Exposition on the Minor Prophets, vol. i. p. 277. “Makes fruits to wither. 
 Ibid., vol. ii. p. 183. “Hee restraines the clouds, and bindeth up the wombe of 
 heaven, in extreme drought.” Rutherford's Christ Dying, p. 62. “Sometime hee 
 maketh the heaueu aboue as brasse, and the earth beneath as iron; so that albeit 
 men labour and sow, yet they receiue no encrease : sometime againe hee giues in 
 due season the first and latter raine, so that the earth renders abundance, but the 
 Lord by blasting windes, or by the caterpiller, canker-worme and grasse-hopper doth 
 consume them, who come out as exacters and officers sent from God to poind men 
 in their goods.” Cowper's Heaven Opened, p. 433. 
 
 “ Under the late dearth this people suffered greatly, the poor were numerous, 
 and many, especially about the town of Kilsyth, were at the point of starving ; yet, 
 as I frequently observed to them, I could not see any one turning to the Ix>rd who 
 smote them, or crying to him because of their sins, while they howled upon their bedt 
 for bread." Robe's Narratives of the Extraordinary Work of the Spirit of God, 
 p. 68. 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 299 
 
 ward, and the weather so cold and rainy, as to insure a deficien- 
 cy in the coming harvest. Or else, He would deceive men, 
 by sending them a favourable season, and, after letting them 
 toil and sweat in the hope of an abundant supply. He would, 
 at the last moment, suddenly step in, and destroy the corn just 
 as it was fit to be reaped."® For, the God of the Scotch Kirk 
 was a God who tantalized His creatures as well as punished 
 them ; and when He was provoked. He would first allure men 
 by encouraging their expectations, in order that their subse- 
 quent misery might be more poignant."’' 
 
 Under the inhuence of this horrible creed, and from the 
 unbounded sway exercised by the clergy who advocated it, the 
 Scotch mind was thrown into such a state, that, during the 
 seventeenth, and part of the eighteenth, century, some of the 
 noblest feelings of which our nature is capable, the feelings of 
 hope, of love, and of gratitude, were set aside, and were replaced 
 by the dictates of a servile and ignominious fear. The physical 
 sufferings to which the human frame is liable, nay, even the 
 very accidents to which we are casually exposed, were believed 
 to proceed, not from our ignorance, nor from our carelessness, 
 but from the rage of the Deity. If a fire chanced to break out 
 in Edinburgh, the greatest alarm was excited, because it was 
 the voice of God crying out against a luxurious and dissolute 
 city."® If a boil or a sore appeared on your body, that, too, 
 was a divine punishment, and it was more than doubtful 
 whether it might lawfully be cured."® The small-pox, being 
 
 NicolVs Diary, pp. 152, 153. Much rain in the autumn, was “the Lord’s dis- 
 pleasure upon the land.” Minutes of the Presbyteries of St A 7 idrews and Cuvar 
 p. 1V9. ^ ^ j r 
 
 Men sweat, till, sow much, and the sun and summer, and clouds, warnie 
 dewes and raines smile upon comes and meddowes, yet God steppeth in between 
 the mouth of the husbandman and the sickle, and blasteth all.” Rutherford's Christ 
 Dying, p. 87. Compare Baillie's Letters, voX.Wi, p. 62, on the “continuance of very 
 intemperate rain upon the corns,” as one of the “ great signs of the wrath of God.” 
 117 “ When the Lord is provoked, he can not only send an affliction, but so order 
 it, by faire appearances of a better lot, and heightening of the sinners expectation 
 and desire, as may make it most sad.” Hutcheson's Exposition on the Mmor 
 Prophets, vol. iii. pp. 9, 10. 
 
 In 1696, thei’e was a fire in Edinburgh; whereupon Moncrief, in his sermon 
 next day, “ told us, ‘That God’s voice was crying to this city, and that he was come 
 to the very ports, and was crying over the walls to us; that we should amend our 
 ways, lest he should come to our city, and consume us in a terrible manner.’ I can- 
 not tell what this dispensation of Providence wrought on me,” &c. Memoirs or 
 Spiritual Exercises of Elizabeth Wast, vyritten by her own Hand, pp. 41, 42. See 
 also, at pp. 122, 123, the account of another conflagration, where it is said, “there 
 was much of God to be seen in this fire.” Compare a curious passage in Colder- 
 wood s History of the Kirk of Scotland, vol. vii. pp. 466, 456. 
 
 The Rev. James Fraser had a boil, and afterwards a fever. “During this 
 sickness he miraculously allayed the pain of my boil, and speedily, and that without 
 means, cured it ; for however T bought some things to prevent it, yet looking on it 
 as a punishment from God, I knew not if I could be free to take the rod out of hia 
 
300 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 one of the most fatal as well as one of the most loathsome of all 
 diseases, was especially sent by God ; and, on that account, the 
 remedy of inoculation was scouted as a profane attempt to frus- 
 trate His intentions.'^® Other disorders, which, though less ter- 
 rible, were very painful, proceeded from the same source, and 
 all owed their origin to tlw anger of the Almighty.'*" In every 
 thing. His power was displayed, not by increasing the happiness 
 of men, nor by adding to their comforts, but by hurting and 
 vexing them in all possible ways. His hand, always raised 
 against the people, would sometimes deprive them of wine by 
 causing the vintage to fail sometimes, would destroy their 
 cattle in a storm ; and sometimes would even make dogs 
 
 hand, and to counterwork him.” Memoirs of the Rev. James Fraser of Brea, Minis- 
 ter of the Gospel at Culross, written by Himself in Select Biographies, \ol. ii. p. 223. 
 Durham declaims against “Sinful shunning and shifting olf suflering ; ” and Ruther- 
 ford says, “No man should rejoice at weakness and diseases; but I think we may 
 have a sort of gladness at boils and sores, because without them, Christ’s fingers, as 
 a slain Lord, should never have touched our skin.” Durham's Law Unsealed, p. 160 ; 
 Rutherford's Religious Letters, p. 265. I do not know what effect these passages 
 may produce upon the reader ; but it makes my flesh creep to quote them. Compare 
 Stevenson's Rare, Saul- strengthening, and Comforting Cordial, p. 36. 
 
 It was not until late in the eighteenth century, that the Scotch clergy gave up 
 this notion. At last, even they became influenced by the ridicule to w’hich their 
 superstition exposed them, and which produced more effect than any argument 
 could have done. The doctrines, however, which they and their predecessors had 
 long inculcated, had so corrupted the popular mind, that instances will, I believe, 
 be found even in the nineteenth century, of the Scotch deeming precautions against 
 small-pox to be criminal, or, as they called it, flying in the face of Providence. The 
 latest evidence I can at this moment put my hand on, is in a volume published in 
 179Y. It is stated by the Rev. John Paterson, that, in the parish of Auldearn, in 
 the county of Nairn, “Very few have fallen a sacrifice to the small-pox, though the 
 people are in general averse to inoculation, from the general gloominess of their 
 faith, which teaches them, that all diseases which afflict the human fi’ame are in- 
 stances of the Divine interposition, for the punishment of sin; any interference, 
 therefore, on their part, they deem an usurpation of the prerogative of the Almighty.” 
 Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. xix. p. 618, Edinburgh, 1797. See 
 also vol. xiv. p. 52, Edinburgh, 1795. This is well said. No doubt, so abject, and 
 so pernicious, a superstition among the people, was the result of “ the general 
 gloominess of their faith.” But the Rev. John Paterson has forgotten to add, that 
 the gloominess of which he complains, was in strict conformity with the teachings of 
 the most able, the most energetic, and the most venerated ot the Scotch clergy. 
 Mr. Paterson renders scant justice to his countrymen, and should rather have praised 
 the tenacity with which they adhered to the instructions they had long been accus- 
 tomcd to rBCOivc* 
 
 The Rev. John Welsh, when suffering from a painful disorder, and also from 
 other troubles, writes ; “ My douleurs ar impossible to expresse.” . • 
 
 the Lord’s indignation.” See his letter, in Miscellany of the Wodrow Society, vol. i. 
 p. 658. See also Cowper's Heaven Opened, p. 128. A pain in one’s side was the 
 work of “ the Lord ” (Memoirs of Marion Laird, p. 96) ; so was a sore throat ( Wast s 
 Memoirs, p. 203) ; and so was the fever in pleurisy, Rohe's Narratives of the Extraor- 
 dinary Work of the Spirit of God, p. 66. « t, • 
 
 In January 1653, “This tyme, and mony monethis before, thair wes great 
 ekairshtie of wynes. In this also appered Godis justice toward this natioun for 
 abusing of that blissing many yeiris befoir.” Nicoll's Diary, p. 105. 
 
 This idea was so deeply rooted, that we actually find a public fast and nunuli' 
 ation ordered, on account of “ this present uncouth storme of frost and snaw. 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 301 
 
 Hte their legs when they least expected Sometimes, He 
 
 would display His wrath by making the weather excessively 
 dry sometimes, by making it equally wet.*®® He was al- 
 ways punishing ; always busy in increasing the general suffer- 
 ing, or, to use the language of the time, making the creature 
 smart under the rod.*®’’ Every fresh war was the result of His 
 special interference ; it was not caused by the meddling folly 
 or insensate ambition of statesmen, but it was the immediate 
 work of the Deity, who was thus made responsible for all the 
 devastations, the murders, and other crimes more horrible still, 
 which war produces.*®® In the intervals of peace, which, at 
 that period, were very rare. He had other means of vexing man- 
 kind. The shock of an earthquake was a mark of His displeas- 
 ure ;*®* a comet was a sign of coming tribulation ;*®“ and when 
 an eclipse appeared, the panic was so universal, that persons of 
 all ranks hastened to church to deprecate His wrath.*®* What 
 
 quhilk hes continewit sa lang that the bestiall ar dieing thik fauld.” Records of the 
 Kirk Session, Presbytery, and Synod of Aberdeen, p. 82. 
 
 124 u Tjjere was a dog bit my leg most desperately. I no sooner received this, but 
 I saw the hand of God in it.” TUas^’s Memoirs, p. 1 14. 
 
 125 u ipjjg evident documentis of Goddis wrath aganes the land, be the extraordi- 
 narie drouth.” Records of the Kirk Session, Presbytery, and Synod of Aberdeen, 
 
 126 (jrphe hynous synnes of the land produced much takines of Godis wraith; 
 namelie, in this spring tyme, for all Februar and a great pairt of Marche wer full of 
 bavie weittis.” NicoU's Diary, p. 162. 
 
 HalyburtorC s Great Concern of Salvation, p. 85. Fleming's Fulflling of Scrip- 
 ture, pp. 101, 149, 176. Balfour' s Annales, vol i. p. 169. Boston’s Sermons, p. 52, 
 Boston's Human Nature in its Fourfold State, pp. 67, 136. Memoirs of Marion 
 Laird, pp. 63, 90, 113, 163. Hutcheson! s Exposition of the Book of Job, pp. 62, 91, 
 140,^87,242,310,449,471,476, 627,528. 
 
 128 is one of the sharp scourges whereby God punisheth wicked nations ; 
 
 and it cometh upon a people, not accidentally but by the especial providence of God, 
 who hath peace_ and war in his own hand.” Hutcheson's Exposition on the Minor 
 Prophets, yol. ii. p. 3. In 1644, “Civill war wracks Spaine, and lately wracked 
 Italic : it is coming by appearance shortlie upon France. The just Lord, who Ix!- 
 holds with patience the wickednesse of nations, at last aWses «» /wrie.” .... “The 
 Swedish and Danish fleets, after a hott fight, are making for a new onsett ; great 
 blood is feared shall be shortly shed there, both by sea and land. The anger of the 
 Lord against all christendome is great.” Baillie's Letters and Journals, vol. ii. pp. 
 190, 228. 
 
 “ Earthquakes, whereby God, when he is angry, overthrows and overturns 
 very mountains.” Hutcheson's Exposition of the Book of Job, p. 114. “The minis- 
 tris and sessioun convening in the sessioun hous, considdering the fearfull earth- 
 quak that wes yisternicht, the aucht of this instant, throughout this haill citie about 
 nine houris at evin, to be a document that God is angrie aganes the land and aganes 
 this citie in particular, for the manifauld sinnis of the people,” &c. Records of the 
 Kirk Session, Presbytery, and Synod of Aberdeen, p. 64. 
 
 130 u Whatever natural causes may be adduced for those alarming appearances,, 
 the system of comets is yet so uncertain, and they have so frequently preceded 
 desolating strokes and turns in public affairs, that they seem designed in providence 
 to stir up sinners to seriousness. Those preachers from heaven, when God’s mes- 
 sengers were silenced, neither prince nor prelate could stop.” Wodrow's History of 
 the Church of Scotland, vol. i. p. 421. 
 
 181 “People of all sortes rane to the churches to deprecat God’s wrath.” BdU 
 four’s Annales, vol. i. p. 403. This was in 1598. 
 
302 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 they heard there, would increase their fear, instead of allaying 
 it. For the clergy taught their hearers, that even so ordinary 
 an event as thunder, was meant to excite awe, and was sent for 
 the purpose of showing to men with how terrible a master they 
 had to deal.^^'^ Not to tremble at thunder was, therefore, a 
 mark of impiety ; and, in this respect, man was unfavourably 
 contrasted with the lower animals, since they were invariably 
 moved by this symptom of divine power. 
 
 These visitations, eclipses, comets, earthquakes, thunder, 
 famine, pestilence, war, disease, blights in the air, failures in 
 the crops, cold winters, dry summers, these, and the like, were, 
 in the opinion of the Scotch divines, outbreaks of the anger of 
 the Almighty against the sins of men ; and that such out- 
 breaks were incessant is not surprising, when we consider that, 
 in the same age, and according to the same creed, the most in- 
 nocent, and even praiseworthy, actions were deemed sinful, and 
 worthy of chastisement. The opinions held on this subject are 
 not only curious, but extremely instructive. Besides forming 
 an important part of the history of the human mind, they sup~ 
 ply decisive proof of the danger of allowing a single profession 
 to exalt itself above all other professions. For, in Scotland, as 
 elsewhere, directly the clergy succeeded in occupying a more 
 than ordinary amount of public attention, they availed them- 
 selves of that circumstance to propagate those ascetic doctrines, 
 which, while they strike at the root of human happiness, benefit 
 no one except the class which advocates them. That class, in- 
 deed, can hardly fail to reap advantage from a policy, which, by 
 increasing the apprehensions to which the ignorance and timid- 
 ity of men make them too liable, does also increase their eager- 
 ness to fiy for support to their spiritual advisers. And the 
 greater the apprehension, the greater the eagerness.^ Of this, 
 the Scotch clergy, who were perfect masters of their own art, 
 were well aware. Under their influence, a system of morals 
 was established, which, representing nearly every act as sinful, 
 kept the people in perpetual dread, lest unwittingly they were 
 
 “ By it, he leanifests his power and shows himself terrible.” Durham's Com- 
 mentarie upon the Book of the Revelatio7i, p. 33. Compare Rows History of the Kirk, 
 p. 333 ; and a passage in Laird's Memoirs, p. 69, which shows how greedily their 
 credulous hearers imbibed such notions: “There were several signal evidences that 
 the Lord’s righteous judgments were abroad in the earth ; great claps of thunder, 
 &c. 
 
 ■ 133 n rpjjg stupidity and senselessnesse of man is greater than that of the brute 
 creatures, which are all more moved with the thunder than the hearts of men for the 
 most part.” Dickson' s Explication of the First Fifty Psalms, p. 193. Hutcheson 
 makes a similar remark concerning earthquakes. “ The shaking and trembling of 
 insensible creatures, when God is angry, serves to condemn men, who are not sen- 
 sible of it, nor will stoop under his hand.” Hvicheson's Exposition of the Book of 
 Job, p. 115. 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 303 
 
 committing some enormous offence, which would bring upon 
 their heads a signal and overwhelming punishment. 
 
 According to this code, all the natural affections, all social 
 pleasures, all amusements, and all the joyous instincts of the 
 human heart were sinful, and were to be rooted out. It was sinful 
 tor a mother to wish to have sons and, if she had any, it was 
 sinful to be anxious about their welfare. It was a sin to please 
 yourself, or to please others ; for, by adopting either course, you 
 were sure to displease God.^^® All pleasures, therefore, however 
 slight in themselves, or however lawful they might appear 
 must be carefully avoided. When mixing in society, we 
 should edify tne company, if the gift of edification had been be- 
 
 should by no means attempt to amuse 
 tnem. Cheerfulness, especialJy when it rose to laughter was 
 to be guarded against ; and we should choose for our associates 
 
 . born two or three daughters, and was sinfully anxious 
 
 after a son to heir the estate of Colsfeild.” Wodrow^s Analecta, vol. iii. p 293. 
 
 terrible creed, the amiable mother of Duncan 
 Forbes, wilting to him respecting his own health and that of his brother, speaks of 
 my sinful God-provoking anxiety, both for your souls and bodies.” ^BurtoJs 
 Lives of Uvat and Forhe,, p. 274. The theological theory, underlying and su-^e^ 
 
 J^our Jold btate, p 184. Hence its rigid application on days set apart for relidous 
 
 thaTsome of tL^s7ot f"’’ of Saint Andrews, vol. i. p. 458) mentions 
 
 ttiat some ot the Scotch clergy, m drawing up regulations for the government of a 
 
 colony inserted the following clause : “ No husband shall kiss his wffe, and no moth- 
 er shall kiss her child on the Sabbath day.” ’ 
 
 pleasing God. Binmvgs Sermons, vol. ii. p. 65. Elsewhere (vol. ii p 45 V 
 
 Amity to ourselves IS enmity to God.” ' H 
 
 137 ‘‘Pleasures are most carefully to be auoided : because they both harme and 
 
 P- P- authority 
 
 says, Beate downe thy body, and bring it to subiection by abstaining, not only 
 but also from lawfull and indifferent deli"hts ” 
 t") Hutcheson's Exposition of Job, p. 6, “ there is no time wherein 
 men are more ready to miscarry, and discover any bitter root in them, then when 
 f*"? creatures, and amidst occasions of mirth and 
 
 cheerfulness. How this doctrine ripened, cannot be better illustrated than from 
 
 ColoneTRWk!,H^^^^® P*'"^ eighteenth century, by 
 
 Such nf^h^ ^ in ^ educated man, who had seen 
 
 urcpSnf degree, be called a man of the world. In 
 
 Shccrb^ wedding, and, on his return home, he writes : “I was 
 
 cheerful, and perhaps gave too great a swing to raillery, but I hope not light or vain 
 m conversation. I desire always to have my speech seasoned with salt, and minis- 
 tering profit to the hearers. Sitting up late, and merry enough, though I hope inno 
 ^ 7^4 W V • 7 ./ ^ ustify myself.” The Life and Diary of Lieut. -Col. J. Blackader, 
 by Andrew Crichton, p. 458. On another occasion (p. 611), in 1720 he was at an 
 evening party. “ The young people were merry. I laid a restraint upon myself for 
 h?pL- but little, only so as not to show moroseness or ill- 
 
 breedmg. We sat late, but the conversation was innocent, and no drinking but as 
 we pleased. However, much time is spent ; which I dare not justify. Ln all things 
 
 V? something that may 
 
 cealpd t^Jcc^Tl^’n•^"^’•®^^l®^ biographer (p. 437), “Conversation, when it 
 
 Sh^oup-ht degenerating into idle entertainment, 
 
 WDicn ought to be checked rather than encouraged.” 
 
304 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 grave and sorrowful men, who were not likely to indulge in so 
 foolish a practice.*^® Smiling, provided it stopped short of 
 laughter, might occasionally be allowed ; still, being a carnal 
 pastime, it was a sin to smile on Sunday. Even on week- 
 days, those who were most imbued with religious principles 
 hardly ever smiled, but sighed, groaned, and wept.*^‘ A true 
 Christian would be careful, in his movements, to preserve inva- 
 riable gravity, never running, but walking soberly, and not 
 treading out in a brisk and lively manner, as unbelievers are 
 wont to do.‘^® So, too, if he wrote to a friend, he must beware 
 
 »s§ (1 Prequeiit the gravest company, and the fellowship of those that are sor- 
 tOwfull.” A-bernethy's Physicke for the Soule, p. 416. Compare the attacks on too 
 much carnal mirth and laughter,” in Durham's Law Unsealed, p. 323 ; in Fleming's 
 Fidfilling of the Scripture, p. 226 ; and in Fergusson's Exposition of the Epistles of 
 
 p. 227. See also Gray's Spiritual Warfare, p. 42. Cowper says, “ Woe be 
 unto them that now laugh, for assuredly they shall weepe, the end of their joy shall 
 be endlesse mourning and gnashing of teeth, they shall shed tears abundantly with 
 Esau, but shall find no place for mercy.” Cowper' s Heaven Opened, p. 271. Hutche- 
 son, in a strain of unusual liberality, permits occasional laughter. He says, “There 
 is a faculty of laughing given to men, which certainly is given for use, at least at 
 sometimes ; and diversions are sometime needfull for men who are serious and em- 
 ployed in weighty affairs.” “ And particularly, laughter is sometime lawful 
 
 for magistrates and others in publick charge, not only that they may recreate them- 
 selves, but that, thereby, and by the like insinuating carriage, they may gain the 
 affection of the people.” Hutcheson's Exposition of the Book of Job, edit, folio, 
 1669, pp. 389, 390. 
 
 In 1650, when Charles II. was in Scotland, “ the clergy reprehended him 
 very sharply, if he smiled on those days” (Sundays). Clarendords History of the 
 Rebellion, book xiii. p. 747, edit. Oxford, 1843. 
 
 It is said of Donald Cargill, that ‘‘ his very countenance was edifying to be- 
 holders; often sighing with deep groans.” A Cloud of Witnesses for the Royal Pre- 
 rogatives of Jesus Christ, p. 423. The celebrated James Durham was “ a person of 
 the utmost gravity, and scarce smiled at anything.” Howie's Biographia Scoticana, 
 p. 226. Of Livingston, we are told “ that he was a very affectionate person, and 
 weeped much; that it was his ordinary way, and might be observed almost every 
 Sabbath, that when he came into the pulpite he sate doun a little, and looked first 
 to the one end of the kirk, and then to the other ; and then, ordinarly, the tear 
 shott in his eye, and he weeped, and oftimes he began his preface and his work 
 weeping.” Wodrow's Analecta, vol. ii. p. 249. James Alexander “ used to weep 
 much in prayer and preaching ; he was every way most savoury.” Ibid., vol. iii. p. 
 89. As to the Rev. John Carstairs, “ his band in the Sabbath would have been all 
 wett, as if it liad been douked, with tears, before he was done with his first prayer.” 
 p. 48. Aird, minister of Dalserf, “ weeping much” {Ibid., vol. iii. p. 66), “ Mr. 
 James Stirling tells me was a most fervent, affectionat, weeping preacher.” p. 172 ; 
 and the Rev. Alexander Dunlop was noted for what was termed “ a holy groan,” vol. 
 iii p. 21. See also, on weeping as a mark of religion, Wast's Memoirs, pp. 83, 84; 
 and Robe's Narratives of the Extraordinary Work of the Spirit of God, pp. 21, 31, 
 75, 150. One passage from the most popular of the Scotch preachers, I hesitate as 
 to the propriety of quoting ; but it is essential that their ideas should be known, if 
 the history of Scotland is to be understood. Rutherford, after stating whom it is 
 that we should seek to imitate, adds : “Christ did never laugh on earth that we 
 read of, but he wept.” Rutherford's Christ Dying, 1647, 4to, p. 525. I publish 
 this with no irreverent spirit ; God forbid that I should. But I will not be deterred 
 from letting this age see the real character of a system which aimed at destroying 
 all human happiness, exciting slavish and abject fear, and turning this glorious 
 world into one vast theatre of woe. 
 
 m “Walk with a sober pace, not ‘ tinkling with your feet.”’ Memoirs of the 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 305 
 
 lest his letter should contain any thing like jocoseness ; since 
 jesting is incompatible with a holy and serious lifed^® 
 
 It was, moreover, wrong to take pleasure in beautiful sce- 
 nery ; for a pious man had no concern with such matters, which 
 were beneath him, and the admiration of which should be left to 
 the unconverted.'^^ The unregenerate might delight in these 
 vanities, but they who were properly instructed, saw Nature as 
 she really was, and knew that as she, for about five thousand 
 years, had been constantly on the move, her vigour was well-nigh 
 spent, and her pristine energy had departed.'^® To the eye of 
 ignorance, she still seemed fair and fresh ; the fact, however, 
 was, that she was worn out and decrepit ; she was suffering 
 from extreme old age ; her frame, no longer elastic, was leaning 
 on one side, and she soon would perish,'^® Owing to the sin 
 
 Rev. James Fraser, vrritten by Himself, in Select Biographies, toI. ii. p. 280. “It is 
 somewhat like this, or less than this, which the Lord condemneth, Isa. iii. 16, 
 ‘Walking and mincing, or tripping and making a tinkling with their feet.’ What is 
 that but disdaining the grave way of walking, to aifect an art in it? as many do now 
 in our days ; and shall this be displeasing to the Lord, and not the other ? seeing he 
 loveth, and is best pleased with, the native way of carrying the body.” Durhanis 
 Law Unsealed, p. 324. “The believer hath, or at least ought to have, and, if he be 
 like himself, will have, a well ordered walk, and will be in his carriage stately and 
 princely.” Durham's Exposition of the Song of Solomon, p. 365. 
 
 “ At home, writing letters to a friend. My vein is inclined to jest and hu- 
 mour. The letter was too comical and jocose ; and after I had sent it away, I had 
 a check that it was too light, and jesting foolishly. I sent and got it back, and de- 
 stroyed it. My temper goes too far that way, and I ought to check it and be more 
 on my guard, and study edification in every thing.” Crichton's Life and Diary of 
 Blackader, pp. 536, 53Y. Even amongst young children, from eight years old and 
 upwards, toys and games were bad ; and it was a good sign when they were uis« 
 carded. “ Some very young, of eight and nine years of age, some twelve and thir- 
 teen. They still inclined more and more to their duty, so that they meet three 
 times a day, in the morning, at night, and at noon. Also they have forsaken all 
 their childish fancies and plays ; so these that have been awakened are known by 
 their countenance and conversation, their walk and behaviour.” Robe's Narratives 
 of the Extraordinary Work of the Spirit of God, pp. 79, 80. 
 
 144 K rpQ unmortified man, the world smelleth like the garden of God.” .... 
 “the world is not to him an ill-smelled stinking corps.” Rutherford's Christ Dying, 
 p. 498. But those who were properly mortified, knew that “ the earth is but a pot- 
 ter’s bouse ” {Ibid., p. 286) ; “ an old thred-bare-worn case ” {Ibid., p. 530) ; a “ smoky 
 house ” {Rutherford's Religious Letters, p. 100) ; a “ plaistered, rotten world ” {Ibid., 
 p.l32); and “an ashy and dirty earth ” {Ibid., p. 169). “ The earth also is spotted 
 
 (like the face ofa woman once beautifull, but now deformed with scabs ofieprosie)with 
 thistles, thornes, and much barren wildernesse.” Cowper's Heaven Opened, p. 255. 
 
 “Wearinesse and motion is laid on Moon and Sunne, and all creatures on 
 this side of the Moon. Seas ebbe and flow, and that’s trouble ; winds blow, rivera 
 move, heavens and stars these five thousand yeares, except one time, have not had 
 sixe minutes rest.” .... “The Sunne that never rests, but moves as swiftly in the 
 night as in the day.” Rutherford's Christ Dying, pp. 12, 167. “ This is the world’s 
 
 old age ; it is declining ; albeit it seem a fair and beautiful thing in the eyes of them 
 who know no better, and unto them who are of yesterday and know nothing, it 
 Zooks as if it had been created yesterday ; yet the truth is, and a believer knows, it 
 is near the grave.” Binning' s Sermons, vol. iii. p. 372. 
 
 146 then, I say, is the state all things ye see, are in, — it is their old age. 
 
 The creation now is an old rotten house that is all dropping through and leaning 
 to the one side.” Binning' s Sermons, vol, iii. p. 398. 
 
306 AN EXAMINATION OP THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 of man, all things were getting worse, and nature was degener- 
 ating so fast, that already the lilies were losing their whiteness, 
 and the roses their smell.^^’’ The heavens were waxing old 
 the very sun, which lighted the earth, was becoming feeble.'’^® 
 This universal degeneracy was sad to think of ; but the profane 
 knew it not. Their ungodly eyes were still pleased by what 
 they saw. Such was the result of their obstinate determination 
 to indulge the senses, all of which were evil ; the eye being, be- 
 yond comparison, the most wicked. Hence, it was especially 
 marked out for divine punishment ; and, being constantly sin- 
 ning, it was afflicted with fifty-two different diseases, that is, 
 one disease for each week in the year.^®“ 
 
 On this account, it was improper to care for beauty of any 
 kind ; or, to speak more accurately, there was no real beauty. 
 The world afforded nothing worth looking at, save and except 
 the Scotch Kirk, which was incomparably the most beautiful 
 thing under heaven.'®^ To look at that was a lawful enjoyment, 
 but every other pleasure was sinful. To write poetry, for in- 
 stance, was a grievous offence, and worthy of especial condem- 
 nation. ^ To listen to music was equally Avrong ; for men had 
 no right to disport themselves in such idle recreation. Hence 
 the clergy forbad music to be introduced even during the festivi- 
 ties of a marriage neither would they permit, on any occa- 
 
 “ The lilies and roses, which, no doubt, had more sweetnesse of beauty and 
 smell, before the sin of man made them vanity-sick.” Rutherford's Christ Dying, 
 p. 186. 
 
 148 a rpjjg heavens that are supposed to be incorruptible, yet they wax old as 
 doth a garment.” Biniiing's Sermons, vol. i. p. 95. 
 
 ii'j “'phe neerer the sun drawes to the end of his daily course, the lesse is his 
 strength, for we see the Sunne in the evening decayes in heat ; so it is, the longer 
 by reuolution he turnes about in his sphere, he waxes alway the weaker ; and, to 
 vse the similitude of the holy spirit, as a garment the older it groweth becomes the 
 lesse beautifull.” Cowper's Heaven Opened, p. 255. 
 
 “ It is so delicate by nature, that since it was the first sense that offended, it 
 is, aboue all the rest, made subject (as a condigne punishment) to as many maladies, 
 as there are weekes in a yeere.” Ahernethy' s Physicke for the Soide, p. 501. The 
 Scotch divines were extremely displeased with our eyes. Rutherford contemptu- 
 ously calls them “two clay windows.” Rutherfords Christ Dying, p. 670. Gray, 
 going still further, says, “these cursed eyes of ours.” Gray's Great and Precious 
 Promises, p. 63. 
 
 161 u yisible Kirk where God’s ordinances are set up, as he hath ap- 
 
 pointed, where his word is purely preached, is the most beautifull thing under 
 heaven.” Dickson's Explication of the First Fifty Psalms, p. 341. 
 
 I have one very late, and, on that account, very curious, instance of the dif- 
 fusion of this feeling in Scotland. In 1767, a vacancy occurred in the mastership of 
 the grammar-school of Greenock. It was offered to John Wilson, the author of 
 “ Clyde.” But, says his biographer, “ the magistrates and minister of Greenock 
 thought fit, before they would admit Mr. AVilson to the superintendance of the gram- 
 mar school, to stipulate that he should abandon ‘the profane and unprofitable art 
 of poem-making.’” Lives of Eminent Scotsmen by the Society of Ancient Scots, 1821, 
 vol. V. p. 169. 
 
 “ Sept. 22, 1649. — ^The quhilk day the Sessioune caused mak this act, that 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 307 
 
 sion, the national entertainment of pipers.*®^ Indeed, it was 
 sinful to look at any exhibition in the streets, even tliough you 
 only looked at it from your own window. Dancing was so 
 extremely sinful, that an edict, expressly prohibiting it, was 
 enacted by the General Assembly, and read in every church in 
 Edinburgh. New Year’s Eve had long been a period of 
 rejoicing in Scotland, as in other parts of Europe. The Church 
 laid her hands on this also, and ordered that no one should sing 
 the songs usual on that day, or should admit such singers into 
 his own private house. 
 
 At the christening of a child, the Scotch were accustomed 
 to assemble their relations, including their distant cousins, in 
 whom, then as now, they much abounded. But this caused 
 pleasure, and pleasure was sinful. It was, therefore, forbidden ; 
 tbe number of guests was limited ; and the strictest supervis- 
 ion was exercised by the clergy, to prevent the possibility of 
 any one being improperly happy on such occasions. 
 
 ther sould be no pypers at brydels, and who ever sould have a pyper playing at 
 their brydell on their manage day, sail loose their consigned money, and be farder 
 punisched as the Sessioune thinks fitt.” Extracts from the Registers of the Presby- 
 tery of Glasgow, and of the Kirk Sessions of the Parishes of Cambusnethan Humbie 
 and Stirling, p. 34. This curious volume is a quarto, and without date ; unless, 
 indeed, one of the title-pages is wanting in my copy. 
 
 See the Minutes of the Kirk Session of Glasgow, in Wodrow's Collections upon 
 the Lives of Ministers, vol. ii. part ii. p. 76 ; also the case of “Mure, pyper,” in Se- 
 lections from the Minutes of the Presbyteries of Saint Andrews and Cupar, p. 72. 
 
 This notion lingered on, probably to the beginning of this century ; certainly 
 to late in the last. In a work published in Scotland in 1836, it is stated, that a cler- 
 gyman was still alive, who was “ severely censured,” merely because, when Punch 
 was performing, “ the servant w'as sent out to the showman to request him to come 
 below the windows of her master’s house, that the clergyman and his wife might 
 enjoy the sight.” Traditions of Perth by George Penny, Pei th, 1836, p. 124. 
 
 168 u pgjj ] 55 Q_ of the commissioun of the Generali Assemblie wes 
 
 red in all the churches of Edinburgh dischargeing promiscuous dansing.” Nicoll's 
 Diary, p. 3. See also Acts of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 1638- 
 1842, p. 201 ; Register of the Kirk Sessio7i of Cambusnethan, p. 35 ; Minutes of the 
 Presbyteries of St. Andrews and Cupar, pp. 55, 181 ; Minutes of the Synod of Fife, 
 pp. 160, 169, 176; and a choice passage in A Collection of Senno^is by Eminent 
 Divines, p. 61. 
 
 See Selections from Records of the Kirk Session, Presbytery, and Synod of 
 Aberdeen, pp. 77, 78, forbidding any one to “giwe ony meatt or drink to these sang- 
 steris or lat thame within thair houss.” The singers were to bo “ put in prisoun.” 
 
 In 1643 the Presbytery of St. Andrews ordered that “ because of the great 
 abuse that is likewayes among them by conveening multitudes at baptismes and con- 
 tracts, the ministers and sessions are appointed to take strict order for restraineing 
 these abuses, that in number they exceid not sixe or seven. As also ordaines that 
 the hostlers quho mak such feists salbe censured by the sessions.” Minutes of the 
 Presbyteries of St. Andrews and Ciipgr, p. 11. See also Records of the Kirk Session, 
 Presbytery, and Synod of Aberdeen, pp. 109, 110, complaining of the custom “that 
 everie base servile man in the towne, when he hes a barne to be baptesed, invitis 
 tuelff or sextene persones to be his gossopes and godfatheris to his barne,” &c. ; and 
 enacting “ that it shall not be lesume to any inhabitant within this hurt quhasoever, 
 to invite any raa persones to be godfatheris to thair barne in ony tyme cumming bot 
 tua or four at the most, lyk as the Kirk officier is expresslie commaudit and pro- 
 
308 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 Not only at baptisms, but also at marriages, the same spirit 
 was displayed. In every country, it has been usual to make 
 merry at marriages ; partly from a natural feeling, and partly, 
 perhaps, from a notion that a contract, so often productive of 
 misery, might, at all events, begin with mirth. The Scotch 
 clergy, however, thought otherwise. At the weddings of the 
 poor, they would allow no rejoicing and at the weddings of 
 the rich, it was the custom for one of them to go for the express 
 purpose of preventing an excess of gaiety. A better precaution 
 could hardly be devised ; but they did not trust exclusively to 
 it. To check the lusts of the flesh, they, furthermore, took 
 into account the cookery, the choice of the meats, and the num- 
 ber of the dishes. They were, in fact, so solicitous on these 
 points, and so anxious that the nuptial feast should not be 
 too attractive, that they fixed its cost, and would not allow 
 any person to exceed the sum which they thought proper to 
 name.^®“ 
 
 Nothing escaped their vigilance. For, in their opinion, 
 even the best man was, at his best time, so full of turpitude, 
 that his actions could not fail to be wicked. ‘ He never passed 
 a day without sinning, and the smallest sin deserved eternal 
 wrath. Indeed, every thing he did was sinful, no matter how 
 pure his motives.*®® Man had been gradually falling lower and 
 
 hibitt that from hence furth he tak vp no ma names to be godfatheris, nor giwe any 
 ma vp to the redar bot four at the most, vnder all hiest censure he may incur be 
 the contrarie, and this ordinance to be intimat out of pulpitt, that the people pre- 
 tend no ignorance thairof.” 
 
 They forbad music and dancing ; and they ordered that not more than twen- 
 ty-four persons should be present. See the enactment, in 1647, respecting “Pennie 
 bryddells,” in Minutes of the Presbyteries of St. Andrews and Cupar, p. 117. In 
 1650, “ The Presbyterie being sadly weghted with the report of the continwance, 
 and exhorbitant and unnecessarly numerous confluences of people at pennie brydles, 
 and of inexpedient and wnlawfull pypeing and dancing at the same, so scandalous 
 andsinfull in thistyme of our Churches lamentable conditioun ; and being apprehen- 
 sive that ministers and Kirk Sessiouns have not bein so vigilant and active (as neid 
 werre), for repressing of these disorders, doe therfor most seriously recommend to 
 ministers and Kirk Sessiouns to represse the same.” Ibid., pp. 169, 170. See, fur- 
 ther, Registers of the Presbytery of Lanark, p. 29 ; and Extracts from the Presby- 
 tery Book of Strathbogie, pp. 4, 144. 
 
 See two curious instances of limitation of price, in Irving's History of Hxmi- 
 bartonshire, p. 667 ; and in Wodrow's Collections upon the Lives of Ministers, vol. ii. 
 part ii. p. 34. 
 
 161 u ^Y'hat a vile, haughty, and base creature he is — how defiled and desperately 
 wicked his nature — how abominable his actions ; in a word, what a compound of 
 darkness and wickedness he is — a heap of defiled dust, and a mass of confusion — a 
 sink of impiety and iniquity, even the best of mankind, those of the rarest and most 
 refined extraction, take them at their best estate." Binning' s Sermons, vol. ii. part 
 ii. p. 302. Compare Boston's Human Nature wits Fo%ir-fold Stale, pp. 26, 27. 
 
 16 S arpjjg gjj^ cannot but deserve God’s wrath and curse eternally.” Dick- 
 son's Truth's Victory over Error, p. 71. “ All men, even the regenerate, sin daily.” 
 
 Jbid., p. 153. 
 
 “ Our best works have such a mixture of corruption and sin in them, that 
 they deserve his curse and wrath.” Ibid., p. 130. 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 309 
 
 lower, and had now sunk to a point of debasement, which made 
 jiini infGrior to th6 l)GRsts tliat pGrish,^®^ Eygii bcforG 1 ig wes 
 born, and while he was yet in his mothers womb, his guilt 
 began. And when he grew up, his crimes multiplied thick 
 and fast ; one of the most heinous of them being the practice 
 of teaching children new words, — a horrible custom, justly 
 visited by divine wrath. This, however, was but one of a 
 series of innumerable and incessant offences ; so that the only 
 wonder was, that the earth could restrain herself at the hideous 
 spectacle which man presented, and that she did not open her 
 mouth, as of old, and swallow him even in the midst of his 
 wickedness.*®^ For it was certain, that in the whole creation, 
 there was nothing so deformed and monstrous as he.*®® ’ 
 
 Such being the case, it behoved the clergy to come forward, 
 and to guard men against their own vices, by controlling their 
 daily actions, and forcing them to a right conduct. This they 
 did vigorously. Aided by the elders, who were their tools and 
 the creatures of their power, they, all over Scotland, organized 
 themselves into legislative bodies, and, in the midst of their 
 little senate, they enacted laws which the people were bound 
 to obey. If they refused, woe be to them. They became 
 unruly sons of the Church, and were liable to be imprisoned, to 
 be fined, or to be whipped,*®* or to be branded with a hot iron,*"® 
 
 But now, falling away from God, hee hath also so farre degenerated from 
 his owne kind, that he is become inferiour to the beasts.” Oowper's Heaven Opened 
 p. 251. “ 0 ! is not man become so brutish and ignorant, that he may be sent unto 
 
 the beasts of the field to be instructed of that which is his duty ? ” Gray's Spiritual 
 Warfare, p. 28. “ Men are naturally more bruitish than beasts themselves.” Boston's 
 Human Nature in its Four-fold State, p. 58. “Worse than the beast of the field.” 
 Halyburton's Great Concern of Salvation, p. 71. 
 
 “ Infants, even in their mother’s belly, have in themselves sufficient guilt to 
 deserve such judgments ; ” i. e. when women with child are “ ript up.” Hutcheson's 
 Exposition on the Minor Prophets, vol. i. p. 265. 
 
 And in our speech, our Scripture and old Scots names are gone out of re- 
 quest ; instead of Father and Mother, Mamma and Papa, training children to speak 
 nonsense, and what they do not understand. These few instances, amongst many 
 that might be given, are additional causes of God’s wrath.” The Life and Heath of 
 Mr. Alexander Peden, late Minister of the Gospel at New Glenluce, in Galloway in 
 Walker's Biographia Presbyteriana, vol. i. p. 140. * 
 
 Yea, if the Lord did not restraine her, shee would open her mouth and 
 swallow the wicked, as she did Corah, Dathan, and Abiram.” Cowper's Heaven 
 Opened, p. 2o7. Compare Hutcheson s Exposition on the Elinor Pronhets vol i n 
 607. ^ ‘ ' 
 
 168 Jg jjQthing so monstrous, so deformed in the world, as man.” Bin- 
 
 ning's Sermons, vol. i. p. 234. “ There is not in all the creation such a miserable 
 
 creature as man.” Ibid., vol. iii. p. 321. “ Nothing so miserable.” Abernethy's 
 
 Physicke for the Soule, p. 37. 
 
 December I7th, 1636. Mention made of a correction house, which the 
 Session ordeans persons to be taken to, both men and women, and appoints them 
 to be whipt every day during the Session’s will.” Wodrow's Collections upon the 
 Lives of Ministers, vol. ii. part ii. p. 67. 
 
 On the 22d October 1648, the Kirk Session of Dunfermline ordered that a 
 
310 AN EXAMINATION OE THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 or to do penance before the whole congregation, humbling them- 
 selves, bare-footed, and with their hair cut on one side,*” while 
 the minister, under pretence of rebuking them, enjoyed his 
 triumph,*’'^ All this was natural enough. For the clergy were 
 the delegates of heaven, and the interpreters of its will. They, 
 therefore, were the best judges of what men ought to do ; and 
 any one whom they censured was bound to submit with humil- 
 ity and repentance.*'^® 
 
 The arbitrary and irresponsible tribunals, which now sprung 
 up all over Scotland, united the executive authority with the 
 legislative, and exercised both functions at the same time. 
 Declaring that certain acts ought not to be committed, they 
 took the law into their own hands, and punished those who 
 had committed them. According to the principles of this new 
 jurisprudence, of which the clergy were the authors, it became 
 a sin for any Scotchman to travel in a Catholic country.*” It 
 was a sin for any Scotch innkeeper to admit a Cathohc into his 
 inn.*'*® It was a sin for any Scotch town to hold a market 
 
 certain Janet Robertson “ shall he cartit and scourged through the town, and 
 markit with an hot iron.” Chalmers' History of Dunfermline^ p. 437. 
 
 *’* “ As they punish by pecuniary tines, so corporally too, by imprisoning the 
 persons of the delinquents, using them disgracefully, carting them through cities, 
 making them stand in logges, as they call them, pillaries (which in the country 
 churches are fixed to the two sides of the main door of the Parish Church), cutting 
 the halfe of their hair, shaving their beards, &c., and it is more than ordinary, by 
 their ‘ original ’ and ‘ proper power,’ to banish them out of the bounds and limits 
 of the parish, or presbytery, as they list to order it.” Presbytery Displayd, p. 4. 
 
 *” The Scotch clergy of the seventeenth century were not much given to joking; 
 but on one of these occasions a preacher is said to have hazard('d a pun. A 
 woman, named Ann Cantly, being made to do penance, “ Here ” (said the minis- 
 ter), “Here is one upon the stool of repentance, they call her Cantly ; she saith her- 
 self, she is an honest woman, but I trow scantly." Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence, 
 p. 125. From what I have read of Scotch theology, I can bear testimony to the 
 accuracy of this book, so far as its general character is concerned. Indeed, the 
 author, through fear of being entirely discredited, has often rather understated his 
 case. 
 
 As Durham says, in his Exposition, of the Song of Solomon,, p. 451, “It is no 
 burden to an honest believer to acknowledge Christ’s ministers, to obey their doc- 
 trine, and submit to their censures.” 
 
 *” A man, named Alexander Laurie, was brought before the Kirk Session of 
 Perth, “ and being inquired by the minister if, in his last being out of this country, 
 he had been in Spain, answered that he was in Portugal, but was never present at 
 mass, neither gave reverence to any procession, and that he was never demanded 
 by any concerning his religion. The said Alexander being removed and censured, 
 it was thought good by the (Kirk) Session that he should be admonished not to 
 travel in these parts again, except that they were otherwise reformed in religion.” 
 Extracts from the Kirk-Session Register of Perth, in The Spottiswoode Miscellany, 
 vol. ii. p. 274. Still earlier, that is, in 1592, the clergy attempted to interfere even 
 with commerce, “ allegeing that the marchands could not mak vayage in Spayne 
 without danger of thair sawlis, and tharefore willit thayme in tlie nayme of God to 
 absteyne.” The History of King James the Sext, p. 254. 
 
 See the case of Patrick Stewart, and Mr. Lawson’s note upon it, in Lawson's 
 Book of Perth, p. 238. In this instance, the “ Roman Catholic gentleman ” had 
 been excommuniaated, which made matters still worse. 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 311 
 
 either on Saturday or on Monday, because both days were near 
 Sunday It was a sin for a Scotch woman to wait at a tav- 
 ern it was a sin for her to live alone it was also a sin for 
 
 her to live with unmarried sisters. It was a sin to go from 
 one town to another on Sunday, however pressing the business 
 might be.‘®“ It was a sin to visit your friend on Sunday it 
 was likewise sinful either to have your garden watered, or 
 your beard shaved. Such things were not to be tolerated in 
 a Christian land. No one, on Sunday, should pay attention to 
 his health, or think of his body at all. On that day horse-exer- 
 cise was sinful so was walking in the fields, or in the mea- 
 
 178 rpjig Presbytery of Edinburgh, “by their transcendent sole authority, dis- 
 charged any market to be kept on Monday ; the reason was, because it occasioned the 
 travelling of men and horse the Lord’s-day before, which prophahed the Sabbath.” 
 Presbytery Pisplayd, p. 10. In 1650, Saturday was also taken in by another eccle- 
 siastical senate. “ The Presbyterie doe appoint the severall brethren in bur^hes 
 to deale with such as have not changed ther Mondayes and Satterdaves mercats to 
 other dayes of the weeke, that they may doe the same privio ouoque temporeP 
 Minutes of the Presbyteries of St. Andrews and Cupar, p. 63. 
 
 In 1650, “For ‘the down-bearing of sin,’ women were not allowed to act as 
 waiters in taverns, but ‘ allenarly men-servands and boys.’” Chambers' Annals, 
 vol. ii. p. 196. This order “ wes red and publictlie intimat in all the kirkis of 
 Edinburgh.” NicolVs Diary^ p. 5. 
 
 178 “Porsameikle as dilatation being made, that Janet Watson holds an house 
 by herself where she may give occasion of slander, therefore Patrick Pitcairn, elder, 
 is ordained to admonish her in the session’s name, either to marry, or then pass to 
 service, otherwise that she will not be suffered to dwell by herself.” Eirk-Session 
 Records of Perth, in The Chronicle of Perth, p. 86. 
 
 _ “ Ordains the two sisters, Elspith and Janet Stewart, that they be not found 
 
 in the house again with their sister, but every one of them shall go to service, or 
 where they may be best entertained without slander, under the penalty of warding 
 their persons and banishment of the town.” Eirk-Session Register, in LawsorCs 
 Book of Perth, p.\m. 
 
 180 ‘‘Compeirit William Kinneir, and confest his travelling on the Sabbath day, 
 which he declairit was out of meer necessitie, haveing two watters to croce, and ane 
 tempestuos day, quhilk raoowit him to fear that he wold not get the watters crost 
 and so his credit might faill. He was sharpelie admonished ; and promist newer to 
 doe the lyke again.” Selections from the Records of the Eirk-Session of Aberdeen 
 p. 136. ’ 
 
 Compearit Thomas Gray, and confest that one Sunday in the morning, he 
 went to Culter to visit a friend, and stayed thair all night, the sessioune warnit 
 him, apud acta, to the next day, and appointed Patrick Gray, his master, to be cited 
 to the next day, to give furder informatioiine in the matter. (Sharply rebuked be- 
 fore the pulpit.)” Selections from the Records of the Eirk-Session of Aberdeen, p. 146. 
 
 It was reported that Margaret Brotherstone did water her kaill wpon the 
 Sabbath day, and thairwpon was ordained to be cited.” “ Compeired Mar- 
 
 garet Brotherstone, and confessed her breach of Sabbath in watering of her kaill 
 and thairwpon ordained to give evidence in publick of her repentance the next 
 Lord’s day.” Extracts from, the Register of the Eirk-Session of Humbie, p. 42. 
 
 Even so late as the middle of the eighteenth century, “clergymen were some- 
 times libelled” ._ . . .“ for shaving ” on Sunday. Sinclair's Statistical Account of 
 hcotland^ vol. xvi. p. 34, Edinburgh, 1Y95. At an earlier period, no one might be 
 shaved on that day. See The Spottiswoode Miscellany, vol. ii. p. 276 • and Lawson's 
 Book of Perth, pp. 224, 225. 
 
 ^ Compeired John Gordon of Avachie, and confessed that he had transgressed 
 in travailing on the Sabbath day with horse, going for a millston. Referred to the 
 
312 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 dows, or in the streets, or enjoying the fine weather by sitting 
 at the door of your own house, To go to sleep on Sunday, 
 before the duties of the day were over, was also sinful, and 
 deserved church censure.^®® Bathing, being pleasant as well as 
 wholesome, was a particularly grievous offence ; and no man 
 could be allowed to swim on Sunday. It was, in fact, doubt- 
 ful whether swimming was lawful for a Christian at any time, 
 even on week-days, and it was certain that God had, on one 
 occasion, shown His disapproval, by taking away the life of a 
 boy while he was indulging in that carnal practice.^®® 
 
 That it was a sin to cleanse one’s body, might, indeed, have 
 been taken for granted ; seeing that the Scotch clergy looked 
 on all comforts as sinful in themselves, merely because they 
 were comforts.’®® The great object of life was, to be in a state 
 of constant affliction.^®® Whatever pleased the senses, was to 
 
 session of Kinor for censure.” Extracts from the Presbytery Book of Strathhogie, 
 p. 2S6. See also the case mentioned in Letters from, a Gentleman in the North of 
 Scotland, vol. i. p. 172; “This riding on horseback of a Sunday was deemed a great 
 scandal.” 
 
 In 1647, the punishment was ordered of whoever was guilty of “sitting or 
 walking idle upon the streetes and feildes ” on Sunday. Selections from the Minutes 
 of the Synod of Fife, p. 162. In 1742, “sitting idle at the doors” and “sitting 
 about doors” was profane. Robe’s Narratives of the Extraordinary Work of the 
 Spirit of God, pp. Iu9, 110. In 1756, at Perth, “to stroll about the fields, or 
 even to walk upon the inches, was looked upon as extremely sinful, and an intoler- 
 able violation of the fourth commandment.” Penny's Traditions of Perth, p. 36. 
 
 In 1656, “ Cite Issobell Balfort, servand to William Gordone, tailyeor, beoing 
 found sleeping at the Loche side on the Lord’s day in tyme of sermon.”^ Selections 
 from the Records of the Kirk-Session of Aberdeen, p. 137. It was a sin even for 
 children to feel tired of the interminable sermons which they were forced to hear. 
 Ilalyburton, addressing the young people of his congregation, says, “ Have not you 
 been glad when the Lord’s day was over, or, at least, v:hen the preaching was done, 
 that ye might get your liberty? lias it not been a burden to you, to sit so long in 
 the church ? Well, this is a great sin." See this noticeable passage, in Halybur- 
 ton's Great Concern of Salvation, p. 100. 
 
 In 1719, the Presbytery of Edinburgh indignantly declares, “Yea, some have 
 arrived at that height of impiety, as not to be ashamed of washing in waters, and 
 swimming in rivers upon the holy Sabbath.” Register of Presbytery of Edinburgh, 
 ‘Pith April 1719, in Arnot's History of Edinburgh, p. 204. 
 
 So late as 1691, the Kirk-Session of Glasgow attempted to prevent all boys 
 from swimming, whatever the day might be. But as the Church was then on the 
 decline, it was necessary to appeal to the civil authority for help. Wlnit was the re- 
 suit, I have not been able to ascertain. There is, however, a curious notice, in 
 Wodroic's Collections upon the Lives of Ministers, vol. ii. part ii. p. 77, stating that, 
 on “August 6th, 1691, the Session recommends it to the magistrates to think on 
 some overtures for discharging boyes from swimming, in regard one was lately lost. 
 
 I have met with other evidence respecting this ; but I cannot remember the pas- 
 sages. 
 
 The Kev. James Fraser says: “ The world is a dangerous thing and a great 
 evil, and the comforts of it a hell.” Select Biographies, vol. ii. p. 220. Compare 
 Gray's Spiritual Warfare, p. 22. 
 
 “ It is good to be continually afflicted here.” Select Biographies, vol. u. p. 
 220. Gray, advocating the same doctrine, sums up his remarks by a suggestion, 
 that, “ I think David had never so sweet a time as then, when he was pursued as a, 
 partridge by his son Absalom.” Gray's Great and Precious Promises, p. 14. 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, 
 
 313 , 
 
 be suspected. A Cliristian must beware of enjoying his 
 dinner ; for none but the ungodly relished their food.^®® By 
 a parity of reasoning, it was wrong for a man to wish to advance 
 himself in life, or in any way to better his condition. Either 
 to make money, or to save it, was unsuited to Christians ; and 
 even to possess much of it was objectionable, because it not only 
 ministered to human pleasures, but encouraged those habits of 
 foresight and of provision for the future, which are incompatible 
 with complete resignation to the Divine will. To wish for more 
 than was necessary to keep oneself alive, was a sin as well as a 
 folly, and was a violation of the subjection we owe to God.‘®^ 
 That it was contrary to His desire, was, moreover, evident, from 
 the fact that He bestowed wealth liberally upon misers and 
 covetous men ; a remarkable circumstance, which, in the opin- 
 ion of Scotch divines, proved that he was no lover of riches, 
 otherwise He would not give them to such base and sordid 
 persons.*®® 
 
 “ Suspect that which pleaseth the senses.” Abemethy's Physicke for the 
 Senile, p. 63. 
 
 Durham, in his long catalogue of sins, mentions as one “ the preparing of 
 meat studiously, that is, when it is too riotously dressed, for pleasing men’s carnal 
 appetite and taste, or palate, by the fineness of it, and other curiosities of that kind.” 
 Durham's Law Unsealed, p. 333. See also p. 48, on “ palate-pleasers ; ” and Dick- 
 son’s opinion of the “ rarest dishes and best meats.” Dickson's Explication of the 
 Psalms, p. 84. According to another of the Scotch divines, whoever makes one 
 gcx)d meal, and has enough left for a second, is in imminent peril. “He that is full, 
 and hath enough to make him fuller, will easily deny God, and be exalted against 
 him : his table shall be a snare to his body, and a snare to his soule.” Abemethy's 
 Physicke for the Soule, p. 421. 
 
 For, says Abernethy {Physicke for the Soule, p. 488), “ men are loth to lend 
 their eare to the Word, when they abound in prosperity.” So, too, Hutcheson, in 
 hm Exposition of the Book of Job, p. 387 : “Such is the weakness even of godly men, 
 that they can hardly live in a prosperous condition, and not be overtaken with some 
 security, carnal confidence, or other miscarriage.” 
 
 See this theory worked out in Cockburn' s Jacob's Veno, or Man's Felicity and 
 Duty, pp. 71-76. He says, “ And certainly to crave and be desirous of more than 
 what is competent for the maintenance and support of our lives, is both inconsistent 
 with that dependence and subjection we owe to God, and doth also bespeak a 
 great deal of vanity, folly, and inconsiderateness.” Boston, striking at the very 
 foundation of that practice of providing for the future, which is the first and most 
 important maxim in all civil wisdom, and which peculiarly distinguishes civilized 
 nations from barbarians, asks his hearers, “Why should men rack their heads with 
 cares how to provide for to-morrow, while they know not if they shall then need 
 anything ? ” Boston's Human Nature in its Fourfold State, p. 300. Hutcheson thinks 
 that those who are guilty of such impious prudence, deserve to be starved. “ When 
 men are not content with food and rayment, but would still heap up more, it is just 
 with God to leave them not so much as bread ; and to suffer men to have an evil 
 eye upon them, and to pluek at them, even so long as they have meat.” Hutche- 
 son's Exposition of the Booh of Job, p. 296. Binning, going still further, threatens 
 eternal ruin. “Ye may have things necessary here, — food and raiment ; and if ye 
 seek more, if ye will be rich, and will have superfluities, then ye shall fall into many 
 temptations, snares, and hurtful lusts which shall drown you in perdition.” Binning' s 
 Sermons, vol. iii. p. 366. 
 
 1S5 u jp loved riches well, do ye thiak he would give them so liberally, and 
 heap them up upon some base covetous wretches ? Surely no.” Binning' s Sermons 
 
314 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 To be poor, dirty, and hungry, to pass through life in mis- 
 ery, and to leave it with fear, to be plagued with boils, and 
 sores, and diseases of every kind, to be always sighing and groan- 
 ing, to have the face streaming with tears and the chest heav- 
 ing with sobs, in a word, to suffer constant afidiction, and to 
 be tormented in all possible ways ; to undergo these things was 
 deemed a proof of goodness, just as the contrary was a proof of 
 evil. It mattered not what a man liked ; the mere fact of his 
 liking it, made it sinful. Whatever was natural, was wrong. 
 The clergy deprived the people of their holidays, their amuse- 
 ments, their shows, their games, and their sports ; they repressed 
 every appearance of joy, they forbad all merriment, they stopped 
 all festivities, they choked up every avenue by which pleasure 
 could enter, and they spread over the country an universal 
 gloom. 1^6 Then, truly, did darkness sit on the land. Men, in 
 their daily actions and in their very looks, became troubled, 
 melancholy, and ascetic. Their countenance soured, and was 
 downcast. Not only their opinions, but their gait, their de- 
 meanour, their voice, their general aspect, were influenced by 
 that deadly blight which nipped all that was genial and warm. 
 The way of life fell into the sear and yellow leaf ; its tints 
 gradually deepened ; its bloom faded, and passed off ; its 
 spring, its freshness, and its beauty, were gone ; joy and love 
 either disappeared or were forced to hide themselves in obscure 
 corners, until at length the fairest and most endearing parts of 
 our nature, being constantly repressed, ceased to bear fruit, 
 and seemed to be withered into perpetual sterility. 
 
 Thus it was, that the national character of the Scotch was, 
 in the seventeenth century, dwarfed and mutilated. With na- 
 tions as with individuals, the harmony and free development of 
 life can only be attained by exercising its principal functions 
 boldly and without fear. Those functions are of two kinds ; 
 
 vol. iii. p. 366. Gray, in his zeal against wealth, propounds another doctrine, which 
 I do not remember to have seen elsewhere. He says, “All that the owner of riches 
 hath, is, the seeing of them ; which a man, who is a passer by, may iikeways have, 
 though he be not possessor of them.” Gray's Spiritual Warfare, p. 128. I hope 
 that the reader will not suspect me of having maliciously invented any of these pas- 
 sages. The books from which they are quoted, are, with only two or three excep- 
 tions, all in my library, and may be examined by persons who are curious in such 
 matters. 
 
 196 u ipjjg absence of external appearances of joy in Scotland, in contrast with the 
 frequent holidayings and merry-makings of the continent, has been much remarked 
 upon. W e find in the records of ecclesiastical discipline clear traces of the process 
 by which this distinction was brought about. To the puritan kirk of the sixteenth 
 and seventeenth centuries, every outward demonstration of natural good spirits was 
 a sort of sin, to be as far as possible repressed.” . . . . “ The whole sunshine of 
 life was, as it were, squeezed out of the community.” Chambers' Annals of Scot' 
 land, vol. i. p. 336, vol. ii. p. 156. 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 315 
 
 one set of them increasing the happiness of the mind, another 
 set increasing the happiness of the body. If we could suppose 
 a man completely perfect, we should take for granted that he 
 would unite these two forms of pleasure in the highest degree, 
 and would extract, both from body and mind, every enjoyment 
 consistent with his own happiness, and with the happiness of 
 others. But, as no such character is to be found, it invariably 
 occurs, that even the wisest of us are unable to hold the bal- 
 ance 5 we, therefore, err, some in over-indulging the body, some 
 in over-indulging the mind. Comparing one set of indulgences 
 with the other, there can be no doubt that the intellectual 
 pleasures are, in many respects, superior to the physical j they 
 are more numerous, more varied, more permanent, and more 
 ennobling ; they are less liable to cause satiety in the individual, 
 and they produce more good to the species. But for one person 
 who can enjoy intellectual pleasures, there are at least a hun- 
 dred who can enjoy physical pleasures. The happiness deriv- 
 ed from gratifying the senses, being thus diffused over a wider 
 area, and satisfying, at any given moment, a greater number of 
 persons than the other form of happiness is capable of, does, on 
 that account, possess an importance which many who call them- 
 selves philosophers are unwilling to recognize. Too often have 
 philosophic and speculative thinkers, by a foolish denunciation 
 ot such pleasures, done all in their power to curtail the quantity 
 of happiness of which humanity is susceptible. Forgetting that 
 we have bodies as well as minds, and forgetting, too, that in an 
 inamense majority of instances the body is more active than the 
 mind, that it is more powerful, that it plays a more conspicuous 
 part, and is fitted for greater achievements, such writers com- 
 mit the enormous error of despising that class of actions to 
 which ninety-nine men out of every hundred are most prone, 
 and for which they are best fitted. And for committing this 
 error they pay the penalty of finding their books unread, their 
 systems disregarded, and their scheme of life adopted, perhaps, 
 by a small class of solitary students, but shut out from that 
 great world of reality for which it is unsuited, and in which it 
 would produce the most serious mischief. 
 
 If, then, we review the history of opinion in connexion with 
 the history of action, we may probably say, that the ascetic no- 
 tions of philosophers, such, for instance, as the doctrines of the 
 Stoics, and similar theories of mortification, have not worked 
 the harm which might have been expected, and have not suc- 
 ceeded in abridging, to any perceptible extent, the substantial 
 happiness of mankind. There are, I apprehend, two reasons 
 why they have failed. In the first place, these philosophers 
 
316 AN EXAMINATION OE THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 have, with hardly an exception, had little real acquaintance 
 with human nature, and have, therefore, been unable to touch 
 those chords, and appeal to those hidden motives, by influenc- 
 ing which one man gains over another to his side. And, in the 
 second place, they, fortunately for us, have never possessed au- 
 thority, and have, therefore, been unable either to enforce their 
 doctrine by penalties, or to recommend it by rewards. 
 
 But, though philosophers have failed in their eflbrt to lessen 
 the pleasures of mankind, there is another body of men, who, 
 in making the same attempt, have met with far greater success. 
 I mean, of course, the theologians, who, considered as a class, 
 have, in every country and in every age, deliberately opposed 
 themselves to gratifications which are essential to the happiness 
 of an overwhelming majority of the human race. Eaising up 
 a Grod of their own creation, whom they hold out as a lover of 
 penance, of sacrifice, and of mortification, they, under this pre- 
 tence, forbid enjoyments which are not only innocent, but 
 praiseworthy. For, every enjoyment by which no one is injured, 
 is innocent ; and every innocent enjoyment is praiseworthy, 
 because it assists in diffusing that spirit of content and of satis- 
 faction which is favourable to the practice of benevolence tow- 
 ards others. The theologians, however, for reasons which I have 
 already stated, cultivate an opposite spirit, and, whenever they 
 have possessed power, they have always prohibited a large 
 number of pleasurable actions, on the ground that such actions 
 are offensive to the Deity. That they have no warrant for this, 
 and that they are simply indulging in peremptory assertions on 
 subjects respecting which we have no trustworthy information, 
 is well known to those who, impartially, and without precon- 
 ceived bias, have studied their arguments, and the evidence 
 which they adduce. On this, however, I need not dilate ; for, 
 inasmuch as men are, almost every year, and certainly every 
 generation, becoming more accustomed to close and accurate 
 reasoning, just in the same proportion is the conviction spread- 
 ing, that theologians proceed from arbitrary assumptions, for 
 which they have no proof, except by appealing to other assump- 
 tions, equally arbitrary and equally unproven. Their whole 
 system reposes upon fear, and upon fear of the worst kind ; 
 since, according to them, the Great Author of our being has 
 used His omnipotence in so cruel a manner as to endow His 
 creatures with tastes, instincts, and desires, which He not only 
 forbids them to gratify, but which, if they do gratify, shall bring 
 on themselves eternal punishment. 
 
 What the theologians are to the closet, that are the priests 
 to the pulpit. The theologians work upon the studious, who 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 317 
 
 read ; the clergy act upon the idle, who listen. Seeing, how- 
 ever, that the same man often performs both offices, and seeing, 
 too, that the spirit and tendency of each office are the same, 
 we may, for practical purposes, consider the two classes as 
 identical ; and, putting them together, and treating them as 
 a whole, it must he admitted by whoever will take a com- 
 prehensive view of what they have actually done, that they 
 have been, not only the most bitter foes of human happi- 
 ness, but also the most successful ones. In their high and 
 palmy days, when they reigned supreme, when credulity was 
 universal and doubt unknown, they afflicted mankind in every 
 possible way ; enjoining fasts, and penances, and pilgrimages, 
 teaching their simple and ignorant victims every kind of 
 austerity, teaching them to flog their own bodies, to tear their 
 own flesh, and to mortify the most natural of their appetites. 
 This was the state of Europe in the middle ages. It is still 
 the state of every part of the world where the priesthood are 
 uncontrolled. Such ascetic and self- tormenting observances 
 are the inevitable issue of the theological spirit, if that spirit is 
 unchecked. Now, and owing to the rapid march of our knowl- 
 edge, it is constantly losing ground, because the scientific and 
 secular spirit is encroaching on its domain. Therefore, in our 
 time, and especially in our country, its most repulsive features 
 are disguised, and it is forced to mask its native ugliness. 
 Among our clergy, a habit of grave and decent compromise 
 has taken the place of that bold and fiery war which their 
 predecessors waged against a sensual and benighted world. 
 Their threats have perceptibly diminished. They now allow 
 us a little pleasure, a little luxury, a little happiness. They 
 no longer tell us to mortify every appetite, and to forego every 
 comfort. The language of power has departed from them. 
 Here and there, we find vestiges of the ancient spirit ; but this 
 is only among uneducated men, addressing an ignorant audience. 
 The superior clergy, who have a character to lose, are grown 
 cautious ; and, whatever their private opinion may be, they 
 rarely venture on those terrific denunciations with which their 
 pulpits once resounded, and which, in times of yore, made the 
 people shrink with fear, and humbled every one except him by 
 whom the denunciation was uttered. 
 
 Still, though much of this has vanished, enough remains to 
 show what the theological spirit is, and to justify a belief, that 
 nothing but the pressure of public opinion prevents it from 
 breaking out into its former extravagance. Many of the clergy 
 persist in attacking the pleasures of the world, forgetting that, 
 not only the world, but all which the world contains, is the work 
 
318 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 of the Almighty, and that the instincts and desires, which they 
 stigmatize as unholy, are part of His gifts to man. They have 
 yet to learn, that our appetites, being as much a portion of 
 ourselves as any other quality we possess, ought to be indulged, 
 otherwise the whole individual is not developed. If a man 
 suppresses part of himself, he becomes maimed and shorn. The 
 proper limit to self-indulgence is, that he shall neither hurt 
 himself nor hurt others. Short of this, every thing is lawful. 
 It is more than lawful ; it is necessary. He who abstains from 
 safe and moderate gratification of the senses, lets some of his 
 essential faculties fall into abeyance, and must, on that account, 
 be deemed imperfect and unfinished. Such an one is incom- 
 plete ; he is crippled ; he has never reached his full stature. 
 He may be a monk ; he may be a saint ; but a man he is not. 
 And now, more than ever, do we want true and genuine men. 
 No previous age has had so much work to do, and, to accom- 
 plish that work, we need robust and vigorous natures, whose 
 every function has been freely exercised without let or hindrance. 
 Never before, was the practice of life so arduous ; never were 
 the problems presented to the human mind so numerous, or so 
 complicated. Every addition to our knowledge, every fresh 
 idea, opens up new difficulties, and gives birth to new combina- 
 tions. Under this accumulated pressure we shall assuredly 
 sink, if we imitate the credulity of our forefathers, who allowed 
 their energies to be cramped and weakened by those pernicious 
 notions, which the clergy, partly from ignorance, and partly 
 from interest, have, in every age, palmed on the people, and 
 have, thereby, diminished the national happiness, and retarded 
 the inarch of national prosperity. 
 
 In the same way, we constantly hear of the evils of wealth, 
 and of the sinfulness of loving money ; although it is certain 
 that, after the love of knowledge, there is no one passion which 
 has done so much good to mankind as the love of money. It 
 is to the love of money that we owe all trade and commerce ; 
 in other words, the possession of every comfort and luxury which 
 our own country is unable to supply. Trade and commerce 
 have made us familiar with the productions of many lands, have 
 awakened curiosity, have widened our ideas by bringing us in 
 contact with nations of various manners, speech, and thought, 
 have supplied an outlet for energies which would otherwise have 
 been pent up and wasted, have accustomed men to habits of 
 enterprise, forethought, and calculation, have, moreover, com- 
 municated to us many arts of great utility, and have put us in 
 possession of some of the most valuable remedies with which 
 we are acquainted, either to save life or to lessen pain. These 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 319 
 
 things we owe to the love of money. If theologians could suc- 
 ceed in their desire to destroy that love, all these things would 
 cease, and we should relapse into comparative barbarism. The 
 love of money, like all our appetites, is liable to abuse ; but to 
 declaim against it as evil in itself, and, above all, to represent 
 it as a feeling, the indulgence of which provokes the wrath of 
 God, is to betray an ignorance, natural, perhaps, in former ages, 
 but shameful in our time, particularly when it proceeds from 
 men who give themselves out as public teachers, and profess 
 that it is their mission to enlighten the world. 
 
 Injurious, however, as all this is to the best interests of 
 society, it is nothing in comparison with the doctrines formerly 
 advocated by the Scotch divines. What their ideas were, I 
 have shown from their own sermons, the reading of which has 
 been the most painful literary task I ever undertook, since, in 
 addition to the narrowness and the dogmatism which even the 
 best of such compositions contain, there is, in these productions, 
 a hardness of heart, an austerity of temper, a want of sympathy 
 with human happiness, and a hatred of human nature, such as 
 have rarely been exhibited in any age, and, I rejoice to think, have 
 never been exhibited in any other Protestant country. These 
 things, I have resuscitated from the oblivion in which they have 
 long been buried, partly because it was necessary to do so in order 
 to understand the history of the Scotch mind, and partly because 
 I desired to show what the tendency of theologians is, when 
 that tendency is uncontrolled. Protestants, generally, are too 
 apt to suppose that there is something in their creed which pro- 
 tects them against those hurtful extravagancies which have been, 
 and, to a certain extent, still are, practised in the Catholic Church. 
 Never was a greater mistake. There is but one protection against 
 the tyranny of any class ; and that is, to give that class very little 
 power. Whatever the pretensions of any body of men may be, 
 however smooth their language, and however plausible their 
 claims, they are sure to abuse power, if much of it is conferred on 
 them. The entire history of the world affords no instance to the 
 contrary. In Catholic countries, France alone excepted, the clergy 
 have more authority than in Protestant countries. Therefore, in 
 Catholic countries, they do more harm than in Protestant coun- 
 ties, and their peculiar views are developed with greater freedom. 
 The difference depends, not on the nature of the creed, but on the 
 power of the class. This is very apparent in Scotland, where the 
 clergy, being supreme, did, Protestants though they were, imitate 
 the ascetic, the unsocial, and the cruel doctrines, which, in the 
 Catholic Church, gave rise to convents, fastings, scourgings, and 
 all the other apphances of an uncouth and ungenial superstition. 
 
320 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 Indeed, the Scotch divines, in some of their theories, went 
 beyond any section of the Catholic Church, except the Spanish. 
 They sought to destroy, not only human pleasures, but also 
 human affections. They held that our affections are neces- 
 sarily connected with our lusts, and that we must, therefore, wean 
 ourselves from them as earthly vanities.^®’’ A Christian had no 
 business with love or sympathy. He had his own soul to at- 
 tend to, and that was enough for him. Let him look to him- 
 self. On Sunday, in particular, he must never think of benefit- 
 ing others ; and the Scotch clergy did not hesitate to teach the 
 people, that on that day it was sinful to save a vessel in dis- 
 tress, and that it was a proof of religion to leave ship and crew 
 to perish.'®® They might go ; none but their wives and chil- 
 dren would suffer, and that was nothing in comparison with 
 breaking the Sabbath. So, too, did the clergy teach, that on no 
 occasion must food or shelter be given to a starving man, unless his 
 opinions were orthodox.'®® What need for him to live Indeed, 
 they taught that it was a sin to tolerate his notions at all, and 
 that the proper course was, to visit him with sharp and imme- 
 diate punishment.®"® Going yet further, they broke the domes- 
 
 “ A Christian should mortifie his affections, which are his predominant lusts, 
 to which our affections are so much joined, and our soul doth so much go out after.” 
 Gh-aij'n Spiritual Warfare, p. 29. “ That blessed work of weaning of affections from 
 all things that are here.” Gray's Great and Precious Promises, p. 86. 
 
 “ One of our more northern ministers, whose parish lies along the coast be- 
 tween Spey and Findorn, made some fishermen do penance for sabbath-breaking, in 
 going out to sea, though purely with endeavour to save a vessel in distress by a 
 storm.” Letters from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland, vol. i, p. 173. 
 
 i9» 4( ff jjg master of a family may, and ought to, deny an act of humanity or hos- 
 pitality to strangers that are false teachers.” Rutherford's Free Disputation against 
 Pretended Liberty of Conscience, p. 176. “ The Holy Ghost forbiddeth the master of 
 every Christian family to owne a hereticke as a guest.” Ibid., p. 219. See also p. 236. 
 
 200 41 tolleration of all religions is not farre from blasphemy.” 
 
 Rutherford's Free Disputation against Pretended Liberty of Conscience, p. 20. “ If 
 
 wolves be permitted to teach what is right in their own erroneous conscience, and 
 there be no ‘ Magistrate to put them to shame,’ Judg. xviii. 7, and no King to pun- 
 ish them, then godlinesse and all that concernes the first Table of the Law must be 
 marred.” Ibid., p. 230. “ Wilde and atheisticall liberty of conscience,” p. 337. 
 
 “Cursed toleration.” p. 400. See also, in the same work (pp. 110, 244), Ruther- 
 ford’s remarks on the murder of Servetus. In 1645, Baillie, who was then in Lon- 
 don, writes, “ The Independents here plead for a tolleration both for themselfes 
 and other sects. My Dissuasive is come in time to doe service here. We hope 
 God will assist us to remonstrate the wickedness of such an tolleration.” And on 
 account of the Independents wishing to show common charity towards persons 
 who differed in opinions from themselves, Baillie writes next year (1646), “ The 
 Independents has the least zeale to the truth of God of any men we know.” Bail- 
 lie's Letters and Journals, vol. ii. pp. 328, 361. Blair, who was in London in 1649, 
 was sorely vexed with “ the most illegal, irreligious, and wicked proceedings and 
 actings of the sectarian army ; ” one of their crimes being the attempt “ to ruin re- 
 ligion by their toleration.” Continuation of the Autobiography of Mr. Robert Blair, 
 Minister of St. Andrews, p. 213. For other evidence of this persecuting spirit, see 
 Dickson's Truth's Victory over Error, pp. 159, 163, 199-202 ; Abernethy's Physicke 
 for the Soule, p. 215 ; Durham's Exposition of the Song of Solomon, p. 147 ; Dur- 
 
DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 321 
 
 tic ties, diiid. set parents against their oxfspnng. They taught 
 the father to smite the unbelieving child, and to slay his own 
 boy sooner than allow him to propagate error.®®* As if this 
 were not enough, they tried to extirpate another affection, even 
 more sacred and more devoted still. They laid their rude and 
 merciless hands on the holiest passion of which our nature is 
 capable, the love of a mother for her son. Into that sanctuary, 
 they dared to intrude ; into that, they thrust their gaunt and un- 
 gentle forms. ^ If a mother held opinions of which they disap- 
 proved they did not scruple to invade her household, take away 
 her children, and forbid her to hold communication with them.®®* 
 Or if, perchance, her son had incurred their displeasure, they 
 were not satisfied with forcible separation, but they laboured to 
 corrupt her^ heart, and harden it against her child, so that she 
 might be privy to the act. In one of these cases mentioned in 
 the records of the church of Glasgow, the Kirk-Session of that 
 town summoned before them a woman, merely because she had 
 received into her house her own son, after the clergy had excom- 
 municated him. So effectually did they work upon her mind, 
 that they induced her to promise, not only that she would 
 shut her door against the child, but that she would aid in 
 bringing him to punishment. She had sinned in loving him ; 
 she had sinned, even, in giving him shelter ^ but, says the rec- 
 ord, “ she promised not to do it again, and to tell the magis- 
 trates when he comes next to her.”®®* 
 
 She promised not to do it again. She promised to forget 
 him, whom she had borne of her womb and suckled at her 
 breast. She promised to forget her boy, who had ofttimes 
 crept to her knees, and had slept in her bosom, and whose ten- 
 der frame she had watched over and nursed. All the dearest 
 
 ham's Commentarie upon the Book of the Revelation, pp. 141, 143, 330 ; and Shields' 
 Hind let loose, p. 168. 
 
 “ A third benefit (which is a branch of the former), is zeal in the godly against 
 false teachers, who shall be so tender of the truth and glory of God and the safety 
 of the church (all which are endangered by error), that it shall overcome natural 
 affection in them 5 so that parents shall not spave theit own children^ being seducers, 
 but shall either by an heroick act (such as was in Phinehas, Nund). xxv. 8), them- 
 selves judge him worthy to die, and give sentence and execute it, or cause him to be 
 
 punished, by bringing him to the Magistrate,” &c » The toleration of a 
 
 false religion in doctrine or worship, and the exemption of the erroneous from civil 
 punishment, is no more lawful under the New Testament than it was under the Old.” 
 A.n Exposition of the Prophecie of Zechariah, in Hutcheson's Exposition on the Minor 
 Prophets, vol. iii. p. 203, 8vo, 1664. 
 
 ” Selections from the Registers of the Presbytery of Lanark, pp. x. 33, 66, 63, 
 
 66 , ’IZ. 
 
 I copy the exact words from WodrouPs Collections upon the Lives of Ministers 
 of the Church of Scotland, vol. ii. part ii. p. Yl. An order had been previously ob- 
 tained from the government, “ requiring the magistrates to expell furth of the Toun 
 all excommunicated persons.” 
 
322 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT. 
 
 associations of the past, all that the most exquisite form of 
 human atfection can give or receive, all that delights the mem- 
 ory, all that brightens the prospect of life, all vanished, all 
 passed away from the mind of this poor woman, at the bidding 
 of her spiritual masters. At one fell swoop, all were gone. So 
 potent were the arts of these men, that they persuaded the 
 mother to conspire against her son, that she might deliver him 
 up to them. They defiled her nature, by purging it of its love. 
 From that day, her soul was polluted. She was lost to herself, 
 as well as lost to her son. To hear of such things, is enough to 
 make one's blood surge again, and raise a tempest in our inmost 
 nature. But to have seen them, to have lived in the midst of 
 them, and yet not to have rebelled against them, is to us utterly 
 inconceivable, and proves in how complete a thraldom the 
 Scotch were held, and how thoroughly their minds, as well as 
 their bodies, were enslaved. 
 
 What more need I say ? What further evidence need I 
 bring to elucidate the real character of one of the most detest- 
 able tyrannies ever seen on the earth ? When the Scotch Kirk 
 was at the height of its power, we may search history in vain 
 for any institution which can compete with it, except the Span- 
 ish Inquisition. Between these two, there is a close and inti- 
 mate analogy. Both were intolerant, both were cruel, both made 
 war upon the finest parts of human nature, and both destroyed 
 every vestige of religious freedom. One difference, however, 
 there was, of vast importance. In political matters, the Church, 
 which was servile in Spain, was rebellious in Scotland. Hence, 
 the Scotch always had one direction in which they could speak 
 and act with unrestrained liberty. In politics, they found their 
 vent. There, the mind was free. And this was their salvation. 
 This saved them from the fate of Spain, by securing to them 
 the exercise of those faculties which otherwise would have lain 
 dormant, if, indeed, they had not been entirely destroyed by that 
 long and enfeebling servitude in which their clergy retained them, 
 and from which, but for this favourable circumstance, no escape 
 would have been open. 
 
CHAPTER VL 
 
 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT DUEING THE EIGH- 
 TEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 To complete the history and analysis of the Scotch mind, I have 
 now to examine the peculiar intellectual movement which ap- 
 peared in the eighteenth century, and which, for several rea- 
 sons, deserves careful attention. It was essentially a reaction 
 against that theological spirit which predominated during the 
 seventeenth century. Such a reaction would hardly have been 
 possible, except for the fact which I have already noticed, name- 
 ly, that the political activity which produced the rebellion 
 against the Stuarts, saved the Scotch mind from stagnating, 
 and prevented that deep slumber into which the progress of 
 superstition would naturally have thrown it. The long and 
 stubborn conflict with a despotic government, kept alive a cer- 
 tain alertness and vigour of understanding, which survived the 
 struggle that gave it birth. When the contest was ended, and 
 peace was restored, the faculties which, for three generations, 
 had been exercised in resisting the executive authority, sought 
 other employment, and found another field in which they could 
 disport themselves. Hence it was, that the boldness which, in 
 the seventeenth century, was practical, became, in the eigh- 
 teenth century, speculative, and produced a literature, which 
 attempted to unsettle former opinions, and to disturb the 
 ancient landmarks of the human mind. The movement was 
 revolutionary, and bore the same relation to ecclesiastical tyran- 
 ny, which the previous movement had borne to poHtical tyranny. 
 But this new rebellion had one striking characteristic. In near- 
 ly every other country, when the intellect has fairly arrayed 
 itself against the exclusive pretensions of the Church, it has 
 happened that the secular philosophy, which has been engen- 
 dered, has been an inductive philosophy, taking for its basis 
 individual and specific experience, and seeking, by that means, 
 
324 AN EXAMINATION OP THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 to overthrow the general and traditional notions, on which all 
 church power is founded. The plan has been, to refuse to 
 accept principles which could not be substantiated by facts ; 
 while the opposite and theological plan is, to force the facts to 
 yield to the principles. In the former case, experience precedes 
 theory ; in the latter case, theory precedes experience, and con- 
 trols it. In theology, certain principles are taken for granted ; 
 and, it being deemed impious to question them, all that remains 
 for us is to reason from them downwards. This is the deduc- 
 tive method. On the other hand, the inductive method will 
 concede nothing, but insists upon reasoning upwards, and de- 
 mands that we shall have the liberty of ascertaining the prin- 
 ciples for ourselves. In a complete scheme of our knowledge, 
 and when all our resources are fully developed and marshalled 
 into order, as they must eventually be, the two methods will 
 be, not hostile, but supplementary, and will be combined into a 
 single system. At present, however, we are very far from such 
 a result ; and not oidy is every mind more prone to one method 
 than to another, but we find, historically, that different ages 
 and different countries have been characterized by the extent 
 to which one of these two schemes has predominated ; and we 
 also find, that a study of this antagonism is the surest way of 
 understanding the intellectual condition of any period. 
 
 That the inductive philosophy is even more marked by its 
 secular tendencies than by its scientific ones, will be evident to 
 whoever observes the epochs in which it has been most active, 
 and has possessed most adherents. Of this, the history of the 
 French mind, in the eighteenth century, affords a good instance, 
 where, after the death of Louis XIV., we may clearly trace the 
 connexion between the growth of the inductive method, and the 
 subsequent overthrow of the Gallican church. In England, too, 
 the rise of the Baconian philosophy, with its determination to 
 subordinate ancient principles to modern experience, was the 
 heaviest blow which has ever been inflicted on the theologians, 
 whose method is to begin, not with experience; but with prin- 
 ciples, which are said to be inscrutable, and which we are bound 
 to believe without further difficulty. And I need hardly remind 
 the reader, that scarcely was that philosophy established among 
 us, when it produced those bold inquiries which quickly ended 
 in the downfall of the English Church under Charles I. From 
 that terrible defeat, our clergy did, for a time, partly rally ; but 
 as their apparent success, in the reign of Charles II., was owing 
 to political changes, and not to social ones, they were unable to 
 recover their hold over society, and, unless the nation should 
 retrograde, there is no possibihty that they ever should recover 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 325 
 
 it. Over the inferior order of minds, they still wield great 
 influence ; but the Baconian philosophy, by bringing their 
 favourite method into disrepute, has sapped the very base of 
 their system. From the moment that their mode of investiga- 
 tion was discredited, the secret of their power was gone. From 
 the moment that men began to insist on inquiring into the 
 validity of first principles, instead of accepting them without 
 inquiry, and humbly submitting to them as matters of faith and 
 of necessary belief ; from that moment, the theologians, driven 
 from one post to another, and constantly receding before the 
 pressure of advancing knowledge, have been forced to abandon 
 entrenchment after entrenchment, until what they have retained 
 of their former territory is hardly worth the struggle. As a last 
 resource, they, at the close of the eighteenth century, determined 
 to use the weapons of their opponents ; and Paley and his suc- 
 cessors, enlarging the scheme which Kay and Derham had fee- 
 bly sketched, endeavoured, by a skilful employment of the induc- 
 tive method, to compensate their party for the failure of the 
 deductive one. But their project, though ably conceived, has 
 come to naught. It is now generally admitted, that nothing 
 can be made of it, and that it is impossible to establish the old 
 theological premises by a chain of inductive reasoning. Respect- 
 ing this, the most eminent philosophers agree with the most 
 eminent theologians ; and, since the time of Kant in Germany, 
 and of Coleridge in England, none of our ablest men, even 
 among divines themselves, have recurred to a plan which Paley, 
 indeed, pursued with vigour, but of which our Bridgewater 
 Treatises, our Prize-Essays, and such schoolboy productions, 
 are poor and barren imitations. ‘ No great thinkers now follow 
 this course in matters of religion. On the contrary, they prefer 
 the safer, as well as the more philosophic, method, of dealing 
 with these subjects on transcendental grounds, frankly con- 
 fessing that they elude the grasp of that inductive philosophy 
 which, in the department of science, has achieved such signal 
 triumphs. 
 
 The opposition of these two methods, and the inapplicability 
 
 * Of course, I say this merely in reference to their theological bearings. Some 
 of the Bridgewater Treatises, such as Bell’s, Buckland’s, and Prout’s, had great sci- 
 entific merit at the time of their appearance, and may even now be studied with 
 advantage ; but the religious portion of them is pitiable, and shows either that their 
 heart was not in their work, or else that the subject was too wide for them. At all 
 events, it is to be hoped that we shall never again see men of equal eminence hiring 
 themselves out as paid advocates, and receiving fees to support particular opinions. 
 It is truly disgraceful that such great speculative questions, instead of being sub- 
 jected to fair and disinterested argument, with a view of eliciting the truth, should 
 be turned into a pecuniary transaction, in which any one of much money and little 
 wit, can bribe as many persons as he likes, to prejudice the public ear in favour of 
 his own theories. 
 
326 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 of the inductive method to theological pursuits being thus ap- 
 parent, it is not strange that the Scotch should have adopted 
 one of the methods with great zeal, and to the almost complete 
 exclusion of the other. Scotland, being essentially theological, 
 followed the theological plan. The intellectual history of that 
 country, in the seventeenth century, is almost entirely the his- 
 tory of theology. With the single exception of Napier, who 
 was horn in the middle of the sixteenth century, all the most 
 vigorous thinkers were divines. In physical science, scarcely 
 any thing was done.® There was no poetry, no drama, no origi- 
 nal philosophy, no fine compositions, no secular literature, now 
 worth reading.® The only men of real influence, were the 
 clergy. They governed the nation, and the pulpit was the chief 
 engine of their power. From the pulpit, they moved all classes 
 and all sorts of intellects ; the highest, as well as the lowest. 
 There, they instructed them, and threatened them ; saying 
 whatever they liked, and knowing that what they said would he 
 
 ® “ It is humiliating to have to remark, that the notices of comets which we de- 
 rive from Scotch writers down to this time (1682) contain nothing but accounts of 
 the popular fancies regarding them. Practical astronomy seems to have then been 
 unknown in our country ; and hence, while in other lands, men were carefully ob- 
 serving, computing, and approaching to just conclusions regarding these illustrious 
 strangers of the sky, our diarists could only tell us how many yards long they 
 seemed to be, what ejfects were apprehended from them in the way of wars and 
 pestilence, and how certain pious divines ‘improved’ them for spiritual edifi- 
 cation. Early in this century Scotland had produced one great philosopher, who 
 had supplied his craft with the mathematical instrument by which complex prob- 
 lems, such as the movements of comets, were alone to be solved. It might have 
 been expected that the country of Napier, seventy years after his time, would have 
 had many sons capable of applying his key to such mysteries of nature. But no one 
 had arisen — nor did any rise for fifty years onward, when at length Colin Maclaurin 
 unfolded in the Edinburgh University the sublime philosophy of Newton. There 
 could not be a more expressive signification of the character of the seventeenth 
 century in Scotland. Our unhappy contentions about external religious matters 
 had absorbed the whole genius of the people, rendering to us the age of Cowley, of 
 Waller, and of Milton, as barren of elegant literature, as that of Horrocks, of Halley, 
 and of Newton, was of science.” Chambers' Domestic A.nnals of Scotland, vol. ii. 
 pp. 444, 445. 
 
 ® “ Thus, during the whole seventeenth century, the English were gradually re- 
 fining their language and their taste; in Scotland, the former was much debased, 
 and the latter almost entirely lost.” History of Scotland, book viii., in Robertson' s 
 Works, p. 260. 
 
 “ But the taste and science, the genius and the learning of the age, were ab- 
 sorbed in the gulph of religious controversy. At a time when the learning of Sel- 
 den, and the genius of Milton, conspired to adorn England, the Scots were reduced 
 to such writers as Baillie, Rutherford, Guthrie, and the two Gillespies.” Laing's 
 History of Scotland, vol. hi. p. 510. “ From the Restoration down to the Union, the 
 only author of eminence whom Scotland produced was Burnet.” Ibid., vol. iv. p. 406. 
 
 “The seventeenth century, fatal to the good taste of Italy, threw a total night 
 ov6r Scotland.” .... “Notone writer, who does the least credit to the nation 
 flourished during the century from 1616 to 1715, excepting Burnet, whose name 
 would, indeed, honour the brightest period. In particular, no poet whose works 
 merit preservation arose. By a singular fatality, the century which stands highest 
 in English history and genius, is one of the darkest in those of Si'.otland.” Ancient 
 Scotish Poems, edited by John Pinkerton, vol. i. pp. iii. iv., London, 1786. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 327 
 
 believed. * But all tbeir sermons, and all their controversial 
 
 writings, are eminently deductive ; not one of them attempts 
 an inductive argument. The bare idea of such a thing never 
 entered their heads. They assumed the truth of their own re- 
 ligious and moral notions, most of which they had borrowed 
 from antiquity ; they made those notions the major premises of 
 their syllogisms, and from them they reasoned downwards, till 
 they obtained their conclusions. They never suspected that 
 premises, taken from ancient times, might be the result of the 
 inductions of those times, and that, as knowledge advanced, the 
 inductions might need revising. They assumed, that God has 
 ^ven to us first principles, and that He, having revealed them, 
 it would ill become us to scrutinize them. That He had re- 
 vealed them, they took for granted, and deemed it unnecessary 
 to prove.® Their method being thus entirely deductive, all they 
 were concerned with was, to beware that no error crept in be- 
 tween the premises and the conclusions. And this part of their 
 task they accomplished with great ability. They were acute 
 dialecticians, and rarely blundered in what is termed the formal 
 part of logic. In dealing with their premises after they ob- 
 tained them, they were extremely skilful ; how they obtained 
 them, they were very heedless. That was a point they never 
 examined with any thing approaching to impartiality. Accord- 
 ing to their method, all that was requisite was, to draw infer- 
 ences from what had been supernaturally communicated. On 
 the other hand, the inductive method would have taught them 
 that the first question was, whether or not they had been su- 
 pernaturally communicated They, as deductive reasoners, 
 assumed the very preliminaries which inductive reasoners would 
 have disputed. They proceeded from generals to particulars, 
 instead of from particulars to generals. And they would not 
 allow either themselves or others to sift the general proposi- 
 tions, which were to cover and control the particular facts. It 
 was enough for them that the wider propositions were already 
 established, and were to be treated according to the rules of 
 
 * Ray, who visited Scotl.nnd in 1661, could not suppress a little professional envy, 
 when he saw how much higher ecclesiastics were rated there than in England. He 
 says, “ the people here frequent their churches much better than in England, and 
 have their ministers in more esteem and veneration.” Ray's Memorials, edited by 
 l)r. Lankester for the Ray Society, p. 161. 
 
 ® “ Believing ignorance is much better than rash and presumptuous knowledge. 
 Ask not a reason of these things, but rather adore and tremble at the mystery and 
 majesty of them.” Binning' s Sermons, vol. i. p. 143. Even Biblical criticism was 
 prohibited ; and Dickson says of the diiferent books of the Bible, “ We are not to 
 trouble ourselves about the name of the writer, or time of writing of any part there- 
 of, especially because God of set purpose concealeth the name sundry times of the 
 writer, and the time when it was written.” Dixon's Explication of the Psalms, p. 
 291. 
 
328 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 the old and syllogistic logic. Indeed, they were so convinced 
 of the impropriety of the inductive method, that they did not 
 hesitate to assert, that it was by means of the syllogism that 
 the Deity communicated His wishes to man.® 
 
 It was naturally to he expected, that the clergy , holding 
 these views respecting the best means of arriving at truth, should 
 do all in their power to bring over the nation to their side, 
 and should labour to make their own method of investigation 
 entirely supersede the opposite method. Nor was this a very 
 difficult task. The prevailing credulity was one great point in 
 their favour, inasmuch as it made men more willing to accept 
 propositions than to scrutinize them. When the propositions 
 were accepted, nothing was left but to reason from them j and 
 the most active intellects in Scotland, being constantly engaged 
 in this process, acquired complete mastery over it, and the dex- 
 terity they displayed increased its repute. Besides this, the cler- 
 gy, who were its zealous champions, had monopolized all the 
 sources of education, both public and private. In no other Prot- 
 estant country, have they exercised such control over the univer- 
 sities ; not only the doctrines taught, but also the mode of teach- 
 ing them, being, in Scotland, placed under the supervision of the 
 Church." This power they, of course, used to propagate their 
 own plan of obtaining truth ; and, as long as their power re- 
 mained undiminished, it was hardly possible that the opposite, 
 or inductive, plan should gain a hearing. Over grammar- 
 schools, the clergy possessed an authority fully equal to that 
 which they had in the universities.® They also appointed and 
 removed, at their own pleasure, teachers of every grade, from 
 village schoolmasters to tutors in private families.® In this 
 
 * “Christ from heaven proposeth a syllogism to Saul’s fury.” Rutherfords 
 
 Christ Dying, p. 180. “ The conclusion of a practical syllogism, whereby the be- 
 
 liever concludeth from the gospel that he shall be saved.” Durham s Law Unseated, 
 p. 97. “ All assurance is by practical syllogism, the first whereof must needs be a 
 
 Scripture truth.” Cray's Precious Promises, _ 
 
 Bower of the University of Edinburgh^ vol. i. p. 217) says, Ihenisto- 
 
 ry of the universities and of the church is, in modern Europe, and perhaps in every 
 other civilized portion of the globe, very nearly connected. They are more nearly 
 connected in Scotland than in any other civilized country called Protestant ; because 
 the General Assembly have the legal power of inquiring into the economy oi t le 
 institutions, both as it respects the mode of teaching, and the doctrines, whether 
 religious, moral, or physical, which are taught.” Spalding, under the year 1039, 
 gives an instance of the power of the General Assembly in “ the College ot Ulu 
 Aberdeen.” Spalding's History of the Troubles, vol. i. p. 178. See also, on the au. 
 thovity exercised by the General Assembly over the universities, a curious little 
 called The Government and Order of the Church of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1^90) 
 
 * In 1632, the “ ministers” of Perth were greatly displeased because John Kow 
 was made master of the grammar-school without their consent. The Chronicle of 
 Perth, p. 33, where it is stated that, consequently, “ thair wes much outcrying in 
 
 the pulpett.” _ 1 3 n 
 
 “ See, for instance. Minutes of the Presbyteries of St, Andrews and Cupar, pp. do, 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 329 
 
 way, each generation, as it arose, was brought under their in- 
 fluence, and made subject to their notions. Taking the mind 
 of Scotland while it was young and flexible, they bent it to 
 their own method. Hence, that method became supreme ; it 
 reigned every where ; not a voice was lifted up against it ; and 
 no one had an idea that there was more than one path by which 
 truth could be reached, or that the human understanding was 
 of any use, except to deal deductively with premisses, which 
 were not to be inductively examined. 
 
 The inductive or analytic spirit being thus unknown, and the 
 deductive or synthetic spirit being alone favoured, it happened 
 that, when, early in the eighteenth century, the circumstances 
 already mentioned gave rise to a great intellectual movement, 
 that movement, though new in its results, was not new in the 
 method by which the results were obtained. A secular philoso- 
 phy was, indeed, established, and the ablest men, instead of 
 being theological, became scientific. But so completely had the 
 theological plan occupied Scotland, that even philosophers were 
 unable to escape from its method, and, as I am about to show, 
 the inductive method exercised no influence over them. This 
 most curious fact is the key to the history of Scotland in the 
 eighteenth century, and explains many events which would 
 otherwise appear incompatible with each other. It also sug- 
 gests an analogy with Germany, where the deductive method 
 has, for a long period, been equally prevalent, owing to precisely 
 the same causes. In both countries, the secular movement of 
 the eighteenth century was unable to become inductive ; and 
 this intellectual affinity between two such otherwise different 
 nations, is, I have no doubt, the principal reason why the 
 Scotch and German philosophies have so remarkably acted and 
 reacted upon each other j Kant and Hamilton being the most 
 finished specimens of their intercourse. To this, England 
 forms a complete contrast. For more than a hundred and fifty 
 years after the death of Bacon, the greatest English thinkers, 
 Newton and Harvey excepted, were eminently inductive ; nor 
 was it until the nineteenth century that signs were clearly ex- 
 hibited of a counter-movement, and an attempt was made to 
 return in some degree to the deductive method. This, we are, 
 
 83, 84, 118. One of the entries is, that in January 1648, “The Presbyterie ordain- 
 ed that all young students, who waittes on noblemen or gentlemen within thir 
 bounds, aither to teach ther children, or catechise and pray in ther families, to fre- 
 quent the Presbyterie, that the brether may cognosce what they ar reading, and 
 what proficiencie they make in ther studies, and to know also ther behaviour in the 
 said families, and of their affectione to the Covenant and present religmne.” p. 118. 
 Compare Selections frwn the Registers of the Presbytery of Lannrlc, pp. 56, 65. 
 
 This I have already touched upon in the first volume, pp. 636, fiSt. Hereaf- 
 
330 
 
 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 in many respects, justified in doing, because, in tbe progress of 
 our knowledge, we have, by a long course of induction, arrived at 
 several conclusions which we may safely treat deductively ; that 
 is to say, we may make them the major premisses of new argu- 
 ments. The same process has been seen in France, where the 
 exclusively inductive philosophy of the eighteenth century pre- 
 ceded a partial resuscitation of deductive philosophy in the 
 nineteenth century. In Scotland, however, there have been no 
 such vicissitudes. In that country, men have always been de- 
 ductive ; even the most original thinkers being unable to liber- 
 ate themselves from the universal tendency, and being forced to 
 accept a method which time had consecrated, and which was 
 interwoven with all the associations of the national mind. 
 
 To understand the investigation into which we are about to 
 enter, the reader must firmly seize, and keep before his eyes, 
 the essential difference between deduction, which reasons from 
 principles, and induction, which reasons to principles. He 
 must remember, that induction proceeds from smaller to the 
 greater ; deduction, from the greater to the smaller. Induction 
 is from particulars to generals, and from the senses to the ideas ; 
 deduction is from generals to particulars, and from the ideas to 
 the senses. By induction, we rise from the concrete to the 
 abstract ; by deduction, we descend from the abstract to the 
 concrete. Accompanying this distinction, there are certain 
 qualities of mind, which, with extremely few exceptions, char- 
 acterize the age, nation, or individual, in which one of these 
 methods is predominant. The inductive philosopher is naturally 
 cautious, patient, and somewhat creeping ; while the deductive 
 philosopher is more remarkable for boldness, dexterity, and often 
 rashness. The deductive thinker invariably assumes certain 
 premisses, which are quite different from the hypotheses essen- 
 tial to the best induction. These premisses are sometimes 
 borrowed from antiquity ; sometimes they are taken from the 
 notions which happen to prevail in the surrounding society ; 
 
 ter, and in my special history of the English mind, I shall examine it carefully and 
 in detail. The revival of the old logic is a great symptom of it. Works like those 
 of Whately, De Morgan, and Mansel, could not have been produced in the eigh- 
 teenth century, or, at all events, if by some extraordinary combination of events 
 they had been produced, they would have found no readers. As it is, they have ex- 
 ercised a very extensive and very salutary influence ; and, although Archbishop 
 Whately was not well acquainted with the history of formal logic, his exposition ot 
 its ordinary processes is so admirably clear, that he has probably contributed more 
 than any other man towards impressing his contemporaries with a sense of the 
 value of deductive reasoning. He has, however, not done sufficient justice to the 
 opposite school, and has, indeed, fallen into the old academical error of supposing 
 that all reasoning is by syllogism. W^e might just as well say that all movement is 
 by descent. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 331 
 
 sometimes they are the result of a man’s own peculiar organi- 
 zation; and sometimes, as we shall presently see, they are 
 deliberately invented, with the object of arriving, not at truth, 
 but at an approximation to truth. Finally, and to sum up the 
 whole, we may say that a deductive habit, being essentially 
 synthetic, always tends to multiply original principles or laws ; 
 while the tendency of an inductive habit is to diminish those 
 laws by gradual and successive analysis. 
 
 These being the two fundamental divisions of human inquiry, 
 it is surely a most remarkable fact in the history of Scotland, 
 that, during the eighteenth century, all the great thinkers 
 belonged to the former division, and that, in the very few in- 
 stances of induction which their works contain, it is evident, 
 from the steps they subsequently took, that they regarded such 
 inductions as unimportant in themselves, and as only valuable 
 in so far as they supplied the premisses for another and deduc- 
 tive investigation. As the various departments of our knowl- 
 edge have never yet been co-ordinated and treated as a whole, 
 probably no one is aware of the universality of this movement 
 in Scotland, and of the extent to which it pervaded every 
 science, and governed every phase of thought. To prove, there- 
 fore, the force with which it acted, I now purpose to examine 
 its working in all the principal forms of speculation, whether 
 physical or moral, and to show that in each the same method 
 was adopted. In doing this, I must, for the sake of clearness, 
 proceed according to a natural arrangement of the different 
 topics ; but I wdll, whenever it is possible, also foUow the 
 chronological order in which the Scotch mind unfolded itself ; 
 so that we may understand, not only the character of that re- 
 markable literature, but likewise the steps of its growth, and 
 the astonishing vigour with which it emancipated itself from 
 the shackles which superstition had imposed. 
 
 The beginning of the great secular philosophy of Scotland 
 is undoubtedly due to Francis Hutcheson." This eminent 
 man, though born in Ireland, was of Scotch family, and was 
 educated in the University of Glasgow, where he received the 
 appointment of Professor of Philosophy in the year 1729." By 
 his lectures, and by his works, he diffused a taste for bold inquiries 
 
 See a letter from Sir James Mackintosh to Parr, in Mackintosh's Memoirs^ Lon- 
 don, 1835, vol. i. p. 334. “ To Hutcheson the taste for speculation in Scotland, 
 
 and all the philosophical opinions (except the Berkleian Humism) may be traced.” 
 M. Cousin {Histoire de la Philosophic, premiere serie, vol. iv. p. 35, Paris, 1846) 
 observes, that before Hutcheson “ il n’avait paru en Ecosse ni un ecrivain ni un pro- 
 fesseur de philosophie un peu remarquable.” 
 
 2]/tler's Memoirs of Karnes, Edinburgh, 1814, vol. i. p. 223. Hutcheson's Moral 
 Philosophy, vol. i. p. iii., London, 1755, 4to. 
 
332 AN EXAMINATION OP THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 into subjects of tbe deepest importance, but concerning which 
 it had previously been supposed nothing fresh was to be learned ; 
 the Scotch having hitherto been taught, that all truths respect- 
 ing our own nature, which were essential to be known, had been 
 already revealed. Hutcheson, however, did not fear to construct 
 a system of morals according to a plan entirely secular, and no 
 example of which had been exhibited in Scotland before his 
 time. The principles from which he started, were not theo- 
 logical, but metaphysical. They were collected from what he 
 deemed the natural constitution of the mind, instead of being 
 collected, as heretofore, from what had been supernaturally 
 communicated. He, therefore, shifted the field of study. 
 Though he was a firm believer in revelation, he held that the 
 best rules of conduct could be ascertained without its assistance, 
 and could be arrived at by the unaided wit of man ; and that, 
 when arrived at, they were, in their aggregate, to be respected 
 as the Law of Nature.'® This confidence in the power of the 
 human understanding was altogether new in Scotland, and its 
 appearance forms an epoch in the national literature. Previ- 
 ously, men had been taught that the understanding was a rash 
 and foolish thing, which ought to be repressed, and which was 
 unfit to cope with the problems presented to ik" Hutcheson, 
 however, held that it was quite able to deal with them, but 
 that, to do so, it must be free and unfettered. Hence, he stren- 
 uously advocated that right of private judgment which the 
 Scotch Kirk had not only assailed, but had almost destroyed. 
 He insisted that each person had a right to form his opinion 
 according to the evidence he possessed, and that, this right 
 being inalienable, none but weak minds would abstain from 
 exercising it.'® Every one was to judge according to his own 
 
 “ The intention of Moral Philosophy is to direct men to that course of action 
 which tends most effectually to promote their greatest happiness and perfection ; as 
 far as it can be done by observations and conclusions discoverable from the consti- 
 tution of nature, without any aids of supernatural revelation : these maxims or rules 
 of conduct are therefore reputed as laws of nature, and the system or collection of 
 them is called the Law of Nature.” Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy^ vol. i. p. 1. 
 
 u <i The natural understanding is the most whorish thing in the world.” . . . 
 
 “ The understanding, even in search of truth amongst the creatures, is a rash, pre- 
 cipitate, and unquiet thing.” Rutherford’s Christ Hying, Tp. 181. “ Innocent Adam,” 
 indeed, says Boston, “ Innocent Adam had a stock of gracious abilities, whereby 
 he might have, by the force of moral considerations, brought himself to perform 
 duty aright. But where is that with us ? " Boston's Sermons, p. 66. 
 
 “ A like natural right every intelligent being has about his own opinions, 
 speculative or practical, to judge according to the evidence that appears to him. 
 This right appears from the very constitution of the rational mind, which can assent or 
 dissent solely according to the evidence presented, and naturally desires knowledge. 
 The same considerations show this right to be unalienable : it cannot be subjected 
 to the will of another : though where there is a previous judgment formed concern- 
 ing the superior wisdom of another, or his infallibility, the opinion of this other, to 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 333 
 
 light, and nothing could he gained by inducing men to profess 
 sentiments contrary to their convictions.*® So far, however, was 
 this from being understood, that we found all the little sects 
 quarrelhng among themselves, and abusing each other, merely 
 because their views were different. It was strange to hear how 
 the professors of one creed would stigmatize the professors of 
 other creeds as idolatrous, and would demand that penalties 
 should be inflicted on them. In point of fact, all had much 
 that was good ; and their only real evil was, this love of perse- 
 cution.*^ But the vulcrar deemed every one a heretic who did 
 not believe what they believed ; and this way of thinking had 
 been too much countenanced by the clergy, many of whom felt 
 their vanity offended at the idea of laymen pretending to he 
 wiser than their spiritual teachers, and venturing to disagree 
 with what they said.** 
 
 Such large views of liberty were far in advance of the 
 country in which they were propounded, and could exercise no 
 influence, except over a few thinking men. These, and similar 
 doctrines, were, however, repeated by Hutcheson, in his lectures, 
 every year.** And strange, indeed, they must have seemed. To 
 those who received them, they were utterly subversive of the 
 prevailing theological spirit, which regarded toleration as impi- 
 
 a weak mind, may become sufficient evidence. As to opinions about the Deity, 
 religion, and virtue, this right is further confirmed by all the noblest desires of the 
 soul ; as there can be no virtue, but rather impiety in not adhering to the opinions 
 we think just, and in professing the contrary.” Hutchesoris Moral Philosophy, vol. 
 i. pp. 295, 296. See also vol. ii. p. 311. “Every rational creature has a right to 
 judge for itself in these matters : and as men must assent according to the evidence 
 that appears to them, and cannot command their own assent in opposition to it, this 
 right is plainly unalienable.” 
 
 ** “Thus no man can really change his sentiments, judgments, and inward affec 
 tions, at the pleasure of another, nor can it tend to any good to make him profess 
 what is contrary to his heart.” Hutcheson' s Moral Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 261, 262. 
 
 ” “ Arians and Socinians are idolaters and denyers of God, say the orthodox. 
 They retort upon the orthodox, that they are Tritheists ; and so do other sects ; and 
 thus they spirit up magistrates to persecute. While yet it is plain that in all these 
 sects there are all the same motives to all social virtues from a belief of a moral 
 providence, the same acknowledgments that the goodness of God is the source of 
 all the good we enjoy or hope for, and the same gratitude and resignation to him 
 recommended. Nor do any of their schemes excite men to vices, except that horrid 
 tenet, too common to most of them, the right of persecuting.” Hutcheson's Moral 
 Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 316. See also vol. i. p. 160 ; and Hutcheson's Inquiry into our 
 Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, London, 1738, p. 283. 
 
 w u YfQ know the notions entertained by the vulgar concerning all hereticks ; 
 
 we know the pride of schoolmen and many ecclesiasticks ; how it galls their insolent 
 vanity that any man should assume to himself to be wiser than they in tenets of 
 religion by differing from them.” Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, vol. i. p. 167. 
 
 ** “ As he had occasion every year in the course of his lectures to explain the 
 origin of government, and compare the different forms of it, he took peculiar care, 
 while on that subject, to inculcate the importance of civil and religious liberty to 
 the happiness of mankind.” Beechman's Life of Hutcheson, p. ixxv., prefixed to 
 Hutcheson’s Moral Philosophy. 
 
334 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 ous, and wliicli, seeking to confine the human mind within the 
 limits of foregone conclusions, deemed it a duty to chastize 
 those who overstepped them. In opposition to this, Hutcheson 
 let in the elements of inquiry, of discussion, and of doubt. 
 There is also another point in which his philosophy is memor- 
 able, as the beginning of the great rebellion of Scotch intellect. 
 We saw, in the last chapter, how successfully the teachers of 
 the people had inculcated doctrines of the darkest asceticism, 
 and how naturally those doctrines had arisen out of the enor- 
 mous authority possessed by the Church. Against such notions, 
 Hutcheson set his face strenuously. He rightly supposed, that 
 an admiration of every kind of beauty, so far from being sinful, 
 is essential to a complete and well-balanced mind ; and the 
 most original part of his philosophy consists of the inquiries 
 which he made into the working and origin of our ideas on 
 that subject. Hitherto, the Scotch had been taught that the 
 emotions which beauty excites, were owing to the corruption of 
 our nature, and ought to be repressed. Hutcheson, on the other 
 hand, insisted that they were good in themselves ; that they 
 were part of the general scheme of human affairs, and that they 
 deserved a special and scientific study.®® And with such skill 
 did he investigate them, that, in the opinion of one of the 
 highest living authorities, he is the originator of all subsequent 
 inquiries into these matters ; his being the first attempt to deal 
 with beauty in a broad and comprehensive spirit. 
 
 Not only in speculative views, but also in practical recommen- 
 dations, Hutcheson displayed the same tendency ; every where 
 endeavouring to break down that gloomy fabric which supersti- 
 tion had built up.®® His predecessors, and, indeed, nearly all 
 
 “ “ The ideas of beauty and harmony, like other sensible ideas, are necessarily 
 pleasant to us, as well as immediately so.” Hutcheson' a Inquiry into our Ideas of 
 Beauty and Virtue, p. 11. “ Our sense of Beauty seems designed to give us positive 
 pleasure.” p. 71. “ Beauty gives a favourable presumption of good moral disposi- 
 tions.” p. 257. “ But it is plain we have not in our power the modelling of our 
 
 senses or desires, to form them for a priv.ate interest ; they are fixed for us by the 
 Author of our nature, subservient to the interest of the system ; so that each indi- 
 vidual is made, previously to his own choice, a member of a great body, and affected 
 with the fortunes of the whole ; or at least of many parts of it ; nor can he break 
 himself off at pleasure.” Hutcheson's Essay on the Passions, pp. 105, 106. 
 
 “ Fille de la scholastique, la philosophic moderne est demeuree longtemps 
 etrang^re aux grS,ces, et les Recherches d’Hutcheson presentent, je crois, le premier 
 traite special sur le beau, ecrit par un moderne. Elies ont paru eu 1725, Cette 
 date est presque celle de l’av6nement de I’esthetique dans la philosophic europeenne. 
 L’ouvrage du p^re Andre, en France, est de 1741, celui de Baumgarten, en Alle- 
 magne, est de 1750. Ce n’est pas un petit honneur k Hutcheson d’avoir le premier 
 soumis I’idde du beau k une analyse methodique et reguliere.” Cousin, Histoire de 
 la PhilosophiCy premiere serie, vol. iv. p. 84. 
 
 In his Inquiry into Beauty and Virtue, p. 107, he so completely opposed the 
 prevailing notions, as to assert that “our perception of pleasure is necessary, and 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 335 
 
 his contemporaries who exercised much influence, represented 
 pleasure as immoral, and opposed themselves to the fine arts, 
 which they considered dangerous, as ministering to our pleas- 
 ures, and thereby distracting our minds from serious concerns, 
 Hutcheson, however, declared that the fine arts were to he 
 cherished ; for, he said, they are not only agreeable, hut also 
 reputable, and to employ our time with them is honourable. 
 That such is the case is obvious enough to us, hut it was long, 
 indeed, since similar language had been heard in Scotland from 
 a great public teacher, and it was completely opposed to the 
 prevailing notions. But Hutcheson went even further. Not 
 content with raising his voice in favour of wealth,®^ which the 
 Scotch clergy stigmatized as one of the most pernicious and 
 carnal of all things, he fearlessly asserted that all our natural 
 appetites are lawful, and that the gratification of them is con- 
 sistent with the highest virtue.®® In his eyes they were lawful, 
 because they were natural ; while, according to the theological 
 theory, their being natural made them unlawful. And here 
 lies the fundamental difierence between the practical views of 
 Hutcheson and those previously received. He, like every great 
 thinker since the seventeenth century, loved human nature, and 
 respected it ; hut he neither loved nor respected those who 
 unduly trammelled it, and thereby weakened its vigour, as well 
 as impaired its beauty. He placed more confidence in mankind 
 than in the rulers of mankind. The Scotch divines who pre- 
 ceded him, were the libellers of their species ; they calumniated 
 
 nothing is advantageous or naturally good to us, but what is apt to raise pleasure 
 mediately, or immediately.” Compare what he says at p. 91 respecting “super- 
 stitious prejudices against actions apprehended as ofiensive to the Deity.” 
 
 “ Hence a taste for the ingenious arts of musick, sculpture, painting, and even 
 for the manly diversions, is reputable.” Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, vol. i. p. 83. 
 At p. 129 he says, that in them “our time is agreeably and honourably employed.” 
 See also vol. ii. p. 115. 
 
 “ “ Wealth and power are truly useful, not only for the natural conveniences or 
 pleasures of life, but as a fund for good offices.” Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, 
 vol. i. p. 104. Compare Hutcheson on Beauty and Virtue, pp. 93-96 ; and his Essay 
 on the Passions and Affections, pp. 8, 9, 99. “ How weak also are the reasonings of 
 gome recluse moralists, who condemn in general all pursuits of wealth or power, as 
 below a perfectly virtuous character ; since wealth and power are the most effectual 
 means, and the most powerful instruments, even of the greatest virtues, and most 
 generous actions.” 
 
 U6 ufpfjg chief happiness of any being must consist in the full enjoyment of all 
 the gratifications its nature desires and is capable of.” Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, 
 vol. i. p. 100. “ The highest sensual enjoyments may be experienced by those who 
 
 employ both mind and body vigorously in social virtuous offices, and allow all the 
 natural appetites to recur in their due seasons.” p. 121. “Nay, as in fact it is for 
 the good of the system that every desire and sense natural to us, even those of the 
 lowest kinds, should be gratified as far as their gratification is consistent with the 
 nobler enjoyments, and in a just subordination to them ; there seems a natural notion 
 of right to attend them all.” pp. 254, 255. 
 
336 AN EXAMINATION OE THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 tlie whole human race. According to them, there was nothing 
 in us hut sin and corruption ; and, therefore, all our desires 
 were to he checked. It is the peculiar glorj of Hutcheson that 
 he was the first man in Scotland who publicly comhated these 
 degrading notions. With a nohle and lofty aim did he under- 
 take his task. Venerating the human mind, he was hent on 
 vindicating its dignity against those who disputed its titles. 
 Unhappily he could not succeed ; the prejudices of his time 
 were too strong. Still, he did all that was in his power. He 
 opposed the tide which he was unahle to stem j he attacked 
 what it was impossible to destroy ; and he cast from his philos- 
 ophy, with vehement scorn, those base prejudices which, by 
 aspersing all that is great and magnanimous, had long blinded 
 the eyes of their contemporaries, and, by bringing into fresh 
 prominence the old and mischievous dogma of moral degeneracy, 
 had represented our nature as a compound of vices, and had 
 been unable to see how many virtues we really possess, how 
 much of the spirit of self-sacrifice, and of free disinterested 
 benevolence has always existed ; how much of good even the 
 worst of us retain ; and how, among the ordinary and average 
 characters of whom the world is composed, the desire of benefit- 
 ing others is more frequent than the desire of hurting them, 
 kindness is more common than cruelty, and the number of good 
 deeds does, on the whole, far outweigh the number of bad 
 oues.*^® 
 
 46 ii trpjg pigasant to obserre how those authors who paiut out our nature as a 
 compound of sensuality, selfishness, and cunning, forget themselves on this subject 
 in their descriptions of youth, when the natural temper is less disguised than in the 
 subsequent parts of life. ’Tis made up of many keen, inconstant passions, many of 
 them generous; ’tis fond of present pleasure, but ’tis also profusely kind and liberal 
 to favourites ; careless about distant interests of its own ; full of confidence in others ; 
 studious of praise for kindness and generosity ; prone to friendships, and void of 
 suspicion.” Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, vol. Li. p. 11. “Men are often subject to 
 anger, and upon sudden provocations do injuries to each other, and that only from 
 self love without malice ; but the greatest part of their lives is employed in offices of 
 natural affection, friendship, innocent self love, or love of a country.” Hutchesoris 
 Essay on the Passions, pp. 97, 98. And at p. 166 : “ There are no doubt many furious 
 starts of passion, in which malice may seem to have place in our constitution ; but 
 how seldom and how short, in comparison of years spent in fixed kind pursuits of 
 the good of a family, a party, a country?” .... Here men are apt to let their 
 imaginations run out upon all the robberies, piracies, murders, perjuries, frauds, 
 massacres, assassinations, they have ever either heard of, or read in history ; thence 
 concluding all mankind to be very wicked ; as if a court of justice were the proper 
 place for making an estimate of the morals of manldnd, or an hospital of the health- 
 fulness of a climate. Ought they not to consider that the number of honest citizens 
 and farmers far surpasses that of all sorts of criminals in any state ; and that the 
 innocent or kind actions of even criminals themselves, surpass their crimes in num- 
 bers ? That it is the rarity of crimes, in comparison of innocent or good actions, 
 which engages our attention to them, and makes them be recorded in history ; while 
 incomparably more honest, generous, domestic actions are overlooked, only because 
 they are so common ; as one great danger, or one month’s sickness, shall become & 
 frequently repeated story, during a long life of health and safety.” 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 337 
 
 Tims Trmnh as to tli6 tendency of Hutclieson s philosopliy. 
 W^e have now to ascertain his method, that is to say, the plan 
 which he adopted in order to obtain his results. This is a very 
 important part of our present inquiry ; and we shall find that, 
 in the study of moral philosophy, as in the study of all subjects 
 not yet raised to sciences, there are not only two methods, hut 
 that each method leads to different consequences. If we pro- 
 ceed by induction, we arrive at one conclusion ; if we proceed 
 by deduction, we arrive at another. This difference in the re- 
 sults, is always a proof that the subject in which the difference 
 exists is not yet capable of scientific treatment, and^ that some 
 preliminary difficulties have to be removed before it can pass 
 from the empirical stage into the scientific one. As soon as 
 those difficulties are got rid of, the results obtained by induc- 
 tion will correspond with those obtained by deduction , suppos- 
 ing, of course, that both lines of argument are fairly managed. 
 In such case, it will be of no importance whether we reason 
 from particulars to generals, or from generals to particulars. 
 Either plan will yield the same consequences, and this agree- 
 ment between the consequences proves that our investigation is, 
 properly speaking, scientific. Thus, for instance, in chemistry, 
 if, by reasoning deductively from general principles, we could 
 always predict what would happen when we united two or more 
 elements, even supposing those elements were new to us , and 
 if, by reasoning inductively from each element, we could arrive 
 at the same conclusion, one process would corroborate the other , 
 and, by their mutual verification, the science would be coni- 
 plete. In chemistry we cannot do this ; therefore, chemistry is 
 not yet a science, although, since the introduction into it, by 
 Dalton, of the ideas of weight and number, there is every pros- 
 pect of its becoming one. On the other hand, astronomy is a 
 science, because, by employing the deductive weapon of mathe- 
 matics, we can compute the motions and perturbations of bodies j 
 and, by employing the inductive weapon of observation, the 
 telescope reveals to us the accuracy of our previous, and, as it 
 were, foregone inferences. The fact agrees with the idea , the 
 particular event confirms the general principle ; the principle 
 
 ” In 1731, Wodrow, who was the last really great specimen of the old Presby- 
 terian divines, and who was not a little shocked at the changes he saw going on 
 around him, writes: “When Dr. Calamy heard of Mr. Hutchesons being called to 
 Glasgow, he smiled, and said, I think to Thomas Randy, that he was not for fecotland, 
 as he thought from his book ; and that he would be reckoned there as unorthodox as 
 Mr. Simson. The Doctor has a strange way of fishing out privat story es and things 
 that pass in Scotland.” Wodrow's Analecta, vol. iv. p. 227. It is interesting to com- 
 pare with this, the remarks which that worldly-minded clergyman, the Key Alexander 
 •Carlyle, has made upon Hutcheson. See Carlyle's Autobiography, Edinburgh, l«bO, 
 2d edit. pp. 82-85. 
 
 67 
 
338 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 explains the event ; and their unanimity authorizes us to believe 
 that we must be right, since, proceed as we may, the conclusion 
 is the same ; and the inductive plan, of striking averages, har- 
 monizes with the deductive plan, of reasoning from ideas. 
 
 But in the study of morals there is no such harmony. 
 Partly from the force of prejudice, and partly from the com- 
 plexity of the subject, all attempts at a scientific investigation 
 of morals have failed. It is not, therefore, surprising that, in 
 this field, the inductive inquirer arrives at one conclusion, and 
 the deductive inquirer at another. The inductive inquirer en- 
 deavours to attain his object by observing the actions of men, 
 and subjecting them to analysis, in order to learn the principles 
 which regulate them. The deductive inquirer, beginning at 
 the other end, assumes certain principles as original, and rea- 
 sons from them to the facts which actually appear in the world. 
 The former proceeds from the concrete to the abstract ; the lat- 
 ter from the abstract to the concrete. The inductive moralist 
 looks at the history of past society, or at the condition of the 
 present, and takes for granted that the first step is to assemble 
 the facts, and then to generalize them. The deductive inquirer, 
 using the facts rather to illustrate his principles, than to sug- 
 gest them, appeals, in the first place, not to external facts, but 
 to internal ideas, and he makes those ideas the major premiss 
 of a syllogistic argument. Both parties agree that we have the 
 power of judging some actions to be right, and others to be 
 wrong. But as to how we get that power, and as to what that 
 power is, they are at utter variance. The inductive philosopher 
 says that its object is happiness, that we get it by association, 
 and that it is due to the action and reaction of social causes, 
 which are susceptible of analysis. The deductive philosopher 
 says that this power of distinguishing between right and wrong, 
 aims, not at happiness, but at truth ; that it is inherent, that 
 it cannot be analyzed, that it is a primary conviction, and that 
 we may assume it and reason from it, but can never hope to 
 explain it by reasoning to it. 
 
 It requires but a slight acquaintance with the works of 
 Hutcheson to see that he belongs to the latter of these two 
 schools. He assumes that all men have what he terms a moral 
 faculty, which, being an original principle, does not admit of 
 analysis. He further assumes, that the business of this facul- 
 ty is to regulate all our powers.®® From these two assumptions 
 
 In his Moral Philosophy, vol. i. p. 52, he calls it “ an original determination 
 w sense in our nature, not capable of being referred to other powers of perception.” 
 
 “ This moral sense from its very nature appears to be designed for regulating 
 and controlling all our powers.” Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, vol. i. p. 61. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 339 
 
 he reasons downwards to the visible facts of our conduct, and 
 deductively constructs the general scheme of life. His plan 
 being entirely synthetic, he depreciates the analytic method, 
 and complains of it as an artful attempt to diminish the num- 
 ber of our perceptive powers.®® The truth is, that every such 
 diminution would have taken away some of his original prin- 
 ciples, and would thereby have prevented him from using them 
 as the major premisses of separate arguments. And if you de- 
 prive a deductive reasoner of his major premisses, you leave him 
 nothing on which to stand. Hutcheson, therefore, like all the 
 philosophers of his school, was extremely jealous of the inva- 
 sions of the inductive spirit, with its constant tendency to attack 
 convictions supposed to be primary, and seek to resolve them 
 into their elements. He repulsed such encroachments upon his 
 major premisses, because the power and beauty of his method 
 were displayed in reasoning from the premisses, and not in rea- 
 soning to them. According to him, the moral faculty, and the 
 authority which it exercised, were impervious to analysis ; it 
 was impossible to track them higher, or to resolve them into 
 simpler constituents ; and it was in vain that many attempted 
 to refer them to circumstances external to themselves, such as 
 education, custom, and the association of ideas. ® ' 
 
 Hence, the judgments which men pass upon the conduct of 
 others, or of themselves, are, in their origin, altogether inex- 
 plicable ; each judgment being merely a different form of one 
 great moral faculty. Inasmuch, however, as that faculty es- 
 capes observation, and is only known by its results, it is evi- 
 dent that, for all purposes of reasoning, the judgments must be 
 deemed primary, and arguments are to be constructed from 
 them, as if they were the ultimate and highest conditions of 
 our nature. In this way, Hutcheson was led to that love of 
 multiplying original principles, which Sir James Mackintosh has 
 justly noticed as a characteristic of his philosophy, and, after 
 him, of the Scotch philosophy in general though the distin- 
 guished author of this remark has failed to perceive that such 
 characteristic was but a single part of a far larger scheme, and 
 was intimately connected with those habits of deductive thought 
 
 See, in his Moral Philosophy, vol. i. p. '79, his complaint against those who 
 “ would reduce all our perceptive powers to a very small number, by one artful refer- 
 ence or another.” 
 
 ji u alledge instruction, education, custom, or association of 
 
 ideas, as the original of moral approbation.” Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy, vol. i. 
 p. 57. Compare his work on Beauty and Virtue, p. 84. 
 
 “ To him may also be ascribed that proneness to multiply ultimate and original 
 principles in human nature, which characterized the Scottish School till the second 
 extinction of a passion for metaphysical speculation in Scotland.” Mackintosh's J)is- 
 sertaiion on Ethical Philosophy, edit. Whewell, Edinburgh, 1837, p. 208. 
 
340 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 which a long train of preceding circumstances had indelibly 
 imprinted on the Scotch mind. 
 
 In Hutcheson, the tendency was so strong, as to make him 
 believe, that, by arguing from a certain number of original prin- 
 ciples, he could construct the theory and explain the march of 
 human affairs, with little or no aid from the experience of the past, 
 or, indeed, of the present. His views, for instance, respecting 
 the nature and objects of legislation, criminal, as well as civil, 
 might have been written by a recluse who had never quitted his 
 hermitage, and whose purity was still unsoiled by the realities 
 of the world. Starting from the so-called nature of things, his 
 first steps were ideal, and from them he sought to advance to 
 the actual. In his account of the duties of life, as they ex- 
 isted before the power of government was consolidated, he quotes 
 no evidence to show what really happened among barbarous 
 tribes who were in that state ; but he contents himself with 
 deductive inferences from the principles he had previously laid 
 down.®® Difficult questions relating to the laws of property, 
 are treated in the same manner ; that is to say, the conclusions 
 respecting them are arrived at on speculative grounds, and not 
 by comparing how the different enactments have worked in 
 different countries.®* Experience is either shut out, or made 
 subordinate to theory ; and facts are adduced to illustrate the 
 inference, but not to suggest it. So, too, the proper relation 
 between the people and their rulers, and the amount of liberty 
 which the people should possess, instead of being inductively 
 generalized from an historical inquiry into the circumstances 
 which had produced most happiness, might, in the opinion of 
 Hutcheson, be ascertained by reasoning from the nature of 
 government, and from the ends for which it was instituted.®® 
 
 The next great attempt to study the actions of men scien- 
 tifically, and to generalize the principles of their conduct with- 
 out the intervention of supernatural ideas, was made by Adam 
 Smith, who, in 1759, published his Theory of Moral Sentiments, 
 and, in 1776, his Wealth of Nations. To understand the phi- 
 losophy of this, by far the greatest of aU the Scotch thinkers, 
 
 ” See his ingenious chapter, entitled “ A deduction of the more special laws of 
 nature and duties of life, previous to civil government, and other adventitioua 
 states.” Moral Philosophy^ vol. i. p. 227 ; and compare vol. ii. pp. 294-309, “ How 
 civil power is acquired.” 
 
 ** See, for example, his remarks on “ the right of possession.” Moral Philosophy, 
 vol. i. p. 344 ; on “ rights by mortgage,” p. 360 ; and on inheritance, p. 366. 
 
 ’* In his Moral Philosophy, vol. ii. pp. 346, 347, he sums up a long argument on 
 “the nature of civil laws,” by saying: “Thus the general duties of magistrates and 
 subjects are discoverable from the nature of the trust committed to them, and th» 
 «nd of all civil power.” 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 341 
 
 both works must be taken together, and considered as one ; 
 since they are, in reality, the two divisions of a single subject. 
 
 In the Moral Sentimental he investigates the sympathetic 
 part of human nature ; in the Wealth of Nations, he investi- 
 gates its selfish part. And as all of us are sympathetic as well 
 as selfish ; in other words, as all of us look without as well as 
 within, and as this classification is a primary and exhaustive 
 division of our motives to action, it is evident, that if Adam 
 Smith had completely accomplished his vast design, he would 
 at once have raised the study of human nature to a science, 
 leaving nothing for subsequent inquirers except to ascertain the 
 minor springs of affairs, all of which would find their place in 
 this general scheme, and be deemed subordinate to it. In his 
 attempt to perform this prodigious task, and to traverse the 
 enormous field which he saw lying before him, he soon per- 
 ceived that an inductive investigation was impossible, because it 
 would require the labour of many lives even to assemble the 
 materials from which the generalization was to be made. Moved 
 by this reflection, and, probably, moved still more by the intel- 
 lectual habits which prevailed around him, he resolved on 
 adopting the deductive method instead of the inductive ; but, 
 in seeking for the premisses from which he was to reason, and 
 on which his structure was to be built, he resorted to a peculiar 
 artifice, which is perfectly valid, and which he had an undoubted 
 right to employ, though, to make it available, requires such 
 delicate tact, and involves so many refinements, that extremely 
 few writers have used it with effect on social questions, either 
 before or since. 
 
 The plan to which I allude is, that when any subject be- 
 comes unmanageable by the inductive method, whether from 
 the impossibility of experimenting upon it, or from its ex- 
 treme natural complexity, or from the presence of immense 
 and bewildering details collected around it, we may, in all such 
 cases, make an imaginary separation of inseparable facts ; and 
 reason upon trains of events which have no real and indepen- 
 dent existence, and which are nowhere to be found except in 
 the mind of the inquirer. A result obtained in this way, cannot 
 be strictly true ; but, if we have reasoned accurately, it will be 
 as near truth as were the premisses from which we started. To 
 make it perfectly true, we must confront it with other results, 
 which we have arrived at in a similar way, and from the same 
 subject. These separate inferences may eventually be coor- 
 dinated into a single system ; so that, while each inference 
 contains only an imperfect truth, the whole of the inferences, 
 when put together, wiU contain perfect truth. 
 
342 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 Such hypothetical arguments are evidently based upon an 
 intentional suppression of facts ; and the artifice is necessary, 
 because, without the suppression, the facts would be unman- 
 ageable. Each argument leads to a conclusion which approxi- 
 mates to truth ; hence, whenever the premisses are so com- 
 prehensive as almost to exhaust the facts to which they refer, 
 the conclusion will be so near to complete truth as to be of the 
 greatest value, even before it is coordinated with other con- 
 clusions drawn from the same department of inquiry. 
 
 Greometry exhibits the most perfect example of this logical 
 stratagem. The object of the geometrician is, to generalize the 
 laws of space ; in other words, to ascertain the necessary and 
 universal relations of its various parts. Inasmuch, however, as 
 space would have no parts unless it were divided, the geome- 
 trician is forced to assume such a division ; and he takes the 
 simplest possible form of it, a division by lines. Now, a line 
 considered as a fact, that is, as it is found in the actual world, 
 must always have two qualities, length and breadth. However 
 slight these qualities may be, every line has them both. But if 
 the geometrician took both into consideration, he would find 
 himself in the presence of a problem too complicated for the 
 resources of the human understanding to deal with ; or, at all 
 events, too complicated for the present resources of our knowl- 
 edge. He, therefore, by a scientific artifice, deliberately strikes 
 ofi“ one of these qualities, and asserts that a line is length 
 without breadth. He knows that the assertion is false, but he 
 also knows that it is necessary. For, if you deny it, he can 
 prove nothing. If you insist upon his letting into his premisses 
 the idea of breadth, he is unable to proceed, and the whole 
 fabric of geometry falls to the ground. Since, however, the 
 breadth of the faintest line is so slight as to be incapable of 
 measurement, except by an instrument used under the micro- 
 scope, it follows that the assumption, that there can be lines 
 without breadth, is so nearly true, that our senses, when 
 unassisted by art, cannot detect the error. F ormerly, and until 
 the invention of the micrometer, in the seventeenth century, it 
 was impossible to detect it at all. Hence, the conclusions of 
 the geometrician approximate so closely to truth, that we are 
 justified in accepting them as true. The flaw is too minute to 
 be perceived. But that there is a flaw, appears to me certain. 
 It appears certain, that whenever something is kept back in the 
 premisses, something must be wanting in the conclusion. In 
 all such cases, the field of inquiry has not been entirely covered ; 
 and part of the preliminary facts being suppressed, it must, 
 I think, be admitted, that complete truth is unattainable, 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 343 
 
 and that no problem in geometry has yet been exhaustively 
 solved.®® 
 
 Still, the amazing triumphs effected in this branch of 
 mathematics, show how powerful a weapon that form of deduc- 
 tion is, which proceeds by an artificial separation of facts, in 
 themselves inseparable. So little, however, is the philosophy 
 of the method understood, that when, late in the eighteenth 
 century, political economy assumed a scientific form, many 
 persons, who were otherwise well instructed, reproached its 
 cultivators with their hardheartedness ; such objectors being 
 unable to see, that the science could not be constructed if it 
 were necessary to take in the whole range of generous and 
 benevolent affections. The political economist aims at discov- 
 ering the laws of wealth, which are far too complicated to be 
 studied under every aspect. He, therefore, selects one of those 
 aspects, and generalizes the laws as they are exhibited in the 
 selfish parts of human nature. And, he is right in doing so, 
 simply because men, in the pursuit of wealth, consider their 
 own gratification oftener than the gratification of others. 
 Hence, he, like the geometrician, blots out one part of his 
 premisses, in order that he may manipulate the remaining part 
 with greater ease. But we must always remember, that politi- 
 cal economy, though a profound and beautiful science, is only 
 a science of one department of life, and is founded upon a 
 suppression of some of the facts in which all large societies 
 abound. It suppresses, or, what comes to the same thing, it 
 ignores, many high and magnanimous feelings which we could 
 ill afford to lose. We are not, therefore, to allow its conclusions 
 to override all other conclusions. We may accept them in 
 science,^ and yet reject them in practice. Thus, the political 
 economist, when confining himself to his own department, says, 
 with good reason, that it is both absurd and mischievous for 
 government to undertake to supply the working- classes with 
 employment. This assertion, he, as a political economist, can 
 prove ; and yet, notwithstanding its scientific truth, it may be 
 practically right for a government to do the exact opposite. It 
 may be right for a government to supply the employment, when 
 the people are so ignorant as to demand it, and when, at the 
 
 That is, so far as the facts are concerned. Geometry, considered in the most 
 elevated manner, rests on ideas, and from that point of view is impregnable, unless 
 the axioms can be overthrown. But if geometricians will insist on having defi- 
 nitions as well as axioms, they gain, no doubt, increased clearness, but they lose 
 something m accuracy. I apprehend that, without definitions, geometry could not 
 be a science of space, but would be a science of magnitudes, ideally conceived, and 
 consequently as pure as ratiocination could make it. This does not touch the ques* 
 tion as to the empirical origin of the axioms. 
 
344 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 same time, they are so powerful as to plunge the country into 
 anarchy if the demand is refused. Here, the view of the 
 politician takes in all the premisses of which the political 
 economist had only taken in a portion. In the same way, as a 
 matter of economic science, it is wrong for any one to relieve 
 the poor ; since nothing is better established, than that to 
 relieve poverty is to increase it, by encouraging improvidence. 
 But, in spite of this, the antagonistic principle of sympathy 
 will come into play, and will, in some minds, operate with such 
 force, as to make it advisable, that he who feels it should give 
 alms, because, if he abstains from giving them, the violence 
 which he does to his own nature may inflict more mischief on 
 himself, than his bestowal of charity would inflict on the general 
 interests of society. 
 
 It will not, I hope, be considered that, in these remarks, I 
 have digressed from the main argument of the present chapter, 
 since, although, in making them, I have aimed at clearing up 
 a general question respecting the nature of scientific proof, I 
 have only done so with the more particular object of illustrating 
 the philosophy of Adam Smith, and of explaining the method 
 which that most profound and original thinker pursued. We 
 shall now be able to see how entirely his plan was deductive, 
 and what a peculiar form of deduction it was. In his two great 
 works, he first lays down certain ideas, and from them he 
 marches on to the facts of the external world. And, in each work, 
 he reasons from only part of his premisses ; supplying the other 
 part in the other work. None of us are exclusively selfish, 
 and none of us are exclusively sympathetic. But Adam Smith 
 separates in speculation qualities which are inseparable in 
 reality. In his Moral Sentiments, he ascribes our actions to 
 sympathy j in his Wealth of Nations, he ascribes them to 
 selfishness. A short view of these two works will prove the 
 existence of this fundamental difference, and will enable us to 
 perceive that each is supplementary to the other ; so that, in 
 order to understand either, it is necessary to study both. 
 
 In the Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith lays down 
 one great principle from which he reasons, and to which aU the 
 others are subordinate. This principle is, that the rules which 
 we prescribe to ourselves, and which govern our conduct, are 
 solely arrived at by observing the conduct of others.^’’ W e judge 
 
 ” “ Our continual observations upon the conduct of others, insensibly lead us to 
 form to ourselves certain general rules concerning what is fit and proper either to 
 be done or to be avoided.” . . . . “ It is thus that the general rules of morality are 
 formed. They are ultimately founded upon experience of what, in particular in- 
 Btances, our moral faculties, our natural sense of merit and propriety, approve o* 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 345 
 
 ourselves, because we had previously judged them. Our notions 
 are obtained from without, and not from within. If, therefore, 
 we lived entirely alone, we could have no idea of merit or 
 demerit, and it would be impossible for us to form an opinion 
 as to whether our sentiments were right or wrong.®® To acquire 
 this knowledge we must look abroad. Inasmuch, however, as 
 we have no direct experience of what other persons actually 
 feel, we can only gain the information by conceiving what we 
 should feel if we were in their place.®® Hence, all men are, in 
 imagination, constantly changing situations with others ; and 
 though the change is ideal, and lasts but for a moment, it is the 
 foundation of that great and universal impulse which is called 
 Sympathy.^® 
 
 By proceeding from these premisses, a vast number of social 
 phenomena may be explained. We naturally sympathize with 
 joy more than with sorrow.^ ‘ Hence, that admiration for pros- 
 perous and successful persons, which is quite independent of any 
 benefit we expect from them ; and hence, too, the existence of 
 different ranks of social distinctions, all of which emanate from 
 the same source.^® Hence, also, the feeling of loyalty, which 
 
 disapprove of. We do not originally approve or condemn particular actions ; be- 
 cause, upon examination, they appear to be agreeable or inconsistent with a certain 
 general rule. The general rule, on the contrary, is formed by finding from expe- 
 rience that all actions of a certain kind, or circumstanced in a certain manner, are 
 approved of or disapproved of.” Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. pp. 
 219, 220. At p. 153: “We either approve or disapprove of our own conduct, 
 according as we feel that, when we place ourselves in the situation of another man, 
 and view it, as it were, wdth his eyes and from his station, we either can or cannot 
 entirely enter into and sympathize with the sentiments and motives which influ- 
 enced it.” 
 
 SB “WTere it possible that a human creature could grow up to manhood in some 
 solitary place, without any communication with his own species, he could no more 
 think of his own character, of the propriety or demerit of his own sentiments and 
 conduct, of the beauty or deformity of his own mind, than of the beauty or deformity 
 of his own face.” Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. p. 154. “Our first 
 moral criticisms are exercised upon the characters and conduct of other people.” 
 p. 156. 
 
 “ As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we can form 
 no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving what we our- 
 selves should feel in the like situation.” Smith's Theory of Moral Senthnents, vol. 
 i. p. 2. 
 
 ■*® “ That imaginary change of situation, upon which their sympathy is founded, 
 is but momentary.” Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. p. 21. Compare 
 vol. ii, p. 206. 
 
 “ I will venture to afiSrm that, when there is no envy in the case, our pro- 
 pensity to sympathize with joy is much stronger than our propensity to sympathize 
 with sorrow.” Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. p. 58. “ It is because 
 
 mankind are disposed to sympathize more entirely wdth our joy than with our sorrow, 
 that we make parade of our riches, and conceal our poverty.” p. 66, 
 
 “ Upon this disposition of mankind to go along with all the passions of the 
 rich and the powerful, is founded the distinction of ranks, and the order of society. 
 Our obsequiousness to our superiors more frequently arises from our admiration for 
 the advantages of their situation, than from any private expectations of benefit from 
 
346 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 is a product, not of reason, nor of fear, nor of a sense of public 
 convenience, but rather of sympathy with those above us, 
 begetting an extraordinary compassion for even their ordinary 
 sufferings.^ ^ Custom and fashion play a great part in the world, 
 but they owe their origin entirely to sympathy and so do the 
 various systems of philosophy which have flourished at difierent 
 times, the disagreement between which depends on the fact, that 
 each philosopher has sympathized with different ideas, some 
 sympathizing with the notion of fitness orcongruity, some with 
 that of prudence, some with that of benevolence, and every one 
 developing the conception paramount in his own mind.^® To 
 sympathy, again, we must ascribe the establishment of rewards 
 and punishments, and the whole of our criminal laws, none of 
 which would have existed but for our disposition to sympathize 
 with those who either do good or suffer harm ; for the circum- 
 stance of society being protected by penal laws, is a subsequent 
 and subordinate discovery, which confirms our sense of their 
 propriety, but did not suggest it.^® The same principle causes 
 the difference of character exhibited by different classes, such as 
 the irritability of poets, compared with the coolness of mathema- 
 ticians it likewise causes that social difference between the 
 sexes, which makes men more remarkable for generosity, and 
 women for humanity.^® All these results illustrate the workings 
 of sympathy, and are the remote, but still the direct, operations 
 of that principle. Indeed, we can trace to it some of the 
 minutest divisions of character ; pride and vanity, for instance, 
 being dependent on it, although those two passions are often 
 
 their good will.” Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments^ vol. i. p. 69. See also vol. 
 ii. p. 72. 
 
 See the striking remarks in Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. p. 70-72. 
 
 Theory of Moral Sejitiments, vol. ii. p. 23, seqq. 
 
 " Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. ii. pp. 131-244:. This sketch of the different 
 systems of philosophy is perhaps the ablest part of the book, notwithstanding two 
 or three errors which it contains. 
 
 Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. pp. 89, 92, 116, 116. The utmost 
 which he will concede to the notion of social convenience, is that “ we frequently 
 have occasion to confirm our natural sense of the propriety and fitness of punishment, 
 by reflecting how necessary it is for preserving the order of society.” p. 122. 
 
 Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. pp. 172-174. 
 
 “Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity of a man. The fair sex, who 
 have commonly much more tenderness than ours, have seldom so much generosity.” 
 Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. ii. p. 19. Sufficient facts have not yet been 
 collected to enable us to test the truth of this remark, and the loose experience of 
 individual observers is worth very little on so wide a subject. Still, I venture to 
 doubt the truth of Adam Smith’s distinction. I suspect that women are, on the 
 whole, more generous than men, as well as more tender. But to establish a prop- 
 osition of this sort, would require the most extensive research, made by a careful 
 and analytic mind ; and, at present, there is not even any tolerably good work on 
 the mental characteristics which distinguish the sexes, and there never will be on« 
 until physiology is united with biography. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 347 
 
 confused together, and are sometimes strangely blended in the 
 same mind.*® 
 
 Sympathy, then, is the main-spring of human conduct. It 
 arises, not so much from witnessing the passions of other per- 
 sons, as from witnessing the situation which excites those pas- 
 sions.®® To this single process we are indebted, not only for the 
 highest principles, but also for the deepest emotions. For, the 
 greatest affection of which we are capable, is merely sympathy 
 fixed^ into habit ; and the love which exists between the nearest 
 relations, is not inherent, but is derived from this mighty and 
 controlling principle, which governs the whole course of'’ affairs.® * 
 
 By this bold hypothesis, Adam Smith, at one stroke, so 
 narrowed the field of inquiry, as to exclude from it all considera- 
 tions of selfishness as a primary principle, and only to admit its 
 great antagonist, sympathy. The existence of the antagonism 
 he distinctly recognizes. For he will not allow that sympathy 
 is in any way to be deemed a selfish principle.®® Although he 
 knew that it is pleasurable, and that all pleasure contains an 
 element of selfishness, it did not suit the method of his philoso- 
 phy to subject the principle of sympathy to such an inductive 
 analysis as would reveal its elements. His business was to rea- 
 son from it, and not to it. Concentrating his energy upon the 
 deductive process, and displaying that dialectic skill which is 
 natural to his countrymen, and of which he himself was one of 
 the most consummate masters the world has ever seen, he con- 
 structed a system of philosophy, imperfect indeed, because the 
 premisses were imperfect, but approaching truth as closely as it 
 was possible for any one to do, who abstained from giving due 
 consideration to the selfish part of human nature. Into the 
 workings of its sympathetic part, he looked with a minuteness, 
 and he reasoned from it with a subtlety, which make his work 
 the most important that has ever been written on this interest- 
 ing subject. But, inasmuch as his plan involved a deliberate 
 suppression of preliminary and essential facts, the results which 
 
 ** Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. ii. pp. 115-122. 
 
 “Sympathy, therefore, does not arise so much from the view of the passion, 
 as from that of the situation which excites it.” Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments 
 vol. i. p. 6. ’ 
 
 ** “What is called affection, is, in reality, nothing but habitual sympathy.” 
 Smith s Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. ii. p. 6k “ In some tragedies and romances, 
 we meet with many beautiful and interesting scenes, founded upon what is called 
 the force of blood, or upon the wonderful affection which near relations are supposed 
 to conceive for one another, even before they know that they have any such con- 
 nection. This force of blood, however, I am afraid, exists nowhere but in tragedies 
 and romances.” p. 66. 
 
 ” “ Sympathy, however, cannot, in any sense, be regarded as a selfish principle.” 
 Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. ii. p. 206. In vol. i. p. 9, he complains of “ thosa 
 who are fond of deducing all our sentiments from certain refinements of self-love.” 
 
348 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 he obtained do not strictly correspond to those which are actu- 
 ally observed in the world.® ^ This, however, as I have shown, 
 is not a valid objection ; since such discrepancy between the 
 ideal and the actual, or between the abstract and the concrete, 
 is the necessary consequence of that still early condition of our 
 knowledge, which forces us to study complicated questions 
 piecemeal, and to raise them to sciences by separate and frag- 
 mentary investigations. 
 
 That Adam Smith saw this necessity, and that his seeing it 
 was the cause of the method he pursued, is evident from the** 
 fact, that in his next great work he followed the same plan, 
 and, though he argued from new premisses, he carefully avoided 
 arguing from any of the old ones. Convinced that in his theory 
 of morals he had reasoned as accurately as possible from the 
 principles supplied by sympathy, his capacious and insatiable 
 mind, deeming that nothing had been done while aught re- 
 mained to do, urged him to pass on to the opposite passion of 
 selfishness and treat it in the same manner, so that the whole 
 domain of thought might be covered. This he did in his Wealth 
 of Nations, which, though even a greater work than his Moral 
 Sentiments, is equally one-sided in reference to the principles 
 which it assumes. It assumes that selfishness is the main 
 regulator of human affairs, just as his previous work had as- 
 sumed sympathy to be so. Between the two works there 
 elapsed an interval of seventeen years ; the Wealth of Nations 
 not being published till 1776. But what shows that to their 
 author both were part of a single scheme, is the notable circum- 
 stance that, as early as 1753, he had laid down the principles 
 which his later work contains.®^ This was while his former 
 work was still in meditation, and before it had seen the light. 
 It is, therefore, clear, that the study which he made, first of 
 one passion, and then of its opposite, was not a capricious or 
 accidental arrangement, but was the consequence of that vast 
 idea which presided over all his labours, and which, when they 
 are rightly understood, gives to them a magnificent unity. And 
 a glorious object of ambition it was. His aspiring and com- 
 prehensive genius, sweeping the distant horizon, and taking in 
 
 This is noticed by Sir James Mackintosh, whose sketch of Adam Smith is 
 hasty, and somewhat superficial, but who, nevertheless, truly observes, that Smith 
 “has exposed himself to objections founded on experience, to which it is impossible 
 to attempt any answer.” MackintosKs Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy, pp. 239, 
 £40. See also a letter from Hume to Adam Smith, in Burton's Life and Uorrespond 
 ence of Hume, vol. ii. p. 60. 
 
 “ “ Mr. Smith’s political lectures, comprehending the fundamental principles of 
 his ‘ Inquiry,’ were delivered at Glasgow as early as the year 1752 or 1753.” Dugald 
 Stewart's Life of Adam Smith, p. Ixxviii., prefixed to Smith's Posthumous Essays, 
 London, 4to, 1796. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 349 
 
 the intermediate space at a glance, sought to traverse the whole 
 ground in two separate and independent directions, indulging 
 the hope that, by supplying in one line of argument the prem- 
 isses which were wanting in the other, their opposite conclu- 
 sions would be compensatory rather than hostile, and would 
 serve as a broad and permanent basis on which one great science 
 of human nature might be safely built. 
 
 The Wealth of Nations is, as I have elsewhere observed,®® 
 probably the most important book which has ever been written, 
 whether we consider the amount of original thought which it 
 contains, or its practical influence. Its practical recommenda- 
 tions were extremely favourable to those doctrines of freedom 
 which the eighteenth century ushered in ; and this secured to 
 them an attention which otherwise they would not have received. 
 While, therefore, the Wealth of Nations was the proximate 
 cause of a great change in legislation,®® a deeper analysis will 
 show, that the success of the book, and, consequently, the alter- 
 ation of the laws, depended upon the operation of more remote 
 and general causes. It must also be confessed, that those same 
 causes predisposed the mind of Adam Smith to the doctrines 
 of liberty, and gave him a sort of prejudice in favour of con- 
 clusions which limited the interference of the legislator. Thus 
 much he borrowed from his age ; but one thing he did not 
 borrow. His wide and organizing mind was all his own. This 
 would have made him great under any circumstances ; to make 
 him powerful, required a peculiar conjunction of events. That 
 conjunction he enjoyed, and he turned it to good account. The 
 influence of his contemporaries was enough to make him liberal ; 
 his own capacity was enough to make him comprehensive. He 
 had, in a most remarkable degree, that exuberance of thought, 
 which is one of the highest forms of genius, but which leads 
 those who possess it into distant excursions, which, though they 
 have one common aim, are often stigmatized as digressions, 
 simply because they who criticize are unable to discern the 
 great principle which pervades the whole, and unites the various 
 parts into a single scheme. This has been especially the case 
 with Adam Smith, whose immortal work has often been ex- 
 posed to such shallow objections. And certainly, the Wealth of 
 Nations displays a breadth of treatment which those who can- 
 not sympathize with, are very likely to ridicule. The phenom- 
 
 “ History of Civilization, vol. i. p. 164. 
 
 “ “ Perhaps the only book which produced an immediate, general, and irrer- 
 »cable change in some of the most important parts of the legislation of all civilized 
 states.” Mackintosh's Ethical Philosophy, p. 232. But this is too strongly ex- 
 pressed, as the economical history of France and Germany decisively proves. 
 
350 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 ena, not only of wealth, but also of society in general, clas- 
 sified and arranged under their various forms ; the origin of the 
 division of labour, and the consequences which that division has 
 produced ; the circumstances which gave rise to the invention 
 of money, and to the subsequent changes in its value ; the 
 history of those changes traced in different ages, and the history 
 of the relations which the precious metals bear to each other ; 
 an examination of the connection between wages and profits, 
 and of the laws which govern the rise and fall of both ; another 
 examination of the way in which these are concerned, on the 
 one hand, with the rent of land, and, on the other hand, with 
 the price of commodities ; an inquiry into the reason why profits 
 vary in different trades, and at different times ; a succinct, but 
 comprehensive view of the progress of towns in Europe since 
 the fall of the Eoman Empire ; the fluctuations, during several 
 centuries, in the prices of the food of the people, and a state- 
 ment of how it is, that, in different stages of society, the rela- 
 tive cost of land and of meat varies ; the history of corporation 
 laws and of municipal enactments, and their bearing on the 
 four great classes of apprentices, manufacturers, merchants, 
 and landlords; an account of the immense power and riches 
 formerly enjoyed by the clergy, and of the manner in which, as 
 society advances, they gradually lose their exclusive privileges ; 
 the nature of religious dissent, and the reason why the clergy 
 of the established Church can never contend with it on terms 
 of equality, and, therefore, call on the State to help them, and 
 wish to persecute when they cannot persuade ; why some sects 
 profess more ascetic principles, and others more luxurious ones ; 
 how it was, that, during the feudal times, the nobles acquired 
 their power, and how that power has, ever since, been gradually 
 diminishing ; how the rights of territorial jurisdiction originated, 
 and how they died away ; how the sovereigns of Europe ob- 
 tained their revenue, what the sources of it are, and what 
 classes are most heavily taxed in order to supply it ; the cause 
 of certain virtues, such as hospitality, flourishing in barbarous 
 ages, and decaying in civilized ones ; the influence of inventions 
 and discoveries in altering the distribution of power among the 
 various classes of society ; a bold and masterly sketch of the pe- 
 culiar sort of advantages which Europe derived from the discov- 
 ery of America and of the passage round the Cape ; the origin 
 of universities, their degeneracy from the original plan, the cor- 
 ruption which has gradually crept over them, and the reason 
 why they are so unwilling to adopt improvements, and to keep 
 pace with the wants of the age ; a comparison between public 
 and private education, and an estimate of their relative advan- 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 351 
 
 tages ; these, and a vast nnmber of other subjects, respecting 
 the structure and development of society, such as the feudal 
 system, slavery, emancipation of serfs, origin of standing armies, 
 and of mercenary troops, effects produced by tithes, laws of 
 primogeniture, sumptuary laws, international treaties concern- 
 ing trade, rise of European banks, national debts, influence of 
 dramatic representations over opinions, influence of foreign 
 travel over opinions, colonies, poor-laws — all topics of a mis- 
 cellaneous character, and many of them diverging from each 
 other — all are fused into one great system, and irradiated by 
 the splendour of one great genius. Into that dense and disor- 
 derly mass, did Adam Smith introduce symmetry, method, and 
 law. At his touch, anarchy disappeared, and darkness was 
 succeeded by light. Much, of course, he took from his prede- 
 cessors, though nothing like so much as is commonly supposed. 
 On this sort of borrowing, the best and strongest of us are 
 dependent. But, after making every possible allowance for 
 what he gathered from others, we must honestly say, that no 
 single man ever took so great a step upon so important a sub- 
 ject, and that no single work which is now preserved, contains 
 so many views, which were novel at the time, but which subse- 
 quent experience has ratified. What, however, for our present 
 purpose, is most important to observe, is, that he obtained these 
 results by arguing from principles which the selfish part of 
 human nature exclusively supplied, and that he omitted those 
 sympathetic feelings of which every human being possesses at 
 least some share, but which he could not take into consideration 
 without producing a problem, the number of whose complications 
 it would have been hopeless to unravel. 
 
 To avoid, therefore, being baffled, he simplified the problem, 
 by erasing from his view of human nature those premisses which 
 he had already handled in his Theory of Moral Sentinients. 
 At the beginning of the Wealth of Nations, he lays down two 
 propositions : 1st, that all wealth is derived, not from land, 
 but from labour ; and 2d, that the amount of wealth depends, 
 partly on the skill with which the labour is conducted, and partly 
 on the proportion between the number of those who labour and 
 the number of those who do not labour. The rest of the work, 
 is an application of these principles, to explain the growth ana 
 mechanism of society. In applying them, he every where 
 assumes, that the great moving power of all men, all interests, 
 and all classes, in all ages, and in all countries, is selfishness 
 The opposite power of sympathy he entirely shuts out ; and I 
 hardly remember an instance in which even the word occurs m 
 the whole course of his work. Its fundamental assumption 
 
352 AN EXAMINATION OE THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 that each man exclusively follows his own interest, or what he 
 deems to he his own interest. And one of the peculiar features 
 of his book is, to show that, considering society as a whole, it 
 nearly always happens that men, in promoting their own interest, 
 will unintentionally promote the interest of others. Hence, the 
 great practical lesson is, not to restrain selfishness, but to en- 
 lighten it ; because there is a provision in the nature of things, 
 by which the selfishness of the individual accelerates the progress 
 of the community. According to this view, the prosperity of a 
 country depends on the amount of its capital ; the amount of 
 its capital depends on the habit of saving, that is, on parsimony, 
 as opposed to generosity ; while the habit of saving is, in its 
 turn, governed by the desire we all feel of bettering our con- 
 dition, — a desire so inherent in our nature, that it comes with 
 us from the womb, and only leaves us in the grave.®’’ 
 
 This constant effort of every man, to better his own con- 
 dition, is so salutary, as well as powerfiil, that it is often capable 
 of securing the progress of society, in spite of the folly and 
 extravagance of the rulers of mankind.®® If it were not for 
 this propensity, improvement would be impossible. For human 
 institutions are constantly stopping our advance, by thwarting 
 our natural inclinations.®® And no wonder that this should be 
 the case, seeing that the men who are at the head of affairs, 
 and by whom the institutions are contrived, have, perhaps, a 
 certain rough and practical sagacity ; but being, from the nar- 
 rowness of their understandings, incapable of large views, their 
 councils are determined by those mere casual fluctuations which 
 alone they are able to perceive.®® They do not see that we 
 
 “ Parsimony, and not industry, is the immediate cause of the increase of 
 'Capital. Industry, indeed, provides the subject which parsimony accumulates; but 
 whatever industry might acquire, if parsimony did not save and store up, the capital 
 would never be the greater.” .... “But the principle which prompts to save, is 
 the desire of bettering our condition; a desire which, though generally calm and 
 dispassionate, comes with us from the womb, and never leaves us till we go into the 
 grave.” Smith's Wealth of Nations, book ii. chap. iii. pp. 138, 140, edit. Edinb. 1839. 
 
 “ The uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his 
 condition, the principle from which public and national, as well as private, opulence 
 is oiiginally derived, is frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progress 
 of things towards improvement, in spite both of the extravagance of government and 
 of the greatest errors of administration. Like the unknown principle of animal life, 
 it frequently restores health and vigour to the constitution, in spite not only of the 
 disease, but of the absurd prescriptions of the doctor.” Wealth of Nations, book ii. 
 ■chap. iii. p. 141. “ The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, 
 
 when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle, 
 that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the 
 society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstruc- 
 tions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations.” Book 
 IV. chap. V. p. 221. 
 
 See an admirable passage, p. 166, too long to quote, beginning, “ If human 
 institutions had never thwarted those natural inclinations,” &c. 
 
 “ That insidious and crafty animal, vulgarly called a statesman or politician/ 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 353 
 
 have prospered, not on account of their enactments, hut in the 
 teeth of them ; and that the real cause of our prosperity is the 
 fact that we enjoy undisturbed the fruit of our own labour.®^ 
 Whenever this right is tolerably secure, every man will he bent 
 on procuring for himself either present enjoyment or future 
 profit ; and if he does not aim at one of these objects, he is 
 void of common understanding.®® If he possess capital, he will 
 probably aim at both, but, in doing so, he will never consider 
 the interest of others ; his sole motive will be his own private 
 profit.®® And it is well that such should be the case. For, by 
 thus pursuing his personal interest, he aids society more than 
 if his views were generous and exalted. Some people affect to 
 carry on trade for the good of others ; but this is mere affecta- 
 tion, though, to say the truth, it is an affectation not very 
 common among merchants, and many words are not needed to 
 dissuade them from so foolish a practice.®* 
 
 In this way, Adam Smith completely changes the premisses 
 which he had assumed in his earlier work. Here he makes men 
 naturally selfish ; formerly, he had made them naturally sympa- 
 thetic.®® Here, he represents them pursuing wealth for sordid 
 objects, and for the narrowest personal pleasures ; formerly, he 
 represented them as pursuing it out of regard to the sentiments 
 of others, and for the sake of obtaining their sympathy.®® In 
 the Wealth of Nations, we hear no more of this conciliatory and 
 sympathetic spirit ; such amiable maxims are altogether forgot- 
 
 whose counsels are directed by the momentary fluctuations of affairs.” Wealth of 
 Nations, book iv. chap. ii. p. 190. 
 
 “ That security which the laws in Great Britain give to every man, that he shall 
 enjoy the fruits of Ins own labour, is alone sufficient to make any country flourish, 
 notwithstanding these and twenty other absurd regulations of commerce.” Wealth 
 of Nations, book iv. chap. v. p. 221. 
 
 “ In all countries where there is a tolerable security, every man of common 
 understanding will endeavour to employ whatever stock he can command, in pro- 
 curing either present enjoyment or future profit.” Wealth of Nations, book ii. chap. 
 
 i. p. 116. 
 
 “The consideration of his own private profit is the sole motive which deter- 
 mines the owner of any capital to employ it either in agriculture, in manufactures, or 
 in some particular branch of the wholesale or retail trade.” Wealth of Nations, book 
 
 ii. chap. V. p. 164. 
 
 “ By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes that of the society more 
 effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much 
 good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, 
 indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed 
 in dissuading them from it.” Wealth of Nations, book iv. chap. ii. p. 184. 
 
 ” In this Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. p. 21, he says that mankind are 
 “ naturally sympathetic.” 
 
 “ Nay, it is chiefly for this regard to the sentiments of mankind, that we pur- 
 sue riches and avoid poverty.” Theory of Moral Sentiments, voL i. p. 66. “ To 
 
 become the natural object of the joyous congratulations and sympathetic attentions 
 of mankind, is, in this manner, the circumstance which gives to prosperity all its 
 dazzling splendour.” p. “IS. - 
 
 68 
 
354 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 ten, and the affairs of the world are regulated by different prin- 
 ciples. It now appears that benevolence and auction have no 
 influence over our actions. Indeed, Adam Smith will hardly 
 admit common humanity into his theory of motives. If a peo- 
 ple emancipate their slaves, it is a proof, not that the people 
 are acted on by high moral considerations, nor that their sym- 
 pathy is excited by the cruelty inflicted on these unhappy 
 creatures. Nothing of the sort. Such inducements to conduct 
 are imaginary, and exercise no real sway. All that the emanci- 
 pation proves, is, that the slaves were few in number, and, 
 therefore, small in value. Otherwise they would not have been 
 emancipated.®’’ 
 
 So, too, while in his former work, he had ascribed the differ- 
 ent systems of morals to the power of sympathy, he, in this 
 work, ascribes them entirely to the power of selfishness. He 
 observes that, among the lower ranks of society, dissipation is 
 more fatal to individuals than it is among the higher ranks. 
 The extravagance which dissipation produces, may injure the 
 fortune of a wealthy man, but the injury is usually capable of 
 being repaired, or, at all events, he can indulge his vices for 
 years without completely destroying his fortune, and without 
 bringing himself to utter ruin. To the labourer, a similar in- 
 dulgence would be fatal in a single week ; it would not merely 
 reduce him to beggary, and perhaps send him to jail, but it 
 would destroy his future prospects, by taking away that char- 
 acter for sobriety and regularity on which his employment de- 
 pends. Hence, the better class of common people, guided by 
 their interest, look with aversion on excesses which they know 
 to be fatal ; while the upper ranks, finding that a moderate 
 amount of vice hurts neither their purse nor their reputation, 
 consider such license to be one of the advantages which their 
 fortune confers, and they value as one of the privileges belong- 
 ing to their station, the liberty of indulging themselves without 
 being censured. Therefore it is that they who dissent from the 
 established Church have a purer system of morals, or, at all 
 events, an austerer one, than they who agree with it. For, 
 new religious sects usually begin among the common people, 
 the thinking part of whom are, by their interest, driven to strict 
 views of the duties of life. Consequently, the advocates of the 
 new opinion profess a similar strictness, seeing that it is the 
 surest means of increasing their proselytes. Thus it is that 
 
 “ The late resolution of the Quakers in Pennsylvania, to set at liberty all their 
 negro slaves, may satisfy us that their number cannot be very great. Had they 
 made any considerable part of their property, such a resolution could never have 
 been agreed to.” Wealth of Nations, book iii. chap. ii. p. 159. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 355 
 
 sectaries and heretics, governed by interest rather than by prin- 
 ciple, adopt a code of morals which is suited to their own pur- 
 pose, and the rigidity of which is strongly contrasted with the 
 laxer code of more orthodox believers.®® Owing to the opera- 
 tion of the same principle, we also find that, among the orthodox 
 themselves, the clergy embrace a stricter system of morals in 
 countries where church benefices are nearly equal, than they do 
 in countries where the benefices are very unequal. This is be- 
 cause when all the benefices are nearly equal, none can he very 
 rich, and consequently even the most conspicuous among the 
 clergy will have but small incomes. But a man who has little 
 to spend can have no influence, unless his morals are exemplary. 
 
 “ In every civilized society, in every society where the distinction of ranks has 
 once been completely established, there have been always two different schemes or 
 systems of morality current at the same time ; of which the one may be called the 
 strict or austere ; the other the liberal, or, if you will, the loose system. The former 
 is generally revered and admired by the common people ; the latter is commonly 
 more esteemed and adopted by what are called the people of fashion. The degree 
 of disapprobation with which we ought to mark the vices of levity, the vices which 
 are apt to arise from great prosperity, and from the excess of gaiety and good 
 humour, seems to constitute the principal distinction between those two opposite 
 schemes or systems. In the liberal, or loose system, luxury, wanton, and even dis- 
 orderly mirth, the pursuit of pleasure to some degree of intemperance, the breach of 
 chastity, at least in one of the two sexes, provided they are not accompanied with 
 gross indecency, and do not lead to falsehood and injustice, are generally treated 
 with a good deal of indulgence, and are easily either excused or pardoned altogether. 
 In the austere system, on the contrary, these excesses are regarded with the utmost 
 abhorrence and detestation. The vices of levity are always ruinous to the common 
 people, and a single week’s thoughtlessness and dissipation is often sufficient to undo 
 a poor workman for ever, and to drive him, through despair, upon committing the 
 most enormous crimes. The wiser and better sort of the common people, therefore, 
 have always the utmost abhorrence and detestation of such excesses, which their 
 experience tells them are so immediately fatal to people of their condition. The 
 disorder and extravagance of several years, on the contrary, will not always min a 
 man of fashion ; and people of that rank are very apt to consider the power of 
 indulging in some degree of excess, as one of the advantages of their fortune ; and 
 the liberty of doing so without censure or reproach, as one of the privileges which 
 belong to their station. In people of their own station, therefore, they regard such 
 excesses with but a small degree of disapprobation, and censure them either very 
 slightly or not at all. 
 
 “ Almost all religious sects have begun among the common people, from whom 
 they have generally drawn their earliest, as well as their most numerous proselytes. 
 The austere system of morality has, accordingly, been adopted hy those sects almost 
 constantly, or with very few exceptions ; for there have been some. It was the 
 system by which they could best recommend themselves to that order of people, to 
 whom they first proposed their plan of reformation upon what had been before 
 established. Many of them, perhaps the greater part of them, have even endeav- 
 oured to gain credit by refining upon this austere system, and by carrying it to 
 some degree of folly and extravagance ; and this excessive rigour has frequently 
 recommended them, more than any thing else, to the respect and veneration of the 
 common people.” . . . “ In little religious sects, accordingly, the morals of the com- 
 mon people have been almost always remarkably regular and orderly ; generally 
 much more so than in the established church. The morals of those little sects, 
 indeed, have frequently been rather disagreeably rigorous and unsocial.” Wealth of 
 Nations, book v. chap. i. pp. 332, 333. 
 
356 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 Having no wealth to give him weight, the vices of levity wonld 
 make him ridiculous. To avoid contempt, and also to avoid 
 the expense which a looseness of conduct occasions, and which 
 his narrow circumstances cannot afford, he has hut one remedy, 
 and that remedy he adopts. He retains his influence, and saves 
 his pocket, hy protesting against pleasures which he cannot 
 conveniently enjoy ; in this, as in all other cases, pursuing that 
 plan of life which his own interest urges him to follow.®® 
 
 In these striking generalizations, which, though they contain 
 a large amount of truth, are far from containing the whole 
 truth, no room is left for the magnanimous parts of our nature 
 to act 5 hut the system of morals, prevailing at any one time or 
 in any one class, is solely ascribed to the dictates of unalloyed 
 selfishness. Adam Smith, hy reasoning from this principle, 
 with that exquisite subtlety which characterized his mind, ex- 
 plains many other circumstances which society presents, and 
 which, at first sight, appear incongruous. According to the old 
 notions, which, indeed, are not yet quite extinct, those who re- 
 ceived wages were under a personal obligation to those who paid 
 them ; that is to say, they were under a moral obligation, over 
 and above the obligation of performing certain services. It was 
 believed that a master could not only select what servants he 
 chose, but he could pay them what he chose ; or, at all events, 
 that it was the will of the masters, considered as a body, which 
 fixed the usual and average rate of wages. The lower classes 
 were, therefore, much indebted to the higher ones for giving them 
 so much as they did ; and it was incumbent upon all persons 
 who received wages, to take them with humble thankfulness, 
 and with a feeling of gratitude, on account of the favour be- 
 stowed upon them by the generosity of their superiors. 
 
 This doctrine, so convenient to the upper classes of society, 
 and so natural to the universal ignorance which formerly pre- 
 vailed on these matters, began to be shaken by the speculative 
 thinkers of the seventeenth century ; but it was reserved for the 
 eighteenth century to overthrow it, letting in the grand idea of 
 
 68 II \yjjerg the church benefices are all nearly equal, none of them can be very 
 great ; and this mediocrity of benefice, though it may, no doubt, be carried too far, 
 has, however, some very agreeable efiects. Nothing but exemplary morals can give 
 dignity to a man of small fortune. The vices of levity and vanity necessarily render 
 him ridiculous, and are, besides, almost as ruinous to him as they are to the common 
 people. In his own conduct, therefore, he is obliged to follow that system of morals 
 which the common people respect the most. He gains their esteem and affection, 
 by that plan of life which his own interest and situation would lead him to follow.” 
 Wealth of Nations^ book v. chap. i. p. 340. 
 
 Besides the evidence supplied by economical treatises, the laws in our statute- 
 book respecting wages, show the general conviction, that their rate could be fixed 
 by the upper classes. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 357 
 
 necessity, and proving that the rate of wages established in a 
 country, was the inevitable consequence of the circumstances in 
 which that country was placed, and had no connexion with the 
 wishes of any individual, or, indeed, with the wishes of any 
 class. ^ To all instructed persons this is now a familiar truth. 
 Its discovery has excluded the notion of gratitude from the 
 pecuniary relation between employers and employed, and has 
 made known that servants or workmen who receive wages, have 
 no more reason to be grateful than those who pay them. For, 
 no choice having been exercised in fixing the wages, no favour 
 can be conferred in their payment. The whole process is com- 
 pulsory, and is the result of what has previously happened. 
 Scarcely had the eighteenth century passed away when this 
 most important discovery was completed. It was decisively 
 proved that the reward of labour depends solely on two things ; 
 namely, the magnitude of that national fund out of which all 
 labour is paid, and the number of the labourers among whom 
 the fund is to be divided. 
 
 This vast step in our knowledge is due, mainly, though not 
 entirely, to Malthus, whose work on Population, besides mark- 
 ing an epoch in the history of speculative thought, has already 
 produced considerable practical results, and will probably give 
 rise to others more considerable still. It was published in 
 1798 ; so that Adam Smith, who died in 1790, missed what to 
 him would have been the intense pleasure of seeing how, in it, 
 his own views were expanded rather than corrected. Indeed, 
 it is certain, that without Smith there would have been no 
 Malthus ; that is, unless Smith had laid the foundation, Mal- 
 thus could not have raised the superstructure. It was Adam 
 Smith, who, far more than any other man, introduced the con- 
 ception of uniform and necessary sequence into the apparently 
 capricious phenomena of wealth, and who studied those phenom- 
 ena by the aid of principles, of which selfishness alone supplied 
 the data. According to this view, the employers of labour have, 
 as employers, no benevolence, no sympathy, no virtue of any 
 kind. Their sole aim is their own selfish interest. They are 
 constantly engaged in a tacit, if not in an open, combination, to 
 prevent the lower ranks from being benefited by a rise of wages ; 
 and they sometimes combine for the purpose even of depressing 
 those wages below their actual rate.’^* Having no bowels, they 
 
 “We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though fre- 
 quently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that mas- 
 ters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always 
 and every where in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combination, not to 
 raise the wages of labour above their actual rate. To violate this combination is 
 
358 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 think only of themselves. The idea of their wishing to mitigate 
 the inequalities of fortune, is to he exploded as one of the chi- 
 meras of that protective spirit which imagined that society could 
 not go on unless the richer classes relieved the poorer ones, and 
 sympathized with their troubles. This antiquated notion is 
 further rebutted by the fact that wages are always higher in 
 summer than in winter, although the expenses which a labourer 
 incurs in winter, being heavier than in summer, he ought, on 
 principles of common humanity, to receive more money during 
 the more expensive season.^* In the same way, in years of 
 scarcity, the dearness of food causes many persons to go to ser- 
 vice, in order to support their families. The masters, instead 
 of charitably paying such servants more, on account of the un- 
 fortunate position in which they are placed, avail themselves of 
 that position to pay them less. They make better terms for 
 themselves ; they lower wages just at the moment when sym- 
 pathy for misfortune would have raised them ; and, as they find 
 that their servants, besides being worse remunerated, are, by 
 poverty, made more submissive, they consider that scarcity is a 
 blessing, and that dear years are to be commended as more fa- 
 vourable to industry than cheap ones.’’® 
 
 Adam Smith, therefore, though he failed in grasping the 
 remote cause of the rate of wages, clearly saw that the 
 proximate cause was, not the generosity of human nature, but 
 its selfishness, and that the question was one of supply and 
 demand ; each side striving to exact as must as possible from 
 the other.’^ By the aid of the same principle, he explained 
 
 every where a most unpopular action, and a sort of reproach to a master among his 
 neighbours and equals. We seldom, indeed, hear of this combination, because it is 
 the usual, and, one may say, the natural state of things which nobody ever hears of. 
 Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of 
 labour even below this rate.” Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. viii. p. 28. 
 
 “ First, in almost every part of Great Britain, there is a distinction, even in the 
 lowest species of labour, between summer and winter wages. Summer wages are 
 always highest. But, on account of the extraordinary expense of fuel, the mainten- 
 ance of a family is most expensive in winter. Wages, therefore, being highest when 
 this expense is lowest, it seems evident that they are not regulated by what is neces- 
 sary for this expense, but by the quantity and supposed value of the work.” Wealth 
 of Nations, book i. chap. viii. p. 31. 
 
 “ In years of scarcity, the difficulty and uncertainty of subsistence make all 
 such people eager to return to service. But the high price of provisions, by dimin- 
 ishing the funds destined for the maintenance of servants, disposes masters rather to 
 diminish than to increase the number of those they have.” ... “ Masters of all 
 sorts, therefore, frequently make better bargains with their servants in dear than in 
 cheap years, and find them more humble and dependent in the former than in the 
 latter. They naturally, therefore, commend the former as more favourable to in- 
 dustry.” Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. viii. p. 35. 
 
 “ The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little, as possible. 
 The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the latter in order to lower, 
 the wages of labour.” Wealth of Nations, b. i. c. viii. p. 27. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 359 
 
 another curious fact, namely, the extravagant rewards bestowed 
 on some of the most despicable classes of society, such, for in- 
 stance, as opera-dancers, who always receive enormous pay for 
 insignificant services. He observes, that one of the reasons why 
 we pay them so highly, is, because we despise them. If to be a 
 public dancer were a creditable occupation, more persons would 
 be brought up to it, and the supply of public dancers becoming 
 greater, competition would lower their wages. As it is, we look 
 on them disdainfully. By way of compensating the disdain, we 
 have to bribe them largely to induce them to follow their 
 pursuit.'^® Here we see, that the reward which one class 
 bestows on another, instead of being increased by sympathy, is 
 increased by scorn ; so that the more we contemn the tastes 
 and the way of life of our fellow-creatures, the more liberal we 
 are in recompensing them. 
 
 Passing to another, and somewhat different class, Adam 
 Smith threw new light on the cause of that hospitality for 
 which the clergy were famous during the Middle Ages, and for 
 the magnificence of which they have received great praise. He 
 shows that, although they undoubtedly relieved a large amount 
 of distress, this is not to be ascribed to them as a merit, since 
 it resulted from the peculiarity of their position, and since, 
 moreover, they did it for their own advantage. In the Middle 
 Ages the clergy possessed enormous wealth, and their revenues 
 were mostly paid, not in money, but in kind, such as corn, wine, 
 and cattle. Trade and manulactures being hardly known, the 
 clergy could find no use for these commodities except to feed 
 other people. By employing them in that way, they bene- 
 fited themselves in the most effectual manner. They gained 
 a reputation for extensive charity ; they increased their infiu- 
 ence ; they multiplied the number of their adherents ; and they 
 not only advanced themselves to temporal power, but they 
 secured to their spiritual threats a respect, which, without this 
 contrivance, it would have been impossible for them to obtain.’’® 
 
 “It seems absurd at first sight, that we should despise their persons, and yet 
 reward their talents with the most profuse liberality. While we do the one, however, 
 we must of necessity do the other. Should the public opinion, or prejudice, ever 
 alter with regard to such occupations, their pecuniary recompense would quickly 
 diminish. More people would apply to them, and the competition would quickly 
 reduce the price of their labour. Such talents, though far from being common, are 
 by no means so rare as imagined. Many people possess them in great perfection, 
 who disdain to make this use of them ; and many more are capable of acquiring them 
 if any thing could be made honourably by them.” Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. 
 X. p. 44. 
 
 “Over and above the rents of those estates, the clergy possessed in the tithes 
 a very large portion of the rents of all the other estates in every kingdom of Europe. 
 The revenues arising from both those species of rents were, the greater part of them, 
 
360 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 The reader will now he able to understand the nature of 
 that method of investigation which is adopted in the Wealth 
 of Nations, and of which I have given more instances than I 
 should otherwise have done, partly because the question of philo- 
 sophic method lies at the very root of our knowledge, and partly 
 because no attempt has hitherto been made to analyze the in- 
 tellect of Adam Smith, by considering his two great works as 
 the opposite, but yet the compensatory, parts of a single scheme. 
 And as he is by far the greatest thinker Scotland has produced, 
 
 I need hardly apologize, in a history of the Scotch mind, for 
 devoting so much attention to his system, and endeavouring to 
 examine it at its base. But, having done so, it would be a 
 needless prolixity to treat with equal fulness the productions of 
 those other eminent Scotchmen who lived at the same time, and 
 nearly aU of whom pursued a method essentially, though not 
 entirely, the same ; that is to say, they preferred the deductive 
 process of reasoning from principles, to the inductive process of 
 reasoning to them. In that peculiar form of deduction which 
 consists in a deliberate suppression of part of the principles, 
 Adam Smith stands alone. For, though others attempted to 
 follow that plan, they did so irregularly, and at intervals, and 
 did not, like him, see the importance of keeping close to their 
 method, and of invariably abstaining from letting into the 
 premisses of their arguments, considerations which would com- 
 plicate the problem that they wished to solve. 
 
 Among the contemporaries of Adam Smith, one of the first, 
 in eminence as well as in reputation, is David Hume. His 
 views respecting political economy were published in 1752,’^’^ 
 that is the very year in which Adam Smith taught the prin- 
 ciples Wbsequently unfolded in the Wealth of Nations. But 
 Hume though a most accomplished reasoner, as weU as a 
 profound and fearless thinker, had not the comprehensiveness 
 of Adam Smith, nor had he that invaluable quality of imagina- 
 tion without which no one can so transport himself into past 
 
 paid in kind, in corn, wine, cattle, poultry, &c. The quantity exceeded greatly what 
 the clerc^y could themselves consume ; and there were neither arts nor manutactures, 
 for the produce of which they could exchange the surplus. The clergy could derive 
 advantage from this immense surplus in no other way than by employing it, as the 
 great barons employed the like surplus of their revenues, in the most profuse hospi- 
 tality, and in the most extensive charity. Both the hospitality and the chi^ity ot 
 the ancient clergy, accordingly, are said to have been very great. ... ihe hos- 
 pitality and charity of the clergy, too, not only gave them the command ot a great 
 temporal force, but increased very much the weight of their spiritual we^ons. 
 Those virtues procured them the highest respect and veneration among all the in- 
 ferior ranks of people, of whom many were constantly, and almost all occasionally 
 fed by them.” Wealth of Nations, book v. chap. i. p. 336. 
 
 ” Burton^ Life of Hume, voL i. p. 364. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 361 
 
 ages as to realize the long and progressive movements of soci- 
 ety, always fluctuating, yet, on the whole, steadily advancing. 
 How unimaginative he was, appears, not only from the senti- 
 ments he expressed, but likewise from many traits in his pri- 
 vate life.’’® It appears, also, in the very colour and mechanism 
 of his language ; that beautiful and chiselled style in which he 
 habitually wrote, polished as marble, but cold as marble too, 
 and wanting that fiery enthusiasm and those bursts of tempest- 
 uous eloquence, which, ever and anon, great objects naturally 
 inspire, and which rouse men to their inmost depths. This it 
 was, which, in his History of England , — that exquisite pro- 
 duction of art, which, in spite of its errors, will be admired as 
 long as taste remains among us, — prevented him from sympa- 
 thizing with those bold and generous natures, who, in the 
 seventeenth century, risked their all to preserve the liberty of 
 their country. His imagination was not strong enough to pic- 
 ture the whole of that great century, with its vast discoveries, 
 its longings after the unknown, its splendid literature, and, what 
 was better than all these, its stern determination to vindicate 
 freedom, and to put down tyranny. His clear and powerful un- 
 derstanding saw these things separately, and in their various 
 parts, but could not fuse them into a single form, because he 
 lacked that peculiar faculty which assimilates the past to the 
 present, and enables the mind to discern both with almost equal 
 ease. That Great Kebellion, which he ascribed to the spirit of 
 faction, and the leaders of which he turned into ridicule, was 
 but the continuation of a movement which can be clearly traced 
 to the twelfth century, and of which such events as the invention 
 of printing, and the establishment of the Reformation, were 
 merely successive symptoms. For all this, Hume cared nothing. 
 In regard to philosophy, and in regard to the purely speculative 
 parts of religious doctrines, his penetrating genius enabled him 
 to perceive that nothing could be done, except by a spirit of 
 fearless and unrestrained liberty. But this was the liberty of his 
 own class ; the liberty of thinkers, and not of actors. His absence 
 of imagination prevented him from extending the range of his 
 sympathy beyond the intellectual classes, that is, beyond tho 
 classes of whose feelings he was directly cognizant. It would, 
 therefore, appear, that his political errors were due, not, as is 
 commonly said, to his want of research, but rather to the 
 coldness of his temperament.'^® It was this which made him 
 
 See Mr. Burton’s valuable Life of Hume^ Edinburgh, 1846, vol. i. pp. 68, 267, 
 vol. ii. pp. 14, 134. 
 
 What confirms me in this vievr, is the fact, that the oider Hume grew, and the 
 more he read on history, the more he became imbued with these errors ; which 
 
362 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 stop where he did, and which gave to his works the singular ap- 
 pearance of a profound and original thinker, in the middle of the 
 eighteenth century, advocating practical doctrines, so iUiberal, 
 that, if enforced, would lead to despotism, and yet, at the same 
 time, advocating speculative doctrines, so fearless and enlight- 
 ened, that they were not only far in advance of his own age, hut 
 have, in some degree, outstripped even the age in which we live. 
 
 Among his speculative views, the most important are, his 
 theory of causation as discarding the idea of power, and his 
 theory of the laws of association. Neither of these theories are, 
 in their primary conception, quite original, but his treatment 
 made them as valuable as if they had been entirely his own. 
 His theory of miracles, in connexion, on the one hand, with 
 the principles of evidence, and, on the other hand, with the 
 laws of causation, is worked out with consummate skill, and, 
 after having received the modifications subsequently imposed by 
 Brown, has now become the foundation on which the best 
 inquirers into these matters take their stand.®" His work on 
 the principles of morals, by generalizing the laws of expediency, 
 prepared the way for Bentham, who afterwards incorporated 
 with them an estimate of the more remote consequences of 
 human actions ; Hume having chiefly confined himself to their 
 more immediate consequences. The doctrine ot utility was 
 common to each ; but while Hume applied it mainly to the 
 individual, Bentham applied it to the surrounding society. 
 Though Bentham was more comprehensive, yet Hume, having 
 come first, was more original. The praise of originality must 
 also be accorded to his economical theories, in which he advo- 
 cated those principles of free trade, which politicians began to 
 adopt many years after his death.® ‘ In opposition to the 
 
 would not have been the case if the errors had, as many of his critics say, been the 
 result of an insufficient acquaintance with the evidence. Mr. Burton, by comparing 
 the different editions of his History of England, has shown that he gradually became 
 leas favourable to popular liberty ; softening, or erasing, in later editions, those ex- 
 pressions which seemed favourable to freedom. Burton's Life of Hume, vol. ii. pp. 
 74-77. See also pp. 144, 434. In his Own Life, p. xi. (in vol. i. of Hume's Works, 
 Edinb. 1826), he says : “ In above a hundred alterations, which farther study, reading, 
 or reflection, engaged me to make in the reigns of the two first Stuarts, I have made 
 all of them invariably to the Tory side.” In one of his essays, he observes {Philo- 
 sophical Wcyrks, vol. iv. p. 172), that “there is no enthusiasm among philosophers 
 a remark perfectly true, so far as he was concerned, but very unjust towards the 
 class of men to whom it refers. 
 
 “ Brown, in his great work,— one of the greatest which the century has produc- 
 ed, — candidly confesses that his own book is “ chiefly reflective of the lights, which 
 he” (Hume) “has given.” Brown's Inquiry into the Belation of Cause and Effect, 
 London, 1835, p. 253. See also p. vii. 
 
 While the politicians of his own time despised his views, the politicians of our 
 time seem inclined to overrate them. Lord Brougham, for instance, in his Life of 
 Hume, says, of his political economy, “Mr. Hume is, beyond all doubt, the author 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 363 
 
 notions then prevailing, he distinctly asserted, that all com- 
 modities, though apparently bought hy money, are in reality 
 bought by labour. Money, therefore, is not the subject of 
 commerce, and is of no use except to facilitate it.®® Hence, it 
 is absurd for a nation to trouble itself about the balance of 
 trade, or to make regulations to discourage the exportation of 
 the precious metals.®^ Neither does the average rate of interest 
 depend on their scarcity or abundance, but upon the operation 
 of more general causes.®® As a necessary consequence of these 
 
 of the modern doctrines which now rule the world of science.” Brougham's Works, 
 Glasgow, 1856, vol. ii. p. 176. But so far from this being the case, the science of 
 political economy has, since the time of Hume, received such additions, that if that 
 illustrious philosopher were to rise from the dead, he would hardly be able to rec- 
 ognize it. To him, many of its largest and most fundamental principles were en- 
 tirely unknown. Hume knew nothing of the causes which govern the accumulation 
 of wealth, and compel that accumulation to proceed with different speed in different 
 states of society ; a fruitful and important study almost entirely neglected until en- 
 tered upon by Rae. Neither did Hume know any thing of the law of the ratio be- 
 tween population and wages ; nor of the ratio between wages and profits. He even 
 supposes {Philosophical Works, vol. iii. p. 299, Edinburgh, 1826) that it is possible 
 for the labouring classes by combination “ to heighten their wages and again (p. 
 319) that the richer a nation is, and the more trade it has, the easier it will be for a 
 poor country to undersell its manufactures, because the poor nation enjoys the ad- 
 vantage of a “ low price of labour.” Elsewhere, he asserts that coin can be depre- 
 ciated without raising prices, and that a country, by taxing a foreign commodity, 
 could increase its own population, “ Were all our money, for instance, re-coined, 
 and a penny’s worth of silver taken from every shilling, the new shilling would prob- 
 ably purchase every thing that could have been bought by the old; the prices of 
 every thing would thereby be insensibly diminished ; foreign trade enlivened ; and 
 domestic industry, by the circulation of a great number of pounds and shillings, 
 would receive some increase and encouragement.” Philosophical Works, vol. iii. p. 
 824. “ A tax on German linen encourages home manufactures, and thereby mul- 
 
 tiplies our people and industry.” p. 365. These are cardinal errors, which go to the 
 very root of political economy ; and when we fairly estimate what has been done by 
 Malthus and Ricardo, it will be evident that Hume’s doctrines do not “ rule the 
 world of science.” This is no disparagement of Hume, who, on the contrary, effect- 
 ed wonderful things, considering the then state of knowledge. The mistake is, in 
 imagining that such a rapidly advancing science as political economy can be govern- 
 ed by doctrines propounded more than a century ago. 
 
 “ Every thing in the world is purchased by labour, and our passions are the 
 only causes of labour.” Essay I. on Commerce, in Hume's Philosophical Works, vol. 
 iii. p. 294. Hence, he saw the fallacy of the assertion of the French economists, 
 “ that all taxes fall ultimately upon land.” p. 388. 
 
 “ Money is not, properly speaking, one of the subjects of commerce, but only 
 the instrument which men have agreed upon to facilitate the exchange of one com- 
 modity for another.” Essay on Money, in Philosophical Works, vol. iii. p. 317. “ It 
 is, indeed, evident that money is nothing but the representation of labour and com- 
 modities, and serves only as a method of rating or estimating them.” p. 321. 
 
 See Essay V. on the Balance of 'Trade, in Hume's Philosophical Works, vol. iii. 
 pp. 348-367, 
 
 Hume's Philosophical Works, vol. iii. pp. 333-335. Even now, a knowledge 
 of this truth is so little diffused, that, lately, when Australia and California began to 
 yield immense quantities of gold, a notion was widely circulated that the interest of 
 money would consequently fall ; although nothing can be more certain than that if 
 gold were to become as plentiful as iron, the interest of money would be unaffected. 
 The whole effect would fall upon price. The remarks on this subject in Ritchie's 
 Life of Hume, London, 1807, pp. 332, 333, are interesting, as illustrating the slow 
 
364 AN EXAMINATION OP THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 positions, Hume inferred that the established policy was wrong, 
 which made trading states look upon each other as rivals, while, 
 in point of fact, the question, if considered from a certain 
 height, was one, not of rivalry, hut of cooperation ; every 
 country being benefited by the increasing wealth of its neigh- 
 bours.®® Those who know the character of commercial legisla- 
 tion, and the opinions of even the most enlightened statesmen 
 a century ago, will consider these views as extremely remarkable 
 to have been propounded in the year 1752. But what is more 
 remarkable still, is, that their author subsequently detected the 
 fundamental error which Adam Smith committed, and which 
 vitiates many of his conclusions. The error consists in his 
 having resolved price into three components, namely, wages, 
 profit, and rent ; whereas it is now known that price is a com- 
 pound of wages and profit, and that rent is not an element of it, 
 but a result of it. This discovery is the corner-stone of political 
 economy ; but it is established by an argument so long and so 
 refined, that most minds are unable to pursue it without 
 stumbling, and the majority of those who acquiesce in it are 
 influenced by the great writers to whom they pay deference, and 
 whose judgment they follow. It is, therefore, a striking proof 
 of the sagacity of Hume, that in an age when the science was 
 but dawning, and wlien he could receive little help from his 
 predecessors, he should have discovered a mistake of this sort, 
 which lies so far beneath the surface. Directly the Wealth of 
 Nations appeared, he wrote to Adam Smith, disputing his 
 position that rent is a part of price and this letter, written 
 
 progress of opinion, and the difiBculty which minds, not specially trained, experience 
 when they attempt to investigate these subjects. 
 
 “ “ Nothing is more usual, among states which have made some advance in com- 
 merce, than to look on the progress of their neighbours with a suspicious eye, to 
 consider all trading states as their rivals, and to suppose that it is impossible for any 
 of them to flourish, but at their expense. In opposition to this narrow and malig- 
 nant opinion, I will venture to assert, that the increase of riches and commerce in any 
 one nation, instead of hurting, commonly promotes the riches and commerce of all 
 its neighbours.” “ I go farther, and observe, that where an open communi- 
 
 cation is preserved among nations, it is impossible but the domestic industry of 
 every one must receive an increase from the improvements of the others.” Mssay 
 on the Jealousy of Trade, in Hume's Philosophical Works, vol. iii. pp. 868, 369. 
 
 " This letter, which I have referred to in my first volume, p. 181, was published, 
 for, I believe, the first time, in 1 846, in Burton's Life and Correspondence of Hume, 
 vol. ii. p. 486. It is, however, very difficult to determine what Adam Smith’s opinion 
 really was upon this subject, and how far he was aware that rent did not enter iuto 
 price. In one passage in the Wealth of Nations (book i. chap. vi. p. 21) he says of 
 wages, profit, and rent, “ In every society, the price of every commodity finally re- 
 solves itself into some one or other, or all of those three parts; and in every improv- 
 ed society, all the three enter, more or less, as component parts, into the price of the far 
 greater part of connmodities." But in book i. chap. xi. p. 61, he says, “ High or low 
 wages and profit are the causes of high or low price ; high or low rent is the effect 
 of it.” This latter opinion we now know to be the true one ; it is, however, incora- 
 
DUllING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 365 
 
 in the year 1776, is the first indication of that celebrated theory 
 of rent, which, a little later, Anderson, Malthus, and West, 
 saw and imperfectly developed, but which it was reserved for 
 the genius of Ricardo to build up on a broad and solid 
 foundation. 
 
 It is very observable that Hume and Adam Smith, who 
 made such immense additions to our knowledge of the prin- 
 ciples of trade, had no practical acquaintance with it.®® Hume 
 had, at an early period of his life, been in a mercantile house ; 
 but he threw up that employment in disgust, and buried himself 
 in a provincial town, to think, rather than to observe.® ® Indeed, 
 one of the capital defects of his mind, was a disregard of facts. 
 This did not proceed, as is too often the case, from that worst 
 form of moral obliquity, an indifference to truth ; since he, on 
 the contrary, was an ardent lover of it, and was, moreover, a 
 man of the purest and most exemplary character, utterly in- 
 capable of falsehood, or of prevarication of any kind.®® In him, 
 
 patible with that expressed in the first passage. For, if rent is the effect of price, it 
 cannot be a component of it. 
 
 •* Hence, when the Wealth of Nations appeared, one of our wise men gravely 
 said that “ Dr. Smith, who had never been in trade, could not be expected to write 
 well on that subject, any more than a lawyer upon physic.” See Boswell’s Life 
 of Johnson, edit. Croker, 1848, p. 478, where this remark is ascribed to Sir John 
 Pringle. 
 
 “He was sent to a mercantile house at Bristol in 1734; but he found the 
 drudgery of this employment intolerable, and he retired to Rheims.” Brougham's 
 lAfe of Hume, Glasgow, 1856, p. 169. See also Ritchie's Life of Hume, p. 6. In 
 Roberts' Memoirs of Hannah More, 2d ed. 1834, vol. i. p. 16, it is said that “two 
 years of his life were spent in a merchant’s counting-house in Bristol, whence he was 
 dismissed on account of the promptitude of his pen in the correction of the letters 
 intrusted to him to copy.” The latter part of this story is improbable ; the former 
 part is certainly incorrect; since Hume himself says, “In 1734, I went to Bristol, 
 with some recommendations to eminent merchants, but in a few months found that 
 scene totally unsuitable to me. I went over to France, with a view of prosecuting 
 my studies in a country retreat.” Own Life, p. v. 
 
 ^ What Sir James Mackintosh says of him is only a faint echo of the general 
 voice of his contemporaries. “His temper was calm, not to say cold; but though 
 none of his feelings were ardent, all were engaged on the side of virtue. He was 
 free from the slightest tincture of malignity or meanness ; his conduct was uniformly 
 excellent.” Mackintosh's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 162. A greater than Mackintosh, and 
 a man who knew Hume intimately, expresses himself in much warmer terms. “ Upon 
 the whole,” writes Adam Smith, “ Upon the whole, I have always considered him 
 both in his lifetime and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a 
 perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit.” 
 Hume's Philosophical Works, vol. i. p. xxv. Some notices of Hume will be found 
 in an interesting work just published, Autobiography of Alexander Carlyle, Edin-* 
 burgh, 1860, pp. 272-278. But Carlyle, though a man of considerable practical skill, 
 was incapable of large views, and was, therefore, unable, I wiU not say to measure, 
 but even to conceive, the size of such an understanding as that possessed by David 
 Hume. Of his want of speculative power, a decisive instance appears in his remarks 
 on Adam Smith. He gravely (Autobiography, p. 281), “Smith’s fine writing 
 is chiefly displayed in his book on Moral Sentiment, which is the pleasivntest and 
 most eloquent book on the subject. His Wealth of Nations, from which he was 
 |udged to be an inventive genius of the first order, is tedious and full of repetition. 
 
366 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 a contempt for facts was merely the exaggerated result of a 
 devotion to ideas. He not only believed, with perfect justice, 
 that ideas are more important than facts, but be supposed tbat 
 they should hold the first place in the order of study, and that 
 they should he developed before the facts are investigated. The 
 Baconian philosophy, which, though it allows a preliminary and 
 tentative hypothesis, strongly insists upon the necessity of first 
 collecting the facts, and then proceeding to the ideas, excited 
 his aversion ; and this, I have no doubt, is the reason why he, 
 who was usually so lenient in his judgments, and who was so 
 keen an admirer of intellectual greatness, is, nevertheless, grossly 
 unfair towards Bacon, with whose method it was impossible for 
 him to sympathize, though he could not deny its utility in 
 physical science.® ' If Hume had followed the Baconian scheme, 
 of always rising from particulars to generals, and from each 
 generalization to that immediately above it, he would hardly 
 have written one of his works. Certainly, his economical views 
 would never have appeared, since political economy is as essen- 
 tially a deductive science as geometry itself.®^ Reversing the 
 inductive process, he was in favour of beginning with what he 
 termed general arguments, by which he hoped to demonstrate 
 the inaccuracy of opinions which facts were supposed to have 
 proved.®® He did not stop to investigate the facts from which 
 the inference had been drawn, but he inverted the order by 
 which the inference was to be obtained. The same dislike to 
 make the facts of trade the basis of the science of trade, was 
 displayed by Adam Smith, who expresses his want of confidence 
 in statistics, or, as it was then termed, political arithmetic.®" 
 
 His separate essays in the second volume have the air of being occasional pamphlets, 
 without much force or determination. On political subjects, his opinions were not 
 very sound.” It is rather too much when a village preacher writes in this strain ot 
 
 the greatest man his country has ever produced. 
 
 He speaks of him in the following extraordinary terms. If we consider the 
 variety of talents displayed by this man; as a public speaker, a man of business, a 
 W't a courtier, a companion, an author, a philosopher; he is justly the object of 
 great admiration. If we consider him merely as an author and philosopher, the light 
 in which we view him at present, though very estimable, he was yet inferior to his 
 
 contemvarary Galileo, perhaps even to Kepler.'" . . . . “ The national spirit which 
 
 prevails among the English, and which forms their great happiness, is the cause why 
 they bestow on all their eminent writers, and on Bacon among the rest, such praises 
 and acclamations as may often appear partial and excessive.” Hume s History of 
 E-noZaruf, vol. vi. pp. 194, 195, London, 1189. , 
 
 See the note in vol. i. pp. 181, 182 of Buckle's History of Civilization. 
 
 Thus for instance, in his remarkable Essay on the Balance of Trade, he says 
 (Philosophical Works, vol. iii. p. 349), “ Every man who has ever reasoned on this 
 subject has always moved his theory, whatever it was, by facts and calculatims, and 
 by an enumeration of all the commodities sent to all foreign kingdoms; therefore 
 (p. 360), “It may here be proper to form a general argument to prove^the impossi- 
 bility of this event, so long as we preserve our people and our industry. _ 
 
 “I have no great fiiith in political arithmetic.” Wealth of Nations, book iv. 
 
 chap. V. p. 218. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 367 
 
 It is, however, evident, that statistical facts are as good as any 
 other facts, and, owing to their mathematical form, are very 
 precise.®® But when they concern human actions, they are the 
 result of all the motives which govern those actions ; in other 
 words, they are the result, not merely of selfishness, hut also of 
 sympathy. And as Adam Smith, in the Wealth of Nations, 
 dealt with only one of those passions, namely selfishness, he 
 would have found it impossible to conduct his generalization 
 from statistics, which are necessarily collected from the products 
 of both passions. Such statistical facts were, in their origin, 
 too complex to he generalized ; especially as they could not he 
 experimented upon, hut could only be observed and arranged. 
 Adam Smith, perceiving them to be unmanageable, very prop- 
 erly rejected them as the basis of his science, and merely used 
 them by way of illustration, when he could select what he liked. 
 The same remark applies to other facts which he drew from the 
 history of trade, and, indeed, from the general history of society. 
 All of these are essentially subsequent to the argument. They 
 make the argument more clear, but not more certain. For, it 
 is no exaggeration to say, that, if all the commercial and his- 
 torical facts in the Wealth of Nations were false, the book 
 would still remain, and its conclusions would hold equally good, 
 though they would be less attractive. In it, every thing depends 
 upon general principles, and they, as we have seen, were arrived 
 at in 1752, that is, twenty-four years before the work was pub- 
 lished, in which those principles were applied. They must, 
 therefore, have been acquired independently of the facts which 
 Adam Smith subsequently incorporated with them, and which 
 he learnt during that long period of twenty-four years. And 
 the ten years which he employed in composing his great work, 
 were not spent in one of those busy haunts of men, where he 
 might have observed all the phenomena of industry, and studied 
 the way in which the operations of trade afiect human charac- 
 ter, and are affected by it. He did not resort to one of those 
 vast marts and emporiums of commerce, where the events were 
 happening which he was seeking to explain. That was not 
 his method. On the contrary, the ten years, during which he 
 was occupied in raising to a science the most active department 
 
 Indeed, the only possible objection to them is that the language of their col- 
 lectors is sometimes ambiguous; so that, by the same return, one statistician may 
 mean one thing, and another statistician may mean something quite different. This 
 is well exemplified in medical statistics ; whence several writers, unacquainted with 
 the philosophy of scientific proof, have supposed that medicine is incapable of mathe- 
 matical treatment. In point of fact, however, the only real impediment is the shame- 
 ful state of clinical and pathological terminology, which is in such confusion as to 
 throw doubt upon all extensive numerical statements respecting disease. 
 
368 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 of life, were passed in complete seclusion in Kirkaldy, his quiet 
 little birth-place.®* He had always been remarkable for absence 
 of mind, and was so little given to observation, as to be fre- 
 quently oblivious of what was passing around him.*’’ In that 
 obliviousness, he, amid the tranquil scenes of his childhood, 
 could now indulge without danger. There, cheered, indeed, by 
 the society of his mother, but with no opportunity of observing 
 human nature upon a large scale, and far removed from the 
 hum of great cities, did this mighty thinker, by the force of 
 his own mind, unravel the numerous and complicated phenom- 
 ena of wealth, detect the motives which regulate the conduct 
 of the most energetic and industrious portion of mankind, and 
 lay bare the schemes and the secrets of that active life from 
 which he was shut out, while he, immured in comparative soli- 
 tude, was unable to witness the very facts which he succeeded 
 in explaining. 
 
 The same determination to make the study of principles 
 precede that of facts, is exhibited by Hume in one of his most 
 original works, the Natural History of Religion. In reference 
 to the title of this treatise, we must observe, that, according to 
 the Scotch philosophers, the natural course of any movement is 
 by no means the same as its actual course. This discrepancy 
 between the ideal and the real, was the unavoidable result of 
 their method.*® For, as they argued deductively from fixed 
 
 ** “Upon his return to England in the autumn of 1^66, he went to reside with 
 his mother at his native town of Kirkaldy, and remained there for ten years. All 
 the attempts of his friends in Edinburgh to draw him thither were vain ; and from a 
 kind and lively letter of Mr. Hume upon the subject, complaining that, though within 
 sight of him on the opposite side of the Frith ot Forth, he could not have speech of 
 him, it appears that no one was aware of the occupations in which those years were 
 passed.” Brougham's Life of Adam Smithy p. 189. Occasionally, however, he saw 
 his hterary friends. See Jhigald Stewart's Biographical Memoirs^ p. 73, Edinburgh, 
 1811, 4to. 
 
 “ He was certainly not fitted for the general commerce of the world, or for 
 the business of active life. The comprehensive speculations with which he had been 
 occupied from his youth, and the variety of materials which his own invention con- 
 stantly supplied to his thoughts, rendered him habitually inattentive to familiar ob- 
 jects and to common occurrences ; and he frequently exhibited instances of absence, 
 which have scarcely been surpassed by the fancy of La Bruyere.” Stewart's Bio- 
 graphical Memoirs^ p. 113. See &\ao Ramsay's Reminiscences 5th edit., Edinb. 1869, 
 p. 236. Carlyle, who knew him well, says, “he was the most absent man in com- 
 pany that I ever saw, moving his lips, and talking to himself, and smiling, in the 
 midst of large companies.” Autobiography of the Rev. Alexander Carlyle, 2d edition, 
 Edinburgh, 1860, p. 279. 
 
 A Scotch philosopher of great repute, but, as it appears to me, of ability not 
 quite equal to his repute, has stated very clearly and accurately this favourite method 
 of his countrymen. “In examining the history of mankind, as well as in examining 
 the phenomena of the material world, when we cannot trace the process by which 
 an event has been produced, it is often of importance to be able to show how it may 
 have been produced by natural causes.” .... “To this species of philosophical 
 investigation, which has no appropriated name in our language, I shall take the 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 369 
 
 premisseSj they could not take into account the perturbations 
 to which their conclusions were liable, from the play and friction 
 of the surrounding society. To do that, required a separate 
 inqmry. It would have been needful to investigate the circum- 
 stances which caused the friction, and thus prevented the con- 
 ^ s trom hem^, in the world of fact, the same as they 
 were in the world of speculation. What we call accidents, are 
 constantly happening, and they prevent the real march of affairs 
 from being identical with the natural march. And, as long as 
 we are unable to predict those accidents, there will always be a 
 want of complete harmony between the inferences of a deductive 
 science and the realities of life ; in other words, our inferences 
 will tend towards truth, but never completely attain it.*® 
 
 With peculiar propriety, therefore, did Hume term his work 
 ^ Natural History of Beligion. It is an admirable specimen 
 of the deductive method. Its only fault is, that he speaks too 
 confidently of the accuracy of the results to which, on such a 
 subject, that method could attain. He believed, that, by ob- 
 serving the principles of human nature, as he found them in 
 his own mind, it was possible to explain the whole course of 
 affairs, both moral and physical. These principles were to be 
 arrived at by experiments made on himself ; and having thus 
 arrived at them, he was to reason from them deductively, and 
 BO construct the entire scheme. This, he contrasts with the in- 
 ductive plan, which he calls a tedious and lingering process j 
 and while others might follow that slow and patient method of 
 gradually working their way towards first principles, his project 
 
 liberty of giving the title of Theoretical or Conjectural History ; an expression which 
 filicides pretty nearly in its meaning with that of Natural History as employed by 
 Mr. Hume, and with what some French writers have called Histoire Raisonnee.” 
 Hugald Stewart's Biographical Memoirs, pp. 48, 49. Hence (p. 63), “ in most case's. 
 It IS of more importance to ascertain the progress that is most simple, than the proo-’ 
 ress that is most agreeable to fact ; for, paradoxical as the proposition may appear. 
 It IS certainly true,_ that the real progress is not always the 7 nost natural. It may 
 have been determined, by particular accidents, which are not likely again to occur, 
 and which cannot be considered as forming any part of that general provision which 
 nature has made for the improvement of the race.” 
 
 ... expressed in Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, book 
 
 111 . part ii. ^ This, however, hinders not but that philosopheis may, if they please 
 extend their reasoning to the supposed staie of nature ; provided they allow it to be 
 a mere philosophical fiction, which never had, and never could have any reality.” 
 “The same liberty may be permitted to moral, which is allowed to natural phil'o's^ 
 ophers ; and tis very usual with the latter to consider any motion as compounded 
 and consisting of two parts separate from each other, though, at the same time, 
 they acknowledge it to be in itself uncompounded and inseparable.” Philosophical 
 Works, vol. ii. p. 263. 
 
 And, conversely, that whatever was “ demonstratively false,” could “ never 
 be distinctly conceived by the mind.” Philosophical Works, vol. iv. p. 33. Here 
 and s^etimes in other passages, Hume, though by no means a Cartesian, reminds 
 us of Descartes. 
 
 69 
 
370 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 was, to seize them at once, or, as he expresses it himself, not to 
 stop at the frontier, hut to march directly on the capital, being 
 possessed of which, he could gain an easy victory over other 
 difficulties, and could extend his conquests over the sciences. 
 According to Hume, we are to reason, not in order to obtain 
 ideas, but we are to have clear ideas before we reason.^®® By 
 this means we arrive at philosophy ; and her conclusions are not 
 to be impugned, even if they do happen to clash with science. 
 On the contrary, her authority is supreme, and her decisions, 
 being essentially true, must always be preferred to any general- 
 ization of the facts which the external world presents. 
 
 Hume, therefore, believed, that all the secrets of the external 
 world are wrapped up in the human mind. The mind was not 
 only the key by which the treasure could be unlocked ; it was 
 also the treasure itself. Learning and science might illustrate 
 and beautify our mental acquisitions, but they could not com- 
 municate real knowledge ; they could neither give the prime 
 original materials, nor could they teach the design according to 
 which those materials must be worked. 
 
 In conformity with these views, the Natural History of 
 Religion was composed. The object of Hume, in writing it, 
 was, to ascertain the origin and process of religious ideas ; and 
 he arrives at the conclusion, that the worship of many Gods 
 must, every where, have preceded the worship of one God. This, 
 
 “ Here then, is the only expedient, from which we can hope for success in 
 our philosophical researches, to leave the tedious, lingering method, which we have 
 hitherto followed, and instead of taking now and then a castle or village on the 
 frontier, to march up directly to the capital, or centre of those sciences, to human 
 nature itself; which, being once masters of, we may every where else hope for an 
 easy victory. From this station we may extend our conquests over all those sciences 
 which more immediately concern human life, and may afterw'ards proceed, at leisure, 
 to discover more fully those which are the objects of pure curiosity.” Hume's 
 Philosophical Works, vol. i. p. 8. See also, in vol. ii. pp. 73, 74, his remarks on the 
 way “ to consider the matter a priori." 
 
 102 kind of reasoning can give rise to a new idea, such as this of power is ; 
 hut wherever we reason, we must antecedently be possessed of clear ideas, which 
 may be the objects of our reasoning.” Hume's Philosophical Works, vol. i. p. 217. 
 Compare vol. ii. p. 276, on our arriving at a knowledge of causes “by a kind of 
 taste or fancy.” Hence, the larger view preceding the smaller, and being essentially 
 independent of it, will constantly contradict it : and he complains, for instance, that 
 “ difficulties, which seem unsurmountable in theory, are easily got over in practice.” 
 vol. ii. p. 357 ; and again, in vol. iii. p. 326, on the effort needed to “reconcile 
 reason to experience.” But, after all, it is rather by a careful study of his works, 
 than by quoting particular passages, that his method can be understood. In the 
 two sentences, however, just cited, the reader will see that theory and reason rep- 
 resent the larger view ; while practice and experience represent the smaller. 
 
 108 » »pjg certainly a kind of indignity to philosophy, whose sovereign authority 
 ought every where to be acknowledged, to oblige her on every occasion to make 
 apologies for her conclusions, and justify herself to every particular art and science, 
 which may be offended at her. This puts one in mind of a king arraigned for high 
 treason against his subjects.” Hume's Philosophical Works, vol. i. pp. 318, 319. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 371 
 
 he regards as a law of the human mind, a thing not only that 
 always has happened, but that always must happen. His proof 
 is entirely speculative. He argues, that the earliest state of 
 man is necessarily a savage state ; that savages can feel no 
 interest in the ordinary operations of nature, and no desire to 
 study the principles which govern those operations ; that such 
 men must be devoid of curiosity on all subjects which do not 
 personally trouble them ; and that, therefore, while they neglect 
 the usual events of nature, they will turn their minds to the 
 unusual ones.‘“^ A violent tempest, a monstrous birth, exces- 
 sive cold, excessive rain, sudden and fatal diseases, are the sort 
 of things to which the attention of the savage is confined, and 
 of which alone he desires to know the causes. Directly he finds 
 that such causes are beyond his control, he reckons them supe- 
 rior to himself, and, being incapable of abstracting them, he 
 personifies them ; he turns them into deities ; polytheism is 
 established ; and the earliest creed of mankind assumes a form 
 which can never be altered, as long as men remain in this con- 
 dition of pristine ignorance. 
 
 These propositions, which are not only plausible, but which 
 are probably true, ought, according to the inductive philosophy, 
 to have been generalized from a survey of facts ; that is, from 
 a collection of evidence respecting the state of religion, and of 
 the speculative faculties among savage tribes. But this, Hume 
 abstains from doing. He refers to none of the numerous trav- 
 
 “ A barbarous, necessitous animal (such as a man is on the first origin of 
 society), pressed by such numerous wants and passions, has no leisure to admire the 
 regular face of nature, or make inquiries concerning the cause of those objects to 
 which, from his infancy, he has been gradually accustomed. On the contrary, the 
 more regular and uniform, that is the more perfect, nature appears, the more is he 
 familiarized to it, and the less inclined to scrutinize and examine it. A monstrous birth 
 excites his curiosity, and is deemed a prodigy. It alarms him from its novelty, and 
 immediately sets him to trembling, and sacrificing, and praying. But an animal 
 complete in all its limbs and organs, is to him an ordinary spectacle, and produces 
 no religious opinion or affection. Ask him whence that animal arose ? he will tell 
 you, from the copulation of its parents. And these, whence ? From the copulation 
 of theirs. A few removes satisfy his curiosity, and set the objects at such a distance 
 that he entirely loses sight of them. Imagine not that he will so much as start the 
 question, whence the first animal, much less whence the whole system, or united 
 fabric, of the universe arose. Or, if you start such a question to him, expect not 
 that he will employ his mind with any anxiety about a subject so remote, so uninter- 
 esting, and which so much exceeds the bounds of his capacity.” Natural History 
 of Religion^ in Hume’s Philosophical Works, vol. iv. p. 439. See also pp. 463-465. 
 
 1“ “By degrees, the active imagination of men, uneasy in this abstract concep- 
 tion of objects, about which it is incessantly employed, begins to render them more 
 particular, and to clothe them in shapes more suitable to its natural comprehension. 
 It represents them to be sensible, intelligent beings like mankind ; actuated by love 
 and hatred, and flexible by gifts and entreaties, by prayers and sacrifices. Hence 
 the origin of religion. And hence the origin of idolatry, or polytheism.” Hume's 
 Philosophical Works, vol. iv. p. 472. “ The primary religion of mankind arises 
 
 chiefly from an anxious fear of future events.” p. 498. 
 
372 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 ellers who have visited such people ; he does not, in the whole 
 course of his work, mention even a single hook where facts respect- 
 ing savage life are preserved. It was enough for him, that the 
 progress from a belief in many Gods to a belief in one God, was 
 the natural progress ; which is saying, in other words, that it 
 appeared to his mind to he the natural progress.'®® With that, 
 he was satisfied. In other parts of his essay, where he treats 
 of the religious opinions of the ancient Greeks and Komans, h<^ 
 displays a tolerable, though by no means remarkable, learning ; 
 but the passages which he cites, do not refer to that entirely 
 barbarous society in which, as he supposes, polytheism first 
 arose. The premisses, therefore, of the argument are evolved 
 out of his own mind. He reasons deductively from the ideas 
 which his powerful intellect supplied, instead of reasoning 
 inductively from the facts which were peculiar to the subject he 
 was investigating. 
 
 Even in the rest of his work, which is full of refined and 
 curious speculation, he uses facts, not to demonstrate his con- 
 clusions, but to illustrate them. He, therefore, selected those 
 facts which suited his purpose, leaving the others untouched. 
 And this, which many critics would call unfair, was not unfair 
 in him ; because he believed, that he had already established 
 his principles without the aid of those facts. The facts might 
 benefit the reader, by making the argument clearer, but they 
 could not strengthen the argument. They were more intended 
 to persuade than to prove ; they were rather rhetorical than 
 logical. Hence, a critic would waste his time if he were to sift 
 them with a minuteness which would be necessary, suppos- 
 ing that Hume had built an inductive argument upon them. 
 Otherwise, without going far, it might be curious to contrast 
 
 “ It seems certain, that, according to the natural progress of human thought, the 
 ignorant multitude must first entertain some grovelling and familar notion of superior 
 powers, before they stretch their conception to that perfect Being who bestowed 
 order on the whole frame of nature. We may as reasonably imagine, that men in- 
 habited palaces before huts and cottages, or studied geometry before agriculture, as 
 assert that the Deity appeared to them a pure spirit, omniscient, omnipotent, and 
 omnipresent, before he was apprehended to be a powerful though limited being, 
 with human passions and appetites, limbs and organs. The mind^ rises gradually 
 from inferior to superior. By abstracting from what is imperfect, it forms an idea 
 of perfection ; and slowly distinguishing the nobler parts of its own frame from the 
 grosser, it learns to transform only the former, much elevated and refined, to its 
 divinity. Nothing could disturb this natural progress of thought, but some obvious 
 and invincible argument, which might immediately lead the mind into the pure 
 principles of theism, and make it overleap, at one bound, the vast interval which is 
 interposed between the human and the Divine nature. But though I allow, that 
 the order and frame of the universe, when accurately examined, afford such an 
 argument, yet I can never think that this consideration could have an influence on 
 mankind, when they formed their first rude notions of religion.” Natural History 
 of Religion, in Philosophical Works, vol. iv. p. 438. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 373 
 
 them with the entirely different facts which Cudworth, eighty 
 years before, had collected from the same source, and on the 
 same^ subject. Cudworth, who was much superior to Hume in 
 learning, and much inferior to him in genius,*®^ displayed, in 
 his great work on the Intellectual System of the Universe, a 
 prodigious erudition, to prove that, in the ancient world, the 
 belief in one God was a prevailing doctrine. Hume, who never 
 refers to Cudworth, arrives at a precisely opposite conclusion. 
 Both quoted ancient writers ; but while Cudworth drew his 
 inferences from what he found in those writers, Hume drew his 
 from what he found in his own mind. Cudworth, being more 
 learned, relied on his reading ; Hume, having more genius, 
 relied on his intellect. Cudworth, trained in the school of 
 Bacon, first collected the evidence, and then passed the judg- 
 ment, Hume, formed in a school entirely different, believed 
 that the acuteness of the judge was more important than the 
 quantity of the evidence ; that witnesses were likely to prevari- 
 cate , and that he possessed, in his own mind, the surest materi- 
 als for arriving at an accurate conclusion. It is not, therefore, 
 strange, that Cudworth and Hume, pursuing opposite methods, 
 should have obtained opposite results, since such a discrepancy 
 is, as I have already pointed out, unavoidable, when men inves- 
 tigate, according to different plans, a subject which, in the exist- 
 mg state of knowledge, is not amenable to scientific treatment. 
 
 The length to which this chapter has already extended, and 
 the number of topics which I have still to handle, will prevent 
 me trom examining, in detail, the philosophy of Keid, who was 
 the most eminent among the purely speculative thinkers of 
 Scotland, after Hume and Adam Smith, though, in point of 
 merit, he must be placed far below them. For, he had neither 
 ^e comprehensiveness of Smith, nor the fearlessness of Hume. 
 The range of his knowledge was not wide enough to allow him 
 to be comprehensive ; while a timidity, almost amounting to 
 moral cowardice, made him to recoil from the views advocated 
 by Hume, not so much on account of their being false, as on 
 account of their being dangerous. It is, however, certain, that 
 no man can take high rank as a philosopher, who allows himself 
 to be trammelled by considerations of that kind. A philosopher 
 should aim solely at truth, and should refuse to estimate the 
 
 Not that he was by any means devoid of genius, though he holds a rank far 
 below so great and original a thinker as Hume. He had, however, collected more 
 materials than he was able to wield; and his work on the Intellectual System of the 
 t/nti)erse, which is a treasure of ancient philosophy, is badly arranged, and, in many 
 parts, feebly argued. There is more real power in his posthumous treatise on Eter- 
 nat and Immutable Morality^ 
 
374 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 practical tendency of his speculations. If they are true, let 
 them stand ; if they are false, let them fall. But, whether 
 they are agreeable or disagreeable, whether they are consolatory 
 or disheartening, whether they are safe or mischievous, is a 
 question, not for philosophers, hut for practical men. Every 
 new truth, which has ever been propounded, has, for a time, 
 caused mischief ; it has produced discomfort, and often unhap- 
 piness, sometimes by disturbing social or religious arrangements, 
 and sometimes merely by the disruption of old and cherished 
 associations of thought. It is only after a certain interval, and 
 when the framework of affairs has adjusted itself to the new 
 truth, that its good effects preponderate ; and the preponder- 
 ance continues to increase, until, at length, the truth causes 
 nothing but good. But, at the outset, there is always harm. And, 
 if the truth is very great, as well as very new, the harm is 
 serious. Men are made uneasy ; they flinch ; they cannot bear 
 the sudden light ; a general restlessness supervenes ; the face 
 of society is disturbed, or perhaps convulsed ; old interests, and 
 old beliefs, are destroyed, before new ones have been created. 
 These symptoms are the precursors of revolution; they have 
 preceded all the great changes through which the world has 
 passed ; and while, if they are not excessive, they forebode prog- 
 ress, so, if they are excessive, they threaten anarchy. It is the 
 business of practical men to moderate such symptoms, and to 
 take care that the truths which philosophers discover, are not 
 applied so rashly as to dislocate the fabric, instead of strength- 
 ening it. But the philosopher has only to discover the truth, 
 and promulgate it ; and that is hard work enough for any man, 
 let his ability be as great as it may. This division of labour, 
 between thinkers and actors, secures an economy of force, and 
 prevents either class from wasting its power. It establishes a 
 difference between science, which ascertains principles, and art, 
 which applies them. It also recognizes, that the philosopher 
 and the practical man, having each a separate part to play, each 
 is, in his own fleld, supreme. But it is a sad confusion for 
 either to interfere with the other. In their different sphere, 
 both are independent, and both are worthy of admiration. In- 
 asmuch, however, as practical men should never allow the 
 speculative conclusions of philosophers, whatever be their truth, 
 to be put in actual operation, unless society is, in some degree, 
 ripe for their reception ; so, on the other hand, philosophers are 
 not to hesitate, and tremble, and stop short in their career, 
 because their intellect is leading them to conclusions subversive 
 of existing interests. The duty of a philosopher is clear. His 
 path lies straight before him. He must take every pains to 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 375 
 
 ascertain the truth j and, having arrived at a conclusion, he 
 instead of shrinking from it because it is unpalatable, or because 
 It seems dangerous, shouM, on that very account, cling the 
 closer to it, should uphold it in bad repute, more zealously than 
 he would have done in good repute ; should noise it abroad far and 
 wide, utterly regardless of what opinions he shocks, or what in- 
 terests he imperils ; should, on its behalf, court hostility and de- 
 spise contempt, being well assured, that, if it is not true, it will 
 die, but that, if it is true, it must produce ultimate benefit 
 albeit unsuited for practical adoption by the age or country in 
 which it is first propounded. 
 
 But Keid, notwithstanding the clearness of his mind and his 
 great powers of argument, had so little of the real philosophic 
 spirit, that he loved truth, not for its own sake, but for the 
 sake of its immediate and practical results. He himself tells 
 us, that he began to study philosophy, merely because he was 
 shocked at the consequences at which philosophers had arrived. 
 As long as tho spoculations of Locke and of Berkeley were not 
 pushed to their logical conclusions, Keid acquiesced in them 
 and they were good in his eyes.*"® While they were safe and 
 tolerably orthodox, he was not over-nice in inquiring into their 
 validity. In the hands of Hume, however, philosophy became 
 bolder and more inquisitive ; she disturbed opinions which were 
 ancient, and which it was pleasant to hold j she searched into 
 the foundation of things, and by forcing men to doubt and to 
 inquire, she rendered inestimable service to the cause of truth. 
 But this was precisely the tendency at which Reid was dis- 
 pleased. He saw that such disturbance was uncomfortable ; he 
 saw it was hazardous ; therefore, he endeavoured to prove that 
 it was groundless. Confusing the question of practical conse- 
 quences with the totally different question of scientific truth 
 he took for granted that, because to his age the adoption of 
 those consequences would be mischievous, they must be false. 
 
 I once believed this doctrine of ideas so firmly, as to embrace the whole of 
 Berkeleys system inconsequence of it; till, finding other consequences to follow 
 pom It, which gave me more uneasiness than the want of a material world it came 
 mto my mind more than forty years ago, to put the question. What evidence have I 
 lor this docpine thp all the objects of my knowledge are ideas of my own mind ? 
 J<rom that time to the present, I have been candidly and impartially, as I think, seek- 
 ing tor the evidence ot this principle, but can find none, excepting the authority of 
 philosophers. Reids Essays on the Powers of the Human Mind, edit. Edinburgh, 
 1808 vol. 1 , p. 172. And, in a letter which he wrote to Hume in 1763, he, with a 
 simple candour which must have highly amused that eminent philosopher, confesses 
 that your syspm appears to me not only coherent in all its parts, but likewise 
 jusBy deduced from prinmples commonly received among philosophers ; principles 
 which I never thought of calling in question, until the conclusions you draw from 
 them in the Treatise of Human Nature’ made me suspect them.” Burton's Lift 
 and Correspondence of Hume, vol. ii. p. 155. •' 
 
376 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 To the profound views of Hume respecting causation, he gravely 
 objects, that if they were carried into effect, the operation of 
 criminal law would be imperilled. To the speculations of 
 the same philosopher concerning the metaphysical basis of the 
 theory of contracts, he replies, that such speculations perplex 
 men, and weaken their sense of duty ; they are, therefore, to 
 be disapproved of, on account of their tendency.'^” With Heid, 
 the main question always is, not whether an inference is true, 
 but what will happen if it is true. He says, that a doctrine is 
 to be judged by its fruits forgetting that the same doctrine 
 will bear different fruits in different ages, and that the conse- 
 quences which a theory produces in one state of society, are 
 often diametrically opposed to those which it produces in an- 
 other. He thus made his own age the standard of all future 
 ones. He also trammelled philosophy with practical considera- 
 tions ; diverting thinkers from the pursuit of truth, which is 
 their proper department, into the pursuit of expediency, which 
 is not their department at all. Keid w’as constantly stopping 
 to inquire, not whether theories were accurate, but whether it 
 was advisable to adopt them ; whether they were favourable to 
 patriotism, or to generosity, or to friendship in a word, 
 
 109 (t guppose a man to be found dead on the high-way, his skull fractured, his 
 body pierced with deadly wounds, his watch and money carried off The coroner’s 
 jury sits upon the body, and the question is put, ‘ What was the cause of this man’s 
 death, was it accident, ov felo de se, or murder by persons unknown ?’ Let us sup- 
 pose an adept in Mr. Hume’s philosophy to make one of the jury, and that he insists 
 upon the previous question, whether there was any cause of the event, or whether 
 it happened without cause.” lieid's Essays on the Powers of theMind^ vol. ii. p. 286. 
 Compare vol. iii. p. 33 : “ This would put an end to all speculation, as well as to all 
 the business of life.” 
 
 no a obligation of contracts and promises is a matter so sacred, and of such 
 consequence to human society, that speculations which have a tendency to weaken 
 that obligation, and to perplex men’s notions on a subject so plain and so important, 
 ought to 7neet with the disapprobation of all honest men. Some such speculations, I 
 think, we have in the third volume of Mr. Hume’s ‘ Treatise of Human Nature,’ and 
 in his ‘ Enquiry into the Principles of Morals ;’ and my design in this chapter is, to 
 offer some observations on the nature of a contract or promise, and on two passages 
 of that author on this subject. I am far from saying or thinking, that Mr. Hume 
 meant to weaken men’s obligations to honesty and fair dealing, or that he had not 
 a sense of these obligations himself. It is not the man I impeach, but his writings. 
 Let us think of the first as charitably as we can, while we freely examine the im- 
 port and tendency of the last.” Reid's Essays on the Powers of the Mind, vol. iii. p. 
 444. In this, as in most passages, the italics are my owui. 
 
 Ill u w'ithout repeating what I have before said of causes in the first of these 
 Essays, and in the second and third chapters of this, I shall here mention some of 
 the consequences that may be justly deduced from this definition of a cause, that 
 we may judge of it by its fruits.” Reid's Essays, vol. iii. p. 339. 
 
 ““ “ Bishop Berkeley surely did not duly con.sider that it is by means of the 
 material world that we have any correspondence with thinking beings, or any 
 knowledge of their existence, and that by depriving us of the material world, he 
 deprived us at the same time of family, friends, country, and every human creature; 
 of every object of affection, esteem or concern, except ourselves. The good Bishop 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 377 
 
 whether they were comfortable, and such as we should at pres- 
 ent like to believe.**^ Or else, he would take other ground, still 
 lower, and still more unworthy of a philosopher. In oppos- 
 iiig, for instance, the doctrine, that our faculties sometimes 
 deceive us, — a doctrine which, as he well knew, had been held 
 by men whose honesty was equal to his own, and whose abil- 
 ity was superior to his own, — he does not scruple to enlist 
 on his side the prejudices of a vulgar superstition ; seeking to 
 blacken the tenet which he was unable to refute. He actu- 
 ally asserts, that they who advocate it, insult the Deity, by 
 imputing to the Almighty that He has hed. Such being th« 
 consequence of the opinion, it of course follows, that the opinion 
 must be rejected without further scrutiny, since, to accept it, 
 would produce fatal results on our conduct, and would, indeed, 
 be subversive of all religion, of all morals, and of all knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 In 1764, Eeid published his Inquiry into the Human Mind; 
 and in that, and in his subsequent work, entitled Essays on the 
 P outers of the Mind, he sought to destroy the philosophy of 
 Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. And as Hume was the boldest 
 of the three, it was chiefly his philosophy which Reid attacked. 
 Of the character of this attack some specimens have just been 
 given ; but they rather concern his object and motives, while 
 what we have now to ascertain, is his method, that is, the tac- 
 tics of his warfare. He clearly saw that Hume had assumed 
 certain principles, and had reasoned deductively from them to 
 the facts, instead of reasoning inductively from the facts to 
 them. To this method he strongly, and perhaps fairly, objects. 
 He admits that Hume had reasoned so accurately, that if his 
 principles were conceded, his conclusions must likewise be con- 
 
 surely never intended this. He was too warm a friend, too zealous a patriot, and 
 too good a Christian, to be capable of such a thought. He was not aware of the 
 consequences of his system" (poor ignorant Berkeley), “ and therefore they ought not 
 to be imputed to him ; but we must impute them to the system itself. It stifles 
 every generous and social principle.” Reid'* Essays, vol. ii. pp. 251, 252. 
 
 In his Essays, vol. i. p. 179, he says of Berkeley, one of the deepest and 
 most unanswerable of all speculators, “ But there is one uncomfortable consequence 
 of his system which he seems not to have attended to, and from which it will be 
 found difficult, if at all possible, to guard it.” 
 
 114 .« ffjjjg doctrine is dishonourable to our Maker, and lays a foundation for uni- 
 versal skepticism. It supposes the Author of our being to have given us one faculty 
 on purpose to deceive us, and another by which we may detect the fallacy, and find 
 that he imposed upon us.” . . . . “ Th# genuine dictate of our natural faculties 
 is the^ voice of God, no less than what he reveals from heaven ; and to say that it is 
 fallacious, is to impute a lie to the God of truth.” .... “Shall we impute to the 
 Almighty what we cannot impute to a man without a heinous affront ? Passing this 
 opinion, therefore, as shocking to an ingenuous mind, and, in its consequences, sub' 
 versive of all religion, all morals, and all knowledge,” &c. Reid's Essays, vol. iiu 
 p. 310. See also vol. i. p. 313. 
 
378 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 ceded. But, he says, Hume has no right to proceed in such 
 a manner. He had no right to assume principles, and then to 
 argue from them. The laws of nature were to he arrived at, 
 not by conjecturing in this way, but by a patient induction of 
 facts."® Discoveries depended solely on observation and ex- 
 periment ; and any other plan could only produce theories, 
 ingenious, perhaps, and plausible, but quite worthless,"’’ For, 
 theory should yield to fact, and not fact to theory."® Specula- 
 tors, indeed, might talk about first principles, and raise a sys- 
 tem by reasoning from them. But the fact was, that there was 
 no agreement as to how a first principle was to be recognized ; 
 since a principle which one man would deem self-evident, an- 
 other would think it necessary to prove, and a third would alto- 
 gether deny."® 
 
 The difficulties of deductive reasoning are here admirably 
 portrayed. It might have been expected that Eeid would have 
 built up his own philosophy according to the inductive plan, 
 and would have despised that assumption of first principles, 
 with which he taunts his opponents. But it is one of the most 
 curious things in the history of metaphysics, that Keid, after 
 impeaching the method of Hume, follows the very same method 
 himself. When he is attackiug the philosophy of Hume, he 
 holds deduction to be wrong. When he is raising his own phi- 
 losophy, he holds it to be right. He deemed certain conclusions 
 dangerous, and he objects to their advocates, that they argued 
 from principles instead of from facts ; and that they assumed 
 themselves to be in possession of the first principles of truth, 
 although people were not agreed as to what constituted a first 
 
 “ His reasoning appeared to me to be just ; there was, therefore, a necessity 
 to call in question the principles upon which it was founded, or to admit the conclu- 
 sion.” Jieid's Inquiry into the Human Mind, p. v. “The received doctrine of ideas 
 is the principle from which it is deduced, and of which, indeed, it seems to be a just 
 and natural consequence.” p. 63. See also Reid's Essays, vol. i. pp. 199, 200, vol. ii. 
 
 p. 211. . , 
 
 116 » rjujg of nature are the most general facts we can discover in the opera- 
 tions of nature. Like other facts, they are not to be hit upon by a happy conjecture, 
 but justly deduced from observation. Like other general facts, they are not to be 
 drawn from a few particulars, but from a copious, patient, and cautious induction.” 
 Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind, pp. 262, 263. 
 
 “Such discoveries have always been made by patient observation, by accurate 
 experiments, or by conclusions drawn by strict reasoning from observations and er 
 periments ; and such discoveries have always tended to refute, but not to confirm, 
 the theories and hypotheses which ingenious men had invented.” Reid’s Essays, 
 vol. i. p. 46. 
 
 “ This is Mr. Hume’s notion of a cause.” . . . . “ But theory ought to stoop 
 to fact, and not fact to theory.” Reid's Essays, vol. iii. p. 276. 
 
 “But yet there seems to be great difference of opinions among philosophers 
 about first principles. What one takes to be self-evident, another labours to prove 
 by arguments, and a third denies altogether.” Reids Essays, vol. ii. p. 216. “Mr. 
 liocke seems to think first principles of very small use.” p. 219. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 379 
 
 principle. This is well put, and hard to answer. Strange, 
 however, to say, Eeid arrives at his own conclusions, by assum- 
 ing first principles to an extent far greater than had been done 
 by any writer on the opposite side. From them he argues ; his 
 whole scheme is deductive ; and his works scarcely contain a 
 single instance of that inductive logic, which, when attacking 
 his opponents, he found it convenient to recommend. It is 
 difficult to conceive a better illustration of the peculiar charac- 
 ter of the Scotch intellect in the eighteenth century, and of the 
 firm hold which, what may be called the anti- Baconian method, 
 had upon that intellect. Keid was a man of considerable abil- 
 ity, of immaculate honesty, and was deeply convinced that it 
 was for the good of society that the prevaifing philosophy should 
 be overthrown. To the performance of that task he dedicated 
 his long and laborious life ; he saw that the vulnerable point of 
 the adverse system was its method ; he indicated the deficien- 
 cies of that method, and declared, perhaps wrongly, but at all 
 events sincerely, that it could never lead to truth. Yet, and 
 notwithstanding all this, such was the pressure of the age in 
 which he lived, and so completely did the force of circumstances 
 shape his understanding, that, in his own works, he was unable 
 to avoid that very method of investigation which he rebuked in 
 others. Indeed, so far from avoiding it, he was a slave to it. 
 The evidence of this I will now give, because, besides its im- 
 portance for the history of the Scotch mind, it is valuahle as 
 one of many lessons, which teach us how we are moulded by 
 the society which surrounds us ; how even our most vigorous 
 actions are influenced by general causes of which we are often 
 ignorant, and which few of us care to study ; and, finally, how 
 lame and impotent we are, when, as individuals, we try to stem 
 the onward current, resisting the great progress instead of aiding 
 it, and vainly opposing our little wishes to that majestic course 
 of events which admits of no interruption, but sweeps on, grand 
 and terrible, while generation after generation passes away, 
 successively absorbed in one mighty vortex. 
 
 Directly Keid, ceasing to refute the philosophy of Hume, 
 began to construct his own philosophy, he succumbed to the 
 prevailing method. He now assures us that all reasoning must 
 be from first principles, and that, so far from reasoning to those 
 principles, we must at once admit them, and make them the 
 basis of all subsequent arguments. Having admitted them, 
 
 “All reasoning must be from first principles; and for first principles no other 
 reason can be given but this, that, by the constitution of our nature, we are under a 
 necessity of assenting to them.” Reid's Inquiry , p. 140. “All reasoning is from 
 principles.” . . . “ Most justly, therefore, do such principles disdain to be tried by 
 
380 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 they become a thread to guide the inquirer through the laby- 
 rinth of thought, i''* His opponents had no right to assurne 
 them, hut he might do so, because to him they were intui- 
 tive.'®® Whoever denied them, was not fit to be reasoned 
 with.'®’ Indeed, to investigate them, or to seek to analyze 
 
 them, was wrong as well as foolish, because they were part of 
 the constitution of things ; and of the constitution of things 
 no account could he given, except that such was the will of 
 Grod.'®* 
 
 As Keid obtained his first principles with such ease, and as 
 he carefully protected them by forbidding any attempt to re- 
 solve them into simpler elements, he was under a strong temp- 
 tation to multiply them almost indefinitely, in order that, by 
 reasoning from them, he might raise a complete and harmoni- 
 ous system of the human mind. To that temptation he yielded 
 with a readiness which is truly surprising, when we remember 
 how he reproached his opponents with doing the same thing. 
 Among the numerous first principles which he assumes, not 
 only as unexplained, but as inexplicable, are the belief in Per- 
 sonal Identity ;'®® the belief in the External World ;'®« the be- 
 lief in the Uniformity of Nature ;'®" the belief in the Existence 
 of Life in Others j'®‘ the belief in Testimony,'®® also in the 
 power of distinguishing truth from error,'®® and even in the cor- 
 respondence of the face and voice to the thoughts.'®' Of be- 
 
 reasoD, and laugh at all the artillery of the logician when it is directed against them, 
 p. 372. “ All knowledge got by reasoning must be built upon first principles.” Rei^ s 
 Essays, vol. ii. p. 220. “ In erery branch of real knowledge there must be first 
 
 principles, whose truth is known intuitively, without reasoning, either probable or 
 demonstrative. They are not grounded on reasoning, but all reasoning is grounded 
 on them.” p. 360. 
 
 “ For, when any system is grounded upon first principles, and deduced regu- 
 larly from them, we have a thread to lead us through the labyrinth.” Reid^s Essays, 
 vol. ii. p. 226. 
 
 “ I call these ‘ first principles,’ because they appear to me to have in them- 
 selves an intuitive evidence which I cannot resist^ Reid's Essays, vol. iii. p. 375. 
 
 “ If any man should think fit to deny that these things are qualities, or that 
 they require any subject, I leave him to enjoy his opinion, as a man who denies first 
 principles, and is not fit to be reasoned with." Reid's Essays, vol. i. p. 38. 
 
 “No other account can be given of the constitution of things, but the wdl of 
 Him that made them.” Reid's Essays, vol. i. p. 115. 
 
 Reid's Essays, vol. i. pp. 36, 37, 340, 343 ; vol. ii. p. 246. 
 
 Reid's Essays, vol. i. pp. 115, 116, 288-299; vol. ii. p. 261. ^ 
 
 Or, as he expresses it, “ our belief of the continuance of the laws of nature. 
 ReicCs Inquiry, pp. 426-436 ; also his Essays, vol. i. p. 306 ; vol. ii. p. 268. 
 
 Reid’s Essays, vol. ii. p. 269. 
 
 Reid’s Inquiry, p. 422 ; and his Essays, vol. ii. p. 266. 
 
 “ Another first principle is, ‘ That the natural faculties by which we distinguish 
 truth from error are not fallacious.’” Reids Essays, vol. ii. p. 256. 
 
 “ Another first principle I take to be, ‘ That certain features of the counte- 
 nance, sounds of the voice, and gestures of the body, indicate certain thoughts and 
 dispositions of mind.’ ” Reids Essays, vol. ii. p. 261. Compare his Inquiry, p. 416. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 381 
 
 lief generally, he asserts that there are many principles,*®* and 
 he regrets that any one should have rashly attempted to explain 
 them.*®® Such things are mysterious, and not to he pried into. 
 W^e have also other faculties, which, being original and inde- 
 composable, resist all inductive treatment, and can neither be 
 resolved into simpler elements, nor referred to more general 
 laws. To this class Reid assigns Memory,'®* Perception,'®* 
 Desire of Self-Approbation,'®* and not only Instinct, but even 
 Habit. *®^ Many of our ideas, such as those concerning Space 
 and Time, are equally original ;'®® and other first principles 
 there are which have not been enunciated, but from which we 
 may reason,*®® They, therefore, are the major premisses of the 
 argument ; no reason having yet been given for them, they 
 must be simple ; and not having yet been explained, they are, 
 of course, inexplicable.**® 
 
 All this is arbitrary enough. Still, in justice to Reid, it 
 must be said, that having made these assumptions, he displayed 
 remarkable ability in arguing from them, and that, in attacking 
 the philosophy of his time, he subjected it to a criticism which 
 has been extremely serviceable. His lucidity, his dialectic 
 skill, and the racy and masculine style in which he wrote, made 
 him a formidable opponent, and secured to bis objections a 
 respectful hearing. To me, however, it appears, that notwith- 
 standing the attempts, first of M. Cousin, and afterwards of 
 Sir William Hamilton, to prop up his declining reputation, his 
 
 33S “ We have taken notice of several original principles of belief in the course 
 of this inquiry ; and when other faculties of the mind are examined, we shall find 
 more, which have not occurred in the examination of the five senses.” Eei<Ts Inauirv. 
 p. 471. ^ 
 
 “And if no philosopher had attempted to define and explain belief, some 
 paradoxes in philosophy, more incredible than ever were brought forth by the most 
 abject superstition, or the most frantic enthusiasm, had never seen the light.” EeicTs 
 Inquiry^ p. 46. 
 
 Reid's Essays, vol. i. pp. 329, 334 ; vol. ii. p. 247. 
 
 Reids Essays, vol. i. pp. 9, 71, 303, 804. 
 
 Reids Essays, vol. ii. p. 60. 
 
 137 <i j ggg reason to think, that we shall ever be able to assign the physical 
 cause, either of instinct, or of the power of habit. Both seem to be parts of our 
 original constitution. Their end and use is evident ; but we can assign no cause of 
 them, but the will of Him who made us.” Reids Essays, vol. iii. p. 119. 
 
 138 itj jjjjQyy. qP jjq fdoas ornotioos that have a better claim to be accounted 
 simple and original, than those of space and time.” Reids Essays, vol. i. p. 364. 
 
 “ I do not at all affirm that those I have mentioned are all the first principles 
 from which we may reason concerning contingent truths. Such enumerations, even 
 when made after much reflection, are seldom perfect.” Reids Essays, vol. ii. p. 270. 
 
 no u Why sensation should compel our belief of the present existence of the 
 thing, memory a belief of its past existence, and imagination no belief at all, I believe 
 no philosopher can give a shadow of reason, but that such is the nature of these oper- 
 ations. Tliey are all simple and original, and therefore inexplicable acts of the mind.” 
 Reid's Inquiry, p. 40. “We can give no reason why the retina is, of all parts of the 
 body, the only one on which pictures made by the rays of light cause vision ; and 
 therefore we must resolve this solely into a law of our constitution^ p. 268. 
 
382 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT. 
 
 philosopliy, as an independent system, is untenable, and will 
 not live. In this I may be mistaken ; but what is quite cer- 
 tain is, that nothing can be more absurd than to suppose, as 
 some have done, that he adopted the inductive, or, as it is pop- 
 ularly called, Baconian method. Bacon, indeed, would have 
 smiled at such a discipline, assuming all sorts of major prem- 
 isses, taking general principles for granted with the greatest 
 recklessness, and reserving his skill for the task of reasoning 
 from propositions for which he had no evidence, except that on 
 a cursory, or, as he termed it, a common-sense inspection, they 
 appeared to be true.^"^ This refusal to analyze preconceived 
 notions comes under the head of what Bacon stigmatized as the 
 ayiticipatio naturce, and which he deemed the great enemy of 
 knowledge, on account of the dangerous confidence it places in 
 the spontaneous and uncorrected conclusions of the human mind. 
 When, therefore, we find Keid holding up the Baconian phi- 
 losophy, as a pattern which it behoved all inquirers to follow 
 and when we, moreover, find Dugald Stewart, who, though a 
 somewhat superficial thinker, was, at all events, a careful writ- 
 er, supposing that Eeid had followed it,^^® ^eet with fresh 
 
 In a recent work of distinguished merit, an instance is given of the loose 
 manner in which he took for granted that certain phenomena were ultimate, in order 
 that, instead of analyzing them, he might reason from them. Dr. Reid has no 
 hesitation in classinghlie voluntary command of our organs, ihat is, the sequence of 
 feeling and action implied in all acts of will, among instincts. The power of lifting 
 a morsel of food to the mouth, is, according to him, an instinctive or pre-established 
 conjunction of the wish and the deed; that is to say, the emotional state of hunger, 
 coupled with the sight of a piece of bread, is associated, through a primitive link of 
 the mental constitution, with the several movements of the hand, arm, and mouth, 
 concerned in the act of eating. This assertion of Dr. Reid’s may 6e simply met by 
 appealing to the facts. It is not true that human beings possess, at birth, any volun- 
 tary command of their limbs whatsoever. A babe of two months old cannot use its 
 hands in obedience to its desires. The infant can grasp nothing, hold nothing, can 
 scarcely fix its eyes on any thing.” .... “If the more perfect command of our 
 voluntary movements implied in every art be an acquisition, so is the less perfect 
 command of these movements that grows upon a child during the first year of life.” 
 Bain on the Senses and the Intellect, London, 1856, pp. 292, 293. 
 
 See Reids Inquiry, pp. 436, 446, as well as other parts of his works : see also 
 an extract from one of his letters to Dr. Gregory, in Stewart's Biographical Memoirs, 
 p. 432. 
 
 143 <iThe idea of prosecuting the study of the human mind on a plan analogous 
 to that which had been so successfully adopted in physics by the followers of Lord 
 Baeon, if not first conceived by Dr. Reid, was, at least, first carried successfully into 
 execution in his writings.” Stewart's Biographical Memoirs, p. 419. “The influence 
 of the general views opened in the Novum Organon, may be traced in almost every 
 page of his writings ; and, indeed, the circumstance by which they are so strongly 
 and characteristically distinguished, is that they exhibit the first systematical attempt 
 to exemplify, in the study of human nature, the same plan of investigation which 
 conducted Newton to the properties of light, and to the law of gravitation.” p. 421. 
 From this passage one might hazard a supposition that Dugald Stewart did not 
 understand Bacon much better than he did Aristotle or Kant. Of the two last most 
 profound thinkers, he certainly knew little or nothing, except what he gathered 
 secondhand. Consequently, he underrates them. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 383 
 
 proof of how difficult it was for Scotchmen of the last age to 
 imbibe the true spirit of inductive logic, since they believed that 
 a system which flagrantly violated its rules, had been framed in 
 strict accordance with them. 
 
 Leaving mental philosophy, I now come to physical science, 
 in which, if any where, we might expect that the inductive 
 plan would predominate, and would triumph over the opposite, 
 or deductive, one. How far this was the case, I will endeavour 
 to ascertain, by an examination of the most important discover- 
 ies which have been made by Scotchmen concerning the organic 
 and inorganic world. And, as my object is merely to indicate 
 the turn and character of the Scotch mind, I shall avoid all 
 details respecting the practical effects of those discoveries, and 
 shall confine myself to such a narration as will exhibit their 
 purely scientific aspect, so as to enable the reader to understand 
 what additions were made to our knowledge of the laws of' 
 nature, and in what way the additions were made. The char- 
 acter of each discovery, and its process, will be stated, but 
 nothing more. Neither here, nor in any part of this Introduc- 
 tion, do I pretend to investigate questions of practical utility, 
 or to trace the connexion between the discoveries of science and 
 the arts of life. That I shall do in the body of the work itself, 
 where I hope to explain a number of minute social events, 
 many of which are regarded as isolated, if not incongruous. For 
 the present, I solely aim at those broad princij)les, which, by 
 marking out the epochs of thought, underlie the whole fabric 
 of society, and which must be clearly apprehended before his- 
 tory can cease to be a mere empirical assemblage of facts, of 
 which the scientific basis being unsettled, the true order and 
 coherence must be unknown. 
 
 Among the sciences which concern the inorganic world, the 
 laws of heat occupy a conspicuous place. On the one hand, 
 they are connected with geology, being intimately allied,- and, 
 indeed, necessarily bound up, with every speculation respecting 
 the changes and present condition of the crust of the earth 
 On the other hand, they touch the great questions of life, both 
 animal and vegetable ; they have to do with the theory of spe- 
 cies, and of race ; they modify soil, food, and organization ; 
 and to them we must look for valuable help towards solving 
 those great problems in biology, which, of late years, have 
 occupied the attention of the boldest and most advanced 
 philosophers. 
 
 Our present knowledge of the laws of heat may be briefly 
 stated as branching into five fundamental divisions. These are : 
 latent heat ; specific heat ; the conduction of heat ; the radia- 
 
384 AN EXAMINATION OE THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 tion of heat ; and, finally, the undulatory theory of heat ; hy 
 which last, we are gradually discarding our old material views, 
 and are accustoming ourselves to look upon heat as simply one 
 of the forms of force, all of which, such as light, electricity, 
 magnetism, motion, gravitation, and chemical affinity, are con- 
 stantly assuming each other's shape, hut, in their total amount, 
 are incapable either of increase or diminution. This grand 
 conception, which is now placing the indestructibility of force 
 on the same ground as the indestructibility of matter, has an 
 importance far above its scientific value, considerable as that 
 undoubtedly is. For, by teaching us, that nothing perishes, 
 but that, on the contrary, the slightest movement of the smaMest 
 body, in the remotest region, produces results which are per- 
 petual, which diffuse themselves through all space, and which, 
 though they may be metamorphosed, cannot be destroyed, it 
 impresses us with such an exalted idea of the regular and com- 
 pulsory march of physical affairs, as must eventually influence 
 other and higher departments of inquiry. Our habits of thought 
 are so connected and interwoven, that notions of law and of the 
 necessaiy concatenation of things, can never be introduced into 
 one field of speculation, without affecting other fields which lie 
 contiguous to it. When, therefore, the modern doctrine of 
 conservation of force, becomes firmly coupled with the older 
 
 The theory of the indestructibility of force has been applied to the law of 
 gravitation by Professor Faraday, in his Discourse on the Conservation of Force, 
 1867 ; an essay full of thought and power, and which should be carefully studied by 
 every one who wishes to understand the direction which the highest speculations of 
 physical science are now taking. I will quote only one passage from the opening, 
 to give the reader an idea of its general scope, irrespective of the more special ques- 
 tion of gravitation. “ The progress of the strict science of modern times has tended 
 more and more to produce the conviction that force can neither be created nor de- 
 stroyed ; and to render daily more manifest the value of the knowledge of that truth 
 in experimental research.” . . . “ Agreeing with those who admit the conservation 
 of force to be a principle in physics, as large and sure as that of the indestructibility 
 of matter, or the invariability of gravity, I think that no particular idea of force has 
 a right to unlimited or unqualified acceptance, that does not include assent to it.” 
 
 As an illustration of this doctrine, I cannot do better than quote the following 
 passage from one of the most suggestive and clearly reasoned books which has been 
 written in this century by an English physicist: “Wave your hand; the motion 
 which has apparently ceased, is taken up by the air, from the air by the walls of the 
 room, &c., and so by direct and reacting waves, continually comminuted, but never 
 destroyed. It is true that, at a certain point, we lose all means of detecting the 
 motion, from its minute subdivision, which defies our most delicate means of appre- 
 ciation, but we can indefinitely extend our power of detecting it accordingly as we 
 confine its direction, or increase the delicacy of our examination. Thus, if the hand 
 be moved in unconfined air, the motion of the air would not be sensible to a person 
 at a few feet distance ; but if a piston of the same extent of surface as the hand be 
 moved with the same rapidity in a tube, the blast of air may be distinctly felt at 
 several yards distance. There is no greater absolute amount of motion in the air in 
 the second than in the first case, but its direction is restrained, so as to make its 
 means of detection more facile. By carrying on this restraint, as in the air-gun, we 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 385 
 
 doctrine of conservation of matter, we may rest assured, that 
 the human mind will not stop there, hut will extend to the 
 study of Man, inferences analogous to those already admitted 
 in the study of Nature. Having once recognized that the con- 
 dition of the material universe, at any one moment, is simply 
 the result of every thing which has happened at all preceding 
 moments, and that the most trivial disturbance would so violate 
 the general scheme, as to render anarchy inevitable, and that, 
 to sever from the total mass even the minutest fragment, would, 
 by dislocating the structure, bury the whole in one common 
 ruin, we, thus admitting the exquisite adjustment of the differ- 
 ent parts, and discerning, too, in the very beauty and complete- 
 ness of the design, the best proof that it has never been tam- 
 pered with by the Divine Architect who called it into being, in 
 whose Omniscience both the plan, and the issue of the plan, 
 resided with such clearness and unerring certainty, that not a 
 stone in that superb and symmetrical edifice has been touched 
 since ^ the foundation of the edifice was laid, are, by ascending 
 to this pitch and elevation of thought, most assuredly advancing 
 towards that far higher step, which it will remain for our pos- 
 terity to take, and which will raise their view to so commanding 
 a height, as to insure the utter rejection of those old and emi- 
 nently irreligious dogmas of supernatural interference with the 
 affairs of life, which superstition has invented, and ignorance 
 has bequeathed, and the present acceptance of which betokens 
 the yet early condition of our knowledge, the penury of our 
 intellectual resources, and the inveteracy of the prejudices in 
 which we are still immersed. 
 
 If is, therefore, natural that the physical doctrine of inde- 
 structibility applied to force as well as to matter, should be 
 essentially a creation of the present century, notwithstanding a 
 few allusions made to it by some earlier thinkers, all of whom, 
 however, groped vaguely, and without general purpose. No pre- 
 ceding age was bold enough to embrace so magnificent a view 
 
 get a power of detecting the motion, and of moving other bodies at far greater 
 distances. The puflF of air which would in the air-gun project a bullet a quarter of a 
 mile, if allowed to escape without its direction being restrained, as by the bursting 
 of a bladder, would not be perceptible at a yard distance, though the same absolute 
 j^ount of motion be impressed on the surrounding air.” GVcwe’s C&rrelation of 
 Physic^ Forces, London, 1866, pp. 24, 26. In a work now issuing from the press, 
 unfinished, it is suggested, with considerable plausibility, that Persistence 
 of Force would be a more accurate expression than Conservation of Force. See 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer’s First Principles, London, 1861, p. 261. The title of this book 
 gives an inadequate notion of the importance of the subjects with which it deals, and 
 of the reach and subtlety of thought which characterize it. Though some of the 
 generalizations appear to me rather premature, no well-instructed and disciplined 
 intellect can consider them without admiration of the remarkable powers displayed 
 by their author. 
 
 TO 
 
886 AN EXAMINATION OE THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 as a whole, nor had any preceding philosophers sufficient ac- 
 quaintance with nature to enable them to defend such a con- 
 ception, even had they desired to entertain it. Thus, in the 
 case now before us, it is evident, that while heat was believed 
 to be material, it could not be conceived as a force, and, there- 
 fore, no one could grasp the theory of its metamorphosis into 
 other forces ; though there are passages in Bacon which prove 
 that he wished to identify it with motion. It was first neces- 
 sary to abstract heat into a mere property or affection of matter, 
 and there was no chance of doing this until heat was better 
 understood in its immediate antecedents, that is, until, by the 
 aid of mathematics, its proximate laws had been generalized. 
 But, with the single exception of Newton, whose efforts, not- 
 withstanding his gigantic powers, were, on this subject, very 
 unsatisfactory, and who, moreover, had a decided leaning to- 
 wards the material theory, no one attempted to unravel the 
 mathematical laws of heat till the latter half of the eighteenth 
 century, when Lambert and Black began the career which Pre- 
 vost and Fourier followed up. The mind, having been so slow 
 in mastering the preliminaries and outworks of the inquiry, was 
 not ripe for the far more difficult enterprise of idealizing heat 
 itself, and so abstracting it, as to strip it of its material attri- 
 butes, and leave to it nothing but the speculative notion of an 
 
 immaterial force. _ 
 
 From these considerations, which were necessary to enable 
 the reader to appreciate the value of what was done in Scot- 
 land, it will be seen how essential it was that the laws of the 
 movement of heat should be studied before its nature was in- 
 vestigated, and before the emission theory could be so seriously 
 attacked as to allow of the possibility of that great doctrine of 
 the indestructibility of force, which, I make no doubt, is des- 
 tined to revolutionize our habits of thought, and to give to 
 future speculations a basis infinitely wider than any previously 
 known. In regard to the movements of heat, we owe the laws 
 of conduction and of radiation chiefly to I ranee and Geneva, 
 while the laws of specific heat, and those of latent heat, were 
 discovered in Scotland. The doctrine of specific heat, though 
 interesting, has not that scientific importance which belongs to 
 the other departments of this great subject ; doctnne 
 
 of latent heat is extremely curious, not only in itself, but also 
 on account of the analogies it suggests with various branches 
 of physical inquiry. 
 
 What is termed latent heat, is exhibited m the foUowiiig 
 manner If, in consequence of the application of heat, a solid 
 passes into a liquid, as ice, for instance, into water, the conver- 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 387 
 
 sion occupies a longer time than could be explained by any 
 theory which had been propounded down to the middle of the 
 eighteenth century. Neither was it possible to explain how it 
 is, that ice never rises above the temperature of 32° until it is 
 actually melted, no matter what the heat of the adjacent bodies 
 may be. There were no means of accounting for these circum- 
 stances, and though practical men, being familiar with them, 
 did not wonder at them, they caused great astonishment among 
 thinkers, who were accustomed to analyze events, and to seek a 
 reason for common and every-day occurrences. 
 
 Soon after the middle of the eighteenth century. Black, 
 who was then one of the professors in the University of Glas- 
 gow, turned his attention to this subject. He struck out a 
 theory which, being eminently original, was violently attacked, 
 but is now generally admitted. With a boldness and reach of 
 thought not often equalled, he arrived at the conclusion, that 
 whenever a body loses some of its consistence, as in the case of 
 ice becoming water, or water becoming steam, such body re- 
 ceives an amount of heat which our senses, though aided by 
 the most delicate thermometer, can never detect. For, this 
 heat is absorbed ; we lose all sight of it, and it produces no 
 palpable effect on the material world, but becomes, as it were, 
 a hidden property. Black, therefore, called it latent heat, be- 
 cause, though we conceive it as an idea, we cannot trace it as a 
 fact. The body is, properly speaking, hotter ; and yet its tem- 
 perature does not rise. Directly, however, the foregoing pro- 
 cess is inverted, that is to say, directly the steam is condensed 
 into water, or the water hardened into ice, the heat returns into 
 the world of sense j it ceases to be latent, and communicates 
 itself to the surrounding objects. No new heat has been cre- 
 ated ; it has, indeed, appeared and disappeared, so far as our 
 senses are concerned ; but our senses were deceived, since there 
 has, in truth, been neither addition nor diminution. That 
 
 He was appointed professor in 1'756; and “it was during his residence in 
 Glasgow, between the years 1769 and 1763, that he brought to maturity those spec- 
 ulations concerning the combination of heat with matter, which had frequently 
 occupied a portion of his thoughts.” Thomson's History of Chemistry, vol. i. pp. 
 S19j 320. 
 
 Black's Lectures on Chemistry, vol. i. pp. 116, 117; and in various places. 
 Dr. Robison, the editor or’ these Lectures, says, p. 613, “Nothing could be more 
 simple than his doctrines of latent heat. The experience of more than a century had 
 made us consider the thermometer as a sure and an accurate indicator of heat, and 
 of all its variations.' We had learned to distrust all others. Yet, in the liquefaction 
 and vaporization of bodies, we had proofs uncontrovertible of the entrance of heat 
 into the bodies. And we could, by suitable processes, get it out of them again. 
 Dr. Black said that it was concealed in them, — latet , — it was as much concealed as 
 carbonic acid is in marble, or water in zeolite, — it was concealed till Dr. Black 
 detected it. He called it Latent Heat. He did not mean by this term that it was a 
 
388 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 this remarkahle theory paved the way for the doctrine of the 
 indestructibility of force, will he obvious to whoever has exam- 
 ined the manner in which, in the history of the human mind, 
 scientific conceptions are generated. The process is always so 
 slow that no single discovery has ever been made, except by the 
 united labours of several successive generations. In estimat- 
 ^ing, therefore, what each man has done, we must judge him, 
 not by the errors he commits, but by the truths he propounds. 
 Most of his errors are not really his own. He inherits them 
 from his predecessors, and if he throws some of them off, we 
 should be grateful, instead of being dissatisfied that he has not 
 rejected all. Black, no doubt, fell into the error of regarding 
 heat as a material substance, which obeys the laws ol chemical 
 composition. But this was merely an hypothesis, which was 
 bequeathed to him, and with which the existing state of thought 
 forced him to encumber his theory. He inherited the hypothe- 
 sis, and could not get rid of his troublesome possession. The 
 real service which he rendered is, that in spite of that hypothe- 
 sis, which clung to him to the last, he, far more than any of his 
 contemporaries, contributed towards the great conception of 
 idealizing heat, and thus enabled his successors to admit it into 
 the class of immaterial and supersensual forces. Once admitted 
 into that class, the list of forces became complete ; and it was 
 comparatively easy to apply to the whole body of force the same 
 notion of indestructibility, which had previously been applied to 
 the whole body of matter. But it was hardly possible to effect 
 this object, while heat stood, as it were, midway between force 
 and matter, yielding opposite results to different senses j amen- 
 able to the touch, but invisible to the eye. What was wanting, 
 was to remove it altogether out of the jurisdiction of the senses, 
 and to admit that, though we experience its effects, we can 
 only conceive its existence. Towards accomplishing this. Black 
 took a prodigious stride. Unconscious, perhaps, ot the remote 
 tendency of his own labours, he undermined that doctrine of 
 material heat, which he seemed to support. For, by his advo- 
 cacy of latent heat, he taught that its movements constantly 
 baffle, not only some of our senses, but all of them j and that, 
 
 different kind of heat from the heat which expanded bodies, but merely that it was 
 concealed from our sense of heat, and from the thermometer.” See also p. xxxvii. ; 
 “ Philosophers had long been accustomed to consider the thermometer as the surest 
 means for detecting the presence of heat or lire in bodies, and they distrusted all 
 others.” . . « , .j? 
 
 148 u Fluidity is the consequence of a certain combination of calorific matter with 
 the substance of solid bodies,” &c. Black's Lectures, vol. i. p. 133. Compare p. 1&2, 
 and the remarks in Turner's Chemistry, 1847, vol. i. p. 31, on Blacks views of the 
 “ chemical combination” of heat. Among the backward chemists, we still find traces 
 af the idea of heat obeying chemical laws. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 389 
 
 while our feelings make us believe that heat is lost, our intel- 
 lect makes us believe that it is not lost. Here, we have appar- 
 ent destructibility, and real indestructibility. To assert that 
 a body received heat without its temperature risino- was to 
 make the understanding correct the touch, and defy it^dictates. 
 t was a^ bold and beautiful paradox, which required courage as 
 well as insight to broach, and the reception of which marks an 
 epoch in the human mind, because it was an immense step 
 towards idealizing matter into force. Some, indeed, have spoken 
 otmvisible matter ; but that is a contradiction in terms, which 
 will never be admitted as long as the forms of speech remain 
 unchanged. Nothing can be invisible except force, mind, and 
 me Supreme Cause of all. We must, therefore, ascribe to 
 Black the signal merit, that he first, in the study of heat, im- 
 peached the authority of the senses, and thereby laid the foun- 
 dation of every thing which was afterwards done. Besides the 
 relation which his discovery bears to the indestructibility of 
 force, it is also connected with one of the most splendid achieve- 
 ments effected by this generation in inorganic physics ; namely 
 the establishment of the identity of light and heat. To the 
 senses, light and heat, though in some respects similar, are in 
 most respects dissimilar. Light, for instance, affects the eye 
 and not the touch. Heat affects the touch, but, under ordinary 
 circumstances, does not affect the eye. The capital difference, 
 however, between them is, that heat, unlike light, possesses the 
 property of temperature ; and this property is so characteristic, 
 that, until our understandings are invigorated by science, we 
 cannot conceive heat separated from temperature, but are com- 
 pelled to confuse one with the other. Directly, however, men 
 began to adopt the method followed by Black, and were re- 
 solved to consider heat as supersensual, they entered the road 
 which led to the discovery of light and heat being merely dif- 
 ferent developments of the same force. Ignoring the effects of 
 heat on themselves, or on any part of the creation, which was 
 capable of feeling its temperature, and would therefore be de- 
 ceived by it, nothing was left for them to do but to study its 
 effects on the inanimate world. Then, all was revealed. The 
 career of discovery was fairly opened ; and analogies between 
 light and heat, which even the boldest imagination had hardly 
 suspected, were placed beyond a doubt. To the reflection of 
 heat, which had been formerly known, were now added, the re- 
 fraction of heat, its double refraction, its polarization, its depo- 
 larization, its circular polarization, the interference of its rays, 
 and their retardation ; while, what is more remarkable than all’ 
 the march of our knowledge on these points was so swift, that 
 
390 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 before the year 1836 had come to a close, the chain of evidence 
 was completed by the empirical investigations of Forbes and 
 Melloni, they themselves little witting that every thing which 
 they accomplished was prepared before they were born, that 
 they were but the servants and followers of him who indicated 
 the path in which they trod, and that their experiments, inge- 
 nious as they were, and full of resource, were simply the direct 
 practical consequence of one of those magnificent ideas which 
 Scotland has thrown upon the world, and the memory of which 
 is almost enough so to bribe the judgment, as to tempt us to 
 forget, that, while the leading intellects of the nation were 
 engaged in such lofty pursuits, the nation itself, untouched by 
 thepoL, passed them over with cold and contemptuous indiffer- 
 ence, being steeped in that deadening superstition, which turns 
 a deaf ear to every sort of reason, and will not hearken to the 
 voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely. 
 
 By thus considering the descent and relationship of scientific 
 conceptions, we can alone understand what we really owe to 
 Black’s discovery of latent heat. In regard to the method of 
 the discovery, little need be said, since every student of the 
 Baconian philoso])hy must see that the discovery was of a kind 
 for which none of the maxims of that system had provided. As 
 latent heat escapes the senses, it could not obey the rules of a 
 philosophy which grounds all truths on observation and experi- 
 ment, The subject of the inquiry being supersensual, there 
 was no scope for what Bacon called crucial experiments and 
 separations of nature. The truth was in the idea ; experiments, 
 therefore, might illustrate it, might bring it up to the surface, 
 and so enable men to grasp it, but could not prove it. And 
 this, which appears on the very face of the discovery, is con- 
 firmed by the express testimony of Dr. Thomson, who knew 
 Black, and was, indeed, one of the most eminent of his pupils. 
 We are assured by this unimpeachable witness, that Black, 
 about the year 1759, began to speculate concerning heat ; that 
 the result of those speculations was the theory of latent heat ; 
 that he publicly taught that theory in the year 1761 ; but that 
 the experiments which were necessary to convince the world 
 of it were not made till 1764,*^® though, as I need hardly add, 
 
 “ So much was he convinced of this, that he taught the doctrine in his lectures 
 in lYSl, before he had made a single experiment on the subject.” . . . “The 
 requisite experiments were first attempted by Dr. Black in 17 64.” Thomson’s History 
 of Chemistry, vol. i. p. 824. See also pp. 319, 320 ; and on the history of the idea in 
 Black’s mind as early as the year 17 64, see the interesting extracts from his note- 
 books in Robison’s appendix to Black's Lectures, vol. i. pp. 525, 626. 
 
 The statement by Dr. Thomson refers to the completion, or last stage, of the 
 discovery, namely the vaporific combination of heat. But from a letter which Black 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 391 
 
 according to the inductive method, it was a breach of all the 
 rules of philosophy to be satisfied with the theory three years 
 before the experiments were made, and it was a still greater 
 breach, not only to be satisfied with it, but to have openly 
 promulgated it as an original and unquestionable truth, which 
 explained, in a new manner, the economy of the material 
 world. 
 
 The intellect of Black belonged to a class, which, in the 
 eighteenth century, was almost universal in Scotland, but was 
 hardly to he found in England, and which, for want of a better 
 word, we are compelled to call deductive, though fully admitting 
 that even the most deductive minds have in them a large amount 
 of induction, since, indeed, without induction, the common 
 business of life could not he carried on. But for the purposes 
 of scientific classification, we may say, that a man or an age is 
 deductive, when the favourite process is reasoning from prin- 
 ciples instead of reasoning to them, and when there is a ten- 
 dency to underrate the value of specific experience. That this 
 was the case with the illustrious discoverer of latent heat, we 
 have seen, both from the nature of the discovery, and from’ the 
 decisive testimony of his friend and pupil. And a further con- 
 firmation may he found in the circumstance, that having once 
 propounded his great idea, he, instead of instituting a long series 
 of laborious experiments by which it might he verified in its 
 different branches, preferred reasoning from it according to the 
 general maxims of dialectic j pushing it to its logical conse- 
 quences, rather than tracking it into regions where the senses 
 might either confirm or refute it.'®° By following this process 
 of thought, he was led to some beautiful speculations, which are 
 so remote from experience, that even now, with all the additional 
 resources of our knowledge, we cannot tell whether they are true 
 or false. Of this kind were his views respecting the causes of 
 the preservation of man, whose existence would, he thought, 
 
 Life of Watt, London, 1869, p. 303), it appears 
 tnat ihomson has even understated the question, and that Black, instead of first 
 teaching his theory in 1761, taught it three years earlier, that is, six years before the 
 decisive experiments were made, “ I began,” writes Black, “ to give the doctrine of 
 latent heat m my lectures at Glasgow in the winter 1767-58, which, I believe, was the 
 farst winter of my lecturing there ; or if I did not give it that winter, I certainly 
 gave It in the 1768-69 ; and I have delivered it every year since that time in my 
 winter lectures, which I continued to give at Glasgow until winter 1766-67 when I 
 began to lecture in Edinburgh.” ’ 
 
 distinctly states that, even in other matters, when he did make experi- 
 ments, their object was to confirm theory, and not to suggest it. Thus, to give one 
 01 many instances, in his Lectures, vol. i. p. 364, he says, respecting salts, “When 
 we examine the sohdity of this reasoning by an experiment, we have the pleasure to 
 Jma facts agree exactly with the theory" 
 
392 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 be endangered, except for the power wliicb beat possesses of 
 lying latent and unobserved. Thus, for example, when a long 
 and severe winter was followed by sudden warmth, it appeared 
 natural that the ice and snow should melt with corresponding 
 suddenness ; and if this were to happen, the result would be 
 such terrible inundations, that it would be hardly possible for 
 man to escape from their ravages. Even if he escaped, his 
 works, that is, the material products of his civilization, would 
 perish. From this catastrophe, nothing saves him hut the 
 latent power of heat. Owing to this power, directly the ice and 
 snow begin to melt at their surface, the heat enters their struc- 
 ture, where a large part of it remains in abeyance, and thus 
 losing much of its power, the process of liquefaction is arrested. 
 This dreadful agent is lulled, and becomes dormant. It is 
 weakened at the outset of its career, and is laid up, as in a store- 
 house, from which it can afterwards emerge gradually, and with 
 safety to the human species. 
 
 In this way, as summer advances, a vast magazine of heat 
 is accumulated, and is preserved in the midst of water, where it 
 can do man no injury, since, indeed, his senses are unable to 
 feel it. There the heat remains buried, until, in the rotation 
 of the seasons, winter returns, and the waters are congealed into 
 ice. In the process of congelation, the treasury of heat, which 
 had been hidden all the summer, reappears ; it ceases to he 
 latent j and now, for the first time, striking the senses of man, 
 it tempers, in his behalf, the severity of winter. The faster the 
 water freezes, the faster the heat is disengaged ; so that, by 
 virtue of this great law of nature, cold actually generates 
 warmth, and the inclemency of every season, though it cannot 
 be hindered, is softened in proportion as the inclemency is more 
 threatening. ® 
 
 See a good summary of this idea in Black's Lectures on Chemistry^ vol. L p. 
 118. Contrasting his theory of heat with that previously received, he says, But, 
 were the ice and snow to melt as suddenly as they must necessarijy do, were the 
 former opinion of the action of heat in melting them well founded, the torrents and 
 inundations would be incomparably more irresistible and dreadful. They would tear 
 up and sweep away every thing, and that so suddenly, that mankind should have 
 great difficulty to escape from their ravages.” 
 
 “ Dr. Black quickly perceived the vast importance of this discovery ; and took 
 a pleasure in laying before his students a view of the extensive and beneficial effects 
 of this habitude of heat in the economy of nature. He made them remark how, by 
 this means, there was accumulated, during the summer season, a vast magazine of 
 heat, which, by gradually emerging, during congelation, from the water which 
 covers the face of the earth, serves to temper the deadly cold of winter. Were it 
 not for this quantity of heat, amounting to 145 degrees, which emerges from every 
 particle of water as it freezes, and which diffuses itself through the atmosphere, the 
 sun would no sooner go a few degrees to the south of the equator, than we should 
 feel all the horrors of winter.” Robison's Preface to Black's Lectures, vol. i. p. xxivui. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 393 
 
 Thus, again, inasmuch as heat becomes latent, and flies 
 from the senses, not only when ice is passing into water, hut 
 also when water is passing into steam, we find in this latter 
 circumstance, one of the reasons why man and other animals 
 can live in the tropics, which, hut for this, would he deserted. 
 They are constantly suffering from the heat which is collected 
 in their bodies, and which, considered hy itself, is enough to 
 destroy them. But this heat causes thirst, and they conse- 
 quently swallow great quantities of fluid, much of which 
 exudes through the pores of the skin in the form of vapour. 
 And as, according to the theory of latent heat, vapour cannot 
 be produced without a vast amount of heat heiog buried within 
 it, such vapour absorbs and carries off from the body, that 
 which, if left in the system, would prove fatal. To this we 
 must add, that, in the tropics, the evaporation of water is 
 necessarily rapid, and the vapour which is thus produced, be- 
 comes another storehouse of heat, and a vehicle by which it is 
 removed from the earth, and prevented from unduly interfering 
 with the economy of life.^®^ 
 
 From these and many other arguments, all of which were 
 so essentially speculative, and dealt with such hidden processes 
 of nature, that even now we are not justified either in confi- 
 dently admitting them or in positively denying them. Black 
 
 As I am writing an account of Black’s views, and not a criticism of them, I 
 shall give them, without comment, in his own words, and in the words of one of his 
 pupils. “ Here we can also trace another magnificent train of changes, which are 
 nicely accommodated to the wants of the inhabitants of this globe. In the equatorial 
 regions, the oppressive heat of the sun is prevented from a destructive accumulation 
 by copious evaporation. The waters, stored with their vaporific heat, are thus car- 
 ried aloft into the atmosphere, till the rarest of the vapour reaches the very cold 
 regions of the air, which immediately forms a small portion of it into a fleecy cloud. 
 This also further tempers the scorching heat by its opacity, performing the accept- 
 able office of a screen. From thence, the clouds are carried to the inland countries, 
 to form the sources in the mountains, which are to supply the numberless streams 
 that water the flelds. And, by the steady operation of causes, which are tolerably 
 uniform, the greater part of the vapours pass on to the circumpolar regions, thereto 
 descend in rains and dews ; and in this beneficent conversion into rain, by the cold 
 of those regions, each particle of steam gives up the 700 or 800 degrees of heat 
 which were latent in it. These are immediately diffused, and soften the rigour of 
 those less comfortable climates.” . . . “ I am persuaded that the heat absorbed in 
 spontaneous evaporation greatly contributes to enable animals to bear the heat of 
 the tropical climates, where the thermometer frequently continues to show the tem- 
 perature of the human body. Such heats, indeed, are barely supportable, and 
 enervate the animal, making it lazy and indolent, indulging in the most relaxed 
 postures, and avoiding every exertion of body or mind. The inhabitants are induced 
 to drink large draughts of diluting liquors, which transude through their pores most 
 copiously, carrying off with them a vast deal of this troublesome and exhausting 
 heat. There is in the body itself a continual laboratory, or manufacture of heat, and 
 were the surrounding air of such a temperature as not to carry it off, it would soon 
 accumulate so as to destroy life. The excessive perspiration, supplied by diluting 
 draughts, performs the same office as the cold air without the tropics, in guarding hs 
 from this fatal accumulation.” Black't Lectures^ vol. i. pp. xlvi. 21 
 
394 AN EXAMINATION OE THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 was led to that great doctrine of the indestructibility of heat, ^ 
 which, as I have pointed out, has, in its connexion with the 
 indestructibility of force, a moral and social importance even 
 superior to its scientific value. Though the evidence of which 
 he was possessed was far more scanty than what we now have, 
 he, by the reach of his commanding intellect, rather than by 
 the number and accuracy of his facts, became so penetrated 
 with a conviction of the stability of physical affairs, that he not 
 only applied that idea to the subtle phenomena of heat, but, 
 what was much harder to do, he applied it to cases in which 
 heat so entirely escapes the senses, that man has no cognizance 
 of it, except through the medium of the imagination. Accord- 
 ing to his view, heat passes through an immense variety of 
 changes, during which it appears to be lost ; changes which no 
 eye can ever see, which no touch can ever experience, and which 
 no instrument can ever measure. Still, and in the midst of all 
 these changes, it remains intact. From it nothing can be taken, 
 and to it nothing can be added. In one of those fine passages 
 of his Lectures, which, badly reported as they are,^®® bear the 
 impress of his elevated genius. Black, after stating what would 
 probably happen, if the total amount of heat existing in the 
 world were to be diminished, proceeds to speculate on the con- 
 sequences of its being increased. Were it possible for any 
 power to add to it ever so little, it would at once overstep its 
 bounds j the equilibrium would be disturbed ; the framework 
 of affairs would be disjointed. The evil rapidly increasing, and 
 acting with accumulated force, nothing would be able to stop 
 its ravages. It must continue to gain ground, till all other 
 principles are absorbed and conquered. Sweeping on, unhin- 
 dered and irresistible, before it every animal must perish, the 
 whole vegetable world must disappear, the waters must pass 
 into vapour, and the solid parts of the globe be merged and 
 melted, until, at length, the glorious fabric, loosened and dis- 
 solved, would fall away, and return to that original chaos out 
 of which it had been evolved. 
 
 See his strong protest against the notion that heat is ever destroyed, in his 
 
 Lectures^ Tol. i. pp. 126, 126, 164, 165. . , u i. • 
 
 They were published after his death from such scanty materials, that their 
 editor. Dr. Robison, says {^Preface to Bloch's Lectures, vol. i. p. x.) : “ When I then 
 entered seriously on the task, I found that the notes were (with the exception of 
 perhaps a score of lectures) in the same imperfect condition that they had been in 
 from the beginning, consisting entirely of single leaves of paper, in octavo, full of 
 erasions, interlinings, and alterations of every kind ; so that, in many places, it was 
 not very certain which of several notes was to be chosen.” 
 
 166 “ Qn the other hand, were the heat which at present cherishes and enlivens 
 this globe, allowed to increase beyond the bounds at present prescribed to it ; beside 
 the destruction of all animal and vegetable life, which would be the immediate and 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 395 
 
 ^ These, like many other of the speculations of this great 
 thinker, will find small favour with those purely inductive 
 philosophers, who not only suppose, perhaps rightly, that all 
 our knowledge is, in its beginning, built upon facts, but who 
 countenance what seems to me, the very dangerous opinion, 
 that every increase of knowledge must he preceded by an in- 
 crease of facts. To such men it will appear, that Black had 
 far better have occupied himself in making new observations, 
 or devising new experiments, than in thus indulging his ima- 
 gination in wild and unprofitable dreams. They will think, 
 that these flights of fancy are suitable, indeed, to the poet, but 
 unworthy of that severe accuracy, and of that close attention to 
 facts,^ which ought to characterize a philosopher. In England, 
 especially, there is, among physical inquirers, an avowed deter- 
 mination to separate philosophy from poetry, and to look upon 
 them, not only as indifferent, but as hostile. Among that class 
 of thinkers, whose zeal and ability are beyond all praise, and to 
 whom we owe almost unbounded obligations, there does un- 
 doubtedly exist a very strong opinion, that, in their own pursuit, 
 the imagination is extremely dangerous, as leading to specula- 
 tions, of which the basis is not yet assured, and generating a 
 desire to catch too eagerly at distant glimpses before the inter- 
 mediate ground has been traversed. That the imagination has 
 this tendency is undeniable. But they who object to it on this 
 account, and who would, therefore, divorce poetry from philoso- 
 phy, have, I apprehend, taken a too limited view of the func- 
 tions of the human mind, and of the manner in which truth is 
 obtained.^ There is, in poetry, a divine and prophetic power, 
 and an insight into the turn and aspect of things, which, if 
 properly used, would make it the ally of science instead of the 
 enemy. By the poet, nature is contemplated on the side of the 
 emotions ; by the man of science, on the side of the under- 
 standing. But the emotions are as much a part of us as the 
 understanding ; they are as truthful ; they are as likely to be 
 right. Though their view is different, it is not capricious. 
 They obey fixed laws ; they follow an orderly and uniform 
 course ; they run in sequences ; they have their logic and 
 method of inference. Poetry, therefore, is a part of philosophy, 
 simply because the emotions are a part of the mind. If the 
 man of science despises their teaching, so much the worse for 
 him. He has only half his weapons ; his arsenal is unfilled. 
 
 inevitable consequence, the water would lose its present form, and assume that of an 
 elastic vapour like air ; the solid parts of the globe would be melted and confounded 
 together, or mixed with the air and water in smoke and vapour; and nature would 
 ♦eturn to the original chaos.” Black's Lectures, vol. i. pp. 246, 247. 
 
396 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 Conquests, indeed, lie may make, because bis native strength 
 may compensate the defects of his equipment. But his success 
 would be more complete and more rapid, if he were properly 
 furnished and made ready for the battle. And I cannot but 
 regard as the worst intellectual symptom of this great country, 
 what I must venture to call the imperfect education of physical 
 philosophers, as exhibited both in their writings and in their 
 trains of thought. This is the more serious, because they, as a 
 body, form the most important class in England, whether we 
 look at their ability, or at the benefits we have received from 
 them, or at the influence they are exercising, and are likely to 
 exercise, over the progress of society. It cannot, however, be 
 concealed, that they display an inordinate respect for experi- 
 ments, an undue love of minute detail, and a disposition to 
 overrate the inventors of new instruments, and the discoverers 
 of new, but often insignificant facts. Their predecessors of the 
 seventeenth century, by using hypotheses more boldly, and by 
 indulging their imagination more frequently, did certainly effect 
 greater things, in comparison with the then state of knowledge, 
 than our contemporaries, with much superior resources, have 
 been able to achieve. The magnificent generalizations of New- 
 ton and Harvey could never have been completed in an age ab- 
 sorbed in one unvarying round of experiments and observations. 
 We are in that predicament, that our facts have outstripped 
 our knowledge, and are now encumbering its march. The pub- 
 lications of our scientific institutions, and of our scientific 
 authors, overflow with minute and countless details, which per- 
 plex the judgment, and which no memory can retain. In vain 
 do we demand that they should be generalized, and reduced into 
 order. Instead of that, the heap continues to swell. We want 
 ideas, and we get more facts. We hear constantly of what 
 nature is doing, but we rarely hear of what man is thinking. 
 Owing to the indefatigable industry of this and the preceding 
 century, we are in possession of a huge and incoherent mass of 
 observations, which have been stored up with great care, but 
 which, until they are connected by some presiding idea, will be 
 utterly useless. The most effective way of turning them to 
 account, would be to give more scope to the imagination, and 
 incorporate the spirit of poetry with the spirit of science. By 
 this means, our philosophers would double their resources, in- 
 stead of working, as now, maimed, and with only half their 
 nature. They fear the imagination, on account of its tendency 
 to form hasty theories. But, surely, all our faculties are needed 
 in the pursuit of truth, and we cannot be justified in discredit- 
 ing any part of the human mind. And I can hardly doubt, 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 397 
 
 that one of the reasons why we, in England, made such won- 
 derful discoveries during the seventeenth century, was because 
 that century was also the great age of English poetry. The 
 two mightiest intellects our country has produced are Shak- 
 8peare and Newton ; and that Shakspeare should have preceded 
 Newton was, I believe, no casual or unmeaning event, Shak- 
 speare and the poets sowed the seed, which Newton and the 
 philosophers reaped. Discarding the old scholastic and theo- 
 logical pursuits, they drew attention to nature, and thus be- 
 came the real founders of all natural science. They did even 
 more than this. They first impregnated the mind of England 
 with bold and lofty conceptions. They taught the men of 
 their generation to crave after the unseen. They taught them 
 to pine for the ideal, and rise above the visible world of sense. 
 
 ^^7) by cultivating the emotions, they opened one of 
 the paths which lead to truth. The impetus which they commu- 
 nicated, survived their own day , and, like all great movements, 
 was felt in every department of thought. But now it is gone ; 
 and, unless I am greatly mistaken, physical science is at present 
 suflermg from its absence. Since the seventeenth century, we 
 have had no poet of the highest order, though Shelley, had he 
 lived, would perhaps have become one. He had something of that 
 burning passion, that sacred fire, which kindles the soul, as though 
 it came Iresh from the altar of the gods. But he was cut off in 
 ms early prime, when his splendid genius was still in its dawn, 
 it we except his immature, though marvellous, efforts, we may 
 assuredly say, that, for nearly two hundred years, England has 
 produced no poetry which bears those unmistakable marks of 
 inspiration which we find in Spenser, in Shakspeare, and in 
 Milton. The result is, that we, separated by so long an interval 
 trom those great feeders of the imagination, who nurtured our 
 ancestors, and being unable to enter fully into the feelings of 
 poets, who wrote when nearly all opinions, and, therefore, nearly 
 all lorms of emotion, were very different to what they now are 
 cannot possibly sympathize with those immortal productions so 
 closely as their contemporaries did. The noble Enghsh poetry 
 ot the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is read more than 
 ever, but it does not colour our thoughts ; it does not shape our 
 understandmgs, as it shaped the understandings of our fore- 
 tathers. Between us and them is a chasm, which we cannot 
 en We are so far removed from the associations 
 
 amid winch those poems were composed, that they do not fiash 
 upon with that reality and distinctness of aim, which they 
 would have done, had we lived when they were written. Their 
 garb 18 strange, and belongs to another time. Not merely their 
 
398 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 dialect and their dress, but tbeir very complexion and tbeir in- 
 most sentiments, tell of bygone days, of vp^bicb we bave no 
 bold. There is, no doubt, a certain ornamental culture, which 
 the most highly educated persons receive from the literature of 
 the past, and by which they sometimes refine their taste, and 
 sometimes enlarge their ideas. But the real culture of a great 
 people, that which supplies each generation with its_ principal 
 strength, consists of what is learnt from the generation imme- 
 diately preceding. Though we are often unconscious of the 
 process, we build nearly all our conceptions on the basis recog- 
 nized by those who went just before us. Our closest contact is, 
 not with our forefathers, hut with our fathers. To them we are 
 linked by a genuine alfinity, which, being spontaneous, costs us 
 no effort, and from which, indeed, we cannot escape. We in- 
 herit their notions, and modify them, just as they modified the 
 notions of their predecessors. At each successive modification, 
 something is lost and something is gained, until, at length, the 
 original type almost disappears. Therefore it is, that ideas en- 
 tertained several generations ago, hear about the same relation 
 to us, as ideas preserved in a foreign literature. In both cases, 
 the ideas may adorn our knowledge, hut they are never so 
 thoroughly incorporated with our minds, as to he the knowledge 
 itself. The assimilation is incomplete, because the sympathy is 
 incomplete. We have now no great poets ; and our poverty in 
 this respect is not compensated by the fact, that we once had 
 them, and that we may, and do,_read their works. The move- 
 ment has gone by ; the charm is broken ; the bond of umon, 
 though not cancelled, is seriously weakened. Hence, our age, 
 great as it is, and, in nearly all respects, greater than any the 
 world has yet seen, has, notwithstanding its large and generous 
 sentiments, its unexampled toleration, its love of liberty, and its 
 profuse, and almost reckless, charity, a certain material, unim- 
 aginative, and unheroic character, which has made several ob- 
 servers tremble for the future. So far as I can understand our 
 present condition, I do not participate in these fears, because I 
 believe that the good we have already gained, is beyond all 
 comparison greater than what we have lost. But that some- 
 thing has been lost, is unquestionable. We have lost much of 
 that imagination, which, though, in practical life, it often u)is- 
 leads, is, in speculative life, one of the highest of aU qualities, 
 being suggestive as well as creative. Even practically, we 
 should cherish it, because the commerce of the affections mainly 
 depends on it. It is, however, declining ; while, at the same' 
 time, the increasing refinement of society accustoms us naore 
 and more to suppress our emotions, lest they should be disa- 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 399 
 
 greeable to others. And as the play of the emotions is the 
 chief study of the poet, we see, in this circumstance, another 
 reason which makes it difficult to rival that great body of poetry 
 which our ancestors possessed. Therefore, it is doubly incum- 
 bent on physical philosophers to cultivate the imagination. It 
 is a duty they owe to their own pursuits, which would be en- 
 riched and invigorated hy such an enlargement of their resources. 
 It is also a duty which they owe to society in general ; since 
 they, whose intellectual influence is already greater than that 
 of any other class, and whose authority is' perceptibly on the 
 increase, might have power enough to correct the most serious 
 deficiency of the present age, and to make us some amends for 
 our inability to produce such a splendid imaginative literature 
 as that which our forefathers created, and in which the choicest 
 spirits of the seventeenth century did, if I may so say, dwell 
 and have their being. 
 
 If, therefore, Black had done nothing more than set the ex- 
 ample of a great physical philosopher giving free scope to the 
 imagination, he would have conferred upon us a boon, the mag- 
 nitude of which it is not. easy to overrate. And it is very re- 
 markable, that, before he died, that department of inorganic 
 physics, which he cultivated with such success, was taken up by 
 another eminent Scotchman, who pursued exactly the same 
 plan, though with somewhat inferior genius. I allude, of course, 
 to Leslie, whose researches on heat are well known to those who 
 are occupied with this subject ; while, for our present purpose, 
 they are chiefly interesting, as illustrating that peculiar method 
 which, in the eighteenth century, seemed essential to the Scotch 
 mind. 
 
 About thirty years after Black propounded his famous theory 
 of heat, Leslie began to investigate the same topic, and, in 1804, 
 published a special dissertation upon it.*®’' In that work, and 
 in some papers in his Treatises on Philosophy, are contained his 
 views, several of which are now known to be inaccurate,*®® 
 though some are of sufficient value to mark an epoch in the his- 
 tory of science. Such was his generalization respecting the 
 connexion between the radiation of heat and its reflection ; 
 
 Mr. Napier, in his Memoirs of Leslie, pp. 16, 17 (prefixed to Leslie's Treatises 
 on Philosophy, Edinb. 1838), says, that he “composed the bulk of his celebrated 
 work on Heat in the years 1801 and 1802;” but that, in 1793, he propounded “ some 
 of its theoretical opinions, as well as the germs of its discoveries.” It appears, how- 
 ever, from his own statement, that he was making experiments on heat, at all events, 
 as early as 1791. See Leslie's Experimental Inquiry into th$ Nature and Propaga- 
 tion of Heat, London, 1804, p. 409. 
 
 For specimens of some of his most indefensible specnlations, see Leslie's Trea- 
 tises on Philosophy, pp. 38, 43. 
 
400 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 bodies which reflect it most, radiating it least, and those which 
 radiate it most, reflecting it least. Such, too, was another wide 
 conclusion, which the best inquirers have since confirmed, 
 namely, that, while heat is radiating from a body, the intensity 
 of each ray is as the sine of the angle which it makes with the 
 surface of that body. 
 
 These were important steps, and they were the result of ex- 
 periments, preceded by large and judicious hypotheses. In re- 
 lation, however, to the economy of nature, considered as a whole, 
 they are of small account, in comparison with what Leslie ef- 
 fected towards consolidating the great idea of light and heat 
 being identical, and thus preparing his contemporaries for that 
 theory of the interchange of forces, which is the capital intel- 
 lectual achievement of the nineteenth century. But it is inter- 
 esting to observe, that, with all his ardour, he could not go 
 beyond a certain length. He was so hampered by the material 
 tendencies of his time, that he could not bring himself to con- 
 ceive heat as a purely supersensual force, of which temperature 
 was the external manifestation.^®® For this, the age was barely 
 ripe. We, accordingly, find him asserting, that heat is an elastic 
 fiuid, extremely subtle, but still a fluid. His real merit was, 
 that, notwithstanding the difficulties which beset his path, he 
 firmly seized the great truth, that there is no fundamental dif- 
 ference between light and heat. As he puts it, each is merely 
 a metamorphosis of the other. Heat is light in complete repose. 
 Light is heat in rapid motion. Directly light is combined with 
 a b^ody, it becomes heat ; but when it is thrown off from that 
 body, it again becomes light. 
 
 Whether this is true or false, we cannot tell ; and many 
 years, perhaps many generations, will have to elapse, before we 
 shall be able to tell. But the service rendered by Leshe is quite 
 independent of the accuracy of his opinion, as to the manner in 
 which light and heat are interchanged. That they are inter- 
 changed, is the essential and paramount idea. And we must 
 remember, that he made this idea the basis of his researches, at 
 
 Though he clearly distinguishes between the two. “It is almost superfluous 
 to remark, that the term heat is of ambiguous import, denoting either a certain sen- 
 sation, or the external cause which excites it.” Leslie on Heat, p. 137. 
 
 160 u jjeat is an elastic fluid extremely subtle and active.” Leslie on Heat, p. 150. 
 At p. 31, “calorific and frigorific fluid.” See also pp. 143, 144; and the attempt to 
 measure its elasticity, in pp. 177, 178. 
 
 “ Heat is only light in the state of combination.” Leslie on Heat, p. 162. 
 
 Heat in the state of emission constitutes light,” p. 174. “ It is, therefore, the same 
 
 subtle matter, that, according to its different modes of existence, constitutes either 
 heat or light. Projected with rapid celerity, it forms light ; in the state of combina- 
 tion with bodies it acts as heat.” p. 188. See also p. 403, “ different states of the 
 same identical substance.” 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 401 
 
 a period when some very important facts, or, I should rather say, 
 some very conspicuous facts, were opposed to it ; while the main 
 facts which favoured it were still unknown. When he composed 
 his work, the analogies between light and heat, with which we 
 are now acquainted, had not been discovered ; no one being 
 aware, that double refraction, polarization, and other curious 
 properties, are common to both. To grasp so wide a truth in 
 the face of such obstacles, was a rare stroke of sagacity. But, 
 on account of the obstacles, the inductive mind of England re- 
 fused to receive the truth, as it was not generalized from a sur- 
 vey of all the facts. And Leslie, unfortunately for himself, died 
 too soon to enjoy the exquisite pleasure of witnessing the empir- 
 ical corroboration of his doctrine by direct experiment, although 
 he clearly perceived, that the march of discovery, in reference to 
 polarization, was leading the scientific world to a point, of which 
 his keen eye had discerned the nature, when to others, it was an 
 almost invisible speck, dim in the distant offing.'®^ 
 
 In regard to the method adopted by Leslie, he assures us, 
 that, in assuming the principles from which he reasoned, he de- 
 rived great aid from poetry ; for he knew that the poets are, 
 after their own manner, consummate observers, and that their 
 united observations form a treasury of truths, which are nowise 
 inferior to the truths of science, and of which science must either 
 avail herself, or else suffer from neglecting them.*®^ To apply 
 these truths rightly, and to fit them to the exigencies of phys- 
 ical inquiry, is, no doubt, a most difficult task, since it involves 
 nothing less than holding the balance between the conflicting 
 claims of the emotions and the understanding. Like all great 
 enterprises, it is full of danger, and, if undertaken by an ordi- 
 
 In 1814, that is ten years after his great work was published, and about twenty 
 years after it was begun, he writes from Paris : “ My book on heat is better known” 
 here “than in England. I was even reminded of some passages in it which in Eng- 
 land were considered as fanciful, but which the recent discoveries on the polarity of 
 light have confirmed.” Napier's Memoirs of Leslie, p. 28, prefixed to Leslie's Phil- 
 osophical Treatises, edit. Edinb. 1838. Leslie died in 1832 (p. 40.) ; and the decisive 
 experiments of Forbes and Melloni were made between 1834 and 1836. 
 
 103 “The easiest mode of conceiving the subject, is to consider the heat that 
 permeates all bodies, and unites with them in various proportions, as merely the 
 subtle fluid of light in a state of combination. When forcibly discharged, or sud- 
 denly elicited from any substance, it again resumes its radiant splendour.” . . . 
 “ The same notion was embraced by the poets, and gives sublimity to their finest 
 odes.” . . . “Those poetical images which have descended to our own times, were 
 hence founded on a close observation of nature. Modern philosophy need not dis- 
 dain to adopt them, and has only to expand and reduce to precision the original 
 conceptions.” Leslie's Treatises on Philosophy, pp. 308, 309. Again, at p. 416 : 
 “ This is not the first occasion in which we have to admire, through the veil of poet- 
 ical imagery, the sagacity and penetration of those early sages. It would be weak- 
 ness to expect nice conclusions in the infancy of science ; but it is arrogant pre- 
 sumption to regard all the efforts of unaided genius with disdain.” 
 
 71 
 
402 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 nary mind, would certainly fail. But there are two circum- 
 stances which make it less dangerous in our time, than in any 
 earlier period. The first circumstance is, that the supremacy ol 
 the human understanding, and its right to judge all theories, for 
 itself, is now more generally admitted than ever ; so that there 
 can he little fear of our leaning to the opposite side, and allow- 
 ing poetry to encroach on science. The other circumstance is, 
 that our knowledge of the laws of nature is much greater than 
 that possessed by any previous age ; and there is, consequently, 
 less risk of the imagination leading us into error, inasmuch as 
 we have a large number of well-ascertained truths, which we can 
 confront with every speculation, no matter how plausible or in- 
 genious it may appear. 
 
 On both these grounds, Leslie was, I apprehend, justified in 
 taking the course which he did. At all events, it is certain, that, 
 by following it, he came nearer than would otherwise have been 
 possible, to the conceptions of the most advanced scientific think- 
 ers of our day. He distinctly recognized that, in the material 
 world, there is neither break nor pause ; so that what we call 
 the divisions of nature have no existence, except in our minds.^®^ 
 He was even almost prepared to do away with that imaginary 
 difference between the organic and inorganic world, which still 
 troubles many of our physicists, and prevents them from compre- 
 hending the unity and uninterrupted march of affairs. They, 
 with their old notions of inanimate matter, are unable to sec 
 that all matter is living, and that what we term death is a mere 
 expression by which we signify a fresh form of life. Towards 
 this conclusion, all our knowledge is now converging ; and it is 
 certainly no small merit in Leslie, that he, sixty years ago, when 
 really comprehensive views, embracing the whole creation, were 
 scarcely known among scientific men, should have strongly in- 
 sisted that all forces are of the same kind, and that we have no 
 right to distinguish between them, as if some were living, and 
 others were dead.^®® 
 
 We owe much to him, by whom such views were advocated. 
 But they were then, and, in a certain, though far smaller, dc- 
 
 1*4 ““We should recollect that, in all her productions, Nature exhibits a chain of 
 perpetual gradation, and that the systematic divisions and limitations are entirelv 
 artificial, and designed merely to assist the memory and facilitate our conceptions.” 
 Leslie on Heat, p. 606. 
 
 164 u forces are radically of the same kind, and the distinction of them into 
 \iving and dead is not grounded on just principles.” Leslie on Heat, p. 133. Com- 
 pare p. 299: “We shall perhaps find, that this prejudice, like many others, has 
 some semblance of truth; and that even dead or inorganic substances must, in their 
 recondite arrangements, exert such varying energies, and so like sensation itself, as 
 if fully unveiled to our eyes, could not fail to strike us with wonder and surprise. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 403 
 
 gree, they are now, so out of the domain of physical experience, 
 that Leslie never could have obtained them by generalizing in 
 the way which the inductive philosophy enjoins. His great 
 work on heat was executed, as well as conceived, on the opposite 
 plan;**® and his prejudices on this point were so strong, that 
 we are assured by his biographer, that he would allow no merit 
 to Bacon, who organized the inductive method into a system, 
 and to whose authority we in England pay a willing, and I had 
 almost said a servile, homage.*®’’ 
 
 Another curious illustration of the skill with which the Scotch 
 mind, when once possessed of a principle, worked from it de- 
 ductively, appears in the geological speculations of Hutton, late 
 in the eighteenth century. It is well known, that the two great 
 powers which have altered the condition of our planet, and made 
 it what it is, are fire and water. Each has played so consider- 
 able a part, that we can hardly measure their relative impor- 
 tance. Judging, however, from the present appearance of the 
 crust of the earth, there is reason to believe, that the older rocks 
 are chiefly the result of fusion, and that the younger are aqueous 
 deposits. It is, therefore, not unlikely, that, in the order in which 
 the energies of nature have unfolded themselves, fire preceded 
 water, and was its necessary precursor.*®® But, all that we are 
 
 Mr. Napier, in his Life of Leslie, p.lY, says of it, very gravely, “Its hypoth- 
 eses are not warranted by the sober maxims of inductive logic.” 
 
 i«7 “Notwithstanding the contrary testimony, explicitly recorded by the founders 
 of the English experimental school, he denied all merit and influence to the immortal 
 delineator of the inductive logic.” Napier's JAfe of Leslie, p. 42. 
 
 The supposition, that volcanic agencies were formerly more potent than they 
 are now, is by no means inconsistent with the scientific docti ine of uniformity, though 
 it is generally considered to be so. It is one thing to assert the uniformity of natural 
 laws ; it is quite another thing to assert the uniformity of natural causes. Heat may 
 once have produced far greater effects than it can do at present, and yet the laws of 
 nature be unclianged, and the order and sequence of events unbroken. What I 
 would venture to suggest to geologists is, that they have not taken suflSciently into 
 account the theory of the interchange offerees, which seems to offer a solution of at 
 least part of the problem. For, by that theory, a large portion of the heat which 
 formerly existed may have been metamorphosed into other forces, such as light, 
 chemical affinity, and gravitation. The increase of these forces consequent on the 
 diminution of heat, would have facilitated the consolidation of matter ; and until 
 such forces possessed a certain energy, water, which afterwards became so promi- 
 nent, could not have been formed. If the power of chemical affinity, for instance, 
 were much weaker than it is, water would assuredly resolve itself into its component 
 gases. Without wishing to lay too much stress on this speculation, I submit it to 
 the consideration of competent judges, because I am convinced that any hypothesis, 
 not absolutely inconsistent with the known laws of nature, is preferable to that 
 dogma of interference, which what maybe called the miraculous school of geologists 
 wish to foist upon us, in utter ignorance of its incompatibility with the conclusions 
 of the most advanced minds in other departments of thought. 
 
 The remarks in Sir Roderick Murchison’s great work (Siluria, London, 1854, pp. 
 476, 476) on the “grander intensity of former causation,” and on the difficulty this 
 opposes to the “ uniformitarians,” apply merely to those who take for granted that 
 each force has always been equally powerful: they do not affect those who suppose 
 
404 AN EXAMINATION OE THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 as yet justified in asserting is, tliat these two causes, the igneous 
 and the aqueous, were in full operation long before man existed, 
 and are still busily working. Perhaps they are preparing an- 
 other change in our habitation, suitable to new forms of life, as 
 superior to man as man is superior to the beings who occupied the 
 earth before his time. Be this as it may, fire and water are the 
 two most important and most general principles with which 
 geologists are concerned j and though, on a superficial view, 
 each is extremely destructive, it is certain that they can really 
 destroy nothing, but can only decompose and recompose ; ^ shift- 
 ing the arrangements of nature, but leaving nature herself intact. 
 Whether one of these elements will ever again get the upper 
 hand of its opponent, is a speculation of extreme interest. F or, 
 there is reason to suspect, that, at one period, fire was more ac- 
 tive than water, and that, at another period, water was more 
 active than fire. That they are engaged in incessant warfare, 
 is a fact with which geologists are perfectly familial*, though in 
 this, as in many other cases, the poets were the first to discern 
 the truth. To the eye of the geologist, water is constantly 
 labouring to reduce all the inequalities of the earth to a single 
 level ; while fire, with its volcanic action, is equally busy in re- 
 storing those inequahties, by throwing up matter to the surface, 
 and in various ways disturbing the crust of the globe.*®® And 
 as the beauty of the material w*orld mainly depends on that 
 irregularity of aspect, without which scenery would have pre- 
 sented no variety of form, and but little variety of colour, we 
 shall, I think, not be guilty of too refined a subtlety, if we say 
 that fire, by saving us from the monotony to which water would 
 have condemned us, has been the remote cause of that develop- 
 ment of the imagination which has given us our poetry, our 
 painting, and our sculpture, and has thereby not o^y wonder- 
 fully increased the pleasures of life, but has imparted to th«^ 
 
 that it is only the aggregate of force which remains unimpaired. Though the dis- 
 tribution of forces may be altered, their gross amount is not susceptible of change, 
 so far as the highest conceptions of our actual science extend. Consequently, there 
 is no need for us to believe that, in different periods, the intensity of causation varies ; 
 though we may believe that some one agent, such as heat, had at one time more 
 energy than it has ever had since. 
 
 16 U u rpjjg great agents of change in the inorganic world may be divided into tw* 
 principal classes, the aqueous and the igneous. To the aqueous belong rain, rivers,, 
 torrents, spring.s, currents, and tides; to the igneous, volcanos and earthquakes. 
 Both these classes are instruments of decay as well as of reproduction; but they 
 may also be regarded as antagonist forces. For the aqueous agents are incessantly 
 labouring to reduce the inequalities of the earth’s surface to a level; while the igneous 
 are equally active in restoring the unevenness of the external crust, partly by heap- 
 ing up new matter in certain localities, and partly by depressing one portion, and 
 forcing out another, of the earth’s envelope.” Lyeirs Principles of Geology, 9tk 
 edit., London, 1853, p. 198. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 405 
 
 human mind a completeness of function, to which, in the absence 
 «f such a stimulus, it could not have attained. 
 
 When geologists began to study the laws according to which 
 fire and water had altered the structure of the earth, two differ- 
 ent courses were open to them, namely, the inductive and the 
 deductive. The deductive plan was to compute the probable 
 consequences of fire and water, by reasoning from the sciences of 
 thermotics and hydrodynamics ; tracking each element by an 
 independent line of argument, and afterwards coordinating into 
 a single scheme the results which had been separately obtained. 
 It would then only remain to inquire, how far this imaginary 
 scheme harmonized with the actual state of things ; and if the 
 discrepancy between the ideal and the actual were not greater 
 than might fairly be expected from the perturbations produced 
 by other causes, the ratiocination would be complete, and geol- 
 ogy would, in its inorganic department, become a deductive 
 science. That our knowledge is ripe for such a process, I am 
 far, indeed, from supposing ; but this is the path which a de- 
 ductive mind would take, so far as it was able. On the other 
 hand, an inductive mind, instead of beginning with fire and wa- 
 ter, would begin with the effects which fire and water had pro- 
 duced, and would first study these two agents, not in their own 
 separate sciences, but in their united action as exhibited on the 
 crust of the earth. An inquirer of this sort would assume, that 
 the best way of arriving at truth would be to proceed from 
 effects to causes, observing what had actually happened, and ris- 
 ing from the complex results up to a knowledge of tt e simple 
 agents, by whose power the results had been brought about. 
 
 If the reader has followed the train of thought which I have 
 endeavoured to establish in this chapter, and in part of the pre- 
 ceding volume, he wiU be prepared to expect that when, in the 
 latter half of the eighteentli, century, geology was first seriously 
 studied, the inductive plan of proceeding from effects to causes, 
 became the favourite one in England ; while the deductive plan 
 of proceeding from causes to effects, was adopted in Scotland 
 and in Germany. And such was really the case. It is generally 
 admitted, that, in England, scientific geology owes its origin to 
 William Smith, whose mind was singularly averse to system, 
 and who, believing that the best way of understanding former 
 causes was to study present effects, occupied himself, between 
 the years 1790 and 1815, in a laborious examination of different 
 strata.*’'® In 1815, he, after traversing the whole of England 
 
 Dr. Whewell, comparing him with his great German contemporary, Werner, 
 i 8*,j8, “In the German, considering him as a geologist, the ideal element predomi- 
 
406 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 on foot, published the first complete geological map which ever 
 appeared, and thus took the first great step towards accumu- 
 lating the materials for an inductive generalization.''^' In 1807, 
 and, therefore, before he had brought his arduous task to an end, 
 there was formed in London the Greological Society, the express 
 object of which, we are assured, was, to observe the condition 
 of the earth, but by no means to generalize the eauses which had 
 produced that condition.' The resolution was, perhaps, a wise 
 one. At all events, it was highly characteristic of the sober 
 and patient spirit of the English intellect. ith what energy 
 and unsparing toil it has been executed, and how the moso 
 eminent members of the Geological Society have, in the pursuit 
 of truth, not only explored every part of Europe, but examined 
 the shell of the earth in America and in Northern Asia, is well 
 known to all who are interested in these matters j nor can it be 
 denied, that the great works of Lyell and Mnrehison prove tliat 
 the men who are capable of such laborious enterprises, are als^) 
 capable of the still more difficult achievement of generalizing 
 their facts and refining them into ideas. They did not go as 
 mere observers, but they went with the noble object of making 
 their observations subservient to a discovery of the laws of 
 nature. That was their aim ; and all honour be to thern^ for it. 
 Still, it is evident, that their process is essentially inductive ; io 
 is a procedure from the observation of complex phenomena, up 
 to the elements to which those phenomena are owing ; it is, m 
 other words, a study of natural effects, in order to learn the 
 operation of natural causes. 
 
 Dated.” . . , “ Of a very different temper and character was William Smith. No 
 literary cultivation of his youth awoke in him the speculative love of sijmmetrymid 
 system; but a singular clearness and precision of the classifying power, which he 
 possessed as a native talent, was exercised and developed by exactly those geological 
 facts among which his philosophical task lay.” . . . . “ We see great vividness or 
 thought and activity of mind, unfolding itself exactly in proportion to the facts with 
 which it had to deal." . . . . “ He dates his attempts to discriminate and connect 
 strata from the year 1790.” WheweWs History of the Inductive Sciences, London, 
 1847, Tol. hi. pp. 562-604. 
 
 “The execution of his map was completed in 1815, and remains a lasting 
 monument of original talent and extraordinary perseverance ; for he had explored the 
 whole country on foot without the guidance of previous observers, or the aid of 
 fellow-labourers, and had succeeded in throwing into natural divisiyiis the whole 
 complicated series of British rocks.” Lyell's Principles of Geology, p. 58. (^olopcal 
 maps of parts of England had, however, been published before 1816. See Conybeart 
 on Geology, in Second Report of the British Association, p. 373 
 
 u ^ gveat body of new data were required ; and the Geological Society of 
 London, founded in 1807, conduced greatly to the attainment of this desirable end. 
 To multiply and record observations, and patiently to await the result at some future 
 period, w*as the object proposed by them ; and it was their favourite maxim, that the 
 time was not yet come for a general system of geology, but that all must be content 
 for many years to be exclusively engaged in furnishing materials for future general- 
 izations.” LyelVs Principles of Geology, p. 59. Compare Richardson s Geology, 1851, 
 p. 40. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 407 
 
 Very different was the process in Germany and Scotland. 
 In 1787, that is, only three years before William Smith began 
 his labours, Werner, by his work on the classification of moun- 
 tains, laid the foundation of the German school of geology. 
 His influence was immense ; and among his pupils we And the 
 names of Mohs, Kaumer, and Von Buch, and even that of 
 Alexander Humboldt. But the geological theory which ho 
 propounded, depended entirely on a chain of argument from 
 cause to effect. He assumed, that all the great changes through 
 which the earth had passed, were due to the action of water. 
 Taking this for granted, he reasoned deductively from premisses 
 with which his knowledge of water supplied him. Without 
 entering into details respecting his system, it is enough to say, 
 that, according to it, there was originally one vast and primeval 
 sea, which, in the course of time, deposited the primitive rocks. 
 The base of all was granite ; then gneiss ; and others followed 
 in their order. In the bosom of the water, which at first was 
 tranquil, agitations gradually arose, which, destroying part of 
 the earliest deposits, gave birth to new rocks, formed out of 
 their ruins. The stratified thus succeeded to the unst ratified, 
 and something like variety was established. Then came another 
 period, in which the face of the waters, instead of being merely 
 agitated, was convulsed by tempests, and, amid their play and 
 collision, life was generated, and plants and animals sprung into 
 existence. The vast solitude was slowly peopled, the sea grad- 
 ually retired ; and a foundation was laid for that epoch, during 
 which man entered the scene, bringing with him the rudiments 
 of order and of social improvement.^’’® 
 
 These were the leading views of a system which, we must 
 remember, exercised great sway in the scientific world, and won 
 over to its side minds of considerable power. Erroneous and 
 
 Cuvier, in his Life of Werner, says {Biographie Universelle, vol. l. pp. St 6, SW), 
 “La connaissance des positions respectives dcs mineraux dans la croute du globe, et 
 ce que I’on pent en conclure relativemeut aux epoques do leur origine, forment une 
 autre branche de la science qu’il appelle Geognosie. II en presenta les premieres 
 bases en 1787, dans un petit ecrit intitulb ‘Classification et description des mon- 
 tagnes.’ ” 
 
 WhewelVs Hintory of the Inductive Sciences, vol. iii. p. 567. 
 
 “ Une mer universelle et tranquille depose en grandes masses les roebes 
 primitives, roches nettement cristallisees, ou domine d’abord la silice. Le granit fait 
 la base de tout; au granit succede le gneiss, qui n’est qu’im granit commenyant k se 
 feuilleter.” . . . “Des agitations intestines du liquids detruisent une partie de ces 
 premiers depots; de nouvelles roches se forment de leurs debris reunis par des 
 cimens. C’est parmi ces tempetes que nait la vie.” . . . “ Les eaux, de nouveau 
 tranquillisees, mais dont le contenu a change, deposent des couches moins epaisses 
 et plus variees, oii les debris des corps vivans s’accumulent successivement dans un 
 ordre non moins fixe que celui des roches qui les contiennent. Enfin, la derniere 
 retraite des eaux repand sur le continent d’immenses alluvions de matieres meubles, 
 premiers sieges de la vegetation, de la culture et de la sociabilite.” Eloge de Werner, 
 in Cuvier, Recueil des Eloges Historiques, vol. ii. pp. 321-323. 
 
408 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 far-fetched though it was, it had the merit of calling attention 
 to one of the two chief principles which have determined the 
 present condition of our planet. It had the further merit of 
 provoking a controversy, which was eminently serviceable to the 
 interests of truth. For, the great enemy of knowledge is not 
 error hut inertness. All that we want is discussion, and then 
 we are sure to do well, no matter what our blunders may he. 
 One error conflicts with another ; each destroys its opponent, 
 and truth is evolved. This is the course of the human mind, 
 and it is from this point of view that the authors of new ideas, 
 the proposers of new contrivances, and the originators of new 
 heresies, are benefactors of their species. Whether they are 
 right or wrong, is the least part of the (question. They tend to 
 excite the mind ; they open up the faculties ; they stimulate 
 us to fresh inquiry | they place old subjects under new aspects , 
 they disturb the public sloth ; and they interrupt, rudely, hut 
 with most salutary effect, that love of routine, which, by in- 
 ducing men to go grovelling on in the ways of their ancestors, 
 stands in the path of every improvement, as a constant, an out- 
 lying, and, too often, a fatal obstacle. 
 
 The method adopted by Werner was evidently deductive, 
 since he argued from a supposed cause, and reasoned from it to 
 the effects. In that cause, he found his major premiss, and 
 thence he worked downwards to his conclusion, until he reached 
 the world of sense and of reality. He trusted in his one great 
 idea, and he handled that idea with consummate skill. On ^at 
 very account, did he pay less attention to existing facts. Had 
 he chosen, he, like other men, could have collected thena, and 
 subjected them to an inductive generalization. But he preferre 
 the opposite path. To reproach him with this, is irrational ; 
 for in his journey after truth, he chose one of the only two roads 
 which are open to the human mind. In^ England, indeed, we 
 are apt to take for granted that one road is infinitely preferab e 
 to the other. It may be so ; but on this, as on many other 
 subiects, assertions are current which have never been proved. 
 At all events, Werner was so satisfied with his method, that he 
 would not be at the pains of examining the positionof rocks and 
 their strata, as they are variously exhibited in different coun 
 tries ; he did not even explore his own country, but, confining 
 himself to a corner of Germany, he began and completed his 
 celebrated system, without investigating the facts on wfiicn, 
 according to the inductive method, that system should have 
 been built. 
 
 ^’0 “ If it be true that delivery be the first, second, 
 wator, it is no less certain that to travel is of first, second, and third importance to 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 409 
 
 Exactly the same process, on the same subject, and at the 
 same time, was going on in Scotland. Hutton, who was the 
 founder of Scotch theology, and who, in 1788, published his 
 Theory of the Earth, conducted the inquiry just as Werner did ; 
 though, when he began his speculations, he had no knowledge 
 of what Werner was doing.'''’' The only difference between 
 them was, that while Werner reasoned from the agency of 
 water, Hutton reasoned from the agency of fire. The cause of 
 this may, I think, be explained. Hutton lived in a country 
 where some of the most important laws of heat had, for the 
 first time, been generalized, and where, consequently, that 
 department of inorganic physics had acquired great reputation. 
 It was natural for a Scotchman to take more than ordinary 
 interest in a subject in which Scotland had been so successful,, 
 and had obtained so much fame. We need not, therefore, 
 wonder that Hutton, who, like all men, felt the intellectual 
 bent of the time in which he lived, should have yielded to an 
 influence of which he was, perhaps, unconscious. In obedience 
 to the general mental habits of his country, he adopted the 
 deductive method. In further obedience to the more special 
 circumstances connected with his own immediate pursuits, he 
 gathered the principles from which he reasoned from a study 
 of fire, instead of gathering them, as Werner did, from a study 
 of water. 
 
 Hence it is, that, in the history of geology, the followers of 
 Werner are known as Neptunists, and those of Hutton as. 
 Plutonists.”® And these terms represent the only difference 
 between the two great masters. In the most important points, 
 namely their method, they were entirely agreed. Both were 
 
 those who desire to originate just and comprehensive views concerning the structure 
 of our globe. Now, Weruer had not travelled to distant countries: he had merely 
 explored a small portion of Germany, and conceived, and persuaded others to believe, 
 that the whole surface of our planet, and all the mountain chains of the world, were 
 made after the model of his own province.” .... “It now appears that he had 
 misinterpreted many of the most important appearances even in the immediate 
 neighborhood of Frcyberg. Thus, for example, within a day’s journey of his school, 
 the porphyry, called by him primitive, has been found not only to send forth veins, 
 or dykes, through strata of the coal-formation, but to overlie them in mass.” LyelVs 
 Principles of Geoloyy, p. 47. 
 
 Though Hutton’s Theory of the Earth was first published in 1788, the edition 
 of 1795, which is the one I have used, contains a great number of additional illus- 
 trations of his views, and was evidently re-written. But the main features are the 
 same; and we learn from his friend, Playfair, that “the great outline of his system” 
 was completed “several years” before 1788. Life of Hutton^ in Playfair's Works, 
 vol. iv. p. 50, Edinburgh, 1822. 
 
 Kirwan appears to have been the first who called Hutton’s theory “the Plu- 
 tonic system.” See Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory in Playfair's Works, vol. i, 
 p. 146. On the distinction between Neptunists and Plutonists, see the same work, 
 pp. 604, 605. 
 
410 AN EXAMINATION OE THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 essentially one-sided ; both paid a too exclusive attention to 
 one of the two principal agents which have altered, and are still 
 altering, the crust of the earth ; both reasoned from those 
 agents, instead of reasoning to them ; and both constructed 
 their system without sufficiently studying the actual and ex- 
 isting facts ; committing, in this respect, an error which the 
 English geologists were the first to rectify. 
 
 As I am writing a history, not of science, but of scientific 
 method, I can only briefly glance at the nature of those services 
 which Hutton rendered to geology, and which are so considerable, 
 that his system has been called its present basis,”® This, how- 
 ever, is too strongly expressed ; for, though Hutton was far from 
 denying the influence of water, he did not concede enough to 
 it, and there is a tendency among several geologists to admit 
 that the system of W erner, considered as an aqueous theory, 
 contains a larger amount of truth than the advocates of the 
 igneous theory are willing to allow. Still, what Hutton did 
 was most remarkable, especially in reference to what are now 
 termed metamorphic rocks, the theory of whose formation he 
 was the first to conceive. Into this, and into their connexion, 
 on the one hand, with the sedimentary rocks, and, on the other 
 hand, with those rocks whose origin is perhaps purely igneous, 
 I could not enter without treading on debatable ground. But, 
 putting aside what is yet uncertain, I will mention two circum- 
 stances respecting Hutton which are undisputed, and which 
 will give some idea of his method, and of the turn of his mind. 
 The first circumstance is, that, although he ascribed to subter- 
 ranean heat, as exhibited in volcanic action, a greater and more 
 constant energy than any previous inquirers had ventured to 
 do,^®^ he preferred speculating on the probable consequences of 
 that action, rather than drawing inferences from the facts which 
 the action presented ; he being on this point so indifferent, that 
 he arrived at his conclusions without inspecting even a single 
 
 “Has not only supplanted that of Werner, but has formed the foundation of 
 the researches and writings of our most enlightened observers, and is justly regarded 
 as the basis of all sound geology at the present day.” Richardson's Geology^ London, 
 1851, p. 38. 
 
 HuttorHs Theory of the TJarth, Edinb. 1796, vol. i. pp. 34, 41, 192, 290, 291, 
 693, vol. ii. pp. 236, 369, 378, 555. 
 
 “ In his writings, and in those of his illustrator, Playfair, we find the germ of 
 the metamorphic theory.” Lyell's Manual of Geology^ London, 1851, p. 92. 
 
 The shortest summary of this view is in his Theory of the Earth, Edin. 1795, 
 vol. ii. p. 656. “The doctrine, therefore, of our Theory is briefly this : That what- 
 ever may have been the operation of dissolving water, and the chemical action of it 
 upon the materials accumulated at the bottom of the sea, the general solidity of that 
 mass of earth, and the placing of it in the atmosphere above the surface of the sea, 
 has been the immediate operation of fire or heat melting and expanding bodies.” 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 411 
 
 region of active volcanos, where he might have watched the 
 workings of nature, and seen what she was really about. 
 The other circumstance is equally characteristic. Hutton ' in 
 his speculations concerning the geological effects of heat, nat- 
 urally availed himself of the laws which Black had unfolded. 
 One of those laws was, that certain earths owe their fusibility 
 to the presence of fixed air in them before heat has expelled it j 
 BO that, if it were possible to force them to retain their fixed 
 air, or carbonic acid gas, as we now call it, no amount of heat 
 could deprive them of the capability of being fused. The fer- 
 tile^ mind of Hutton saw, in this discovery, a principle from 
 which he could construct a geological argument. It occurred 
 to him, that great pressure would prevent the escape of fixed 
 air from heated rocks, and would thus enable them to be fused, 
 notwithstanding their elevated temperature. He then supposed 
 that, at a period anterior to the existence of man, such a pro- 
 cess had taken place under the surface of the sea, and that the 
 weight of so great a column of water had prevented the rocks 
 from being decomposed while they were subjected to the action 
 of fire. In this way, their volatile parts were held together, and 
 they themselves might be melted, which could not have hap- 
 pened except for this enormous pressure. By following this 
 line of argument, he accounted for the consolidation of strata by 
 heat since, according to the premisses from which he started, 
 the oily, or bituminous parts, would remain, in spite of the 
 efforts of heat to disperse thera.*®^ This striking speculation 
 led to the inference, that the volatile components of a substance, 
 and its fixed components, may be made to cohere, in the very 
 teeth of that apparently irresistible agent whose business it is 
 to effect their separation. Such an inference was contrary to 
 all experience j or, to say the least, no man had ever seen an 
 instance of it.'®^ Indeed, the event was only supposed to hap- 
 
 “Although Hutton had never explored any region of active volcanos, he had 
 convinced himself that basalt and many other trap rooks were of igneous origin.” 
 Lyell's Principles of Geology, London, 1858, p. 51. To this I mav add, that he wrote 
 his work without having examined granite. He says {Theory of the Earth, vol. i. p. 
 214), “It is true, I met with it on my return by the east coast, when I just saw it, 
 and no more, at Peterhead and Aberdeen ; but that was all the granite 1 had ever 
 seen when I wrote my Theory of the Earth, I have, since that time, seen it in dif- 
 ferent places; because I went on purpose to examine it, as I shall have occasion to 
 describe in the course of this work.” Hutton’s Theory of granite is noticed in Bake- 
 well s Geology, Lond. 1838, p. 101 ; but Mr. Bakewell does not seem to be aware that 
 the theory was formed before the observations were made. 
 
 Hnttonian Theory, in Playfair, vol. i. pp. 38-40, 509, 510. Compare Play^ 
 fair's Life of Hutton, p. 61. 
 
 * Hence, the objections of Kirwan were invalid ; because his argument against 
 Hutton was “ grounded on experiments, where that very separation of the volatile 
 and fixed parts takes place, which it excluded in that hypothesis of subterraneous 
 heat. Hnttonian Theory, in Playfair, vol. i. p. 193, Edinb. 1822. 
 
412 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 pen in consequence of circumstances whicli were never met witli 
 on the surface of the globe, and which, thereiore, were out of 
 the range of all human observation^®® The utmost that could 
 be expected was, that, by means of our instruments, we might, 
 perhaps, on a small scale, imitate the process which Hutton 
 had imagined. It was possible, that a direct experiment might 
 artificially combine great pressure with great heat, and that the 
 result might be, that the senses would realize what the intellect 
 had conceived. But the experiment had never been tried, 
 and Hutton, who delighted in reasoning from ideas rather than 
 from facts, was not likely to undertake it.*®® He cast his spec- 
 ulation on the world, and left it to its fate.'®® Fortunately, 
 however, for the rece])tion of his system, a very ingenious and 
 skilful experimenter of that day. Sir J ames Hall, determined to 
 test the speculation by an appeal to facts ; and as nature did 
 not supply the facts which he wanted, he created them for him- 
 self. He applied heat to powdered chalk, while, at the same 
 time, with great delicacy of manipulation, he subjected the 
 chalk to a pressure about equal to the weight of a column of 
 water half a mile high. The result was, that, under that pres- 
 
 Hutton says {Theory of the Earth, Edinb. 1795, vol. i. p. 94), “The place of 
 mineral operations is not on the surface of the earth ; and wo are not to limit nature 
 with our imbecility, or estimate the powers of nature by the measure of our own.” 
 See also p. 159, “mineral operations proper to the lower regions of the earth.” And 
 p. 527, “The mineral operations of nature lie in a part of the globe which is neces- 
 sarily inaccessible to man, and where the powers of nature act under very different 
 conditions from those which we find take place in the only situation where we can 
 live.” Again, in vol. ii. p. 97, “ The present Theory of the Earth holds for principle 
 that the strata are consolidated in the mineral regions fur beyond the reach of human 
 observation.” Similarly, vol. ii. p. 484, “ we judge not of the progress of things 
 from the actual operations of the surface.” 
 
 Hutton, however, did not believe that this could be done. “ In the Theory 
 of the Earth which was published, I was anxious to warn the reader against the no- 
 tion that subterraneous heat and fusion could be compared with that which we in- 
 duce by our chemical operations on mineral substances here upon the surface of the 
 earth.” Hutton's Theory of the Earth, vol. i. p. 251. 
 
 ““ See, in the Life of Hutton, in Playfair's IForA's, vol. iv. p. 62 note, a curious 
 remark on his indifference to experimental verification. Innumerable passages in 
 his work indicate this tendencv, and show his desire to reason immediately from 
 general principles. Thus, in vol. i. p. 17, “Let us strictly examine our principles in 
 order to avoid fallacy in our reasoning.” .... “We are now, in reasoning from prin- 
 ciples, come to a point decisive of the question.” vol. i. p. 177. “ Let us now reason 
 from our principles.” vol. ii. p. 808. Hence, his constantly expressed contempt for 
 experience; as in vol. ii. p. 367, where he says that we must “overcome those pre- 
 judices which contracted views of nature and magnified opinions of the experience of 
 man may have begotten.” 
 
 Playfair ( Life of Hutton, p. 64) says that it drew “ their attention ” {i. e. the 
 attention of “men of science”), “very slowly, so that .several years elapsed before 
 any one showed himself publicly concerned about it, either as an enemy or a friend.” 
 He adds, as one of the reasons of this, that it contained “ too little detail of facts for 
 a system which involved so much that was new, and opposite to the opinions gen* 
 %rally received.” 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 413 
 
 sure, the volatile parts of the chalk were held together j the 
 carbonic acid gas was unable to escape; the generation of 
 quicklime was stopped ; the ordinary operations of nature 
 were baffled, and the whole composition, being preserved in 
 its integrity, was fused, and, on subsequently cooling, actually 
 crystallized into solid marble. Never was triumph more 
 complete. Never did a fact more fully confirm an idea.*®* 
 But, in the mind of Hutton, the idea preceded the fact by 
 a long interval ; since, before the fact was known, the theory 
 had been raised, and the system which was built upon it had, 
 
 1 indeed, been published several years. It, therefore, appears 
 that one of the chief parts of the Huttonian Theory, and cer- 
 tainly its most successful part, was conceived in opposition 
 to all preceding experience ; that it pre-supposed a combina- 
 tion of events which no one had ever observed, and the mere 
 possibility of which nothing but artificial experiment could 
 prove ; and, finally, that Hutton was so confident of the validity 
 of his own method of inquiry, that he disdained to make the 
 experiment himself, but left to another mind that empirical 
 branch of the investigation which he deemed of little moment, 
 but which we, in England, are taught to believe is the only safe 
 foundation of physical research.*®^ 
 
 I have now given an account of all the most important dis- 
 coveries made by Scotland, in the eighteenth century, respecting 
 
 The account of those experiments was read before the Royal Society of Edin- 
 burgh in 1805, and is printed in their Transactions, vol. vi. pp. 71-185, Edinb. 1812, 
 4to. The general result was (pp. 148, 149), “ That a pressure of 52 atmospheres, or 
 1700 feet of sea, is capable of forming a limestone in a proper heat ; That under 86 
 atmospheres, answering nearly to 3000 feet, or about half a mile, a complete marble 
 may be formed; and lastly. That, with a pressure of 173 atmospheres, or 5700 feet, 
 that is little more than one mile of sea, the carbonate of lime is made to undergo 
 complete fusion, and to act powerfully on other earths.” See also p. 160: “The 
 carbonic acid of limestone cannot be constrained in heat by a pressure less than that 
 of 1708 feet of sea.” There is a short, and not very accurate, notice of these in- 
 structive experiments in Bakewell's Geology, Loudon, 1838, pp. 249, 250. 
 
 As Sir James Hall says, “The truth of the most doubtful principle which Dr. 
 Hutton has assumed, has thus been established by direct experiment.” Transactions 
 of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. vi. p. 175. 
 
 See the remarks of Sir James Hall, in Transactions, vol. vi. pp. 74, 76. He 
 observes that Hutton’s “system, however, involves so many suppositions, apparently 
 in contradiction to common experience, which meet us on the very threshold, that 
 most men have hitherto been deterred from an investigation of its principles, and 
 only a few individuals have justly appreciated its merits.” .... “I conceived that 
 the chemical effects ascribed by him to compression, ought, in the first place, to be 
 investigated.” .... “It occurred to me that this principle was susceptible of being 
 established in a direct manner by experiment, and / urged him to make the attempt, 
 but he always rejected this proposal, on account of the immensity of the natural agents, 
 whose operation he supposed to lie far beyond the reach of our imitation; and he 
 seemed to imagine that any such attempt must undoubtedly fail, and thus throw dis- 
 credit on opinions, already sufficiently established, as he eonceived, on other principles'* 
 
414 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 the laws of the inorganic world. I have said nothing of Watt, 
 because, although the steam-engine, which we owe to him, is 
 of incalculable importance, it is not a discovery, but an inven- 
 tion. An invention it may justly be termed, rather than an 
 improvement.**® Notwithstanding what had been effected in 
 the seventeenth century by De Caus, Worcester, Papin, and 
 Savery, and notwithstanding the later additions of Newcomen 
 and others, the real originality of Watt is unimpeachable. His 
 engine was, essentially, a new invention ; but, under its scientific 
 aspect, it was merely a skilful adaptation of laws previously 
 known ; and one of its most important points, namely, the 
 economy of heat, was a practical application of ideas promul- 
 gated by Black.*®* The only discovery made by Watt was that 
 of the composition of water. Though his claims are disputed 
 by the friends of Cavendish, it would appear that he was the 
 first who ascertained that water, instead of being an element, is 
 a compound of two gases.**® This discovery was a considerable 
 step in the history of chemical analysis, but it neither involved 
 nor suggested any new law of nature, and has, therefore, no 
 claim to mark an epoch in the history of the human mind.'** 
 
 It maybe traced back, certainly to the beginning of the seventeenth century, 
 and probably still higher. Yet the popular opinion seems to be correct, that Watt 
 was its real inventor; though, of course, he could not have done what he did, with- 
 out his predecessors. This, however, may be said of all the most eminent and suc- 
 cessful men, as well as of the most ordinary men. 
 
 On the obligations of Watt to Black, compare Brougham's Life of Watt, 
 (Brougham's Works, vol. i. pp. 25, 36-38, edit. Glasgow, 1855), with Muirhea<Ls Life 
 of Watt, second edit. London, 1859, pp. 66, 83. At p. 301, Mr. Muirhead says of 
 Watt, that “ his principal inventions connected with the steam-engine, with all their 
 prodigious results, were founded, as we have seen, on the attentive observation of 
 great philosophical truths; and the economy of fuel, increase of productive power, 
 and saving of animal labour, which gradually ensued, all originated in the sagacious 
 and careful thought with which he investigated the nature and properties of heat.” 
 But whatever investigations Watt made into heat, he discovered no new law respect- 
 ing it, or, at all events, no new law which is large enough to be noted in the history 
 of thermotics, considered purely as a science, and apart from practical application. 
 Mr. Muirhead, in his interesting* work which I have just quoted, has published (pp. 
 484-486) some remarks made on the subject by Watt, several years after the death 
 of Black, which, though perfectly fair and candid, show that W^att had a rather con- 
 fused notion of the real difference between an invention and a discovery. 
 
 Mr. Muirhead, in his Life of Watt, pp. 301-370, seems to have put the priority 
 of Watt beyond further doubt ; though he is somewhat hard upon Cavendish, who, 
 there can be little question, made the discovery for himself. 
 
 '»* I would not wish to diminish one jot of the veneration in which the great 
 name of Watt is justly held. But when I find the opinion of Dr. Withering, the 
 botanist, quoted, to the effect that his “ abilities and acquirements placed him next, 
 if not superior, to Newton” (^Muirhead's Life of Watt, p. 302), I cannot but protest 
 against such indiscriminate eulogy, which w'ould rank Watt in the same class as one 
 of those godlike intellects of which the whole world has not produced a score, and 
 which are entitled to be termed inspired, if ever human being was so. Another in- 
 stance of this injudicious panegyric, will be found in the same otherwise excellent 
 work {Muirhead, pp. 324, 325), where we read that Watt’s discovery that water coo- 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 415 
 
 Tliere is, however, one circumstance connected with it which is 
 too characteristic to he passed over in silence. The discovery 
 was made in 1783, by Watt, the Scotchman, and by Cavendish, 
 the Englishman, neither oF whom seems to have been aware of 
 what the other was doing.'*’’ But between the two there was 
 this difference. Watt, for several years previously, had been 
 speculating on the subject of water in connexion with air, and 
 having, by Black’s law of latent heat, associated them together, 
 he was prepared to believe that one is convertible into the 
 other.'*® The idea of an intimate analogy between the two 
 bodies having once entered his mind, gradually ripened ; and 
 when he at last completed the discovery, it was merely by rea- 
 soning from data which others possessed besides himself. In- 
 stead of bringing to light new facts, he drew new conclusions 
 from former ideas.'** Cavendish, on the other hand, obtained 
 
 sists of oxygen and hydrogen, was “the commencement of a new era, the dawn of 
 a new day in physical inquiry, the real foundation of the new system of chemistry ; 
 nay, even a discovery ‘ perhaps of greater importance than any single fact which 
 human ingenuity has ascertained either before or since.’ ” 
 
 That there was no plagiarism on the part of Watt, we know from positive evi- 
 dence ; that there was none on the part of Cavendish, may be fairly presumed, both 
 from the character of the man, and also from the fact that in the then state of 
 chemical knowledge the discovery was imminent, and could not have been long de- 
 layed. It was antecedently probable that the composition of water would be ascer- 
 tained by different persons at the same time, as we have seen in many other discov- 
 eries which have been simultaneously made, when the human mind, in that particular 
 department of inquiry, had reached a certain point. We are too apt to suspect 
 philosophers of stealing from each other, what their own abilities are sufficient to 
 work out for themselves. It is, however, certain that Watt thought himself ill-treated 
 by Cavendish. See Watt's Correspondence on the Composition of Water, London, 
 1846, pp. 48, 61. 
 
 On 26th November 1'783, he writes: “For many years I have entertained an 
 opinion that air was a modification of water ; which was originally founded on the 
 facts, that in most cases where air was actually made, which should be distingui.shed 
 from those wherein it is only extricated from substances containing it in their pores, 
 or otherwise united to them in the state of air, the substances were such as were 
 known to contain water as one of their constituent parts, yet no water was obtained 
 in the processes, except what was known to be only loosely connected with them, 
 such as the water of the crystallization of salts. 2'his opinion arose from a dis- 
 covery that the latent heat contained in steam diminished, in proportion as the sensible 
 heat of the water from which it was produced, increased; or, in other words, that the 
 latent heat of steam was less when it was produced under a greater pressure, or in 
 a more dense state, and greater when it was produced under a less pressure, or in a 
 less dense state ; which led me to conclude, that when a very great degree of heat 
 was necessary for the production of the steam, the latent heat would be wholly 
 changed into sensible heat ; and that, in such cases, the steam itself might suffer 
 some remarkable change. I now abandon this opinion, in so far as relates to the 
 change of water into air, as I think that may be accounted for on better principles.” 
 See this remarkable passage, which is quite decisive as to the real history of Watt’s 
 discovery, in Correspondenct of James Watt on the Composition of Water, London, 
 1846, pp. 84, 85. Compare p. exxiv. and p. 248 note. 
 
 '** In the paper which he communicated to the Royal Society, announcing his 
 discovery, he, well knowing the empirical character of the English mind, apologizes 
 for this; and says, “I feel much reluctance to lay my thoughts on these subjects 
 
416 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 his result by the method natural to an Englishman. He did 
 not venture to draw a fresh inference until he had first ascer- 
 tained some fresh facts. Indeed, his discovery was so completely 
 an induction from his own experiments, that he omitted to take 
 into consideration the theory of latent heat from which Watt 
 had reasoned, and w^here that eminent Scotchman had found 
 the premisses of ‘his argument. Both of these great inquirers 
 arrived at truth, hut each accomplished his journey by a diflbr- 
 ent path. And this antithesis is accurately expressed by one 
 of the most celebrated of living chemists, who, in his remarks 
 on the composition of water, truly says, that while Cavendish 
 established the facts. Watt established the idea.*®' 
 
 Thus much, as to what was effected by the Scotch in the 
 department of inorganic science. If we now turn to organic 
 science, we shall find that, there also, their labours were very 
 remarkable. To those who are capable of a certain elevation 
 and compass of thought, it will appear, in the highest degree, 
 probable, that, between the organic and inorganic world, there 
 is no real difierence. That they are separated, as is commonly 
 asserted, by a sharp line of demarkation, which indicates where 
 one abruptly ends, and the other abruptly begins, seems to be a 
 supposition altogether untenable. Nature does not pause and 
 break off in this fitful and irregular manner. In her works 
 there is neither gap nor chasm. To a really scientific mind, the 
 material world presents one vast and uninterrupted series, grad- 
 ually rising from the lowest to the highest forms, but never 
 stopping. In one part of that series we find a particular struc- 
 
 before the public in their present indigested state, and without having been able to 
 bring them to the test of such experiments as would confirm or refute them." Watt's 
 Correspondence on the Discovery of the Composition of Water., pp. t / , '18. Eleven 
 months earlier, that is in December 1782, he writes {Ibid. p. 4): “ Dr. Priestley has 
 made a most surprising discovery, which seems to confirm my theory of water’s under- 
 going some very remarkable change at the point where all its latent heat would be 
 changed into sensible heat.” 
 
 MO u jjg)) Cavendish) “here omits entirely the consideration of latent heat ; 
 an omission which he even attempts to justify, in one of the passages interpolated 
 by Blagden. But it is well known to every one acquainted with the first principles 
 of chemical science, even as it was taught in the days of Black, and it was indispu- 
 tably familiar to Mr. Watt, that no aeriform fluid can be converted into a liquid, nor 
 any liquid into a solid, without the evolution of heat, previously latent. This essen- 
 tial part of the process, Mr. Cavendish’s theory does not embrace ; but without it, 
 no theory on the subject can be complete ; and it will presently be seen, that Mr. 
 Watt took it fully into account.” MuirhecuTs Life of Watt, p. 315. 
 
 “ Cavendish and Watt both discovered the composition of water. Cavendish 
 established the facts; Watt the idea.” .... The attaching too high a value to 
 the mere facts, is often a sign of a want of ideas." Liebig's Letters on Chemistry, 
 London, 1861, p. 48. The last sentence of this illustrious philosopher, which I have 
 put in italics, should be well pondered in England. If I had my way, it should be 
 engraved in letters of gold over the portals of the Royal Society and of the Royal 
 Institution. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 417 
 
 ture, which, so far as our observations have yet extended, we, 
 in another part, cannot find. We also observe particular func- 
 tions, which correspond to the structure, and, as we believe, 
 result from it. This is all we know. Yet, from these scanty 
 facts, we, who at present are still in the infancy of knowledge, 
 and have but skimmed the surface of things, are expected to 
 infer, that there must be a point in the chain of existence, 
 where both structure and function suddenly cease, and, after 
 which, we may vainly search for signs of life. It would be diffi- 
 cult to conceive a conclusion more repugnant to the whole 
 march and analogy of modern thought. In every department, 
 the speculations of the greatest thinkers are constantly tending 
 to coordinate all phenomena, and to regard them as different, 
 indeed, in degree, but by no means as different in kind. For- 
 merly, men were content to ground their conviction of this 
 difference in kind, on the evidence of the eye, which, on a cur- 
 sory inspection, saw an organization in some bodies, and not in 
 others. F rom the organization, they inferred the life, and sup- 
 posed that plants, for instance, had life, but that minerals had 
 none.^ This sort of argument was long deemed satisfactory; 
 but, in the course of time, it broke down ; more evidence was 
 required, and, since the middle of the seventeenth century, it 
 has been universally admitted, that the eye, by itself, is an un- 
 trustworthy witness, and that we must employ the microscope, 
 instead of relying on the unaided testimony of onr own puny 
 and precarious senses. But the microscope is steadily improv- 
 ing, and we cannot tell what limits there are to its capacity 
 for improvement. Consequently, we cannot tell what fresh 
 secrets it may disclose. Neither can we say that it may not 
 be altogether superseded by some new artificial resource, 
 which shall furnish us with evidence, as superior to any yet 
 supplied, as our present evidence is superior to that of the naked 
 eye. Even already, and notwithstanding the shortness of time 
 during which the microscope has been a really effective instru- 
 ment, it has revealed to us organizations, the existence of which 
 no one had previously suspected. It has proved, that what, for 
 thousands of years, had been deemed mere specks of inert mat- 
 ter, are, in truth, animals possessing most of the functions 
 which we possess, reproducing their species in regular and or- 
 derly succession, and endowed with a nervous system, which 
 shows that they must be susceptible of pain and enjoyment. It 
 has detected life hidden in the glaciers of Switzerland ; it has 
 found it embedded in the polar ice, and, if it can flourish there, 
 it is hard to say from what quarter it can be shut out. So un- 
 willing, however, are most men to relinquish old notions, that 
 72 
 
418 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 tlie resources of chemistry have been called in, to ascertain the 
 supposed difference between organic and inorganic matter ; it 
 being asserted that, in the organic world, there is a greater 
 complexity of molecular combination than in the inorganic.*®* 
 Chemists further assert, that in organic nature there is a pre- 
 dominance of carbon, and in inorganic, a predominance of sili- 
 con.*®® But chemical analysis, like microscopic observation, is 
 making such rapid strides, that each generation, I had almost 
 said each year, is unsettling some of the conclusions previously 
 established ; so that, now, and for a long time hence, we must 
 regard those conclusions as empirical, and, indeed, as merely 
 tentative. Surely a permanent and universal inference cannot 
 be drawn from shifting and precarious facts, which are admitted 
 to-day, and may be overthrown to-morrow. It would, there- 
 fore, appear that, in favour of the opinion, that some bodies are 
 living, and that others are dead, we have nothing, except the 
 circumstance, that our researches, so far as they have yet gone, 
 have shown that cellular structure, growth, and reproduction, 
 are not the invariable properties of matter, but are excluded 
 from a large part of the visible world, which, on that account, 
 we call inanimate. This is the whole of the argument on that 
 side of the question. On the other side we have the fact, that 
 our sight, and the artificial instruments by whose aid we have 
 arrived at this conclusion, are confessedly imperfect ; and we 
 have the further fact that, imperfect as they are, they have 
 proved that the organic kingdom is infinitely more extensive 
 than the boldest dreamer had ever imagined, while they have 
 not been able to enlarge the boundaries of the inorganic king- 
 dom to any thing like the same amount. This shows that, so 
 far as our opinions are concerned, the balance is steadily inclin- 
 ing in one given direction ; in other words, as our knowledge 
 advances, a belief in the organic is encroaching upon a belief in 
 the inorganic.*®^ When we, moreover, add, that all science is 
 
 aoj t( Organic substances, whether directly derived from the vegetable or animal 
 kingdom, or produced by the subsequent modification of bodies which thus originate, 
 are remarkable as a class for a degree of complexity of constitution far exceeding 
 that observed in any of the compounds yet described.” Fownes' Chemistry^ 3d edit., 
 London, 1860, p. 853. I quote this, as the first authority at hand, for a doctrine 
 which is universally admitted by chemists, and which is indubitably true, so far as 
 our experiments have at present extended. 
 
 ao3 it organic world is characterized by the predominance, in quantity, of 
 
 carbon, so the mineral or inorganic world is marked by a similar predominance of 
 silicon.” Turner's Chemistry, edited by Liebig and Gregory, vol. ii. p. 67 8, London, 
 1847. 
 
 I mean, of course, to apply this remark only to the globe we inhabit, and not 
 to extra-terrestrial phenomena. Respecting the organization or non-organization 
 of what exists out of this earth, we have no evidence, and can hardly expect to have 
 any for centuries. Inferences have, indeed, been drawn from telescopic observa- 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 419 
 
 manifestly converging towards one simple and general theory, 
 which shall cover the whole range of material phenomena, and 
 that, at each successive step, some irregularities are explained 
 away, and some inequalities are reduced, it can hardly be doubt- 
 ed that such a movement tends to weaken those old distinctions 
 the reality of whici has been too hastily assumed ; and that, in 
 their place, we must, sooner or later, substitute the more com- 
 prehensive view, that life is a property of all matter, and that 
 the classification of bodies into animate and inanimate, or into 
 organic and inorganic, is merely a provisional arrangement, con- 
 venient, perhaps, for our present purposes, but which, like all 
 similar divisions, will eventually be merged in a higher and 
 wider scheme. 
 
 Until, however, that step is taken, we must be content to 
 reason according to the evidence supplied by our imperfect in- 
 struments, or by our still more imperfect senses. We, therefore, 
 recognize the difference between organic and inorganic nature, 
 not as a scientific truth, but as a scientific artifice, by which we 
 separate in idea, what is inseparable in fact , hoping, in this 
 way, to pursue our course with the greater ease, and ultimately 
 to obtain results, which will make the artifice needless. As- 
 suming, then, this division, we may refer all investigations of 
 organic^ bodies to one of two objects. The first object is, to 
 ascertain the law of those bodies, in their usual, healthy, or, as 
 we somewhat erroneously phrase it, normal course. The other 
 object is, to ascertain their law, in their unusual, unhealthy, or 
 abnormal course. When we attempt to do the first of these 
 things, we are physiologists. When we attempt to do the 
 second, we are pathologists.®"® 
 
 Physiology and pathology are thus the two fundamental 
 divisions of all organic science.®"® Each is intimately connected 
 
 tions ; and attempts are now being made, abroad, to determine, by still more refined 
 process, the physical composition of some of the heavenly bodies. But without ven- 
 turing, in this note, to enter into such discussions, or even to state their purport I 
 may say, that the difficulty of verijication mil long prove an insuperable barrier to 
 our ^knowledge of the truth or falsehood of any results which may be obtained. 
 
 Mr. Simon, in his thoughtful and suggestive Lectures, says, “ we may describe 
 Bathology to consist in the Science of Life under other conditions than those of ideal 
 perfection. Simon's Lectures on Pathology, London, 1860. p. 14. This is by far 
 the best description I have met with ; though, as it involves a negative, it cannot 
 be accepted as a definition. Indeed, the context shows that Mr. Simon does not 
 suppose it to be one. 
 
 In my former volume, I adopted the commonly received division of organic 
 statics and organic dynamics ; the statics being anatomy, and the dynamics being 
 p ysiology. But, I now think that our knowledge is not sufficiently advanced to 
 make this so convenient as the division into physiological and pathological, or into 
 normal and abnormal, provided we remember that in reaUty nothing is abnormal. 
 Ihe practically useful, but eminently unscientific, doctrine, that there can be alter" 
 »tion of function without alteration of structure, has effaced some of the most essen- 
 
420 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 with, the other ; and eventually, no doubt, both will he fused 
 into a single study, by discovering laws which will prove that 
 here, as elsewhere, nothing is really abnormal or irregular. 
 Hitherto, however, the physiologists have immeasurably out- 
 stripped the pathologists in the comprehensiveness of their 
 views, and, therefore in the value of their results. For, the 
 best physiologists distinctly recognize that the basis of their 
 science must include, not only the animals below man, but also 
 the entire vegetable kingdom, and that, without this command- 
 ing survey of the whole realm of organic nature, we cannot 
 possibly understand even human physiology, still less general 
 physiology. The pathologists, on the other hand, are so much 
 in arrear, that the diseases of the lower animals rarely form 
 part of their plan ; while the diseases of plants are almost en- 
 tirely neglected, although it is certain that, until all these have 
 been studied, and some steps taken to generalize them, every 
 pathological conclusion will be eminently empirical, on account 
 of the narrowness of the field from which it is collected. 
 
 The science of pathology being still so backward in the con- 
 ception as well as in the execution, that even men of real 
 ability believe that it can be raised from a mere study of the 
 human fi'ame, it will hardly be expected that the Scotch, not- 
 withstanding the marvellous boldness of their speculations, 
 should have been able, in the eighteenth century, to anticipate 
 a method which the nineteenth century has yet to employ. 
 But they produced two pathologists of great ability, and to 
 whom we owe considerable obligations. These were, Cullen 
 and John Hunter.'^ Cullen was eminent only as a patholo- 
 
 tial distinctions between anatomy and physiology, and especially between morbid 
 anatomy and morbid physiology. Until those distinctions are recognized, the scien- 
 tific conceptions of professional writers must be confused, however valuable their 
 practical suggestions may be. While men are capable of believing that it is possible 
 for variations of function to proceed from any cause except variations of structure, 
 the philosophic importance of anatomy will be imperfectly appreciated, and its true 
 relation to physiology will remain undefined. Inasmuch, however, as, with our 
 actual resources, the most careful dissection is often unable to detect (in insanity, 
 for instance) those changes of structure which produce changes of function, superfi- 
 cial thinkers are placed under a strong temptation to deny their invariable connex- 
 ion ; and while the microscope is so imperfect, and chemistry so backward, it is 
 impossible that experiments should always convince them of their mistake. Hence, 
 I believe that until our means of empirical research are greatly improved, all such 
 investigations, notwithstanding their immense value in other respects, will tend to 
 lead mere inductive minds into error, by making them rely too much on what they 
 call the facts of the case, to the prejudice of the reason. This is what I mean by 
 saying, that our knowledge is not sufficiently advanced to make it advisable to divide 
 the sciences of organic b^odies into physiological and anatomical. At present, and 
 probably for some time yet, the humbler division into physiological and pathological, 
 may be deemed safer, and more likely to produce solid results. 
 
 Hunter, as we shall presently see, did take an extraordinarily comprehensive 
 view of pathology, including the whole of the organic world, and even the aberra- 
 tions of form in the inorganic. 
 
DUllING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 421 
 
 gist ; but Hunter, whose fine and discursive genius took a much 
 wider range, was great both in physiology and in pathology. A 
 short account of their generalizations respecting organic science, 
 will he a fitting sequel to the notices I have already given of 
 what was done by their countrymen for inorganic science, dur- 
 ing the same period. It will complete our survey of the Scotch 
 intellect, and will enable the reader to form some idea of the 
 brilliant achievements of that most remarkable people, who, 
 contrary to the course of affairs in all other modern nations, 
 have shown that scientific discoveries do not necessarily weaken 
 superstition, and that it is possible for two hostile principles to 
 flourish side by side, without ever coming into actual collision, 
 or without sensibly impairing each other’s vigour. 
 
 In 1751, Cullen was appointed professor of medicine in 
 the University of Glasgow from which, however, in 1756, 
 he was removed to the University of Edinburgh,®®® where he 
 delivered those celebrated lectures, on which his fame now de- 
 pends. During the early part of his career, he paid great atten- 
 tion to inorganic physics, and propounded some remarkable 
 speculations, which are supposed to have suggested the theory 
 of latent heat to Black, who was his pupil.'^*® But, to follow 
 out those views, would have required a number of minute ex- 
 periments, which it did not suit the habit of his mind to make. 
 Having, therefore, put forth his ideas, he left them to germinate, 
 and passed on to his arduous attempt to generalize the laws of 
 disease as they are exhibited in the human frame. In the study 
 of disease , the phenomena being more obscure and less amen- 
 able to experiment, there was greater latitude for speculation ; 
 hence, he could more easily indulge in that love of theory, 
 which was his ruling passion, and with an extreme devotion to 
 which he has been reproached.®” That the reproach is not 
 altogether unjust, must, I think, be admitted, since we And him 
 laying down the doctrine, that, inasmuch as, in the treatment 
 
 Thompson's Life of Cullen, vol. i. p. VO, Edinburgh, 1832. 
 
 ^ Thompson's Life of Cullen, vol. i. p. 96. Bower states that Cullen “ was ap* 
 pointed to the chair in 1755.” Bower's History of the University of Edinhurah, vol. 
 ii. p. 216, Edinburgh, 1817. 
 
 “ It seems impossible to peruse the passages I have quoted from Dr. Cullen’s 
 manuscript lectures and papers, and from his Essay on Evaporation, without per- 
 ceiving that his investigations with regard to the heat and cold occasioned by the 
 combination, liquefaction, and evaporation of bodies, must not only have assisted to 
 direct the attention of his pupil Dr. Black to similar inquiries, but must also have 
 furnished him with several of the data from which his simple and comprehensive 
 theory of Latent Heat was afterwards sophilosophically deduced.” Thmnson's Lift 
 of Cullen, vol. i. p. 56. 
 
 “ It is allowed by the admirers of this great man, that he was perhaps to® 
 fond of theory.” Bower's History of the University of Edinburgh, vol. iii. p. 278. 
 
 
422 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 of disease, theory could not he separated from practice, it waa 
 unimportant which came first. This was tantamount to 
 saying, that a medical practitioner might allow his theories to 
 control his observations j for it is certain that, in an immense 
 majority of cases, men are so tenacious of the opinions they im- 
 bibe, that whatever, in any pursuit, first occupies their under- 
 standing, is likely to mould all that comes afterwards. In 
 ordinary minds, associations of ideas, if firmly established, be- 
 come indissoluble ; and the power of separating them, and of 
 arranging them in new combinations, is one of the rarest of our 
 endowments. An average intellect, when once possessed by a 
 theory, can hardly ever escape from it. Hence, in practical 
 matters, theory should be feared, just as, in scientific matters, 
 it should be cherished ; because practical pursuits are chiefly 
 engrossed by the lower class of minds, where associations and 
 the force of prejudice are extremely strong, while scientific pur- 
 suits concern the higher class, where such prepossessions are 
 comparatively weak, and where close associations are more 
 easily severed. The most powerful intellects are most accus- 
 tomed to new arrangements of thought, and are, therefore, most 
 able to break up old ones. On them belief sits lightly, because 
 they well know how little evidence we have for many of even 
 our oldest beliefs. But the average, or, as we must say, with- 
 out meaning offence, the inferior, minds, are not disturbed by 
 these refinements. Theories, which they have once heartily 
 embraced, they can hardly ever get rid of, and they often dignify 
 them with the name of essential truths, and resent every attack 
 upon them as a personal injury. Having inherited such theo- 
 ries from their fathers, they regard them with a sort of filial 
 piety, and cling to them as if they were some rich acq^uisition, 
 which no one has a right to touch. 
 
 To this latter class, nearly all men belong, who are more 
 engaged in practical pursuits than in speculative ones.^ Among 
 them, are the ordinary practitioners, whether in medicine or in 
 any other department, extremely few of whom are willing to 
 break up trains of thought to which they are inured.**^® Though 
 
 In 1769, he wrote to Dr. Balfour Russell, one of his favourite pupils : “ You 
 will not find it possible to separate practice from theory altogether ; and therefore, 
 if you have a mind to begin with the theory, I have no objection. Thomsons Lije 
 of Cullen, vol. i. p. 130. Compare his Introductory Lectures to the Practice oj 
 Physic, where, asserting truly, “that reasoning in physics is unavoidable {LuUens 
 Works, vol. i. p. 417), he boldly infers “ that to render it safe, it is necessary to cul- 
 tivate theory in its full extent." , . 
 
 Even Cullen himself says, rather roughly, “ The great horde of physicians are 
 always servile imitators, who can neither perceive nor correct the faults of their system, 
 and are always ready to growl at, and even to worry, the ingenious person that 
 eould attempt it. Thus was the system of Galen secured in the possession of wie 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 423 
 
 they profess to despise theory, they are, in reality, enslaved by 
 it. All that they can do, is to conceal their subjection, by 
 terming their theory a necessary belief. It must, therefore, be 
 deemed a remarkable proof of Cullen^s love of deductive reason- 
 ing, that he, sagacious and clear-sighted as he was, should have 
 supposed that, in so practical an art as medicine, theory could 
 with impunity, precede practice. For, it is most assuredly true’ 
 that, taking men in the average, their minds are so constructed’ 
 that it cannot precede it without controlling it. It is equally 
 true, that such control must be hurtful. Even now, and not- 
 withstanding the great steps which have been taken ’in morbid 
 anatomy, in animal chemistry, and in the microscopic investiga- 
 tion both of the fluids and solids of the human frame, the 
 treatment of disease is a question of art, far more than a ques- 
 tion of science. What chiefly characterizes the most eminent 
 physicians, and gives them their real superiority, is not so much 
 the extent of their theoretical knowledge, — though that, too, is 
 often considerable, ^but it is that fine and delieate perception 
 which they owe, partly to experience, and partly to a natural 
 quickness in detecting analogies and differences which escape 
 ordinary observers. The process which they follow, is one of 
 rapid, and, in some degree, unconscious induction. And this 
 is the reason why the greatest physiologists and chemists, 
 which the medical profession possesses, are not, as a matter of 
 course, the best curers of disease. If medicine were a science, 
 they would always be the best. But medicine, being still es- 
 sentially an art, depends mainly upon qualities which each 
 practitioner has to acquire for himself, and which no scientific 
 theory can teach. The time for a general theory has not yet 
 come, and probably many generations will have to elapse before 
 it does come. To suppose, therefore, that a theory of disease 
 should, as a matter of education, precede the treatment of dis- 
 ease, is not only practically dangerous, but logically false. 
 With its practical danger, I am not now concerned ; but its 
 logical aspect is a curious illustration of that passion for system- 
 atic and dialectic reasoning which characterized Scotland. It 
 shows that Cullen, in his eagerness to argue from principles to 
 facts, instead of from facts to principles, could, in the most im- 
 portant of all arts, recommend a method of procedure, for which 
 even our knowledge is not ripe, but which, in his time, was so 
 singularly rash and immature, that nothing can explain its 
 
 schools of physic, till soon after the irruption of the Goths and Vandals destroyed 
 every vestige of literature in the western parts of Europe, and drove all that re- 
 mained of it to seek a feeble protection at Constantinople.” Lecturer introductory 
 to the Practice of Physic, in Cullen's Wcyrks, vol. i. p. 386, Edinburgh, 1827. 
 
424 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 adoption by a man of snob vigorous understanding, except tb« 
 circumstance of his living in a country in which that peculiar 
 
 method reigned supreme. . n i 
 
 It must, however, be admitted, that Cullen wielded the 
 method with great ability, especially in his application of it to 
 the science of pathology, to which it was far better suited than 
 to the art of therapeutics. For, we must always remember, 
 that the science which investigates the laws of disease, is quite 
 a different thing from the art which cures it. The science has 
 a speculative interest, which is irrespective of all practical con- 
 siderations, and which depends simply on the fact, that, w^hen 
 it is completed, it will explain the aberrations of the whole or- 
 ganic world. Pathology aims at ascertaining the causes which 
 determine every departure from the natural type, whether of 
 form or of function. Hence it is, that no one can take a com- 
 prehensive view of the actual state of knowledge, without 
 studying the theoretic relations between pathology and other 
 departments of inquiry. To do this, is the business, not ot 
 practical men, but of philosophers, properly so-called. The 
 philosophic pathologist is as different from the physician, as a 
 jurist is different from an advocate, or as an agricultural chena- 
 ist is different from a farmer, or as a political economist is 
 different from a statesman, or as an astronomer, who general- 
 izes the laws of the heavenly bodies, is different from a captain, 
 who navigates his ship by a practical application of those laws. 
 The two° sets of functions may be united, and occasionally, 
 though very rarely, they are, but there is no necessity for their 
 beinS* so. While, therefore, it would be absurdly presumptuous 
 for an unprofessional person to pass judgment on the therapeu- 
 tical system of Cullen, it is perfectly legitimate for any one, 
 who has studied the theory of these matters, to examine his 
 pathological system ; because that, like all scientific systems, 
 must be amenable to general considerations, which are to be 
 taken, partly from the adjoining sciences, and partly from the 
 universal logic of philosophic method. 
 
 It is from this latter, or logical point of view, that Cullen’s 
 pathology is interesting for the purposes of the present chapter. 
 The character of his investigations may be illustrated by saying, 
 that his method in pathology is analogous to that which Adam 
 Smith adopted at the same time, though in a very different 
 field. Both were deductive ; and both, before arguing deduc- 
 tively, suppressed some of the premisses from which they rea- 
 soned. That this suppression is the key to Adam Smith’s 
 method, and was an intentional part of his plan, I have already 
 shown ; as also that, in each of his two works, he supplied the 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, 
 
 425 
 
 premisses in which the other work was deficient. In this, 
 respect, he was far superior to Cullen. For, though Cullen, 
 like Smith, began by mutilating his problem in order to solve it 
 more readily, he, unlike Smith, did not see the necessity of in-. 
 stituting another and parallel inquiry, which should complete 
 the scheme, by starting from the premisses that had been pre-^ 
 viously omitted. 
 
 What I have termed the mutilation of the problem, was 
 effected by Cullen in the following manner. His object was, to 
 generalize the phenomena of disease, as they are exhibited in 
 the human frame ; and it was obvious to him, as to every one 
 else, that the human frame consists partly of solids and partly 
 of fluids. The peculiarity of his pathology is, that he reasons 
 almost entirely from the laws of the solids, and makes so little 
 account of the fluids, that he will only allow them to be the in- 
 direct causes of disease, which, in a scientific view, are to be 
 deemed strictly subordinate to the direct causes, as represented 
 by the solid constituents of our body.*^'^ This assumption, 
 though false, was perfectly justifiable, since, by curtailing the 
 problem, he simplified its study ; just as Adam Smith, in his 
 Wealth of Nations, simplified the study of human nature, by 
 curtailing it of all its sympathy. But this most comprehensive 
 thinker was careful, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, to 
 restore to human nature the quality of which the Wealth of 
 Nations had deprived it ; and, by thus establishing two differ- 
 ent lines of argument, he embraced the whole subject. In the 
 same way, it was incumbent on Cullen, after having constructed 
 a theory of disease by reasoning from solids, to have constructed 
 another theory by reasoning from the fluids ; so that a coordi- 
 nation of the two theories might have raised a science of 
 pathology, as complete as the then state of knowledge allowed.^ 
 
 This idea runs through the whole of his writings. In the following passage, 
 it is more succinctly stated than in any other : “ In pathology, and in the prognosis 
 of particular diseases, it is absolutely necessary to enter into the distinction of these 
 causes. I call the one direct causes, those which act upon the nervous system 
 directly ; and the other indirect causes, those which produce the same efl'cct, but by 
 destroying those organs which are necessary to the support of the excitement, viz. 
 the whole system of circulation.” Cullen's Works, vol. i. p. 136. Even this pas- 
 sage, clear as it seems, can only be rightly interpreted by taking the context into 
 consideration. 
 
 For, as is truly observed by probably the greatest pathologist of our time, 
 
 “ Humoral pathology is simply a requirement of common practical sense; and it has 
 always held a place in medical science, although the limits of its domain have, no 
 doubt, been variously circumscribed or interpreted at different times. Of late years 
 it has met with a new basis and support in morbid anatomy, w'hich, in the inadequacy 
 of its discoveries in the solids to account for disease and death, has been compelled 
 to seek for an extension of its boundary through a direct examination of the bloo^ 
 itself.” Rokitansky's Pathological Anatomy, vol. i. p. 362, London, 1854. 
 
426 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 But to this, his mind was unequal. Able though he was, he 
 lacked the grasp of intellect which characterized Adam Smith, 
 and which made that great man perceive, that every deductive 
 argument, which is founded on a suppression of premisses, must 
 be compensated by a parallel argument, which takes those pre- 
 misses into account.*^ So little was Cullen aware of this, that, 
 having built up that system of pathology wliich is known to 
 medical writers as Solidism, he never took the pains to accom- 
 pany it by another system, which gave the first rank to the 
 fluids. On the contrary, he believed that his plan was complete 
 and exhaustive, and that what is termed Humoral Pathology 
 was a fiction, which had too long usurped the place of truth. 
 
 Several of the views advocated by Cullen were taken from 
 Hoffman, and several of the facts from Gaubius ; but that his 
 pathology, considered as a whole, is essentially original, is evi- 
 dent from a certain unity of design which is inconsistent with 
 extensive plagiarism, and which proves that he had thoroughly 
 thought out his subject for himself. Without, however, stopping 
 to inquire how much he borrowed from others, I will briefly in- 
 dicate a few of the salient points of his system, in order to enable 
 the reader to understand its general character. 
 
 According to Cullen, all the solids in the human body are 
 either simple or vital. The simple solids retain, after death, 
 the properties which they possessed during life. But the vital 
 solids, which form the fundamental part of the nervous system, 
 are marked by properties, which disappear directly death oc- 
 curs.^ Hence, the simple solids, having fewer functions than 
 the vital, have also fewer diseases ; and the maladies to which 
 
 Unless, as is the case in geometry, the premisses, which are suppressed, are 
 so slight as to be scarcely perceptible. 
 
 He was so indignant at the bare idea of a humoral pathology, that even Hoff- 
 mann, who before himself was the most eminent advocate of solidism, fell under 
 his displeasure for allowing some little weight to the humoral doctrines. He says 
 that Hoffmann “ has not applied his fundamental doctrine so extensively as he might 
 have done ; and he has everywhere intermixed an humoral pathology, as incorrect 
 and hypothetical as any other.” Cullen's Works^ vol. i. p. 410. At p. 4*70, “ I have 
 therefore, assumed the general principles of Hoffmann. And, if I have rendered 
 them more correct, and more extensive in their application, and, mwe particularly, 
 if 1 have avoided introducing the many hypothetical doctrines of the Humoral Patho- 
 logy which disfigured both his and all the other systems that have hitherto prevailed, I 
 hope I shall be excused for attempting a system, which, upon the whole, may appear 
 new.” 
 
 818 « solid parts of the body seem to be of two kinds : one whose properties 
 are the same in the dead as in the living, and the same in the animate as in many 
 inanimate bodies ; the other, whose properties appear only in living bodies. In the 
 last, a peculiar organization, or addition, is supposed to take place ; in opposition to 
 which the first are called the simple solids. Of these only, we shall treat here ; and 
 of the others, which may be called vital solids, being the fundamental part of the 
 nervous system, we shall treat under that title in the following section.” Cullen's 
 Works, vol. i. p. 10. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 427 
 
 they are liable admit of easy classification.®*® The real diffi- 
 culty lies in the vital solids, because on their peculiarities the 
 whole nervous system depends, and nearly all disorders are im- 
 mediately due to changes in them. Cullen, therefore, made the 
 nervous system the basis of his pathology ; and, in speculating 
 on its functions, he assigned the chief place to an occult prin- 
 ciple, which he termed the Animal Power, or Energy, of the 
 brain.®®“ This principle acted on the vital solids. When the 
 principle worked well, the body was healthy ; when it worked 
 fil, the body was unhealthy. Since, then, the state of the vital 
 solids was the main cause of disorder, and since the Energy of 
 the brain was the main cause of the state of the vital solids, it 
 became important to know what the influences were which acted 
 on the Energy, because in them we should find the beginning 
 of the series. Those influences were divided by Cullen into 
 physical and mental. The physical were, heat, cold, and efflu- 
 via, the three most potent of the material disturbers of the 
 human frame.®®* The mental influences, which excited the 
 brain to act on the solids, were comprised under six different 
 heads, namely, the will, the emotions, the appetites, the pro- 
 pensities, and, finally, the two great principles of habit and imi- 
 tation, on which he, with good reason, laid considerable stress.®®® 
 In arguing from these mental causes, and in generalizing the 
 relations between them and the sensations of the body, he, faith- 
 ful to his favourite method, proceeded deductively from the 
 metaphysical principles then in vogue, without inquiring induc- 
 tively into their validity, such an induction being, he thought, 
 no part of his duty.®®® He was too anxious to get on with his 
 
 These diseases are laxity, flaccidity, &c. See the enumeration of “ the diseases 
 of the simple solids,” in Cullen's Works, vol. i. p. 14. 
 
 Cullen's Works, vol. i. pp. 66, 600, vol. ii. p. 364. Dr. Thomson, who had ac- 
 cess to papers and lectures of Cullen’s, which have never been published, says {Life 
 of Cullen, vol. i. p. 265), “ His speculations with regard to the ditferent functions of 
 the nervous system, but more particularly with regard to that of the Animal Power 
 or Energy of the brain, were incorporated with every opinion which he taught con- 
 cerning the phenomena of the animal economy, the causes of diseases, and the oper- 
 ation of medicines; and they may be .said to constitute a most important part, if not 
 the sole basis, of that system of the Practice of Physic, which he made the subject 
 of prelection, as well as of study, for a period of nearly forty years, before he ven- 
 tured to give it to the public.” I should mention, that Cullen, under the term ‘brain,’ 
 included the contents of the vertebral column as well as of the cranium. 
 
 Cullen's Works, vol. i. pp. 40, 546, 558, 648, vol. ii. p. 321. 
 
 Cullen's Works, vol. i. pp. 86, 91, 100, 101, 108, 115, 116, 653, 692, vol. ii.pp. 
 35, 366. Compare the summary of causes in Thomson's Life of Cullen, vol. i. p. 289. 
 
 He says ( Works, vol. i. pp. 31, 32), “ Whoever has the smallest tincture of 
 metaphysics will know the distinction pointed at here between the qualities of bodies 
 as primary and secondary.” . . . “ Whether these distinctions be well or ill founded, it 
 is not my business to inquire." But though he did not deem it his business to inquire 
 into the accuracy of these and similar distinctions, he thought himself justified in 
 assuming them, and reasoning from them as if they could explain the working of 
 
428 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 dialectic, to be interrupted by so trifling a matter as the truth or 
 falsehood of the premisses on which the reasoning rested. What 
 he did in the metaphysical part of his pathology, he also did in 
 its physical part. Although the blood and the nerves are the 
 two leading features of the human economy, he did not search 
 into them by a separate induction ; he subjected them neither 
 to chemical experiments in order to learn their composition, nor 
 to microscopic observations in order to learn their structure. 
 This is the more observable, because though we must admit 
 that animal chemistry was then generally neglected, and that 
 its real meaning was scarcely understood until the wonderful 
 labours of Berzelius revealed its importance, still the microscope 
 was ready to Cullen’s hands ; it having been invented a hun- 
 dred and fifty years before he completed his pathology, and 
 having been in common scientific use for about a hundred years. 
 But his love of synthesis overcame him. His system is con- 
 structed by reasoning from general principles ; and of that pro- 
 cess, he certainly was a consummate master. Between the 
 premisses and the eonclusion, he hardly ever lets error ereep in. 
 And, in reference to the results of his speculations, he had one 
 immense merit, which will always secure to him a conspicuous 
 place in the history of pathology. By insisting on the import- 
 ance of the solids, he, one-sided though he w^as, corrected the 
 equal one-sidedness of his predecessors ; for, with extremely few 
 exceptions, all the best pathologists, from Galen downwards, 
 had erred in ascribing too much to the fluids, and had upheld a 
 purely humoral pathology. Cullen turned the minds of men in 
 the other direction ; and though, in teaching them that the 
 nervous system is the sole primary seat of disease, he committed 
 
 those sensations, whose perversion formed the point of contact between metaphysics 
 and pathology. See, for instance, in his Works^ vol. i. p. 46, the long series of un. 
 proved and unprovable assertions respecting the combination and comparison of 
 sensations giving rise to memory, imagination, and the like. 
 
 Cullen, with that admirable candour which was one of the most attractive 
 peculiarities of his fine intellect, confesses his want of acquaintance with the micro- 
 scope: “It leaves me, who am not conversant in such observations, altogether un- 
 certain with respect to the precise nature of this part of the blood.” Cullen's Works, 
 vol. i. p. 195. A pathologist without a microscope is an unarmed man indeed. In 
 regard to his animal chemistry, one passage may be quoted as a specimen of the 
 manner in which he arrived at conclusions speculatively, instead of subjecting the 
 phenomena to experimental investigation. “ We may remark it to be highly prob- 
 able, that all animal mutter is originally formed of vegetable ; because all animals 
 either feed directly and entirley on vegetables, or upon other animals that do so. 
 From hence it is probable, that all animal substances may be traced to a vegetable 
 origin ; and therefore, if we would inquire into the production of animal matter, we 
 must first inquire in what manner vegetable matter may be converted into animal?” 
 Cullen's Works, vol. i. pp. ITY, 178. The therefwe and the must, resulting merely 
 from an antecedent probability, are characteristic of that over-boldness, into which 
 deduction is apt to degenerate, and which is strongly contrasted with the opposite 
 Tice of over-timidity, by which inductive reasonera are tainted. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 429 
 
 a great mistake, it was a mistake of the most salutary kind. 
 By leaning on that side, he restored the balance. Hence, I 
 have no doubt, he indirectly encouraged those minute researches 
 into the nerves, which he would not himself stop to make, but 
 which, in the next generation, gave rise to the capital discove- 
 ries of Bell, Shaw, Mayo, and Marshall Hall. At the same time, 
 the old humoral pathology, which had prevailed for many cen- 
 turies, was practically pernicious, because, assuming that all 
 diseases are in the blood, it produced that constant and indis- 
 criminate venesection, which destroyed innumerable lives, be- 
 sides the irreparable injury it often inflicted both on body 
 and ^ mind ; weakening those whom it was unable to slay. 
 Against this merciless onslaught, which made medicine the 
 curse of mankind, the Solid Pathology was the first effective 
 barrier.^^® Practically, therefore, as well as speculatively, we 
 must hail Cullen as a great benefactor of his species ; and we 
 must regard his appearance as an epoch in the history of human 
 comfort, as well as in the history of human thought. 
 
 It may , perhaps, facilitate the conceptions of unprofessional 
 readers, if I give, in as few words as possible, a specimen of the 
 way in which Cullen employed his method, in investigating the 
 theory of some one class of diseases. For this purpose, I will 
 select his doctrine of fever, which, though now generally aban- 
 doned, once exercised more influence than any other part of his 
 pathology. Here, as elsewhere, he reasons from the solids. 
 
 Watson {Principles and Practice of Physic, 4th edit. London, IBS'?, vol. 
 i. p. 41) says of the humoral pathology, that “the absurdity of the hypothe.ses, and 
 still more the dangerovis practice which this doctrine generated, began to be manifest, 
 and led to its total abandonment.” But, with every respect for this eminent autho- 
 rity, I venture to observe, that this supposition of Dr. Watson’s is contradicted by 
 the whole history of the human mind. There is no well-attested case on record of 
 any theory having been abandoned, because it produced dangerous results. As 
 long as a theory is believed, men will ascribe its evil consequences to any cause ex- 
 cept the right one. And a theory which is once established, will always be believed, 
 until there is some change in knowledge which shakes its foundation. Every practi- 
 cal change may, by careful analysis, be shown to depend, in the first instance, on 
 some change of speculative opinions. Even at the present day, many doctrines are 
 generally held in the most civilized countries, which are producing dangerous prac- 
 tical consequences, and have produced those consequences for centuries. But the 
 mischief which the doctrine engenders does not weaken the doctrine itself Nothing 
 can do that, but the general progress of knowledge, which, by altering former opin- 
 ions, modifies future conduct. 
 
 Some writers, who have taken notice of Cullen, have been deceived in this 
 respect by his occasional use of the expression “ nervous fluid,” as if he were willing 
 to let in the idea of humorism. But, in one place, he distinctly guards himself 
 against such misconstruction. “ Now, to avoid determining any thing with regard 
 to these opinions, I have used the term of nervous power ; but as this is a little am- 
 biguous, I choose to express it by nervous fluid ; not that I suppose, with Dr. Boer- 
 haave, that the brain is an excretory, and that a fluid is secreted from it : I mean 
 nothing more than that there is a condition of the nerves which fits them for the com-^ 
 
430 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 Disregarding tlie state of tlie blood, he says, that the cause of 
 all fever is a diminished energy of the hrain.®’^’’ Such dimi- 
 nution may he produced by various sedatives, the most common 
 of which are effluvia, whether marsh or human, intemperance, 
 fear, and cold.®®* Directly the energy of the brain is impaired, 
 the disease begins. Eapidly passing through the nervous sys- 
 tem, its first palpable effect is a chill, or cold fit, which is 
 accompanied by a spasm on the extremities of the arteries, par- 
 ticularly where they touch the surface of the body.®®® This 
 spasm on the extreme vessels, irritates the heart and arteries, 
 and the irritation continues till the spasm is relaxed.®®® At 
 the same time, the increased action of the heart restores the 
 energy of the brain ; the system rallies ; the extreme vessels 
 are relieved ; while, as a consequence of the whole movement, 
 
 munication of motion. But I defer the consideration of these opinions for the pres- 
 ent, and perhaps ad Grcscas calendas ; but nothing shall be rested upon the nervous 
 fluid, it shall be considered merely as a power fitted for communicating motions.” 
 Cullen's Works, vol. i. p. 17. Without this passage, his remarks on “ the nervous 
 fluid in the brain” {Works, vol. i. p. 129), might easily be misunderstood. 
 
 as7 u Together with this, the langour, inactivity, and debility of the animal mo- 
 tions, the imperfect sensations, the feeling ot cold, while the body is truly warm, and 
 some other symptoms, all show that the energy of the brain is, on this occasion, 
 greatly weakened ; and I presume that, as the weakness of the action of the heart 
 can hardly be imputed to any other cause, this weakness also is a proof of the 
 diminished energy of the brain. So I conclude, that a debility of the nervous power 
 forms the beginning of the cold fit, and lays the foundation of all the other phen- 
 omena.” Practice of Physic, in Culleids Works, vol. i. p. 492. 
 
 238 u To render our doctrine of fever consistent and complete, it is necessary to 
 add here, that those remote causes of fever, human and marsh effluvia, seem to be 
 of a debilitating or sedative quality.” . . . “ Though we have endeavoured to show 
 that fevers generally arise from marsh or human effluvia, we cannot, with any 
 certainty, exclude some other remote causes, which are commonly supposed to have 
 at least a share in producing those diseases. And I proceed, therefore, to inquire 
 concerning these causes; the first of which that merits attention, is the power of 
 cold applied to the human body.” . . . “ Besides cold, there are other powers that 
 seem to be remote causes of fever; such as fear, intemperance in drinking, excess 
 in venery, and other circumstances, which evidently weaken the system.^ But 
 whether any of these sedative powers be alone the remote cause of fever, or if they 
 only operate either as concurring with the operation of marsh or human effluvia, or 
 as giving an opportunity to the operation of cold, are questions not to be positively 
 answered.” Practice of Physic, in CulletHs Works, vol. i. pp. 646, 552. One part of 
 this view has been corroborated, since the time of Cullen. “ The experiments of 
 Chossat and others clearly prove cold to be a direct sedative.” Williams' Principles 
 of Medicine, second edit. London, 1848, p. 11. Compare Watsons' Principles and 
 Practice of Physic, 4th edit. London, 1857, vol. i. pp. 87-92, 249. Hence, perhaps, 
 the “ irresistible tendency to sleep caused by exposure to severe or long-continued 
 cold.” ErichserC s Surgery, second edit. London, 1857, p. 336; but as to this, Dr. 
 Watson {Principles of Physic, vol. i. p. 89) is sceptical, and thinks that, in those 
 cases which are recorded, the drowsiness ascribed to cold, is, in a great measure, 
 the result of fatigue. 
 
 Cullen's Works, vol. i. p. 493. Compare, respecting his general theory of 
 spasm, p. 84, and vol. ii. p. 400. 
 
 230 u The idea of fever, then, may be, that a spasm of the extreme vessels, how- 
 ever induced, proves an irritation to the heart and arteries ; and that this continues 
 till the spasm is relaxed or overcome.” Cullen's Works, vol. i. p. 494. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 431 
 
 sweat is excreted, and the fever abates.®” Shutting out, there- 
 fore, all consideration of the fluids of the body, the successive 
 stages of languor, cold fit, and hot fit, might, in Cullen’s 
 opinion, he generalized by reasoning merely from the solids, 
 which furthermore, produced his well-known distinction between 
 fevers, the continuance of which is owing to an excess of spasm, 
 and those, the continuance of which is owing to an excess of 
 debility.®^® 
 
 A similar process of thought gave birth to his Nosology, or 
 general classification of diseases, which some have regarded as 
 the most valuable part of his labours ;®®® though, for reasons 
 already mentioned, we must, I think, reject all such attempts 
 as premature, and as likely to work more harm than good, un- 
 less they are simply used as a contrivance to aid the memory. 
 At all events, the Nosology of Cullen, though it exhibits clear 
 traces of his powerful and organizing mind, is fast falling into 
 disrepute, and we may be sure, that, for a long time yet, a 
 similar fate will await its successors. Our pathological know- 
 ledge is still too young for so great an enterprise.®®^ We have 
 every reason to expect, that, with the aid of chemistry, and of 
 
 “ Such, however, is, at the same time, the nature of the animal economy, that 
 this debility proves an indirect stimulus to the sanguiferous system ; whence, by the 
 intervention of the cold stage and spasm connected with it, the action of the heart 
 and larger arteries is increased, and continues so till it has had the effect of restor- 
 ing the energy of the brain, of extending this energy to the extreme vessels, of 
 restoring, therefore, their action, and thereby especially overcoming the spasm affect- 
 ing them ; upon the removing of which, the excretion of sweat, and other marks of 
 there laxation of excretories take place.” Practice of Physic, in Cullen! s Works, vol. 
 i. pp. 601, 602. See also p. 636, § cciii. Or, as he elsewhere expresses himself (vol. 
 i. p. 661): “With regard to the event of fevers, this is the fundamental principle: 
 in fevers, nature cures the disease ; that is, certain motions tending to death continue 
 the disease, but, in consequence of the laws of the animal economy, other motions 
 are excited by these which have a tendency to remove it. 
 
 asj (1 jf tQ our conclusions with respect to the proximate cause, it 
 
 follows, most naturally, from the view there given, that the continued fever is always 
 owing to an excess of spasm, or to an excess of debility : as the one or other of 
 these prevails, it will give one or other of the two forms, either the Synocha or in- 
 flammatory fever, or the Typhus or nervous fever.” Cullen's Works, vol. i. p. 618. 
 
 “ Cullen’s most esteemed work is his Nosology." Hamilton's History of Me- 
 dicine, London, 1831, vol. ii. p. 2'79. “His Nosology -vitW probably survive all his 
 other works ; it is indisputably the best system which has yet appeared.” Lives of 
 British Physicians, London, 1830, p. 213. “Celle de Cullen, qui parut en 1772, et 
 qui constitue un veritable progrSs.” Renouard, Histoire de la Medecine, Paris, 1846, 
 vol. ii. p. 231. See also Hooper's Medical Dictionary, edited by Dr. Grant, London, 
 1848, p. 937. But, in the most celebrated medical works which have appeared in 
 England during the last twelve or fifteen years, I doubt if there is any instance of 
 the adoption of Cullen’s nosological arrangement. Abroad, and particularly in Italy, 
 it is more valued. 
 
 “I had rather not be cramped and hampered by attempting what abler headf 
 than mine have failed to achieve, and what, in truth, I believe, in the present state of 
 our science, to be impossible, a complete methodical system of nosology.” Watson'i 
 Principles and Practice of Physic, London, 1867, vol. i. p. 9. This is the wisdom of 
 a powerful understanding. 
 
43^ AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 the microscope, it will continue to grow more rapidly than it 
 has hitherto done. Without venturing to predict the rate of 
 its increase, we may form some idea of it, by considering what 
 has been effected with resources very inferior to those we now 
 possess. In a work of great authority, published in the year 
 1848, it is stated, that since the appearance of Cullen’s Noso- 
 logy, our mere enumeration of diseases has almost doubled, 
 while our knowledge of the facts relating to disease has more 
 than doubled.^®® 
 
 I have now only one more name to add to this splendid cat- 
 alogue of the great Scotchmen of the eighteenth century.^^® 
 But it is the name of a man, who, for comprehensive and orig- 
 inal genius, comes immediately after Adam Smith, and must 
 be placed far above any other philosopher whom Scotland has 
 produced, I mean, of course, John Hunter, whose only fault 
 was, an occasional obscurity, not merely of language, but also 
 of thought. In this respect, and, perhaps, in this alone, Adam 
 Smith had the advantage ; for his mind was so flexible, and 
 moved so freely, that even the vastest designs were unable to 
 oppress it. With Hunter, on the contrary, it sometimes seemed 
 as if the understanding was troubled by the grandeur of its own 
 conceptions, and doubted what path it ought to take. He hesi- 
 tated ; the utterance of his intellect was indistinct. Still, 
 
 2S5 (( jfow, when the diseases of Cullen’s nosology have been almost doubled, and 
 the facts relating to them have been more than doubled.” Williams’ Principles of 
 Medicine^ London, 1848, p. 522. 
 
 I had intended giving some account of the once celebrated Brunonian system, 
 which was founded by Dr. John Brown, who was first the pupil of Cullen, and after- 
 wards his rival. But a careful perusal of his works has convinced me that the real 
 basis of his doctrine, or the point from which he started, was not pathology, but 
 therapeutics. His hasty division of all diseases into sthenic and asthenic, has no 
 claim to be deemed a scientific generalization, but was a mere artificial arrangement, 
 resulting from a desire to substitute a stimulating treatment in the place of the old 
 lowering one. He, no doubt, went to the opposite extreme ; but that being a purely 
 practical subject, this Introduction has no concern with it. For the same reason, I 
 omit all mention of Currie, who, though an eminent thcrapeutician, was a common- 
 place pathologist. That so poor and thinly-peopled a country as Scotland, should, in 
 80 sl'.ort a period, have produced so many remarkable men, is extremely curious. 
 
 Mr. Ottley {Life of Hunter, p. 186) says, “ In his writings we occasionally find 
 an obscurity in the expression of his thoughts, a want of logical accuracy in his 
 reasonings, and an incorrectness in his language, resulting from a deficient education.” 
 But, a deficient education will never make a man obscure. Neither will a good edu- 
 cation make him lucid. The only cause of clearness of expression is clearness of 
 thought; and clearness of thought is a natural gift, which the most finished and 
 systematic culture can but slightly improve. Uneducated men, without a thousandth 
 part of John Hunter’s intellect, are often clear enough. On the other hand, it as 
 frequently happens that men, who have received an excellent education, cannot speak 
 or write ten consecutive sentences which do not contain some troublesome ambiguity. 
 In Hunter’s works such ambiguities are abundant ; and this is probably one of the 
 reasons why no one has yet given a connected view of his philosophy. On his ob- 
 scurity, compare Cooper’s Life of Sir Aslley Cooper, London, 1843, vol. i. pp. 181, 
 152; Paget’s Lectures on Surgical Pathology, London, 1853, vol. i. p. 419; and the 
 remarks of his enemy, Foot, in Foot's Life of Hunter, London, 1794, p. 59. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 his powers were so extraordinary, that, among the great masters 
 of organic science, he belongs, I apprehend, to the same rank as 
 Aristotle, Harvey, and Bichat, and is somewhat superior either 
 to Haller or Cuvier. As to this classification, men will differ, 
 according to their different ideas of the nature of science, and, 
 above all, according to the extent to which they appreciate the 
 importance of philosophic method. It is from this latter point 
 of view that I have, at present, to consider the character of 
 John Hunter ; and, in tracing the movements of his most re- 
 markable mind, we shall find, that, in it, deduction and induc- 
 tion were more intimately united than in any other Scotch 
 intellect, either of the seventeenth or eighteenth century. The 
 causes of this unusual combination, I will now endeavour to 
 ascertain. When they are understood, they will not only ex- 
 plain many peculiarities in his works, but will afford materials 
 for speculation, to those who love to examine the development 
 of ideas, and who are able to discern the way in which different 
 schemes of national thought have given different shapes to 
 national character, and have thereby modified the whole course 
 of human affairs, to an extent of which the ordinary compilers 
 of history have not the slightest suspicion. 
 
 Hunter remained in Scotland till the age of twenty, when he 
 settled in London ; and, though he was abroad for about three 
 years, he abandoned his own country, and became, socially and 
 intellectually, a native of England.®^® Hence, the early asso- 
 ciations of has mind were formed in the midst of a deductive na- 
 tion ; the later associations, in the midst of an inductive one. 
 For twenty years he lived among a people, who are, perhaps, 
 the acutest reasoners in Europe, if you concede to them the 
 principles from wliich they reason ; but who, on the other hand, 
 owing to their proneness to this method, are so greedy after 
 general principles, that they will accept them on almost any 
 evidence, and are, therefore, at once very credulous and very log- 
 ical. In that school, and surrounded by those habits, the intel- 
 lect of John Hunter was nurtured during the most impressible 
 period of his life. Then the scene suddenly shifted. Coming to 
 England, he passed forty years in the heart of the most empiri- 
 cal nation in Europe ; a nation utterly abhorring aU general 
 principles, priding itself on its common sense, boasting, and with 
 good reason too, of its practical sagacity, proclaiming aloud the 
 
 He was born in 1'728, and came to London in 1748. Adams' Life of John 
 Hunter, second edit. London, 1818, pp. 20, 203. According to Adams (pp. 30-36), 
 he was abroad as surgeon in the English army from 1761 to 1763 ; though, in Foot s 
 Life of Hunter, London, 1794, p. 78, he is said to have returned to England in 1762. 
 Mr. Ottley says that he returned in 1763. Ottley's Life of Hunter, p. 22, in vol. i. of 
 Hunter'' s Works, edited by Palmer, London, 1836. 
 
 73 
 
434 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 superiority of facts over ideas, and despising every theory, unless 
 some direct and immediate benefit could he expected to accrue 
 from it. The young and ardent Scotchman found himself trans- 
 planted into a country totally different from that which he had 
 just quitted ; and such a difference could not fail to influence 
 Lis mind. He saw, on every side, marks of prosperity, and of 
 long and uninterrupted success, not only in practical, but also 
 in speculative, life ; and he was told that these things were 
 effected by a system which made facts the first consideration. 
 He was ambitious of fame, but he perceived that the road to 
 fame was not the same in England as in Scotland. In Scotland, 
 a great logician would be deemed a great man ; in England, lit- 
 tle account would be made of the beauty of his logic, unless he 
 was careful that the premisses from which he argued, were trust- 
 worthy, and verified by experience. A new machine, a new ex- 
 periment, the discovery of a salt, or of a bone, would in England, 
 receive a wider homage, than the most profound speculation from 
 which no obvious results were apprehended. That this way of 
 contemplating affairs has produced great good, is certain. But 
 it is also certain, that it is a one-sided way, and satisfies only 
 part of the human mind. Many of the noblest intellects crave 
 for something which it cannot supply. In England, however, 
 during the greater part of the eighteenth century, it was even 
 more supreme than it is now, and was indeed, so universal, that, 
 from the year 1727 until nearly the close of the century, our 
 country did not possess, in any branch of science, a speculator 
 who had sufficient force to raise himself above those narrow 
 views which w^ere then deemed the perfection of wisdom. 
 Much was added to our knowledge, but its distant boundaries 
 were not enlarged. Though there was an increase of curious and 
 valuable details, and though several of the small and proximate 
 laws of nature were generalized, it must be admitted, that those 
 lofty generalizations, which we owe to the seventeenth century, 
 remained stationary, and that no attempt was made to push be- 
 yond them. When John Hunter arrived in London, in 1748, 
 Newton had been dead more than twenty years, and the English 
 people, absorbed in practical pursuits, and now beginning, for 
 the first time, to enter into political life, had become more 
 averse than ever to inquiries which aimed at truth without re- 
 gard to utility, and had accustomed themselves to value science 
 chiefly for the sake of the direct and tangible benefit which they 
 might hope to derive from it. 
 
 That Hunter must have been influenced by these circum- 
 
 **• See BwkWs History of Civilization, vol. i. pp. 808, 809. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 435 
 
 stances, will be obvious to whoever considers how impossible it 
 is for any single mind to escape from the pressure of contempo- 
 rary opinion. ^ But, inasmuch as all his early associations had 
 inclined him in another direction, we perceive that, during his 
 long residence in England, he was acted on by two conflicting 
 forces. The country of his birth made him deductive ; the 
 country of his adoption made him inductive. As a Scotchman, 
 he preferred reasoning from general principles to particular facts ; 
 as an inhabitant of England, he became inured to the opposite 
 plan of reasoning from particular facts to general principles. In 
 every country, men naturally give the first place to what is most 
 valued. The English respect facts more than principles, and 
 therefore begin with the facts. The Scotch consider principles 
 as most important, and therefore begin with the principles. And 
 I make no doubt that one of the reasons why Hunter, in inves- 
 tigating a subject, is often obscure, is that, on such occasions, 
 his mind was divided between these two hostile methods, and 
 that, leaning sometimes to one and sometimes to the other, he 
 was unable to determine which he should choose. The conflict 
 darkened his understanding. Adam Smith, on the other hand, 
 in common with all the great Scotchmen who remained in Scot- 
 land, was remarkably clear. He, like Hume, Blacif, and Cul- 
 len, never wavered in his method. These eminent men were not 
 acted on by English influence. Of all the most illustrious 
 Scotchmen of the eighteenth century, Hunter alone underwent 
 that influence, and he alone displayed a certain hesitation and 
 perplexity of thought, which seems unnatural to so great a mind, 
 and which, as it appears to me, is best explained by the peculiar 
 circumstances in which he was placed. 
 
 One of the ablest of his commentators has justly observed, 
 that his natural inclination was, to conjecture what the laws of 
 nature were, and then reason from them, instead of reasoning to 
 them by slow and gradual induction.^^o This process of deduc- 
 tion was, as I have shown, the favourite method of all Scotch- 
 men, and, therefore, was precisely the course which we should 
 have expected him to adopt. But, inasmuch as he was sur- 
 rounded by the followers of Bacon,^^! this natural bias was 
 
 “He followed his natural inclination. He preferred the more delusive, appa- 
 rently the more direct, road, which has seduced so many philosopliers. He sought 
 to arrive at the general laws of nature at once by conjecture ; rather than, by a close 
 and detailed study of her inferior operations, to ascend, step by step, through a 
 slow and gradual induction to those laws which govern her general procedure.” 
 Babington’s Preface to Hunter’s Treatise on the Venereal Disease, in Hunter's Works, 
 ■'’oh n. p. 129. Compare the narrow and carping criticism in Foot's Life of Hunter, 
 
 That I may not be suspected of exaggeration, I will quote what by far the 
 
436 Alf EXAMINATION OP THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 warped, and a large part of his marvellous activity was employed 
 in observations and experiments, such as no Scotch thinker, liv- 
 ing in Scotland, would ever have engaged in. He himself 
 declared, that thinking was his delight and there can be 
 no doubt that, had he been differently situated, thinking would 
 have been his principal pursuit. As it was, the industry with 
 which he collected facts, is one of the most conspicuous features 
 in his career. His researches covered the whole range of the 
 animal kingdom, and were conducted with such untiring zeal, 
 that he dissected upwards of five hundred different species, ex- 
 clusive of dissections of different individuals, and exclusive, too, 
 of dissections of a large number of plants. The results were 
 carefully arranged and stored up in that noble collection which 
 he formed, and of the magnitude of which we may gain some 
 idea from the statement, that, at his death, it contained up- 
 wards of ten thousand preparations illustrative of the phenomena 
 of nature.^^^ By this means, he became so intimately acquaint- 
 ed with the animal kingdom, that he made a vast number of 
 discoveries, which considered singly, are curious, but which, 
 when put together, constitute an invaluable body of new truths. 
 Of these, the most important are, the true nature of the circula- 
 tion in Crustacea and insects the organ of hearing in cepha- 
 
 greatest of all the historians of medicine has said upon this subject. “La majority 
 des medecins qui pretendaient s’etre formes d’aprbs Bacon, n’avaient horite de lui 
 qu’une repugnance invincible pour les hypotheses et les systemes, une grande v6n6- 
 ration pour I’experience, et un d6sir extreme de multiplier le nombre des observations. 
 Ce fut chez les Anglais que la m^thode empirique en medecine trouva le plus de 
 partisans, et c’est principalement aussi chez eux qu’clle s’est repandue jusqu’aux temps 
 les plus rapproch6s de nous. Sa propagation y fut favorisec, non-seulement par le 
 profond respect que les Anglais continuent toujours de porter hFimmortel ebancelier, 
 mais encore par la haute importance que la nation enti^re attache au sens eommum, 
 common sense, et elle y demeura I’ennemie irreconcileable de tous les systfernes qui ne 
 reposent pas sur I’observation.” Sprengel, Histoire de la Medecine, vol. v. p. 411, 
 Paris, 1815. 
 
 Clive says, “ Much as Mr. Hunter did, he thought still more. lie has often 
 told me, his delight was, to think.” Abernethy's Hunterian Oration, London, 1819, 
 
 p. 26. 
 
 Mr. Owen, in his interesting Preface to the fourth volume of Hunter's ITori«, 
 says (p. vii.), “ There is proof that Hunter anatomized at least five hundred different 
 species of animals, exclusive of repeated dissections of different individuals of the 
 same species, besides the dissections of plants to a considerable amount.” 
 
 “ Some idea may be formed of Hunter’s extraordinary diligence, by the fact, 
 that his museum contained at the time of his death, upwards of 10,000 preparations, 
 illustrative of human and comparative anatomy, physiology, and pathology, and 
 natural history.” WeldCs History of the Royal Society, Loudon, 1848, vol. ii. p. 92. 
 
 “ I have tested the conflicting evidence of these observers by dissection of the 
 heart in the lobster ; and you will perceive by this preparation that it is more com- 
 plicated than even the Danish naturalist supposed, and fully bears out the opinion of 
 Hunter in regard to the mixed nature of the circulation in the Crustacea.” Owerds 
 Ijectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals, 
 2d edit. London, 1866, p. 318. “ Cuvier, misled by the anomalous diffused condition 
 of the venous system, supposed that there was no circulation of blood in insects ; 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 437 
 
 iiopods the power possessed by mollusks of absorbing tbeir 
 shells the fact that bees do not collect wax, but secrete it 
 the semicircular canals of the cetacea the lymphatics of 
 birds and the air-cells in the bones of birds.^®* We are also 
 assured, that he anticipated the recent discoveries respecting the 
 embryo of the kangaroo and his published works prove, that, 
 in the human subject, he discovered the muscularity of the 
 
 yet the dorsal vessel was too conspicuous a structure to be overlooked. Such, how- 
 ever, was tlie authority of the great anatomist, that the nature of the heart began to 
 be doubted, and the strangest functions to be attributed to it. Hunter, however, 
 who was prepared to appreciate the true state of the circulating system in insects, 
 by his discovery of the approximately diffused and irregular structure of the veins 
 in the Crustacea, has described, in his work on the blood, all the leading characters 
 of the circulation in insects as it is recognized by comparative physiologists of the 
 present day.” Ibid.^ p. 383. Compare Hunter's Essays and Observations on Natural 
 History^ London, 1861, vol. i. p. 108. 
 
 3« u rpjjg gjg^gg galled Sepia has the organ of hearing, though somewhat differently 
 constructed from wdiat it is in fishes.” A.n A.cco'^int of the Organ of Hearing in Fishes, 
 in Hunter's Works, vol. iv. p. 294. At the bottom of the page Mr. Owen observes, 
 in a note, “ This is the first announcement of the existence of an organ of hearing 
 in the Cephalopoda.” 
 
 “ Hunter discovered that the molluscous inhabitant of a shell had the power 
 of absorbing part of its dwelling.” Owen's Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy 
 and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals, London, 1865, p. 644. “Every shell- 
 fish has the power of removing a part of its shell, so as to adapt the new and the 
 old together, which is not done by any mechanical power, but by absorption.” 
 Anatomical Remarks on a New Marine Animal, in Hunter's Works, Vol. iv. p. 469, 
 edit. Palmer. In a note to this passage, it is said, that “ the doctrine of the absorp- 
 tion of shell has been lately” (i. e. in 1833) “adduced as a new discoverv.” 
 
 “ His keen observation did not fail to detect several errors which preceding 
 naturalists had fallen into, especially with regard to the formation of the wax, which 
 he proved to be secreted, not collected, by the animal.” Ottley's Life of Hunter, 
 p. 122. “The wax is formed by the bees themselves; it may be called an external 
 secretion of oil, and I have found that it is formed between each scale of the under 
 side of the belly.” Observations on Bees, in Hunter's Works, vol. iv. p. 433. 
 
 “In the terminating part there are a number of perforations into the cochlea, 
 and one into the semicircular canals, which afford a passage to the different divisions 
 of the auditory nerve.” Observations on the Structure and (Economy of Whales, in 
 Hunt^-'s Works, vol. iv. pp. 383, 384. “The semicircular canals of the cetacea, 
 described by Hunter in the paper on Whales, a structure which Cuvier rightly states 
 that Camper overlooked, but incorrectly claims the discovery as his own.” Preface 
 to vol. iv. of Hunter's Works, p. xxi. 
 
 Dr. Adams, in his somewhat hasty Life of Hunter, says (pp. 27, 28), “Mr. 
 Hewson always claimed the discovery of lymphatics in birds.” But the truth is, that 
 Hewson never claimed it. He says, “It may be necessary to mention here, that the 
 dispute between Dr. Monro and me is, who first discovered the lacteals of birds? for 
 as to the lymphatics in their necks (mentioned in this gentleman’s note), these we 
 both allow were discovered by Mr. John Hunter, about ten years ago.” And, again, 
 “These lymphatics in the necks of fowls were first discovered by Mr. John Hunter.” 
 Hewson's Works, edit. Gulliver (Sydenham Soc.), pp. 102, 145. 
 
 ** Hunter's Works, vol. iv. pp. xxi. 176. 
 
 “See Nos. 3731, 3734, 3736, in the Physiological series of the Hunterian 
 Museum, in which there are evidences that Mr. Hunter had anticipated most of the 
 anatomical discoveries which have subsequently been made upon the embryo of the 
 Kangaroo.” Rymer Jones' Organization of the Animal Kingdom, London, 1865, pp. 
 829, 83a m 
 
438 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 arteries,®” the muscularity of the iris,®” and the digestion of the 
 stomach after death by its own juice.®” Although, in his time, 
 animal chemistry was not yet raised to a system, and was con- 
 sequently little heeded by physiologists. Hunter endeavoured, by 
 its aid, to search out the qualities of the blood, so as to ascertain 
 the properties of its constituents.®” He also examined it in 
 different stages of embryonic life, and by minutely tracking it 
 through its periods of development, he made the capital discovery, 
 that the red globules of the blood are formed later than its 
 other components. His contemporaries, however, were so little 
 alive to the importance of this great physiological truth, that it 
 fell dead upon them, and, being forgotten, it was, about fifty 
 years afterwards, rediscovered, and was announced, in 1832, as a 
 law cf nature which had just been brought to light.®” This is 
 
 s»3 “The muscularity of arteries, of which John Hunter made physiological proof, 
 is now a matter of eyesight.” Simon's Pathology, London, 1850, p. 69. “To prove 
 the muscularity of an artery, it is only necessary to compare its action with that of 
 elastic substances.” . . . “ When the various uses of arteries are considered, 
 
 such as their forming different parts of the body out of the blood, their performing 
 the different secretions, their allowing at one time the blood to pass readily into the 
 smaller branches, as in blushing, and at another preventing it altogether, as in pale- 
 ness from fear: and if to these we add the power of producing a diseased increase 
 of any or every part of the body, we cannot but conclude that they are possessed 
 of muscular powers.” Hunter's Works, vol. iii. p. 167. See also vol. iv. p. 254. 
 Mr. Gulliver, in his edition of Hewson's Works, London, 18-16, says (p. 125), that 
 Hunter’s “ experiments on the functions of the arteries are supported by the latest 
 and best observations on their structure.” 
 
 264 u The fact of the muscularity of the iris, which is here presumed from analogy 
 by Mr. Hunter, has been since directly proved by the observations of Bauer and 
 Jacob {Phil. Trans. 1822), and indirectly by Berzelius, who found that the iris pos- 
 sesses all the chemieal properties of muscle.” Palmer’s note in Hunter's Works, vol. 
 iii. p. 146, London, 1837. 
 
 Adams' Life of Hunter, pp. 59, 60, 245. Hunter's Works, vol. i. p. 43 ; vol. iv. 
 pp. 116-121. Watson! s Principles of Physic, vol. ii. p. 440. 
 
 266 “ i^unter subjects the blood to both mechanical and chemical analysis, and 
 endeavours to determine the characteristic properties of its diflierent constituents.” 
 Owen’s Preface to vol. iv. of Hunter's Works, p. xii. But this gives, perhaps, rather 
 too high an idea of his animal chemistry ; for such was then the miserable state of 
 this extremely important branch of knowledge, that he arrived at the conclusion 
 that “ blood gives no analysis excepting that of common animal matter.” Principles 
 of Surgery, chap. iii. in Hunter's Works, vol. i. p. 229. 
 
 “In seeking to determine the respective importance of the different con- 
 stituents of the blood, by the philosophical and most difficult inquiry into their 
 respective periods of formation in the development of the embryo, Hunler made the 
 interesting discovery that the vessels of the embryo of a red-blooded animal circu- 
 lated in the first instance colourless blood, as in the invertebrate animals. ‘ The red 
 globules,’ he observes, ‘ seemed to be formed later in life than the other two con- 
 stituents, for we see while the chick is in the egg the heart beating, and it then con- 
 tains a transparent fluid before any red globules are formed, which fluid we may 
 suppose to be the serum and the lymph.’ I well remember the feelings of surprise 
 with which I listened, while at Paris in 1832, to a memoir read before the Academy 
 of Sciences, by MM. Delpech and Coste, the object of which was the announcement 
 of the same fact as a novel and important discovery. The statement of the French 
 observers was received with all the consideration which its importance justly merited, 
 without its being suspected that our great physiologist had, half a century before, 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 439 
 
 one of many instances in the history of our knowledge, which 
 proves how useless it is for a man to advance too far beyond the 
 age in which he lives.^^® But Hunter, besides making the dis- 
 covery, also saw its meaning. From it, he inferred, that the 
 function of the red globules is to minister to the strength of the 
 system, rather than to its repair. This is now universally ad- 
 mitted^ hut it was not admitted till long after his death. Its 
 recognition is chiefly owing to the rapid advance of animal 
 chemistry, and to improvements in the microscope. For, by the 
 employment of these resources, it has become manifest, that the 
 red globules, the respiratory process, the production of animal 
 heat, and the energy of the locomotive organs, are but different 
 parts of a single schernc.^^o Their connexion with each other is 
 established, not only by a comparison of different species, but 
 also by a comparison of different members of the same species. 
 In human beings, for example, the locomotive and other animal 
 functions are more active in persons of a sanguine temperament, 
 than in those of a lymphatic temperament ; while, in sanguine 
 temperaments, the globules are more numerous than in lymphatic 
 ones. The knowledge of this fact we owe to Lecanu and to 
 him we are also indebted for an analogous fact, corroborating the 
 same view. He has shown, that the blood of women contains 
 
 embraced it, with all its legitimate deductions, in the extended circle of his invests 
 s Preface to vol. iv. of Hunter's Works, p. xiii. 
 
 Indeed, if we may rely on the references recently given by Mr. Gulliver, which, 
 trom his great general accuracy, there seems no reason to question, the fact that the 
 pale blood precedes the red, was known even in the time of Glisson. See Gulliver’s 
 learned edition of Hewson's London, 1846, p. 222. But, to the contempo- 
 
 raries 01 Glisson, such a fact was isolated, and consequently useless. Nothiim is 
 valuable while it appears to stand alone. ° 
 
 From the above account it appears that whatever may be their utility in the 
 machine, the red globules certainly are not of such universal use as the coagulatinsr 
 lymph, since they are not to be found in all animals, nor so early in those that have 
 them; nor are they pushed into the extreme arteries, where we must suppose the 
 coagulating lymph reaches ; neither do they appear to be so readily formed. This 
 being the case, we must conclude them not to be the important part of the blood in 
 contributing to growth, repair, &c. Their use would seem to be connected with strength:' 
 A. 1 reatise on the Blood, Inflammation, and Gun-shot Wounds, in Hunter's Works 
 yol. 111 . p._ 68. In another remarkable passage, he touches on the possibility of an 
 increase in the amount of red globules being connected with an increase in the 
 amount of heat. I will not pretend to determine how far this may assist in keeping 
 1 ^ the animal heat. Observations on the Structure and (Economy of Whales in 
 Hunter's Works, voL iv. p. 364. ^ ' 
 
 tiol"'y^\ collected in the notes to Buckle's History of Civiliza- 
 
 m “^<^‘^®cding to Lecanu, temperament has an influence on the composition of 
 the b ood. He infers from his analysis that the blood of lymphatic persons is poorer 
 in solid constituents, and especially in blood corpuscules, than that of persons of 
 sanguineous temperament, while the quantity of albumen is much the same in both.” 
 Simon s Animal Chemistry with reference to the Physiology and Pathology of Man 
 London l84o, vok i. p. 236. Compare Thornton's Chemistry of Animal Bodies, Edin- 
 
 Durgiij io4oj p. u70« 
 
440 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 more water and fewer red globules tban tbe blood of men 
 so that here again we discern tbe relation between these globules 
 and the energy of animal life. Inasmuch, however, as these re- 
 searches were not made until many years after the death of 
 Hunter, the coincidence between them and his speciJative con- 
 clusions is a striking instance of his power of generalization, and 
 of that unrivalled knowledge of comparative anatomy, which 
 supplied him with materials from which, in spite of the backward- 
 ness of animal chemistry, he was able to draw an inference, which 
 later and minuter researches have decisively verified. * 
 
 Having thus, by a comprehensive survey of the animal 
 world, associated its remarkable faculty of movement with the 
 state of its blood, Hunter turned his attention to another aspect 
 of the question, and took into consideration the movements of 
 the vegetable world, in the hope that, by comparing these two 
 divisions of nature, he might detect some law, which, being 
 common to both, should unite into one study all the principles 
 of organic motion. Though he failed in this great undertaking, 
 some of his generalizations are very suggestive, and well illus- 
 trate the power and grasp of his mind. Looking at the organic 
 kingdom as a whole, he supposed that its capacity of action, 
 both in animals and in vegetables, was of three kinds. ^ The 
 first kind was the action of the individual upon the materials it 
 already possessed ; and this gave rise to growth, secretion, and 
 other functions, in which the juice of the plant was equivalent 
 to the blood of the animal.*®^ The second kind of action had 
 
 Simon's Animal Chemistry, vo\. i. pp. 234, 235. Subsequent experiments have 
 confirmed this. The proportion of red globules dried to lOUO parts of blood, is in 
 healthy males estimated at 127 parts by Aiidral aud Gavarret ; lower and higher 
 figures have been given by other analysts, but this probably is the result of some- 
 what different modes of proceeding. In females the proportion of globules is lower. 
 Becquerel and Rodier make the difference to be about 16 parts per 1000. Jones 
 and Sieveking's Patological Anatomy, London, 1854, p. 23. Hence, the greater 
 specific gravity of male blood. See the interesting results of Dr. Davy s experiments 
 in Davi/'s Physiological and Anatomical Researches, London, 1839, vol. ii. p 32. 
 
 Hunter died'in 1793. The researches of Lecanu were published in 1831. 
 
 Another, and still more remarkable proof of the extent to which Hunter out- 
 stripped his own age, appears in the following passage, which has just been published 
 in his posthumous works, and in which he anticipates the grandest and most sugges- 
 tive of all the ideas belonging to the physiology of the nineteenth century. “ If we 
 were capable of following the progress of increase of the numbers of the parts of the 
 most perfect animal, as they first formed in succession, from the very first to its 
 state of full perfection, we should probably be able to compare it with some one of 
 the incomplete animals themselves, of every order of animals in the Creation, being 
 at no stage different from some of the inferior orders. Or, in other words, it we 
 were to take a series of animals, from the more imperfect to the perfect, we should 
 probably find an imperfect animal, corresponding with some stage of the most per- 
 fect.” Rssays and Observations by John Hunter, being his Posthumous Papers, 
 London, 1861, vol. i. p. 203. 
 
 204 u -pijg natural salutary actions, arising from stimuli, take place both in animals 
 and vegetables, and may be divided into three kinds. The first kind of action, or 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 441 
 
 for its object to increase these materials ; it was always excited 
 by want, and its result was, to nourish and preserve the indi- 
 vidual.*®® The third kind was entirely due to external causes, 
 including the whole material world, all the phenomena of which 
 were a stimulus to some kind of action.^®® By combining, in 
 different ways, these different sources of motion, and by study- 
 ing every incitement to action, first, in reference to one of the 
 three great divisions just indicated, and secondly, in reference 
 to the power of action, as distinguished from the quantity of 
 action,®®’’ Hunter believed that some fundamental truths might 
 be obtained, if not by himself, at all events by his successors. 
 For he thought that, though animals can do many things which 
 plants cannot, still the immediate cause of action is in both 
 cases the same.®®® In animals there is more variety of motion, 
 but in plants there is more real power. A horse is certainly far 
 stronger than a man. Yet a small vine can not only support, 
 but can raise, a column of fluid five times higher than a horse 
 can. Indeed, the power which a plant exercises of holding a 
 
 self-motion, is employed simply in the ceconomical operations, by which means the 
 immediate functions are carried on, and the necessary operations performed, with 
 the materials the animal or vegetable is in possession of, such as growth, support, 
 secretion, &c. The blood is disposed of by the actions of the vessels, according to 
 their specific stimulus, producing all the above effects. The juices of a plant are 
 disposed of according to the different actions of the sap-vessels, arising also from 
 their specific stimulus, which is different from that of blood-vessels, but equally pro- 
 duces growth ; but a vine will grow twenty feet in one summer, wdiile a whale, 
 probably, does not grow so much in as many years.” Groonian Lectures on Muscu- 
 lar Motion^ in Hunter's Works, vol. iv. p. 199. 
 
 “The second kind of action is in pursuit of external influence, and arises from 
 a compound of internal and external stimulus ; it is excited by the state of the animal 
 or vegetable, which gives the stimulus of want, and being completed by external 
 stimulus, produces the proper supphes of nourishment. It produces motions of whole 
 parts : thus we see the Hedysarum gyrajis moving its lesser foiiola. This is an 
 action apparently similar to breathing in animals, though, perhaps, it does not 
 answer the same purpose ; yet there is an alternate motion in both.” Groonian 
 Lectures, in Hunter's Works, vol. iv. p. 200. 
 
 268 u third kind of motion is from external stimulus, and consists principally 
 of the motion of whole parts, which is not inconsiderable in vegetables, as in the 
 Hionata muscipula and Mimosa pudica is very evident.” . . . . “ These actions 
 are similar to what arise in many animals from external stimulus.” Ibid., vol. iv. 
 p. 201. 
 
 “ I make a material difference between the power and the quality of action. 
 Some motions may be very small, yet act wdth great force ; while others are of con- 
 siderable extent, although very weak.” Lbid., vol. iv. p. 204. 
 
 268 u rpjjg immediate cause of motion in all vegetables is most probably the same, 
 and it is probably the same in all animals ; but how far they are the same in both 
 classes, has not yet been determined. But I think it will appear, in the investiga- 
 tion of this subject, that vegetables and animals have actions evidently common to 
 both, and that the causes of these actions are apparently the same in both ; and 
 most probably there is not an action in the vegetable, which does not coprespond or 
 belong to the animal, although the mode of action in the parts may not be the 
 same, or muscular in both.” Groonian Lectures, in Hunter's Works, vol. iv. p. 196, 
 Compare the section “ Of Motion in Vegetables,” in Hunter's Essays, London, 1861, 
 vol. i. p. 24. 
 
442 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 leaf erect during an entire day, without pause and without fa- 
 tigue, is an effort of astonishing vigour, and is one of many 
 proofs, that a principle of compensation is at work, so that the 
 same energy which, in the animal world, is weakened by being 
 directed to many objects, is, in the vegetable world, strength- 
 ened by being concentrated on a few.*^®® 
 
 In pursuing these speculations, which, amid much that is 
 uncertain, contain, I firmly believe, a large amount of important, 
 though neglected, truth. Hunter was led to consider how motion 
 is produced by various forces, such as magnetism, electricity, 
 gravitation, and chemical attraction.®^® This carried him into 
 inorganic science, where, as he clearly saw, the foundation of 
 all organic science must be laid. J ust as, on the one hand, the 
 
 human frame could never be successfully studied, except by the 
 aid of principles which had been collected from an investigation 
 of animals below man,®^‘ so, on the other hand, the laws of 
 those very animals must, he said, be approached through the 
 laws of common or inorganic matter.®’^® He therefore aimed at 
 
 289 u variety of motions is greater in animals, and more purposes are answered 
 by them.” . . . “ The first kind of action appears to be stronger in its power, 
 although less in quantity, in vegetables than in animals ; for a small vine was 
 capable of sustaining, and even of raising a column of sap 43 feet high, while a 
 horse’s heart vras only capable of supporting a column of blood 8 feet 9 inches high ; 
 both of which columns must have been supported by the action of the internal 
 parts, for we must suppose the heart equal, or nearly so, to the strength or action 
 of the other parts of the vascular system ; and when we consider that the sap of 
 the tallest tree must be supported, and even raised from the root to the most distant 
 branches, it must appear that the power of such vegetables far exceeds the power of 
 any animal, and, indeed, it is such as the texture of a vegetable only can support. 
 The power of supporting a leaf erect for a whole day, is as great an effort of action 
 as that of the elevator palpebrarum muscle of the eye of an animal.” Hunter's 
 Works^ vol. iv. pp. 203, 204. See also Hunter's Hssays, vol. i. p. 342: “ It is prob- 
 able that the vegetable which can the least bear a suspension of its actions, can do 
 so more than the animal which can bear it longest.” 
 
 Hunter's Works, vol. iv. p. 256. 
 
 In his Principles of Surgery, he says {Hunter's Works, vol. i. p. 220), “ Tlie 
 human body is what I mean chiefly to treat of; but I shall often find it necessary to 
 illustrate some of the propositions which I shall lay down from animals of an in- 
 ferior order, in whom the principles may be more distinct and less blended with 
 others, or where the parts are differently constructed, in order to show, from many 
 varieties of structure, and from many different considerations, what are the uses of 
 the same parts in man ; or, at least, to show that they are not for the uses which 
 have been commonly assigned to them ; and, as man is the most complicated part 
 of the whole animal creation, it will be proper, in the first place, to point out general 
 principles, common to all this species of matter, that I may be better understood, 
 when I come to the more complicated machine, namely, the human.” 
 
 “ Before we endeavour to give an idea of an animal, it is necessary to under- 
 stand the properties of that matter of which an animal is composed ; but the better 
 to understand animal matter, it is necessary to understand the properties of com- 
 mon matter; else we shall be often applying our ideas of common matter, which 
 are familiar to us, to animal matter, an error hitherto too common, but which we 
 should carefully avoid.” Principles of Surgery, in Hunter's Works, vol. i. p. 211. 
 “In the natural history of vegetables and animals, therefore, it will be necessary to 
 go back to the first or common matter of this globe, and give its general properties; 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 443 
 
 nothing less than to unite all the branches of physical science, 
 taking them in the order of their relative complexity, and pro- 
 ceeding from the simplest to the most intricate. With this 
 view, he examined the structure of the mineral kingdom, and 
 by an extensive comparison of crystals, he sought to generalize 
 the principles of form, in the same way as, by a comparison of 
 animals, he sought to generalize the principles of function. 
 And in doing this, he took into account, not only regular crys- 
 tals, but also irregular ones.’^’’® For he knew that, in nature, 
 nothing is really irregular or disorderly ; though our imperfect 
 apprehension, or rather the backwardness of our knowledge, pre- 
 vents us from discerning the symmetry of the universal scheme. 
 The beauty of the plan, and the necessity of the sequence, are 
 not always perceptible. Hence we are too apt to fancy that the 
 chain is broken, because we cannot see every link in it. From 
 this serious error Hunter was saved by his genius, even more 
 than by his knowledge. Being satisfied that every thing which 
 happens in the material world, is so connected and bound up 
 with its antecedents, as to be the inevitable result of what had 
 previously occurred, he looked with a true philosophic eye at 
 the strangest and most capricious shapes, because to him they 
 had a meaning and a necessary purpose. To him they were 
 neither strange nor capricious. They were deviations from the 
 natural course ; but it was a fundamental tenet of his philos- 
 ophy, that nature, even in the midst of her deviations, still re- 
 tains her regularity.’^’’^ Or, as he elsewhere expresses it, devia- 
 tion is, under certain circumstances, part of the law of nature.*^’^® 
 To generalize such irregularities, or, in other words, to show 
 that they are not irregularities at all, was the main object of 
 Hunter’s life, and was the noblest part of his mission. Hence, 
 notwithstanding his vast achievements in physiology, his favour- 
 ite pursuit was pathology,'^’’® where, the phenomena being more 
 
 then see how far these properties are introduced into the vegetable and animal 
 operations ; or rather, perhaps, how far they are of use or subservient to their 
 actions.” Hunter's Essays, vol. i. p. 4. “ Every property in man is similar to some 
 
 property, either in another animal, or probably in a vegetable, or even in inanimate 
 matter. Thereby (man) becomes classible with those in some of his parts.” Ibid., 
 
 p. 10. 
 
 He made “ a valuable collection of crystallizations, both of regular and irregular 
 forms, which he was accustomed to use in his lectures, to exemplify the difference 
 between the laws which regulate the growth of organic and the increase of inorganio 
 bodies.” Ottley's Life of Hunter, p. 138. 
 
 “Nature is always uniform in her operations, and when she deviates is still 
 regular in her deviations.” Principles of Surgery in Hunter's Works, vol. i. p. 485 ; 
 Bee also vol. iv. pp. 44, 45. 
 
 “ It certainly may be laid down, as one of the principles or laws of nature, to 
 deviate under certain circumstances.” Hunter's IRbr^s, vol. iv. p, 278. 
 
 Dr. Adams, who knew him personally, says that he studied “ physiology, more 
 particularly as connected with pathology.” Adams' Life of Hunter, p. 77. 
 
444 AN EXAMINATION OP THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 complex, the intellect has more play. In this great field, he 
 studied the aberrations of structure and of function, in the veg- 
 etable, as well as in the animal world f’’’’ while for the aberra- 
 tions of form, which are the external manifestations of disturbed 
 structure, he took into consideration the appearances presented 
 by the mineral kingdom. There, the power of crystallization is 
 the leading feature, and there, violations of symmetry constitute 
 the essential disorder, whether the deformity of the crystal is 
 subsequent to its production, or whether, being the result of 
 what happened before its production, it is an original, and, if we 
 may so say, congenital, defect. In either case, it is a deviation 
 from the normal type, and as such is analogous to the monstros- 
 ities, both of animals and of vegetables.®’’® The mind of Hun- 
 ter, by sweeping through this immense range of thought, at- 
 
 His Principles of Surgery contain some curious evidences of his desire to 
 establish a connexion between animal and vegetable pathology. See, for instance, 
 his remarks on “local diseases” {Works, vol. i. p. 341); on the influence of the 
 seasons in producing diseases (vol. i. pp. 845, 346) ; and on the theory of inflamma- 
 tion exhibited in an oak-leaf (vol. i. p. 391). But even now, too little is known of 
 the diseases of the vegetable world to enable their study to be incorporated with the 
 science of the diseases of the animal world ; and in the time of Hunter, the attempt 
 was still less promising. Still, the effort shows the grandeur and range of the man s 
 mind; and though little was effected, the method was right. So, too, in one of his 
 essays on the Power of Producing Heat, he says, “ In the course of a variety of 
 experiments on animals and vegetables, I have frequently observed that the result 
 of experiments in the one has explained the oeconomy of the other, and pointed 
 out some principles common to both.” Hunter's Works, vol. iv. p. 136. 
 
 “ Nature being pretty constant in the kind and number of the different parts 
 peculiar to each species of animal, as also in the situation, formation, and construc- 
 tion of such parts, we call every thing that deviates from that uniformity a ‘monster, 
 whether (it occur in) crystallization, vegetation, or animalization. There must be 
 some principle for these deviations from the regular course of nature, in the 
 economy of such species as they occur in. In the present inquiry it is the animal 
 creation I mean to consider. Yet, as there may be, in some degree, an analogy 
 between all the three (kingdoms of nature), I shall consider the other two, so far as 
 this analogy seems to take place.” . . . “ Monsters are not peculiar to animals ; 
 they are less so in them, perhaps, than in any species of matter. The vegetable 
 (kingdom) abounds with monsters ; and perhaps the uncommon formation of many 
 crystals may be brought within the same species of production, and accounted 
 for upon the same principle, viz. some influence interfering with the established 
 law of I’egular formation. Monsters in crystals may arise from the same cause, as 
 mentioned in the ‘ Introduction ;’ viz. either a wrong arrangement of the parts of 
 which the crystal is to be composed, or a defect in the formation, from the first 
 setting out being wrong, and (the formation) going on in the same wrong line. Ihe 
 principle of crystalhzation is in the solution ; yet it requires more to set it a going, 
 or into action, such, e. g,, as a solid surface. The deficiency in the production of a 
 true crystal may be in the solution itself; or, I can conceive, that a very^ slight 
 circumstance might alter the form of a crystal, and even give the disposition for 
 one (crystal) to form upon another. Quickness in the process of crystallization prev 
 duces irregularity and diminution in size.” Hunter's Essays, London, 1861, yol. i. 
 pp. 239-241. The reader must remember, that, when these remarks were written, 
 the phenomena of crystallization had not been subjected to that exact mathematical 
 treatment which subsequently revealed so many of their laws. Indeed, the goniom- 
 eter was then so coarse an instrument, that it was impossible to measure the angles 
 of crystals with accuracy. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 445 
 
 tained to sucli commanding views of the philosophy of disease^ 
 that, in that department, he is certainly without a rival. As a 
 physiologist, he was equalled, or perhaps excelled, by Aristotle ; 
 but as a pathologist, he stands alone, if we consider what pathol- 
 0^ was when he found it, and what it was when he left it.’^’’* 
 Since his death, the rapid advance of morbid anatomy and of 
 chemistry has caused some of his doctrines to be modified, and 
 sorne of them to be overturned. This has been the work of in- 
 ferior men, wielding superior chemical and microscopical re- 
 sources. To say that the successors of John Hunter are inferior 
 to him, is no disparagement to their abilities, since he was one 
 of those extremely rare characters who only appear at very long 
 intervals, and who, when they do appear, remodel the fabric of 
 knowledge. ^ They revolutionize our modes of thought ; they 
 stir up the intellect to insurrection ; they are the rebels and 
 demagogues of science. And though the pathologists of the 
 nineteenth century have chosen a humbler path, this must not 
 blind us to their merits, or prevent us from being grateful for 
 what they have done. We cannot, however, be too often re- 
 minded, that the really great men, and those who are the sole 
 permanent benefactors of their species, are not the great ex- 
 perimenters, nor the great observers, nor the great readers, nor 
 the great scholars, but the great thinkers. Thought is the 
 creator and vivifier of all human affairs. Actions, facts, and ex- 
 ternal manifestations of every kind, often triumph for a while ; 
 but it is the progress of ideas which ultimately determines the 
 progress of the world. Unless these are changed, every other 
 change is superficial, and every improvement is precarious. It 
 is, however, evident that, in the present state of our knowledge, 
 all ideas respecting nature must refer either to the normal or to 
 the abnorrnal that is to say, they must be concerned either 
 with what is regular, uniform, and obedient to recognized prin- 
 dples, or else with what is irregular, perturbed, and disobedient. 
 Of these two divisions, the first belongs to science ; the second, 
 to superstition. John Hunter formed the superb conception of 
 merging both classes of ideas into one, by showing that nothing 
 IS irregular, that notliing is perturbed, that nothing is dis- 
 obedient. Centuries, perhaps, may elapse before that concep- 
 
 “ P® appears to me as a new character in our profession ; 
 and, briefly to express his peculiar merit, I may call him the first and great phvsi- 
 onosologist, or expositor of the nature of disease.” Abernethy's Hunterian Oration, 
 p. /a, London, 1819. ‘ He may be regarded as the first who applied the great 
 
 truths ot anatomical and physiological science to these most important subjects, by 
 pacing the processes which nature employs in the construction of organic changes 
 in building up new formations, and in repairing the effects of injury or disease.’* 
 Hodgsons Hunterian Oration, 1855, p. 32. ^ 
 
446 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 tion will be consummated. But wbat Hunter effected towards 
 it, places him at the head of all pathologists, ancient or modern. 
 For, with him, the science of pathology did not mean the laws 
 of disease in man alone, or even in all animals, or even in the 
 whole organic kingdom j but it meant the laws of disease and 
 of malformation in the entire material world, organic and inor- 
 ganic. His great object was, to raise a science of the abnormal. 
 He determined to contemplate nature as a vast and united 
 whole, exhibiting, indeed, at different times different appear- 
 ances, but preserving, amidst every change, a principle of uni- 
 form and uninterrupted order, admitting of no deviation, 
 undergoing no disturbance, and presenting no real irregularity, 
 albeit to the common eye, irregularities abound on every side. 
 
 As pathology was the science to which Hunter was most 
 devoted, so also was it that in which his natural love of deduc- 
 tion was most apparent. Here, far more than in his physiologi- 
 cal inquiries, do we find a desire to multiply original principles 
 from which he could reason ; in opposition to the inductive 
 method, which always aims at diminishing these principles by 
 gradual and successive analysis. Thus, for instance, in his ani- 
 mal pathology, he attempted to introduce, as an ultimate prin- 
 ciple from which he could argue, the idea that all diseases move 
 more rapidly towards the skin than towards internal parts, by 
 virtue of some hidden force, which also obliges vegetables to 
 approach the surface of the earth.*'®® Another favourite prop- 
 osition, which he often used as a major premiss, and by its aid 
 constructed deductively a pathological argument, was, that in 
 no substance, be it what it may, can two processes go on in the 
 same part at the same time.*'®' By applying this universal 
 proposition to the more limited phenomena of animal life, he 
 inferred that two general diseases cannot co-exist in the same 
 individual ; and he relied so much on this ratiocination, that he 
 refused to credit any testimony by which it was impugned.*'®*' 
 
 380 ‘(The specific qualities in diseases also tend more rapidly to the skin than 
 to the deeper-seated parts, except the cancer; although, even in this disease, the 
 progress towards the superficies is more quick than its progress towards the centre.’ 
 
 . . . . “ In short, this is a law of nature, and it probably is upon the same princi- 
 ple by which vegetables always approach the surface of the earth.” A Treatise on 
 the Blood, Inflammation, and Gunshot Wounds, in Hunter's florks, vol. iii. p. 285. 
 “ Granulations always tend to the skin, which is exactly similar to vegetation, for 
 plants always grow from the centre of the earth towards the surface ; and this prin- 
 ciple was taken notice of when we were treating of abscesses coming towards th» 
 skin.” Ibid., pp. 489, 490. 
 
 “ It may be admitted as an axiom, that two processes cannot go on at the 
 same time in the same part of any substance.” Hunter's Works, vol. iv. p. 96. Com- 
 pare Hunter's Essays, vol. ii. p. 333 ; “ As it appears, in general, that Nature can 
 hardly make one part perform two actions with advantage.” 
 
 883 u iigar of pocky itch and of scurvy and the venereal disease comr 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 447 
 
 There is reason to believe that his conclusion is erroneous, and 
 that ditferent diseases can so accompany each other, as to be 
 united in the same individual, at the same time, and in the 
 same part.®®® Whether or not this be the case, it is equally in- 
 teresting to notice the process of thought which led Hunter to 
 bestow infinitely more pains in arguing from the general theory, 
 than in arguing to it. Indeed, he can hardly be said to have 
 argued to it at all, since he obtained it by a rough and hasty 
 generalization from what seemed to be the obvious properties of 
 inorganic matter. Having thus obtained it, he applied it to 
 the pathological phenomena of the organic world, and especially 
 of the animal world. That he should have adopted this course, 
 is a curious proof of the energy of his deductive habits, and of 
 the force of mind which enabled him so to set at naught the 
 traditions of his English contemporaries, as to follow a method 
 which, in the opinion of every one who surrounded him, was not 
 only full of danger, but could never lead to truth. 
 
 bined ; but this supposition appears to me to be founded in error. I have never 
 seen any such cases, nor do they seem to be consistent with the principles of morbid 
 action^ in the animal ceconomy. It appears to me beyond a doubt that no two 
 actions can take place in the same constitution, or in the same part, at one and the 
 same time.” Hunter's Works, vol. ii. p. 132. “As I reckon every operation in the 
 body an action, whether universal or partial, it appears to me beyond a doubt that no 
 two actions can take place in the same constitution, nor in the same part, at one 
 and the same time ; the operations of the body are similar in this respect to actions 
 or motions in common matter. It naturally results from this principle, that no two 
 different fevers can exist in the same constitution, nor two local diseases in the same 
 part, at the same time. There are many local diseases which have dispositions 
 totally different, but having very similar appearances, have been supposed by some 
 to be one sort of disease, by others to be a different kind, and by others again a 
 compound of two diseases.” .... “These, therefore, are often supposed to be 
 mixed, and to exist in the same part. Thus we hear of a pocky-scurvy, a pocky- 
 itch, rheumatic-gout, &c., &c., which names, according to my principle, imply a union 
 that cannot possibly exist.” Ibid., vol hi. pp. 8, 4. 
 
 Dr. Robert Williams {Encyclopaedia of the Medical Sciences, London, 1847, 
 4to, p. 688) says, “The diagnosis between gout and rheumatism is often exceedingly 
 difficult, so much so that nosologists have given a mixed class, or rheumatic gout. 
 Mr. Hunter warmly opposed this compound appellation, for, in his opinion, no two 
 distinct diseases, or even distinct diatheses, can co-exist in the same constitution ; 
 a law, it must be admitted, to have many exceptions.” Compare Watson's Princi- 
 ples and Practice of Physic, London, 1857, vol. i. p. 312 ; “acting upon the aphor- 
 ism of J ohn Hunter (an aphorism, however, which requires some qualification), that 
 two diseases or actions cannot go on in a part at the same time.” According to 
 another authority, “ There can be little doubt that two or more zymotic processes 
 do olten go on simultaneously in the blood and body ; a fact of profound interest to 
 the pathologist, and worthy of attentive investigation.” Report on the Public Health 
 for 1847, in Journal of the Statistical Society, vol. xi. p. 168, London, 1848. See 
 also, on the co-existence of specific poisons, Erichsen' s Surgery, 2d edit. London, 
 1867, p. 430. Mr. Paget, in his striking, and eminently suggestive Lectures on 
 Pathology, London, 1853, vol. ii. pp. 637, 638, has made some interesting remarks 
 on one part of the theory of co-existence ; and his observations, so far as they go, 
 tend to corroborate Hunter’s view. He has put very forcibly the antagonism 
 between cancer and other specific diseases ; and especially between the cancerous 
 diathesis and the tuberculous. 
 
448 AN EXAMINATION OE THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 Other parts of his pathology abound with similar instances, 
 which show how anxious he was to assume principles on which 
 he could build arguments. Of this kind, were his ideas respect- 
 ing sympathy, as connected with action. He suggested, that 
 the simplest forms of sympathy would probably be found in the 
 vegetable world, because there, the general arrangements are 
 less intricate than in the animal world. On this supposition, 
 he constructed a series of curious and refined speculations, of 
 which, however, I must confine myself to giving a very short 
 summary. As animals sympathize more than vegetables, this 
 helps us to understand why it is that their movements are more 
 numerous. For, sympathy, being a susceptibility to impression, 
 is also a principle of action. Like other principles of action, 
 it may be either natural or diseased.**®® But, whichever it be, 
 it can, in plants, have only one mode of development, because, 
 in them, it can only be influenced by stimulus ; while in ani- 
 mals, which have sensation, it has necessarily three modes, one 
 from stimulus, one from sensation, and a third compounded of 
 the other two.**®’' These are the largest divisions of sympathy, 
 if we consider the organic world as a whole. In single cases, 
 however, sympathy admits of still further subdivision. We may 
 reason from it, in reference to the age of the individual ; we 
 may also reason from it in reference to temperament, since, in 
 point of fact, temperament is nothing but susceptibility to 
 action.**®® And when sympathy is in action, we may, by ana- 
 lyzing our idea of it, reduce it to five different heads, and may 
 classify it as continued, or contiguous, or remote, or similar, or 
 
 s«4 « ipjjg most simple sympathy is perhaps to be found in vegetables, these being 
 much more simple than the most simple animal.” Principles of Surgery, in Hunter's 
 Works, vol. i. p. 327. 
 
 as5 “ This principle of action, called sympathy,” &c. Ibid., vol. i. p. 318. 
 
 “ Sympathy may be divided into two kinds, the natural and the diseased.” 
 Principles of Surgery, in Hunter's Works, vol. i. p. 320 ; see also A Treatise on the 
 Blood, Inflammation, <jcc., in Works, vol. iii. p. 6. 
 
 Croonian Lectures on Muscular Motion, in Hunter's Works, vol. iv. p. 207 ; 
 and exactly the same words in his Phytology, in Hunter's Essays, London, 1861, 
 rol. i. p. 361. 
 
 “Local or partial sympathy is found more in old than in young; whereas 
 universal sympathy is more in young than in old. Sympathy is less determined in 
 young persons, every part being then ready to sympathize with other parts under 
 disease.” . . . . “ As the child advances, the power of sympathy becomes partial, 
 there not being now, in the constitution, that universal consent of parts, but some 
 part, which has greater sympathy than the rest, falls into the w'hole irritation ; 
 therefore the whole disposition to sympathy is directed to some particular part. The 
 different organs acquire more and more of their own independent actions, as the 
 child grows older.” Hunter's Works, vol. i. pp. 322, 323. 
 
 ®*® “ Susceptibilities for dispositions and actions appear to me to be the same 
 with what are usually understood by temperament. Temperament is the state of 
 the body fitting it for the disposition or action it is then in.” Hunter's Works, vol. 
 i. p. 307. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 449 
 
 dissimilar.®®® All these supplied Hunter with principles from 
 which, by reasoning deductively, he attempted to explain the 
 facts of disease ; for, according to him, disease merely consists in 
 a want of combination of actions. By this process of thought, 
 he was induced to neglect those predisposing causes, to which 
 inductive pathologists pay great attention, and with which the 
 works of his English contemporaries were much occupied. Such 
 causes could only be generahzed from observation, and Hunter 
 made no account of them. Indeed, he even denies their real 
 -existence, and asserts that a predisposing cause, is simply an 
 increased susceptibility to form disposition to action.®®® 
 
 By reasoning from the twofold ideas of action and of sym- 
 pathy, Hunter constructed the deductive or synthetic part of 
 his pathology. This he did as a Scotchman, and to this, had 
 he always lived in Scotland, he would probably have confined 
 himself. ^ But^ being for forty years surrounded by Englishmen, 
 and having his mind impregnated by English habits, he con- 
 tracted something of their mode of thought. ^V^e, accordingly, 
 find that a considerable portion of his pathology is as inductive 
 as the most eager disciple of Bacon could desire ; forming, in 
 this respect, a striking contrast to the purely synthetic method 
 of Cullen, the other great pathologist of Scotland. In the at- 
 tempt, however, which Hunter made to mix these two methods, 
 he perplexed both himself and his readers. Hence that obscu- 
 rity, which even his warmest admirers have noticed, though 
 they have not perceived its cause. Vast as his powers were, he 
 was unable to effect a complete union between induction and 
 deduction. That this should have happened, will not surprise 
 any one, who considers how some of the greatest thinkers have 
 
 Hunter's Works, vol. iii. p. 393. 
 
 every natural action of the body depends, for its perfection, on a num- 
 ber of circumstances, we are led to conclude, that all the various combining actions 
 are established while the body is in health, and well disposed; but this does not 
 take place in diseased actions, for disease, on the contrary, consists in the want of 
 this very combination.” Hunter's Works, vol. iii. p. 10. Compare vol. i. p. 310 : 
 
 ‘ I have explained that a disease is a disposition for a wrong action, and that the 
 a^ion is the immediate efiFect of the disposition, and that either the actions, or the 
 effects of those actions, ‘produce the symptoms which are generally called the disease ; 
 such as sensations, which are commonly pain of all kinds, sickness, alteration visible 
 
 ill l-ii6 structure of the part or parts that act, and sympathy.” 
 
 “ There is no such thing, strictly speaking, as a predisposing cause. What is 
 commonly understood by a predisposing cause is an increased susceptibility to form 
 disposUion to action. Wheri I say I am predisposed for such and such actions, it is 
 only that I am very susceptible of such and such impressions.” Hunter's Works, 
 vol. i. p. 303. See also p. 301 : “ The most simple idea I can form of an animal 
 being capable of disease is, that every animal is endued with a power of action, and 
 a susceptibility of impression, which impression forms a disposition, which disposi- 
 tion may produce action, which action becomes the immediate sign of the disease ; 
 all of which will be according to the nature of the impression and of the part im- 
 pressed.” 
 
450 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 failed in this, the most difficult of all enterprises. Among the 
 ancients, Plato failed in induction, and all his followers failed 
 with him ; since none of them have placed sufficient confidence 
 in facts, and in the process of reasoning from particulars to 
 generals. Among the moderns. Bacon was deficient in deduc- 
 tion, and every Baconian has been similarly deficient ; it being 
 the essential vice of that school to despise reasoning from gen- 
 eral propositions, and to underrate the value of the syllogism. 
 It may, indeed, he doubted if the history of the world supplies 
 more than two instances of physical philosophers being as great 
 in one form of investigation as in the other. They are Aristotle 
 and Newton, who wielded each method with equal ease, com- 
 bining the skill and boldness of deduction with the caution and 
 perseverance of induction, masters alike of synthesis and of 
 analysis, as capable of proceeding from generals to particulars, 
 as from particulars to generals, sometimes making ideas pre- 
 cede facts, and sometimes making facts precede ideas, but never 
 faltering, never doubting which course to take, and never al- 
 lowing either scheme unduly to encroach on its opposite. 
 That Hunter should be unable to perform this, merely proves 
 that he was inferior to these two men, whose almost incredible 
 achievements entitle them to he termed the prodigies of the 
 human race. But what he did was wonderful, and, in his own 
 department, has never been rivalled. Of the character and ex- 
 tent of his inquiries, I have given a sketch, which, notwith- 
 standing its imperfections, may serve to illustrate the antagon- 
 ism of the Scotch and English intellects, by showing how the 
 methods peculiar to each nation struggled for mastery in that 
 great mind, which was exposed to the action of both. Which 
 method predominated in Hunter, it would be hard to say. But 
 it is certain, that his understanding was troubled by their con- 
 flict. It is also certain, that, owing to his love of deduction, or 
 of reasoning from general ideas, he exercised much less sway 
 over his English contemporaries, than he would have done if he 
 had exclusively followed their favourite method of reasoning 
 from particular facts. Hence, the disproportion between his 
 influence and his merits. As to his merits, it is now admitted, 
 that, in addition to his physiological discoveries, and the great 
 pathological views which he propounded, we may trace to him 
 nearly all the surgical improvements which were introduced 
 within about forty years after his death.®®® He was the first 
 
 Hunter died in 1793. In 1835, Mr. Palmer writes: “Those who have traced 
 the progress of modern surgery to its true source, will not fail to have discerned, in 
 the principles which Hunter established, the germs of almost all the improvement* 
 which have been since introduced.” Hunter’s Works, vol. i. p. vii. Eighteen year* 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, 
 
 451 
 
 who explained, and, indeed, the first who recognized, the disease 
 of inflammation of the veins, which is of frequent occurrence, 
 and, under the name of phlebitis, has latterly been much 
 . studied, but which, before his time, had been ascribed to the 
 most erroneous causes.^®^ On general inflammation, he threw 
 so much light, that the doctrines which he advocated, and 
 which were then ridiculed as whimsical novelties, are now 
 taught in the schools, and have become part of the common 
 traditions of the medical profession, *®® He, moreover, intro- 
 
 later, Mr. Paget says of Hunter’s views respecting the healing of injuries : “ In these 
 sentences, Mr. Hunter has embodied the principle on which is founded the whole 
 practice of subcutaneous surgery ; a principle of which, indeed, it seems hardly pos- 
 sible to exaggerate the importance.” Paget's Lectures on Surgical Pathology, Lon- 
 don, 1853, vol. i. p. 170. At pp. 197, 198 : “After what I have said respecting the 
 process of immediate union, it may appear that Mr. Hunter was more nearly right 
 than his successors.” 
 
 “ Inflammation of the veins, originally studied by Hunter, has of late years 
 attracted the attention of many distinguished Continental and British pathologists.” 
 ErichserCs Surgery, London, 1857, p. 476. “No subject more amply illustrates the 
 essential services which the science and art of medicine have derived from patho- 
 logical anatomy than that of phlebitis. By this study many a dark point in the phe- 
 nomena of disease has been either thoroughly elucidated, or, at all events, rendered 
 more comprehensible. We need only refer to the so-termed malignant intermit- 
 tents, consequent upon wounds and surgical operations, — to certain typhoid condi- 
 tions, puerperal diseases, and the like. John Hunter, the elder Meckel, and Peter 
 Frank, were the first to commence the investigation.” Hasse's Anatomical Descrip- 
 tion of the Diseases of the Organs of Circulation and Respiration, London, 1 846, p. 
 10. “ Hunter was the first to open the way, and since that period the scalpel has 
 
 shown that many previously unintelligible malignant conditions are attributable to 
 phlebitis.” Jones and Sieveking's Pathological Anatomy, London, 1854, p. 362. On 
 the application of this discovery to the theory of inflammation of the spleen, see 
 Rokitansky's Pathological Anatomy, vol. ii. p. 173, London, 1849 ; compare vol. iv. 
 p. 335. 
 
 Sir Benjamin Brodie says : “ It is true that the essential parts of John Hunter’s 
 doctrines as to inflammation and its consequences are now so incorporated with what 
 is taught in the schools, that to be acquainted with them you need not seek them in 
 his works ; but I recommend you, nevertheless, to make these your especial study, 
 for the sake of the other valuable information which they contain, and the important 
 views in physiology and pathology which, in almost every page, are offered to your 
 contemplation.” Brodie's Lectures on Pathology and Surgery, London, 1846, p. 26. 
 “ John Hunter, whose treatise on inflammation is a mine in which all succeeding 
 writers have dug.” Watson's Principles and Practice of Physic, London, 1867, vol. 
 i. p. 146. “ The appeal to philosophical principles in Hunter’s works was, indeed, 
 
 the cause of their being a closed volume to his less enlightened contemporaries ; 
 but, though the principles implied or expressed, subjected them to the scorn and 
 neglect of those less imbued with the spirit of philosophy, the results of those prin- 
 ciples, verified as they were by facts, have gradually and insensibly forced them- 
 selves on the conviction of the profession ; and though adopted silently, and without 
 acknowledgment, as if the authors themselves had forgotten or were ignorant from 
 whence they were derived, they now form the very groundwork of all books, trea- 
 tises, and lectures on professional subjects.” OreerHs Vital Dynamics, London, 
 1840, p. 81. Finally, I will quote the very recent testimony of Mr. Simon, who, in 
 his masterly, and singularly beautiful, essay on Inflammation, has not only brought 
 together nearly every thing which is known on that interesting subject, but has 
 shown himself to be possessed of powers of generalization rare in the medical pro- 
 fession, or, indeed, in any other profession. “ Without undue partiality, an English- 
 man may be glad to say that tlie special study of Inflammation dates from the 
 
452 AN EXAMINATION OE THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 diiced what is probably the most capital improvement in surgery 
 ever effected by a single man ; namely, the practice in aneurism 
 of tying the artery at a distance from the seat of disease. This 
 one suggestion has saved thousands of lives j and both the sug- 
 gestion, and the first successful execution of it, are entirely 
 owing to John Hunter, who, if he had done nothing else, would, 
 on this account alone, have a right to be classed among the 
 principal benefactors of mankind.^®® 
 
 But, so far as his own immediate reputation was concerned, 
 all was in vain. He was in the midst of a people who had no 
 sympathy with that mode of thought which was most natural 
 to him. They cared nothing for ideas, except with a view to 
 direct and tangible results ; he valued ideas for themselves, and 
 for the sake of their truth, independently of all other considera- 
 tions. His English contemporaries, prudent, sagacious, but 
 short-sighted, seeing few things at a time, but seeing those 
 things with admirable clearness, were unable to appreciate his 
 comprehensive speculations. Hence, in their opinion, he was 
 
 labours of John Hunter. An indefatigable observer of nature, untrammelled by 
 educational forms, and thoroughly a sceptic in his method of study, this large-mind- 
 ed surgeon of ours went to work at inflammation with a full estimate of the physi- 
 ological vastness of his subject. He saw that, in order to understand inflammation, 
 he must regard it, not as one solitary fact of disease, but in connexion with kindred 
 phenomena — some of them truly morbid in their nature, but many of them within 
 the limits of health. He saw tliat, for any one who would explain inflammation, all 
 inequalities of blood-supply, all periodicities of growth, all actions of sympathy, were 
 part of the problem to be solved.” . . . “ He cannot be understood without more 
 reflection than average readers will give ; and only they who are content to struggle 
 through a veil of obscure language, up to the very reality of his intent, can learn 
 with how great a master they are communing.” . . . . “ Doubtless, he was a great 
 discoverer. But it is for the spirit of his labours, even more than for the establish- 
 ment of new doctrine, that English surgery is for ever indebted to him. Of facts in 
 pathology, he may, perhaps, be no permanent teacher; but to the student of medi- 
 cine he must always be a noble pattern. Emphatically, it may be said of him, that 
 he was the physiological surgeon. Others, before him (Galen, for instance, eminent- 
 ly), had been at once physiologists and practitioners ; but science, in their case, had 
 come little into contact with practice. Never had physiology been so incorporated 
 with surgery, never been so applied to the investigation of disease and the sugges- 
 tion of treatment, as it was by this master-workman of ours. And to him, so far as 
 such obligations can be personal, we assuredly owe it that, for the last half-century, 
 the foundations of English surgery have, at least professedly, been changing from a 
 basis of empiricism to a basis of science.” Simo7i on hijlammation, in A System of 
 Surgery, edited by T. Holmes, London, 1860, vol. i. pp. 134-136. 
 
 Mr. Bowman, in his Principles of Surgery {Encyclopcedia of the Medical Sci- 
 ences, London, 4to, 1847) says (p. 831): “Before the time of Hunter, the operation 
 was performed by cutting into the sac of the aneurism, and tying the vessel above 
 and below. So formidable was this proceeding in its consequences, that amputation 
 of the limb was frequently preferred, as a less dangerous and fatal measure. The 
 genius of Hunter led him to tie the femoral artery, in a case of popliteal aneurism, 
 leaving the tumour untouched. The safety and efficacy of this mode of operating 
 have now been fully established, and the principle has been extended to all opera- 
 tions for the cure of this formidable disease.” See also p. 873; Paget's Surgical 
 Pathology, vol. i. pp. 36, 37 ; and Erichsen's Surgery, pp. 141, 142, 608, 609. 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 453 
 
 little else than an innovator and an enthusiast.®®’’ Hence, too, 
 even the practical improvements which he introduced were 
 coldly received, because they proceeded from so suspicious a 
 source. The great Scotchman, thrown among a nation whose 
 habits of mind were uncongenial to his own, stood, says one of 
 the most celebrated of his disciples, in a position of solitary and 
 comfortless superiority.*^* Indeed, so little was he regarded by 
 that very profession of which he was the chiefest ornament, that, 
 during the many years in which he delivered lectures in London 
 on anatomy and on surgery, his audience never amounted to 
 twenty persons.*®® 
 
 I have now completed my examination of the Scotch intel- 
 lect as it unfolded itself in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuries. The difference between those two periods must 
 strike every reader. In the seventeenth century, the ablest 
 Scotchmen wasted their energies on theological subjects, re- 
 specting which we have no trustworthy information, and no 
 means of obtaining any. On these topics, different persons 
 and different nations, equally honest, equally enlightened, and 
 equally competent, have entertained, and stUl entertain, the 
 most different opinions, which they advocate with the greatest 
 confidence, and support by arguments, perfectly satisfactory to 
 
 t97 “ The majority of Hunter’s contemporaries considered his pursuits to have 
 little connexion with practice, charged him with attending to physiology more than 
 surgery, and looked on him as little better than an innovator and an enthusiast.” 
 Ottley’s Life of Hunter^ p. 126. In a work, which was written by a surgeon only 
 the year after Hunter died, the reader is told, in regard to his remarkable inquiries 
 respecting animal heat, that “ his experiments, if they be true, carry with them no man- 
 ner of information : — if they be true, no effect for the benefit of man can possibly be 
 derived from them.” Foot's Life of Htinter, London, 1794, p. 116. Atp. 226, the 
 same practitioner reproaches the great philosopher with propounding “ purely a 
 piece of theory, without any practical purpose whatever.” Foot, indeed, wrote 
 under the influence of personal feelings, but he rightly judged that these were the 
 sort of charges which would be most likely to prejudice the English public against 
 Hunter. It never occurred to Foot, any more than it would occur to his readers, 
 that the quest of truth, as truth, is a magnificent object, even if its practical ben- 
 efit is imperceptible. One other testimony is worth quoting. Sir Astley Cooper 
 writes of Cline: “His high opinion of Mr. Hunter shows his judgment; for almost 
 all others of Mr. Hunter’s contemporaries, although they praise him now, abused 
 him while he lived.” The Life of Sir Astley Cooper, by Bransby Blake Cooper, Lon- 
 don, 1843, vol. ii. p. 337. 
 
 “ Those who far precede others, must necessarily remain alone ; and their 
 actions often appear unaccountable, nay, even extravagant, to their distant fol- 
 lowers, who know not the causes that give rise to them, nor the effects which they 
 are designed to produce. In such a situation stood Mr. Hunter, with relation to his 
 contemporaries. It was a comfortless precedence, for it deprived him of sympathy 
 and social co-operation.” Abernethy's Hunterian Oration, p. 49. 
 
 These he continued for several years ; but so far were his talents, and his en- 
 lightened views, from exciting the attention they merited, that his hearers never 
 amounted to twenty.” Ottley's Life of Hunter, p 28. 
 
454 AN EXAMINATION OP THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 themselves, but contemptuously rejected by their opponents. 
 Each side deeming itself in possession of the truth, the impar- 
 tial inquirer, that is, he who really loves truth, and knows how 
 difficult it is to obtain it, seeks for some means by which he 
 may fairly adjudicate between these conflicting pretensions, and 
 determine which is right and which is wrong. The further he 
 searches, the more he becomes convinced that no such means 
 are to be found, and that these questions, if they do not trans- 
 cend the limits of the human understanding, do, certainly, 
 transcend its present resources, and have no chance of being 
 answered, while other and much simpler problems are still 
 unsolved. It would be strange, indeed, if we, ignorant of so 
 many lower and subordinate matters, should be able to reach 
 and penetrate these remote and complicated mysteries. It 
 would be strange if we, who, notwithstanding the advances we 
 have made, are still in the infancy of our career, and who, like 
 infants, can only walk with unsteady gait, and are scarce able 
 to move without stumbling, even on plain and level ground, 
 should, naithless, succeed in scaling those dizzy heights, which, 
 overhanging our path, lure us on where we are sure to fall. 
 Unfortunately, however, men are, in every age, so little con- 
 scious of their deflciencies, that they not only attempt this im- 
 possible task, but believe they have achieved it. Of those who 
 are a prey to this delusion, there are always a certain number, 
 who, seated on their imaginary eminence, are so inflated by the 
 fancied superiority, as to undertake to instruct, to warn, and to 
 rebuke the rest of mankind. Giving themselves out as spiritual 
 advisers, and professing to teach what they have not yet learned, 
 they exhibit in their own persons that most consistent of all 
 combinations, a combination of great ignorance with great arro- 
 gance. From this other evils inevitably foUow. The ignorance 
 produces superstition ; the arrogance produces tyranny. Hence 
 it is, that in a country like Scotland, where the pressure of long- 
 continued and adverse circumstances has consolidated the 
 power of these pretenders to wisdom, such sad results become 
 conspicuous in every direction. Not only the national charac- 
 ter, but also the national literature, feel their influence, and are 
 coloured by them. It was, therefore, natural that, in Scotland, 
 in the seventeenth century, when the authority of the clergy 
 was most uncontrolled, the consequences of that authority should 
 be most apparent. It was natural that a literature should be 
 created such as that of which I have given some account ; a 
 literature which encouraged superstition, intolerance, and 
 bigotry ; a literature full of dark misgivings, and of still darker 
 threats ; a literature which taught men that it was wrong to 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 455 
 
 enjoy the present, and that it was right to tremble at the fu- 
 ture f a hterature, in a word, which, spreading gloom on every 
 side, soured the temper, corrupted the affections, numbed the 
 intellect, and brought into complete discredit those bold and 
 original inquiries, without which there can be no advance in 
 human knowledge, and consequently no increase of human hap- 
 piness. 
 
 To this, the literature of the eighteenth century offered a 
 striking and most exhilarating contrast. It seemed as if, in 
 a moment, all was changed. The Baillies, the Binnings, the 
 Dicksons, the Durhams, the Flemings, the Frasers, the Gilles- 
 pies, the Guthries, the Halyburtons, the Hendersons, the Kuth- 
 erfords, and the rest of that monkish rabble, were succeeded by 
 eminent and enterprising thinkers, whose genius hghted up 
 every department of knowledge, and whose minds, fresh and 
 vigorous as the morning, opened for themselves a new career, 
 and secured for their country a high place in the annals of Eu- 
 ropean intellect. Something of what they effected, I have 
 endeavoured to narrate ; much, however, has been left untold. 
 But I have brought forward sufficient evidence to convince even 
 the most sceptical reader of the splendour of their achievements, 
 and of the difference between the noble literature which they 
 produced, and those wretched compositions which disfigured the 
 preceding century. 
 
 Still, great as the difference was, the two literatures had, as 
 I have shown, one important point in common. Both were 
 essentially deductive ; and the proof of this, I have given at 
 considerable length, because, though it has, so far as I am 
 aware, escaped the attention of aU previous inquirers, its conse- 
 quences were of the utmost moment to the fortunes of Scotland, 
 and are, moreover, full of interest to those who, in their investi- 
 gations of human affairs, desire to penetrate below the mere 
 surface and symptoms of things. 
 
 If we take a general view of those countries where science 
 has been cultivated, we shall find that, wherever the deductive 
 method of inquiry has predominated, knowledge, though often 
 increased and accumulated, has never been widely diffused. On 
 the other hand, we shall find that, when the inductive method 
 has predominated, the diffusion of knowledge has always been 
 considerable, or, at all events, has been beyond comparison 
 greater than when deduction was prevalent. This holds good, 
 not only of different countries, but also of different periods in 
 the same country. It even holds good of different individuals 
 in the same period, and in the same country. If, in any civ- 
 ilized nation, two men, equally gifted, were to propound some 
 
4-56 
 
 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 new and startling conclusion, and one of these men were to de- 
 fend his conclusion by reasoning from ideas or general principles, 
 while the other man were to defend his by reasoning from par- 
 ticular and visible facts, there can be no doubt that, supposing 
 all other things the same, the latter man would gain most ad- 
 herents, His conclusion would be more easily diffused, simply 
 because a direct appeal, in the first instance, to palpable facts, 
 strikes the vulgar with immediate effect ; while an appeal to 
 principles is beyond their ken, and as they do not sympathize 
 with it, they are apt to ridicule it. Facts seem to come home 
 to every one, and are undeniable. Principles are not so obvious, 
 and, being often disputed, they have, to those who do not grasp 
 them, an unreal and illusory appearance, which weakens their 
 influence. Hence it is that inductive science, which always 
 gives the first place to facts, is essentially popular, and has on 
 its side those innumerable persons who will not listen to the 
 more refined and subtle teachings of deductive science. Hence, 
 too, we find historically that the establishment of the modern 
 inductive philosophy, with its varied and attractive experi- 
 ments, its material appliances, and its constant appeal to the 
 senses, has been intimately connected with the awakening of the 
 public mind, and coincides with that spirit of inquiry, and with 
 that love of liberty, which have been constantly advancing 
 since the sixteenth century. We may assuredly say, that scep- 
 ticism and democracy are the two leading features of this great 
 scientific movement. The seventeenth century, which ushered 
 in the Baconian philosophy, was remarkable for its insubordi- 
 nate spirit, especially in the country where that philosophy 
 originated, and where it most flourished. In the next age, it 
 was transplanted into France, and there, too, it worked upon 
 the popular mind, and was, as I have already pointed out, one 
 of the principal causes of the French Eevolution. 
 
 If we look still closer into this interesting question, we shall 
 find further corroboration of the view, that the inferences of an 
 inductive philosophy are more likely to be diffused than those 
 of a deductive one. Inductive science rests immediately upon 
 experience, or, at all events, upon experiment, which is merely 
 experience artificially modified. How, an immense majority of 
 mankind, even in the most advanced countries, are, by the con- 
 stitution of their minds, incapable of seizing general principles 
 and applying them to daily affairs, without doing serious mis- 
 chief, either to themselves or to others. Such an application 
 requires not only great dexterity, but also a knowledge of those 
 disturbing causes which affect the operation of all general 
 theorems. The task, being so diflS.cult to perform, is rarely 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 457 
 
 attempted ; and average men, possessed of a tolerably sound 
 judgment, do, with good reason, rely mainly on experience, 
 which is to them a safer and more useful guide than any prin- 
 ciple, however accurate and scientific it might be. This begets 
 in their minds a prejudice on behalf of experimental inquiries, 
 and a corresponding dislike of the opposite and more specula- 
 tive method. And it can, I think, hardly be doubted, that one 
 of the causes of the triumph of the Baconian philosophy, is 
 the growth of the industrious classes, whose business-like and 
 methodical habits are eminently favourable to empirical obser- 
 vations of the uniformities of sequence, since, indeed, on the 
 accuracy of such observations the success of all practical affairs 
 depends. Certainly, we find that the overthrow of the purely 
 deductive scholasticism of the Middle Ages has been every where 
 accompanied by the spread of trade ; and whoever will carefully 
 study the history of Europe, will discern many traces of a con- 
 nexion between the two movements, both of which are marked 
 by an increasing respect for material and empirical interests, 
 and a disregard of ideal and speculative pursuits. 
 
 The relation between all this and the popular tendency of 
 induction, is obvious. For one person who can think, there are 
 at least a hundred persons who can observe. An accurate ob- 
 server is, no doubt, rare ; but an accurate thinker is far rarer. 
 Of this, the proofs are too abundant to be disputed. Indeed, 
 no one can mix with his fellow-creatures without seeing how 
 much more natural it is for them to notice, than to reflect ; and 
 how extremely unusual it is to meet with any one, whose con- 
 versation, or whose writings, bear marks of patient and original 
 thought. And, inasmuch as thinkers are more prone to accu- 
 mulate ideas, while observers are more prone to accumulate 
 facts, the overwhelming predominance of the observing class is 
 a decisive reason why induction, which begins with facts, is 
 always more popular than deduction, which begins with ideas. 
 It is often said, and probably with truth, that aU deduction is 
 preceded by induction ; so that, in every syllogism, the major 
 premiss, however obvious and necessary it may appear, is merely 
 a generalization of facts, or a record of what the senses had 
 already observed. But this opinion, whether true or false, does 
 not affect what I have just stated, because it concerns the 
 origin of our knowledge, and not its subsequent treatment ; 
 that is to say, it is a metaphysical opinion, rather than a logical 
 one. For, even supposing that all deduction rests ultimately 
 on induction, it is, nevertheless, certain that there are innumer- 
 able cases in which the induction takes place at so early a 
 period of life that we are unconscious of it, and can by no effort 
 
 7 * 
 
458 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 recall the process. The axioms of geometry afford a good spe- 
 cimen of this. No one can tell when or how he first believed, 
 that the whole is greater than its part, or that things which are 
 equal to the same thing are equal to one another. All these 
 preliminary steps are concealed from us, and the strength and 
 dexterity of deduction are displayed in the subsequent steps by 
 which the major premiss is adjusted, and, as it were, fitted to 
 the minor. This often requires great subtlety of thought, and, 
 in every instance, the external world is put aside, and lost 
 sight of The process, being ideal, has no concern, either with 
 observations or experiments. The suggestions of the senses are 
 shut out, while the mind passes through a long train of succes- 
 sive syllogisms, in which each conclusion is turned into the 
 premiss of a new argument, until, at length, an inference is 
 deductively obtained, which, to those who merely hear it enun- 
 ciated, seems to have no connexion with the first premisses, 
 though, in reality, it is the necessary consequence of them. 
 
 A method, so recondite, and so hidden from the public gaze, 
 can never command the public sympathy. Unless, therefore, 
 the human mind should undergo some remarkable change in its 
 nature as well as in its resources, the sensuous process of work- 
 ing upwards from particular facts to general principles, will 
 always be more attractive than the ideal process of working 
 downwards from principles to facts. In both cases, there is no 
 doubt a line of argument essentially ideal j just as, in both 
 cases, there is an assemblage of facts essentially sensuous. No 
 method is pure, or stands entirely by itself. But, inasmuch as, 
 in induction, the facts are more prominent than the ideas, while, 
 in deduction, the ideas are more prominent than the facts, it is 
 evident that conclusions arrived at by the former plan, will, as 
 a general rule, obtain a wider assent than conclusions arrived at 
 by the latter plan. Obtaining a wider assent, they will produce 
 more decisive results, and will be more likely to shape the 
 national character and infiuence the course of national affairs. 
 
 The only exception to this, is theology. There, the induc- 
 tive method, as I have already observed, is inapplicable, and 
 nothing remains but deduction, which is quite sufficient for the 
 purposes of the theologian. For, he has a peculiar resource 
 which supplies him with general principles, from which he can 
 argue ; and the possession of this resource forms the fundamen- 
 tal difference between him and the man of science. ^ Science is 
 the result of inquiry ; theology is the result of faith. ^ In the 
 one, the spirit of doubt ; in the other, the spirit of belief. In 
 science, originality is the parent of discovery, and is, therefore, 
 a merit ; in theology, it is the parent of heresy, and is, there- 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 459 
 
 fore, a crime. Every system of religion the world has yet seen, 
 recognizes faith as an indispensable duty ; but to every system 
 of science it is a hindrance, instead of a duty, inasmuch as it 
 discourages those inquisitive and innovating habits on which all 
 intellectual progress depends. The theologian, thus turning 
 credulity into an honour, and valuing men in proportion as they 
 are simple-minded and easy of belief, has little need to trouble 
 himself with facts, which, indeed, he sets at open defiance, in 
 his eagerness to narrate portentous, and often miraculous, 
 events. To the inductive philosopher, such a license is forbid- 
 den. He is obliged to ground his inferences on facts which no 
 one disputes, or which, at all events, any one can either verify 
 for himself, or see verified by others. And if he does not adopt 
 this course, his inferences, be they ever so true, will have the 
 greatest difficulty in working themselves into the popular mind, 
 because they will savour of a subtlety and refinement of thought, 
 which, more than any thing else, predisposes common under- 
 standings to reject the conclusions at which philosophers 
 arrive. 
 
 From the facts and arguments contained in this and the 
 preceding chapter, the reader will, I trust, be able to see why 
 it was that the Scotch intellect, during the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries, was preeminently deductive ; and also 
 why it was that, in the eighteenth century, the Scotch litera- 
 ture, notwithstanding its brilliancy, its power, and the splendid 
 discoveries of which it was the vehicle, produced little or no 
 effect on the nation at large. That literature, by its bold and 
 innovating character, seemed peculiarly fitted to disturb ancient 
 prejudices, and to rouse up a spirit of inquiry. But its method, 
 both of investigation and of proof, was too refined to suit ordi- 
 nary understandings. Therefore, upon ordinary understandings 
 it was inoperative. In Scotland, as in ancient Greece, and in 
 modern Germany, the intellectual classes, being essentially de- 
 ductive, have been unable to influence the main body of the 
 people. They have considered things at too great an altitude 
 and at too great a remove. In Greece, Aristotle alone had 
 a true idea of what induction really was. But even he knew 
 nothing of crucial instances and the theory of averages, the 
 two capital resources of that inductive philosophy which we 
 now possess. Neither did he, nor any of the great German phi- 
 losophers, nor any of the great Scotch philosophers, attach suffi- 
 cient importance to the slow and cautious method of gradually 
 rising from each generalization to the one immediately above 
 it, without omitting any intermediate generalization. On this 
 method. Bacon, indeed, insists too strongly, since many most 
 
460 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 important discoveries have been made independently of it, or, I 
 should rather say, in contradiction to it. But it is a wonderful 
 weapon, and none except men of real genius can dispense with 
 its use. And when they do dispense with it, they cut them- 
 selves off from the general sympathies of their age and country. 
 For, these small and proximate generalizations, which they 
 neglect, are precisely those parts of philosophy which, being 
 least removed from the region of visible facts, are best under- 
 stood by the people, and, therefore, form the only common 
 ground between thinkers and practitioners. They are a sort of 
 middle term, which, being comprehended by both classes, is ac- 
 cessible to either. In all deductive reasoning, this intermediate, 
 and, if I may so say, neutral, territory disappears, and the two 
 classes have no meeting-place. Hence it is, that the Scotch 
 philosophy, like the German philosophy, and hke the Greek 
 philosophy, has had no national influence. But in England, 
 since the seventeenth century, and in France, since the eigh- 
 teenth century, the prevailing philosophy has been inductive, 
 and' has, therefore, not only affected the intellectual classes, 
 but also moved the public mind. The German philosophers are 
 far superior, both in depth and in comprehensiveness, to the 
 philosophers either of France or of England. Their profound 
 researches have, however, done so little for their country, that 
 the German people are every way inferior to the French and 
 English people. So, too, in the philosophy of ancient Greece, 
 we find a vast body of massive and original thought, and, what 
 is infinitely better, we find a boldness of inquiry and a passion- 
 ate love of truth, such as no modern nation has surpassed, and 
 few modern nations have equalled. But the method ot that 
 philosophy was an insuperable barrier to its propagation. The 
 people were untouched, and went grovelling on in their old folly, 
 a prey to superstitions, most of which the great thinkers 
 despised, and often attacked, but could by no means root out. 
 Bad, however, as those superstitions were, we may confidently 
 say that they were less noxious, that is, less detrimental to the 
 happiness of man, than the repulsive and horrible notions ad- 
 vocated by the Scotch clergy, and sanctioned by the Scotch 
 people. And on those notions the Scotch philosophy could 
 make no impression. In Scotland, during the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, superstition and science, the most irreconcilable of all 
 enemies, flourished side by side, unable to weaken each other, 
 and unable, indeed, to come into collision with each other. 
 There was co-existence without contact. The two forces kept 
 apart, and the result was, that, while the Scotch thinkers were 
 creating a noble and most enlightened literature, the Scotch 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 461 
 
 people, refusing to listen to those great masters of wisdom which 
 their country possessed, remained in darkness, leaving the 
 blind to follow the blind, and no one there to help them. 
 
 It is, indeed, curious to observe how little effect was pro- 
 duced by the many great works written by Scotchmen in the 
 eighteenth century. If we except the Wealth of Nations, I can 
 hardly call to mind one which has perceptibly influenced public 
 opinion. The reason of this exception may be easily explained. 
 The Wealth of Nations restricted the action of government 
 within narrower limits than had ever been assigned to it by any 
 other book of great merit. No previous political writer of ad- 
 mitted genius, had left so much to the people, and had de- 
 manded for them so much liberty in managing their own affairs, 
 as Adam Smith did. The Wealth cf Nations, being thus emi- 
 nently a democratic book, was sure to find favour in Scotland, 
 which was eminently a democratic country. Directly meu 
 heard its conclusions, they were prejudiced in favour of its 
 arguments. So, too, in England, that love of liberty, which 
 for many centuries has been our leading characteristic, and 
 which does us more real honour than all our conquests, all our 
 literature, and all our philosophy put together, invariably 
 causes a popular bias on behalf of any claim to freedom. We, 
 therefore, notwithstanding the activity of interested parties, 
 were predisposed to the side of free trade, as one of the means 
 of letting each man do what he liked with his own. But to 
 imagine that ordinary minds are capable of mastering such a 
 work as the Wealth of Nations, and of following without confu- 
 sion its long and intricate arguments, is simply absurd. It has 
 been read by tens of thousands of persons, who accept its con- 
 clusions because they like them ; which is rneroly saying, 
 because the movement of the age tends that way. The other 
 great work of Adam Smith, namely the Theory of Moral Senti- 
 ments, has had no influence except on a very small class of 
 metaphysicians, although its style is, as some think, superior to 
 the Wealth of Nations, and it is certainly easier to understand. 
 It is, moreover, much shorter, which, to most readers, is no 
 small recommendation ; and it deals with subjects of great 
 interest, which come home to the feelings of all. But the age, 
 not caring for its conclusions, neglected its arguments. On the 
 other hand, the Wealth of Nations harmonized with the general 
 tendency, and its success was supreme. It quickly moved, not 
 only philosophers, but even statesmen and politicians, who 
 eventually put into force its leading recommendations, though, 
 as their laws and their speeches abundantly prove, they have 
 never succeeded in mastering those great principles which 
 
462 AN EXAMINATION OE THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 underlie it, and of which, the freedom of trade is hut a minor 
 accessory. 
 
 Putting aside the Wealth of Nations, we shall find that the 
 Scotch literature of the eighteenth century did scarcely any 
 thing for Scotland, considered as a whole. How it has faded in 
 its great aim of weakening superstition, is hut too apparent to 
 whoever has travelled in that country, and observed the habits 
 and turn of mind still predominant. Many able and enlighten- 
 ed men who live there, are so cowed by the general spirit, that, 
 for their own comfort, and for the peace of their families, they 
 make no resistance, but tacitly comply with what they heartily 
 despise. That they err in doing so, I, at least, firmly believe ; 
 though I know that many honest, and in every respect compe- 
 tent, judges are of opinion, that no man is bound to be a mar- 
 tyr, or to jeopardize his personal interests, unless he clearly sees 
 his way to some immediate public good. To me, however, it 
 appears that this is a narrow view, and that the first duty of 
 every one is to set his face in direct opposition to what he be- 
 lieves to be false, and, having done that, leave the results of his 
 conduct to take care of themselves. StiU, the temptation to a 
 contrary course is always very strong, and, in a country like 
 Scotland, is by many deemed irresistible. In no other Protestant 
 nation, and, indeed, in no Catholic nation except Spain, will a 
 man who is known to hold unorthodox opinions, find his life 
 equally uncomfortable. In a few of the large towns, he may pos- 
 sibly escape animadversion, if his sentiments are not too bold, 
 and are not too openly expressed. If he is timid and taciturn, 
 his heresy may, perchance, be overlooked. But even in large 
 towns, impunity is the exception, and not the rule. Even in 
 the capital of Scotland, in that centre of intelligence which 
 once boasted of being the Modern Athens, a whisper will 
 quickly circulate that such an one is to be avoided, for 
 that he is a free-thinker ; as if free-thinking were a crime, 
 or as if it were not better to be a free-thinker than a slavish 
 thinker. In other parts, that is, in Scotland generally, the state 
 of things is far worse. I speak, not on vague rumour, but from 
 what I know as existing at the present time, and for the accu- 
 racy of which I vouch and hold myself responsible. I challenge 
 any one to contradict my assertion, when I say that, at this 
 moment, nearly all over Scotland, the finger of scorn is pointed 
 at every man, who, in the exercise of his sacred and inalienable 
 right of free judgment, refuses to acquiesce in those religious 
 notions, and to practise those religious customs, which time, 
 indeed, has consecrated, but many of which are repulsive to the 
 eye of reason, though to all of them, however irrational they 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 463 
 
 may be, the people adhere with sullen and inflexible obstinacy. 
 Knowing that these words will be widely read and circulated in 
 Scotland, and averse as I naturally am to bring on myself the 
 hostility of a nation, for whose many sterling and valuable 
 qualities I entertain sincere respect, I do, nevertheless, delib- 
 erately affirm, that in no civilized country is toleration so little 
 understood, and that in none is the spirit of bigotry and of per- 
 secution so extensively diffused. Nor can any one wonder that 
 such should be the case, who observes what is going on there. 
 The churches are as crowded as they were in the Middle Ages, 
 and are filled with devout and ignorant worshippers, who flock 
 together to listen to opinions of which the Middle Ages alone 
 were worthy. Those opinions they treasure up, and, when they 
 return to their homes, or enter into the daily business of life, 
 they put them in force. And the result is, that there runs 
 through the entire country a sour and fanatical spirit, an 
 aversion to innocent gaiety, a disposition to limit the enjoy- 
 ments of others, and a love of inquiring into the opinions of 
 others, and of interfering with them, such as is hardly any 
 where else to be found ; while, in the midst of all this, there 
 flourishes a national creed, gloomy and austere to the last de- 
 gree, a creed which is full of forebodings and threats and horrors 
 of every sort, and which rejoices in proclaiming to mankind how 
 wretched and miserable they are, how small a portion of them 
 can be saved, and what an overwhelming majority is necessarily 
 reserved for excruciating, unspeakable, and eternal agony. 
 
 Before bringing this volume to a close, it may be fitting that 
 I should narrate an event, which, notwithstanding its recent 
 occurrence, and the great attention it excited at the time, has, 
 amid the pressure of weightier matters, fallen into comparative 
 obhvion, although it is full of interest to those who study the 
 various forms of national character, while it, moreover, supplies 
 an admirable illustration of the essential antagonism which still 
 exists between the Scotch and English minds ; an antagonism 
 extremely remarkable, when found among nations, both of whom, 
 besides being contiguous, and constantly mixing together, speak 
 the same language, read the same books, belong to the same 
 empire, and possess the same interests, and yet are, in many 
 important respects, as different, as if there had never been any 
 means of their influencing each other, and as if they had never 
 had any thing in common. 
 
 In the year 1853, the cholera, after having committed serious 
 ravages in many parts of Europe, visited Scotland. There, it 
 was sure to find numerous victims among a badly fed, badly 
 housed, and not over-cleanly people. For, if there is one thing 
 
464 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 better established than another respecting this disease, it is that 
 it invariably attacks, with the greatest effect, those classes who, 
 from poverty or from sloth, are imperfectly nourished, neglect 
 their persons, and hve in dirty, ill-drained, or ill-ventilated 
 dwellings. In Scotland, such classes are very numerous. In 
 Scotland, therefore, the cholera must needs be very fatal. In 
 this, there was nothing mysterious. On the contrary, the 
 mystery would have been if an epidemic, like the Asiatic cholera, 
 had spared a country like Scotland, where all the materials were 
 collected on which pestilence feeds, and where filth, penury, and 
 disorder, abound on every side. 
 
 Under these circumstances, it must have been evident, not 
 merely to men of science, but to aU men of plain, sound under- 
 standing, who would apply their minds to the matter without 
 prejudice, that the Scotch had only one way of successfully 
 grappling with their terrible enemy. It behoved them to feed 
 their poor, to cleanse their cesspools, and to ventilate their 
 houses. If they had done this, and done it quickly, thousands 
 of lives would have been spared. But they neglected it, and 
 the country was thrown into mourning. Nay, they not only 
 neglected it, but, moved by that dire superstition which sits like 
 an incubus upon them, they adopted a course which, if it had 
 been carried into full operation, would have aggravated the ca- 
 lamity to a frightful extent. It is well known that, whenever an 
 epidemic is raging, physical exhaustion and mental depression 
 make the human frame more liable to it, and are, therefore, es- 
 pecially to be guarded against. But, though this is a matter of 
 common notoriety, the Scotch clergy, backed, sad to say, by the 
 general voice of the Scotch people, wished the public authorities 
 to take a step which was certain to cause physical exhaustion, 
 and to encourage mental depression. In the name of religion, 
 whose offices they thus abused and perverted to the detriment 
 of man, instead of employing them for his benefit, they insisted 
 on the propriety of ordering a national fast, which, in so super- 
 stitious a country, was sure to be rigidly kept, and being rigidly 
 kept, was equally sure to enfeeble thousands of delicate persons, 
 and, before twenty-four hours were passed, prepare them to re- 
 ceive that deadly poison which was already lurking around them, 
 and which, hitherto, they had just strength enough to resist. 
 The public fast was also to be accompanied by a public 
 humiliation, in order that nothing might be wanting to appal 
 the mind and fill it with terror. On the same occasion, the 
 preachers were to thunder from their pulpits and proclaim aloud 
 the sins of the land ; while the poor benighted people, panic- 
 struck, were to sit in awe, were to remain the whole day without 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 465 
 
 proper nourishment, and retire to their beds, weeping and starved. 
 Then it was hoped that the Deity would be propitiated, and the 
 plague be stayed. As soon as the entire nation had taken the 
 course, which, of all others, was most certain to increase the 
 mortality, it was believed that man having done his worst, the 
 Almighty would interpose, would violate the laws of nature, and, 
 by working a miracle, would preserve his creatures from what, 
 without a miracle, would be the inevitable consequence of their 
 own deliberate act. 
 
 This was the scheme projected by the Scotch clergy, and they 
 were determined to put it into execution. To give greater 
 effect to it, they called upon England to help them, and, in the 
 autumn of 1853, the Presbytery of Edinburgh, thinking that 
 from their position they were bound to take the lead, caused 
 their Moderator to address a letter, ostensibly to the English 
 Minister, but in reality to the English nation. In this choice 
 production, a copy of which is now lying before me, the Home 
 Secretary is assured that the members of the Presbytery had de- 
 layed appointing a day for fasting and humiliation on their own 
 ecclesiastical authority, because they thought it likely that one 
 would be appointed by the royal authority. But as this had not 
 been done, the Presbytery respectfully requested to be informed 
 if it was intended to be done. They apologized for the liberty 
 they were taking ; they had no desire unduly to intrude them- 
 selves ; neither did they wish the Home Secretary to answer 
 their question unless he felt himself justified in doing so. Still, 
 if he were able to answer it, they would be glad. For, there was 
 no doubt that Asiatic cholera was in the country ; and such 
 being the case, the Presbytery of Edinburgh were interested in 
 knowing if the appointment by the Queen of a national fast was 
 in contemplation.®"® 
 
 This letter, which, through the medium of the press, was 
 sure to become well known and to be widely read, was evidently 
 intended to act on public opinion in England. It was, in fact, 
 a covert reproach on the English Government for having neglected 
 its spiritual duties, and for not having perceived that fasting 
 was the most effectual way of stopping an epidemic. In Scot- 
 land, generally, it received great praise, and was regarded as a 
 dignified rebuke addressed to the irreligious habits of the Enghsh 
 
 300 (( ijijjg members were of opinion,” writes the Moderator, “ The members were 
 of opinion that it was likely, in the circumstances, that a national fast would be ap- 
 pointed on royal authority. For this reason, they delayed making an appointment 
 for this locality, and directed me, in the mean time, respectfully to request that you 
 would be pleased to say —if you feel yourself at liberty to do so — whether the ap- 
 pointment of a national fast by the Queen is in contemplation. The Presbytery 
 hope to be excused for the liberty they use in preferring this request.” 
 
 75 
 
466 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 people, who, seeing the cholera at their doors, merely occupied 
 themselves with sanatory measures, and carnal devices to improve 
 the public health, showing thereby that they trusted too much to 
 the arms of the flesh. In England, on the other hand, this mani- 
 festo of the Scotch Church was met with almost universal 
 ridicule, and, indeed, found no favourers except among the most 
 ignorant and credulous part of the nation. The minister to 
 whom it was addressed, was Lord Palmerston, a man of vast 
 experience, and perhaps better acquainted with public opinion 
 than any politician of his time. He, being well aware of the 
 difference between Scotland and England, knew that what was 
 suitable for one country was not suitable for the other, and that 
 notions which the Scotch deemed religious, the English deemed 
 fanatical. On a former occasion, the imperial government, 
 yielding to the clamour which a few active and interested men 
 succeeded in raising, had been foolish enough to set themselves 
 in this matter in opposition to the temper of the age, and to en- 
 join public observances which, happily, were not strictly obeyed. 
 Tout which, in so far as they were obeyed, heightened the general 
 terror by reinforcing natural fears with supernatural ones, and 
 thus, depressing the nervous system, increased the chance oi 
 mortality from the pestilence. To have the plague in our coun- 
 try is had enough, since, do what we may, many victims will he 
 struck down by it. But a fearful responsibility is entailed upon 
 those who, at such a period, instead of exerting themselves to 
 check its ravages, either by precautionary measures, or by 
 soothing and re-assuring the people, do every thing in their 
 power to aggravate the calamity, by encouraging that super- 
 stitious dread which weakens the popular energy at the very mo- 
 ment when energy is most requisite, and troubles the coolness, 
 the self-reliance, and self-possession, without which no crisis of 
 national danger can ever be averted. 
 
 This time, however, there was no risk of the government 
 committing so serious a blunder. Lord Palmerston, who knew 
 that the sound sense of the English people would support him in 
 what he was doing, directed a letter to be sent to the Presbytery 
 of Edinburgh, which, unless I am greatly mistaken, will, in fu- 
 ture ages, be quoted as an interesting document for illustrating 
 the history of the progress of public opinion. A century agOj 
 any statesman who had written such a letter, would have been 
 driven from office by a storm of general indignation. Two cen- 
 turies ago, the consequences to him would have been still more 
 disastrous, and would, indeed, have ruined him socially, as well 
 as politically. For, in it, he sets at defiance those superstitious 
 fancies respecting the origin of disease, which were once uni- 
 
DUiUNG THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 467 
 
 versally cherished as an essential part of every religious creed. 
 Traditions, the memory of which is preserved in the theological 
 literature of all Pagan countries, of all Catholic countries, and of 
 all Protestant countries, are quietly put aside, as if they were 
 matters of no moment, and as if it were not worth while to dis- 
 cuss them. The Scotch clergy, occupying the old ground on 
 which the members of their profession had always been accus- 
 tomed to stand, took for granted that the cholera was the result 
 of the Divine anger, and was intended to chastize our sins. In 
 the reply which they now received from the English Government, 
 a doctrine was enunciated, which to Englishmen seems right 
 enough, but which to Scotchmen sounded very profane. The 
 Presbytery were informed, that the affairs of this world are reg- 
 ulated by natural laws, on the observance or neglect of which 
 the weal or woe of mankind depends. One of those laws con- 
 nects disease with the exhalations of bodies ; and it is by virtue 
 of this law that contagion spreads, either in crowded cities, or in 
 places where vegetable decomposition is going on. Man, by 
 exerting himself, can disperse or neutralize these noxious in- 
 fluences. The appearance of the cholera proves that he has not 
 exerted himself The towns have not been purified ; hence the 
 root of the evil. The Home Secretary, therefore, advised the 
 Presbytery of Edinburgh, that it was better to cleanse than to 
 fast. He thought that the plague being upon them, activity 
 was preferable to humiliation. It was now autumn, and before 
 the hot weather would return, a considerable period must elapse. 
 That period should be employed in destroying the causes of dis- 
 ease, by improving the abodes of the poor. If this were done, 
 all would go well. Otherwise, pestilence would be sure to re- 
 visit them, “in spite"’ — I quote the words of the English min- 
 ister — “ in spite of aU the prayers and fastings of a united, but 
 inactive nation.”202 
 
 This correspondence between the Scotch clergy and the 
 English statesman, is not to be regarded as a mere passing 
 episode of light or temporary interest. On the contrary, it 
 represents that terrible struggle between theology and science, 
 
 “ The weal or woe of mankind depends upon the observance or neglect of 
 those laws.” 
 
 “Lord Palmerston would, therefore, suggest that the best course which the 
 people of this country can pursue to deserve that the further progress of the cholera 
 should be stayed, will be to employ the interval that will elapse between the present 
 time and the beginning of next spring in planning and executing measures by which 
 those portions of their towns and cities which are inhabited by the poorest classes, 
 and which, from the nature of things, must most need purification and improvement, 
 may be freed from those causes and sources of contagion which, if allowed to re- 
 main, will infallibly breed pestilence, and be fruitful in death, in spite of all the 
 prayers and fastings of a united, but inactive nation.” 
 
468 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 wliich, having begun in the persecution of science and in the 
 martyrdom of scientific men, has, in these later days, taken a 
 happier turn, and is now manifestly destroying that old theo- 
 logical spirit, which has brought so much misery and ruin upon 
 the world. The ancient superstition, which was once universal, 
 but is now- slowly though surely dying away, represented the 
 Deity as being constantly moved to anger, delighting in seeing 
 His creatures abase and mortify themselves, taking pleasure in 
 their sacrifices and their austerities, and, notwithstanding all 
 they could do, constantly inflicting on them the most grievous 
 punishments, among which the different forms of pestilence 
 were conspicuous. It is by science, and by science alone, that 
 these horrible delusions are being dissipated. Events, which 
 formerly were deemed supernatural visitations, are now shown 
 to depend upon natural causes, and to be amenable to natural 
 remedies. Man can predict them, and man can deal with 
 them. Being the inevitable result of their own antecedents, 
 no room is left for the notion of their being special inflictions. 
 This great change in our opinions is fatal to theology, but is 
 serviceable to religion. For, by it, science, instead of being 
 the enemy of religion, becomes its ally. Religion is to each in- 
 dividual according to the inward light with which he is en- 
 dowed. In different characters, therefore, it assumes different 
 forms, and can never be reduced to one common and arbitrary 
 rule. Theology, on the other hand, claiming authority over all 
 minds, and refusing to recognize their essential divergence, seeks 
 to compel them to a single creed, and sets up one standard of 
 absolute truth, by which it tests every one’s opinions ; pre- 
 sumptuously condemning those who disagree with that standard. 
 {Such arrogant pretensions need means of support. Those means 
 are threats, which, in ignorant times, are universally believed, 
 and which, by causing fear, produce submission. Hence it is, 
 that the books of every theological system narrate acts of the 
 grossest cruelty, which, without the least hesitation, are ascribed 
 to the direct interposition of God. Humane and gentle natures 
 revolt at such cruelties, even while they try to believe them 
 It is the business of science to purify theology, by showing that 
 there has been no cruelty, because there has been no inter- 
 position. Science ascribes to natural causes, what theology 
 ascribes to supernatural ones. According to this view, the 
 calamities with which the world is afflicted, are the result of 
 the ignorance of man, and not of the interference of God. We 
 must not, therefore, ascribe to Him what is due to our own 
 follv, or to our own vice. We must not calumniate an all-wise 
 and all-merciful Being, by imputing to Him those little passions 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 469 
 
 which move ourselves, as if He were capable of rage, of 
 jealousy, and of revenge, and as if He, with outstretched arm, 
 were constantly employed in aggravating the sufferings of man- 
 kind, and making the miseries of the human race more poignant 
 than they would otherwise be. 
 
 That this remarkable improvement in religious ideas is due 
 to the progress of physical science, is apparent, not only from 
 general arguments which would lead us to anticipate that such 
 must be the case, but also from the historical fact, that the 
 gradual destruction of the old theology is every where preceded 
 by the growth and diffusion of physical truths. The more we 
 know of the laws of nature, the more clearly do we understand 
 that every thing which happens in the material world, pesti- 
 lence, earthquake, famine, or whatever it may be, is the neces- 
 sary result of something which had previously happened. 
 Cause produces effect, and the effect becomes, in its turn, a 
 cause of other effects. In that operation we see no gap, and 
 we admit of no pause. To us, the chain is unbroken ; the 
 constancy of nature is unviolated. Our minds become habitu- 
 ated to contemplate all physical phenomena as presenting an 
 orderly, uniform, and spontaneous march, and running on in 
 one regular and uninterrupted sequence. This is the scientific 
 view. It is also the religious view. Against it, we have the 
 theological view ; but that which has already lost its hold over 
 the intellect of men is now losing its hold over their affections, 
 and is so manifestly perishing, that at present no educated per- 
 son ventures to defend it, without so limiting and guarding his 
 meaning, as to concede to its opponents nearly every point 
 'which is really at issue. 
 
 While, however, in regard to the material world, the narrow 
 notions formerly entertained, are, in the most enlightened coun- 
 tries, almost extinct, it must be confessed that, in regard to 
 the moral world, the progress of opinion is less rapid. The 
 same men who believe that Nature is undisturbed by miracu- 
 lous interposition, refuse to believe that Man is equally undis- 
 turbed. In the one case, they assert the scientific doctrine of 
 regularity j in the other, they assert the theological doctrine of 
 irregularity. The reason of this difference of opinion is, that 
 the movements of nature are less complex than tlie movements 
 ot man. Being less complex, they are more easily studied, and 
 more quickly understood. Hence we find, that while natural 
 science has long been cultivated, historical science hardly yet 
 exists. Our knowledge of the circumstances which determine 
 the course of mankind, is still so imperfect, and has been so 
 badly digested, that it has produced scarcely any effect on popu- 
 
470 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT 
 
 lar ideas. Philosophers, indeed, are aware, that here, as else- 
 where, there must be a necessary connexion between even the 
 most remote and dissimilar events. They know that every dis- 
 crepancy is capable of being reconciled, though we, in the 
 present state of knowledge, may be unequal to the task. This 
 is their faith, and nothing can wean them from it. But the 
 great majority of people have a different faith. They believe 
 that what is unexplained is inexplicable, and that what is in- 
 explicable is suj)ernatural. Science has explained an immense 
 number of physical phenomena, and therefore, even to the vul- 
 gar, those phenomena no longer seem supernatural, but are 
 ascribed to natural causes. On the other hand, science has not 
 yet explained the phenomena of history ; consequently, the 
 theological spirit lays hold of them, and presses them into its 
 own service. In this way, there has arisen that famous and 
 ancient theory, which has received the name of the moral gov- 
 ernment of the world. It is a high-sounding title, and imposes 
 on many, who, if they examined its pretensions, would never be 
 duped l)y them. For, like that other notion which we have 
 just considered, it is not only unscientific, but it is eminently 
 irreligious. It is, in fact, an impeachment of one of the noblest 
 attributes of the Deity. It is a slur on the Omniscience of God. 
 It assumes that the fate of nations, instead of being the result 
 of preceding and surrounding events, is specially subject to the 
 control and interference of Providence. It assumes, that there 
 are great public emergencies, in which such interference is 
 needed. It assumes, that, without the interlerence, the course 
 of affairs could not run smoothly ; that they would be jangled 
 and out of tune ; that the play and harmony of the whole would 
 be incomplete. And thus it is, that the very men who, at one 
 moment, proclaim the Divine Omniscience, do, at the next mo- 
 ment, advocate a theory which reduces that Omniscience to 
 nothing, since it imputes to an All-Wise Being, that the 
 scheme of human affairs, of which He must, from the beginning, 
 have foreseen every issue and every consequence, is so weakly 
 contrived as to be liable to be frustrated ; that it has not turned 
 out as He could have wished ; that it has been baffled by His 
 own creatures, and that, to preserve its integrity, its operations 
 must be tampered with, and its disorders redressed. The great 
 Architect of the universe, the Creator and Designer of all ex- 
 isting things, is likened to some clumsy mechanic, who knows 
 his trade so ill, that he has to be called in to alter the working 
 of his own machine, to supply its deficiencies, to fill up its flaws, 
 and to rectify its errors. 
 
 It is time that such unworthy notions should come to an 
 
DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 471 
 
 end. It :'s time that what has long been known to philosophers, 
 should also be known to historians, and that the history of man- 
 kind should cease to be troubled by what, to those who are 
 imbued with the scientific spirit, must seem little better than 
 arrant trifling. Of two things, choose one. Either deny the 
 Omniscience of the Creator, or else admit it. If you deny it, 
 you deny what, to my mind at least, is a fundamental truth, 
 and, on these matters, there can be no sympathy between us. 
 But if you admit the Omniscience of God, beware of libelling 
 what you profess to defend. For when you assert what is 
 termed the moral government of the world, you slander Om- 
 niscience, inasmuch as you declare that the mechanism of the 
 entire universe, including the actions both of Nature and of 
 Man, planned as it is by Infinite Wisdom, is unequal to its du- 
 ties, unless that same Wisdom does from time to time interfere 
 with it. You assert, in fact, either that Omniscience has been 
 deceived, or that Omnipotence has been defeated. Surely, they 
 who believe, and whose pride and happiness it is to believe, 
 that there is a Power above all and before all, knowing all and 
 creating all, ought not to fall into such a snare as this. They 
 who, dissatisfied with this little world of sense, seek to raise 
 their minds to something which the senses are unable to grasp, 
 can hardly fail, on deeper reflection, to perceive how coarse and 
 material is that theological prejudice, which ascribes to such a 
 Power the vulgar functions of a temporal ruler, arrays him in 
 the garb of an earthly potentate, and represents him as med- 
 dling here and meddling there, uttering threats, inflicting 
 punishments, bestowing rewards. These are base and grovelling 
 conceptions, the offspring of ignorance and of darkness. Such 
 gross and sordid notions are but one remove from actual idola- 
 try. They are the draff and offal of a by-gone age, and we will 
 not have them obtruded here. Well suited they were to those 
 old and barbarous times, when men, being unable to refine their 
 ideas, were, therefore, unable to purify their creed. Now, how- 
 ever, they jar upon us ; they do not assimilate with other parts 
 of our knowledge ; they are incongruous ; their concord is gone. 
 Every thing is against them. They stand alone ; there is noth- 
 ing left with which they harmonize. The whole scope and 
 tendency of modern thought force upon our minds conceptions 
 of regularity and of law, to which they are diametrically opposed. 
 Even those who cling to them, do so from the influence of tra- 
 dition, rather than from complete and unswerving belief. That 
 child-like and unhesitating faith, with which the doctrine of 
 interposition was once received, is succeeded by a cold and life- 
 less assent, very different from the enthusiasm of former times. 
 
472 AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT. 
 
 Soon, too, this will vanisli, and men will cease to be terrified by 
 phantoms which their own ignorance has reared. This age, 
 haply, may not witness the emancipation ; but, so surely as the 
 human mind advances, so surely will that emancipation come. 
 It may come quicker than any one expects. For, we are step- 
 ping on far and fast. The signs of the time are all around, and 
 they who list may read. The handwriting is on the wall ; the 
 fiat has gone forth j the ancient empire shall be subverted j 
 the dominion of superstition, already decaying, shall break 
 away, and crumble into dust ; and new life being breathed into 
 the confused and chaotic mass, it shall be clearly seen, that, 
 from the beginning there has been no discrepancy, no incon- 
 gruity, no disorder, no interruption, no interference ; but that 
 all the events which surround us, even to the farthest limits of 
 the material creation, are but different parts of a single scheme, 
 which is permeated by one glorious principle of universal and 
 \mdeviating regularity. 
 
ALPHABETICAL INDEX, 
 
 A 
 
 Adam uSmith, peculiarity of his method, 840-844 ; 
 
 A Theory of the Moral Sentiments,” 
 8144— 848;— “Wealth of Nations Described,” 
 3548-860. 
 
 Affecitioms, natural, sinfulness of indulgence in 
 + he„ 819, 820. 
 
 Ag/"‘cudture, how regarded by the Spanish Chris- 
 t'ianis, 52. 
 
 Albe^omi's Spanish policy, 70. 
 
 Almiigh.ty (the), false estimate of, 297, 298, Ac. 
 
 Antaigomism of the aristocratic and trading 
 sipii-it, 245. 
 
 Antitqiidty, effect of reverence for, 120. 
 
 Aramdai, liberal ^)anish policy of, 86. 
 
 ArcluMimhop of Vcilenoia's defence of religious 
 P>ersecution, 46. 
 
 ArahMmhop of Toledo^ primate of Spain, on per- 
 siecuition, 48. 
 
 Aasotaia/.tion of ideas, power of, 422. 
 
 Assw, mentions of the theological method, 326. 
 
 Atro(oit€es perpetrated by the English upon the 
 Sicoftch, 223-227. 
 
 B 
 
 Baoaniim philosophy, its influence upon theol- 
 O'gy, 324. ‘ 
 
 .Basis of English prosperity, 80. 
 far ing/ of science ujjon history, 256. 
 
 Biblef pe.rmitted to be read in Scotland, 174. 
 JSiShaps„ insolence of, in reign of Charles I., 
 214-215. 
 
 Blach's researches on heat, 887-399;— he ad- 
 vancies the philosophy of the subject, 388;— 
 purs-ues the deductive method, 890. 
 
 C 
 
 Cardinal Beaton, 164;— adviser of James VI., 
 68;--fall of, 173 ; — assassination of, 176. 
 Cdvendi-HWe discoverie.-5, 415. 
 
 CaimeB of superstition in Spain. 2. 
 
 Charles L, character of war against, 264. 
 
 Charles V., ctiaracter of, 16. 
 
 “ “ persecutions of, 17. 
 
 Charles II., humiliation of. 220. 
 
 Charles II. of Spain described, 31. 
 
 Charles III. of Spain, character of, 90. 
 
 ‘ “ administration of, 92-93. 
 
 - ‘ , “ enlightened policy of, 94-102. 
 
 Charles IV., character of, 103. 
 
 “ “ banishes the liberal ministers, 104. 
 
 Charles IV. prohibits inquiry and investigation, 
 105. 
 
 Cities, influence of upon superstition, 151. 
 Ci/oilizat/ion, Spanish, nature of, 119. 
 
 Clerw^l OMd literary functions united in Spain, 
 
 Clergy, supremacy of the, 261. 
 
 “ the cause of Scotch superstition, 261. 
 
 “ hostility to the crown, 262. 
 
 “ struggle against and overthrow of episco- 
 pacy, 262. 
 
 “ effect of their theories on the state of 
 society, 268. 
 
 “ length of sermons, 268. 
 
 “ authority of the, 271. 
 
 “ vengeance of the, against their opposers, 
 276-281. 
 
 “ conceit of the, 282. 
 
 “ corruption of the national intellect by 
 tlie, 287. 
 
 Coalition of kings and clergy in Scotland, 
 147. 
 
 Conservation of force, 884. 
 
 Contrasts of the deductive and inductive meth- 
 ods, 830. 
 
 Cromwell invades Scotland, 268. 
 
 “ attempts to ruin the clergy, 263. 
 Cudworth's intellectual system of the universe. 
 
 378. ’ 
 
 Cullen's pathology, 421 ; — he pursues the deduc- 
 tive method, 422-429 ;— his theory of fever, 
 429 ; — his nosology, 481. 
 
 D 
 
 David Hume characterized, 860 : — deficiency of 
 his imagination, 361 ; — import of his specula- 
 tions, 362 ; — detects the fundamental error 
 of Adam Smith, 364;— unpractical and de- 
 ductive, 865-868; — his “Natural History of 
 Religion,” 368-872. 
 
 Decline of aristocratic power a condition of pro- 
 gress, 241. 
 
 Decline of the Scotch aristocracy, 2-38. 
 
 Ded active method, pursued in Scotland, Ger- 
 many, and ancient Greece, failed to interest 
 the people, 459. 
 
 Deductive character of theology, 827. 
 
 Depravity, total, believed and taught by the 
 clergy, 303. 
 
 Difficulties in the true treatment of history. 
 256-258 
 
 Discovery of the compo.sition of water, 414. 
 
 Dominance of the inductive method over the 
 Scotch mind, 331. 
 
474 
 
 ALPHABETICAL INDEX, 
 
 E 
 
 Earthquake* in Spain, 4 
 English loyalty not dangerous, 29. 
 
 English physical philosophers, deficiencies of, 
 895, 896. 
 
 English science, deficiencies of, 434. 
 
 Episcopacy repudiated by Scotch Protestants, 
 191. 
 
 Episcopacy established in Scotland, 212. 
 ^pulsion of the Moriscoes from Spain, 49. 
 
 F 
 
 Fathers quoted against the policy of cleansing 
 the streets of Madrid, 75. 
 
 Ferocity of the Scotch character, causes of, 
 
 160 . 
 
 Forced conversion of Mohammedans in Spain, 
 
 48. 
 
 G 
 
 General causes, infiuence of, 215, 216. 
 Geological agencies, 404. 
 
 Geometrical conceptions, defects of, 842. 
 Government, bad, transient evil of, 842. 
 
 II 
 
 Heat, discoveries concerning, 8S4 ; — specific, 
 884 ; — latent, SS7 results which would fol- 
 low if its amount could be increased, 894. 
 
 Herbert Spencer's First Principles, 885. 
 
 Hunter (Dr. John), estimate of, 482 ; — combines 
 the aeductive with the inductive method, 
 438; — his training both Scotch and English, 
 433; — his researches and discoveries, 486-4.52. 
 
 Hutcheson (Francis), founds the first school t)f 
 secular philosophy in Scotland, 831 ; — advo- 
 cates freedom of thought, 8-32; — was in ad- 
 vance of his age, 833; — vindicates human 
 nature, 885 ; — follows the deductive method, 
 838, 889. 
 
 jSutton's geological speculations, 403-418. 
 
 I 
 
 Ignorance and danger sources of superstition, 
 148. 
 
 Inductive method, secular tendencies of, 324. 
 Inductive and deductive methods examined, 
 824. 
 
 Influence of trade upon the theological spirit, 
 248, 249. 
 
 Institutions the effect of public opinion, 182. 
 Intellectual movement in the 18th century, 2.54. 
 Intoleramce in Scotland at the present time, 462. 
 
 J 
 
 James V. imprisoned, 164 escapes from the 
 nobles, 165;— drives a crusade against the 
 nobles, 166; — patronizes the clergy, 167: — 
 marries Mary of Guise, 168; — defeat and 
 death, 172. 
 
 James III. and IV. of Scotland, policy of, 162, 
 163. 
 
 James VI. of Scotland, struggle with the Prot- 
 estants, 194-201 ; — a.sceuds the English 
 
 throne, and attempts the subi ligation of the 
 Scotch clergy, 205-208; — ^attacks the inde- 
 pendence of their assemblies, 209 ; — impris- 
 ons them, 210; — his treacliery, 211; — suc- 
 ceeds in establishing episcopacy. 212, 213. 
 
 James II, treatment of the Scotch character- 
 ized, 227. 
 
 Jesicits restored to Spain at the desire of the 
 people, 110. 
 
 Jews, expulsion from Spain, 15. 
 
 K 
 
 Kennedy, bishop of St. Andrews, 161. 
 
 Key to Scotch history in ISth century, 329. 
 Knowledge the foundation of European civiliza. 
 tion, 112. 
 
 Afl 03) (cib/iw), character of, 176; — sanctions the 
 murder of Beaton, 177. 
 
 L 
 
 Lauderdale, 224. 
 
 Leslie's researches on heat, 899 ; his specula- 
 tions on the. mutual relations of force, 401. 
 LAght and heat, relations of, 400. 
 
 Linen manufacture in Scotland, 250. 
 
 Literature of the past, influence of, 398. 
 
 Logical acuteness of the Scotch, cause of, 827, 
 328. 
 
 Lord Palmerston's letter to the Scotch Pres- 
 bytery, 466. 
 
 LjOyalty and superstition, connection of, 22. 
 Loyalty, lack of among the Scotch, 124. 
 
 II 
 
 Manufacturing and trading interests arise in 
 Scotland, 244. 
 
 Mary of Guise, queen dowager of Scotland, 178. 
 Mellviile (Andrefw), heads the Protestant move- 
 ment in Scotland, 190. 
 
 Microscope, value and power of, 417. 
 
 Money, love of, advantages resulting from the, 
 3i8. 
 
 Motives of human action, 847-358. 
 
 Morton (Earl of), violence against the Scotch 
 Protestants, 188. 
 
 Moriscoes, persecution of, in Spain, 43. 
 
 Murder of the Earl of Douglas, 159, 160. 
 
 N 
 
 Nobles succeed against the Scotch church, 172- 
 174. 
 
 Norway, relation to Scotland, 180. 
 
 O 
 
 Observers and thinkers, relation of, 457. 
 
 Order in the moral and social world, 255. 
 Organic and inorganic nature, relations o^ 416. 
 Omnipotence of general causes, 108. 
 
 Orry's Spanish policy, 68. 
 
 P 
 
 Paley attempts to apply induction to theology, 
 325. 
 
 Pathological science, relations of, 419. 
 
 Philip II. of Spain, policy of, 18. 
 
 “ character of, 21. 
 
 Philip V., reign of, 62. 
 
 Philosophy, stoical influence of, compared with 
 the influence of theology, 815, 816, Ac. 
 
 Physiological science, comprehensiveness o^ 
 419. 
 
 Physical science in Scotland, 383. 
 
 Pleasure, indulgence in, regarded as sinful, 808, 
 309. 
 
 Poetry, office of, in philosophy, 895-899. 
 
 Political remedies, inefficiency of, 157. 
 
ALPHABETICAL II^DEX. 
 
 475 
 
 Political economy, Imperfections of its ecientiflc 
 study, 34-3. 
 
 Power of the Spanish church, 86. 
 
 Presbytery of Edinburgh on the cholora 
 465. 
 
 Private selfishness works public benefit, 352. 
 
 Protestant Eeformation in Scotland, 179-1S2. 
 
 Protestant Church consistent in changing its 
 doctrines and policy, 193. 
 
 Proonmate cause of Protestantism in Scotland 
 165. 
 
 Punishment, future, doctrines respecting, 288. 
 
 R 
 
 Rea<Mona of Scotch and German philosophy, 
 
 Reception of new truths, 378-4. 
 
 Bef^mera, errors of, 71. 
 
 Beid {Thomas), estimate of, 878; — inquiry into 
 the human mind, 877 ; — he pursues the de- 
 ductive method, 377-382. 
 
 Beroolution and insurrection, 119. 
 
 Boman empire, cause of its fall, 128. 
 
 Satam, Scotch idea of, 289, 290, &c. 
 
 “ influence of, 292. 
 
 Science involves both induction and deduction 
 337. ’ 
 
 Science and theology, relations of, 463. 
 
 &ience and poetry, relations of, 895. 
 
 Scotla'nd contrasted with Spain, 124. 
 
 “ treatment of its princes, 125. 
 
 “ paradox of its history, 126. 
 
 “ physical geography of, 126. 
 
 “ invaded by pirates, 180. 
 
 “ invasion by Edward I., 131. 
 
 “ ravaged by the English in 1296, and to 
 the 16th century, 132-184. 
 
 “ consequence of these devastations, 
 ItJo. 
 
 “ how the strength of the nobles increased, 
 136. ’ 
 
 “ effect of the loss of their towns, 137. 
 
 ‘ paralysis of industry, 139. 
 
 “ increase of the power of the nobles, 
 145. 
 
 “ ambition of the kings and clergv. 147. 
 
 “ witchcraft in, 148. 
 
 “ early ignorance of the nobles, 151. 
 relative to the Eeformation, 153. 
 invasion of the nobles by James I. 
 155. ’ 
 
 “ struggle of the crown and nobles, 167- 
 160. 
 
 “ power of the nobles beneficial, 162. 
 
 James I.’s rigorous measures against the 
 aristocracy, 165. 
 
 “ College of Justice, 167. 
 
 “ arrogance of the church, 170. 
 
 ‘ power of the nobles increased, 172-174 
 “ Knox and the Eeformation, 177. 
 
 ‘‘ overthrow of the Catholic Church, 182. 
 Protestants claim the confiscated church 
 property, 212. 
 
 “ fall of the bishops, 216-218. 
 
 “ rebellions of 1715 and 1745, 282-936. 
 
 ‘ i“P'‘0'"®“ent after the rebellions, 
 
 of hereditary jurisdictions, 
 
 “ degradation of the nobles, 239. 
 
 rise of manufacturing and trading inter- 
 ests, 244. ® 
 
 “ commercial efl'ects of the Union, 245. 
 rise of manufactories, 246-248, 
 
 I Scotland, rise of the intellectual and indus- 
 trious classes, 249. 
 
 “ rise of a moneyed class, 252. 
 
 “ in the 18th century, 263. 
 
 “ anomalous state of, 255. 
 
 “ opens a great canal, 252. 
 
 “ prospects of, in the middle of 18th cen- 
 tury, 258. 
 
 ‘‘ its intellectual awakening, 253. 
 
 “ adopts the deductive philosophy in 18th 
 century, and why, 326. 
 
 “ the clergy control education, 828. 
 
 Scotch clergy characterized, 202 apology for, 
 203, 204. * 
 
 Scotch Presbyterians, democratic spirit of 
 196-201. 
 
 S(Mtch rebellions of 1716 and 1745, 282-236. 
 Snukspeare and Bewton, 897. 
 
 iirchbishop of St. Andrews, cruelty of 228 
 tilwUey, estimate of, 897. 
 
 St r James IlalVs geological experiments, 412. 
 Smith {William), contributions to geology 
 405. “ ’ 
 
 Spain, causes of superstition in, 2. 
 
 “ climate and soil, 3. 
 
 “ pastoral life in, 6. 
 
 “ influence of the church in the 6th cen- 
 tury, 9. 
 
 civil power subordinated to ecclesiasti- 
 cal, 9. 
 
 “ influence of Mohammedan conquest of, 11. 
 
 e.xpulsion of the Jews, 15. 
 
 “ loyalty of her people, 23. 
 
 “ splendor of her empire, 27. 
 
 “ military spirit of, 28. 
 
 “ cause of decline of, 33-42. 
 
 “ Lerma's administration, 35. 
 
 conversion of Mohammedans in, 48. 
 condition of in 17th century, 53. 
 
 ‘ decline of industry and business, 54. 
 
 bankruptcy and famine in, 60. 
 
 ‘ becomes almost a French province, 68. 
 dependence upon foreigners, 65. 
 ignorance and degradation of, in 17th 
 century, 71. 
 
 ‘I education in 18th century, 73. 
 
 rejects the discoveries of Harvey and 
 Aewton, 78. 
 
 “ opposition to improvement, 74. 
 
 “ state of medical science in, in ISth cen, 
 tury, 76. 
 
 “ no chemist in, in 1776, 77. 
 
 ‘‘ 17th century in, characterized, 79. 
 
 dependent upon foreigners for artisansL 
 manufacturers, and miners, 80. 
 government administered by foreigners, 
 88 . 
 
 “ expulsion of Jesuits from, 85. 
 
 “ decline of persecution in, 86. 
 
 first treats with the Mohammedan pow- 
 ers, 88. 
 
 “ prosperity of, under Charles III., 90-102. 
 ^^ttificial and baseless prosperity, 
 
 “ French invasion of. 105. 
 
 “ abortive reforms of the 19th century in, 
 106. ^ ’ 
 
 “ early municipal franchises, 107. 
 
 “ liberal measures did not originate with 
 the people, 107. 
 
 “ power of the hierarchy, 109. 
 
 “ Jesuits restored, 110. 
 
 “ dejith of the causes of her decline, 111. 
 
 “ ignorance of the people the source of all 
 her calamities, 112. 
 
 “ natural advantages of, 112. 
 u J®*’ position anomalous in Europe, 116. 
 has no hope from politicians, 116. 
 power of the church and ignorance of the 
 people in 19th century, 117. 
 represents the Middle Ages, 121. 
 
476 
 
 ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 
 
 Spain, hopelessness of her condition, 122. 
 Spanish and EnglishaolomaX policy contrasted, 
 93. 
 
 Superstition still the curse of Scotland, 254. 
 
 T 
 
 Theology, its conflicts and uncertainty, 453 ; — 
 inductive method of inquiry most popular 
 with the body of the people, 455. 
 
 U 
 
 Union of Scotland and England, effects of, 
 238. 
 
 Union of England and Scotland, commercial 
 affects of, 245. 
 
 Universities and schools of Scotland under theo> 
 logical control, 328. 
 
 University of Salamanca in 18th century, 78. 
 
 V 
 
 Visigoths settle in Spain, 7. 
 
 W 
 
 War, influence of upon the power of the clergy, 
 149. 
 
 Watts {James), inventions and discoveries, 
 414. 
 
 Werner founds the German school of geology, 
 407. 
 
 ( 38 ) 
 
 y 
 
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