The Scottish Philosophy [105]
a free agent, and is quite as much accountable as if he were truly free. The answer to all this is, that man has an intuition in regard to his possessing freedom quite as deep and ineradicable as his intuition about cause and effect. If we attend to the latter of these, and adhere to it, as Home does, we should equally hold by the other.
The friends of religion, unenlightened and enlightened, felt at once that there was something here repugnant to all that they had been led to believe about God and man; and Henry Home came to be put in the same class with David Hume, to whom he was in many respects opposed. In 1753, there appeared " An Estimate of the Profit and Loss of Religion, illustrated with References to Essays on Morality and Natural Religion." The author was Rev. George Anderson, who had been an army officer, and was now chaplain to Watson's Hospital in Edinburgh, and who wrote some tracts against the stage, and a " Remonstrance against Bolingbroke's Philosophical Religion." He is described, by Home's biographer, as " a man of a bold spirit and irascible temperament, and considerable learning." This gave rise to other pamphlets, as " A Letter to the Author of a late Book entitled an I Estimate of the Profit and Loss of Religion."' Anderson sets him self in opposition to those who say that Christianity is not founded on argument, and to Sopho, Hume, and Hutcheson. " Feelings being so uncertain and variable, it is most ridiculous to found upon them a law so important and extensive as is the law of nature." He prefers the ground taken by Clarke and Cumberland. As to the scheme of necessity, it is no other than that of Collins. " That Sopho's (Home's) principles serve the cause of atheism will be plain enough to any who duly consider the consequences of his scheme of necessity, which excludes a providence and binds up the Almighty in the same chain of fate with all other intelligent beings."[45] There appeared in 1755 "An Analysis {178} of the Moral and Religious Sentiments contained in the Writings of Sopho and David Hume, Esq., addressed to the Consideration of the Reverend and Honorable Members of the General Assembly.[46] The author denounces Home as maintaining that man is a mere machine, under an irresistible necessity in all his actions, and yet, " though man be thus necessarily determined in all his actions, yet does he believe himself free, God having planted in his nature this deceitful feeling of liberty," this deceitful feeling being the only foundation of virtue. He argues that from this doctrine it follows, as a necessary consequence, that there can be no sin or moral evil in the world.[47] As to Hume, he is charged with making all distinction betwixt virtue and vice as merely imaginary: "Adultery is very lawful, but sometimes not expedient." This letter was met by a pamphlet, " Observations on the Analysis," generally attributed to Blair, "who is believed likewise to have lent his aid to the composition of a formal reply made by Mr. Home himself, under the title of "Objections against the `Essays on Morality and Natural Religion' examined, 1756." {179}
In all this we have an able and legitimate discussion. But the opponents of the rising scepticism resorted to other and more doubtful steps. Henry Home, it is presumed, was a member of the Church of Scotland, and it would have been quite within the province of that church to summon him before it, and inquire into the opinions which 'he was believed to be propagating. Over David Hume, it is clear that the church had no jurisdiction. But the Church of Scotland claimed to be the guardian of religion in the country, and to have an authority to prevent the circulation of error. So a motion was made in the committee of overtures of the General Assembly that the body should take into their consideration how far it was proper to call before them and censure the authors of infidel books. "There is one person, styling himself David Hume, Esq., hath arrived at such a degree of boldness as publicly to avow himself the author of books containing the most
The friends of religion, unenlightened and enlightened, felt at once that there was something here repugnant to all that they had been led to believe about God and man; and Henry Home came to be put in the same class with David Hume, to whom he was in many respects opposed. In 1753, there appeared " An Estimate of the Profit and Loss of Religion, illustrated with References to Essays on Morality and Natural Religion." The author was Rev. George Anderson, who had been an army officer, and was now chaplain to Watson's Hospital in Edinburgh, and who wrote some tracts against the stage, and a " Remonstrance against Bolingbroke's Philosophical Religion." He is described, by Home's biographer, as " a man of a bold spirit and irascible temperament, and considerable learning." This gave rise to other pamphlets, as " A Letter to the Author of a late Book entitled an I Estimate of the Profit and Loss of Religion."' Anderson sets him self in opposition to those who say that Christianity is not founded on argument, and to Sopho, Hume, and Hutcheson. " Feelings being so uncertain and variable, it is most ridiculous to found upon them a law so important and extensive as is the law of nature." He prefers the ground taken by Clarke and Cumberland. As to the scheme of necessity, it is no other than that of Collins. " That Sopho's (Home's) principles serve the cause of atheism will be plain enough to any who duly consider the consequences of his scheme of necessity, which excludes a providence and binds up the Almighty in the same chain of fate with all other intelligent beings."[45] There appeared in 1755 "An Analysis {178} of the Moral and Religious Sentiments contained in the Writings of Sopho and David Hume, Esq., addressed to the Consideration of the Reverend and Honorable Members of the General Assembly.[46] The author denounces Home as maintaining that man is a mere machine, under an irresistible necessity in all his actions, and yet, " though man be thus necessarily determined in all his actions, yet does he believe himself free, God having planted in his nature this deceitful feeling of liberty," this deceitful feeling being the only foundation of virtue. He argues that from this doctrine it follows, as a necessary consequence, that there can be no sin or moral evil in the world.[47] As to Hume, he is charged with making all distinction betwixt virtue and vice as merely imaginary: "Adultery is very lawful, but sometimes not expedient." This letter was met by a pamphlet, " Observations on the Analysis," generally attributed to Blair, "who is believed likewise to have lent his aid to the composition of a formal reply made by Mr. Home himself, under the title of "Objections against the `Essays on Morality and Natural Religion' examined, 1756." {179}
In all this we have an able and legitimate discussion. But the opponents of the rising scepticism resorted to other and more doubtful steps. Henry Home, it is presumed, was a member of the Church of Scotland, and it would have been quite within the province of that church to summon him before it, and inquire into the opinions which 'he was believed to be propagating. Over David Hume, it is clear that the church had no jurisdiction. But the Church of Scotland claimed to be the guardian of religion in the country, and to have an authority to prevent the circulation of error. So a motion was made in the committee of overtures of the General Assembly that the body should take into their consideration how far it was proper to call before them and censure the authors of infidel books. "There is one person, styling himself David Hume, Esq., hath arrived at such a degree of boldness as publicly to avow himself the author of books containing the most