The Scottish Philosophy [108]
exceptions; that of abandoning to diversion and merriment what remains of Sunday after public worship, parties of pleasure, dancing, gaming, any thing that trifles away the time without a serious thought; as if the purpose were to cancel every virtuous impression made at public worship." (" Sketches of the History of Man," B. III.) {183}
In his person he was tall and of a thin and slender make. His portrait shows a high, marked brow; a long nose; and a shrewd, humorous face, -- altogether a strong-marked countenance. "In his manners there was a f rankness amounting to bluntness, and in his conversation a humorous playfulness." He died Dec. 27, 1782, in the eighty-seventh year of his age.
XXIII. -- AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY. -- JOHN WITHERSPOON.
A/MERICA\ was now reaching such a settled condition that reflective thought could make its appearance. Underneath the Puritan action and self-sacrifice, there was a Puritan faith which required men to judge and reason. American philosophy put forth at that time its greatest representative. Jonathan Edwards was born in Connecticut, in 1703; was a tutor in Yale in 1724; was pastor and missionary from 1726 to 1757; and died President of Princeton College, in 1758. From his very childhood he pondered the profoundest subjects, and penetrated as far as -- at times farther, some think, than -- human thought could carry him. Possessed of no great variety of reading, he reached his very definite opinions, by revolving every subject in his own mind. I am inclined to think that his opinions might have been modified, had he been brought more fully into contact and collision with other thinkers. His " Freedom of the Will " is the acutest work ever written on that perplexing subject; but many think that he has overlooked an essential freedom in the mind, acknowledged by Calvin, Owen, and the great Calvinistic divines, and revealed by consciousness. He is known more as a theologian than a philosopher; but the fact is, his metaphysics, always along with his deep spiritual insight, are the valuable element in his divinity. Contemporaneously with Berkeley, he arrives at a doctrine of power and of body,-not the same with that of the ideal bishop, but coming close to it and perhaps of a more consistently philosophic structure. Cause he explains to be " that after or upon the existence of which, or its existence after such a manner, the existence of another thing follows. The connection between these two existences, or between the cause and effect is what is called power." "When we say that grass is green, all that we can mean is, that, in a constant course, when we see grass, the idea of green is excited by it" " What idea is that which we call by the name of body? I find color has the chief share in it. `Tis nothing but color, and figure, which is the termination of this figure, together with some powers, such as the power of resisting and motion, that wholly takes up what we call body, and if that which we principally mean by the thing itself cannot be said to be in the thing itself, I think {184} nothing can be. If color exists not out of the mind, then nothing be longing to body exists out of the mind, but resistance, which is solidity, and the termination of this resistance with its relations, which is figure, and the communication of this resistance from place to place, which is motion; though the latter are nothing, but modes of the former. Therefore, there is nothing out of the mind but resistance; and not that either, when nothing is actively resisted. Then there is nothing but the power of resistance. And, as resistance is nothing but the actual exertion of God's power, so the power can be nothing else but the constant law or method of that actual exercise." (Notes on Mind, in Dwight's " Life of Edwards.")
It could be shown that, at this time, there was everywhere a tendency towards idealism among the higher minds, which had been trained under the philosophy of Locke. The Rev. Samuel Johnson, the tutor of Edwards in Yale, who afterwards wrote " Elementa Philosolphica,"
In his person he was tall and of a thin and slender make. His portrait shows a high, marked brow; a long nose; and a shrewd, humorous face, -- altogether a strong-marked countenance. "In his manners there was a f rankness amounting to bluntness, and in his conversation a humorous playfulness." He died Dec. 27, 1782, in the eighty-seventh year of his age.
XXIII. -- AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY. -- JOHN WITHERSPOON.
A/MERICA\ was now reaching such a settled condition that reflective thought could make its appearance. Underneath the Puritan action and self-sacrifice, there was a Puritan faith which required men to judge and reason. American philosophy put forth at that time its greatest representative. Jonathan Edwards was born in Connecticut, in 1703; was a tutor in Yale in 1724; was pastor and missionary from 1726 to 1757; and died President of Princeton College, in 1758. From his very childhood he pondered the profoundest subjects, and penetrated as far as -- at times farther, some think, than -- human thought could carry him. Possessed of no great variety of reading, he reached his very definite opinions, by revolving every subject in his own mind. I am inclined to think that his opinions might have been modified, had he been brought more fully into contact and collision with other thinkers. His " Freedom of the Will " is the acutest work ever written on that perplexing subject; but many think that he has overlooked an essential freedom in the mind, acknowledged by Calvin, Owen, and the great Calvinistic divines, and revealed by consciousness. He is known more as a theologian than a philosopher; but the fact is, his metaphysics, always along with his deep spiritual insight, are the valuable element in his divinity. Contemporaneously with Berkeley, he arrives at a doctrine of power and of body,-not the same with that of the ideal bishop, but coming close to it and perhaps of a more consistently philosophic structure. Cause he explains to be " that after or upon the existence of which, or its existence after such a manner, the existence of another thing follows. The connection between these two existences, or between the cause and effect is what is called power." "When we say that grass is green, all that we can mean is, that, in a constant course, when we see grass, the idea of green is excited by it" " What idea is that which we call by the name of body? I find color has the chief share in it. `Tis nothing but color, and figure, which is the termination of this figure, together with some powers, such as the power of resisting and motion, that wholly takes up what we call body, and if that which we principally mean by the thing itself cannot be said to be in the thing itself, I think {184} nothing can be. If color exists not out of the mind, then nothing be longing to body exists out of the mind, but resistance, which is solidity, and the termination of this resistance with its relations, which is figure, and the communication of this resistance from place to place, which is motion; though the latter are nothing, but modes of the former. Therefore, there is nothing out of the mind but resistance; and not that either, when nothing is actively resisted. Then there is nothing but the power of resistance. And, as resistance is nothing but the actual exertion of God's power, so the power can be nothing else but the constant law or method of that actual exercise." (Notes on Mind, in Dwight's " Life of Edwards.")
It could be shown that, at this time, there was everywhere a tendency towards idealism among the higher minds, which had been trained under the philosophy of Locke. The Rev. Samuel Johnson, the tutor of Edwards in Yale, who afterwards wrote " Elementa Philosolphica,"