The Scottish Philosophy [145]
kinds of intuitive truth. Thus, {243} in regard to primary truths of the third class, " it may be urged that it cannot be affirmed of them all at least, as it may be of the axioms in mathematics, or the assurances we have from consciousness, that the denial of them implies a contradiction." It is necessary, I believe, to draw some such distinctions as these between the various kinds of first truths; some of them seem to me to be of the nature of primitive cognitions, others of primitive judgments. But it is doubtful whether Campbell has been able to enunciate the nature of the difference. That he has no clear ideas of the relation of our primary perceptions to realities is evident from his statement. "All the axioms in mathematics are but the enunciations of certain properties in our abstract notions, distinctly perceived by the mind, but have no relation to any thing without themselves, and cannot be made the foundation of any conclusion concerning actual existence; " as if the demonstrations of Archimedes as to conic sections had not been found to apply to the elliptic orbits of the comets as discovered by Kepler.
In speaking of deductive evidence, he distinguishes between scientific and moral. (1) "The subject of the one is abstract, in dependent truth, or the unchangeable and necessary relation of ideas; that of the other, the real but often changeable and contingent connections that subsist among things actually existing." (2). Moral evidence admits degrees, demonstration doth not. (3) In the one there never can be any contrariety of proofs; in the other, there not only may be, but almost always is. (4) The one is simple, consisting of only one coherent series; whereas moral evidence is generally complicated, being in reality a bundle of independent proofs. Under moral reasoning he treats of experience, analogy, testimony, calculation of chances, &c. He discusses the nature and use of the scholastic art of syllogizing. He has no idea of the syllogism being merely an analysis of the process which passes through the mind in all ratiocination. His objections have been satisfactorily answered by Whately.
He has a very interesting chapter on the cause of that pleasure which we receive from objects or representations that excite pity and other painful feelings, criticising the explanations by others, and unfolding one of his own, which is rather complicated. We are not concerned to follow him when he enters {244} on style and elocution. Speaking of his philosophic ability, I am inclined to place him next to Reid in the Aberdeen school.
When minister at Banchory, he married Miss Farquharson, of Whitehouse, of whom "I can say with truth that I never knew a more pious, more humane woman, or a woman of better sense. She had an enlargement of sentiment not often to be found in man (who have many advantages by education), and very unlike the contracted notions of the party among whom she had been bred. You will not mistake me, my dear; it is not those of the Church of England I mean, -- a society for which I have a great respect, -- but our Scotch nonjurors, who, though they concur pretty much with the other in the ceremonial part, differ widely in the spirit they infuse." This is an extract from letters to his niece, Annie Richardson, who bad gone to a boarding-school at Durham. These letters are preserved in the Farquharson manuscripts, and are very kindly. "You may depend upon it we do not forget our dear little niece who has been so long with us, and whom we do and cannot help considering as one of ourselves, -- as an essential part of our little family." The advices given, though rather commonplace, are not on that account the less useful. " Let it be an invariable maxim with you, my dear, that no art will continue long to have influence but what is founded on truth. Deceit and falsehood may sometimes serve a present turn, but never fail sooner or later to be detected. An injury is done to the integrity of one's own mind by doing what is wrong, though it should never be discovered; the discovery which
In speaking of deductive evidence, he distinguishes between scientific and moral. (1) "The subject of the one is abstract, in dependent truth, or the unchangeable and necessary relation of ideas; that of the other, the real but often changeable and contingent connections that subsist among things actually existing." (2). Moral evidence admits degrees, demonstration doth not. (3) In the one there never can be any contrariety of proofs; in the other, there not only may be, but almost always is. (4) The one is simple, consisting of only one coherent series; whereas moral evidence is generally complicated, being in reality a bundle of independent proofs. Under moral reasoning he treats of experience, analogy, testimony, calculation of chances, &c. He discusses the nature and use of the scholastic art of syllogizing. He has no idea of the syllogism being merely an analysis of the process which passes through the mind in all ratiocination. His objections have been satisfactorily answered by Whately.
He has a very interesting chapter on the cause of that pleasure which we receive from objects or representations that excite pity and other painful feelings, criticising the explanations by others, and unfolding one of his own, which is rather complicated. We are not concerned to follow him when he enters {244} on style and elocution. Speaking of his philosophic ability, I am inclined to place him next to Reid in the Aberdeen school.
When minister at Banchory, he married Miss Farquharson, of Whitehouse, of whom "I can say with truth that I never knew a more pious, more humane woman, or a woman of better sense. She had an enlargement of sentiment not often to be found in man (who have many advantages by education), and very unlike the contracted notions of the party among whom she had been bred. You will not mistake me, my dear; it is not those of the Church of England I mean, -- a society for which I have a great respect, -- but our Scotch nonjurors, who, though they concur pretty much with the other in the ceremonial part, differ widely in the spirit they infuse." This is an extract from letters to his niece, Annie Richardson, who bad gone to a boarding-school at Durham. These letters are preserved in the Farquharson manuscripts, and are very kindly. "You may depend upon it we do not forget our dear little niece who has been so long with us, and whom we do and cannot help considering as one of ourselves, -- as an essential part of our little family." The advices given, though rather commonplace, are not on that account the less useful. " Let it be an invariable maxim with you, my dear, that no art will continue long to have influence but what is founded on truth. Deceit and falsehood may sometimes serve a present turn, but never fail sooner or later to be detected. An injury is done to the integrity of one's own mind by doing what is wrong, though it should never be discovered; the discovery which