The Scottish Philosophy [160]
Subjects," 1803, edited by Professor Richardson, and containing an account of his life. His views do not seem profound or original, but his style is elegant, and he has some good remarks on cause and effect and on beauty. {267}
XXXVIII. -- JOHN BRUCE. H/E\ was born in 1744, and died in 1826. He published a little book for the use of his students,-" First Principles of philosophy, by john Bruce, A.M., Professor of Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh." It reached a second edition in 178 I-- It consists of mere notes or heads. Logic has a wide enough field: -- it is " the comprehensive science which explains the method of discovering and applying the laws of nature." He makes the sources of human knowledge to be sensation, understanding, and consciousness. He has another work, " Elements of the Science of Ethics, on the Principles of Natural Philosophy." He defines the moral faculty as " the power of perceiving the objects which regard the happiness or enjoyments of human nature." If we ask in what the physical law of gravitation consists, the answer is, in the uniformity of the effect in material nature. If we ask in what the moral law consists, the answer is, in the uniformity of the effect "that the observation of rights is the source of enjoyment." Mr. Bruce does not sound the depths of any subject of which he treats.
XXXIX-REVIEW OF THE CENTURY. B/Y\ the close of the century, the fathers and elder sons of the family have passed away from the scene; and we may be profited by taking a glance at the work they have done. The Scottish metaphysicians have had an influence on their country, partly by their writings, but still more by the instruction which they imparted in the colleges to numerous pupils, afterwards filling important offices in various walks of life, and scattered all over the land. I cannot do better here than quote from the chapter in which M. Cousin closes his criticism of Reid. "By his excellencies as well as his defects, Reid represents Scotland in philosophy." "It would be impossible to write a history of Scotland in the last half of the eighteenth century, without meeting everywhere in the numerous and remarkable productions of the Scotch genius of this epoch, the noble spirit which that genius has excited, and which, in its turn, has communicated to it a new force. In face of the authority {268} of Hume, and despite the attacks of Priestley, the philosophy of common sense spread itself rapidly, from Aberdeen to Glasgow, and from Glasgow to Edinburgh; it penetrates into the universities, among the clergy, into the bar, among men of letters and men of the world; and, without producing a movement so vast as that of the German philosophy, it exercised an influence of the same kind within narrower limits." We have the testimony of a succession of eminent men, to the effect that the chairs of mental philosophy, taken along with the essay writing which the professors holding these chairs demanded, exercised a greater influence than any others in the colleges and sent forth a body of youths capable of thinking, and of expressing their thoughts in a clear and orderly manner. From an old date, a reverence for the Roman law; and, at a later date, the judicial training of many youths in Holland had given a logical form to the pleadings at the Scottish bar, and the decisions of the bench: and now the philosophy widened the comprehension of the Edinburgh lawyers, and gave to their law papers a philosophical order scarcely to be found in those of England or Ireland.[75] The Scottish philosophy never attempted, as the German philosophy did (greatly to the injury of religion), to absorb theology into itself; but keeping to its own field, that of inductive psychology, it allowed the students to follow their own convictions, evangelical or rationalistic, but training all to a habit of skilful arrangement and exposition. It enabled and it led the theological professors to dwell on the relation between the
XXXVIII. -- JOHN BRUCE. H/E\ was born in 1744, and died in 1826. He published a little book for the use of his students,-" First Principles of philosophy, by john Bruce, A.M., Professor of Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh." It reached a second edition in 178 I-- It consists of mere notes or heads. Logic has a wide enough field: -- it is " the comprehensive science which explains the method of discovering and applying the laws of nature." He makes the sources of human knowledge to be sensation, understanding, and consciousness. He has another work, " Elements of the Science of Ethics, on the Principles of Natural Philosophy." He defines the moral faculty as " the power of perceiving the objects which regard the happiness or enjoyments of human nature." If we ask in what the physical law of gravitation consists, the answer is, in the uniformity of the effect in material nature. If we ask in what the moral law consists, the answer is, in the uniformity of the effect "that the observation of rights is the source of enjoyment." Mr. Bruce does not sound the depths of any subject of which he treats.
XXXIX-REVIEW OF THE CENTURY. B/Y\ the close of the century, the fathers and elder sons of the family have passed away from the scene; and we may be profited by taking a glance at the work they have done. The Scottish metaphysicians have had an influence on their country, partly by their writings, but still more by the instruction which they imparted in the colleges to numerous pupils, afterwards filling important offices in various walks of life, and scattered all over the land. I cannot do better here than quote from the chapter in which M. Cousin closes his criticism of Reid. "By his excellencies as well as his defects, Reid represents Scotland in philosophy." "It would be impossible to write a history of Scotland in the last half of the eighteenth century, without meeting everywhere in the numerous and remarkable productions of the Scotch genius of this epoch, the noble spirit which that genius has excited, and which, in its turn, has communicated to it a new force. In face of the authority {268} of Hume, and despite the attacks of Priestley, the philosophy of common sense spread itself rapidly, from Aberdeen to Glasgow, and from Glasgow to Edinburgh; it penetrates into the universities, among the clergy, into the bar, among men of letters and men of the world; and, without producing a movement so vast as that of the German philosophy, it exercised an influence of the same kind within narrower limits." We have the testimony of a succession of eminent men, to the effect that the chairs of mental philosophy, taken along with the essay writing which the professors holding these chairs demanded, exercised a greater influence than any others in the colleges and sent forth a body of youths capable of thinking, and of expressing their thoughts in a clear and orderly manner. From an old date, a reverence for the Roman law; and, at a later date, the judicial training of many youths in Holland had given a logical form to the pleadings at the Scottish bar, and the decisions of the bench: and now the philosophy widened the comprehension of the Edinburgh lawyers, and gave to their law papers a philosophical order scarcely to be found in those of England or Ireland.[75] The Scottish philosophy never attempted, as the German philosophy did (greatly to the injury of religion), to absorb theology into itself; but keeping to its own field, that of inductive psychology, it allowed the students to follow their own convictions, evangelical or rationalistic, but training all to a habit of skilful arrangement and exposition. It enabled and it led the theological professors to dwell on the relation between the