The Scottish Philosophy [219]
in many cases by strong and vivid emotions. Desire is the conception of an object as good, as absent, and as attainable. He succeeds in this cool way to account for all the deeper and higher acts and ideas of the mind; but it is by simply overlooking their Peculiar and distinguishing properties.
He dwells at length on principles of action. The ultimate principle is a desire to secure pleasure and avoid pain. He traces the intellectual operation of conception in all affections and passions, following out the Stoic resolution of passion as developed by the representative of Stoicism in Cicero's "Tusculan Disputations" (lib. iv.),[91] and by which they thought that passion might be brought thoroughly under the control of judgment by a proper regulation of the conception. The Stoic moralists and Mylne did service to philosophy by giving the proper place to the idea or conception; but then he does not see that the conception must be of something appetible or inappetible, derived from a spring of action in the heart or will. He has a good division of the affections into: (1) Those in which the object of them is regarded as in possession, including joy and all its modifications; (2) Those in which the object is absent, though attainable: this produces desire; (3) Those in which the object either already attained, or about to be attained, is produced by ourselves, which produces self-satisfaction; (4) Those in which the agency of others is concerned, giving rise to affection and esteem. He held firmly by the doctrine of philosophical necessity in its sternest and most unrelenting form. Altogether, he had much of the character of an old Stoic philosopher, but without those lofty ideas about following nature and the will and decree of God which elevated the systems of Zeno, Cleanthes, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.
XLIX.-- JOHN YOUNG.[92]
T/WO\ pupils of Professor Mylne's created and sustained for a number of years a strong taste for mental science in the Irish province of Ulster, from which the founder of the Scottish philosophy bad come. These were professors in the Belfast College, which imparted a high and useful education to the young men of the north-east of Ireland for a considerable number of years, and till it gave way to Queen's College, Belfast. One of these was John Young, professor of moral philosophy, and the other William Cairns, professor of logic and belles-lettres.
John Young was the son of a seceder elder, and was born in Rutherglen in the neighborhood of Glasgow in 1781. He early showed, in the midst of business pursuits, a taste for reading of a high order, for composition, and for spouting. He had difficulties n getting a learned education; but he taught a school, became a clerk in a bleach-field in the neighborhood, and then in a mercantile house in Glasgow; and struggled on, as many a Scotch youth has done, till in 1808, at the age of twenty-seven, he became a student in the University of Glasgow, where he distinguished himself in the classes of logic and moral philosophy, taught by Professors Jardine and Mylne, and took an active part in the college societies, where be displayed, as was thought, extraordinary eloquence. He next attended the divinity hall in the university, and, losing his faith in the stern principles of the seceders, bad his thoughts directed towards the ministry in the established church. But his destination was fixed when, in 1815, the spirited inhabitants of Belfast set up the Belfast Academical Institution, embracing a college. Mr. Young, on the recommendation of the Glasgow professors, was appointed professor of moral philosophy.
Belfast was at that time a much smaller place than it is now, but a place of great enterprise; and among its merchants, its flax spinners, its linen manufacturers, and its ministers of religion, it had a body, if not of very refined yet of very intelligent men, many of them inclined to the Unitarian, or non-subscribing faith; and these men desired to have a good education
He dwells at length on principles of action. The ultimate principle is a desire to secure pleasure and avoid pain. He traces the intellectual operation of conception in all affections and passions, following out the Stoic resolution of passion as developed by the representative of Stoicism in Cicero's "Tusculan Disputations" (lib. iv.),[91] and by which they thought that passion might be brought thoroughly under the control of judgment by a proper regulation of the conception. The Stoic moralists and Mylne did service to philosophy by giving the proper place to the idea or conception; but then he does not see that the conception must be of something appetible or inappetible, derived from a spring of action in the heart or will. He has a good division of the affections into: (1) Those in which the object of them is regarded as in possession, including joy and all its modifications; (2) Those in which the object is absent, though attainable: this produces desire; (3) Those in which the object either already attained, or about to be attained, is produced by ourselves, which produces self-satisfaction; (4) Those in which the agency of others is concerned, giving rise to affection and esteem. He held firmly by the doctrine of philosophical necessity in its sternest and most unrelenting form. Altogether, he had much of the character of an old Stoic philosopher, but without those lofty ideas about following nature and the will and decree of God which elevated the systems of Zeno, Cleanthes, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.
XLIX.-- JOHN YOUNG.[92]
T/WO\ pupils of Professor Mylne's created and sustained for a number of years a strong taste for mental science in the Irish province of Ulster, from which the founder of the Scottish philosophy bad come. These were professors in the Belfast College, which imparted a high and useful education to the young men of the north-east of Ireland for a considerable number of years, and till it gave way to Queen's College, Belfast. One of these was John Young, professor of moral philosophy, and the other William Cairns, professor of logic and belles-lettres.
John Young was the son of a seceder elder, and was born in Rutherglen in the neighborhood of Glasgow in 1781. He early showed, in the midst of business pursuits, a taste for reading of a high order, for composition, and for spouting. He had difficulties n getting a learned education; but he taught a school, became a clerk in a bleach-field in the neighborhood, and then in a mercantile house in Glasgow; and struggled on, as many a Scotch youth has done, till in 1808, at the age of twenty-seven, he became a student in the University of Glasgow, where he distinguished himself in the classes of logic and moral philosophy, taught by Professors Jardine and Mylne, and took an active part in the college societies, where be displayed, as was thought, extraordinary eloquence. He next attended the divinity hall in the university, and, losing his faith in the stern principles of the seceders, bad his thoughts directed towards the ministry in the established church. But his destination was fixed when, in 1815, the spirited inhabitants of Belfast set up the Belfast Academical Institution, embracing a college. Mr. Young, on the recommendation of the Glasgow professors, was appointed professor of moral philosophy.
Belfast was at that time a much smaller place than it is now, but a place of great enterprise; and among its merchants, its flax spinners, its linen manufacturers, and its ministers of religion, it had a body, if not of very refined yet of very intelligent men, many of them inclined to the Unitarian, or non-subscribing faith; and these men desired to have a good education