The Scottish Philosophy [25]
we are landed in an infinite series of causes, which he declares (with Aristotle) self-evidently impossible. He appeals, with the French theologian Abbadie, {42} to universal consent. But he reckons the arguments of Descartes and De Vries, and that by Samuel Clarke, as unsatisfactory. He maintains that we can argue that what we attribute to a thing in idea exists, only after we have shown that the thing exists. He maintains that the existence of God as an existing being is to be established, not , but , and appeals to the traces of order, beauty, and design in the universe, and to the illustrations to be found in the writings of Ray, Pelling, Cheyne, Derham, Niewentite, and in Pitcairn on the Circulation of the Blood. He refers to the properties of matter, as established by Newton; and argues, as Baxter did so resolutely afterwards, that matter cannot move of itself, but needs a new force impressed on it. In regard to the dependence of creature on created power, he holds that things spiritual and corporeal exist so long as they have being from the creative efficacy of God, and speaks of the need of a divine or . He admits, however, that created spirits have efficacy in themselves. He refers to Leibnitz, and shows that he was well acquainted with his theory of possible worlds. It is surely interesting to observe a modest and retiring Scottish writer so thoroughly acquainted with the highest philosophy of his time, British and Continental, and yet retaining his own independence in the midst of his learning. If he cannot be regarded as the founder of the new school, he has the credit of judiciously combining some of the best properties of the old and new philosophy.
VI. -- ANDREW BAXTER B/AXTER\ cannot be justly described as a leader or a follower of the Scottish school. His method is not really nor professedly that of inductive observation. He belongs rather to the school of Samuel Clarke, to whom he often refers, and always with admiration. But be was a Scotchman, and an independent thinker: he does not belong to the old philosophy; but he was a contemporary of the men who founded the Scottish school, and treated of many of the same topics. He had readers both in England and Scotland in his own day, and for some years after his death; and he deserves a passing notice as the representative of a style of thought which met with considerable favor in his time, but had to give way before the new school. {43}
We have a life of him in Kippis's " Biographia Britannica," drawn up from materials supplied by his son. He was the son of a merchant in Old Aberdeen, where he was born in 1686 or 1687. His mother was Elizabeth Frazer, descended from a considerable family in the north. He was educated at King's College, Aberdeen, where, at the beginning of last century, he would be trained in the old logic and metaphysics. But, as we shall see more fully in future articles, a considerable amount of a fresh literary taste, and of a spirit of philosophical inquiry, began to spring up in Aberdeen in connection with the two Universities pretty early in that century. Baxter, besides being a good mathematician, was well acquainted with the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, and with the theories of Leibnitz as to matter and motion. He was familiar with the Essay on the Human Understanding, but had a deeper appreciation of the speculations of Clarke.
The chief professional employment of his life was that of tutor to young men of good family. The boys who, in our days, would be sent to the great public schools of England taught by Oxford or Cambridge masters, were very often, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, put under tutors, who went about with them to the colleges at home, or travelled with them abroad. The occupation of teaching and travelling tutor was one coveted by young men of limited means and of a reading taste, who did not wish officially to enter the church, and had no other office open to them than that referred
VI. -- ANDREW BAXTER B/AXTER\ cannot be justly described as a leader or a follower of the Scottish school. His method is not really nor professedly that of inductive observation. He belongs rather to the school of Samuel Clarke, to whom he often refers, and always with admiration. But be was a Scotchman, and an independent thinker: he does not belong to the old philosophy; but he was a contemporary of the men who founded the Scottish school, and treated of many of the same topics. He had readers both in England and Scotland in his own day, and for some years after his death; and he deserves a passing notice as the representative of a style of thought which met with considerable favor in his time, but had to give way before the new school. {43}
We have a life of him in Kippis's " Biographia Britannica," drawn up from materials supplied by his son. He was the son of a merchant in Old Aberdeen, where he was born in 1686 or 1687. His mother was Elizabeth Frazer, descended from a considerable family in the north. He was educated at King's College, Aberdeen, where, at the beginning of last century, he would be trained in the old logic and metaphysics. But, as we shall see more fully in future articles, a considerable amount of a fresh literary taste, and of a spirit of philosophical inquiry, began to spring up in Aberdeen in connection with the two Universities pretty early in that century. Baxter, besides being a good mathematician, was well acquainted with the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, and with the theories of Leibnitz as to matter and motion. He was familiar with the Essay on the Human Understanding, but had a deeper appreciation of the speculations of Clarke.
The chief professional employment of his life was that of tutor to young men of good family. The boys who, in our days, would be sent to the great public schools of England taught by Oxford or Cambridge masters, were very often, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, put under tutors, who went about with them to the colleges at home, or travelled with them abroad. The occupation of teaching and travelling tutor was one coveted by young men of limited means and of a reading taste, who did not wish officially to enter the church, and had no other office open to them than that referred