The Scottish Philosophy [5]
and belief. Brown makes them intuitions simple and original. Hamilton views them under a great many aspects, but seems {7} to contemplate them most frequently and fondly after the manner of Kant, as forms or conditions. But whatever minor or major differences there may be in the fulness of their exposition, or in the favorite views which they individually prefer, all who are truly of the Scottish school agree in maintaining that there are laws, principles, or powers in the mind anterior to any reflex observation of them, and acting independently of the philosophers' classification or explanation of them. While the Scottish school thus far agrees with the rational and systems, it differs from them most essentially, in refusing to admit any philosophic maxims except such laws or principles as can be shown by self-inspection to be in the very constitution of the mind. It has always looked with doubt, if not suspicion, on all purely abstract and rational discussions, such as that by which Samuel Clarke demonstrated the existence of God; and its adherents have commonly discountenanced or opposed all ambitious systems, such as those which were reared in imposing forms in Germany in the end of last, and the beginning of the present, century.
These three characters are found, in a more or less decided form, in the works of the great masters of the school. I am not sure indeed whether they have been formally announced by all, nor whether they have always been consistently followed out. I allow that the relation of the three principles one to another, and their perfect congruity and consistency, have not always been clearly discerned or accurately expressed. In particular, I am convinced that most of the Scottish metaphysicians have not clearly seen how it is that we must ever proceed in mental science by observation, while there are at the same time in the mind laws superior to and independent of observation; how it is that while there are principles in the mind, it is yet true that we cannot construct a philosophy by speculation. But with these explanations and deductions, it may be maintained that the characters specified are to be found, either announced or acted on, in the pages of all the writers of the school, from Hutcheson to Hamilton. Whenever they are discovered in the works of persons connected with Scotland, the writers are to be placed among the adherents of the school. Wherever there is the total absence of any one of them, we cannot allow the author a place in the fraternity. {8}
The Scottish metaphysicians and moralists have left their impression their own land, not only on the ministers of religion, and through them upon the body of the people, but also on the whole thinking mind of the country. The chairs of mental science in the Scottish colleges have had more influence than any others in germinating thought in the minds of Scottish youth, and in giving a permanent bias and direction to their intellectual growth. We have the express testimony of a succession of illustrious men for more than a century, to the effect that it was Hutcheson, or Smith, or Reid, or Beattie, or Stewart, or Jardine, or Mylne, or Brown, or Chalmers, or Wilson, or Hamilton, who first made them feel that they had a mind, and stimulated them to independent thought. We owe it to the lectures and writings of the professors of mental science, acting always along with the theological training and preaching of the country, that men of ability in Scotland have commonly been more distinguished by their tendency to inward reflection than inclination to sensuous observation. Nor is it to be omitted that the Scottish metaphysicians have written the English language, if not with absolute purity, yet with propriety and taste, -- some of them, indeed, with elegance and eloquence, -- and have thus helped to advance the literary cultivation of the country. All of them have not been men of learning in the technical sense of the term, but they have all been well informed in various branches
These three characters are found, in a more or less decided form, in the works of the great masters of the school. I am not sure indeed whether they have been formally announced by all, nor whether they have always been consistently followed out. I allow that the relation of the three principles one to another, and their perfect congruity and consistency, have not always been clearly discerned or accurately expressed. In particular, I am convinced that most of the Scottish metaphysicians have not clearly seen how it is that we must ever proceed in mental science by observation, while there are at the same time in the mind laws superior to and independent of observation; how it is that while there are principles in the mind, it is yet true that we cannot construct a philosophy by speculation. But with these explanations and deductions, it may be maintained that the characters specified are to be found, either announced or acted on, in the pages of all the writers of the school, from Hutcheson to Hamilton. Whenever they are discovered in the works of persons connected with Scotland, the writers are to be placed among the adherents of the school. Wherever there is the total absence of any one of them, we cannot allow the author a place in the fraternity. {8}
The Scottish metaphysicians and moralists have left their impression their own land, not only on the ministers of religion, and through them upon the body of the people, but also on the whole thinking mind of the country. The chairs of mental science in the Scottish colleges have had more influence than any others in germinating thought in the minds of Scottish youth, and in giving a permanent bias and direction to their intellectual growth. We have the express testimony of a succession of illustrious men for more than a century, to the effect that it was Hutcheson, or Smith, or Reid, or Beattie, or Stewart, or Jardine, or Mylne, or Brown, or Chalmers, or Wilson, or Hamilton, who first made them feel that they had a mind, and stimulated them to independent thought. We owe it to the lectures and writings of the professors of mental science, acting always along with the theological training and preaching of the country, that men of ability in Scotland have commonly been more distinguished by their tendency to inward reflection than inclination to sensuous observation. Nor is it to be omitted that the Scottish metaphysicians have written the English language, if not with absolute purity, yet with propriety and taste, -- some of them, indeed, with elegance and eloquence, -- and have thus helped to advance the literary cultivation of the country. All of them have not been men of learning in the technical sense of the term, but they have all been well informed in various branches