The Scottish Philosophy [66]
nature of such subtle and material substances as are imperceptible to the senses, and known only front their operations; (2) The nature of immaterial substances connected with matter, in which is demonstrated, by natural evidence, the immortality of the human soul (3) The nature of immaterial created beings not connected with matter (4) Natural theology, or the existence and attributes of God demonstrated front the light of nature. Ethics or moral philosophy is divided into the theoretical and practical parts, in treating of which the authors lie chiefly uses are Cicero, Marcus Antoninus, Puffendorf, and Lord Bacon. He had lectures explaining the origin and principles of civil government, illustrated with an account of the rise and fall of the ancient governments of Greece and Rome, and a view of that form of government which took its rise from the irruptions of the northern nations. His students have also discourses presented to them upon some important heads of pneumatical or moral philosophy, which are delivered before the principal with open doors. Pringle was by no means so thorough an instructor as Stevenson. Carlyle describes him "as an agreeable lecturer, though no great master of the science he taught." " His lectures were chiefly a compilation from Lord Bacon's works, and had it not been for Puffendorf's small book, which he made his text, we should not have been instructed in the rudiments of the science." Nevertheless, we see that he discussed topics which must issue, sooner or later, in a scientific jurisprudence and political economy. We see, in the case both of Stevenson and Pringle, how much attention was paid in the Scottish universities to the practice of English composition.
Pringle's taste did not lie specially in metaphysics. He was born in Roxburghshire, in 1707, and became a physician. He settled in Edinburgh about 1734; and after 1748, resided in London, where be was elected president of the Royal Society in 1773. He died in 1782
XVII.-- THOMAS BOSTON. W/E\ wish our readers to transport themselves to the eastern border country of Scotland, and to try to realize its condition in the first half of last century. People are apt to take their views of that district from Sir Walter Scott, who passed the most interesting portion of his boyhood there, and picking up the dim traditions of the past ere they were finally lost, and tingeing them with the romantic hues of his own imagination, has presented to us such a picture as a man of the nineteenth century, in love with chivalry, would be {110} likely to furnish of the ages of border strife. But the truth is, Sir Walter has given us only one side of the Scottish character; he never thoroughly sympathized with the more earnest features of the national mind, and he did not appreciate the attempts which were made in the seventeenth century to deliver the country from violence and superstition, and to Promote education and a scriptural religion. The people of the eighteenth century had such traditions of the earlier ages as to be glad that the days of the border raids had passed away. At the time we wish to sketch, two classes of people were to be found in the district. There were landed prorietors, disposed to allow no opposition to their not very generous or enlightened will, but who were already catching the taste for improving the land, which has made Berwickshire one of the most advanced agricultural districts in the three kingdoms. Under them were small farmers and their servants, with the ignorance and much of the rudeness of the previous ages, and not yet awakened to independent thought and action. Between them there was scarcely any middle class, except the parish ministers, who, in the early part of the century, if not highly cultivated, were zealous preachers of the doctrines of grace, and actively seeking to raise their people to church-going habits and a decent morality; and who, at a later date, as patrons began to assert their legal rights, and colleges adopted the new philosophy,
Pringle's taste did not lie specially in metaphysics. He was born in Roxburghshire, in 1707, and became a physician. He settled in Edinburgh about 1734; and after 1748, resided in London, where be was elected president of the Royal Society in 1773. He died in 1782
XVII.-- THOMAS BOSTON. W/E\ wish our readers to transport themselves to the eastern border country of Scotland, and to try to realize its condition in the first half of last century. People are apt to take their views of that district from Sir Walter Scott, who passed the most interesting portion of his boyhood there, and picking up the dim traditions of the past ere they were finally lost, and tingeing them with the romantic hues of his own imagination, has presented to us such a picture as a man of the nineteenth century, in love with chivalry, would be {110} likely to furnish of the ages of border strife. But the truth is, Sir Walter has given us only one side of the Scottish character; he never thoroughly sympathized with the more earnest features of the national mind, and he did not appreciate the attempts which were made in the seventeenth century to deliver the country from violence and superstition, and to Promote education and a scriptural religion. The people of the eighteenth century had such traditions of the earlier ages as to be glad that the days of the border raids had passed away. At the time we wish to sketch, two classes of people were to be found in the district. There were landed prorietors, disposed to allow no opposition to their not very generous or enlightened will, but who were already catching the taste for improving the land, which has made Berwickshire one of the most advanced agricultural districts in the three kingdoms. Under them were small farmers and their servants, with the ignorance and much of the rudeness of the previous ages, and not yet awakened to independent thought and action. Between them there was scarcely any middle class, except the parish ministers, who, in the early part of the century, if not highly cultivated, were zealous preachers of the doctrines of grace, and actively seeking to raise their people to church-going habits and a decent morality; and who, at a later date, as patrons began to assert their legal rights, and colleges adopted the new philosophy,