The Scottish Philosophy Biographical, Expository, Critical From Hutcheson to Hamilton James McCosh, LL.D., D.D., President of The College of New Jersey, Princeton London: Macmillan And Co. 1875 Contents Prefatory Note .................................................................................... 5 I. Characteristics of The School. ...................................................... 6 II. State of Scotland ......................................................................... 15 III. Precursors of the School ............................................................ 24 IV. Shaftesbury ................................................................................ 30 V. Gershom Carmichael ................................................................... 36 VI. Andrew Baxter ........................................................................... 41 VII. Francis Hutcheson .................................................................... 49 VIII. Religious Conflicts—Ralph Erskine ....................................... 82 IX Archibald Campbell .................................................................... 86 X. Alexander Moncrieff ................................................................... 87 XI Rise of The Aberdeen Branch ..................................................... 88 XII George Turnbull ........................................................................ 91 XIII David Fordyce ........................................................................ 100 XIV William Duncan ..................................................................... 101 XV John Stevenson ....................................................................... 102 XVI. Sir John Pringle..................................................................... 103 XVII. Thomas Boston .................................................................... 104 XVIII. David Dudgeon................................................................... 106 XIX. David Hume .......................................................................... 108 XX. Books Advertised in “Scot’s Magazine.” ............................... 149 XXI. Adam Smith .......................................................................... 150 XXII. Henry Home (Lord Kames) ................................................. 160 XXIII. American Philosophy—John Witherspoon ......................... 168 XXIV. James Balfour ..................................................................... 176 XXV. Alexander Gerard................................................................. 177 XXVI. Thomas Reid ...................................................................... 178 XXVII. The Aberdeen Philosophical Society................................. 209 XXVIII. James Oswald .................................................................. 212 XXIX. James Beattie .................................................................... 213 XXX. George Cambell ................................................................... 220 XXXI. James Burnett (Lord Monboddo) ....................................... 226 XXXII. Adam Ferguson................................................................. 234 XXXIII. James Hutton ................................................................... 241 XXXIV. John Gregory ................................................................... 243 XXXV. James Gregory .................................................................. 245 XXXVI. Alexander Crombie ......................................................... 247 XXXVII. Archibald Arthur............................................................ 248 XXXVIII. John Bruce .................................................................... 248 XXXIX. Review of The Century ................................................... 248 XL. Dugald Stewart ....................................................................... 253 XLI. William Lawrence Brown...................................................... 281 XLII. Archibald Alison .................................................................. 282 XLIII. George Fardine ................................................................... 289 XLIV Thomas Brown ................................................................... 291 XLV. Francis Jeffrey ...................................................................... 309 XLVI. Sir James Mackintosh ......................................................... 316 XLVII. Henry (Lord) Brougham .................................................... 329 XLVIII. James Mylne..................................................................... 334 XLIX. John Young ......................................................................... 337 L. William Cairns .......................................................................... 340 LI. James Mill ................................................................................ 341 LII. John Ballantyne....................................................................... 357 LIII. Thomas Chalmers .................................................................. 362 LIV. John Abercrombie ................................................................. 374 LV. David Welsh ............................................................................ 376 LVI. John Wilson ........................................................................... 379 LVII. Sir William Hamilton ........................................................... 384 LVIII. The Metaphysics of The Future .......................................... 420 Appendix ........................................................................................ 425 Notes .............................................................................................. 445 Prefatory Note This work has been with me a labor of love. The gathering of materials for it, and the writing of it, as carrying me into what I feel to be interest- ing scenes, have afforded me great pleasure, which is the only reward I am likely to get. I publish it, as the last, and to me the only remaining, means of testifying my regard for my country—loved all the more be- cause I am now far from it—and my country’s philosophy, which has been the means of stimulating thought in so many of Scotland’s sons. The English-speaking public, British and American, has of late been listening to divers forms of philosophy,—to Coleridge, to Kant, to Cousin, to Hegel, to Comte, to Berkeley,—and is now inclined to a materialistic psychology. Not finding permanent satisfaction in any of these, it is surely possible that it may grant a hearing to the sober philosophy of Scotland. M. Cousin has remarked that the philosophy of Scotland is part of the history of the country. I have treated it as such; and I claim to have one qualification for the work: I am in thorough sympathy with the characteristic sentiments of my native land. I have farther tried to make my work a contribution to what may be regarded as a new department of science, the history of thought, which is quite as important as the history of wars, of commerce, of literature, or of civilization. Some of these articles have appeared in the “North British Review,” the “British and Foreign Evangelical Review,” and the “Dublin Univer- sity Magazine;” but the greater number are now given to the public for the first time, and all of them have been rewritten. J. McC. Princeton, New Jersey, October, 1874. 6/James McCosh I. Characteristics of The School. The Germans have histories without number of their philosophy from Kant to Hegel, with not a few historical reviews of the later specula- tions. The French, too, have numerous sketches of the philosophy of their country generally, and of individual systems, such as that of Descartes. It is no way to the credit of British thought, and least of all to that of the Scotch metaphysicians, that we have not in our language a history of the Scottish school of philosophy. There are valuable notices of it, it is true, in Dugald Stewart’s Historical Dissertation, and in his Eloges of Reid and Adam Smith; but Stewart is far too dignified and general in his style to be able to give an articulate account of the special doctrines of the different masters of the school, or a vivid picture of the times, with many of the marked characteristics of which he had no sym- pathy. The best history of the Scottish Philosophy is by a Frenchman, and has not been translated into English. We look on “Philosophie Ecossaise,” the volume in which M. Cousin treats of the Scottish school, as containing upon the whole the most faultless of all his historical dis- quisitions. In his other volumes he scarcely does justice to Locke, whom he always judges from the evil consequences which have flowed from his philosophy on the continent, and he is not able to wrestle success- fully with the powerful logical intellect of Kant; but he has a thorough appreciation of the excellencies of the Scottish metaphysicians, and, when he finds fault, his criticisms are always worthy of being consid- ered. But it could not be expected of a foreigner, that he should thor- oughly comprehend the state of Scotland when its peculiar philosophy arose, nor be able to estimate its relation to the national character; and the account given by M. Cousin is fragmentary, and critical rather than expository. The Scottish Philosophy possesses a unity, not only in the circum- stance that its expounders have been Scotchmen, but also and more specially in its method, its doctrines, and its