BUTLERS WORKS GLADSTONE t VOL. I. Bonbon HENRY FROWDE, M.A. Publisher to the University of Oxford Qtew $orft THE MACMII.LAN COMPANY THE WORKS JOSEPH BUTLER, D.C.L. SOMETIME LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM INTO WITH DIVIDED SECTIONS J SECTIONAL HEADINGS AN INDEX TO EACH VOLUME; AND SOME OCCASIONAL NOTES ALSO PREFATORY MATTER EDITED BY THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE Cuius sacra fcro ingenti perculsus amore IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I: AXJLOGY, ETC. > ^ Ojrfort AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1897 5037. Oxford PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON TRESS BY HORACE HART, M.A. rRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION NATURAL AND REVEALED CONSTITUTION AND COURSE OF NATURE TO WHICH ARE ADDED TWO BRIEF DISSERTATIONS-, I. OF PERSONAL IDENTITY II. OF THE NATURE OF VIRTUE ; AND A CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR. SAMUEL CLARKE JOSEPH BUTLER, D.C.L. SOMETIME LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM EDITED BY THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE rforo AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1897 EDITOR'S PEEFACE rPHE purpose with which this edition of Bishop Butler's Works is published, is to give readier access to the substance and meaning of those works than the student has heretofore enjoyed. The reasons why such access should be afforded, and that in the largest possible degree, are too wide for statement in a Preface, and will perhaps, be sufficiently understood from a collection of Essays which is meant promptly to follow the present publication. But it will be well to set forth the means which have been adopted. These are in brief as follows : 1. The Analogy, and the other works with slight exceptions, have been broken into sections. 2. Every section has been supplied with a heading, intended to assist the eye. and. as far as may be, the mind of the reader, by an indication of its contents. 3. Indexes to each Volume have been provided : and they are framed upon a separate perusal and following of the Text, as clo?e as the present Editor could make it. 4. He has ventured to arid a limited number of Xotes. in part explanatory, and in part illustrative. viii EDITOR'S PREFACE has added to Vol. II. The 5. An Appendix been several pieces which it contains are all of them either by Butler, or associated with his name. 6. The Text of the Analogy has been duly considered 7 under the supervision of the authorities of the Universit} Press, and with the aid furnished by Bishop Fitzgerald's edition of the Analogy (Dublin, 1849), in which many corrections of the current edition of 1844 were made, and a collation with the original text of 1736 was embodied. And now a few words with respect to some of these particulars. First, the labour of the Editor has in the aggregate been considerable. The smallest and least arduous part of it has also been that where he feels most sanguine as to the results. To provide the students of Butler with this facility for comparison and for reference, appeared to him nothing less than a glaring necessity. The embarrassment heretofore felt has been twofold : it has been experienced alike in perusing Butler, and in testing what has been written upon him. Dr. Whewell, in 1848, made a step towards it by pre- fixing to his edition of the Three Sermons on Human Nature a brief syllabus in seventy-nine heads. In six of the Fifteen 1849, publishing an edition of more Sermons, as the Six Sermons on Moral Subjects, he made a more daring advance, and divided each of them into a continuous series of paragraphs or articles regularly numbered, while he prefixed to them a cor- responding list in 160 sentences, each of a very few words. They were such as might have been printed as headings on the margin. Another editor, Dr. Angus, who has laboured on Butler with care and ability, perceived that something was EDITOR'S PREFACE IS wanted in order to afford easier access to the Analogy, Dr. and was struck l>y the example of WkeweU, but concluded that 'this plan seemed a liberty which lie was not justified in taking V And notwithstanding that this very same liberty has now been taken, and that on the largest scale, a tribute of sympathy may still l>e paid to the temper which made Dr. Angus feel that the mere body and figure of works such as those of Butler were to be handled with scruple and with reverence. It would have been well if the modesty of Butler had allowed him to anticipate that his leading productions would become classics in the philosophical theology of his country, and if he had accordingly furnished them with all facilities for perusal in the mode and form which he was of all men by far the best fitted to determine. But the dominant consideration with the present Editor has been this, that for want of an easily available power of reference from part to part of works so close in tissue and so profoundly charged with vital matter, the difficulty of mastering Butler has been seriously aggra- vated, if not multiplied manifold. Most of the editions are without index : but an index is an imperfect help, and the reference to a particular page, good for the particular edition, is valueless for every other. The consequence is that it is often necessary to spend half an hour in looking for a passage. And the further consequence is that, as a high tariff engenders smuggling, so readers, and even critics, of Butler are often compelled or induced to forgo this trouble, and let remote recollec- tion or vague impression shift for itself. It is indeed too easy to show how disastrously censors of Butler in 1 Preface to Angus's Butler. X EDITOR'S PREFACE some instances have failed to represent him correctly, owing, as I believe, to this cause. Without sectional divisions, would not our mani- pulation of the ancient philosophers be hopelessly em- 1 barrassed ? And yet who is there among them, unless perhaps Aristotle, the tissue of whose thought is closer than that of Butler? Secondly, with the plan of sectional division has been combined that of sectional headings. And here the Editor must admit that, while the task of framing them is of a one difficulty not to be wholly overcome (as far as his experience enables him to speak) by any amount of labour, the result may probably remain far from satisfactory. Still, on the one hand, these headings may often be useful to the of a searcher on guides eye ; and, the other hand, they may supply in a form more direct and easy, if less complete, the same description of help as is aimed at by a more formal analysis. Thirdly, as to Indexes. The Analogy, to which is subjoined the Clarke corre- spondence as well as the Two Dissertations, has so close a coherence in itself between every chapter, and indeed every sentence, that, although at numerous points it touches the same subject-matter as the Sermons, there is upon the whole a marked distinction : and it appeared desirable therefore to give a separate Index to each Volume. While perhaps no writer requires an index so much as Butler, it may be also said that for no writer is it more difficult to frame an index which shall answer its proper purpose. A number of indexes have been framed for the Analogy. I do not remember any for the Sermons, which however also require this auxiliary. But what is the proper basis of an index? \<>t to EDITORS PREFACE XX present an exhaustive analysis, but rather to supply an aid to the memory of the student. The student ought to find in the several items of an index, under the most of natural and (so to speak) salient heads, every point his author's text to which it is likely that, in default of exact recollection, he may desire to refer. This has been the conception or plan on which these Indexes but the task is have been constructed ; difficult, and, though labour has not been spared, the execution may be far from perfect. Fourthly, this edition is also provided with occasional Notes. Their purpose is limited, and their number not very large. Dr. Angus indicates in his brief Preface three, indeed four, purposes of his notes, which may here be repeated in substance. First, to give the history of opinions with which the text has dealt. Secondly, to trace the influ- ence of Butler himself on later writers. Thirdly, to question or qualify his arguments, or to explain his expressions. Fourthly, to make good deficiencies in point of evangelical tone. It appeai-s, however, highly desirable that the student of Butler should not be burdened with unnecessary or distracting notes. In the case of great works like these, as in the case of the Ethics of Aristotle, a mass of notes encumbers and obstructs the road to the author's meaning, which may be accessible enough with the aid of close attention and free reference. The student ought not to find extraneous matter too largely interposed between it and his mind. The last of the heads above given is. in the view of the present Editor, illegitimate and causeless. The second, which would open a very wide field, does not seem well suited to fragmentary discussion. The first is useful on account of the amount xn EDITOR'S PREFACE of tacit reference to prior writers, which Butler, in his anxiety to avoid controversy, lias embodied without names in his text but it to indi- ; should be confined cating immediate sources.