ART. VII. An Analytical Abridgement of Locke's Efay concerning Human Understanding. 12mo. 307 pp. 5s. 6d. Lunn, London; Barrett, Cambridge; and Blifs, Oxford. 1808. ART. VIII. An Analysis of Mr. Locke's Effay concerning Human Understanding. By Edward Oliver, D.D. Formerly Fellow of Sydney Suffex College, in Cambridge. 4to. 49 pp. Rivingtons. WE E clafs thefe two works together, becaufe, though the nature of the one is very different from that of the other, the object of both is the fame. That object is to facilitate the understanding of Locke's celebrated Effay, which, both authors inform us, has always been regarded as a standing book of liberal education, particularly in the Univerfity of Cambridge, where a thorough knowledge of it is confidered as among the indifpenfable requifites for attaining the first degree in arts. Both authors profefs the most unbounded veneration for Locke; and the Abridger feems even to unite with Horne Tooke, whom he calls the moft diftinguished philofopher of the age! in "reverencing him on this fide of idolatry." Yet this femi-idolator confeffes, that Locke's ftyle and method are not faultlefs. "In proportion," he fays, "to the intrinfic value of a work, it is to be regretted that it fhould lie under any dif advantages from its style or method; and it is hard to fay, whether an obfcure brevity or a tedious prolixity tends more to difcourage the reader; for as the first requires amplification by commentary, the fecond requires condenfation by analyfis. But an author may obfcure his thoughts as much by too diffufe as by too concise a ftyle; and if the fubject is new or difficult, may not perceive that he fometimes labours rather to exprefs himself than to imprefs the reader, and to compenfate for the feebleness by the frequency of his efforts: hence the reader is apt to become tired before the writer becomes intelligible. "Whoever reads the Effay with attention, will probably confefs himself fatiated with explanations and recapitulations, which for the most part are only repetitions in other terms. There feems, indeed, now to be but one opinion as to its merits and its faults; and perhaps no book is at the fame time fo mesh praifed and fo little read; for while the fubject invites all, the treatment of it repels moft. On its first publication it laboured under the merits of the matter; it now labours under the faults of the flyle: it was then decried as novel and dangerous; it is now neglected as tedious and inmethodical." Abridgement, Pref. Dr. Oliver makes nearly the fame complaint of the dif fufe flyle of the Effay, and of the interruptions and repetitions, by which its readers are apt to be difgufted; and it is to remedy thefe defects in ftyle and method that the two works before us have been given to the public. For this purpofe Dr. Oliver has made a moft fcientific analyfis of the Effay, in the form of an Index; flating the order in which every fibject, difcuffed in that work, fhould be tudied, and pointing to the chapters in the original, which, if read with attention, may fuperfede the neceffity of reading other chapters, in which the fame difcuffions occur again in words fomewhat different. He has omitted the difcuffion, which makes the fubject of the fift book of the Effay, altogether, "becaufe the old doctrine of innate ideas and principles is now generally given up." This omiflion we think very improper; for though the old doctrine is given up by the difciples of Locke, it can with no propriety be faid to be either given up or retained by thofe who have not fludied the question. It is likewife known, we fhould think to Dr. Oliver himfelf, that there are philofophers of defe vedly high reputation, who, though they give up the old doctrine of innate idea of fenfation, yet maintain the doctrine of innate or inflinctive moral principles. Such were Shaftsbury and Hutchinfon with their followers; fuch was Dr. Beattie, whofe reputation as a philofopher and a poet was once very high; fuch was the late Lord Kames, a man certainly of refpectable talents; and fuch, to a certain degree and in a certain fenfe, was Dr. Reid, anqueftionably one of the profoundelt metaphyficians of the age in which he lived. The anonymous author has purfued a very different method from that 6. Dr. Oliver. In the hope of extending the benefits of fo excellent a work as the Effay concerning, Human Understanding, he has ventured to offer to the ftudent of philofophy, not an analytical index to the original, but this epitome, in which he fays, that He has endeavoured to give the fpirit, without fervilely. copying the words of the original, and to comprife every fen timent of his author's, however inconfiftent it might feem with the tenor of the work, or however abfurd in itself. His purpofe has been to retain all that a judicious reader would wish to remember; reftricted however by the confideration, that he was aot to curtail, but merely to comprefs the matter of the original, without without altering its arrangement. Where any paffage appeared too remarkable for thought or expreffion to fuffer abridgement, he has marked its infertion by inverted commas." Abridg. Pref. Each author feems to have performed with great accuracy the talk which he undertook. The analytical index of Dr. Oliver must prove a very ufeful key to the original Effay; and the Abridgement is a faithful fummary of the doctrines taught in that original. Were we called upon to fay which of the two works is the more valuable, we should, with fome hesitation, give the preference to the Abridgement; because a youth of good parts might by it alone be initiated into the fcience of metaphyfics, which he could not be by a mere index, however fcientifically conftructed. Neither of the works, indeed, is either intended by its author, or calculated in itfelf, to fuperfede the neceffity of studying the original. Dr. Oliver's is in fact nothing more than a feries of directions how to ftudy that original with the greatest advantage, and at the fame time with the least poffible fatigue to the mind. The anonymous author declares (Pref.) that it is not the purpose of his "Abridgement to fuperfede, but to recommend and promote the ftudy of the original; and to enable the reader to comprehend its fcope, by compacting thofe thoughts which lie fcattered and disjoined, and drawing forth thofe which lie hid in a thicket of words." As thefe two works do not fuperfede the ufe of the original, neither of them is of fuch a nature as to render the other ufelefs. In the Abridgement, though generally very perfpicuous, the matter is fometimes too much compreffed to be readily apprehended by the young ftudent; and when that is the cafe, Dr. Oliver's Analysis will direct him where to find it more fully detailed by Locke himfelf, without toiling through all the verbolity and repetition of the original. Or thould he begin with the study of the original under the guidance of Dr. Oliver, a subse quent perufal of the Abridgement will fix in his mind. every thing of importance which he has learned from that' work. As neither Dr. Oliver nor the anonymous author controvert any of Locke's opinions, we have no further concern with them than to ftate the object of each, and to bear our teftimony to their fidelity; for the merits of Locke's Ellay do not come directly under our cognizance. } We beg leave however to afk, with all poffible refpect for fo learned a body, why, in the University of Cambridge, a thorough knowledge in that Effay in particular is confidered as fo indifpenfable a requifite for attaining the first degree in arts. That a thorough knowledge of the fubjects of which Locke treats, fhould be confidered as requifite for the attaining that honour, we readily grant; but the nature of the works before us, as well as the language of their authors, would lead a firanger to fuppofe, that a candidate for the degree of A.B. in the Univerfity of Cambridge must adopt all Locke's notions. This, we are aware, cannot be the cafe; for of Locke's notions, fome are questionable and others obviously falfe. His notions of power, for inftauce, feem very confufed, if not incorrect; and what he fays of abstraction and abstract ideas is contradictory and abfurd. His vague ufe of the term idea to exprefs not only every internal object of human thought, but also the external qualities of bodies by which ideas are excited in the mind, is very apt to lead his reader, as it feems to have fometimes led himself, into great miftakes; and as he was confeffedly indebted for much of his eminence as a philofopher to the writings of thofe who had gone before him, over the fame field of science, why fhould the young ftudent of the prefent age be precluded from confulting the writings of thofe who have come after him? No man has more frequently pleaded the caufe of Locke against the uncandid attack of fome individuals of the Scottish School than the writer of this article; but he never imagined Locke to be infallible, or wholly original, or that there is not much to be borrowed from fuch diftinguifhed ornaments of that fchool, as Reid, Campbell, and Stewart. That Locke derived much from Hobbes is very generally known; but it is not perhaps fo generally known, that his doctrine concerning the origin of cur ideas is as clearly taught by that prodigy of learning, Bishop Pearfon, in his expofition of the first article of the Apoflles' Creed, as it is in the first book of the Ejay conterning Human Understanding. Locke was a great and a good man, and was enabled by the vigour of his own mind, and by fuch aids as he derived from preceding philofophers, to throw more light on the operations of the understanding, and on the nature of human knowledge, than has been done, perhaps, by any other individual ancient or modern; but he was not infallible, nor has he exhausted the subject. Would it not then be an improvement on the prefent plan of education, to publifh an elementary fyftem of intellectual philofophy, philofophy, compiled from the most eminent authors, whether ancient or modern, foreign or domeftic, with references to the works where the different topics are moft fully treated; and to make the candidates for the first degree in arts ftudy that fyftem, instead of obliging them to ftudy Locke's Effay, and Locke's Effay only? We throw out this hint with the greatest deference, perfectly aware that the Heads of Houses and the Tutors in the Univerfity of Cambridge are much better qualified to direct our ftudies, than we are to improve the plan of their's. Dr. Oliver indeed does refer to the Rev. Mr. Gay, Dr. Hartley, and Bishop Butler, as illuftrating and improving fome of Locke's notions; and to Bishop Berkeley and Dr. Campbell, as expofing the abfurdity of what he fays of abftraction; but, though a Cambridge man, we do not fuppofe that the Doctor writes by authority from the Univerfity, while we are decidedly of opinion, that various other authors might have been recommended to the young ftudent with greater propriety than fome of these. ART. IX. Differtations on the principal Prophecies repreprefenting the divine and human Character of our Lord Jefus Chrift. By William Hales, D. D. Rector of Killefandra, formerly Profeffor of Oriental Languages in the University of Dublin. 2d Ed. corrected. 8vo. 362 pp. 8s. Rivingtons. 1808. OUR UR paufe upon this book has been the paufe of forrow. The author, in many parts of it, enters into controverfy with the BRITISH CRITIC. But, alas! the illuftrious perfon against whom the controverfy is really directed, and who had condefcended occafionally to veil himfelf under that title, no longer remains on earth to vindicate either us, or his own opinions. That perfon was no other than the late BISHOP HORSLEY, who, taking upon himself the task of examining the heterodoxies of GEDDES, took occasion to introduce a learned and valuable difcuffion" on the sacred names of God in the Hebrew language *. Whether that diftinguished fcholar ever faw the opinions of this opponent, in the former edition, we have no means of knowing. If he did, he certainly felt no particular anxiety to answer them, or he would have honoured us with the com Brit. Crit. vol. xix. p. 137, &c. &c. E 4 munication. |