Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1881-10-18

enecte0 TO deSp1se poetry, and that hi
deprecated the ancients; which cir
|cumstance,' he adds, 'asl am informet
from undoubted authority, was the sub
|ject Of perpetual discontent and dispute
between him and his pupil Lord Shaftes
bury That Shaftesbury was not in
sensible to Locke's real merits appears
sufficiently from passage in his Fsrs
Letter to q Student at the Cniversity =
However, am not sorry that I lent
You Locke's Essay, . book that may q
well qualify men for business and the
world as for the sciences and the uni.
vereity. No one has done more towards
the recalling Of philosophy from bar
ba!ty into use and practice of the world,
and into the company Of the better and
potter Bort, who might well be ashamed
Of It In Its other dress. No one has
opened better and clearer way to rea-
sonAng.' And Mr.. Stewart further adds
in q foot-note - Notwithstanding, how
ever, the countenance which Locke's
reasonings agafnst Innate practical
pstncipses have the appearance Of Civ
inK e the philosophy Of Hobbies. / have
0tIdFd0uht thAt the differences Of opin-
ION between him and Lord 6haftesbury
on this point was almost entirely YER
bal. OF this have elsewhere produced
ample proofs; but the following. pas
sage; written by Mr.. Locke, will
sufnce for my present purpose: Il
would not be mistaken, as II, because I
deny an innate law I thought there
was none but positive laws There ID .
great deal of difference between an in
nate las0 and l0s0 Of nature, between
something imprinted on our mind in
their very original, and something that
we. being ignorant of, may attain to the
knowledge Of, by the use and due ap-
plicati0n Of our natural faculties. And
l think they equally forsake the truth,
who, running into the contrary ex-
tremes, either affirm an innate law, or
deny that there is law movable by
the light of nature, without the help Of
9 positive revelation. n.-Locke's Works,
Vol. I, p. A.
5 Dugald Stewart, in his Philosophy
Man, (Vol. I, page 248 says with
ing the origin of our ideas, 1t is the less
cussi0ne, as 1t comedies in the main
with the doctrine Of Locke, to which I
have elsewhere stated some objections,
which appear to me insurmountable.'-
Elements Of the Philosophy of the Hu.
man Mind, Vol. l, page 81.
Mr.. Locke's aversion to SMILES ie
well known, and was undoubtedly car.
rted to an extreme. Yet there is much
truth and good sense in the following
reflections stew. Elem, Vol. 3, p. 199.
They who In their discourse strike the
fancy, and take the hearers conceptions
along with them as fast as their words
flow, are applauded takers, and go for
the only men Of clear thoughts. Moth
ing contributes 80 much to these az sina-
lilies, whereby men think they them.
selves understand better, because they
are the better understood. But it is one
thing to think right, and 1t is another
thing to know the right way to lay our
thoughts before others with advantage
and clearness, be they right or wrong.
Well chosen SMILES, metaphors, and
allegories, with method and order, do
this the best of anything, because, be.
ing taken from objects already known,
and familiar to the understanding, they
are conceived as fast as spoken and the
correspondence being concluded, the
thing they are brought to explain and
elucidate is thought to be understood too
This fancy passes for knowledge, and
what is prettily said is mistaken for
solid.'-Locke's Conduct of the Under
standing Sec. 80. Now am very free
to admit, that to my mind Mr.. Locke
occupies very tenable ground, and I
think is quite correct in the premises
just reviewed, concerning sinailies; and
the way he puts the case, they are GER
tainly thegay champions of fancy rather
than the sober attendants of Feason.
And we cannot we'll deny that there is
some foundation for the remark so hap
PLY expressed in Pope's noted distich-
"Where beams of warm Imagination play,
The memory's soft figures melt away"
I again find Mr.. Dugald Stewart, in
his Elements Of the Philosophy of the
Human Mind Vol. III, page 1888, thus
critically reviewing Mr.. Locke on is-
termediate principles :-'I cannot help
thinking that LOcke's recommendation
of the fuse iof intermediate principles
must be received with much greater
limitations In the case of all the moral
sciences than he seems to have been
aware of; otherwise he could not have
failed to warn his readers, more explic
lily and earnestly than he has done, of
the extreme difficulty, If not of the Inn.
possibility, of establishing, in any of
these branches of knowledge, isaternse
dinte principles at all analogous to the
theOrems In mathematics. In mechan.
ical philosophy and chemistry, undoubt-
edly, there are many intermediate pria-
ciples which, in the present improved
stdte of these sciences, may be safely
assumed as data; but how few, com
paratively, are the principles to which
we are yet entitled to appeal in any of
the branches of moral learning; not ex.
cepting even the modern, and some.
times too 0racular, science of Political
Economy On all such subjects, Mr..
Locke's advice will be found much less
favorable to the discovery Of truth, than
to display of the disputant's readi-
ness and fiuency In the conduct of an
oral debate, or in the management of q
controversial skirmish in q periodical
journal. l think have observed q pe.
culiar proneness in mathematicians, on
occasions of this sort, to avail them
selves of principles sanctioned by some
imposing names, and to avoid all dis
cussions which might lead to an exami
nation of ultimate truths, or involve q
rigorous analysis of their ideas. The
passage quoted from Locke, without
any comment, sufficiently accounts for
this bias.' I might continue to enumer-
ate extracts from Mr.. Stewards works
to show that he was not by any means
in accord with many of the phfiosophi.
cal ideas of his great predecessor, John
Locke.
We asserted that Hobbies suffered in
his philosophical encounters with DR..
Cudworth, which he did, for truth and
nature were ably arrayed against ather