ON THE HISTORY OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. A NEW EDITION WITH ADDITIONAL LECTURES. BY WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D. MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. Λαμπάδια ἔχοντες διαδώσουσιν ἀλλήλοις. CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL, AND CO. LONDON: BELL AND DALDY. 1862. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. HE first Twelve Lectures of the following Col THE lection were delivered, nearly as they are here printed, by me in the first year of my tenure of the office of Professor of Moral Philosophy, to which I had been appointed in 1838. The history of Moral Philosophy in England in modern times was taken as a subject which might be treated in some tolerable manner with one year's preparation. In subsequent years I took other portions of the history of Moral Philosophy, both in ancient and in modern times. Some of the Additional Lectures thus produced will now be published as a sequel to the present volume. But the Lectures on Jeremy Bentham, which conclude the first series, were added to the first year's Lectures, when these were published. The account of Bentham's system was the natural sequel to the accounts of the systems of preceding English moralists. And it seemed to me that besides discussing Bentham's ethical doctrines, it might be useful to give an account in a compendious form of some of his speculations in Jurisprudence; inasmuch as on this subject his writings are voluminous, and their leading features may not be readily seized by the general reader. I have pointed out freely both Mr Bentham's merits and his defects in this department: for instance, in the Classification of Offenses I have pointed out that his method produces cross divisions of the subject, cumbrous and shapeless appendages to the regular members of his classification, and the absence of obvious places for some of the most common offenses, as Fraud, Breach of Contract, Debt. I do not know that any of Bentham's admirers have attempted to show that his system does not labour under these defects: indeed he himself allows it. I have attempted also to show how these defects may be avoided. The Dissertations of Dugald Stewart and of Mackintosh on the history of Moral Philosophy go over much of the same ground as my Lectures: but still I hope that the reflexions which the perusal of our English moralists has suggested to me, may have some interest for those who trace the progress of moral opinions and principles among men. Of the kind of interest which such a view of the subject may excite, a curious example has recently appeared in a volume which has drawn much notice, entitled Essays and Reviews. Mr Pattison, the author of one of those 'Essays,' entitled 'Tendencies of Religious Thought in England, 1688-1750,' has to speak of several of the same writers of whom I have spoken in the following Lectures. The connexion of 'Religious Thought' with moral speculation naturally brings him into the same field on which I have offered my remarks. And Mr Pattison agrees with what I have said in the beginning of Lecture VI. as to the profligate and sensual tone of speaking and writing which prevailed at the beginning of the last century, and which I have exemplified especially in Mandeville. He goes on to say (p. 323): "Though there is entire unanimity as to the fact of the prevailing corruption, there is the greatest diversity of opinion as to its cause." He then proceeds to enumerate various causes of this state of things, assigned by various parties; and this he does in a manner which makes his list amusing, but, I think, somewhat sarcastic towards the persons enumerated in it. The Nonjurors and High Churchmen, he says, attribute it to the Toleration Act and the Latitudinarianism allowed in high places: for instance, to the favour shown to Bishop Hoadley's celebrated Sermon. The Latitudinarian Clergy divide the blame between the Freethinkers and the Nonjurors. The Freethinkers point to the hypocrisy of the Clergy, who, they say, lost all credit with the people by having preached passive obedience up to 1688, and then suddenly finding out that it was not a scriptural truth. The Nonconformists lay it to the enforcement of conformity and the unscriptural terms of communion; while the Catholics rejoice to see in it the Protestant Reformation at last bearing its natural fruit. And Warbur |