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Among the evidences of the general interest felt in such speculations, we may notice the foundation of the Professorship in virtue of which I now stand before you. It was founded in 1683, by Dr Knightbridge, fellow of St Peter's College, and by Anthony Knightbridge his brother, who took the requisite steps for carrying into effect the intentions of the original testator; these being found to be in some degree informally declared. The endowment was afterwards aug. mented by Dr Smoult, the first person who occupied the professorship. Of others of my predecessors I may have occasion to speak hereafter.

Dr Knightbridge is said to have been of the county of York. The first part of his university education he received at Wadham College, Oxford. When a Bachelor of Arts of three years' standing, he was brought from Oxford to St Peter's College; and was, in 1645, made a fellow of that College, in the place of one of the royalists, who were then ejected in great numbers from fellowships in this university by the Parliamentary Commissioners. I have not been able to learn any circumstances which disclose the views which he entertained when he established this foundation of a Professorship, as he terms it, of "Moral Theology or Casuistical Divinity." Treatises on "Moral Theology" were, as I have already said, very frequently published about this time on the Continent, both by divines of the Roman and the Protestant Churches; and Cases of Conscience, as we have seen, were studied with interest in England. The designation of the Professorship employed by the Founder appears to show that he assented fully to the practice of treating Morality mainly upon theological grounds, which had usually prevailed till his time; but which shortly after began to suffer innovation, as I shall soon have to relate.

In the mean time, I must not terminate my first Lecture, without again begging the indulgence of the University, for the very imperfect manner in which, at the present time,

I am able to execute the office of delivering such Lectures as the Professorship requires. The proper study of Moral Philosophy requires no ordinary amount of reading and of thought. I trust that, hereafter, I shall be able to bring before my hearers the results of a longer course of labour employed on this study, and in a maturer form. But I was desirous that, after so long an interruption of the activity of an office which may be so useful in this University, not a single year should elapse without something being done by me to mark its revival; and I conceived that, by taking a limited field, the history of Moral Philosophy in England, and especially in this University, and by tracing only the more prominent features of this history, I might be able to offer some views not uninstructive, even with so short a time of preparation and among other employments. In future years I may attempt, perhaps, a wider range of research, although I would beg to be excused at present from laying down any definite plan or fixed period. My power of giving a full attention to the subject may, for some time, be limited by the prosecution of other speculations which I would not willingly resign. Moreover, these wider speculations to which I refer, although at first they may appear to have no direct bearing upon the special study which belongs to this Professorship, will, I can venture to say, be found in the end to be subservient, in a very important manner, to the clearness and soundness of our ethical reasonings. Inquiries into the nature of truth, the means and methods of its discovery, and the philosophy of science, even though they set out from the study of physical science, if they are at all successful, cannot fail to exercise a strong and favourable influence upon our studies with regard to moral truth, moral science, and the true philosophy of human life.

LECTURE II.

HOBBES.

I

HAVE endeavoured to point out the course of things by which the Casuistry of the Romish Church became, in the writers of the Reformed Churches, Moral Philosophy, or, as it was then justly termed, Moral Theology. I have also attempted to show that the doctrine which prevailed among our Divines after this change was one in which an original authority, a divine sanction, and a place as a large part of the foundation of moral rules, was ascribed to Conscience; the structure of man's duties being rested upon Conscience and upon the Divine precepts conjointly.. It has appeared also that the discussion of such subjects had extended far beyond divines and learned men. The use of a vernacular literature, the right of private judgment which was countenanced and stimulated by the Reformation, and the general tendency to a stirring, questioning, and contentious temper, which was at work in the world, led a very great number of the unlearned, and of persons in all ranks, to take a lively and active interest in speculations concerning questions of morality, even when the inquiry was pursued to the deepest foundations and the most entangled intricacies of the subject. I may add that the amazing and rapid progress of physical science, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, led men to look at other branches of knowledge with a vague expectation that some great improvement might be in store for them also. Novelty had ceased to affright, and had become, in the eyes of many, a recommendation. The old was no longer necessarily the right. Truth might perhaps, it was now imagined, be found elsewhere than in the ponderous

tomes of the past. All that was to be allowed to stand must secure its place by proving its claims. Nothing was protected from examination. All things were again to be tried, that the age might find for itself what was good. Under these circumstances, it was not at all likely that the doctrines of Moral Theology, such as I have stated them, would pass unquestioned. In the tumult and effervescence of men's minds, even the sacredness of Conscience might no longer be treated with reverence. In the universal movement, even the foundations of Morality might be dug up, in order to be relaid. Among so many obstinate questioners, so many bold innovators, some one might probably be found who would deny the received principles on which Morality had hitherto been built in the Christian world, and would propose some new system, as more suited to the newly enlightened time. Nor was the received system, in truth, well prepared for a defence against any vigorous attack. The foundations of the city were laid, but the walls were but little advanced in the building; and there was no solid impediment to prevent some audacious Remus from leaping over the rampart of the future mistress of the world. The doctrine that Morality rested jointly upon Conscience and upon Scripture was generally admitted among divines; but the developement of this fundamental notion into a consistent and solid system, had not been executed. The separate offices of these two foundation stones had not been assigned with due accuracy; and, with regard to Conscience, the morality founded upon it, which could only have been impregnable if it had been expounded in a scheme composed of the most rigorous demonstrations, systematically connected and arranged, had never been treated but in a disjointed and arbitrary manner; the reasonings being, indeed, generally sound as far as they reached, but not starting from any common point, nor completed so as to leave no unprotected chasms. Conscience,

though claiming to be an independent authority, often called upon other powers for aid; upon Divine, and even upon Human sanctions, so as to disclose a secret misgiving of her own strength, and to invite the aggression of any enterprizing adversary.

Such an adversary this country soon produced. A man bold, acute, penetrating, unshrinking in speculation, confident in his own powers, contemptuous of the opinions of others, treating with little tenderness, hardly with affected decency, the common prejudices and feelings of mankind, but able to impress his thoughts upon men with singular vividness and energy, such a man dared to lift his hand against the Moral Theology of the time. He dared to proclaim, to the alarmed ears of his contemporaries, that right and wrong had no independent existence; that moral good and evil were sought and must be sought, not for their own sakes, but on account of extraneous advantages; that the natural condition of man is a state of war; that Might is Right, and that Conscience is only Fear. The person of whom I speak is the celebrated Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, who published his opinions in the time of the Commonwealth and of Charles the Second. He lived in considerable familiarity and respect among the eminent men of his time: but his doctrines were looked upon by most of them as dangerous and offensive novelties. He himself indeed was at least as well persuaded as any of his readers, of the originality of his views. In one of his works* he asserted, that though Physics was a new science, Civil Philosophy was a still newer, since it could not be truly said

* Elements of Philosophy, 1656, dedicated to the Earl of Devonshire. After mentioning Copernicus, Galileo, Hervey, Kepler, Gassendi, Mersenne, and the College of Physicians in London, as the only true Natural Philosophers, he adds "Natural Philosophy is therefore but young but Civil Philosophy is yet much younger, as being no older (I say it provoked, that my Detractors may know how little they have wrought upon me) than my book De Cive."

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