Conscientiæ, quatenus Notiones a Naturâ suppetunt, judicari possunt. Ethicorum simul, et Juris, presertim Civilis, Consultorum consensus ostenditur, Principia item et rationes Hobbesii Malmesburiensis ad Ethicam et Politicam spectantes, quatenus huic Hypothesi contradicere videantur, in examen veniunt. In this treatise, it is asserted that the object of virtuous action is a serene tranquillity and joy, which the ancients understood under the name of pleasure; and a large array of quotations from ancient authors is produced, with a view to shew that the pain of a troubled conscience outweighs all other evil, and thus to prove the groundlessness of Hobbes's statement, that this effect of conscience only depended on external fear. In like manner the author collects testimonies, both of heathen and Christian philosophers, to prove that the happiness which is the true end of human existence is to be obtained by following the dictates of right reason. It is not to my present purpose to show how Sharrock follows out his principle into a system of duties, nor how he assails other parts of the Hobbian doctrines: what I have thus briefly stated may serve to show the general course of the controversy on the main question, so far as Sharrock is concerned. I now proceed to the Cambridge opponents of Hobbes.

Dr Henry More, of Christ's College, Cambridge, is less known as an ethical writer than as a divine, of a profoundly contemplative and pious character, of great learning, but with a strong turn to an enthusiastic and mystical cast of thought. He was greatly esteemed by his contemporaries, and his writings, in their day, were extensively read and much admired. Hobbes declared that whenever he discovered his own philosophy to be untenable, he would embrace the opinions of Dr More; and Addison terms his Enchiridion Ethicum an admirable system of Ethics. This is the work

of his with which I have here mainly to do. It was written, it appears by the preface, in 1667, the author setting about

his task, as he declares, with a most unwilling and reluctant mind, at the earnest entreaty of friends. The grounds of his reluctance he states to be-his persuasion that a dry system of morality was of small value, compared with that virtue which is not taught, but apprehended by faith from God and his Word;-his love of other more cherished studies, which "soothed him with their mild and dewy air;"—and his knowledge that an excellent and learned person was writing a work on the immutable reasons of Good and Ill; by which I presume Cudworth, the master of his own college, is pointed at. Cudworth had already maintained the eternal and indestructible nature of the measures of Good and III, on taking his B.D. degree in 1644. The Enchiridion Ethicum does in fact approach in its doctrines very near to the Immutable Morality of Cudworth. Yet, inasmuch as, in stating his fundamental principles, More seems to define virtuous actions by their reference to an end, rather than to their own nature, I place him in the former division of the opponents of the sensual school. Ethics is, he begins by asserting, the art of living well and happily, Ars bene beateque vivendi. And he forthwith proceeds to treat of this happiness, de Beatitudine. He soon determines that this beatitude is to be placed in a 'Boniform Faculty.' Of this boniform faculty, the fruit is a happiness or divine love, than which no greater happiness can exist, he ventures to declare, either in the present life or in the future. And this happiness must arise, not from the mere knowledge, but from the sense of virtue, ex sensu virtutis.

It becomes obvious, in such expressions, how easy the transition is, from the consideration of virtue as the source of happiness, to virtue as perceived by a peculiar faculty; since, in this view, the happiness, as well as the perception, requires a peculiar faculty for its realization. "If any one," More says, "estimates the fruit of virtue by that imaginary

knowledge of virtue which is acquired by definitions alone, it is all one as if he should try to estimate the knowledge of fire from a fire painted on the wall, which has no power whatever to keep off the winter's cold." "Every vital good," he adds, "is perceived and judged of by a life and a sense. Virtue is an intimate life, not an external form, nor a thing visible to outward eyes." And he quotes from one of his favourites, the Neoplatonists, "If thou art this, thou hast seen this."

Much to the same purpose are his expressions in verse, in his address prefixed to his poem entitled Psychozoia, The Life of the Soul.

Reader, sith it is the fashion

To bestow some salutation,

I greet thee; give thee leave to look
And nearly view my opened Book;
But see thou that thine eyes be clear
If aught thou would'st discover there.
Expect from me no Teian strain,
No light wanton Lesbian vein.
Silent Recess, waste Solitude,
Thoughts deep-searching oft renew'd;
Still conflict 'gainst importunate vice
That daily doth the soul entice
From her high throne of circling light
To plunge her in eternal night;
Collection of the mind from stroke
Of this world's magic, that doth cloke

Her with foul smothering mists and stench,

And in Lethean waves her drench;

A daily Death, dread Agony,

Privation, dry sterility;

Who is well entered in these ways

Fit'st is to read my lofty lays.

But whom but fear and wrath control

Scarce know their body from their soul.
If any such chance hear my verse,
Dark numerous nothings I rehearse
To them; make out an idle sound

In which no inward sense is found.

The production to which this address is prefixed is a collection of allegorical poems, in the stanza, and very much

in the style, of Spenser. It is dedicated to his father, to whom he gives as a reason. You having from my childhood tuned mine ears to Spenser's rhymes, entertaining us on winters' nights with that incomparable piece of his The Fairy Queen, a poem as richly fraught with divine morality as fancy."

These poems are entitled, Platonic Songs of the Soul, treating of the Life of the Soul, her Immortality, the Sleep of the Soul (against which he argues), the Unity of Souls, and Memory after Death. Perhaps I may be allowed to quote a single stanza as a specimen :

But yet, my Muse, still take a higher flight,
Sing of Platonic faith in the First Good,
That Faith that doth our sculs to God unite,
So strongly, tightly, that the rapid flood
Of this swift flux of things, nor with foul mud
Can stain, nor strike us off from unity,
Wherein we stedfast stand, unshak'd, unmov'd,
Engrafted by a deep vitality.

The prop and stay of things is God's benignity.

There can be little doubt that More's Enchiridion was written with a view of counteracting the poison of the Hobbian doctrines: yet the name of Hobbes is, I think, nowhere mentioned in the book. On the other hand, Descartes is constantly referred to, almost always with commendation, though often with dissent and warning. And to the Enchiridion is appended a letter to a V. C., containing an apology for Descartes, and fit to serve as an Introduction to the Cartesian Philosophy." When we consider the want of reverence to the ancient philosophers which pervaded Descartes's style of philosophizing, and the materialist aspect of his physical doctrines, this admiration of him on the part of More may seem somewhat strange and inconsistent. Yet we find this tendency in other works of the same school, as in the Intellectual System of Cudworth. And it may, I think, be in a great measure explained. Besides that the Cartesian Philosophy embodied and systematized many of the new

discoveries in the natural world, which no person of clear intellect and active mind could fail to assent to, when the evidence was fairly before him ;-besides, too, the charm arising from the subtle and acute metaphysical spirit of the French reformer of philosophy :-there was a positive principle involved in his speculations, which was very congenial to the profound idealism of More, which we shall see adopted by other writers of the same temper; and which may perhaps be found to contain the true solution of the apparent opposition between the empirical methods which have led to the discoveries of modern times, and the à priori truths on which the admirers of antiquity love to speculate. This principle is, the consideration of all natural events and states as governed and determined by Laws. This is really the ideal element which pervades modern physical philosophy; and this element prevents it from presenting, as it is sometimes supposed by its admirers to present, a mere assemblage of external phenomena, discrediting the belief in the independent faculties of the mind.

But without here pursuing this thought, I may further observe, that the connexion and coherency of Descartes's system, the professed severity of deduction with which a few simple assumptions were traced into a mass of details apparently commensurate with the phenomena of the universe, the pleasure of demonstration, and the triumph of reason, to which the new doctrine ministered, might very naturally seduce men of speculative, acute, and inquiring minds. The force of system on Hobbes's side was most easily balanced by the force of a different system, by which, though not directly opposed, it might be counterpoised.

A part of Descartes's philosophy which found great favour with the moralists of the time, and with Henry More among the rest, is the classification and analysis of the Passions. But without here dwelling upon this, it is of more