with the eternal fitness or truth of things. But amongst the many commentators on Hobbes' moral and political philosophy, the most conspicuous and able, in my humble opinion, is Bishop Cumberland; and in the book which is now under consideration, though embracing a somewhat different moral theory from that of Wollaston's and Clarke's, he has ably and zealously endeavoured to establish the permanency and stability of moral distinctions; and has also pointed out in many instances, the self-contradictory opinions of his subtile and somewhat paradoxical antagonist. But the stability of Bishop Cumberland's virtue is not of that refined and absolute description which has been advocated by other writers; he seems, as far as I have been able to judge, from the general scope of his remarks, to be wishful to steer a kind of middle course. He certainly makes frequent use of the word eternal in reference to the nature of moral truth; but he uses it in a modified sense. He maintains that virtue is eternal and unchangeable in the same sense as the material universe, and the various relations which its parts have to each other may be said to be eternal. Not that virtue is a thing of such an eternal and absolutely unchangeable a nature, that it must have been coeval with the existence of the

Deity himself, and that it is impossible that it ever could or can receive any modification from his power and wisdom.

"In

I am fully aware that what I have here advanced respecting the opinions of the bishop on the important point, the eternal nature of all moral distinctions, may be liable to controversy; particularly when I am bound to admit that he has, in many parts of his essay, made use of very strong and pointed language, which would seem to bear an interpretation favourable to the very opposite of my own opinions. He says, in page 35, like manner, love towards God, and all men, although most freely exerted, after it is exerted, necessarily makes any person as happy as his power can make him, as I have at large explained. Nor is it less manifest, that a consent to the division of property in things themselves, and in human labour, or to preserve the division when made, by innocence, fidelity, gratitude, a limited care of ourselves and our offspring, and humanity exercised towards all, are parts of that universal love, and, therefore, proportionally conducive to the happiness, as of the whole, so of individuals, especially his in whom they are found; than that quadrants, or other lesser arches or sectors, are parts of a cir

cle. Therefore the eternity is equal, as well of propositions of the one kind, as of the other." But he afterwards qualifies this passage by the following remarks, which, if their full purport be carefully attended to, will convince every reader, that he ought to be placed in a somewhat different station in the class of moral writers from those who maintain the absolutely eternal and fixed nature of good and evil. "It is, however, certain, that every human action and effects, and, consequently, arithmetical and geometrical operations, with all their effects, depend upon the will of the first cause. Our whole inquiry is concerning the existence of the laws of nature, and of their obligation, which must entirely be deduced from the will of the first cause; I mean that act of his will, (and that only, as will appear from what follows,) by which the powers, actions, and natures of rational beings exist." "I have penned the law of nature sufficiently immutable, when I have shewn that it cannot be changed without contradiction, whilst the nature of things and their actual powers, which depend upon the Divine will, remain unchanged."

It may also be worthy of a remark in passing, that if any thing were wanting to prove that Bishop

Cumberland did not fall into the views of those who maintained the eternal nature of moral distinctions, in that absolute sense in which some moral writers view that doctrine, it may be found in this consideration, that his very able and acute translator and commentator, Mr. Maxwell, considered that the bishop had laboured under an error, in not embracing the position that the law of nature was eternal, and did not owe its obligation solely to the will of God. The whole of Mr. Maxwell's remarks, which are prefixed to the English edition of the essay on the "Laws of Nature," are principally written with a view of supplying, in in some degree, this supposed discrepancy in this work.

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CHAPTER VII.

ESSAY ON THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING.

MR. JOHN LOCKE.

JOHN LOCKE was born in the year 1632, at Wrington, near Bristol, was educated at Westminster till 1651, and afterwards removed to Oxford. Here he studied the various systems of philosophy then in repute; and also applied himself to medicine, which he never practised. He took his degree of master of arts in 1658. He accompanied Sir William Swan as private secretary to the court of Brandenburgh; and, on his return to England, he was introduced to the earl of Shaftsbury, who obtained for him several valuable civil appointments. He repaired to Holland with this nobleman, where he wrote a good part of his celebrated work on the human understanding; which was published in 1690. Being much afflicted with asthma, he retired to Cotes in Essex, where he died in 1704, in the seventy-third year of his age. He was the