BOOKS.
THE THIRD LORD SHAETESBURY.4 - TEE world has been long waiting ...f.Or a scholarly -reprint of ;the famous Characteristics; which has shared the fate of so many :quondam olassics, and has ceased to be read while it remains- to be quoted. Such a reprint Mx. Robert- son has at last given is, and.- Dr. Rand has added the hitherto unpublished Philosophical Regimen, an assortment of letters, and a curious sketch of the author's life by the fourth Earl. The first holder of the title was the statesman of the Cabal, whose complex nature is still a hunting-ground for the psychologist in history; the second was Dryden's "unfeathered two-legged thing " ; and the third was a moralist who played a considerable part in the history of English thought, and a man of letters who did much for the urbanity and clearness of .English style. The events of his life were few and un- exciting. Born in 1671, he was educated carefully under the direction of Locke, first at Winchester and then in a course of foreign travel. At twenty-four he entered Parlia- ment, but he found his philosophic Whiggism an impossible Working creed, his health gave way, and he resigned his seat after the Dissolution of 1698. Thereafter he lived the quiet life of a man of letters, publishing his great work, the three volumes of the Characteristics, in 1711, and two: years later died at Naples at the early age of :forty-two. In character he was kindly and tolerant, given to unobtrusive good work, and in particular he was always ready to help such young men as had the privilege of his friendship. He was always ailing, for he had Locke's malady, asthma, and Mr. Robertson tees. the effect. of his bed health upon his style in a "certain dezivativo ideal of propriety which perhaps correlates with his invalidism." His work sprang into instant fame, and for the greater part of the eighteenth century he enjoyed a surprising reputation as a thinker. Nowadays we are scarcely so ready with Our homage, but his figure remains an attractive and in Many "Ways a notable one, for it is typical of a per-Menet% school Of tlionght, The langhing philosopher, With his easy reconciliations and his urba,tce -optimism, who sees in Christianity only "a Witty and good natured religion," and in partial qit. Only a universal geed, is as common us as in the 'ay. when the :Whig . . . virtuoso was accepted as the new teacher of Mankind. . . .
The Chat acteristics is his permanent uontribution, for the P.47,oSep7accd Regimen is little mere, than his note,book,:the iiiv . . . . skiff of the essays, the commonplace-book of a diligent student. Mr. Robertson, in an introduction which is an excellent piece of criticism, has analysed the temper of the inquirer, and pointed out the inevitable ,,flaws in. his theories. The "Letter Concerning Enthusiasm "with which the Charac- teristics begins is a. Plea for toleration, and for an .annised attitude towards the feriours of the 'female and ProPal gandist. He was a Moderate,- Whig, one of the gentle Warblera of the grove " Whein 'Chatham. deteate&. and in religion a Deist with a kindly interest in Christianity. It was the first Lord Shaftesbury who Said that "all *rise Men were of one religiini the nature of which wise men never told," and the grandson has the time easy creed. He advocates a Chinch Establishment on Voltaire's ground; that; " a people should hair& a public leading in religion."' It was- a • coinnion attitude in his day, found in Pascal when he spoke- 'the value of custom as custom apart from any Moral qulity, as well as in the devout Berkeley, in Montesquieu, in Bolingbroke, and in whole schools of French theistaand atheists. Such theological: utilitarianism," says -Mr. Robertson, " dignified
e.
by Butler,- and confused ' by Paley, became the ruling English orthodoxy." It would have been well had Shaftes- bury been content to abide: in the statement Of "thiCereed Charaairizttesof Men, Manners, ()smolt& SY Vezt1:11rt4t0§7 Bari at Shattary. ,Edited, with an Introit lend tes, b Robertson. 2 vole, London; Grant_ Richards— tits enet–each4,,,---4.24 • The fAfeLin_p_uralished Letters, and Philosophical ReØ men ordnthony ;aid of ta-
blet/. Edited by Benjamin Rand, PILD.,' Ha dThiivemlt' Loudotti' Sonnenschein and Co. (lis.)
The gist of his contribution to philosophy lay in the founda- tion which halaid for morality,,in the plain needs of human life, social and individual. He did not base his ethics on the ordinary 'political and social contract which had been fashionable 'before his time, nor did he- assume the primitive divine command, which had been the ecclesias- tical solution throughout the Middle Ages, and.which was a begging of the question so far as secular philosophy was con- cerned. is his distinction.to be one of the' fathers of the scientific sehool of moralists, who find the xocit of morality in the nature of the world around them; and at the same time he 'avoided their error of reducing the moral life to one. of the common processes of Nature by an idealism which, in spite of its logical gape, insisted- rightly upon the spiritual nature. of man and-theultimate moral order of the universe. Inadditicin he has made many incidental contributione to sociology and testhetics, and even to the science of politics, which he for- swore ; and scattered throughout his works there are many excellent critical notes, chiefly on the classics. He invented an English prose style of his own, digutifiedcperhaps some- what nerveless, which is only. a little behind' Addison. , He is not so quotable as his great- counterpart; Bolingbroke, for he does not maim epigrams, and prefers expounding his thought in many deft and pleasing sentences to orystallising% into one memorable apophthegm ; but he is for this reason all the more lucid in argument, anclocertainly a fairer reasoner. Above,all, his books are permeated. with a . genuine and unobtrusive humanity.. He does not cry his love for his fellows in the market-place, but underlying his good-huthottred philosophy there is a:real affeetion for mankind. He practised what he taught, for "he had many poor. friends whom. he assisted, and he could spare the time to write long letters of advice and encouragement' to the son of his butler, whom he had sent to University College,. Oxford. It was a saying of his own, that the "'wisdom of the heart should be added to the task and dieroise,of the brain" "; and in its quaint mixture Of -intellectual energy; worldly wisdom, and kindness, his character was not far from realising the maxim as. a law of practical wisdom. But, unfortunately, lie had a genuine speculative:instinct, and he sought a justifies,- tion of.his attitude; in iziquy into the origin of evil, which has the w3ual... defect of such speculations in beginning and ending with presuppositions: The. universe is beneficently ruled in all things for the right, man is by. nature *isnot* yet, man innst strive to virtue; .and on the other hand, what- ever is, is for. the hest and cannot be bettered, se his striving cannot inattar :seriously,-r-such is the • old circle which, he borrowed. fri':an :Spinoza, and .which answers, the problem by omitting it. altogether,. If evil.. in. only an odd form of in- finite goodies—. 4- then infinite .goodness is a term which can have small _meaning for men.- it is a bad. creed for strenuous man, for if consistently followed it would .annul all attempts at 'prow* ; but it has been the belief in its day of strenuous men. and Mr. .Robertson. points out how something Very similar is found throughout the .works of Mr. 'Browning. it: is no genuine optiiniim, but a. form of Pesehnism," for by obliterating the reality of evil from the world, it sinks the geed. to the same meaningless formula. In Shaftesbury, who was no strenuous nature, the doctrine was in its proper place. He called himself a 'Whig, but had he been consistent he would have been a quietist in . politica,: as ha certainly was in. religion, with a quietism compared to which the creed of I4ttle Gidding Was revolutionary.
Previous page
