Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 1.djvu/193

 is most admired in modern philosophy is only borrowed from them. At the same time, their curiosity in raising and prosecuting frivolous objections to the Christian system is to be regretted as the source of much scepticism and irreligion. To many of their arguments, ridicule only is due; and it would perhaps be impossible for the gravest to restrain a smile at the illustrissimo mentioned by Cardan, one of whose arguments was declared to be enough to puzzle all posterity, and who himself wept in his old age, because he had become unable to understand his own books.

The works of Bassol have been long forgotten, like those of his brethren; but it is not too much to say regarding this great man of a former day, that the same powers of mind which he spent upon the endless intricacies of the school philosophy, would certainly, in another age and sphere, have tended to the permanent advantage of his fellow creatures. He was so much admired by his illustrious preceptor, that that great man used to say, "If only Joannes Bassiolis be present, I have a sufficient auditory."

 , an ingenious moral and natural philosopher, was the son of a merchant in Old Aberdeen, and of Mrs Elizabeth Fraser, a lady connected with some of the considerable families of that name in the north of Scotland. He was born at Old Aberdeen, in 1686 or 1687, and educated at the King's College, in his native city. His employment in early life was that of a preceptor to young gentlemen; and among others of his pupils were Lord Gray, Lord Blantyre, and Mr Hay of Drummelzier. In 1723, while resident at Dunse Castle, as preceptor to the last-mentioned gentleman, he is known, from letters which passed between him and Henry Home, afterwards Lord Kaimes, to have been deeply engaged in both physical and metaphysical disquisitions. As Mr Home's paternal seat of Kaimes was situated within a few miles of Dunse Castle, the similarity of their pursuits appears to have brought them into an intimate friendship and correspondence. This, however, was soon afterwards broken off. Mr Home, who was a mere novice in physics, contended with Mr Baxter that motion was necessarily the result of a succession of causes. The latter endeavoured, at first with much patience and good temper, to point out the error of this argument; but, teased at length with what he conceived to be sophistry purposely employed by his antagonist to show his ingenuity in throwing doubts on principles to which he himself annexed the greatest importance, and on which he had founded what he believed to be a demonstration of those doctrines most material to the happiness of mankind, he finally interrupted the correspondence, saying, "I shall return you all your letters; mine, if not already destroyed, you may likewise return; we shall burn them and our philosophical heats together." About this time, Mr Baxter married Alice Mabane, daughter of a respectable clergyman in Berwickshire. A few years afterwards he published his great work, entitled, "An Enquiry into the nature of the Human Soul, wherein its immateriality is evinced from the principles of Reason and Philosophy." This work was originally without date; but a second edition appeared in 1737, and a third in 1745. It has been characterised in the highest terms of panegyric by Bishop Warburton. "He who would see," says this eminent prelate, "the justest and precisest notions of God and the soul, may read this book; one of the most finished of the kind, in my humble opinion, that the present times, greatly advanced in true philosophy, have produced." The object of the treatise is to prove the immateriality, and consequently the immortality of the soul, from the acknowledged principle of the vis inertiæ of matter. His argument, according to the learned Lord Woodhouselee, is as follows: "There is a resistance to any change of its present state, either of rest or motion, essential to matter, which is inconsistent with its possessing any active power. Those, 