Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 08.djvu/75

 have been between 9,000l. and 10,000l. (, 277). He also directed that ‘all his sermons, letters, and papers whatever, which are in a deal box locked, directed to Dr. Forster, and now standing in the little room within my library at Hampstead, be burnt, without being read by any one, as soon as may be after my decease.’ A writer in Nichols's ‘Literary Anecdotes’ (ix. 292) says that he has reason to know that some of Butler's manuscript sermons ‘are still (1815) in being.’

One portrait of Bishop Butler is in the Newcastle Infirmary, and was taken during his last illness. It is engraved in the Oxford edition of his works. A second was painted by Hudson for his nephew Joseph, and a third by Vanderbank in 1732, which is engraved in Bartlett's ‘Life.’ The last two were both at Kirby House, the residence of his nephew's grandson.

Butler's position in contemporary speculation was unique. The deist controversy, which culminated about 1730, is throughout in his mind, though he designedly abstains from special references. The method of abstract metaphysical reasoning applied by his early friend Clarke both to ethical and theological speculations had led to a system which tended to reduce the historical element of belief to a secondary position or to eliminate it entirely. Butler, while admitting the validity of Clarke's reasoning, adopts the different method of appealing to observation of facts (Preface to Sermons, p. vii). His ethical system is therefore psychological, or appeals to the constitution of human nature, as the ‘Analogy’ to the constitution of the world at large. In the sermons and the dissertation on ‘The Nature of Virtue’ he assails especially the egoistic utilitarianism of which Hobbes had been the great teacher in the previous age, and which was maintained both on à priori and empirical grounds. In this he follows Shaftesbury (the only writer to whom he explicitly refers), who had endeavoured to show the general harmony between virtue and happiness; but he tries to fill a gap in Shaftesbury's argument by showing the natural supremacy of conscience, and therefore the existence of moral obligation, even where self-interest is opposed to conscience. The main result of the sermons is therefore the psychological system, in which the conscience is represented as holding a supreme position by its own self-evidencing authority among the various faculties which constitute human nature; while other passions, and in particular self-love and benevolence, are independent but subordinate. The psychology, though somewhat perplexed, shows remarkable acuteness, and the argument that self-love, instead of being the sole or supreme faculty, really presupposes the existence of co-ordinate passions, is especially noteworthy. Butler greatly influenced the common-sense school of Hutcheson and his followers, who are also allied to Shaftesbury; and his influence upon Hume is perceptible, especially in Hume's admission of independent benevolent impulses, in connection with a utilitarian principle which had generally been interpreted as leading to pure egoism. Hume (it may be noticed) desired in 1737 to be introduced to Butler, and sent him a copy of the ‘Treatise on Human Nature’ on its publication in 1739. He expressed his pleasure in 1742 upon hearing that his first set of essays (which did not include those offensive to the orthodox) had been ‘everywhere recommended’ by Butler ( Hume, i. 64, 106, 143).

The famous ‘Analogy’ is an endeavour to show that, as the particular frame of man reveals a supreme conscience, so the frame of nature shows a moral governor revealed through conscience. Assuming the validity of the à priori arguments for theism and the immortality of the soul, he maintains that the facts of observation fall in with the belief that this life is a probationary state where men are, as a matter of fact, under a system of government which encourages virtue as such and discourages vice, and therefore imply the probability that in a future life there will be a complete satisfaction of the claims of justice. This leads to a consideration of the problem of free will and necessity, while the second part argues for the conformity between the doctrine thus taught by fact and the nature of the christian revelation.

The impressiveness of Butler's argument, the candour of his reasonings, and the vigour and originality of his thought have been denied by no one. It is remarkable, indeed, that the greatest theological work of the time, and one of the most original of any time, produced little contemporary controversy. The only works directed against him during his life were a short and feeble tract, ‘Remarks upon Dr. Butler's sixth chapter, &c., by Philanthropus’ (Mr. Bott) [see ], in 1737, and ‘A Second Vindication of Mr. Locke, wherein his sentiments relating to personal identity are cleared up from some mistakes of the Rev. Dr. Butler,’ &c., 1738, by Vincent Perronet, vicar of Shoreham. This is a sequel to a vindication of Locke against Bishop Browne, and includes an answer to Andrew Baxter. These pamphlets are worthless. Butler's contemporaries