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68 morals which appeared in the course of the eighteenth century. To this argument may, more particularly, be traced the origin of the celebrated question, Whether the principle of moral approbation is to be ultimately resolved into Reason, or into Sentiment?—a question, which has furnished the chief ground of difference between the systems of Cudworth and of Clarke, on the one hand; and those of Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith, on the other. The remarks which I have to offer on this controversy must evidently be delayed, till the writings of these more modern authors shall fall under review.

The Intellectual System of Cudworth, embraces a field much wider than his treatise of Immutable Morality. The latter is particularly directed against the ethical doctrines of Hobbes, and of the Antinomians; but the former aspires to tear up by the roots all the principles, both physical and metaphysical, of the Epicurean philosophy. It is a work, certainly, which reflects much honour on the talents of the author, and still more on the boundless extent of his learning; but it is so ill suited to the taste of the present age, that, since the time of Mr Harris and Dr Price, I scarcely recollect the slightest reference to it in the writings of our British metaphysicians. Of its faults (beside the general disposition of the author to discuss questions placed altogether beyond the reach of our faculties), the most prominent is the wild hypothesis of a plastic nature; or, in other words, “of a vital and spiritual, hut unintelligent and necessary agent, created by the Deity for the execution of his purposes.” Notwithstanding, however, these, and many other abatements of its merits, the Intellectual System will for ever remain a precious mine of information to those whose curiosity may lead them to study the spirit of the ancient theories; and to it we may justly apply what Leibnitz has somewhere said, with far less reason, of the works of the schoolmen, “”

Before dismissing the doctrines of Hobbes, it may be worth while to remark, that all his leading principles are traced by Cudworth to the remains of the ancient sceptics, by some of whom, as well as by Hobbes, they seem to have been adopted from a wish to flatter the uncontrolled passions of sovereigns. Not that I am disposed to call in question the originality of Hobbes; for it appears, from the testimony of all his friends, that he had much less pleasure in reading than in thinking. “If I had read,” he was accustomed to say, “as much as some others, I should have been as ignorant as they are.” But similar political circumstances invariably reproduce similar philosophical theories; and it is one of the numer-