It is sufficiently evident from the general spirit and tone of his writings, that he is not to be classed in the number of those who are deterred by the narrow-minded notions of a particular party, or by a blind predilection for any favourite theory, from dispassionately examining the arguments of their opponents, or from relinquishing a long cherished opinion when discovered to be fallacious. Were the same liberality of sentiment, and the same temperate zeal usually conspicuous in his discussion of controversial topics, more prevalent among the leading members of every denomination of religion, the great doctrines of Christianity would be better understood, and the merits of our own Church less frequently called in question.

Amidst the facilities which are daily increasing for imparting to all classes of the community information of the highest

value, and the measures now pursuing for ameliorating the public taste, we need not despair of seeing the intellectual and ethical branches of science regain that elevated station which they are entitled to hold, and receive that assiduous and extensive culture which can alone render them subservient to the practical purposes of civil society.

For my own part, I entertain not the slightest doubt that the progress of knowledge will eventually prove to be the progress of general happiness. The spirit of investigation, no longer confined to the student's chamber, is now traversing the busy haunts of men, eager for the discovery of truth, and the detection of error. The weak may be alarmed, and the bigoted may oppose: but they will find it too late to indulge the faintest hope of prohibiting the flight of ignorance and torpor

which so long oppressed the human understanding. Unless objections can be devised far different in their nature from any which have hitherto been urged, it requires no inspiration of prophecy to foretel that the efforts which may hereafter be employed to obstruct the diffusion of mental improvement will be found, in the result, to be utterly powerless. This improvement may at intervals, perhaps, be retarded in its career by the prejudices of one party and the interested motives of another; but to put a final stop to its advancement, to fix the boundary beyond which it cannot pass, none but the most infatuated can for a moment imagine it to be possible. As well might the royal Dane have expected that the utterance of his feeble mandate would stem the influx of the ocean's tide.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

REMARKS on the selection of Paley's "Moral Philosophy," as a text-book, in the public examinations at Cambridge. The first objections here considered, are contained in Vol. II. of Mr. Dugald Stewart's " Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind."-His complaint that efficient are often confounded with final causes, by ethical writers, and particularly by Dr. Paley, answered. -The principle of general expediency, or utility, as inculcated by Paley, misapprehended by Mr. Stewart, who in this case neglects the distinction between the criterion and the obligation of virtue.-The necessity of general rules explained by Paley, and that these rules ought to be founded on expediency.-Individuals very rarely called upon to calculate the general conse