the high praise of not having sacrificed real intellectual power to the acquisition of useless and misapplied learning. His mind wrought for itself and after its own fashion, on every subject that came before it. When we say this, we are aware that it has been quite common to charge him with a want of originality. But it should be remembered, that there may be as much originality in the setting forth of a truth or an argument, as in the discovery or invention of it. The man, whose ingenuity gives new value to old materials, can scarcely be deemed inferior to him who produces new materials. It is doubtless true, that Paley was not distinguished for mere erudition; especially in the sense, in which that term is frequently used in England and on the Continent. Whatever learning he possessed was the nutriment, not the lumber of his mind; it was so moulded and wrought upon by his own habits of thinking, that all which was valuable in it became a constituent part of his own peculiar intellectual excellence. It was very justly observed of him, that no man ever abused learning less, or was less the dupe of learning.' He was as far as possible from being one of those, who, as Goldsmith remarks, write through volumes, while they do not think through a page.' We may easily believe, what we are told, that his mind was incessantly busy and active, even when his appearance would indicate idleness or negligence. Edmund Paley observes, that he was most thoroughly industrious in a more desultory way, than most authors. From his first commencing writer to the last stage of his life, he was scarcely for a moment without an object, and a literary object, to rest upon. When walking, fishing, riding, gardening, sitting still in his arm chair, it appears from his papers that he was still constantly occupied. Some of the little books full of notes, seem evidently to have been his pocket companions on his short excursions or his daily walks, and these he used on his return to unburden of their cargo.'*

6

As an argumentative writer, Paley is certainly distinguished by some of the best characteristics of manner. He reasons with admirable perspicuity and directness. He exhibits nothing like a parade of subtilty or elaborate disquisition, and wastes none of his force in unmeaning ingenuity or misdirected inquiries. No author was ever more thoroughly free from the quackery of reasoning, or from the arts which delight the lovers of mysticism; and few have exemplified so happily the maxim of Quintilian, that one should write not only so as to be understood, but as to render it impossible not to be understood. He never hesi

*Life, p. 137.

tated to sacrifice refinement, or even to adopt a blunt and inelegant manner, for the sake of being lucid. There are writers on moral and theological subjects, who, if one may judge from their works, would esteem this no very high praise. They seem to consider it the office of language to darken and confound, instead of enlightening and guiding the understanding, and think that to be wiser than others is only to be more unintelligible, forgetting that waters are not necessarily deep because they are muddy. We need not always go back so far as the days of scholastic learning, to find specimens of this unfortunate mode of discussion; for at all times, theology, more perhaps than any other department of inquiry, has been burdened with what Burke designates as the infectious stuff, which is imported by the smugglers of adulterated metaphysics.' Simple and plain statements have been deemed very spiritless. It has been thought that a proposition is the more likely to be true for being hard to be understood, and that they are the wisest adepts in the science of divinity, who can most laboriously surround a subject with difficulties, only to make reason and common sense stare at the profound explanation which at last comes forth. It is this taste, which has made the access to truth long and hard to be found, conducting the inquirer through many a winding path and many a forest of words, and throwing a mist around speculations, that they may appear the larger and more imposing. From these, and kindred faults in reasoning, Paley was remarkably free. He thought, and consequently wrote, clearly and distinctly. His mental habits led him to bring everything to bear on the topic before him in the shortest and plainest way. All the arts that are used to prolong and involve a discussion, all the expedients by which a reader may be puzzled without being convinced, were despised by him. He brings forth his thoughts precisely as they lie in his mind; and whatever we may think of his conclusions or the force of his arguments, we are always sure that we know what he means. He never goes round about a subject, but fixes his grasp at once upon it. This straight forward way of dealing imparts to his writings a tone of warm sincerity, which no flourish of phraseology, no affectation of wisdom can bestow, and which is certainly one of the finest traits in the management of ethical and theological subjects. It would be difficult to select, from the catalogue of English authors, one who is less exposed than Paley to the keen rebuke implied in the title given by Campbell to a chapter in his Philosophy of Rhetoric; What is the cause that nonsense so often escapes being detected both by the writer and by the reader?'

Another excellence of Paley's reasoning is to be found in its freedom from all inappropriate considerations. He disencumbers his subject from unnecessary appendages, breaks it down into distinct portions, and gives each one its true bearing. He is far enough from being one of those, whom Seed has facetiously described by saying that they often start so much game in the wide and spacious field of thinking, that they overtake none.' With a quick and shrewd perception of what belongs and what does not belong to the question, Paley fixes a steady, luminous point before the reader, and then presses towards it, without straining after all that comes within his reach as he proceeds. His course of thought is consequently never embarrassed by those irrelevant views, into which many minds, from ill regulated habits of association, are apt to be seduced. The skill with which he rejects whatever appertains not to the subject, enables him to present it to the reader cleared from perplexing entanglements, and to leave a strong and well defined impression on the mind. Hence his reasoning acquires a compactness of manner and unity of purpose, which very few moral writers possess in an equal degree, and by means of which he gives, at the outset, a peculiarly vivid and full conception of the nature of the point to be examined or maintained. Every one familiar with his works will recollect, as instances, the beautiful statement of the argument at the beginning of the Natural Theology and the Horæ Paulinæ, and the introduction to the remarks on Property in the Moral Philosophy. There is a mode of disquisition, that has at times been much in favor, and was so especially among the old English writers, which consists in loading a discussion with whatever can, by however remote an affinity, be supposed to have connexion with it; in beginning at a distance, and approaching it gradually through many avenues; in combining with it intimately considerations that are extraneous or merely incidental, and in adding to it a long train of concluding remarks, that might be appended almost as well to one topic as to another. All this sometimes arises from confusion of thought in the mind of the writer, who has never taken so close a survey of the field before him as to enable him to distinguish between the appropriate and the inappropriate; or from an ambition of display, which induces him to encumber his progress with all the knowledge and all the thoughts that can be gathered around it; or from an irresistible propensity for the arts by which a big book is made.' From all such unwieldy modes of conducting an inquiry, it is a relief to turn to a writer like Paley, who gives us the spirit of a subject without its trappings.

It is likewise a striking beauty in Dr Paley's discussions, that he never permits himself to overdo in his reasoning. He is diligently careful not to press his proofs and illustrations further than they are fitted to reach; and while he applies them with great force and propriety within the range which they may justly claim, he wisely abstains from attempting to make them pass for more than they are worth. Instead of committing the common fault of striving to prove too much, he sometimes even forbears from the fair and legitimate use which might be made of his train of thought. Edmund Paley remarks justly, though somewhat too strongly, that his usual way of dealing with an argument, was, not to build half so much upon it as it would bear, in order to make sure at least of the groundwork.' The calmness, with which he habitually adjusted his views, secured him from being transported beyond the bounds of accuracy by zeal to establish a point. It is no uncommon mistake to be so in love with a favorite argument or speculation, as to bring discredit or suspicion upon it by a misapplication of its force to purposes which it cannot properly be made to serve. But the discriminating caution, which constituted so important a feature in the character of Paley's mind, would not suffer him to be easily deceived by an overweening estimate of the value of any consideration, however brilliant or beautiful. As an instance of this, we may refer to the judgment he delivers, in the Natural Theology, on the relative use and importance of astronomy in furnishing proofs of the agency of an intelligent Creator. His opinion on this point coincides remarkably with that of Malebranche, who had long before observed, that the least fly discovers more the power and wisdom of God to those that consider it with attention, and without being prejudiced by its smallness, than all which the astronomers know of the heavens.' The natural effect of such fairness and moderation in the use of evidence on behalf of a proposition, is to inspire the reader with a feeling of security, a confidence that he will not be misled by the argumentative expedients of a partisan. After having formed an acquaintance with Paley, we take up his works with the persuasion, that what he has to say, comes from a mind which has examined accurately the proportions of the subject, and has not grown so warm over any speculation as to magnify everything connected with it into extravagant and unjustifiable dimensions; and the consequence is, that he often leaves us willing to grant more, instead of less than he demands.

Paley's discussions and reasoning are, moreover, characterised by a racy vigor, which gives them at times an unusual de

gree of attraction. They wear no appearance of preparation to produce an effect, so that the energy, with which they are not unfrequently stamped, takes us as if by surprise, and at once fixes a distinct and strong impression of a truth or principle. His brief and bold way of stating a thought, enables it to seize the attention with a quick and powerful grasp. This strength seems always to rise spontaneously from his forcible mode of treating a subject, and not to be the result of painstaking effort. It resembles the vigor belonging to the healthful condition of a good physical constitution, rather than the temporary impulse obtained by stimulants and unnatural excitements. A train of remark and illustration sometimes expands and glows under his hands, till, by the bare power of the thought, it rises to eloquence the more noble and affecting for being unadorned. The admirable observations, for example, on the relation of sleep to night, in the seventeenth chapter of the Natural Theology, may be ranked among the most energetic passages in our language, and we should be disposed to think but ill of the state of his mind or heart, who could read them without emotion. We may observe in general of Paley's style, that it takes its distinctive character, as every writer's style should, from his peculiar cast of mind, and reflects a clear image of the state and process of his thoughts.

There is one of Paley's works, which, notwithstanding its many excellences, has drawn upon his name some obloquy, and not a little deserved censure. We allude to his Moral Philosophy, a book, the merits of which are certainly great, and the faults perhaps not inconsiderable, though we cannot but think these have been sometimes quite too much magnified. It presents the science of ethics in a more popular and pleasing form, than had been given to it before. The philosophy of morals and politics, which had generally been treated in a manner so technical, obscure, or formal as to lose much of its interest, is here expounded with most captivating perspicuity, exhibited in its practical relations to common duties and daily affairs, and rendered attractive by apt and familiar illustrations. In the details of ethical instruction, it is doubtless one of the best works we have. We therefore regret the more that its usefulness should be in any degree diminished by the incautious manner in which some of the principles are laid down, and by unguarded assertions, which, however harmless to readers accustomed to investigate and think for themselves, are liable to much abuse, if adopted as current maxims by the heedless and unskilful. We have not space to remark at large, upon the unphilosophical and indefensible doctrine, that expediency is the foun