After breakfast the next morning he desired Philip to accompany him and the Wilsons, father and son, into his library. This was not exactly the thing, that Philip had meditated to do, but it was what he could not escape from. He was not however hooked without a small struggle to get free, for as soon as he understood it was to be a cabinet council on the topic of his son’s education, he humbly moved for exemption on the plea of his entire acquiescence in his father’s will and pleasure, modestly declaring that he did not hold himself entitled to form any opinion in the case—besides, he should be glad to take a little air, for his health’s sake.
I hope, son Philip, said the old gentleman gravely, neither your health, nor happiness, and give me leave to add—nor your honour can suffer, if you bestow one hour upon your duty to your son, even at the expence of your accustomed devoirs to the lady at the abbey.
This was answer quite enough for Philip, who walked doggedly into the lecture room, and took his seat in a corner of it, as far out of the reach of instruction or notice, as he could devise. Edward Wilson took the left hand seat by De Lancaster’s arm-chair, and the colonel seated himself on the other side of the fire place, in front of the old gentleman; Philip, as I before observed, falling into the back-ground, and behind his father.
After two or three preparatory hums, like the tap of the first fiddle, as a signal for attention, De Lancaster commenced his harangue, as follows—Mr. Edward Wilson, I address myself to you in particular, because what you remarked at the close of our late conversation is perfectly in my recollection, and convinces me, that my opinions can only tend to confirm what your own judgment and observation have pointed out. I am now assured, that when you commit your pupil to the reading of those heathen authors, whose writings yet exist, though their languages be dead, you will not suffer his principles to come into collision with theirs, till they are fundamentally and firmly established upon faith in revelation; for where that does not reach, all must be error, seeing that the human understanding, how acute so ever, cannot upon mere conjecture account for the operations of divine wisdom unless by the aid of a divine communication. All, who without that aid have attempted to discuss the question of first causes, have puzzled and perplexed themselves and others. A sound scholar can readily confute their systems; a shallow one, as you well observed, may be entangled by their subtilties. In short, they are at the best but blind guides; most of them are mischievous logicians, and many of them systematic atheists; for collect their several tenets, and I am warranted to say you shall find they are all to be classed, either amongst those, who hold the world to be eternal both as to matter and form, or those, who hold the matter to be eternal, whilst the form is not. You are no doubt aware, that neither Aristotle nor Plato admit a creation of the world, or acknowledge any time when it was not: Aristotle maintaining that it was an eternal and necessary emanation from the divine nature; Plato, that it was an eternal and voluntary effect. Now if what God must have willed from all time he must from all time have done, where is the distinction betwixt Plato’s volition and Aristotle’s necessity? In these opinions are to be found all the component parts of modern atheism. The monstrous system of Spinosa is principally to be traced in the doctrines of the Eleatic school, of which Xenophanes was the founder; he was succeeded by Parmenides, Melissus and Zeno of Elea: his doctrines, which were delivered in verse and with great obscurity, were adopted by Hilpo and the Megaric philosophers, and these were supposed to be the eternity and immutability of the world. Strato of Lampsacus, whom Plutarch calls the greatest of the Peripatetics, made nature inanimate, and at the same time owned no God but nature. The Stoics had their dogma of the soul of the world; the Epicureans held that God is matter, or not distinct from matter; that all things are essentially God, that forms are imaginary accidents, which have no real existence, and that all things are substantially the same. I believe I need go no further with the Greek philosophers, for in these you have nearly the abstract amount of their opinions, and the sources of all modern infidelity. As for the cosmogonies of the Phœnicians, Egyptians and Babylonians, which derive the world from mechanical principles only, they are immediately introductive of atheism, as Eusebius of Cæsarea observes of Sanchoniatho, whose fragment he preserved, and Berosus of the Babylonian cosmogony, of which nation he himself was. To the doctrines of Orpheus the theologer I have no objection; with him your pupil will be safe. Hesiod is only fanciful. Of Thales the hylopathian, whose principle of things was water, I should doubt whether he was theist or atheist; but of his scholar Anaximander no doubt can be entertained; his system is professedly atheistical; the same principle descends and may be traced through Anaximenes, Anaxagoras and Diogenes of Apollonia, in a word, through all the masters of the Ionic school. Turn to Leucippus and Democritus, to Epicurus and all, who held the doctrine of atoms, what do you discover but the blindest ignorance and the grossest atheism? As for their celebrated physician Hippocrates, who, following the example of Hippasus and Heraclitus the obscure, held heat or fire to be immortal and omniscient, in one word God himself, I can only say it would have been safer to have taken his physic than his philosophy—but I have too long intruded on your patience, and forbear the rest.
When Edward Wilson perceived that De Lancaster had done speaking, being unable to discover how this harangue could be brought into use for any present purpose, and conceiving himself not called upon to say that he would not put a pupil to read the Greek philosophers, who had not yet read the first leaf of his Latin grammar, he bowed and was silent. Philip sate with his hands upon his knees in the attitude of a hearer, and seemed employed upon a very close examination of his boots, as if in search of information from them; but they knew just as much, and no more, of the subject than he himself did.—I wonder why I was called in to hear all this, he said to himself, who know no more what he has been talking about than if he had expressed himself in the Hebrew language. The colonel on the contrary was under no reserve, but turning to De Lancaster, said, I cannot doubt, my good sir, but that all, which you have been saying, would be excellent advice to a student far advanced in his knowledge of the learned languages, but in the instance of my friend John I presume the time, when it can apply to him, lies yet at a considerable distance.
You are right, replied De Lancaster, and therefore as I cannot expect to say it then, I take the liberty to say it now.
The man, whose ridicule could not have been disarmed by the candour of this temperate reply, must have had a heart very differently made from that of Colonel Wilson; and as for Edward he immediately found his voice, and was liberal of his thanks for the instruction he had received. I shall hardly expect, he said, to do more for my pupil, than to make him acquainted with some of the best and purest classics, so as to form his taste, and qualify him to take his part in those circles, in which he ought to be found: But if he should contract a passion for literature, I shall bear in mind what you have been inculcating, and hope it will be my good fortune to find his understanding stored with such defences, as no false reasoning shall be likely to undermine. This object will be ever nearest to my heart, and as I am sure I have an excellent disposition to work upon, I trust your grandson will grow up, if God gives him life, to be an honour to his name and nation.
I am satisfied, said De Lancaster, and have not another word to offer.
That is lucky, quoth Philip, as his father walked out of the room; for I am yet in time to take my ride. This was overheard by Colonel Wilson, and provoked him to say to Philip—If you are going to take your usual ride to the Abbey, I hope you will recollect by the way your obligations to a father, the matter of whose discourse may have seemed tedious to you, but whose motive being zeal for the welfare of your son, ought to be held in honour and respect.