Still, adds Dr. Rush, “It is true Dr. Sydenham did not adopt, or follow, the errors of the schools in which he had been educated; but, by knowing them thoroughly, he was able, more easily, to examine and refute them.” Here, then, is an admission, that even an intimate knowledge of such errors is eminently useful, by enabling a man of a sound and cultivated mind to refute them: for, the refutation of existing errors, affords a most important aid to the advancement of true science.
Sydenham, it appears, received his collegiate education at both the English universities. It may not therefore be improper, on this occasion, to introduce a quotation from an invaluable elementary work;[[336a]] in order to shew, what was the opinion entertained by a learned and distinguished German, of the English Universities—on the models of which, the higher seminaries of learning in the United States are formed. “Of all the Universities of Europe,” says Baron Bielfeld, “those of Oxford and Cambridge in England appear at present to approach the nearest to perfection: The great men they produce, are a better proof than any other argument.[[336b]] We could wish,” adds this highly enlightened foreigner, “always to see an university a real city of learning, a place consecrated entirely to the muses and their disciples; that the Greek and Latin languages were there predominant; and that every thing were banished from thence, which could cause the least dissipation in those who devote themselves to letters.” “The man who confines himself to his closet,”—says our author, in another place,—“is but rarely visited by the sciences, the arts and the belles lettres: to acquire their intimate acquaintance, he must seek them in those places where Minerva, Pallas, Apollo, and the Muses, have fixed their residence. Emulation, that strong impulse in the career of all our pursuits, should constantly attend the man of letters from his early youth to the last period of his life; in the school, at college, at the university, in those employments to which his knowledge may lead him, or in those academies of science to which he may be admitted. Emulation is an animating faculty, that results from society: and few there are, to whom nature has given a genius sufficiently strong to attain an extensive erudition in solitude; who are provided with wings that can bear them, without guides, without models, without companions or supports, to the lofty regions of the empyrean.”
[336a]. The Elements of Universal Erudition, containing an analytical abridgment of the Sciences, Polite Arts, and Belles Lettres; by Baron Bielfeld. In three 8vo. volumes; translated from a Berlin edition, by W. Hooper, M. D. and printed in London, in the year 1770.
[336b]. The three great Universities of England and Ireland enjoy the right, in addition to many other important privileges, of sending, each, two members to represent them in parliament, Would to heaven! that there were something like a representation of the interests of learning and science, in the legislative bodies of our own country.
[337]. Bacon (the celebrated Viscount of St. Albans and Baron of Verulam) published his great philosophical work, the Novum Organum, in the year 1620. The learned and sagacious professor Cooper remarks, that “Lord Bacon” (whom the honourable Mr. Walpole considers as the Prophet of the Arts, which Newton came to reveal,) “was the first among the moderns, who pointed out the way by which real knowledge was to be obtained, and turned the minds of the learned from playing tricks with syllogisms, and the legerdemain of words without ideas; and taught them to rest theory upon the basis of experiment alone.” See the Introductory Lecture of Thomas Cooper, Esq. Professor of Chemistry at Carlisle College, Pennsylvania.
[338]. The Greek and Latin are called by way of pre-eminence, the learned languages. Baron Bielfeld enumerates the advantages resulting from a knowledge of the former; among which he notices that important one, of its enabling us more readily and clearly to comprehend the meaning of that almost boundless list of terms in the arts and sciences, used in modern languages and styled technical, which are either altogether Grecian, or derived from that language. He then makes this remark: “From all that has been said, it is apparent how much utility attends the study of the Greek tongue; and how much reason the English have, for applying themselves to it, from their early youth.” “But,” observes this learned and discriminating writer, “that which has given the Latin an advantage over the Greek itself, that has rendered it indispensable to every man of letters, and has made it the basis of erudition, is, that during the middle age, and in general in all modern times, the learned of all Europe have made it their common and universal language; so that the Latin forms, if we may use the expression, the natural language of the sciences.” Elem. of Univ. Erud.
[339]. Although Mr. T. Cooper (before quoted) admits, that the “strict adherence to the syllogistic mode of reasoning,” that which he calls “playing tricks with syllogisms,” together with “the legerdemain of words without ideas,” was carried much too far by some late metaphysical writers of eminence; yet he is of opinion, that “in modern times, this invention of Aristotle is abandoned more than it deserves to be: For,” continues Mr. Cooper, “no man can so skilfully analyse the argument of another, as one who is well acquainted with the rules of scholastic logic, and accustomed to apply them. Good reasoners there are and will be, who know nothing of these rules, but better reasoners who do.”
Mr. Cooper doubts, whether metaphysical lectures should be delivered, at all, in colleges; but thinks, that if metaphysics were to be there taught, the writings of Beattie, Oswald and Gregory, would be unworthy of notice. Much as the Writer of these Memoirs respects the talents and ingenuity of the learned Professor of Chemistry, he can by no means concur in this opinion: and he regrets, that he feels himself obliged to differ still more widely, from a gentleman of such acknowledged abilities, respecting the propriety of his recommending to youth the study of the works of Hobbes, Leibnitz and Collins.
Now, what the complexion and tendency of the tenets of Hobbes, Leibnitz, and other philosophers of the same class are, may be learnt from the following passages, translated from a French work, entitled, “De la Philosophie de la Nature, ou Traité de Morale pour l’Epece Humaine, tire de la Philosophie et fonde sur la Nature;” a work which, though anonymous in respect to its author, had passed through three editions in the year 1777. The writer thus says:
“Of what importance to me are the names of Carneades, of Lysander, of Hobbes, and the author of The System of Nature, names unhappily celebrated, which the apostle of the moral indifference of human actions alleges in favour of this atrocious extravagance?” (the doctrines of Fatality, Moral Scepticism, &c.) “Carneades was an arrogant Pyrrhonian, who doubted of every thing, excepting the superiority of his own logic. Hobbes had the audacity to write a book against the everlasting truths of geometry. Lysander, the enemy of the liberty of Sparta, and the corrupter of the oracles of Delos and Ammon, was one of those spirits of spleen and filth, who strive to acquire a name by reducing wickedness to a system. As for the anonymous Writer, whose licentious pen vents so much blasphemy on Nature, in disavowing the existence of God, he has purchased the right to deny that of Morality. He is equally silly with Salmonius, in braving the thunderbolt destined to stifle the stings of conscience.” Speaking of Leibnitz, in another place, this French Moralist observes, that “the Philosopher of Leipsick made of the soul a monad, and explained all the phænomena of its union with matter by a pre-established harmony. One portion of Europe believed him; because he set up a new system! and what is it but a metaphysical theory, without system?” And again: “What names have we to oppose to those of Descartes, Leibnitz, Pascal and Malbranch? The suffrage of Newton, alone, is sufficient to crush their Materialism; if, in the humble materials for the examination of human reason, the suffrage of one great man is competent to balance a syllogism.”