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Untitled Article
dern times of addressing the world by means of anonymous publications , I * probably one of the most powerful . The salutary restraint which a regard to character imposes , in most cases , on our moral deviations , is here withdrawn , and we have no security for the fidelity of the writer , but his disinterested love of truth and of mankind . The palpable and ludicrous misrepresentations of facts to which we are accustomed from our infancy in the periodical prints of the day , gradually unhinge our faith in all such communications ;
and what we are every day accustomed to see , we cease in time to regard with due abhorrence . Nor is this the only moral evil resulting from the licentiousness of the press . The intentions of nature in appointing public esteem as the reward of virtue , and infamy as the punishment of vice , are in a great measure thwarted ; and while the fairest characters are left open to the
assaults of a calumny which it is impossible to trace to its author , the opinions of the public may be so divided by the artifices of hireling flatterers , with respect to men of the most profligate and abandoned lives , as to enable them not only to brave the censures of the world , but to retaliate with more than equal advantage on the good name of those who have the rashness to accuse them .
" In a free government like ours , the liberty of tlie press has been often and justly called the Palladium of the Constitution ; but it may reasonabl y be doubted whether this liberty would be at all impaired by a regulation which , while it left the press perfectly open to every man who was willing openly ta avow his opinions , rendered it impossible for any individual to publish a sentence without the sanction of his name . Upon this question , however , considered in apolitical point of view , I shall not presume to decide . Considered in a moral light , the advantages of such a regulation appear to be obvious and indisputable ,, and the effect could scarcely fail to have a most extensive influence on national manners . "—P . 340 .
The Appendix contains an elaborate statement of the argument for the free agency of man . On this , however , we would gladly be excused the task ( an irksome and ungracious task it would be ) of offering any more par * ticular remarks . It contains little that has not been repeatedly said before , and displays but too frequent indications of a spirit of acrimonious asperity for which the author had not the apology ( such as it is ) which is afforded by the excitement of a personal controversy ^ We content ourselves with adverting to the following unwarrantable insinuation , which is a fair specimen of the temper which pervades the whole .
" Is not the use which has been made by necessitarians of Locke ' s Treatise on Education , and other books of a similar tendency , onl y one instance more of that disposition so common among metaphysical sciolists to conceal from the world their incapacity to add to the stock of useful knowledge , by appropriating to themselves the conclusions of their wiser and more sober
predecessors , under the startling and imposing disguise of universal maxims , admitting neither of exception nor restriction ? It is thus that Locke ' s judicious and refined remarks on the association of ideas have been exaggerated to such an extreme in the coarse caricatures of Hartley and of Priestley , as to bring among cautious inquirers some degree of discredit on one of the most important doctrines of modern philosophy /'—Vol . II . p . 500 .
But we are unwilling to take our leave of Mr . Stewart under the influence of such feelings as expressions like these are fitted to excite , and have much more pleasure in dwelling upon what we can sincerely admire . Amidst many things in which we do not concur , and some of which we decidedly disapprove , there is much in this work that is highly valuable and instructive . We receive it with gratitude as the last contribution of its distinguished author to the cause of philosophy , as the closing effort of a long and honourable life devoted to the service of his fellow-creatures ^
Untitled Article
40 Dugald Stewart .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1829, page 40, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2568/page/40/
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