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Untitled Article
culars which are here presented in combination as a whole . There is great p ower in this work , more , we think , than in any other of Mr . Belsham ' s productions , though he was always any thing but feeble . The subject itself was elevating ; the great principles and general views of Christian truth are ever pre-eminently so ; and he felt the inspiring dignity of his theme .
His next important work was not theological , though its connexion with and bearing upon theology are sufficiently evident . In 1801 , he published the " Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind and of Moral Philosophy . ' * Although this book cannot be recommended now , in preference to many others , as a manual of mental philosophy , there are portions of it whose worth is unrivalled . Chapters ix ., xi . and xii . may be particularly specified ,
on the Will , on Immateriality and Materialism , and on the Natural Evidence of a Future Life . They are most admirable summaries of the arguments advanced on both sides of the questions to which they refer . The Author manifests his own opinions , and they were decided ones ; but Mr . Belsham was remarkable for never diminishing by his statement , but very often increasing , the force of objections against his own opinions . It was an
honourable peculiarity . It evinced the sincerity with which he declared that " to him , truth was victory . " The merit of these summary statements has triumphed over sectarian antipathies , and been recognized by men whose enlightened minds and hostile creeds conferred a double value on their praise . Wherever the truth may be on these much contested points , it will be long before the evidence will be any where found more concisely and yet luminously exhibited than in this volume .
Mr . Belsham was , as is well known , a follower of Hartley ; and resolved all mental phenomena into the association of ideas . His theory of morals is such as most naturally , and as he thought necessarily , follows from that doctrine . He defines virtue to be " the tendency of an action , affection , habit , or character , to the ultimate happiness of the agent . " He contends that , " under the government of perfect wisdom and benevolence , " the ultimate happiness of the individual must needs coincide with " the greatest
generalgood ; " and concludes that " self-love and benevolence can only be reconciled by religion . " There are but eighty octavo pages of this treatise ; and as much real knowledge of the subject may be gained by their study as by that of the same number of volumes . Every moral system of celebrity is noticed and characterized . The fallacies on which many of them are founded are exposed by a few sentences in which the combination of brevity , simplicity , and conclusiveness , is very striking . This part of the volume should
be kept in print and in circulation . A clear notion of the principle of morality is of more importance to its steady and consistent practice than manyare apt to suppose . Without it there will occur , even in common life , cases of conscience in which we shall often be sadly afloat , and sometimes go sadly astray . Nor are we safe in our interpretations of the preceptive passages of Scripture without this guidance . How else can the local and temporary be
distinguished with any degree of certainty from the permanent and universal ? The test indeed is sanctioned , nay , it is furnished by Scripture itself . The New Testament does not contain a code of laws , prescribing particular actions , with penalties annexed ; but moral principles , which are , to a considerable extent , left to be applied by ourselves to the peculiar circumstances in which our lot may be cast . It always supposes , and sometimes expresses , a general notion of goodness , a definition of virtue , which coincides , as
Untitled Article
On the Character and JVritings of the Rev . T . Belsham * 85
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1830, page 85, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2581/page/13/
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