Abstract
You have right in regard to Germany; I feel my mind awaken to kindlier influences, and find that there is something better in the world than the contemptuous indifference of Scottish Skepticism, something that can embrace it in all its bearings and yet see what is higher and worthier. I trust we shall live to see a better spirit in our own country also, in spite of the utilitarian, commercial, shallow philosophy which has the upperhand in these times, and I am vain enough to believe that my brother will contribute much to bring about that happy change. It seems to me as if this could be done only by one who has been trained up in Scotland, and who has studied its philosophy with fearless inquiry, and thoroughly understood, before he has begun to contemn it; who can think and write with Scottish clearness and German depth; for as shallow precision bears rule in our own country, so in Germany with all its pre-eminence there will be found a certain tendency to mystical speculation and extravagance among the multitude of its authors to which a Scotch education is the best and surest antidote.1
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Notes
See, John Tyndall, ‘Personal Recollections of Carlyle’, Fortnightly Review 47 (1890), 5–32 (pp. 11–16); Kaplan, pp. 462–472.
The banquet’s merrymaking is recounted by John Tyndall, New Fragments (London: Longmans, Green, 1892), p. 365;
and also by Bernard Lightman, The Origins of Agnosticism: Victorian Unbelief and the Limits of Knowledge (London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), pp. 173–174.
For example see, John Hendry, James Clerk Maxwell and the Theory of the Electromagnetic Field (Bristol and Boston: Adam Hilger, 1986), p. 112.
Charles Richard Sanders, ‘The Victorian Rembrandt: Carlyle’s Portraits of his Contemporaries’, in Carlyle’s Friendships and Other Studies (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1977), pp. 3–35 (first publ. in Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 39 (1957)), (p. 11).
Thomas Murray, Autobiographical Notes: Also Reminiscences of a Journey to London in 1840, ed. by John A. Fairley (Dumfries: The Standard Office, 1911), p. 21.
See, David Hume, Letters of David Hume and Extracts from Letters Referring to him, ed. by Thomas Murray (Edinburgh: Black, 1841);
Thomas Murray, The Literary History of Galloway: from the Earliest Period to the Present Time, 2nd edn (Edinburgh: Waugh and Innes; Dublin: Curry; London: Whittaker, 1832), pp. 293–304.
Thomas Murray, Literary History of Galloway (Edinburgh: Waugh and Innes; London: Ogle and Duncan, 1822), p. vi.
For example, see, Harrold, ‘Carlyle’s Interpretation of Kant’, p. 346; C.E. Vaughan, ‘Carlyle and his German Masters’, Essays and Studies, 1 (1910), 168–196 (p. 182).
See, Ian Campbell, ‘Carlyle’s Borrowings from the Theological Library of Edinburgh University’, Bibliotheck, 5 (1969), 165–168 (p. 166).
Thomas Carlyle, Lectures on the History of Literature delivered by Thomas Carlyle April to July 1838, ed. with preface and notes by J. Reay Greene (London: Ellis and Elvey, 1892), p. 175.
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature ed. by L.A. Selby-Bigge, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978; repr. 1983), I. iv. ii, p. 218.
William Rowe Lyall, ‘Stewart’s Philosophy of the Human Mind’, Quarterly Review 12 (1815), 281–317 (pp. 295–296; pp. 297–298).
On this see, Daniel N. Robinson, ‘Thomas Reid’s Critique of Dugald Stewart’, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 27 (1989), 405–422 (pp. 414–415).
Macvey Napier, ‘Stewart’s Dissertation’, Quarterly Review 17 (1817), 39–72 (pp. 59–69).
‘Biographical Memoir of John Playfair’, in John Playfair, The Works of John Playfair 4 vols (Edinburgh: Constable; London: Robinson, 1822), pp. xi–lxxvi (p. xv).
Thomas Brown, Observation on the Nature and Tendency of the Doctrine of Mr Hume Concerning the Relation of Cause and Effect (Edinburgh: Mundell, 1806);
Thomas Brown, A Short Criticism of the Terms of the Charge Against Mr Leslie (Edinburgh: Mundell, 1806);
John Playfair, Letter to the Author of the Examination of Professor Stewart’s Short Statement of Facts (Edinburgh: Abernethy and Walter, 1806);
Dugald Stewart, A Short Statement of Some Important Facts Relative to the Late Election of a Mathematical Professor in the University of Edinburgh (Edinburgh: Murray and Cochrane, 1805).
Henry Cockburn, Memorials of his Time (Edinburgh: Black, 1856), p. 205; for his lively account of the controversy, see, pp. 200–211.
John Leslie, ‘Note XVI’, in An Experimental Inquiry into the Nature and Propagation of Heat (London: Gillet, 1804), pp. 521–528 (p. 522; p. 525).
Thomas Brown, Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect, 3rd edn (Edinburgh: Constable, 1818).
Compare, Leslie Stephen, The English Utilitarians 3 vols (London: Duckworth, 1900), III, p. 285; Stephen, DNB; see, McCosh, pp. 318319; and compare, ‘Dugald Stewart to Macvey Napier, 14 November, 1820’, in Napier [Jnr], p. 28; Stewart, Elements, Works, IV pp. 375–377, eloquently but severely condemns Brown’s strictures on Reid.
Masson, ‘Carlyle’s Edinburgh Life’, p. 68; compare, John Clubbe, ed., Two Reminiscences of Thomas Carlyle: Now First Published (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1974), p. 33.
Compare, Campbell, Thomas Carlyle, p. 24. Philip Flynn, Francis Jeffrey (Newark: University of Delaware Press; London: Associated University Press, 1978), p. 54.
Horace Ainsworth Eaton, Thomas De Quincey: A Biography (New York: Octagon, 1972), pp. 269–270.
Jeffrey, ‘Bentham, Principes de Legislation, par Dumont’, Edinburgh Review 4 (1804), 1–26 (p. 13);
also see, J.A. Heraud, ‘Some Account of Coleridge’s Philosophy’, Fraser’s Magazine, 5 (1832), 585–597 (p. 590).
Thomas Brown, ‘Belsham’s Philosophy of the Mind’, Edinburgh Review 1 (1803), 475–485 (p. 476).
See, Sir James Mackintosh, Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, Chiefly during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, with preface by William Whewell (Edinburgh: Black, Longman, Simpkin, Marshall, Whittaker; London: Hamilton, Adams, 1836), p. 212.
Joseph Priestley, An Examination of Dr Reid’s Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense, Dr Beattie’s Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth, and Dr Oswald’s Appeal to Common Sense in Behalf of Religion (London: Johnson, 1774).
See, Francis Jeffrey and Walter Scott, ‘Sir William Forbes’s Life of Dr Beattie’, Edinburgh Review, 10 (1807), 171–199 (p. 193).
Jeffrey and Scott, ‘Forbes’s Life of Beattie’, p. 194; compare, Jeffrey, ‘Drummond’s Academical Questions’, Edinburgh Review 7 (1805), 163–185 (pp. 172–173).
William Empson, ‘Principles of Belief and Expectation as Applied to Miracles’, Edinburgh Review 52 (1831), 388–398 (p. 390).
Francis Jeffrey, ‘Stewart’s Life of Dr Reid’, Edinburgh Review 3 (1804), 269–287 (p. 281).
Robert Crawford, ‘Edinburgh’, in A Scottish Assembly (London: Chatto & Windus, 1990), p. 44.
Empson, ‘Principles of Belief and Expectation as applied to Miracles’, Edinburgh Review, 52 (1831), 388–398.
For example, see, William Empson, ‘Pretended Miracles - Irving, Scott, and Erskine’, Edinburgh Review, 53 (1831), 261–305 (p. 291).
See, James Beattie, An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth, in Opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism 4th edn (London: Dilly; Edinburgh: Kinnaird and Creech, 1773), III. ili, p. 479; and also Beattié s ‘Postscript’, p. 486.
See, John Playfair, ‘Leslie’s Elements of Geometry’, Edinburgh Review 20 (1812), 79–100 (p. 82; p. 97);
Mackintosh, ‘Stewart’s Introduction to the Encyclopaedia’, Part I, p. 205; James Browne, ‘Origin and Affinity of Languages’, Edinburgh Review, 51 (1830), 529–564.
Henry Home [Lord Karnes], Elements of Criticism 6th edn, 2 vols (Edinburgh: Bell and Creech; London: Cadell and Robinson, 1785), II, pp. 227–324;
Hugh Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (London: Baynes, 1824), XIV–XVIII, pp. 166–233.
See, J.A.S. Barrett, ‘Carlyle on Novels’, Times Literary Supplement, 20 January 1927, p. 44.
See, Miriam M. Thrall, ‘Two Articles Attributed to Carlyle’, Modern Language Notes, 46 (1931), 316–321;
Miriam M. Thrall and also her later remarks in, Rebellious Fraser’s: Nol Yorke’s Magazine in the Days of Maginn, Thackeray, and Carlyle (New York: Columbia University Press, 1934), pp. 268–270;
Hill Shine, ‘Articles in Fraser’s Magazine attributed to Carlyle’, Modern Language Notes, 51 (1936), 142–145.
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© 1997 Ralph Jessop
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Jessop, R. (1997). A Common Fund of Philosophic Prose. In: Carlyle and Scottish Thought. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230371477_3
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