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were published, the Rev. Henry Kett's "Logic made Easy" was produced by the demand for smatterings of studies, in 1806, and the dry, meagre, acumenless abstract of Dr. Richard Kirwan, in 1807. Dr. Copleston, we believe, wrote a critique, called "The Examiner Examined," which almost extinguished Kett; and his efforts, as tutor of Oriel College, tended very greatly to add an idea of preciousness to the common estimate of Logic, while they confessedly exerted a large influence on the writer of "a work" characterized in an Oxford University Magazine of the time as one" which has given a new life to Logic in Oxford, and is daily diffusing, in the most interesting form, sound and comprehensive views of the science." That work was "The Elements of Logic," by the then (1825) Dr. Richard Whately-a book which has become a standard in our language, as "the latest and most improved edition of the Aristotelian system," and has won for him the reputation, among his admirers, of being "the reviver and reformer of the science of reasoning." Even Sir William Hamilton admits that, by Whately's efforts, a new life was communicated to the expiring study; and hope, at least, allowed for its ultimate convalescence, under a reformed system;" and that the movement which he publicly initiated "has done more in Oxford for the cause of this science than the whole hundred and thirty years preceding;" while John Stuart Mill refers his readers to Whately's book as one in which they "will find stated, with philosophical precision, and explained, with remarkable perspicuity, the whole of the common doctrine of the syllogism." Such opinions are amply sufficient to justify the giving of a prominent place, in a series of papers on "Modern Logicians," to the author of that book; and the preceding slight historical résumé of the fortunes of logical science will not be esteemed useless by those who wish, in some measure, to comprehend why and how Archbishop Whately has attained and maintained a position so honourable among the expositors of the rules of right thinking; for without some knowledge of the state of past effort and accomplishment, we are but ill-fitted to estimate aright present aims and successes, or the good effected by those who, while asserting the utility of contemned studies, so expound them as to render them at once easy, attractive, popular, and perspicuous.

But it is more than time now to bring together a few biographical memoranda, such as may help us to comprehend the influences and culture under the operations and effects of which the mind of one of the most acute and truth-loving thinkers of the day was moulded, trained, developed, exercised, and rendered capable of becoming one of the great masters of thought in an age like ours. This we shall, therefore, proceed to do, premising, however, that we are possessed of no special facilities for gaining an acquaintance with the facts of the Oxonian logician's biography, and that we have no other sources of information than those which memory supplies from her readings of newspapers, magazines, and books; or the subjects, times of publication, and contents of the works

he has issued, with no stinting hand, during the previous forty years.

The Right Hon. and Most Rev. Richard Whately, D.D., Lord Archbishop of Dublin, &c., &c., appears to have been endowed with ancestral gifts and graces. Among his progenitors he can reckon, we believe, William Whately, the Puritan divine, author of a "Caveat for the Covetous;" Prototypes out of the Book of Genesis," &c., who is mentioned by Fuller, in his "Worthies of England," as exhibiting great "solidity of reasoning and embroidery of rhetoric;" and by Anthony Wood, in the "Athenæ Oxoniensis," as a stirrer up of faction in Stratford-upon-Avon. As the "preacher of Banbury" lived 1583-1639, it is not improbable that he may have influenced the mind of that great dramatist whose works the Archbishop's uncle, Thomas Whately, private secretary to Lord Suffolk, and author of "Observations on Modern Gardening," illustrated in an excellent work, issued posthumously in 1785, entitled, "Remarks on some of the Characters of Shakspere." The father of the Oxonian reformer of Logic was the Rev. Dr. Joseph Whately, of Nonsuch Park, Suffolk, a prebendary of Bristol Cathedral, and his mother was a daughter of W. Plummer, Esq., of Ware Park, in Hertfordshire. He was born in Cavendish Square, north of Oxford Street, London, in 1787. He was chiefly educated, we have heard, at Nonsuch Park, prior to his entering Oriel College, Oxford, as a commoner. Here he was placed under the tutorship of Dr. E. Copleston (1776-1849, afterwards Bishop of Llandaff), a distinguished polemical writer, of extraordinary subtlety of intellect and uprightness of character; who, after a youth devoted to science and letters, spent a long life of scholastic distinction and exertion, and more than usual academical usefulness, in such a manner as to add the merits of a scholar of ample acquirements, and a gentleman of unimpeachable reputation, to the other graces of the clerical character. Dr. Copleston was a tutor eminently fitted for being put in charge of such a mind as that with which Whately was endowed. He was tolerant in religious affairs, cautiously abstinent in matters leading to political contention, clearsighted in his views of education, singularly gifted with sound discretion, well skilled in practical logic, and an ardent student, as well as an earnest promoter, of the science of political economy. Under the tutelage of such a thinker-one not less remarkable for originality of thought than lucidity of style, "in public lectures and in private conversation"-Whately had full opportunity of culturing his mind to its topmost reach, and he seems to have employed himself fairly in taking advantage of his teacher's gifted labours. During the keeping of his terms, his course was quiet, studious, and stirless; nor, though his mind was active, ingenious, and fertile, did he attract much attention in the University. In 1808, at the Michaelmas term, he graduated B.A., taking a second class degree in classics, mathematies, and physics. In the same year, and at the same term, the popular statesman, Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850),

took a first class degree in both grades; and W. D. Conybeare, afterwards Dean of Llandaff, and famous in the annals of geology, gained a first class in letters, and a second class in mathematics and physics. In 1810, the prize for the English essay on the question," What are the arts in the cultivation of which the Moderns have been less successful than the Ancients? was awarded to Whately. This essay displayed, it is said, marks of a powerful intellect, extensive reading, some humour, a thorough mastery of style, and capacity for analytic thought, not usually found in such productions. In 1811, he was chosen Fellow of Oriel, and graduated M.A. in 1812, after which time he acted as tutor in his college with special acceptance and highly beneficial results.

Shortly after this, the magnificent projection of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Encyclopædia Metropolitana," began to occupy the minds of the more ambitious members of the Universities. The grand panoramic dream of "A Methodical Compendium of Human Knowledge," which, in the General Introduction to that gigantic undertaking, he contributed in his " Essay on Method," captivated and dazzled, by its excursive brilliancy, the most able men of the age. Illness and instability of purpose combined made it impossible to entrust Coleridge with the management. A man of solid mind and wide acquirements was sought out to take charge of the onerous labour of bringing together the mighty mass of materials of which the work was intended to consist. The highly-gifted Rev. Edward Smedley (1789-1836) was chosen, not only on account of his high literary reputation, but also because of the confidence in his honest efficiency, felt and expressed by many of the leading thinkers and writers of his time. The prospectus having been composed by the projector and his brother-in-law, Sir John Stoddart, LL.D., was put into circulation, and the task of collecting materials and enlisting contributors_was set about with some alacrity and considerable success. The reputation of Whately singled him out as the most competent man to undertake the two treatises on Logic and Rhetoric treatises which unequivocally established his name and fame, and added greatly to the estimation in which the "Encyclopædia" began to be held. The original intent of the abstracts on these subjects materially influenced if it did not control their first form, and indeed it must have somewhat necessitated the adoption of a plan harmonizing with the scheme of the work of which they were to form a part. This was especially the case with the contribution on Logic, of which Coleridge had furnished the text in these words: "The science of Logic is the knowledge of those forms which the conceptions of the mind assume in the processes of reasoning. And it is manifest that this science subject... to fixed laws; for the reasoning power in man can operate only within those limits which Almighty Wisdom has thought fit to prescribe. It is a discursive faculty, moving in a given path, and by allotted means. There is no possibility of subverting or altering the elementary rules of Logic; for they are not

is

8

hypothetical, or contingent, or conventional, but positive and necessary.

The paper on Logic was, in all probability, hastily got up; although, being the product of a mind familiar with certain phases of the subject, this did not appear upon its surface. Whately, as a college tutor, had compiled, after the manner of many of his predecessors in Oxford, a manuscript manual for the use of his own pupils. This contained a good deal of similarity to the system and matter taught by Dr. Copleston-so much so, that Whately felt it incumbent upon him to ask and obtain permission to employ the materials that manual contained in the composition of his intended article, because they were compiled, in great measure, from what he had heard from the person who originally taught him the principles of the science in lectures, conversations, or readings from commonplace books; and though interspersed with the results of his own reading and reflection, as well as excerpts of whatever appeared most valuable from the works of former writers, he did not feel that he could honestly make use of them, or enjoy the reputation resulting from their publication, without such acknowledgment and recognition. Of all these matters full notice is given in the dedication and preface to the republished editions of "The Elements of Logic"; and, indeed, it is to these sources that we are indebted for the knowledge of these interesting facts.

Though much of the matter, of which it was intended to consist, was composed beforehand, the publication of The Encyclopedia Metropolitana only began in 1818; and the [then] Rev. Richard Whately's treatise on Logic appears in the first volume, of which it occupied some forty odd pages (193, et seq.). In its original form it was much less copious, and much less distinctly characterized than it has since become; for the author has neither scrupled nor hesitated to make "insertions and alterations of expression," and to transfer passages "from the places they formerly occupied to others which appeared more suitable." the work in its crude form, but shall now pass on to consider the We shall not, however, halt to criticise few known events of his life from the period of its first issue till that of its republication.

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Scepticism, no less than tractarianism, was at this time leavening a good many minds, and the acute-minded Fellow of Oriel had not let either pass unnoticed. In 1819 he issued a gravely ironical satire on the logic of scepticism, in a work entitled "Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Bonaparte." laid," it is true, "by the beams of a half-penny candle," but this Many a terrific spectre has been turned a Bude-light upon one. Recognizing as valid, for the sake of argument, the assertion of the Edinburgh Review (Sept., 1814), that 66 the first author who stated fairly the connexion between the evidence of testimony and the evidence of experience was Hume, in his Essay on Miracles,'" the author proceeds to show that by the

*

Coleridge "On Method," Encyc. Met., Cabinet Issue, 3rd ed., p. 62.

self-same mode of argumentation as that adopted by the Scottish historian and philosopher, the plainest facts of history and of everyday life would be found to afford [so called] just grounds of doubt; and that on the very principle of reasoning employed in Hume's celebrated (but misunderstood) essay, the very existence of Napoleon Bonaparte must be doubted, according to the canons of the sceptical philosophy, even during his own life. He then gives the key to the intent of his work in the following words :-" I call upon those, therefore, who profess themselves advocates of free inquiry, who disdain to be carried along with the stream of popular opinion, and who will listen to no testimony that runs counter to experience, to follow up their own principles fairly and consistently. Let the same mode of argument be adopted in all cases alike; and then it can no longer be attributed to hostile prejudice, but to enlarged and philosophical views. . . . . Let them, in short, show themselves as ready to detect the cheats, and despise the fables of politicians, as of priests." "But if they are still wedded to the popular belief in this point, let them be consistent enough to admit the same evidence in other cases which they yield to in this. If, after all that has been said, they cannot bring themselves to doubt of the existence of Napoleon Bonaparte, they must at least acknowledge that they do not apply to that question the same plan of reasoning which they have made use of in others; and they are consequently bound in reason and in honesty to renounce it altogether." The second edition of this work was issued immediately after the death of Napoleon (5th May, 1821); and a third was published just after the "Life of Napoleon" by Sir Walter Scott had been placed before the public. It has since reached a twelfth edition, and is as popular and effective as ever.

About the same time Whately's pen began to adorn the Edinburgh and the Quarterly Reviews in such articles as the criticisms on Senior's" Lectures on Political Economy," Hawkins on "Tradition," "Canada," Miss Austin's " Persuasion" (erroneously attributed to Sir Walter Scott, and issued as his in Lockhart's edition of the novelist's prose works): the London Review, the Philological Museum, and several other journals, literary, political, and classical, were also subsequently favoured with expositions of well considered thought, composed in admirable taste, and suffused with thoroughgoing judgment. All this time, too, he was pursuing his course of academical duties in such a manner, as to have won for himself most justly the highest consideration in the University, as an unusually felicitous and successful tutor, and as one who passed from his college a greater number of students qualified for taking first-class degrees, than any tutor of his time. He was chosen Select Preacher before the University in 1821, and then delivered several sermons (afterwards published) on "The Christian's Duty with respect to the Established Government and Laws." The High Church views of Dr. Pusey and the Rev. J. H. Newman were beginning to agitate the University, and the Rev. Richard Whately