A/LEXANDER M/ONCRIEFF Of Culfergie in the parish of Abernethy was educated at the grammar school of Perth and St.Andrews University, and became minister of his native parish.He was favorable to the Marrow school of divinity, and took part with the Erskines in defending the popular rights and in seceding from the Church of Scotland, being one of the four fathers of the secession.In 1724, he was made their professor of divinity.He {91} died in 1761.He wrote "An Inquiry into the Principle, Rule, and End of Moral Actions, wherein the Scheme of Selfish Love laid down by Mr.
Archibald Campbell...is examined, and the received Doctrine vindicated." To quote the summary supplied by his biographers, he establishes the following propositions: "(1) To show that self-love is not, or ought not to be, the leading principle of moral virtue; (2) That self-interest or pleasure is not the only standard by which we can and should judge of the virtue of our own and others' actions, or that actions are not to be called virtuous on account of their correspondency to self-interest; (3) That self-love, as it exerts itself in the desire of universal, unlimited esteem, ought not to be the great remaining motive to virtuous actions," &c.