A/MERICA was now reaching such a settled condition that reflective thought could make its appearance.
Underneath the Puritan action and self-sacrifice, there was a Puritan faith which required men to judge and reason.
American philosophy put forth at that time its greatest representative.Jonathan Edwards was born in Connecticut, in 1703; was a tutor in Yale in 1724; was pastor and missionary from 1726 to 1757; and died President of Princeton College, in 1758.From his very childhood he pondered the profoundest subjects, and penetrated as far as -- at times farther, some think, than -- human thought could carry him.Possessed of no great variety of reading, he reached his very definite opinions, by revolving every subject in his own mind.I am inclined to think that his opinions might have been modified, had he been brought more fully into contact and collision with other thinkers.His " Freedom of the Will "is the acutest work ever written on that perplexing subject;but many think that he has overlooked an essential freedom in the mind, acknowledged by Calvin, Owen, and the great Calvinistic divines, and revealed by consciousness.He is known more as a theologian than a philosopher; but the fact is, his metaphysics, always along with his deep spiritual insight, are the valuable element in his divinity.
Contemporaneously with Berkeley, he arrives at a doctrine of power and of body,-not the same with that of the ideal bishop, but coming close to it and perhaps of a more consistently philosophic structure.Cause he explains to be " that after or upon the existence of which, or its existence after such a manner, the existence of another thing follows.The connection between these two existences, or between the cause and effect is what is called power.""When we say that grass is green, all that we can mean is, that, in a constant course, when we see grass, the idea of green is excited by it" " What idea is that which we call by the name of body? I find color has the chief share in it.
`Tis nothing but color, and figure, which is the termination of this figure, together with some powers, such as the power of resisting and motion, that wholly takes up what we call body, and if that which we principally mean by the thing itself cannot be said to be in the thing itself, I think {184} nothing can be.If color exists not out of the mind, then nothing be longing to body exists out of the mind, but resistance, which is solidity, and the termination of this resistance with its relations, which is figure, and the communication of this resistance from place to place, which is motion; though the latter are nothing, but modes of the former.Therefore, there is nothing out of the mind but resistance; and not that either, when nothing is actively resisted.Then there is nothing but the power of resistance.
And, as resistance is nothing but the actual exertion of God's power, so the power can be nothing else but the constant law or method of that actual exercise." (Notes on Mind, in Dwight's " Life of Edwards.")It could be shown that, at this time, there was everywhere a tendency towards idealism among the higher minds, which had been trained under the philosophy of Locke.
The Rev.Samuel Johnson, the tutor of Edwards in Yale, who afterwards wrote " Elementa Philosolphica," welcomed Berkeley on his coming to Rhode Island, and adopted his philosophy.Berkeley was personally beloved by all who came in contact with him, and gained some devoted adherents to his theory.In Princeton College, Mr.Meriam, a tutor, defended the system.But idealism has never struck deep into the American soil.The " Scottish Philosophy," coming in with the great Scotch and Scotch-Irish migration, which, next to the Puritan, has had the greatest power for good on the American character, has had much greater influence.
Edwards was acquainted with the moral theory of Hutcheson, which makes virtue consist in benevolence; but propounded one of his own, somewhat akin to it, but much more profound, making virtue consist in love to being as being.I feel that I must take a passing notice of the energetic man who actually introduced Scottish thought into the new world.
John Witherspoon was the son of a minister of the Church of Scotland, and was born February 5, 1722, in the parish of Yester, in East Lothian, the probable birthplace of Knox.He entered the university of Edinburgh, at the age of fourteen, and pursued his studies there for seven years, with such fellow-students as Blair, Robertson, and John Erskine.Carlyle, who could not have been specially inclined towards him, is obliged to say that " he was open, frank, and generous, pretending to what he was, and sup porting his title with spirit." " At the time I speak of, he was a good scholar, far advanced for his age, very sensible and shrewd, but of a disagreeable temper, which was irritated by a flat voice and awkward manner, which prevented his making an impression on his contemporaries at all adequate to his abilities." Descended from Knox, through his heroic daughter, Mrs.Welch, who told King James that she would rather " kep his head in her lap" than have him submit to the king's supremacy in {185} religion," young Witherspoon inherited the spirit of the reformer, -- his devoted piety, his keen perception of abounding evil, his undaunted courage, his unflinching perseverance, and, I may add, his vigorous sense and his broad humor.He was settled as minister, first in Beith in Ayrshire, famous for its cheese, and then in Paisley, famous for its shawls and for the piety of its older inhabitants; and in both places was an effective, popular preacher, and wrote works -- such as his Treatises on justification, and on Regeneration -- which continue to be read with profit to this day.