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THE EDINBURGH REVIEW.

DR. PARR.* (E. REVIEW, 1802.) Spital Sermon, preached at Christ Church upon Easter-Tuesday, April 15, 1800. To which are added, Notes by Samuel Parr, LL.D. Printed for J. Mawman in the Poultry. 1801.

WHOEVER has had the good fortune to see Dr. Parr's wig, must have observed, that while it trespasses a little on the orthodox magnitude of perukes, in the anterior parts, it scorns even Episcopal limits behind, and swells out into boundless convexity of frizz, the ueya Savua of barbers, and the terror of the literary world. After the manner of his wig, the Doctor has constructed his sermon, giving us a discourse of no common length, and subjoining an immeasurable mass of notes, which appear to concern every learned thing, every learned man, and almost every unlearned man since the beginning of the world.

selfish system, and the modern one of universal benevolence, he divides his sermon into two parts: in the first examining how far, by the constitution of human nature, and the circumstances of human life, the principles of par. ticular and universal benevolence are compatible: in the last, commenting on the nature of the charitable institution for which he is preaching.

The former part is levelled against the doctrines of Mr. Godwin; and, here, Dr. Parr exposes, very strongly and happily, the folly of making universal benevolence the immediate motive of our actions. As we consider this, though of no very difficult execution, to be by far the best part of the sermon, we shall very willingly make some extracts from it.

For his text, Dr. Parr has chosen Gal. vi. 10. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good to all men, especially to those who are of the house-men, hold of faith. After a short preliminary comparison between the dangers of the

A great scholar, as rude and violent as most Greek scholars are, unless they happen to be Bishops. He has left nothing behind him worth leaving: he was rather fitted for the law than the church, and would have been a more considerable man, if he had been more knocked about among his equals. He lived with country gentlemen and clergymen, who flattered and feared him.

VOL. I

"To me it appears, that the modern advocates for universal philanthropy have fallen into the error charged upon those who are fascinated by a violent and extraordinary fondness for what a celebrated author calls 'some moral species.' Some it has been remarked, are hurried into romantic adventures, by their excessive admiration of fortitude. Others are actuated by a headstrong zeal for disseminating the true religion. Hence, while the only properties, for which fortitude or zeal can be esteemed, are scarcely discernible, from the enormous bulkiness to which they are swollen, the ends, to which alone they can be directed usefully, are overlooked or defeated; the public good is impaired rather than increased: and the claims that other virtues equally obligatory have to our

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they give the most dangerous triumph over
the genuine and salutary dictates of nature.
They delude and inflame our minds with
pharisaical notions of superior wisdom and
superior virtue; and, what is the worst of
all, they may be used as 'a cloke to us' for
insensibility, where other men feel; and for
negligence, where other men act with visible
and useful, though limited, effect."

notice, are totally disregarded. Thus, too,, ease of speculation and the pride of dog. when any dazzling phantoms of universal matism, for the toil of practice. To a class philanthropy have seized our attention, of artificial and ostentatious sentiments, the objects that formerly engaged it shrink and fade. All considerations of kindred, friends, and countrymen drop from the mind, during the struggles it makes to grasp the collective interests of the species; and when the association that attached us to them has been dissolved, the notions we have formed of their comparative insignificance will prevent them from recovering, I do not say any hold whatsoever, but In attempting to show the connexion that strong and lasting hold they once had upon our conviction and our feelings. Uni- between particular and universal beversal benevolence, should it, from any nevolence, Dr. Parr does not appear strange combination of circumstances, ever to us to have taken a clear and satisbecome passionate, will, like every other factory view of the subject. Nature passion, justify itself:' and the importu- impels us both to good and bad actions; nity of its demands to obtain a hearing will and, even in the former, gives us no be proportionate to the weakness of its measure by which we may prevent cause. But what are the consequences? them from degenerating into excess. A perpetual wrestling for victory between the refinements of sophistry, and the re- Rapine and revenge are not less natural monstrances of indignant nature-the agi- than parental and filial affection; which tations of secret distrust in opinions which latter class of feelings may themselves gain few or no proselytes, and feelings be a source of crimes, if they overpower which excite little or no sympathy-the (as they frequently do) the sense of neglect of all the usual duties by which justice. It is not, therefore, a sufficient social life is preserved or adorned; and in justification of our actions, that they are natural. We must seek, from our reason, some principle which will enable us to determine what impulses of nature we are to obey, and what we are to resist such is that of general utility, or, what is the same thing, of universal good; a principle which sanctifies and limits the more particular affections. The duty of a son to a parent, or a parent to a son, is not an ultimate principle of morals, but depends on the principle of universal good, and is only praiseworthy, because it is found to promote it. At the same time, our spheres of action and intelligence are so confined, that it is better, in a great majority of instances, to suffer our conduct to be guided by those affections which have been long sanctioned by the approbation of mankind, than to enter into a process of reasoning, and investigate the relation which every trifling event might bear to the general interests of the world. In his principle of universal benevolence, Mr. Godwin is unquestionably right. That it is the grand principle on which all morals rest that it is the corrective for the excess of all particular affections, we

the pursuit of other duties which are unusual, and indeed imaginary, a succession of airy projects, eager hopes, tumultuous efforts, and galling disappointments, such in truth as every wise man foresaw, and a good man would rarely commiserate."

In a subsequent part of his sermon, Dr. Parr handles the same topic with equal success.

"The stoics, it has been said, were more successful in weakening the tender affections than in animating men to the stronger virtues of fortitude and self-command; and possible it is, that the influence of our modern reformers may be greater in furnishing their disciples with pleas for the neglect of their ordinary duties, than in stimulating their endeavours for the performance of those which are extraordinary, and perhaps ideal. If, indeed, the representations we have lately heard of universal philanthropy served only to amuse the fancy of those who approve of them, and to communicate that pleasure which arises from contemplating the magnitude and

grandeur of a favourite subject, we might be tempted to smile at them as groundless and harmless. But they tend to debase the dignity, and to weaken the efficacy of those particular affections, for which we have daily and hourly occasion in the events of real life. They tempt us to substitute the

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believe to be undeniable: and he is charitable institutions; and, from a only erroneous in excluding the par- lively apprehension of the fluctuating ticular affections, because, in so doing, characters of those who govern, would he deprives us of our most powerful leave the world without any government means of promoting his own principle at all. It is better there should be an of universal good; for it is as much as asylum for the mad, and a hospital for to say, that all the crew ought to have the wounded, if they were to squander the general welfare of the ship so much away 50 per cent. of their income, than at heart, that no sailor should ever pull that they should be disgusted with sore any particular rope, or hand any indi- limbs, and shocked by straw-crowned vidual sail. By universal benevolence, monarchs in the streets. All instituwe mean, and understand Dr. Parr to tions of this kind must suffer the risk mean, not a barren affection for the of being governed by more or less of species, but a desire to promote their probity and talents. The good which real happiness; and of this principle, one active character effects, and the he thus speaks: wise order which he establishes, may outlive him for a long period; and we all hate each other's crimes by which we gain nothing, so much, that in proportion as public opinion acquires ascendency in any particular country, every public institution becomes more and more guaranteed from abuse.

"I admit and I approve of it, as an emotion of which general happiness is the cause, but not as a passion, of which, according to the usual order of human affairs, it could often be the object. I approve of it as a disposition to wish, and, as opportunity may occur, to desire and do good, rather than harm, to those with whom we are quite unconnected."

It would appear, from this kind of language, that a desire of promoting the universal good were a pardonable weakness, rather than a fundamental principle of ethics; that the particular affections were incapable of excess; and that they never wanted the corrective of a more generous and exalted feeling. In a subsequent part of his sermon, Dr. Parr atones à little for this over-zealous depreciation of the principle of universal benevolence; but he nowhere states the particular affections to derive their value and their limits from their subservience to a more extensive philanthropy. He does not show us that they exist only as virtues, from their instrumentality in promoting the general good; and that, to preserve their true character, they should be frequently referred to that principle as their proper criterion.

Upon the whole, this sermon is rather the production of what is called a sensible, than of a very acute man; of a man certainly more remarkable for his learning than his originality. It refutes the very refutable positions of Mr. Godwin, without placing the doctrine of benevolence in a clear light; and it almost leaves us to suppose, that the particular affections are themselves ultimate principles of action, instead of convenient instruments of a more general principle. The style is such as to give a general impression of heaviness to the whole sermon. The Doctor is never simple and natural for a single instant. Every thing smells of the rhetorician. He never appears to forget himself, or to be hurried by his subject into obvious language. Every expression seems to be the result of artifice and intention; and as to the worthy dedicatees, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, unless the sermon be done into English by a person In the latter part of his sermon, Dr. of honour, they may perhaps be flattered Parr combats the general objections of by the Doctor's politeness, but they can Mr. Turgot to all charitable institutions, never be much edified by his meaning. with considerable vigour and success. Dr. Parr seems to think, that eloquence To say that an institution is necessarily consists not in an exuberance of beaubad, because it will not always be ad-tiful images-not in simple and sublime ministered with the same zeal, proves conceptions-not in the feelings of a little too much; for it is an objection the passions; but in a studious arrangeto political and religious, as well as to ment of sonorous, exotic, and sesquipedal

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