ONE:The tumult in Ireland was succeeded by one in Scotland. The people of that country, though they were, by the provisions of the Act of union, to bear their proportion of the malt tax, had always refused compliance, and in 1713 had issued a violent resolution against it. They had never yet complied with the law, and Walpole, seeing the sturdy nature of the opposition, was willing to give up the point quietly. But during the Parliamentary Session of this year, Mr. Brodrick proposed that a duty of sixpence on every barrel of ale should be paid in lieu of it. Walpole was reluctant to go into the question, but the House was bent on it, and he therefore complied so far as to consent to a duty of threepence per barrel, or half the amount. There were promptly riots in Glasgow, and at Edinburgh the brewers refused to brew. Walpole sent down the Earl of Islay, the brother of the Duke of Argyll, and a zealous adherent of his own, to pacify the country. Islay behaved with equal prudence and firmness. He found the powerful combination of brewers essaying to make a stand against and then attempting to make terms with him. But he let them know that nothing but unconditional surrender to the laws would be accepted, and they at length held a meeting, where the chairman put the question, "To brew, or not to brew?" The members were to vote seriatim; but neither the man on his right nor the one on his left would venture to begin. In the long pause that ensued, one Gray declared that he thought there was nothing for them to do but to return to their trades; that he would not be bound by the majority, but would vote independently, and he voted to brew. The meeting broke up, and that night a number of breweries were set to work, and the next day, at noon, about forty brew-houses were in full action in Edinburgh, and ten in Leith.The Alexandrian Sceptics general arguments against the possibility of knowledge resolve themselves into a criticism of what Sir W. Hamilton called Natural Realism, somewhat complicated and confused by a simultaneous attack on the theory of natural morality conceived as something eternal and immutable. They are summed up in the famous ten Tropes. Of these the first three are founded on the conflicting sensations produced by the same object when acting on different animalsas is inferred from the marked contrast presented by their several varieties of origin and structure,on different men, and on the different senses of the same individual. The fourth, which has evidently an ethical bearing, enlarges on the changes in mens views caused by mental and bodily changes, according to their health, age, disposition, and so forth. The next five Tropes relate to circumstances connected with the objects themselves: their distance and position as regards the spectator, the disturbance produced in their proper action by external influences such as air and light, together with the various membranes and humours composing the organs of sense through which they are apprehended; their quantitative variation, involving as it does opposite effects on the senses, or as with medicines, on the health; the law of relativity, according to which many things are only known when taken in company with others, such as double and half, right and left, whole and part; comparative frequency or rarity of occurrence, as with comets, which, while really of much less importance than the sun, excite much more interest from their being so seldom seen. Finally, the tenth Trope is purely ethical, and infers the non-existence of a fixed moral standard from the divergent and even opposite customs prevailing among different nations.297
TWO:Descartes had already accomplished a great simplification of the speculative problem by summing up all existence under the two heads of extension and thought. It remained to account for these, and to reduce them to a single idea. As we have seen, they were derived from Greek philosophy, and the bond which was to unite them must be sought for in the same direction. It will be remembered that the systems of Plato and Aristotle were bounded at either extremity by a determinate and by an indeterminate principle. With the one, existence ranged between the Idea of Good at the upper end of the scale and empty space at the lower; with the other, between absolute Thought and First Matter. It was by combining the two definite terms, space and thought, that Descartes had constructed his system; and after subtracting these the two indefinite terms remained. In one respect they were even more opposed to each other than were the terms with which they had been respectively associated. The Idea403 of Good represented unity, identity, and constancy, as against plurality, difference, and change; while Aristotles Matter was, by its very definition, multiform, fluctuating, and indeterminate. Nevertheless, there were equally important analogies traceable between them. No very clear account could be given of either, and both were customarily described by negatives. If Matter fell short of complete existence, the Good transcended all existence. If the one was a universal capacity for assuming Forms, the other was the source whence all Forms proceeded. When the distinctive characteristics of an individual were thought away, the question might well be mooted into which principle it would return. The ambiguous use of the word Power contributed still further to their identification, for it was not less applicable to the receptive than to the productive faculty. Now we have just seen into what importance the idea of Power suddenly sprang at the Renaissance: with Bruno it was the only abiding reality of Nature; with Hobbes it was the only object of human desire.Lord Townshend succeeded Stanhope as Secretary of State. Aislabie, who had been deep in the iniquities of the South Sea affair, was compelled to resign his post as Chancellor of the Exchequer, to which Walpole succeeded. Meanwhile the Secret Committee appointed by the Commons continued its labours indefatigably. They sat nearly every day from nine in the morning till eleven at night, and on the 16th of February, 1721, they presented their first report to the House. This revealed a vast amount of Ministerial corruption.
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