Alexander Campbell

“ Malcolm Campbell, my paternal grandfather, left Scotland subsequently to our Revolution, accompanied by his wife and son James (my father) , and after a passage of [7] several weeks landed in New York. His wife was Miss Lucy McClellan. His father, Alexander Campbell, fought in the battle of Culloden, and I have heard my father say that his grandfather's regiment marched to the song of:
"Who wadna fight for Charlie? ”

“ CAMPBELL, Sir ALEXANDER (1822–1892) , Canadian politician, born at the village of Heydon, near Kingston-upon-Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, on 9 March 1822, was the son of James Campbell, a physician of Scottish parentage, who, after residing for some time in Yorkshire, emigrated to Lachine, Lower Canada, in 1824. Alexander was educated first by the presbyterian minister at Lachine, then in the Roman catholic seminary of St.-Hyacinthe, and, on the removal of the family to Upper Canada, at the Kingston grammar school. He began the study of the law in 1836. ”

“ An exceedingly popular lady novelist, commanding the best existing sale of sentimental fiction, had offered her wares to Leslie Campbell, for the prestige of seeing his name stamped at the foot of her cover. Alexander was considering the advisability of lowering their standards to accept these overtures: "Psychology will never make us a fortune, Campbell; and we can't live for ever on the proceeds of 'Piccadilly.'" Now, sneakingly, and with immense delight, Campbell dictated his uncompromising refusal of Miss Ethel Erskine's offer. He would have nothing but the Intellectuals. ”

“ Campbell was educated at Glasgow, where he matriculated in November 1744, and was licensed by Armagh presbytery in 1750. He became tutor in the Bagwell family of Clonmel, and in this capacity spent seven years in France. He got into prison in Paris, through refusing to genuflect while the host was passing. Returning to Ireland in 1758 he married his cousin, Jane Carlile of Newry, and in 1759 was ordained minister of the non-subscribing presbyterians at Antrim. ”

“ Alexander stood behind a partition, and heard all that was spoken, waiting but an opportunity to be revenged on Callisthenes, who being a man of free speech, honest, learned, and a lover of the king's honour, was yet soon after tormented to death, not for that he had betrayed the king to others, but because he never would condescend to betray the king to himself, as all his detestable flatterers did. ”

“ Campbell was greatly loved and esteemed by a circle of friends, which included Thomas Erskine, Norman McLeod, Bishop Alexander Ewing, F.D. Maurice, D.J. Vaughan, and he lived to be recognized and honoured as a man whose opinion on theological subjects carried great weight. ”

“ The whole history of the early years of Leibnitz forms a precious record of what we might call speculative experience. It reveals the self-educating genius of the really original mind, and shows a singular development of abstract thought at an age when the attention is usually engrossed with the objects of sense. ”

“ How can we rest with trust in those practical principles of human nature to which Reid appealed, when they and we are found in a universe so full of evil as this in which we find ourselves? Are we not navigating the ocean of life in a vessel that is not seaworthy? ”

“ For I am at a loss to know what power of the understanding we mean by the conceiving a proposition to be true, if it is neither simple apprehension, by which we barely understand the meaning of a proposition, nor judgment, by which we assent to the proposition or dissent from it. ”

“ Upon this judgment of the common sense our inductions are all grounded, so that it may be called the inductive principle. Withdraw trust from it and experience becomes blind as a mole. We may feel what is present at the moment, but the distant and the future are wholly hid in darkness. ”

“ For it is ridiculous to attempt to prove the truth of those perceptions, whose truth we can no otherwise prove than by other perceptions which there is just the same ground to suspect; or to attempt to prove the truth of our faculties, which can no otherwise be proved than by these very suspected faculties themselves.’ This is the substance of the argument that rests on the data of the sense or reason with which human nature is inspired. ”

“ Campbell, much mortified, determined to leave the north of Ireland. On 14 Sept. 1789 he resigned Armagh, and spent the remainder of his days in charge of the small flock at Clonmel, Tipperary. He is said to have shone more in conversation than in the pulpit, and to have possessed much scientific knowledge and a remarkable memory. He was probably an Arian, certainly a strong opponent of subscription. He died on 17 Nov. 1805, leaving three surviving children out of a family of eleven. His successor at Clonmel was James Worrall. Campbell published: 1. ”

“ The universe resolves at last, not merely into sensations that are all referable to myself, but into sensations without any self—into isolated sensations—which seem indeed to follow one another in an orderly way, but without any guarantee that the seeming order is more than transitory, or that the illusory cosmos may not at any moment become chaos. ”

“ I am ashamed of my frame, and can hardly forbear expostulating with my destiny. I see myself, and the whole frame of Nature, shrink into fleeting ideas, which, like Epicurus’s atoms, dance about in emptiness. ”

“ The ‘Rankenian Club’ and the ‘Select Society’ in Edinburgh lasted longer, or enrolled more members, but neither of them was the parent of so much good literature. The ‘Inquiry’ of Reid, Beattie’s essay on ‘Truth,’ Gerard on ‘Taste’ and on ‘Genius,’ and Campbell’s books on ‘Miracles’ and on ‘Rhetoric’ appear in fragments or in germ in the minutes of the ‘Wise Club’ of Aberdeen. ”

“ This grand work of nature, like the fruits of the earth, has its maturity, its decay, and its dissolution. Like those also, in all its decay it nourishes a principle within which is to be the seed of a future existence. ”

“ I deserve justly, O Lord, that Thou shouldst deprive me of the greatest comfort of my life, because I have not been so thankful to Thee as I ought for giving me such a kind and affectionate wife. I have forgot Thy goodness in bringing us happily together by an unforeseen and undesigned train of events, and blessing us with so much love and harmony of affection, and so many of the comforts and conveniences of life. ”

“ I cannot demonstrate the truth of these judgments: I can only justify them in reason by showing that human nature responds to them, and forbids me to reject them in my actions, on pain of being judged a lunatic, whatever I may say in my speculative theories. ‘Such original and natural judgments,’ he says, ‘are part of the furniture which nature hath given to the human understanding. They are the inspiration of the Almighty. ”

“ Boulogne, Campbell settles at, 139. Campbell, Alexander, poet’s father, 10-13, 67. ——, Alison, poet’s son, 90, 99. ——, Archibald, poet’s grandfather, 10. ——, Margaret, poet’s niece, 136, 137. ——, Mrs, poet’s mother, 13, 99. ——, Mrs, poet’s wife, 80, 113, 119. Campbell, Thomas, ancestry, 9; birth, 11; at Grammar School, 15; his love for the classics, 16; first verses, 17, 18; at Glasgow University, 20-32; his professors, 20; his fellow-students, 21; early turn for satire, 24; first visit to Edinburgh, 25; becomes a tutor, 27, 32; falls in love, 29, 34; second visit to Edinburgh, 36 ”

“ Faith is, on the one side, lost in the dark abyss of doubt: on the other, it evaporates in the sunny haze of the empyrean of transcendentalism. In either case, a pretended philosophy, instead of guiding the perplexed labourers who are pressing on with their work below, only adds to the fogs which already darken their atmosphere. ”

“ He was to the last moment free from that morose querulous temper which has been deemed inseparable from age. Instead of repining at the prosperity and enjoyments of the young, he delighted in promoting them; and after having lost all his own family except one daughter, he continued to treat children with such condescension and benignity that some very young ones noticed the peculiar kindness of his eye. His end accorded with the wisdom and goodness of his life. ”

“ May not a man who is a mathematician as distinctly conceive that in the infinite variety of numbers gradually ascending, there is no ratio whatsoever which is not equal to the ratio of some one whole number to some other whole number? ”

“ Alexander is described as "a man held in the highest honour by the people and clergy, magnificent, liberal, eloquent, just, a lover of God and man, devoted to the poor, good and sweet to all, so mortified that he never broke his fast while the sun was in the heavens." ”

“ Is there nothing within the resources of reason to arrest this intellectual suicide? Has reason got anything to show in justification of this preliminary sacrifice of a conviction on which men have to act, whatever their theories may be? ”

“ The former part of his life was more amiable and more social; but the whole was of a piece in virtue, candour, and humanity.... I have always regarded him as my best tutor, though of the same age with me. If the giddy part of my life was in any degree spent innocently and virtuously, I owe it to him more than to any human creature; for I could not but be virtuous in his company, and I could not be so happy in any other. But I must leave this pleasing melancholy subject. He is happy; and I shall often be happy in the remembrance of our friendship ”

“ May not our taking things to be possible, in matters of higher moment, when we can show no good reason that they are so, lead us into unnecessary disputes and vain theories? Ought we to admit that as a just argument in reasoning, or even as a pressing difficulty, which is grounded on the supposition that such a thing is possible, when in reality we have no good evidence of its being possible, and for anything we can show to the contrary, it may be impossible?’ ”

“ Whatever we may say of the truth or falsehood of the doctrines to which he attained, we cannot withhold our homage of admiration when we reflect on such an amount of speculative genius in busy operation throughout a long life, —on the amazing sweep of the abstract conceptions which that genius has employed,—on that strong logical faith in the omnipotence of deduction,—on the richly suggestive ideas which this mighty thinker has contributed to philosophy,—and, on the unity of a system which sublimely designs to harmonize the spiritual with the sensible world. ”

“ This perpetual, yet broken struggle, after what must in the end elude his grasp, when become habitual and too exclusive in any individual, tends to weaken his judgment in common affairs, by abstracting it from clear and distinct sciences, and palpable individual realities, and tempts his mind to sink into itself in the vain effort to find there that explanation which shall leave nothing to be explained. ”

“ It is impossible without contradiction to express a philosophy which destroys intelligible expression; virtually dismissing as absurdities all personal pronouns, all substantive nouns, and all verbs; leaving abstract adjectives as the only parts of speech;—and, as such adjectives are really unintelligible, leaving us the speechless and motionless victims of philosophical suicide. When I start with the preliminary maxim of Hume, I literally lose 'myself' at last in a radically untrustworthy universe, or I find myself suspended over a bottomless abyss. ”

“ I find myself chained to one little planet, but without understanding why I am here rather than there; and why this period of time was given me to live in rather than any other in the unbeginning and endless duration. Life with its memories and forecasts looks like a blind venture. The sum of my knowledge seems to be that I must die; but what I am most ignorant of is the meaning of death. One is drawn to Reid by an interest in final questions like these, which the agnostic spirit is now forcing upon us. ”

“ As there are too many who make themselves appear more wise than they are, it was the more uncommon fault of Reid to appear less a philosopher than he really was. Extreme caution made him suspicious of ingenious conjecture in matter-of-fact inquiry, and perhaps blinded him to the large part which imagination as well as reason has to play in progress. ‘It is genius, and not the want of it,’ he says, ‘that adulterates philosophy, and fills it with error and false theory’ ”

“ What has modern thought, as developed at the end of the nineteenth century, to say to a Scottish eighteenth century inquiry into human mind that finds its root in a postulated sense of reality, which must be taken as finally authoritative when it is recognised in its genuine integrity? How do faith and doubt now stand finally related, as compared with their relations when Reid opposed Hume? Is there still room for philosophical argument founded on the divine inspirations of the Common Sense, under, for instance, our transformed conception of the universe as an evolution? ”

“ And when the intellect is in a state of fermentation, bare facts, separated from principles, excite only a feeble interest. Men then feel that beneath the stir occasioned by incessant activity among the outward events of this passing world, there lie hid the invisible elements and springs of those external changes of which this strange and dangerous life is the scene. Within and immediately around that inner circle, is the domain peculiar to Philosophy. The more deeply thought is exerted on any subject, the further is it compelled to go within the dominions of this "science of sciences." ”