THE LIFE

OF THE REV.

JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE,

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF;

WITH

PORTIONS OF HIS CORRESPONDENCE.

EDITED BY

JOHN HAMILTON THOM.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

LONDON:

JOHN CHAPMAN, 121, NEWGATE STREET.

M.DCCC.XLV.

LONDON:

RICHARD KINDER, PRINTER,

GREEN ARBOUR COURT, OLD BAILEY.

CONTENTS

OF

THE THIRD VOLUME.

PART III.-(continued.)

CHAPTER VIII.

1838.

His contemplation of the probable events of the year; his debility and
helplessness; decreasing hopes of usefulness; the truce with es-
tablished error even among inquiring men; no chance for positive
truth except from the course of Providence; his thankfulness for
the appointments of his own life, 3-4; Suabedissen's principles
of philosophical religion, 5; his desire to control all impatience
under suffering, 5; Letter to Mrs. 5; Letter to Professor
Powell, on his work on the Connections of Natural and Divine
Truth, Induction, Lord Bacon's,-Aristotle's; Religion opposed
to Science, because Science opposes Idol-worship, 6—7; Suabe-
dissen; Professor Powell, his work, his character; confusion of
thought among English writers on the connections of natural and
revealed Religion; the want of a due preparation of mental phi-
losophy; the study of the limits and applications of the mental
faculties; both external nature and the Bible appeal to some
principle within our own minds; that principle our leading guide;
a philosophical Work wanted on the source of our knowledge re-
specting God, 8-12; Mr. S. Martin, 12; the daily increase of
his feverishness, 12; Dr. Woodward's statement, that God cannot
prevent all evil, 13; the prospect of a day, 13-14; To

14-15; Letter to Miss L-; his health; a Theological Jour-

nal; the difficulty of having a free school of theology in England;'

German freedom in philosophy and theology; the worldly and

political influences affecting Religion in this country; English

respectability, 15-16; Allgemeine Krankenhaus, 16; Dr. Suther-

land, 17; Saint Joseph's day; entertainments in Spain; contrast

between his recollections of the day and his present sufferings;

intimation of his approaching death,-Dr. Sutherland, Mr. Archer;

the Moral world seen rightly only through the mind of a virtuous

man, used as a lens; seasons of affliction bring forth these Me-

diators; concealed generosity of Dr. and Mrs. Whately, 17—20;

Letter to Mrs. -, 21; hypochondriacal, 21; Letter to Mr.

on removing to his house, 22—3; Letter to the Rev. J. H. Thom,

23-4; Letter from Dr. Channing,-connection between inspira-

tion and infallibleness; even under miraculous aids man conforms

to the laws of his own being; heathen notions of inspiration; the

force of the external evidence of Christianity; true faith, what it

is, 25-7; mental sympathy, 27; Letter to Mrs.

; Portrait

of Cowper in a cap, 27-8; Letter to Dr. Channing,—his health;

the established theory of Revelation rests on a supposed necessity

in man for certainty, and fails to give it; he believes in more

Revelation than most Divines; the internal presence of God in the

Soul; Seneca; his "Letter on the Law of Anti-Religious Libel;"

doubts on the theory of Revelation; God his Saviour; his testi-

mony that he dies a Christian, 28-30; Letter to Mrs. 30-

31; Letter from Professor Norton, written under the expectation

of hearing of his death, 31; to Professor Norton—his thankful-

ness for his friendship; his assurance of God's love; his freedom

from all theological fears, 31—32; his sixty-third birthday, 33;

Letter from Dr. Channing, written after hearing unfavourable

accounts of his health; aspiration prophetic of a higher life; ap-

prehension lest his former letter may have excited him to injurious

thought in his weakened state; his desire to see Blanco White, a

chief attraction to England, 33-34; testaments and wills, 34;

the Queen's Bounty, 34; Mrs. Whately, 34; his lingering in the

face of death; his Son, 34-35; Socrates-escape from the evils

of Old Age one of his supports in death; Socrates as an Invalid;

Jesus, 35-36; trust in a Future Life, 36; aspiration considered

as an argument for Immortality; Personality; true Virtue inde-

pendent on future expectations, 36-38; Comfort as a measure of

the truth of Doctrines, 39; a human being awaiting his dissolution

with firmness, 40; Article on Bentham by Mr. John S. Mill, in the

London Review; the Constructive and the Destructive, 40-42 ;

the Misses Yates, 42; an English Sunday, 42; Cheerfulness in

Illness, 43; his pet Canary, 44; Letter from Dr. Channing, ex-

pressions of his interest in him; derives strength from his testi-

mony to Principles; his own gratitude to God in times of illness;

the disproportion of our desires to our doings, a sign of destiny,

44-45; physical distress as opposed to distress in the shape of

Thought, 45-46; projected Letter to the Unitarians, 46; ex-

tract from Jouffroy; his desire to conform to the will of God even

in extreme suffering, 46-47; Sonnet on Night and Death, 48;

a visit from his Son, 48; Letter to Mrs., 49; Letter to Lord

Holland, 50; his health; Marcus Antoninus, 51; Music as a re-

source, 52; his Son, 52.

CHAPTER IX.

1839.

Retrospect of the year, and prospect for the next, 53; reading and

music with his son, 54; his Note Book, 35; God's employment of

human language for the purposes of a Revelation, 55-56; Geo-

metrical figures, what, 56; Liverpool Unitarian Controversy; a

squib, 56-60; culmination of the verbal inspiration theory on

the Plan of a Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, 60-61;

his daily reading, 62; Chalybäus on German Philosophy from

Kant to Hegel, 62-63; projected works against religious errors,

64; his son leaves him for India, 64; Letter to J, his son ;

a new translation of Don Quixote; a Life of Cervantes, 65;

beliefs and priesthoods, 66; Letter to Dr. Channing,—his health,—

Slavery, War, its redeeming features, its abolition, 66-68; a

projected tale, The Secret Diary of a Spanish Inquisitor, 69; his

sixty-fourth birthday; Keightley's Mythology; the unchangeable

character of ecclesiastical persecution 70-71; his son; Michelet's

History of France, the Swan,-Redesdale, 71-72; Hallam's

opinion of the copiousness and variety of the English Lan-

guage; its motleyness; Latinisms; its poverty shown by the

difficulty of translating from the German; its want of internal

organization would facilitate the admission of new words, except

for an extreme fastidiousness; mental philosophy requires a tech-

nical language; Abstract words wanted in English; the formation

of them from adjectives; subsume, 72-74; the want of a proper

nomenclature one of the difficulties of mental philosophy in En-

gland; the German nomenclature; the schoolmen, 74-76;