28 PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 



engaged perceives constantly new beauties, and 

 benevolent designs ; he happily indulges in the hope 

 of adding to the knowledge, and thus to the happi- 

 ness of the human race ; and when the correctness of 

 his views is questioned, he says, with the falsely 

 accused prisoner of the Inquisition — " If there were 

 nothing else in nature, to convince me of the ex- 

 istence of a Deity, this straw would be sufficient/' 

 Thus then he believes, that in this world, no better 

 occupation could be allotted him ; he surveys with 

 admiration and wonder, the manifold productions 

 and intricate operations of his Creator's hands, and 

 confides in the hope that he is destined for a better 

 world, when his body shall have become an inmate 

 of the tranquil grave, and when the sun of this pro- 

 bationary state shall be set beneath the horizon of 

 of his earthly views. 



Philophysicus. 



Devonport. 



PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 

 PROCEEDINGS IN THE ATHEN^UM. 



October 29th. — Rev. S. Rowe's Lecture on Utilitarianism. 



The Lecture commenced with some observations on a recent 

 work, entitled a " Catechism of Utilitarianism, " which professes 

 to be exclusively founded on the theory of moral philosophy, ad- 

 vocated in the system of the late Jeremy Bentham. The lecturer 

 proceeded to question the position laid down by the author in his 

 preface, — viz., that the Greatest Happiness Principle should be 

 considered as one of the most eminent discoveries of modern 

 times. From a consideration of the opinions of the Greek and 

 Roman philosophers, the investigator of this subject would be led, 

 in the opinion of the lecturer, to a far different conclusion. The 

 substance of the alledged discovery appears to have been well 

 known to the ancients. The Chrestomathec school have only 

 vamped up afresh some of the obsolete opinions of antiquity. In 

 adopting a plan of parallelism, it would be remarkable to ob- 

 serve how nearly the language of Cicero, in his celebrated treatise 

 ** De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum. " correspoihds with that of 



