OF ARTS AND SCIENCES : JUNE 9, 1868. 21 



especially of the Algebra, it may be said that, while they are element- 

 ary in the strictest sense, and perhaps smooth the road too much for 

 the learner, they have very great merits. They are clear and precise 

 in definition, simple and elegant in explanation, proportionate in their 

 parts ; they leave no difficulties behind to embarrass the learner ; they 

 make such a selection from a wide subject as his wants seem to require, 

 reserving the higher and abstruser parts of the science for more ad- 

 vanced students. In short, if the American system is a right one, of 

 leading all the members of the younger classes, with different capaci- 

 ties and tastes, along the same track, nothing could be better than a 

 work constructed on the principles which he followed in his mathe- 

 matical works. 



In the Department of Natural Philosophy, which then was assigned 

 in his College to the Professor of Mathematics, he was able to under- 

 take few or no original investigations. Without good instruments,- 

 with a very imperfect library at his command, with feeble health, he 

 could do little more than satisfy the claims of the lecture-room and of 

 the instructor's chair. 



President Day brought to the study of Metaphysics and Morals a 

 well-trained mathematical mind and sound common sense. In his day, 

 Locke's reign was almost undisturbed, except so far as the Scotch 

 philosophers had modified Locke's system. He claimed that some of 

 Cousin's strictures on Locke proceeded from a misunderstanding of that 

 philosopher. In the doctrine of the will he mainly followed Jonathan 

 Edwards, and he published two treatises in explanation or defence of 

 his views. The " Inquiry respecting the Self-determining Power of the 

 Will or Contingent Volition," first published in 1838, and afterwards in 

 an enlarged edition eleven years later, was suggested by a translation 

 of Cousin's Psychology, of which he had written a review for the 

 Christian Spectator, a journal published in New Haven. As the re- 

 view was too long to embrace an examination of Cousin's theory of 

 the will, he attempts in this work, which is a kind of supplement to the 

 review, not only to refute Cousin's doctrine, but to set forth also his own 

 opinions on that point of metaphysical speculation. 



The other and larger work on the will, published in 1841, is a 

 resume of the work of Edwards, made in a lucid, dispassionate, truth- 

 loving spirit, and not intended to present the views of the author him- 

 self, although he takes no pains to conceal that he is a follower of the 

 great New England metaphysician. 



