CAMPBELL. 



311 



He was made principal of the Marischal College 

 in 17J9. This preferment he owed to the patronage 

 of the Duke of Argyle, (then the minister for Scot- 

 hind,) to whom he applied for it by letter, and who, 

 in consideration of his relation to that noble family, 

 as well as of his acknowledged merits, procured the 

 situation for him in preference to other two candi- 

 dates of no inconsiderable pretensions. Hitherto he 

 had published nothing but a sermon preached before 

 the synod of Aberdeen in 17.5'A on the character of 

 a minister as a teacher and pattern : and he himself 

 thought so little of it, as to exclude it from the col- 

 lection of sermons which he made a short time before 

 his death. In 1760, he was appointed to preach a 

 second time before the synod of Aberdeen, and on 

 that occasion he delivered a discourse on miracles. 

 This he was requested to publish, and he agreed to 

 do so after having moulded it into the form of a 

 dissertation. As his object was to controvert the 

 unsound and dangerous positions of Mr Hume, he 

 bestowed the greatest care on this performance. He 

 submitted the manuscript first to the Rev. Dr Blair 

 in Edinburgh, and then to Mr Hume himself. By 

 these gentlemen, one of whom was his friend and the 

 other his opponent, he was favoured with various 

 remarks, of which he very candidly took advan- 

 tage, for the purpose of improving his work. Mr 

 Hume complained that in some cases he had used 

 harsh expressions, pointed out certain misapprehen- 

 sions of his meaning, and stated objections to what 

 Mr Campbell had advanced. Mr Campbell, with the 

 modesty and ingenuousness which distinguished him, 

 removed what had given offence, either by its real or 

 apparent severity, and at the same time introduced 

 such additional arguments and illustrations as were 

 suggested by the observations of Mr Hume. Ha- 

 ting thus corrected his treatise, he gave it to the 

 public in 1763, previous to which time he had re- 

 ceived, without any solicitation on his part, the de- 

 gree of doctor in divinity from King's College in 

 Old Aberdeen. The Dissertation on Miracles is a 

 work of great ability. The author shews a perfect 

 acquaintance with his subject, detects the sophistry 

 of Mr Hume with much sagacity, exposes all the 

 equivocations of his language, and, in the course of 

 a few pages, overturns the whole fabric of infidelity 

 which that plausible metaphysician had raised, by 

 demonstrating the fallacy or that hypothesis on which 

 it had been built. Indeed a more masterly or con- 

 clusive performance can scarcely be conceived ; and, 

 without undervaluing the works of Mr Adams and 

 Bishop Douglas, both of which are excellent, it may 

 be safely asserted, that a careful perusal of Dr Camp- 

 bell's Dissertation alone, is sufficient to do away all 

 the effect of Mr Hume's reasonings on the subject 

 of miracles. Mr Hume himself was much pleased 

 with it, as he declared, in a private letter which he 

 addressed to the author ; and though he did not con- 

 fess that it was victorious, he yet praised it for the 

 learning and ingenuity which it displayed, and for 

 the civil and obliging manner in which the Doctor 

 had conducted such an interesting dispute. At the 

 same time it should not be overlooked, that he con- 

 tinued to publish his Essay on Miracles unaltered, 

 and unexplained, and undefended, sheltering himself, 

 no doubt, under the convenient resolution of never 

 noticing any answers to his writings that might ap- 



pear, but certainly acting, in this respect, without Campbell, 

 any of that candid and enlightened regard for truth t * cof <^ > 

 by which, at a philosopher, he ought to hare been "~,~"- 

 actuated. The Dissertation was very favourably re- 

 ceived by all who took an interest in those disquisi- 

 tions which it embraced, and was particularly accept- 

 able to the religious world, who saw in it a complete 

 antidote to the poison circulated by Mr Hume, and in 

 its author a champion for the truth, from whom still 

 greater efforts might yet be expected. It was also 

 soon translated into the French, Dutch, and German 

 languages ; and from this time Dr Campbell's name 

 was honoured and respected among all the learned 

 men in Europe. 



The twelve years during which he held the offices 

 of principal of Marischal College, and one of the mi- 

 nistero of Aberdeen, were employed by him in a dili- 

 gent discharge of his professional duties, and in such 

 other studies as his inclination led him to cultivate. 

 He became a proficient in the science of Botany, 

 which he afterwards found useful in the critical illus- 

 tration of scripture. He improved his acquaintance 

 with the Greek and Latin. He acquired a compe- 

 tent knowledge of the Hebrew. He made himself 

 so far master of French and Italian as to become a 

 critic in these languages. And he made considerable 

 progress in the composition and revision of his work, 

 on the Philosophy of Rhetoric. 



In 1771 the town council of Aberdeen appointed 

 him professor of divinity in Marischal College, in 

 consequence of which he resigned his situation as one 

 of the ministers of the city, though he was still un- 

 der the necessity of preaching once every Lord's day 

 in one of the established churches. In his new capa- 

 city he made great exertions to be useful. He even 

 did more, in the way of lecturing on theology, than 

 the ordinary rules of his office prescribed; and intro- 

 duced several improvements into the mode of teach- 

 ing his class, which shewed the soundness of his own 

 judgment, and the zeal with which he laboured for 

 the advancement of his pupils. The same year in 

 which he was raised to the divinity chair, he publish- 

 ed a Sermon which he had preached before the synod 

 of Aberdeen, entitled, The Spirit of the Gospel, nei- 

 ther a Spirit of Superstition nor of Enthusiasm. This 

 sermon, which abounds in enlightened views and liberal 

 sentiments, was violently attacked both by Nonjurors 

 and Methodists ; but the author did not observe any 

 thing in these attacks sufficiently importantor interest- 

 ting to provoke a reply. He maintained a dignified, 

 not a contemptuous, silence; and his discourse, from 

 its obvious and intrinsic superiority, has survived all 

 the clamours that were raised against it by weak or 

 furious bigots. 



In 1776, Dr Campbell published his Philosophy of 

 Rhetoric, in 2 vols 8vo : a work on which he had 

 bestowed the labour of many years, and which reflects 

 the highest honour on his intellectual character. It 

 affords a display of grammatical skill, critical acu- 

 men, discriminating taste, and philosophical talent, of 

 which there are but few examples in the republic of 

 letters. Throughout the whole work we discover 

 traces of a superior mind. Those passages are particu- 

 larly worthy of perusing, in which the author treats 

 of abstraction, on which subject he differs from Dr 

 Reid; of the cause of that pleasure which is derived 

 from the representation of distressing scenes $ of 



