430 NOTTS ON PASSAGES IN THE 



able reality with the Divine nature ; and there is nothing in the 

 Euthyphro at variance with such a view. 



Sir James Macintosh, in his Dissertation on the Progress of Ethi- 

 cal Philosophy, describes Duns Scotus as " the first whose language 

 inclined towards that most pernicious of moral heresies, which re- 

 presents morality to be founded on will ;" and he adds that "William 

 of Ockham " went so far beyond this inclination of his master, as to 

 affirm, that, if Grod had commanded his creatures to hate himself, 

 the hatred of God would ever be the duty of man." I presume that 

 what is here meant, is, that Scotus was the first of the scholastic 

 writers whose language inclined towards the heresy in question ; for, 

 the discussion in the Euthyphro, of which Sir James Mackintosh 

 cannot have been ignorant, is sufficient to shew that there weie per- 

 sons even in the days of Plato who founded morality on will. Our 

 philosopher would not have entered into an elaborate argument to 

 disprove an opinion which no one maintained. The terms in which 

 Macintosh characterises the doctrine which finds the ground of moral 

 distinctions in the will of God are worthy of being quoted, "The 

 doctrine of Ockham, which by necessary implication refuses moral 

 attributes to the Deity, and contradicts the existence of a moral 

 government, is practically equivalent to Atheism. As all devotional 

 feelings have moral qualities for their sole object ; as no being can 

 inspire love or reverence otherwise than by those qualities which are 

 naturally amiable or venerable ; this doctrine would, if men were 

 consistent, extinguish piety, or, in other words, annihilate religion. 

 Yet so astonishing are the contradictions of human nature, that this 

 most impious of all opinions probably originated in a pious solicitude 

 to magnify the sovereignty of God, and to exalt his authority even 

 abovo his own goodness." 



Note II. 



^u;(72 Tracra d^avaros. to yap .... aOavarov i/'u^'? °-^ ^'■V- — 

 (Phaedrus, §§ 51, 52, 53. Bekker). 



1 am not satisfied with what the commentators whom I have had 

 an opportunity of consulting have written regarding the structure of 

 this famous passage. The immortality of the soul is what is sought 

 to be established, ^ow the point which does not seem to me to 

 have been made sufficiently plain, h, that the passage contains two 



