Most of the teachers of Philosophy from the time of the founding fathers of America to the mid-nineteenth century could certainly be called religious, indeed religious in a rather orthodox way. I mention this at the outset because Herbert W. Schneider, writing in 1946, in his extremely important History of American Philosophy, titled his 4th chapter "Orthodoxy." He began that chapter with a quote from Francis Bacon:

"It is the property of good and sound philosophy to putrify and dissolve into a number of subtle, idle, unwholesome, and (as I may term them) vermiculate questions." {The reference is to Francis Bacon, Advancement of Learning, Bk. I, sec. 5.}

Schneider then commented:

"To recognize wormy knowledge when one sees it is not difficult, but to explain critically what causes philosophy to putrify and why it continues to exist in a putrified state is a difficult and disagreeable task, for it is not easy to define the life of an idea and it is not pleasant to look for signs of life among skeletons."{Schneider, Herbert W., A History of American Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1946, p. 225.}

Schneider clearly regarded the study of "orthodox" thinkers in 18 and 19th century America as a disagreeable task of looking ..."for signs of life among skeletons." And this opinion seems common enough. In what follows, I hope to show that it is mistaken. Now permit me to begin again...

The title given this conference is clearly meant to call to mind the title of George Marsden’s extremely significant work, The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief {New York: Oxford University Press, 1994}. Indeed, several books have been written in recent years to document the fact that most American universities began as church-related schools, and by the end of the 20th century, had either dropped their church ties completely, or had ceased to take those ties seriously. I don’t wish to belabor the point. Instead, I would like to propose at least a partial solution.

I have no sense of direction, so I often lose my way. When I was a child, my Mother would tell me to retrace my steps back to the point at which I had taken that wrong turn, or followed the wrong direction when I came to that fork in the road, and begin again. Of course, most of the time, I just got lost again, but sometimes the tactic worked.

What I want us to recall in this paper is that, as late as the mid-19th century, in America, university teachers in my discipline of Philosophy were still typically men of faith. For them, questioning how we could relate faith and learning would have seemed strange, even nonsensical…..this was something they did every day, without thinking about it. And, clearly, this is an area of our intellectual history that has been little studied. My hope is that, as we enter the 21st century, this time period will be recognized as the time in which most of our schools began, and their courses were set. I think it can be argued that they were doing a lot of things right, and that we need to have a closer look at their teachings, their philosophical presuppositions, etc. In a sense, these made us what we are, but they may also show us where we went wrong.

For the sake of time constraints, I must dogmatically assert that most of the philosophy taught in early America, prior to our Civil War, was Scottish; after that war, much of it was German. I feel sure that a partial explanation has to do with patterns of immigration. It has been noted often enough that our revolution, and perhaps even our Declaration of Independence {Anyone who wishes to pursue this matter further is invited to consult another of my web pages}, had a strong Scottish accent. But the middle of the 19th century saw the rapid growth of such cities as St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee, with large German populations. And, of course, vast changes were being made in philosophy and science everywhere during this period. At any rate, the dominant philosophy during this time was known the Scottish Philosophy of Common Sense. This philosophy was first set forth by Thomas Reid, in opposition to the skepticism of David Hume. I confess I was first attracted to Reid's philosophy by reading passages which were criticized in his own time as making light of, or poking fun at, his opponents (some critics, such as Lord Jeffrey of the Edinburgh Review, considered this tactic not quite proper). For example, Reid wrote in response to the most extreme skeptics-- Hume perhaps?? Almost certainly--{I quoted this passage in an earlier, in some ways overly ambitious, attempt to discuss some of this same material; see my "Eighteenth-Century Scottish Philosophy: Its Impact on the American West," The Southwestern Journal of Philosophy, Volume VI, Number 1, 1975, pp. 131-148. For a much better discussion, see the paper by Andrew D. Hook, "Scottish Contributions to the American Enlightenment," Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Volume 8, Number 4, October, 1967, pp. 519-532.}:

"And taking all these propositions together, I think, I am conscious, every thing that thinks, exists, I exist; would not every sober man form the same opinion of the man who seriously doubted any one of them? And if he was his friend, would he not hope for his cure from physic and good regimen, rather than from metaphysic and logic?" {Reid, Thomas, An Enquiry Into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970, p. 11}

Reid is here saying that if we are to argue any position whatever, we have to begin somewhere. There must be certain basic truths, e. g., that two contradictory propositions cannot both be true, that we agree on. Otherwise, we cannot argue. What do we do then, if someone denies that he/she can know any such basic propositions?? It would seem that all we can do is suggest "physic and good regimen," or, in modern parlance, "Take two of these, and see me in the morning." This all that we can do, because, clearly, "metaphysic and logic" will not work.

Of course, Reid had many more subtle, if less amusing, philosophical arguments. Those of us who were trained in philosophy when British analytic philosophy was more in vogue than it is at present will find especially appealing those many passages in which Reid does what we would call careful linguistic analysis.{Pardon a fit of laziness as I scan in a couple of items, but on some later occasion, it could be worthwhile to compare such pages as this--from Seth, Andrew, Scottish Philosophy: a Comparison of the Scottish and German Answers to Hume, Third Edition, William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London, 1899, page 123--

with this page from that wonderful essay, "A Plea for Excuses"--Austin, J. L. Philosophical Papers, Third Edition, edited by J. O. Urmson and G. J. Warnock, Oxford University Press, New York, 1979, page 182--

But this really is a project for another occasion. But I really do think it would be a worthwhile project; this aspect of Reid's work has gotten less attention that it deserves.}

I hope I will be permitted one extended example, from Reid's last book, The Essays on the Active Powers of Man. Hume had sought to identify our moral judgments with feelings of approbation. Reid was convinced that could not be correct; he uses this argument:

"Suppose that, in a case well known to both, my friend says--Such a man did well and worthily, his conduct is highly approvable. This speech, according to all rules of interpretation, expresses my friend's judgment of the man's conduct. This judgment may be true or false, and I may agree in opinion with him, or I may dissent with him without offence, as we may differ in other matters of judgment.

Suppose again that, in relation to the same case, my friend says--The man's conduct gave me a very agreeable feeling.

This speech, if approbation be nothing but an agreeable feeling, must have the very same meaning with the first, and express neither more nor less. But this cannot be, for two reasons.

First, Because there is no rule in grammar or rhetoric, nor any usage in language, by which these two speeches can be construed so as to have the same meaning. The first expresses plainly an opinion or judgment of the conduct of the man, but says nothing of the speaker. The second only testifies a fact concerning the speaker--to wit, that he had such a feeling.

Another reason why these two speeches cannot mean the same thing is, that the first may be contradicted without any ground of offence, such contradiction being only a difference of opinion, which, to a reasonable man, gives no offence. But the second speech cannot be contradicted without an affront: for, as every man must know his own feelings, to deny that a man had a feeling which he affirms he had, is to charge him with falsehood." {The Works of Thomas Reid, D. D., edited by Sir William Hamilton, Eighth Edition, Volume II. Edinburgh: James Thin, 1895, p. 673. A French website has this volume available online; you can even link to specific sections from the Index!}

Perhaps it should also be noted here that Reid was the son of a Church of Scotland-Presbyterian- pastor (he was a child of the manse), who himself served as a preacher before he decided his place was the classroom rather than the pulpit. His frequent references to "the Author of our nature" have a genuine ring; his philosophy cannot be separated from his faith. It is good to see that, after too many years of neglect, his philosophy is finding a new popularity {Check out discussions online!}. His works are being reprinted in new critical editions, and there is developing a thriving secondary literature, special conferences are being held to discuss his thought, etc.

It is not enough just to say that Reid's philosophy was dominant in the United States prior to about 1867--rather, the Scottish philosophy of common sense just was philosophy in most of the country. Many writers have said as much in a variety of ways, but perhaps none better than David B. Calhoun in his marvelous history of the "old" Princeton Seminary:

"At Princeton--as in much of early-nineteenth-century Protestantism--Scottish Common Sense Philosophy reigned. Congregationalists at Yale and Unitarians at Harvard embraced it nearly as enthusiastically as did Presbyterian Princeton. Against the skepticism of philosophers such as David Hume, the Scottish philosophy affirmed that the human mind is structured by God in such a way as to have access to knowledge of the real world. The dictates of common sense--such as the reality of the self, the law of non-contradiction, reliability of sense perception, and basic cause-and-effect connections--provide people with considerable knowledge about nature and human nature." {Calhoun, David B., Princeton Seminary, Volume II. Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1996, p. 413.}

Just for the record, Baptist Baylor embraced it, too, as did most of the pre-Civil War South. One reason for this almost universal popularity was that this philosophy proved to be so perfectly compatible with the religious beliefs held by philosophy teachers at these many types of protestant universities. Again, Reid had many followers in Britain (and on the continent), and in America, as I have already indicated. Probably his best known Scottish followers in the 19th century were Dugald Stewart and Sir William Hamilton. It has often been noted that most Americans during this period had their first exposure to philosophy reading some of the the works of Dugald Stewart, usually in editions abridged by such Harvard professors as James Walker and Francis Bowen. His works were often reviewed in American journals, such as the North American Review.

It is an indication of the reputation Dugald Stewart had in his own day that, when he died in 1828, the people of Edinburgh sought to honor him with a fitting memorial atop Calton Hill, overlooking the city. On the memorial, they had inscribed his name, the dates when he was born and when he died--and that was all. They thought that was enough. {The picture above is mine, but the story is adapted from Gordon Macintyre's new biography, Dugald Stewart: The Pride and Ornament of Scotland. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2003}. Dugald Stewart actually added little to the work of Thomas Reid. But he was a good, clear, writer, and somehow managed to make it all sound scientific. About the best evaluation of Stewart's work I have seen is the entry in the Gale Literary Databases by Thomas Strychacz. At the end of his entry, he says of Stewart:

"Without ever being a truly original thinker, Dugald Stewart's influence on american culture through his pupils and the readers of his major works remains important. At a time when America turned to the conservative and positivistic doctrines of the Scottish school, Dugald Stewart ditinguished himself as the clearest and most comprehensive exponent of that philosophy."

After Stewart died, the most renowned of the Scottish philosophers was Sir William Hamilton. And this was true in America, as well as in Britain. I once did a little survey of 19th century American periodicals, and found that, at least in the journals I consulted, articles relating to the work of Sir William Hamilton outnumbered those on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant about 2 1/2 to 1 (check pp. 89-92 of the survey). Hamilton was extremely popular in America, both North and South. As a matter of local interest, perhaps, it is easy to show that when President William Carey Crane gave his Presidential Address at Baylor University on January 18, 1864, he relied heavily on the work of Sir William Hamilton.

Permit another personal example. Some years ago, I attended a professional meeting at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkansas, which had been founded in 1886. I had a bit of time on my hands, and went to the school's library. I was aware that some early, church-related, schools wanted to show that they doing serious college work. So they included, in their catalogues, not only lists of courses taught, but also the textbooks used in those courses. I communicated this to the lady at the front desk, and she responded somewhat curtly, "We didn't do that." I asked if I could see microfilm of their early catalogues, anyway, just to see what they contained. "All right," she responded, "but we didn't do that." She humored me, however, and it turns out they did do that.

I had a page from the 1888-1889 catalogue printed. Note the repeated references to Hamilton. Francis Haven was also a staunch defender of the Scottish way of philosophizing; Lyman Atwater (a much neglected figure!!) taught at Princeton, and was a frequent contributor to the Princeton Review. Asa Mahan, of Oberlin, was something of a character, and perhaps one of the best early American philosophers. "Alexander" is, of course, Archibald Alexander, the founding professor and first president of the Princeton Seminary; Francis Wayland (a Baptist) was the president at Brown. Clearly, the Scottish Philosophy reigned at early Ouachita, too.

Hamilton died in 1856. It seems that, during his lifetime, he was best known for a series of articles published in the Edinburgh Review, and, of course, for having edited (with extended notes), the works of Thomas Reid. After he died, four fat volumes were published of his lectures on Logic and Metaphysics. American abridgments, edited by Harvard's Francis Bowen, were soon to follow. Hamilton really was a man of remarkable erudition. He was recognized as a follower of the Common Sense philosophy, but he knew German philosophy, too. He sought to combine, in what he called the "Philosophy of the Conditioned," the best insights of Reid and Kant. Aye, there's the rub...this may have led to one of those "unholy marriages" that just don't work out.

Pardon what may seem another digression. It has often been noted that the first periodical in America to be entirely devoted to Philosophy was the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, which began publication, by a group known as the "St. Louis Hegelians," in 1867. But we need to be reminded that there were a lot of American periodicals publishing philosophical material in the early 19th century. There was also an American edition of the Edinburgh Review. It may be a Presbyterian prejudice on my part, but, arguably, the best of these American periodicals was the Princeton Review, edited for many years by the President of Princeton Theological Seminary, Charles Hodge. In his recent book, The Philosophy of Charles Hodge, Peter Hicks devotes an entire chapter to the reception given Hamilton's work in the Review {The reference is to chapter 1, "'That First of Living Philosophers,'" pp. 1-35. see Hicks, Peter, The Philosophy of Charles Hodge; A 19th Century Evangelical Approach to Reason, Knowledge, and Truth. Lewiston, New York, The Edwin Mellen Press, 1997. Interested readers should also consult the recent Charles Hodge Revisited: A Critical Appraisal of His Life and Work, edited by John W. Stewart and James H. Morehead. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2002. And the standard work is The Princeton Theology, 1812-1921, edited and compiled by Mark A. Noll. Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Book House, 1983}. It seems that, prior to 1860, Hamilton's work received only praise in the pages of the Princeton Review. Some of this praise might seem to us a bit excessive, as when Hodge spoke of him as "the first of living philosophers." But after 1860, all of this changed, and his work was subjected to damning criticism. Why?? Again, it seems that, after they read the lectures on metaphysics, and gave a bit more thought to Hamilton's attempts to add Kantian insights to his philosophy, Princetonians became troubled. What about this "conditioned" business?? Kant had claimed that we could know only phenomena, the way the world appears to us---maybe reality isn't like that at all. In short, it is often argued that the Kantian philosophy can lead to skepticism. Both Hodge and the university's president, James McCosh, opposed the German philosophy for that reason {See McCosh's paper, "The Scottish Philosophy, as Contrasted with the German," The Princeton Review, 1882, pp. 326-344. McCosh worked over this material, added historical things, and published a two volume set of books with the title of Realistic Philosophy Defended in a Philosophic Series. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1887. The set was reprinted by the AMS Press, also in New York, n. d. Oh, for a more recent treatment of some of these issues, see John Haldane's "American Philosophy: 'Scotch' or 'Teutonic'?," Philosophy, Volume 77, 2002, pp. 311-329}. Remember the Scottish Common Sense Philosophy is also called Scottish Realism-the Scots wanted to say we can know the world as it really is.

The American Civil War was not the only disagreement between North and South during this period. James Henley Thornwell of South Carolina was in many ways the Southern counterpart of Princeton's Charles Hodge. He was a remarkably intelligent man, and a fine theologian. He frequently disagreed with Hodge on philosophical-theological issues. For one thing, Thornwell remained a staunch defender of Hamilton in his appropriation of Kantian thought. Again, permit an extended quotation concerning Thornwell, this time from E. Brooks Holifield's important work on The Gentlemen Theologians:

"He studied Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and agreed with him that the forms of space and time, as well as the categories of causality and substance, were innate structures of thinking. But he decided that Kant had erred in defining the categories and forms of cognition as mere regulative principles of thought. Certainly, it was true, Thornwell believed, following Hamilton's lead, that the mind can grasp only phenomena: 'All knowledge is and must be relative in its nature, and phenomenal in its objects.' But to know phenomenal realities, said Thornwell, is to have an objective knowledge of the world.....The mental categories corresponded to objective realities in the external world. Consciousness seemed to indicate as much, for a conscious act of cognition not only had an object but also contained within itself an indubitable belief in the reality of its object.....The theological implications were clear. In certifying the reliability of knowledge, the Scottish philosophy supported a natural theology in which scientific investigation of the created order disclosed the existence and nature of the Creator." {Holifield, E. Brooks, The Gentlemen Theologians: American Theology in Southern Culture, 1795-1860. Durham, North Carolina, 1978, p. 121. I cannot be sure Thornwell was the author, but similar points are made in an unsigned review of Hamilton's work with the title "The Infinite," The Southern Quarterly Review, August, 1856, pp.294-312}.

In short, Thornwell did not think that the Kantian philosophy necessarily led to skepticism, and thus he did not criticize Hamilton for adopting it. But there are other things of importance in all this. First, I would claim that there is some rather good philosophy here, issues being argued back and forth that have not been completely resolved in our own day. Second, note that this debate took place involving thinkers who were best known as theologians. In the 19th century, the dividing line between Theology and Philosophy was not as sharply drawn as it is today. Third, and perhaps most important for my purposes, the Scottish Philosophy of Common Sense was the accepted foundation of both sides in most 19th century disagreements, whether philosophical or theological- or both. I think this is enough to show that this whole area deserves another look.

I am an incurable bibliophile, and have long been persuaded that there are a number of books, especially in 19th Century American Moral Philosophy, plus a thriving periodical literature of that period, that deserve further study. The good news is that the task is now much easier than it once was, due in large measure to the new technology. The first thing to be cited here has to be the MOA--the Making of America, a marvelous database at the University of Michigan and at Cornell. They have many hard-to-find books from the 19th century, plus periodicals (see below) available online. It will be said this is a poor way to read a book. That's true, but sometimes we have no other options. And they are tinkering with the system to make the process easier. It is also possible to order reprints of these rare books from the University of Michigan--progress!! There are other databases; we will not attempt to list them all. Some of them are, as might have been expected, motivated by religious considerations.{Find more on this listed on my web page on 19th Century American Moral Philosophy noted above}.

Perhaps now I should simply get down to cases and list some 19th century journals that are conveniently available:

• The Princeton Review is available (1830-1882!!) through the University of Michigan M. O. A. site.
  
• The American Whig Review is available (1845-1852) through the Cornell University M. O. A. site.
  
• The North American Review is available, in different formats, at the Cornell University M. O. A. site, and (from 1815-1990!!) through PCI Full Text.
  
• The Presbyterian Review, for 1880-1889, is available through the Princeton Theological Seminary Library.
  
• The Southern Quarterly Review is also available (1842-1857) through the University of Michigan M. O. A. site.
  
• It is a work in progress, but the PCA Historical Center has a Digitization Project, which includes putting the Southern Presbyterian Review online. A number of important articles are already available, and you can download the Table of Contents for the entire run of the journal, from 1847-1885.
  
• The Journal of Speculative Philosophy (1867-1893) is not online, but you can read all about it through the Thoemmes Press website, and also peruse tables of contents for the entire run.
  
• Americans also read the Edinburgh Review, which is available through PCI Full Text, from 1802-1929!!.

Yes, there is more. There is always more. A number of good 19th century periodicals need to be online. The Christian Examiner had some very good things in it, as did the Methodist Quarterly Review and the Christian Review. But we can't have everything, or can we?{ Shock!! As of June 5, 2004, all three of these periodicals are available through the Baylor libraries, thanks to ProQuest!! And they also have the Princeton Review available, in a much more user-friendly format!} I am simply amazed by the amount of material available, and becoming available.

Just as I tried to begin this paper in two ways, I now conclude it in two ways. First, it is obvious that there is a lot of useful research being done on 18th century philosophy, happily including that of Hume and Reid. I find it strange that anyone could think that the later followers of Reid would not also be worthy of further study--and I rejoice that access to the works of these neglected thinkers is, almost daily, getting easier. Second, Herbert W. Schneider, a historian for whom I have a great deal of respect, saw the study of these "orthodox" thinkers of the American 19th century as very much like walking through a valley of dry bones, looking ..." for signs of life among skeletons." I close therefore with the mandatory reading from Ezekial, Chapter 37, verses 4 and 5:

"...Prophesy upon these bones, and say to them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live."

.