were his constant companions; but otherwise he read little. He never mastered German, hardly even French. For historic antiquity and—to judge by the contempt with which he always regarded Wordsworth—for the beauty of nature he had no feeling whatever. He was without ear for music, and was almost equally dead to painting, sculpture, and architecture. Hence in travel he found no interest to compensate for the fatigue and annoyances incident to it; and, except for some other reason than his own pleasure, he never crossed the English Channel.
Whately contributed to the ‘Quarterly Review’ articles on ‘Emigration to Canada’ and ‘Modern Novels’ (July 1820 and January 1821), which were reprinted towards the close of his life in his ‘Miscellaneous Lectures and Reviews’ (infra). His first essay in independent authorship was ‘Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte,’ London, 1819, 8vo, in which he attempted to hoist Hume with his own petard by showing that on his principles the existence of Napoleon could not be admitted ‘as a well-authenticated fact’ (see Whately, Logic, bk. i. § 3, where the pamphlet, which was published anonymously, is acknowledged). This brilliant ignoratio elenchi—Hume (On Miracles, pt. i. ad fin.) made express reservation of cases in which greater improbabilities would be involved in scepticism than in belief—passed through more than twelve editions in its author's lifetime, and has since been reprinted (see Famous Pamphlets, ed. Henry Morley, Univ. Libr. vol. xliii., London, 1886, 8vo). By way of antidote to Calvinism, Whately issued in 1821 ‘The Right Method of interpreting Scripture in what relates to the Nature of the Deity and His Dealings with Mankind, illustrated in a Discourse on Predestination by Dr. King, Lord Archbishop of Dublin,’ a reprint of King's ‘Discourse’ with introduction and appendices based on Tucker's ‘Light of Nature’ (c. 26) [see King, William, D.D., 1650–1729]. He married in the same year, and in consequence accepted the living of Halesworth, Suffolk, to which he was instituted on 18 Feb. 1822. The duties of parish priest he discharged with a conscientiousness then unusual, but they were not so onerous as to leave him without abundant leisure. He was already occasional preacher to the university, and in 1822 he delivered the Bampton lectures, in which he attempted to define the via media between indifference and intolerance. They were published the same year under the title ‘The Use and Abuse of Party Feeling in Matters of Religion’ (Oxford, 8vo), and followed by ‘Five Sermons on several Occasions preached before the University of Oxford’ (Oxford, 1823, 8vo), with which, and with the ‘Discourse on Predestination,’ they were reprinted in 1859 (London, 8vo).
In 1825 Whately returned to Oxford as principal of St. Alban Hall. He found the hall the Botany Bay of the university, but with the help of John Henry Newman [q. v.] and Samuel Hinds, each of whom in turn served under him as vice-principal, he gradually transformed it into a resort of reading men.
Learning was then at a low ebb in Oxford, where outside the precincts of Oriel there was little stir of intellectual life. Aristotle was more venerated than read, and Aldrich was still the text-book on logic. This reproach Whately did much to remove. To the ‘Encyclopædia Metropolitana’ he contributed articles on ‘Logic’ and ‘Rhetoric’ which appeared in separate form, the one in 1826, the other in 1828 (London, 8vo). Neither work was of the kind which lays posterity under permanent obligation; but the logic unquestionably marks, if it did not make, a new epoch in the history of the science. It displays in a striking manner Whately's characteristic merits and shortcomings. The style is perspicuous, the arrangement and exposition are masterly. The analysis and classification of fallacies have perhaps never been surpassed. On the other hand, the historical part of the treatise is so meagre as to be practically worthless. Plato is ignored, and the schoolmen are set down indiscriminately as mere logomachists. The treatment of the categories and of realism is perfunctory. The Dictum de omni et nullo is pronounced the universal principle, and the syllogism the universal form of reasoning; and the obvious corollary, that deduction is merely explicative and induction extra-logical, is frankly drawn. The effect of the work was twofold: with certain thinkers it served to rehabilitate the discredited formal logic; to others it suggested the deeper questions as to the nature of the scientific method which it so airily dismissed from its purview, and of the illative process in general, to the solution of which John Stuart Mill addressed himself. The ‘Logic’ reached a ninth edition in 1850. The ‘Rhetoric,’ which owed much to Copleston, is a sound and serviceable treatise on the art of presenting argument in the form best adapted for legitimate effect. It had not the vogue of the ‘Logic,’ but reached a seventh edition in 1846.
In the Oxford of his day Whately's was
