revented this
contrast from showing itself distinctly on the surface. The
Utilitarians, however, though they avoided such outspoken scepticism
as would startle the public, indicated quite sufficiently to the
initiated their essential position. It implied what they fully
recognised in private conversation--a complete abandonment of
theology. They left the obvious inferences to be drawn by others. In
philosophy they could speak out in a well-founded confidence that few
people were able to draw inferences. I will begin by considering the
doctrine against which they protested; for the antagonism reveals, I
think, the key to their position.

When Stewart was obliged by infirmity to retire from the active
discharge of his duties, he was succeeded by Thomas Brown (1778-1820).
Brown had shown early precocity, and at the age of fifteen had
attracted Stewart's notice by some remarks on a psychological point.
He published at twenty a criticism of Darwin's _Zoonomia_, and he
became one of the _Edinburgh Review_ circle. When the _Review_ was
started he contributed an article upon Kant. In those happy days it
was so far from necessary to prepare oneself for such a task by
studying a library of commentators that the young reviewer could
frankly admit his whole knowledge to be derived from Villers'
_Philosophie de Kant_ (1801).[466] Soon afterwards he took an
important share in a once famous controversy. John Leslie, just
elected to the mathematical chair at Edinburgh, was accused of having
written favourably of Hume's theory of causation. Whigs and Tories
took this up as a party question,[467] and Brown undertook to explain
in a pamphlet what Hume's theory was, and to show that it did not lead
to atheism. Leslie's friends triumphed, though it does not appear how
far Brown's arguments contributed to their success. The pamphlet was
rewritten and enlarged, and a third edition of 1818 gives a full
exposition of his theory. Brown had meanwhile become Stewart's leading
disciple, and in 1810 was elected to be his colleague. Brown held the
position, doing all the active duties, until his premature death in
1820. Brown, according to his biographer, wrote his lectures
immediately before delivery, and completed them during his first two
years of office. His theories, as well as his words, were often,
according to the same authority, extemporised. Brown found that he
could not improve what he had written under 'very powerful
excitement.' Moreov