He was remarkable for the harmony of his various qualities. In his
intellect, reason, understanding, fancy, imagination, were balanced in an
almost unexampled degree. The equilibrium of his character showed itself
alike in the exquisite propriety of his writings and the careful and
generous economy of his substance. He died without property and without
debt. Some critics have denied him the praise of philosophical depth. They
should rather say, that his love of prying analytically into the secret
principles of things was counterbalanced by the desire to exhibit
principles in practical combination, and by his preference of truth and
virtue in its living portraiture to moral anatomizing or metaphysical
dissection. He could grapple wisely with the fatalism of Malebranche and
the pantheism of Spinosa, as his controversial works show; he could hold
an even argument with the terrible Bossuet on the essence of Christianity.
He preferred, however, to exhibit under forms far more winning than
controversy, his views of human agency, divine power, and Christian love.
The beautiful structure of his narratives, dialogues, and letters, is not
the graceful cloak that hides a poverty of philosophical ideas.
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