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DRUMMOND, SIR WILLIAM, a
distinguished scholar and philosopher. The date of his birth seems not to
be ascertained, nor does any memoir of which we are aware, describe his
early education. He became first slightly known to the world in 1794, from
publishing "A Review of the Government of Sparta and Athens." It
was probably a juvenile performance, which would not have been recollected
but for the later fame of its author, and it is not now to be met with in
libraries. In 1795, he was elected representative of the borough of St
Mawes; and in 1796 and 1801, he was chosen for the town of Lostwithiel. In
the meantime he was appointed envoy extraordinary to the court of Naples,
an office previously filled by a countryman celebrated for pursuits not
dissimilar to some of his own—Sir William Hamilton; and he was soon
afterwards ambassador to the Ottoman Porte. Of his achievements as an
ambassador little is known or remembered, excepting perhaps an alleged
attempt, in 1808, to secure the regency of Spain to prince Leopold of
Sicily. Nor as a senator does he appear to have acquired much higher
distinction; from being a regular and zealously-labouring political
partisan, his studious habits and retired unbending disposition prevented
him, but such political labours as he undertook were on the side of the
government. In 1798, he published a translation of the Satires of Perseus,
a work, which, especially in fidelity, has been held to rival the
contemporaneous attempts of Gifford, and it established him in the
unquestioned reputation of a classical scholar. In 1805, appeared his
Academical Questions, the first work in which he put forward claims to be
esteemed a metaphysician. Although in this work he talks of the dignity of
philosophy with no little enthusiasm, and gives it a preference to other
subjects, more distinct than many may now admit; yet his work has
certainly done more for the demolition of other systems than for
instruction in any he has himself propounded. He perhaps carried the
sceptical philosophy of Hume a little beyond its first bounds, by showing
that we cannot comprehend the idea of simple substance, because, let the
different qualities which, arranged in our mind, give us the idea of what
we call an existing substance, be one by one taken away,—when the last
is taken nothing at all will remain. To his doctrine that the mind was a unity,
and did not contain separate powers and faculties, Locke’s
demolition of innate ideas must have led the way; but that great
philosopher has not himself been spared from Sir William’s undermining
analysis, with which he attempted indeed to destroy the foundations of
most existing systems. The Edinburgh Review, in a pretty extensive
examination of the book, says, "We do not know very well what to say
of this learned publication. To some readers it will probably be enough to
announce, that it is occupied with metaphysical speculations. To others,
it may convey a more precise idea of its character, to be told, that
though it gave a violent headache in less than an hour, to the most
intrepid logician of our fraternity, he could not help reading on till he
came to the end of the volume.
"The book is written
we think with more rhetorical ornament, and enlivened with more various
literature, than is usual in similar discussions; but it is not, on this
account, less ‘hard- to be spelled;’ and after perusing it with
considerable attention, we are by no means absolutely certain that we have
apprehended the true scope and design of the author, or attained to a just
perception of the system or method by which he has been directed. The
subjects of his investigations are so various, his criticisms so
unsparing, and his conclusions so hostile to every species of dogmatism,
that we have sometimes been tempted to think, that he had no other view in
this publication than to expose the weakness of human understanding, and
to mortify the pride of philosophy, by a collection of insolvable cases,
and undeterminable problems. It is but fair to recollect, however, that Mr
Drummond has avowedly reserved the full exposition of his own theory to a
subsequent volume, [this never appeared,] and professes in this to do
little more than point out the insufficiency and contradictions that may
be fairly imputed to those of preceding philosophers. It is only the task
of demolition which he proposes now to accomplish; and it must be owned,
that he has spread abroad his rubbish, and scattered abroad his dust, in a
very alarming manner."
In 1810, Sir William, along
with Mr Robert Walpole, published "Herculanensia," containing
archaeological and etymological observations, partly directed towards a
MS. found in the ruins of Herculaneum. During the same year he published
an "Essay on a Punic inscription found in the island of Malta."
The inscription was interesting from its twice containing the name Hanni-Baal,
or Hannibal; but it seems to have been merely used by Sir William as a
nucleus round which he could weave an extensive investigation into the
almost unknown and undiscoverable language of the Carthaginians. He
proposed two methods of analytically acquiring some knowledge of this
obscure subject; first, through the Phoenician and Punic vocables
scattered through the works of Greek and Roman authors, and second,
through the dialects cognate to the Phoenician, viz., the Arabic or
ancient Syriac, the Samaritan, the Ethiopian, the fragments of Egyptian to
be found in the modern Coptic, and the Hebrew.
In 1811, he printed the
most remarkable of all his works, the "OEdipus Judaicus." It was
not published and probably had it been so, it would have brought on the
author, who did not entirely escape criticism by his concealment, a
torrent of censure which might have rendered life uncomfortable. It was
Sir William Drummond’s object to take the parts of the Old Testament
commonly commented on by divines as purely historical, and prove them to
be allegories. Perhaps the following extract contains a greater portion of
the meaning which the author had in view, than any other of similar
brevity: "When we consider the general prevalence of Tsabaism among
the neighbouring nations, we shall wonder less at the proneness of the
Hebrews to fall into this species of idolatry. Neither shall we be
surprised at the anxious efforts of their lawgiver to persuade and
convince them of the vanity of the superstitions, when we recollect, that,
though he could command the elements, and give new laws to nature, he
could not impose fetters on the free will of others. With such a power as
this he was by no means invested; for the Almighty, in offering to the
Hebrews the clearest proofs of his existence, by no means constrained
their belief. It cannot be doubted, that by any act of power, God might
have coerced submission, and have commanded conviction; but had there been
no choice, there could have been no merit in the acceptance of his law.
"Since then Jehovah
did not compel the people to acknowledge his existence, by fettering their
free will, it was natural for his servant Moses to represent, by types and
by symbols, the errors of the Gentile nations; and it is in no manner
surprising, that the past, the existing, and the future situation of the
Hebrews, as well as the religious, moral, and political state of their
neighbours, should be alluded to in symbolical language by an historian,
who was also a teacher and a prophet.
"Above all things,
however, it is evident, that the establishment of the true religion was
the great object of the divine legation of Moses. To attain this
purpose, it was not enough that he performed the most surprising miracles.
His countrymen acknowledged the existence of Jehovah; but with him they
reckoned, and were but too willing to adore other gods. Is it then
surprising, that the false notions of religion entertained by the Gentiles
should be pointed out in the writings of Moses, and that their religious
systems should be there made to appear what they really are—the
astronomical systems of scientific idolaters?" To institute a
critical investigation of the points discussed in such a book as the
OEdipus, would require more learned investigation than is expected to be
met with in a casual memoir. But with deference, we believe, a mere
ordinary reader may take it on him to say, that Sir William has run riot
on the dangerous and enticing ground of philology. It will be difficult to
convince ordinary minds that the book of Joshua allegorically represents
the reform of the calendar, or that the name Joshua is a type of the sun
in the sign of the Ram; and when he finds the twelve labours of Hercules,
and the twelve tribes of Israel identified with the twelve signs of the
zodiac, one feels regret that he did not improve the analogy by the
addition of the twelve Caesars. It was with some truth that D’Oyly, in
his "Remarks on Sir William Drummond’s OEdipus Judaicus," thus
characterized the species of philology in which Sir William indulged:
"It is in the nature of things impossible to disprove any
proposed method of deducing the etymology of a word, however absurd,
fanciful, and strained it may appear to every considerate mind. We may
give reasons for rejecting it as highly improbable, and for receiving
another, perhaps as drawn from a far more obvious source; but this is all
that we can do; if any person should persevere in maintaining that his own
is the best derivation, the question must be left to the judgment of
others: it is impossible to prove that he is wrong. In some old monkish
histories, the word Britain is derived from Brutus, a supposed descendant
of AEneas: now, we may produce reasons without end for disbelieving any
connexion to have subsisted between Britain and a person named Brutus; and
for either acquiescing in our inability to derive the word at all, or for
greatly preferring some other mode of deriving it; but we can do no more;
we cannot confute the person who maintains that it certainly is derived
from Brutus, and that every other mode of deriving it is comparatively
forced and improbable. Precisely in the same manner, when our author
affirms that the word "Amorites" is derived from a Hebrew word
signifying a ram, the astronomical sign of Aries; that Balaam comes from a
word signifying "to swallow," with allusion to the celestial
Dragon; Deborah from Aldebaran, the great star in the Bull’s eye, so we
cannot possibly confute him, or positively prove that he is
wrong; we can only hint that these derivations are not very obvious
or probable, and refer the matter to the common sense of mankind."
Sir William was not likely
to create friends to his views by the tone he adopted, which was
occasionally (especially in the introduction) such as he should not have
used till the world had acknowledged his own system, and should not have
been applied to anything held in reverence.
In 1818, Sir William
Drummond published the first part of a poem, entitled "Odin,"
which was never popular. The first of the three volumes of his "Origines,
or Remarks on the Origin of several Empires, States, and Cities,"
appeared in 1824. Of the varied contents of this very eminent historio-critical
work, we shall spare our readers any analysis, as it is well known to the
reading world, preferring to refer to the article on Sir William Drummond
in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Towards the latter period of his life Sir
William was a martyr to gout. His habits were retired, and by some
considered reserved. For instance, when on a visit he would seldom make
his appearance after dinner, spending the afternoon in the library or
study. But while he was in company his manners were bland and courteous,
and his conversation was enriched by classical and elegant information. He
died in the year 1828.
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