Reason, Grace, and Sentiment: A Study of the Language of Religion and Ethics in England 1660–1780. Vol. II: Shaftesbury to Hume by Isabel Rivers (review)

169 ‘‘Measuring Locke’s Shadow’’ surveys Locke’s historical influence, and is one of the strangest things I have ever read. The author of one of the most influential books on Locke, Mr. Dunn is usually a fine philosophical stylist. But this essay is unintelligible. For brevity I will give one sentence that can stand for the whole. ‘‘The relation between Locke’s grandest work, the Essay Concerning Human Understanding , and the cultural dynamicsof theEnlightenment,andthepowerfullyinimical relation between the mode of analysis which that work set out and theimaginative stability and theoreticalcoherence of Christian Natural Jurisprudence, both guaranteed that no adequate account. . . .’’ That is half the sentence; it gets worse from there. If one generously assumes that things like ‘‘culture dynamics’’ and ‘‘imaginative stability’’ exist, one will still be unable to see what the essay is about. Ms. Grant’s essay, conversely, is clear, informative, and exceptionally interesting . She uses her deep understanding of Locke’s political philosophy to speculate about what he might have thought concerning modern liberal feminism. This is a tricky enterpriseatbestbecauseLocke’s goals as an author were such that he never had reason to make the question of women ’s rights thematic. Yet Ms. Grant is aware of the dangers, and approaches the issue with intelligence and tact and subtlety . She concludes that Locke would not have offered a single formula for the political role of women. He would have insisted on their basic rights, but ‘‘Lockean liberalism allows both moral and political judgment and acceptance of diversity by focusing on defining minimal criteria for legitimacy rather than articulating amodel of the ideal form of political society.’’ Mr. Shapiro’s essay emphasizes the democratic element of Locke’s thought. Many interpreters have found a tension between Locke’s concern for natural rights and his interest in the will of the majority, for majorities do not have a much better record than any other political group in protecting the rights of all citizens. Mr. Shapiro makes his argument by distinguishing three levels of deliberation in Locke’s account of politics: the contract that creates civil society, the decision of the majority regarding the form of government, and the decisions of the government itself concerning policy. By emphasizing the first two, Mr. Shapiro concludes, ‘‘the deep structureofLocke’s account of politics is profoundly democratic ’’ and that ‘‘his underlying conception of legitimacy is democratic more than liberal.’’ This is interesting enough, except that in the previous essay the crux of Ms. Grant’s argument concerning women’s rights had been that ‘‘Locke is liberal, but not a democrat.’’No rule says that contributors to a volume must agree, but I think they should at least be precise about why they disagree. Except for Ms. Grant’s essay, the volume appears to have been thrown together without stylistic care, for no particular purpose, and with no particular audience in mind. A reader wishes for more respect . Matthew Simpson Luther College ISABEL RIVERS. Reason, Grace, and Sentiment : A Study of the Language of Religion and Ethics in England 1660–1780. Vol. II: Shaftesbury to Hume. Cambridge: Cambridge, 2000. Pp. xiv ⫹ 386. $75. Are you tired of critics’ echoing Johnson , trashing An Essay on Man for smugness , vacuity, and lack of philosophical rigor, while they ignore its role in popularizing egalitarian enlightenment ideas ? Inspiring Burns, if not Johnson, the Essaydisseminatedcontemptfortyranny, 170 ‘‘The tremendous faith of many made for one,’’ respect for the common man, ‘‘the noblest work of God,’’ and interest in the psychology of morality. Even before Pope’s death, it had become a recommended work on school reading lists assembled by Scottish Presbyterians, Oxford high churchmen, and dissenters. So Ms. Rivers informs us in the second volume of her closely argued account of the separation of ethics from religion. In volume one of this study, Whichcote to Wesley, Ms. Rivers judges ‘‘incalculable ’’ the consequences when ideas of good and evil broke free from ideas of the divine. In the first volume, she followed the latitude-men’s divorce of theology from morality through Wesley’s attempted recovery of original sin. Wesley foundered on the perfection he encountered in living men and his conviction that Jesus had not meant faith to...