Hopkins

[0.V.], from whom the New England Theology
derived the name "Hopkinsianism," and was re-
lated also to John Sergeant [#.#.], first mission-
ary to the Stockbridge Indians, and to Col. Eph-
raim Williams [?.£>.], founder of Williams Col-
lege. After a rather desultory preparation, Mark
Hopkins entered Williams as a sophomore, and
received the degree of A.B. in 1824. In the same
year he began the study of medicine, but in 1825
was recalled to Williams where he served two
years as tutor. Resuming his medical studies, he
graduated from the Berkshire Medical College,
Pittsfield, Mass,, receiving the degree of M.D. in
1829. He opened an office in New York City but
soon removed to Binghamton, N. Y., where he
practised a few months in partnership with Dr.
Silas West In 1830 he was again called back to
Williams, this time as professor in moral philos-
ophy and rhetoric. Taking up his duties in the
autumn of 1830, he was connected with the col-
lege from that time until his death, teaching reg-
ularly, and from 1836 to 1872 serving as presi-
dent On Dec. 25, 1832, he married Mary Hub-
bell of Williamstown; ten children were born of
the marriage. From 1857 to 1887 he was presi-
dent of the American Board of Commissioners
for Foreign Missions. Although he never at-
tended a theological school, he was licensed to
preach by the Berkshire Association of Congre-
gational Ministers in 1833, and was ordained on
Sept 15,1836 (Congregational Year Bo ok, 1888,
p. 28). He delivered many sermons and re-
ligious addresses, some of which are included in
Baccalaureate Sermons and Occasional Dis-
courses (1862). He also gave four courses of
lectures before the Lowell Institute in Boston,
which were published in Lectures on the Evi-
dences of Christianity (1846), Lectures on Moral
Science (1862), The Law of Love and Love as a
Law (1869), and An Outline Study of Man
(1873). These passed through several editions,
and Evidences was republished in 1909 as the
first volume of Lectures on the Bross Founda-
tion. His last important book, The Scriptural
Idea of Man, consisting of lectures given in vari-
ous theological seminaries, was published in
1883.

Hopkins' fame rests mainly upon his skill as
a teacher. He was neither a great scholar nor
an original thinker. The remark made by Presi-
dent James A. Garfield at a dinner of Williams
alumni in New York to the effect that his ideal
of a college would be fully met by a log in the
woods with a student at one end and Mark Hop-
kins at the other has an implication which the
speaker did not intend. As a matter of fact,
Hopkins himself di<J not feel the ae&J of the

Hopkins

resources of a college, and in the early years
of his teaching did not have the run even of a
good library. He had not read widely but he had
reflected deeply. In his own words, moral science
"appeals directly to the consciousness of the
hearer. No learning is needed; no science, no
apparatus, no information from distant coun-
tries" (Lectures on Moral Science, p. 39). His
own thought was governed by three principles or
laws which he discovered in the constitutions of
man and nature alike: the law of ends, the law
of the conditioned and conditioning, the law of
limitation. Whatever owes its existence to a ra-
tional being must have and serve a rational end.
As created by God, the world and man must have
an end which can be ascertained by studying the
structure of each. In nature, there are distinct
strata, unified by coordination and subordina-
tion : the inorganic with its forces of gravitation,
cohesion, and chemical affinity; the organic, di-
vided into vegetable, animal, and human organ-
isms. In man, above these levels is mind, com-
prising intellect, sensibility, and will. These
grades, or levels, are so coordinated that each is
an indispensable condition for the one immedi-
ately above it, and gathers into itself the values
of all lower grades in accordance with the law of
the conditioned and the conditioning. The end
of each level is to serve the interests of the one
above it, and all conspire to serve the interests
of the structure as a whole. In man, the body is
for the mind and the physical processes and ap-
petites are limited in their proper exercise and
indulgence by the interests of the mind. In mind,
the intellect with its ideas, and the sensibility
which by apprehending good supplies motives,
condition the will with its power of free choice
among ends and motives. Man's highest good
lies in the harmonious cooperation of all his
powers under the dominion of his supreme end,
which is to love God and his fellows. The crown-
ing evidence for Christianity as a revealed re-
ligion is that it declares as the chief end of man
that which is revealed also in his constitution.

It was this system, ingeniously wrought out
in detail and illustrated by diagrams, which Hop-
kins taught year after year to the senior class in
Williams College. At certain points, e.g., the
doctrine of levels, he approximated the theory of
evolution, particularly in its "emergent" form,
but he decidedly rejected the hypothesis of de-
velopment, saying that: "So far as these forces
are concerned, if the universe had been consti-
tuted for the purpose of excluding the idea of
development, it could not have been more effec-
tually done" (An Outline Study of Man, p. 26).
Hence the unity of lji§ .scjieme i,s ^tjficiaj Hag&ag

216