Booknote: Jonathan Edwards, by George M. Marsden

[Levinson]

For those into counterfactual history, it is intriguing to wonder what might have happened if Edwards had lived and, therefore, taught the senior course on "moral philosophy" to the Princton Class of 1771, which included James Madison.  Instead, John Witherspoon, Edwards's successor, taught the course and imported Scottish Common Sense philosophy from his native Edinburgh.  There is some reason to believe that Madison was influenced by the philosophers Witherspoon brought to his attention (including Hume).  What if, instead, he had read Edwards's The Nature of True Virtue?  

sandy