The Practical Philosophy by R. L. Dabney Review
This was the first book I ever read by Robert Lewis Dabney (1820–1898), and it was a good first impression.
About the book
The Practical Philosophy was the last book Dabney wrote before he died, so it gathers up the wisdom of a long life. The Sprinkle Publications edition I read is a simple, handsome clothbound book of 521 pages. Its newer preface is by Douglas Kelly, whose Preachers with Power we've reviewed here.
Dabney was a Presbyterian and a Calvinist, and his postmillennial hope comes through in his writing. I wrote in the margin "must be post-mill" before I knew that he was. He was also an architect and designed churches in Virginia, including Tinkling Spring Presbyterian Church.
The book is laid out like a systematic theology, in four large "books" divided into smaller sections. It's essentially a course in ethics. Douglas Kelly recommends that readers start with the fourth book, so that's what I'll focus on here.
Book Four: Applied Ethics
This part covers the first principles of social ethics, duties of charity, duties of the family, civic ethics, the morals of individuals in their civic actions, duties touching life (including murder and self-defense), duties and rights concerning property, duties of truthfulness, and duties toward God.
In civic ethics he dives into religious liberty, suffrage and slavery.
The family chapter was the best in my opinion. It covers parental duties and rights, the state and education, the nature of marriage, divorce, the duties of husbands and wives, and chastity, with a section addressed specifically to men.
A few things I marked
- An agency that has excluded Christianity from itself has thereby disqualified itself from being an educator. That's a strong argument for Christian education.
- Neither a decline of love nor developing incompatibility is just cause for divorce.
- He is most a man who can always govern himself.
- Dabney asks why families are alarmed at moral decline in their children while bringing corrupting influences into their homes. In his day it was newspapers and novels. Today it's phones and social media.
Would I recommend it?
Yes, if you're interested in ethics and want a thoroughly Christian perspective from the 1800s. I've never read anything quite like it. In fact, I may even purchase it again before it's not available. It's a Sprinkle Publications book, and they're out of business.
Soli Deo Gloria!
