H/E was a pupil of Professor Simson's, in Glasgow, and became minister of Tarbert in Stirlingshire.I have been able to collect few notices of him.He is worthy of being mentioned, as having had played upon him one of the basest tricks mentioned in literary history.He wrote a treatise on {90} "Moral Virtue," and sent it up to London to his friend, Alexander Innes, D.D., assistant at St.Margaret's, Westminster, to have it published; and Innes published it in his own name, with the date, Tothill Fields, Jan.20, 1727-28.In 1730, Campbell went to London and exposed Innes's imposture.It seems that the Lord Chancellor, believing that Innes was the author of the work, presented him to a living.
The Chancellor, being convinced of the deceit, sought to male amends by offering a living to Campbell, who declined the offer, saying that he preferred his own country; and he becomes professor of ecclesiastical history in St.Andrews.
In 1733, he published the work in his own name, dating it St.Andrews, and disowning the " Prefatory Introduction "and " some little marginal notes of Innes." "An Inquiry into the Original of Moral Virtue, wherein is shown, against the Author of the Fable of the Bees, that Virtue is founded in the Nature of Things, is unalterable and eternal, and the great Means of Private and Public Happiness, with some Reflections on a late Book entitled `An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue.' " Hutcheson, whom he thus assailed, spoke of him as no better than a disciple of Epicurus.His system is the boldest form of self-love." Human nature is originally formed to pleasure and pain." " There is, indeed, a.distinction of goodness into natural and moral, but the latter as well as the former lies wholly in pleasure." 'God and all mankind are governed by one common principle, viz., self-love." "They can favor or esteem no other beings but as they gratify this principle." " The affections and actions that correspond to the self-love of our own species are likewise agreeable to the self-love of the Deity." " From self-love we desire the love and esteem of other intelligent beings." There is a passage in which there is an anticipation of Smith's theory of sympathy: " Whatever tenderness we conceive in favor of other people, it comes from putting ourselves in their circumstances, and must therefore be resolved into self-love." He also wrote a treatise on the " Necessity of Revelation," 1739; and another, " Oratio de Vanitate Luminis Naturae." He thinks it impossible that man kind, left to themselves, should `discover' the great truths and articles of natural religion, or should be capable of giving a system to natural religion." He died in April, 1756.A posthumous work, " The Authenticity of the Gospel History," was published 1759.He was opposed by .
