An Historical and Critical View of the Speculative Philosophy of Europe in the Nineteenth Century  

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An Historical and Critical View of the Speculative Philosophy of Europe in the Nineteenth Century' is a book by John Daniel Morell.

Volume 2

AN UISTOIUCAL AND CUITICjVL VIEW

SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY OF EUROPE

NINETEENTH CENTURY.

J. D. MORELL, A.M.

VOLUME 11.

LONDON ;

WILUAU PICKEKING.

1846.

ss^.

ALEXANDER MACINTOSH,

PRINTER,

ORSAT NIW4TRUT, LONDON.

CHAPTER V.

CHARACTERISTICS OF MODERN IDEALISM.

In tracing the progress of idealism from the revival of modem philosophy to the opening of the present century, we described four different move- ments, which it exhibited respectively in four different parts of Europe. The French movement was seen to develop itself in the school of Descartes, and to evaporate at length either into the revived Platonism of Malebranche, or the realistic pantheism of Spinoza. The English idealism, polemical in its origin, and living a life of contest rather than one of calm and lofly repose, we saw gradually retiring before the power of its adversary, and ere the eighteenth century was ended, well nigh extin- guished under the advancing sensationalism of the successors of Locke. The German idealism, on the contrary, seemed destined to realize nobler fortunes. Sent forth under the auspices of Leibnitz, the greatest scholar and perhaps thinker of his age, it enjoyed, during its infancy, a prosperous career in connexion with the logical order of the Wolfian

^^VOL. II. B

2 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

school; then, taking another direction, it poured astonishment over Europe, through the works of the immortal Kant ; and at the close of the century only seemed preparing for a still grander develop- ment, and a still bolder flight. Lastly, the philo- sophy of Scotland, although perhaps most vigorous and most original when in the hands of Reid, its real founder, yet appeared at the close of the last century to promise for the present a development of its resources, in some measure corresponding to the victory it had already achieved over the preten- sions of scepticism.

The two anti-sensational forces, therefore, which meet our view on stepping over the threshold of the nineteenth century, are the respective philo- sophies of Scotland and Germany. Upon these it devolved to carry on the combat against the mate rialism of England and France; and from these were derived the fruitful germs of thought, which have now succeeded in producing a re-action in favour of idealism in both those countries. In pursuing, then, the history of the idealistic ten- dency through our own age, we must first look to Scotland and Germany, as the sources of its chief movements; having done this, we shall be the better able to estimate their effect upon our own country, and their share in the rise of the modern eclecticism of France. This sketch, as far as Scotland, Germany, and England are concerned, -we shall assign to the present chapter ; the history

THE SCOn'ISII SCHOOL. 3

of modern eclecticism, although strictly anti-sensa- tional, yet, as presenting several peculiarities, we must reserve for a separate consideration.

Sect. I. — The Scottish School of the Nineteevth

Centun/.

The rise and progress of the Scottish metaphysics during the last century have been already noticed in a former chapter. Up to the time of Reid, as we then saw, the representationalist theory of per- ception, though not in its strictly Aristotelian form, was the general belief of the philosophical world ; and upon its foundation the edifice of scepticism, as erected by Berkeley and Ilunie, mainly rested. Against this system the philosophy of Reid was the natural reaction ; and as the effect of all scepticism is to send us back again to first principles, so it was only a thing to be reasonably expected, that the bold and sweeping scepticism of Hume should give rise to a proportionably deep and thorough revision of the iundamental principles of human knowledge. The key to all that Dr. Reid ever wrote upon these topics may be found in the one consideration, that he stood forth as the professed opponent of philosophical scepticism, and had from the first determined to devote his whole life, to tear up the very deepest roots, from which it sprung. Hence arose his attack upon the doctrine of ideas, as being the irpwrov ^^io^ of his adversaries ; hence

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his opposition to the empirical tendency of Locke's refutation of innate ideas; hence his assertion of tlie immediatecy of our knowledge of the external world ; hence, in a w^ord, his principle of common sense, by means of which lie sought to enlist the universal consent of man*s intelligence against the subtle, and sweeping conclusions of a false philo- sophy. The very position, in which llcid was placed, threw him back upon the only true method of all metaphysical investigation, that of inward observa- tion and analysis. Once taught rightly to interpret the observed facts of our consciousness, he found it no insuperable task to overturn the false hypotheses which had up to that time held an undisputed place in most metaphysical systems.

The polemical character, however, of Reid's philosophy necessarily gave it a peculiarity un- favourable to its systematic development. Occupied as he was in pulling down, he had but little time to build up ; and even that which he did succeed in erecting had rather the character of an outpost strongly placed to defend the citadel of truth, than of fresh turrets tending to beautify or enlarge it. More- over, the opposition he was called upon to sustain against the almost universal voice of authority both in ancient and modern philosophies, naturally led him to underrate a correct knowledge of their nature and history, and to deprive himself of many of the aids which a more extensive study of the best metaphysical w^ritings would have afforded.

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All this tended to give an air of incompleteness to his system ; so much so indeed, that he appeared before the world not exactly as a philosopher, but rather in the character of an earnest mind, contend- ing only for a few great principles of truth, and willing, when those main positions were gained, to rest content with the first great victory, and leave to his successors the task of following it up into all its legitimate consequences. The more immediate successors of Reid, however, failed to do this. Fur- nished with their new philosophical organon, that of common sense, they did little more than cele- brate a kind of peii)etual ovation over the conquest which their great predecessor had by its means achieved ; or, if they ever attempted themselves to wield it against other enemies, they did so mth far less nerve and proportionally small success.

Amongst the successors of Reid, however, there was one disciple, inspired with profound veneration for his master, and deeply imbued with his spirit, who rose to a distinction far above the rest, and succeeded in giving to his country's philosophy a popularity, wliich, in the want of such an advocate, it would, in all probability, never have obtained. The reader will at once perceive that I refer to Dugald Stewart, of whose writings we must now take a brief review.

This celebrated author, whose works form so large an item in the philosophical history of Scot- land during the present century, was born in the

b MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

year 1753. In 1773, he became professor of mathematics, in the university of Edinburgh, and in 1785, was raised to the chair of moral philosophy. His first work, entitled, " Elements of the Philo- sophy of the Human Mind," was published in 1792, and obtained considerable celebrity as a clear and eloquent exposition of the philosophy of Dr. Reid. It was translated into French by M. Provost, of Geneva, and extensively read on the Continent as well as in our own country. In the next year he published his " Outlines of Moral Philosophy," which comprehended the chief results of the Scottish school on the moral phenomena of the human mind, and which have been more recently translated by M. JouflEroy, with a most invaluable preface as an introduction. In the year 1810, appeared his •' Philosophical Essays," in which many of the points at issue between the philosophy of Locke, and that of Reid, are very clearly pourtrayed, and a lengthened disquisition added on the philosophy of taste. This work was introduced to the French public by M. Huron. In the year 1814, appeared the second volume of the " Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind," comprehending his analysis of the intel- lectual powers, and a very full exposition of the fundamental laws of human belief, an expression which he substituted for Reid's "Principle of Common Sense." The next two years were occupied in writing his " Preliminary Dissertation

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ou the Progress of Metaphysical, Etliical, and Political Philosophy," the first part of which was published in the supplement to the " Ency- clopedia Britannica," in the year 1816, the second part in the year 1821. So clear, so elegant, and, in many respects, so learned is the exhibition there given of the gradual development of metaphysical philosophy in Europe, and so acute the strictures on the different systems which it details, that many ground his cliief claim to a lasting reputation upon these rather than upon any of his more systematical writings. The third volume of the "Elements" was published in the year 1827, and in 1828, the year of his death, came out his last work, entitled,

• ' Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers

of Man."*

Respecting Stewart's ability as a writer, there never has been, as far as we know, but one opinion, and that decidedly favourable. His reading upon all metaphysical subjects, (with the exception of the more modem German philosophy,) appeared to be almost as extensive as the literature itself; his judgment upon the merits of the different authors was, for the most part, clear and comprehensive ; his own mind exhibited all the traces of the scholar and the man of taste, while his easy and

• The second volume of the "Elements" was translated into

French by M. Farcy; the preliminary discourse, by M. Buchan ; and the "Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers,** by MM. Simon and Huron.

8 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. *

attractive style seemed to throw a charm, and an interest around the most abstruse, and forbidding subjects. There can be little doubt, but that the Scottish metaphysics, while they derived their bone and sinew from Dr. Reid, yet owed to the labours of his successor all that mould and symmetry, that order and beauty, which have given them a popularity greater than any philosophical treatises in the English language, which have appeared in modern times.

To give a criticism on Stewart's philosophy, as a whole, w ould be, in fact, nothing more than to repeat what we have already said of his predecessor and instructor. Dr. Reid ; the points in which he has departed from Reid's opinions being com- paratively very few, and those few but of slight importance. It may be useful, however, to men- tion one or two particulars, in which Stewart may be said to have rendered essential service to the philosophy of Scotland, and to have excelled all those who preceded him in the same department.

1. He introduced many great improvements into the metaphysical phraseology of his school. The most prominent instance of this is seen in the fact of his discarding the term " principles of common sense," (the very term by which Reid and his immediate successors had chiefly characterized their system,) and conveying the same idea under the more dignified expression, " Fundamental Laws of Human Belief." The term, " principles of

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common sense," was in many respects objectionable : it apjieared to place common sense in direct oppo- sition to philosophy, and by implication, to assert that the two were altogether irreconcileable. Stewart perceived the disadvantage which arose from tliis circumstance, and proceeded with a laudable zeal to remove it.

To accomplish this end, he analysed more closely than had been done before, the notions which Reid intended to convey under the expression itself, and shewed that, properly speaking, they refer to the primary elements of our reason^ rather than (as Reid imagined) to the principles upon which reasoning is conducted. Conmion sense, we know, in the popular use of the term, is opposed to an incorrect and an untenable method of in- ference, to the habit of drawing false conclusions, or of admitting premises on slight evidence. On the other hand, the primary elements of man's reason are altogether of a different nature; their absence would imply absolute insanity; so that, instead of terming them principles of common sense, they should rather be designated fimtla^ mental laws of human belief without which it were impossible for the mind to perform one of the intellectual operations, for which it is destined. " The former expression," Stewart remarks, " would only imply that we were apt to fall into absurdities and improprieties in the common coucerns of life ; but to denominate such laws of

10 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

belief as we have been considering, ^constituent elements of human reason^' while it seems quite unexceptionable in point of technical distinctness, cannot justly be censured as the slightest deviation from our habitual forms of speech." We give this as a specimen (perhaps the most striking one which could be brought forward) of the care, which our author bestowed on his philosophical phraseology. H^ well knew that nothing tended so much to raise metaphysical speculations above objections and misunderstanding, nothing to commend it so much to the common intellect of man, nothing so much to place it on a firm and lasting basis, as to clothe it in distinct appropriate and intelligible language.

2. Another service, which Stewart rendered, was to revise the classification^ which Reid had left behind him, of the phenomena of the human mind. The fundamental principle of classification is the same in each, that, namely, which divides all mental phenomena into intellectual and acUve powers. Under each of these two heads Reid drew out a long list of faculties or feelings, which he hastily set down as original and peculiar facts of our mental con- stitution, apparently with little attempt to resolve them into any more primary elements. The in- stinctive principles especially were very imperfectly classified in Reid's philosophy, since they were made so numerous and complicated, that the effect was rather to perplex, than to throw any additional

THE SCOTTISH SCHOOL. 11

light upon the subject. Stewart, though far from giving a classification, which can be considered unobjectionable, yet thoroughly revised that of his predecessor ; applied to many parts of it a closer and better analysis ; and if he did not accomplish all that could be wished on this head, yet pointed out the way to those who soon after succeeded him. No doubt the excessive simplification of the sen- sationalist school was the ground of Ileid's jealousy against resolving the phenomena of mind into a very small number of original elements ; neither with the absurd conclusions of the French ma- terialists before his eyes was. Stewart very likely to venture with much boldness upon any speculations of the same nature. Notwithstanding this, how- ever, he furnished many instances of elegant analysis, which not only introduced decided im- provements into Reid's classification, but prepared the way for others to proceed still further on the same road.

3. But one of the greatest services which Stewart rendered to the philosophy of his country, is due to the manner, in which he illustrated, confirmed, and adorned it by his learning. Reid seemed as if he gloried in standing directly opposed to the authority of more than two thousand years. Stewart, on the contrary, rather sought to prove, that the philosophy of other ages and other nations often tended to support their own. The former had to fight the battle for first principles so

12 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

sternly, that he hardly thought of proceeding further when the victory was once achieved ; the latter came forward when the contest was already over, and had abundant leisure to confirm the main conclusions they had educed by an appeal to extraneous sources.

Than Stewart, few men, perhaps, were ever better enabled to carry on this kind of research. Devoted exclusively to philosophical studies, holding a position which gave abundant leisure from pro- fessional duties, situated in a literary capital where books to any extent were at his command, he en- joyed every facility which was needed to aid him in mastering the history of philosophy and in applying it to the enlargement and perfection of his own system. Learning always inspires con- fidence; we naturally place reliance upon those, who build upon the well-known experience of past ages ; and this was, doubtless, one of the methods by which Stewart gained the confidence of so many of his contemporaries upon most of the questions which involve metaphysical analysis. He appeared evidently writing upon topics, which he had tho- roughly mastered, respecting which he knew the universal voice of history; and this alone was sufficient to give him a power to influence the opinions, and to gain the suffrages of mankind, which a more original and a less learned philo- sopher would probably have wanted.

Whilst, however, wo can easily find so much to

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commend in the writings we liave been thus briefly reviewing, there are points of no little consequence, to which we might make equally decisive objec- tions. There are certain theories, for example, involved in his classification of the powers of the human mind, which, if strictly followed out, would have gone far to despoil his philosophy of its peculiar excellence. The classification itself is as follows: — 1. Consciousness; 2. Perception; 3. Attention; 4. Conception ; 5. Abstraction ; 6. Association of Ideas ; 7. Memory ; 8. Imagination ; 9. Judgment or Reasoning.

Now, first of all, to make cou^iciousnens a sepa- rate faculty perfectly collateral with the others, involves a principle, which would soon have re- opened the floodgates of scepticism, and contra- vened the very conclusions, which both Reid and himself with so much labour had established. Consciousness, as viewed by Stewart, is defined to be " the faculty by which we are co(fnisant of our other mental operations If this limitation of the term be correct, then, of course, we can never be conscious of any objective reality; all we can be directly conscious of, is the process of knowing, never of the thing known. Now, the great and funda- mental principle of the school of Reid is, that we perceive external things immediately^ that we need no image, or idea, or modification of mind as the medium ; but that the common belief of man- kind (namely, that we really see, feel, &c., external

14 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

things themselves) is literally correct. Once admit that, after I have perceived an object, I need another power termed consciousness, by which I become cognisant of the perception, and by the medium of which the knowledge involved in per- ception is made clear to the thinking self, and the plea of " common sense " against scepticism is cut off. On this principle we are only conscious, after all, of a subjective state; the objective reality, which we suppose it to involve, may stiU be a delusion, and we are just as far from controverting the pretensions of the sceptic as ever.

Perception, as we have before shewn, involves a relation between my subjective self and an objective reality: take away either of the terms and the perception is no more ; so that, to be conscious of a perception evidently involves a direct consciousness of the object, as well as the subject. If this be true, it follows at once, that consciousness cannot be a fact of mind resting on the same footing and collateral with perception ; that is to say, it cannot be co-ordinate generally with the other intellectual £Eiculties. Were this the case we should have in each instance two faculties to perform the same office — a redundancy which would be sufficient to condemn any classification that could for a moment admit it. Consciousness, then, ought on Reid's principles to have been explained, not as a separate faculty, but as a more universal term, implying the general condition of reflective intelligence. I am

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conscious of self, and I am conscious of not-self; my knowledge of both in the act of perception is equally direct and immediate ; on the other hand, to make consciousness a peculiar faculty, by which we are simply cognisant of our own mental oper- ations, is ^drtually to deny the immediatccy of our knowledge of the external world, and to restore the representationalist's hypothesis in a more subtle form. Hence, we maintain, that, had Reid or

m

Stewart carried out their doctrine of consciousness to its full results, they would have completely subverted their original conclusions, and lost the victory, which they seemed to have w on.

The second of Stewart's original faculties is per- ception : and here, again, we much doubt whether the analysis he has given us is sufficiently searching. Taking the fact of sensation on the one hand, and judgment on the other, we are at a loss to know what middle point there is between them in per- ception, which deserves the name of a peculiar faculty. If the term perception be used simply to signify a primitive judgment in opposition to an experimental one, we are content thus to employ it ; but this is hardly sufficient to justify us in making our judgment in the two cases separate and distinct faculties. Perception, therefore, we conceive, may be easily reduced to the two faculties above stated, namely, sensation and judgment, being, in fact, the judgment we pass upon our sensations with reference to their external cause. The term sensational-

16 MODERN PHlLOSOrHY.

perception might, perhaps, be conveniently em- ployed at once to designate and explain the process.

The four next faculties, namely, attention, con- ception, abstraction, and association, we should likewise reduce to more primitive elements, as, indeed, has been done by several of the more modem writers of the Scottish school. The three former resolve themselves into other primitive powers^ the last indicates an ultimate law of mind, that regulates the flow of all our ideas and feelings, rather than a separate intellectual power by which we acquire any distinct and peculiar species of knowledge. Whilst, however, we should oflFer these objections to Stewart's system as a whole, it must be admitted, that he made considerable improvements upon that of his predecessor, and in many respects pointed out the road of analysis to those who succeeded him.

Upon the whole, we consider that Stewart's phi- losophy, like that of Reid, was too primary. He was so much employed in defending the outposts which had been won, in strengthening them against any fresh attacks, and in ornamenting them by his learning and taste, that comparatively little progress was made in building up a complete system. He was rather the acute and elegant critic, than the profound systematic philosopher ; and his labours, perhaps, are more highly to be estimated by the ardour and enthusiasm, with which they were cal- culated to inspire others in the pursuit of intel-

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lectual science ; than by the actual results which they themselves succeeded in educing. The sen- timents expressed by Thos. Carlyle, nearly twenty years ago, in the " Edinburgh Review," we regard as one of the most accurate judgments which has been passed upon Stewart as a philosopher. '* The name of Dugald Stewart is a name venerable to all Europe, and to none more dear and venerable than to ourselves. Nevertheless his writings are not a philosophy, but a making ready for one. He does not enter on the field to till it, he only en- compasses it with fences, invites cultivators, and drives away intruders ; often (fallen on evil days) he is reduced to long arguments with the passers- by to prove that it is a field, that this so highly- prized domain of his is, in truth, soil and sub- stance, not clouds and shadow. We regard his discussions on the nature of philosophic language, and his unwearied efforts to set forth and guard against its fallacies, as worthy of all acknowledg- ment, as, indeed, forming the greatest, perhaps the only true improvement which philosophy has re- ceived among us in our age. It is only to a super- ficial observer, that the import of these discussions can seem trivial : rightly understood, they give a sufficient and final answer to Hartley's and Darwin's and aU other possible forms of mate- rialbm, the grand idolatry, as we may rightly call it, by which, in all times, the true worship, that of the Invisible, has been polluted and withstood."

VOL. IL c

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The tendency of the Scottish philosophy, up to the point where we have now arrived, was clearly and decidedly anti-sensational. The main efforts, both of Reid and Stewart, were directed to the establishment of certain fundamental truths (whe- ther termed principles of common sense or primary laws of belief), which could not be subjected on the ground of their empirical origin to the bold attacks of the sceptic. There can be no doubt but that both those writers, with so many evil examples of over-simplification before their eyes, were restrained from carrying out their analysis to the extent they would otherwise have done, and that they were thus led to assign a far greater number of original powers or instincts than were necessary to account for all the phenomena of the case. At the same time the error was on the safe side, especially in an age when everything in the form of philosophy, both in England and France, was rapidly assuming a materialistic and empirical character. The tone of Scottish philosophy, however, was now destined to undergo a very considerable change. Already in the writings of Stewart there were manifested, as we have before remarked, some attempts at a more searching analysis ; and these attempts were not likely to be lost upon the ardent minds, which succeeded him, — minds deeply imbued with the empirical spirit of the age.

From the close of Stewart's career, indeed, downwards to the present time, we may consider

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that the tendency of the Scottish metaphysical school has been somewhat in tlie opposite direction from that, which it manifested under its earlier supporters. Not, indeed, that it has ever run into those more extreme conclusions of sensationalism, wliich we have noted in the writings of Mill ; but still, in its zeal for completing the analysis of the human consciousness, and correcting the errors or imper- fections, with which the works we have already noticed arc characterized, it has incurred some danger, lest, once on the descent towards simpli- fication, it should not know where to stop in order to avoid the evils of tlie opposite extreme. We must now proceed to exemplify this, by sketching the history of philosophy in Scotland from the decline of Stewart to the present day.

Amongst the youthful minds, which the Edin- burgh professor inspired with a love for philoso- phical research, there was one^ who at an unusually early age shewed the marks of an extraordinary genius, and who afterwards rose to an eminence w^hich did not disappoint the expectations he had excited. Dr. Thomas Brown, to whom we allude, was bom in the year 1778, and having received a liberal education in England, entered, while yet very young, upon the studies of the University of Edinburgh. At the age of sixteen he commenced the study of moral philosophy, under the tuition of Dugald Stewart ; and was even then distinguished for the acuteness, with which he entered into the

c 2

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most abstruse questions of metaphysics that were brought before the class. Before he attained his nineteenth year he undertook to examine, and refute the sophistry of Darwin, in his " Zoonomia," and with such clearness did he unravel the web, and expose the fallacies it contained, that the work (published anonymously) was universally attributed by the " Reviews " to some phUosopher of high standing and matured ability. His next work, published in 1804, was "On Cause and Effect," a subject which he was led to undertake from some illiberal remarks made upon Mr. Leslie, on account of his favouring the theory of Hume. In 1810 he was elected professor of moral philosophy, in conjunction Avith Mr. Stewart, and it is upon the lectures, which in that capacity he delivered, although published posthumously, without having received their last touches from his own hand, that his fame as a metaphysician has chiefly rested. He died April 2, 1820, beloved by many, regretted by all, in the very ascendancy of his genius and reputation.

As a writer. Brown must be regarded as emi- nently successful. Inferior to Stewart in classic chasteness of diction, and philosophic elegance of style, yet his mind was of that poetic order, which can throw a luxuriance, perhaps we might say a redundancy of imagery and illustration, around every subject, that it undertakes. From this, mainly, has arisen the great popularity of liis

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lectures, which have not only passed through many editions, but are now, after more than twenty years, in almost as great request as they were at first. Our chief object, however, at present, is to consider Brown as a philosopher^ which we shall attempt to do without being drawn away, either by tlie depreciation of his opponents, or the excessive commendation of his admirers.

That Brown possessed splendid abilities, and that his writings generally are marked with superior excellence, every candid reader must admit. The most distinctive feature of his mind is generally allowed to have been the power of analysis^ in which he greatly transcended all philosophers of the Scottish school who preceded him. On this point we fully concur in the words of his admiring biographer, where he says, " No intricacy was too involved for him to unravel ; no labyrinth too mazy for him to explore. The knot that thousands had left in despair, as too complicated for mortal hand to undo, and which others, more presumptuous, had cut in twain, in the rage of baffled ingenuity', he unloosed with unrivalled dexterity. The enigmas which a false philosophy had so long propounded, and which, because they were not solved, had made victims of many of the finest and highest gifted of our race, he at last succeeded in unriddUng."

Endued by nature with so acute an analytic faculty, and not being restrained from its exercise by 80 strong motives, as had operated in the case of the earlier metaphysicians of Scotland, it is not

22 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

surprisiDg, that he became convinced, even while his powers were yet immature, of the necessity there was for a complete revision of the current philosophy of his countr)'. Educated underthe influence of Reid's anti-sensational principles, on the one hand, and drawn, both by his own peculiar genius as well as the tendency of the age, to a more refined analysis on the other, he stood in a position admirably adapted to bring the classification of mental pheno- mena to a high degree of perfection. His reverence for the school to which by birth and education he belonged, secured him against the extravagancies of the French ideologists, while yet he was impelled onwards, by the other circumstances we have men- tioned, to commence a kind of secret revolt against his preceptors, in behalf of a more profoundly analytic system. With the example of his country- men before him, he was impressed with the abso- lute necessity of admitting certain fundamental principles of belief; on the other hand, he was evidently charmed with the many successful at- tempts of the school of Hartley, to resolve complex phenomena into simpler elements by means of the laws of association. To these circumstances we may trace almost all the peculiarities, which are to be found in his philosophy, only considering that his views are worked up with singular clearness and sagacity into a complete system of psychology.

We are far, therefore, from attributing to Brown aU the originality^ which has been claimed for him

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by some of his warmest admirers. Taking the injfiuence of the Scottish school into consideration, he could hardly fail to retain his hold on some few original principles of man's belief, lest he should again open a door for the re-introduction of the sweeping scepticism of Hume. Taking into account, on the other hand, his native power of analysis, aided and abetted by the current philo- sophy both of France and England, he was almost necessarily led to adopt some of the conclusions of the sensational school ; yet still in such a form, that they should not contradict and overturn the main points, which had been gained by the polemical ardour of his own countrymen. He knew how to adopt Hartley's excellencies without his errors ; at the same time he clearly saw how far it was possible to depart from Stewart without proclaim- ing against him an open hostility ; and thus from a mind so admirably balanced between the two extremes, there emanated a classification which, avoiding the evils of both sides, came upon the whole nearer to perfection than any British philo- sopher had succeeded in bringing it before him. In thus extolling Brown's classification of the phe- nomena of the human mind, we would by no means represent it as unobjectionable, either in principle or in phraseology ; all that we intend to convey is, that he was so far successfril in his attempt as virtually to arrive at the three great divisions of our mental states, to which all the best analyses of

24

MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

more modern times have manifestly tended, namely : Sensation, Intellection, and Emotion.*

But whilst we thus award to Brown the merit of great sagacity, and an admirable power of analysis, we must not lose sight of the defects, by which his works are characterized, some of the most grave and serious description.

1. We would point out his peculiar phraseology as by no means calculated to add perspicuity or strength to his philosophy. There is something- objectionable in the terms, by which his very classi- fication is expressed, namely, external and interiial states. An external state, taken strictly, is an absurdity ; for sensation is as much in the mind as

♦ It is hardlj necessarj to state that Brown divides mental phenomena into external and internal states, the latter compre- hending intellectual states and emotions, the intellectual states again comprehending simple and relative suggestions, thus : —

Mental pheno- mena include

External states. /^ ^^^ variety

FAl I of

sensations.

Internal states.

Intellectual. « 

"Simple Suggestion.

Relative Suggestion.

T-, .. , /Passions and Emotional. | Desires.

Sensation, intellection, and emotion, which the above classifi- cation evidently includes, may, without much difficulty, bo shewn to run parallel with the modern French division into sensitivity, intellection, and will.

THE SCOTTISH SCHOOL. 25

is memory, and judgment, or any of the emotions. We are willing to admit, however, that Bro^vn only intended to convey by the phrase '\ external and internal states," those, which are preceded in the one case by an outward, and in the other by an mward cause; still there arise two objections against such a classification — first, that in a proper classification our mental phenomena ought to be designated by something that is characteristic of themselves, and not merely of the circumstances which may precede them ; and, secondly, that the arrangement, even allowing its principle to be admissible, still fails of accuracy in the case of the emotions, many of which, though they are all denominated internal states, are immediately pre- ceded by an external cause; such as those, for example, which are termed instinctive.

Again, we have never been able to see the pro- priety or the desirableness of using the terms simple and relative suggestion ^ instead of the much more intelligible terms, which others have always employed to express virtually the same phenomena. The whole attempt, in fact, to account for the powers of memory and judgment by the laws of suggestion we cannot but regard as utterly useless. Admit that memory and suggestion are fundamen- tally the same thing, what is gained in point of analysis by blotting out one original faculty and substituting for it another 1 It simply comes after all to a question of phraseology. Here is a &ct of

26 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

mind that all admit; hitherto it has heen called memory ; now, says Brown, we must call it simple suggestion. What benefit, we ask, is conferred upon philosophy by the change 1 Perhaps it may be replied, that by pointing out the two kinds of suggestion, namely, simple and relative, you reduce the phenomena of memory and judgment to one law. Not at all. Judgment can never be reduced to the general law of suggestion ; the very element which separates it from this general law has to be superadded, even by Brovni himself, by prefixing the term relative; so that, although we cast away the old-standing terms, yet we are obliged to admit the same things under two other names. Simple suggestion is nothing else than an awkward name for memory, and relative suggestion nothing else than a still more awkward one for judgment; neither is the real nature of the one process or the other made at all clearer by changing the ordinary into the new and less intelligible phraseology.

Still, further, we should contend strongly against giving up the use of the words power, faculty, and other similar expressions, which keep constantly before our view the native activity or spontaneity of the human mind, and substituting in their place the phraseology, which represents all mental pheno- mena as states produced by extraneous causes. Either style of expression, no doubt, might be defined, so as to convey a correct notion, whichever notion may be correct ; but to us it seems, that the

THE SCOTTISH SCHOOL. 27

phrases intellectual and active ipowers give, accord- ing to the common use of language, a far more truthful representation of the real character of the facts themselves, than does the philosophical voca- bulary for which they have been exchanged. The tendency of this exchange is most evidently of a sensational character ; it diminishes the intensity of our notion of self, as an independent source of power, and contemplates the mind rather as a passive existence, moulded into its difterent states either by the force of circumstances on tlie one hand, or by its own inevitable and unalterable laws on the other. Unless far better reasons are given for so important a change of language, than any that are to be found in Brown's own writings, we must regard it as a serious defect, and calculated rather to retard than advance the progress of intel- lectual science.

2. Another defect in the works now before us, arises from the historical inaccuracies, and mis- conceptions with which they abound. Brown possessed an ardent mind, rapid in its operations, vivid in its conceptions, and far more adapted to grasp the whole extent of a theory by one intel- lectual effort, supplying whatever was obscure by his own ready invention, than to develop it to himself by long and patient research. He was accustomed to read books with astonishing rapidity, and his retentive memory easily preserved the most important ideas for his future use. But it is

28 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

evident, that this method of acquiring knowledge, however appropriate in the case of ordinary works, was by no means calculated to give deep and com- prehensive views of those philosophical systems, which can only be mastered by close and prolonged reflection. Accordingly, we soon discover, that Brown's knowledge of the philosophy of the ancient world was rather popular than profound. He could describe in his own easy and lively style, some of the prominent features of the academy, or the porch, of Epicurus, or the Stagyrite, but he had not studied these various systems in their deeper conceptions, their finer shades, or their historical development. The method, in which the contro- versy regarding the ideal system is treated in his lectures, is a striking instance of the deficiency we are now describing. He accounts for the errors, which arose on this subject among the ancient philosophers, from their supposed indefinite use of the word idea, applying it, as he affirms they were accustomed to do, sometimes to the mental affec- tion, sometimes to the organic affection, and sometimes to both. A theory more gratuitous and more inconsistent with facts could hardly have been proposed. It is evident that our imaginative author, having got a general notion of the peripatetic doctrine of images, species, and phan- tasms ; having taken for granted that it was held universally, and in the same manner by the school- men ; having supposed, further, that the word idea

THE SCOTTISH SCHOOL. 29

was the one employed in both cases to explain their opinions, hastily jumped at the conclusion, that all the errors involved must have arisen from misconceptions connected with that one word. Now let us learn, from the pen of one who has not inappropriately been termed " the greatest critic of our age," what was the real state of the case. "In the first place," says Sir Wm. Hamilton, " the term idea was never employed in any system previous to the age of Descartes to denote little images derived from objects without. In the second^ it was never used in any philosophy prior to the same period to signify the immediate object of perception. In the third, it was not applied by the peripatetics or schoolmen to express an object of human thought at all. In the fourth, ideas (taking this term for species) were not in all the dark ages of the scholastic followers of Aristotle regarded as little images derived from without, for a numerous party of the most illustrious schoolmen rejected species not only in the intellect, but in the sense. In the fifth, phantasm, in the old philo- sophy, was not the external cause of perception, but the internal object of imagination. In the sixth, the term shadowy film, which here and elsewhere he constantly uses, shews that Dr. Brown confounds the matterless species of the peripatetics with the substantial effluxions of Democritus 'and Epicurus.'* The instance we have here of historical inaccuracy and misconception is by no means a

32 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

in the phenomena of matter, entirely fail us. In the latter case we observe simply the succession of events (and observation can shew us no more) ; in the former case, however, we possess a conscious- ness, which gives us, in addition to successive phenomena, the distinct idea of effort or power, excited by our will, as the intermediate step by which the two events are conjoined. • Now, in reasoning out a theory of causation, either we may begin with observing material changes, may ground our chief view of the case upon them, and from that view proceed to the explanation of spiritual ones; or, we may begin with internal phenomena, and carry over the notion we derive from thence, as to the existence of power, into the material world. Those whose philosophy is formed mainly upon the plan and the habit of physical investigations, starting from the external world, are naturally led to deny the existence of power altogether, inasmuch as they find no sensible trace of it in nature : on the contrary, those who start from purely internal and spiritual phenomena, have no difficulty in admitting the real existence of power, though invisible to the senses, wherever changes are seen to take place. First, the pure idealist, bending his whole attention upon his internal consciousness, transforms all nature into a system of dynamical forces. Secondly, the mo- derate idealist, admitting the reality of passive substance, yet maintains that there must be certain

THE SCOTTISH SCHOOL. 33

forces at work to produce the phenomena in it, which we constantly observe around us. Thirdly, the philosopher of the common sense school, like Reid and Stewart, though virtually denying the objective reality of power, yet admits, that we have a distinct metaphysical conception of it subjectively in the operations of our own mind. Fourthly, the incipient sensationalist, like Brown, is too much charmed with his method of physical inquiry to give any heed to this metaphysical notion, and henctf denies its existence in any other sense than that of "immediate invariable antecedence," still admitting, however, the instinctive necessity of our belief in the perpetual uniformity of cause and effect in nature. And, lastly, the complete sceptic like Hume, as also the complete materialist like Priestley, and the French ideologists, not only deny the notion of efficiency or power, but refer our very belief in the constancy of cause and effect to the influence of experience and association. The position of Brovni in the controversy, is thus sufficiently indicated, as one in which the existence of power, delegated from the Deity, is altogether denied; the idea of any efficient causes operating in nature rejected; adaptation in causality entirely lost sight of; and the whole phenomena of mind and matter reduced to a series of events, the fact of whose connexion we see, the uniformity of which we believe in, but the bond of which is entirely unknown. Brown's first error on this subject is his overlooking our own

VOL. II. D

34 MODERN PHIU)SOPHY.

personal consciousness of effort, from which, in fact, he ought to have started ; once convinced of this, it would easily have become the type upon which he would have conceived the notion of efficient causes (modifications, indeed, of the Divine power) in nature also.

The effect of this theory, which Brown matured in early life, upon his subsequent philosophy is sufficiently manifest. It clearly suggested the re- jection of the terms intellectual and active powers ; it led him to view mental phenomena as a succes- sion of changes, for which no cause whatever could be assigned, beyond their invariable antecedence and subsequence ; it materialized his whole system, and struck so hard a blow at the foundations of human liberty, that had he undertaken to develop this part of our nature, there can be no doubt, but that his philosophy would have led him to the firm support of the ultra-necessarian hypothesis. But without dwelling longer on this topic, which has been ably answered by Ilerschell, Ballantyne, Cousin, and others, we must go on to consider

4. Brown's support of the representationalist theory of perception, as another imperfect feature in his philosophy. This theory has been maintained at different times and by different schools in a ^vast variety of forms. The most simple forms are those of the Epicureans and Peripatetics, the former of whom supposed that the mind comes to a knowledge of material things by means of refined substantial

THE SCOTTISH SCHOOL. 35

efftuxions from them — the latter, that it does so by means of immaterial species or shadowy films bear- ing an exact resemblance to the external object. A more subtle, though perhaps more reasonable form of the same theory has been held by many philosophers of later times, (of whom Descartes stands in the foreground,) who have supposed the inward repre- sentation to be not a separate existence, but a modi- fication of the mind itself, produced, it may be, by the direct intervention of the Deity, as in the doc- trine of occasional causes ; or by a pre-established harmony, as maintained by Leibnitz ; or by other means which it is not worth while to enumerate. These are, in fact, the particular forms of represen- tationalism, with which Dr. lleid was acquainted, and against which he directed the chief strength of his argumentation.

There is, however, another view that many have taken of the same hypothesis, which makes the representative object a modification of the mind^ not produced by any extraneous source, but involved in the very act of perception itself. The process of vision, for example, would be explained, on this principle, in the following manner: — The rays of light come from the object to my eye, and impress an image on the retina : this impression is conveyed by the optic nerve to the brain, and the brain pro- duces a change or modification of my mind. The real object of perception, therefore, it is argued, is the change that takes place in the mind ; so that,

D 2

36 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

instead of perceiving the external world itself, we only view its forms and changes shadowed forth in our own mental modifications. This was apparently the opinion of Locke ; this, the foundation principle of Berkeley's reasoning; and this, likewise, the theory distinctly asserted and maintained by Brown. Let any one carefully peruse his 25th Lecture, and he will find it stated, as clearly as words can state it, that the whole object of our perception is the mind as affected in a certain manner^ and existing in certain states.

The singularity of the case, however, is that he was not liimself aware of the difference between Reid's doctrine of immediate intuitive perception and his own doctrine of representationalism ; and hence the complicated series of errors and miscon- ceptions, into which he fell, in denying Reid's claim to the refutation of the ideal system. Had Brown fully understood his own philosophy, he must have seen, that it could lead to nothing less than a species of subjective idealism; that cut off by it from any direct knowledge of the world without, and confined to the perception of our own mental states, we must totally fail of substantiating our faith in external realities against the arguments of the sceptic. The practical effect of this doctrine, it is true, so far as our belief in the material world is concerned, could not be very serious, since our daily necessities would oblige us to act in contra- diction to it ; but its effect upon our confidence in

tfimf

THE SCOTTISH SCHOOL. *U

the validity of liumaii knowledge in general, must, if carried out, become lamentable. The instinctive conviction of mankind is, that they perceive the very object itself, which is before them, and not a mere representation of it within themselves : once shew that this conviction, resting as it does upon our direct consciousness, is false, and on what grounds can we be justified in trusting the evidence of con- sciousness in other matters ? All necessary and universal truth (which rests upon tlie evidence of consciousness) is from henceforth rendered uncer- tain; the foundations of our knowledge are under- mined ; and we cannot, in any case, give a reason for our belief, which same reason in other cases does not prove entirely fallacious. Brown denies, that the evidence of consciousness respecting the real object of perception is to be trusted ; but notwith- standing, he trusts that same evidence implicitly, when it asserts the objective existence of the material world, or the other primary laws of belief; which denial and trust being put together evolve the con- clusion, that our primary beliefs may be inconsistent with each other, that they are not uniformly valid , and that, therefore, nothing can ever be believed at all with an unflinching certainty.

The great argument, upon which the representa- tionalist system rests is this — that things which are not homogeneous can have no mutual influence upon each other ; that the relation of knowledge implies an identity of existence; in plainer words, that

38 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

matter and mind cannot mutually aflFect each other directly^ just because they are not both matter or both mind. This argument, we contend, is purely assertative ; it entirely fails of support from reason or fact, and therefore, until some plea for it is produced, hardly requires any to be urged against it. The nature of causality in the one case is just as intelligible as in the other : we can as easily imagine the power of mind impressing its influence upon matter, as upon another mind like itself. On the other hand, the system of representationalism in any form is beset with difficulties. The chief of these we have already given in the review of Locke, and to them, therefore, for brevity's sake, we must now refer the reader. If any one, however, wishes to see the whole subject discussed fully and satis- ' factorily, we recommend him to consult the " Edin- burgh Review, No. 103, where the philosophy of perception is developed with greater depth, and learning, than perhaps in any other work in our own language.

After what we have said about the metaphysical philosophy of Brown, it is hardly worth while to make any distinct reference to his ethics. The deepest questions in ethical philosophy he has left untouched, since in no place has he boldly ap- proached the subject of human liberty or necessity; but the conclusions to which he has come respecting the nature and ground of morals, we believe, are almost universally regarded as unsound, even by

THE SCOTTISH SCHOOL. 'ii^

those who are the greatest admirers of his meta- physics. His principle here seems to be, that virtue cannot exist independently of virtuous agents ; that in itself it is a mere abstraction, expressing simply the relation between certain actions, and certain emotions, which we feel in contemplating them. To this conclusion of course his theory of cause and effect was naturally adapted to lead. If events are known simply as successive, it is folly to seek for any adaptation in the one to bring about the other. Now in morals an action is one event, and a certain emotion is the succeeding one ; the former is the universal antecedent, the latter the universal consequent. According to Brown's philosophy, w^e have no ability to inquire further into the matter ; the cause of the emotion is no better known than efficient causes in nature are ; the word virtue, which men assign as an objective reality, is in fact a mere abstraction expressing the relation betw^een the two events, just as gravitation is an abstraction expressing the unknown relation between two phenomena in the natural world. This conclusion, it is evident, at once interdicts the great question in morals. What is the cause of virtuous emotion ? or what is the ground of moral approbation X — it tells us that there is no such cause, no such ground to be discovered ; that there is nothing in the nature of vicious conduct to produce remorse, nothing in the nature of virtuous conduct to produce appro- bation ; that the Deity has so simply fixed the succes-

40 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

sion of events, and that when we have well observed this succession we have arrived at the ultimatum of our possible knowledge. Of course, if this be true, virtue and vice might be interchangeable; and if the mind become so hardened as to approve of sin, sin must at once become virtue ! The ground of all rectitude being our own personal feeling of approbation^ once let that approbation be reversed, and the relations of right and wrong are reversed also.

We might have selected other points from the writings of Brown to comment upon, but those we have already discussed comprehend the most impor- tant instances, in which his system appears to us to be defective or erroneous. While we admit the great merit which is due to him on account of his classification, and cannot but admire the beauty of many of his analyses, still in many other, and those some of the most fundamental points, we consider his philosophy to have been a step backward^^ rather than onwards towards the perfection of the science to which he was devoted.

Whilst Brown was thus engaged in remodeUing the philosophy of his country, several other minds were employed in the same work, although, per- haps, with less genius, yet, certainly, with more caution. It was not to tim alone that the im- portance of a closer analysis of our mental phe- nomena suggested itself: we find a similar tendency decidedly manifested in various other writers of the

THE SCOTl'ISH SCHOOL. 41

same period. Amongst these we might particu- larly point out Dr. John Young, professor of moral philosophy in Belfast, who had virtually completed his system, and delivered it, indeed, to his class, before the publication of Brown's lectures, although it was not published till the year 1835. Dr. Young, though by no means equal to Brown in natural acutencss or in brilliancy of style, yet added to a clear and comprehensive intelligence great steadi- ness, and patience in research. Tliis is proved by the fact, that he arrived quite independently of Brown at a classification virtually the same, though unencumbered by any kind of novel phraseology. He reduced all inteUectnal phenomena to the three heads of sensation, memory, and judgment, steering a medium course with considerable skill between the more complicated systems of Reid and Stewart, and the over-simplification of Hartley. We have, in fact, in Dr. Young another instance of the gradual reaction, which has been experienced in Scotland, since the time of Stewart, in favour of a more sensational form of metaphysical philo- sophy ; for, although he did not give up his hold upon the fundamental laws of man's belief, yet, he everywhere exhibited a strong inclination to derive many of our primary notions from other, and those experimental sources.

It might be remarked, however, in justice to another metaphysician of great ability, who was long known as a lecturer, but who never appeared

42 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

prominently in the literature of his country as an author, I mean Dr. Mylne, the late professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow, that Young un- questionably borrowed much of his system from the class-room of that distinguished philosopher. From what I have learned of those who attended his lectures, and what I have seen of the impulse they gave in prosecuting the work of intellectual analysis, I think there can be little doubt, but that his mind told forcibly upon the philosophy of Scotland during the many years of his professor- ship. The tendency of his influence, as of those before mentioned, was decidedly sensational: of this character were his analyses of many of our intellectual ideas; of this character, also, was his firm support of utilitarianism in morals ; yet, we believe, he explained his views in such a manner, as not materially to injure those great principles of belief, for which Reid had so earnestly contended. Somewhat of a similar tendency is the work of the Eev. John Ballantjue on the human mind, the whole of which is marked with great analytical acumen, and a corresponding tendency to reduce the laws of thought to a few simple elements. At the same time care is taken, here also, not to open the door to scepticism by invalidating our primary beliefs ; and the conclusions, even of Brown himself, in some points, especially that of causation, are very forcibly repelled.

Whilst the writings of Ballantyne may be truly

THE SCOTTISH SCHOOL. 43

said to be less popular than they deserve, wc must mention another philosopher of the Scottish school, who, we consider, has, on the contrary, obtained a philosophical reputation considerably beyond his real merits, I mean the late Dr. Aber- crombie. That there is great intelligence, a tone of lofty morality, and much sincere piety pervading his writings we are glad to admit, but as works of philosophy, they can never occupy any other than a very inferior position. With the real history of metaphysics, with its more lofty speculations, with its sublimest theories, the author was manifestly entirely unacquainted. He looked uiK)n every question simply from the point of view afforded by the school of ^' connnon sense; and whatever lay without its precincts w as set down as vague and uncertain hypothesis, whose mists were for ever dispersed by a purer light. Laying aside the use, which the Doctor makes of his medical knowledge, and of the facts which have come under his notice, his works only remind us of Reid without his depth, of Stewart without his learning, of Brown without his genius. They might tend to popu- larize the study of intellectual science, by diluting it down to the requirements of the weakest digestions, but could never advance the know- ledge of abstract truth, either by aiding us in philosophising on the past, or by suggesting new fields of investigation for the future.

We shall now attempt to sum up our sketch of

44 MODERN rHILOSOPHY.

the Scottish philosophy by a few remarks, which may tend to illustrate its general nature, and point out the position it holds in connexion with the other systems, which history or personal observation present. And, first of all, its great excellency, we imagine, consists in its having confirmed and perfected the true method of metaphysical research. Bacon destroyed the influence which the syllogistic organum had exercised upon the minds of men for centuries past, and furnished the right key to the temple of knowledge. Descartes applied the Baconian principles to the study of metaphysics, but was too much encumbered with a mass of a priori assumptions (though delivered in the form of arguments) to make steady progression in the science. Locke employed the Baconian method with far more success, having first learned to reject the most material errors of the Cartesian philo- sophy; but he, too, was still confused by the phraseology of former systems, and biassed by the representationalist hypothesis concerning ideas. Reid was one of the first, who taking the induc- tive method for his guide, applied it, though some- what clumsily, yet in its complete form to the investigation of intellectual science.

The long-standing doctrine of ideas, the empirical scepticism of Hume, the lingering remnants of the Cartesian assumptions, all fell one after the other before him ; and upon their ruins he laid the foun- dations of a new system of mental philosophy,

THE SCOTTISH SCHOOL. 45

based entirely upon the actual and observed facts of our inward consciousness. Just as the students of physical science before Bacon, — not content with the simple employment of collating and interpreting facts, — sought some hypothetical ex- planation of them, quite independent of all actual experience ; so, the mass of intellectual philo- sophers previous to Roid, were not able to divest their minds of the necessity of explaining the simple facts of sensation, intellection, &c. by some theory which could never be verified. Reid per- formed an inestimable service to philosophy when he shewed, that such simple processes must be viewed as ultimate and primitive facts in our con- stitution, which carry with them their own evi- dence, and admit of no explanation ; nay, that the very attempt to interpret them only plunges us farther into darkness and uncertainty. The illus- tration and full application of the true psycholo- gical method, then, we regard as the main service of the Scottish philosophy, — a service, which has not been lost upon the age, and the ulterior benefit of which has yet to be developed in coming ge- nerations.

On the other hand, the main defect of the Scottish school lies in the fact, that it has never taken a suflficiently comprehensive view of the legitimate objects and extent of philosophy in general. It regards intellectual science as a co- ordinate branch of knowledge with the other

46 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

sciences; it supposes them each to have thei separate objects; and labours to shew that the sami method is in every respect applicable to them aU It takes for granted, that as the march of th( natural sciences mainly consists in observing facts and then classifying them into groups by virtue o certain similarities, so likewise we are fulfilling al the conditions of intellectual philosophy, by giving a simple classification of the facts of our conscious ness; and forgets, in the meantime, that the ful analysis of reason leads us from the region of men subjective phenomena into that of real existenc( itself, and that the highest aim of philosophy is U discover necessary truth, by grounding the observec facts in principles^ which are absolute and unalter able. " When," observes Cousin, " on the occasioi of a finite contingent and relative existence, whicl I ', experience attests, I conceive the infinite, the neces

I sary, the absolute, the universal ; when in presenci

' of the phenomena which I observe in the world, '.

contemplate the great laws of that world, thos laws which make the harmony of its movements the order and beauty of its plan ; when, in retirinj within the precincts of my own nature, I attach th phenomena so variable and evanescent which behold there to one simple, identical and immoveabl essence, I do not imagine^ I do not dream^ I do nc compose, I simply conceive. My conception is necessary and legitimate act of my mind, as muc" as the most simple perception."

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THE SCOTTISH SCHOOL. 47

On what authority, then, we ask, do these pure conceptions rest? what is it that separates them from the fictions of imagination? why do I know my imaginations to be mere fictions, whilst I attri- bute a real objective existence to the Infinite Being, to the laws of the universe, to the essence of the soul ? Ilere are questions grounded indeed upon the facts of our consciousness, but requiring as answer, somewhat more than a mere classification of facts; requiring, in truth, nothing less than a critique of those purely rational, or metaphysical deductians^ in which the first principles of ontology are grounded.

Viewed, then, in this light, metaphysical philo- sophy, instead of being a science having its own separate objects, and co-ordinate with other sciences, is really a kind of " prima philosophia," which underlies all the rest. It is conversant, in a sense, with every object ; it touches upon the whole matter of human knowledge ; only it seeks to trace it up to first principles, to exhibit the abstract forms under which it must be viewed, and to shew the primary laws from which it springs. In this sense there is a philosophy of nature, a philosophy of art, a philosophy of religion, a philosophy of history, as well as a philosophy of mind; every branch of human knowledge may, in fact, be traced back till it come within that small circle of the sphere which metaphysical science claims as its own peculiar province. Hence philosophy, in its highest appli^

48 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

cation, is the reference of the contingent to the absolute, the grounding of facts in their necessary principles ; it is the science, which looks beneath the phenomenal world either of matter or mind, and inquires into the stern ultimate realities of both.

We must proceed, however, to make good our view of the Scottish school in this particular, by a little closer examination of its main positions. The primitive elements of all our knowledge, as we have often repeated, are finite mind, nature, and God. The Scottish philosophy contains all three of these ideas reflectively, but it regards them all from an experimental, rather than an abstract or a funda- mental point of view ; and on that account cannot be viewed as sufficiently deep in its researches.

1. Let us view this as it regards the notion of finite mind. This forms, without doubt, the chief element in their metaphysics (and on this ground it is that we have classed them under the head of idealism); but what have we from that school which can answer to the idea of being a philosophy of human nature, spiritually considered, in its fullest extent ? The phenomena of mind, it is true, as they appear in the individual^ are investigated and classified by it, with much patience and suc- cess ; but this being done, little attempt is made to refer such phenomena to their fundamental prin- ciples. In this respect it differs widely from the critical philosophy of Kant. Kant began his critique

THE SCOTTISH SCHOOL. 49

by investigating the conditions, on which philo- sophy at all is possible; he undertook to survey the whole extent of our consciousness, to shew the grounds of all human knowledge, and the limits to which it is confined. To accomplish this, it was not sufficient either to reduce our various mental states to a few general heads, or to enumerate a number of primitive facts attested by common sense to be infallibly true ; it was necessary to go a step further, and to discover the very laws of our mental constitution, upon which these primitive beliefs rest. In doing this he took care to separate the subjective element from the objective in all our conceptions ; he shewed how much of every notion comes from without, and how much from within ; what portion of it is due to the external phenomenon, and what is due to the mind itself, by means of which it is comprehended; and thus he arrived (we >vill not now determine how correctly) at the subjective conditions under which everything is necessarily viewed, at the very forms or categories of the understanding. Whatever opinion we may have of Kant's peculiar theory in this respect, unques- tionably it was an aim worthy his all-comprehensive genius, to seek for the groundwork of our universal notions in the depths of our own being, and thus to refer all the principles of common sense, all the primary laws of belief back to their source in the sabjective forms of the understanding and the reason. On this point, however, we shall not insist;

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and thus prepares the way for the grand display of moral and intellectual power which the Christian civilization has exhibited upon the theatre of the modem world. It is the part of intellectual philo- sophy to trace the great ideas which have aided, or rather forced onwards the advancement of mankind ; to shew under what mental circumstances every nation has emerged from its darkness; by what laws it has progressed ; and how each one has in its turn contributed to the development of the mighty elements, which ever lay potentially in the bosom of humanity. The history of civil institu- tions, of art, of science, of literature, nay, the history of philosophy itself, each has its philosophy; all, in fact, being so many different phenomena, which the human mind viewed in the aggregate presents, and which must be carefully taken into account, if we would rightly estimate its capacity, and trace the influences under which it has been unfolded.

This again leads us to the great problem of human life, and of human destiny. What purpose is the mind of man intended to answer in the world ? and to what point is it tending \ If there be one fact of our consciousness more manifest than another, it is that the spirit finds not its full satis- faction upon earth. Why are we placed, then, in a state where suffering is certain, more or less, to embitter our days, and where joy, when we obtain it, is but a transitory glimpse of a happiness which

E 2

52 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

we may conceive of, but may never obtain 1 Gene- ration after generation has passed away; their minds, like our own, have formed plans and pur- poses, which they were never destined to execute, and which, if they had been accomplished, would only have increased, instead of satiating, the thirst for happiness and immortality; their hearts, like our own, have beat high with hopes and expecta- tions which never could be fulfilled. What is the interpretation of all these phenomena] Does philo- sophy tell us anything or nothing of human destiny here and hereafter ? These inquiries are not satis- fied by a reference simply to the immateriality, or to the inferred immortality of the soul ; we need to rise to a higher view of human life ; to interpret it by an appeal to the whole stream of history ; to probe the depths of our being by a solemn reflection upon all the facts it presents, and the conclusions to which those facts seem necessarily to lead us.

To do this, of course, man's religious nature must be appealed to ; and this appeal leads us into a region of internal &cts, as veritable as any of the others which reflection unfolds to us — facts which we cannot leave out of our estimate of the human mind, without robbing it of one of its most remark- able and most distinctive features. All great and deep-searching systems of philosophy have struggled at the solution of these questions; they have all attempted to explain the ground of human duty, human suflering, and human destiny; and if the

THE SCOITISH SCHOOL. 53

problem has never been fully solved, yet it cannot be denied that much light has been thrown upon it by the investigations to which it has been subjected. In one word, every great system of philosophy has included, as an essential part of its whole structure, the philosophy of religion. Admit, as we freely do, that revelation here comes to our aid, and sheds a flood of light upon the whole subject, still that does not repress or render useless the researches of our owTi understanding on the subject. For, in the first place, revelation puts everything before us in its popular and practical aspect, and leaves very much on all speculative questions to be elucidated by our own thinking; and then, even supposing we accept a truth on the ground of its being revealed, yet still it is an object of no little interest to shew, that the same tnith is not only consistent with, but may be actually deduced from, the axioms of a sound philosophy. We feel convinced, there- fore, that the Scottish philosophy will never take a firm and lasting hold upon mankind, until it points us to the solution of some at least of the great ques- tions, which ever and anon rise up before our view, with which we are from time to time tormented and perplexed, but which, when once conceived, we can never again bid depart from our thoughts.

2. But we must refer next to the second of the primitive notions, which lie at the foundations of human knowledge, that of nature, and consider in what manner our northern metaphysicians have dealt

54 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

with this idea. To determine the objective reality, which we attach to this notion, was one of the chief objects of Reid's philosophy ; but this aim having been accomplished, the subject has rested, with little exception, in the same position ever since. The investigation of the laws of the material world, of course, comes under the department of physical science. On the other hand, the great metaphysical question, which it behoves philosophy to grapple with, is this, — What is it, in the state of mind called perception^ that comes from the objective reality, and what is it that comes from the laws of our own intellectual nature % It is pretty generally admitted, that this state of consciousness arises from the union of the subjective with the objective, that it is a felt relation between nature and self. What, then, in every case is due to the subjective, and what to the objective element, and what conclusion does this lead us to draw with regard to the nature of matter in general?

Now every ontological question of this nature is virtually proscribed by the Scottish school. In- stead of doing this, our aim should be, beginning with the experimental or psychological method, to find a legitimate passage from psychology to ontology, and to determine, as far as we are able, the mode and the nature of material existence. After all the disputes about infinite divisibility on the one hand, and ultimate atoms on the other, it may perhaps at length be found, that a system of

THE SCOTTISH SCHOOL. o5

monadology is the most intelligible theory ; that the most correct notion of matter is that of a combi- nation of forces, which produce certain impressions upon our minds, and to which those minds neces- sarily attribute certain material properties. Thus it may turn out that the mode, in which we are now accustomed to view material masses in physical science, namely, as powers acting in certain direc- tions, is metaphysically^ as well as mechanically true.

Again : when we view the variety of the material universe — when we perceive the order, harmony, and beauty which everywhere subsist, when we rise to contemplate its immensity, until the mind is lost in the unending series of system upon system, which reveal themselves in the boundless fields of space — the great problem unfolds itself before us, What purpose is all this gigantic machinery now accomplishing \ and what is its final destiny \ We admit that this problem has never yet received its complete answer from the efforts of philosophy ; but yet we say, that the purpose and destiny of nature, viewed in her mysterious existence, in her endless forms of beaut}', in her provision of glory, in her solemn movements, and in her inconceivable immensity, present a subject of philosophic specu- lation too real, too awful, and too sublime to be hurried off the stage of inquiry, as lying beyond the reach of our present Acuities to fathom. Generally, then, we cannot but feel that the phi-

66 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

losophy of Scotland has been deficient in explaining the proper existence of matter, and casting light upon the great idea of nature herself.

3. The last idea which the Scottish philosophy, in common with every true philosophy, contains, is, that of the infinite, absolute, unconditioned exist- ence, t. e., of God. This idea gives rise to natural theology, which is treated of with considerable suc- cess by some of the northern metaphysicians, so far at least as their researches reach. The point here, which needs taking up more fully, is the relation of the divine power and energy to man, on the one hand, and to nature, on the other. In God " we live, and move, and have our being ;" this is a truth, which has more meaning in it than the cursory reading of it gives us ; it evidently has a reference to the mysterious dependance of the human spirit upon the divine, shewing us that we are all emana- tions from the infinite essence, and though gifted with a distinct personality, yet that we are but waves in the great ocean of existence, ever rolling onwards to our eternal home in the bosom of God. In the same manner as God holds an intimate relationship with all mental, so also does he with all material dependant existence— a relationship which it is the endeavour of every comprehensive system of philosophy to explain. It is true, the Scottish philosophy has somewhat touched upon this point in discussing the question of efficient and secondary causes, but yet so imperfectly, that it is impossible

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to derive either light, or satisfaction from its con- clusions. There is perhaps no point which more requires to be elucidated, and none which comes more within the compass of metaphysics, as acknow- ledged in Scotland, than the theory of what we should term the secondary and delegated powers of nature. We are aware that revelation may cast light upon this, and many other of the questions we have mentioned, and that in some instances it affords a very distinct answer to them ; but the object of philosophy, as applied to these subjects, is to place them upon another footing, to deduce them in a connected chain of reasoning from generally ad- mitted facts and principles, to make tliem the objects, not of faith, but of science, and thus to shew the unity, as far as the parallel can be traced, between the conclusions of reason, and the dictates of revelation. Thus, in fine, the Scottish school of metaphysics, though containing all the fundamental ideas of human knowledge, and consequently the germs of a most complete system, yet appears wanting in comprehensiveness as it regards each separate department. It answers, in a word, to the description given of it by the celebrated reviewer before referred to ; that, namely, of a preparation for philosophy, rather than a philosophy itself.

Before we close our remarks, however, upon Scotland, we must not forget to mention one publication to which Europe itself is indebted as a literary organ, and which, though partaking pre-

I

58 MODERN PUIL080PUY.

dominantly of the mind of the country, in which it originated, yet has ever looked upon philosophical questions with an enlarged and liberal spirit. The " Edinburgh Review," to which it will be at once seen that we refer, has been the channel, through which some of the master minds of Scotland as well as England have from time to time given their thoughts to the world. Among the philosophical writers, who have enriched its pages, we shall mention two, one living, and one some years since gone to his rest, who have contributed not a little to keep ': ! alive in our country the declining spirit of meta^

physical research.

 ! Sir James Mackintosh, the latter of those to

whom we refer, possessed all the qualifications for

a philosopher of the highest order. Educated

originally as one of the Scottish school, he soon

I learned, on leaving his native country, to overstep

\ the limits to which he was there confined ; and

I amidst the labours of an arduous professional life,

devoted what time he could spare from his duties to a most widely-extended course of philosophical reading and study. It is chiefly as a moralist that Sir James Mackintosh stood pre-eminent ; and the ardour, the depth, and the learning with which he combated the selfish systems, and pleaded for the authority and sanctity of the moral faculty in man, contributed perhaps more than any single cause not of a religious nature, to oppose the bold advances of utilitarianism, and infuse a healthier tone into

TU£ SCOTTISH SCHOOL. 59

the moral principles of the country. Without signifying our adherence to his peculiar theory respecting conscience, we still regard his thoughts and speculations as taking eminently the right direction ; and had he obtained leisure to mature his views, and give them to the world in his own forcible and glowing style, it is the opinion of some best able to judge upon the subject, (e. g.^ Robert Hall and Dr. Chalmers,) that he would have placed the whole theory of morals upon a higher and more commanding position, than it had ever occupied before in this country. With the exception of his admirable dissertation on ethical philosophy in the " Encyclopedia Britannica," his chief metaphysical writings are to be found in the pages of the Edin- burgh Review," where the practised eye can easily detect his articles by the combination of profiise learning, and profound thought, with a brilliancy of style, and a gentleness of criticism, alike significant of his intellectual power and his kindly affections. As a metaphysician, Mackintosh tended decidedly to the more spiritual school of philosophy, and had he read as deeply into the German authors as he himself projected, would undoubtedly have given a great spur to the renewed study of the higher metaphysics. As it is, however, he can never fill that space in the philosophical history of our country, for which his genius eminently fitted him. Respecting the other writer, to whom we have alluded, namely, Sir William Hamilton, we shall

60 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

say less than we should feel inclined to say, were he not a living author, from whom we believe the public has still some expectations, and were it not improper to remark upon theories, which as yet have not appeared beyond the privacy of the lecture-room. We only venture to ask him, through these pages, why he has neglected the oflBce (for which we believe him fully qualified) of raising Scotland again to that high rank of repu- tation, which it formerly enjoyed among the philo- sophical countries of Europe. Widely as the articles on the philosophy of perception, on Cousin's eclecticism and on modern logic may have been cir- culated, both in Europe and America, there is not much difficulty in prophecying for a more enlarged monument of his philosophical ability, should it appear, a still wider range of readers among the dlite of the philosophical world. We say this, not from an entire coincidence with his views, (of which more anon, when we come to the French eclectic school,) but from the confidence we feel in the universality of his metaphysical reading, and the extent of his ability, as a critical philosopher.

Sect. II, — The German School of the Nineteenth

Century.

We come now to that branch of the idealistic school, which, if it has exceeded all others in ob- scurity, has also far excelled them in depth and

THE GERMAN SCHOOL. 61

originality. In entering upon the field of modem German metaphysics, we must bespeak beforehand the good-will of the reader, that he may not be easily offended with the strangeness of the phraseology, or the dryness of the abstractions ; trusting that the pleasure of any new idea that is gained will compensate for the uninviting manner, in which it may be communicated. On our own parts, we shall divest the subject of its bristling formulas as far as we are able, and use the ordinary language of philosophy, whenever it can be done with advantage, without making the obscurity of the original still more obscure.

It should ever be kept in mind, that the great aim of the German philosophy is, in many respects, very different from the main purpose of intellec- tual science in our own country. The analysis of the powers and faculties of the human mind, which with us is the chief point, is among the Germans comprehended in one very subordinate division, generally termed psychology ; while their chief endeavours are directed to the solution of the three great problems, which relate to the existence and the nature of God^ of the universe^ and of human freedimi. The phenomena, both of the internal and external world, are ever shifting ; what exists this moment is gone the next; what is true for to-day, is not true for to-morrow. 'Now, our own philosophy, whether physical or mental, attempts not, for the most part, to go beyond the limits of

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it does not unfold to us the nature and constitution of the universe. If we would understand these things we must philosophize; we must look out upon the changing world, and our reason must there sec the unchangeable basis which upholds it ; we must look in upon our finite and dependent minds, and view there the indestructible evidence for an infinite and independent Being, by which they are sustained. The philosophy of the absolute — that which seeks to penetrate into the prmcij)les of things, — although it may seem strange to our modes and habits of thought, yet has played a great part in the scientific history of the world. It formed the basis of the early speculations of the Asiatic world. It characterized some of the most remark- able phases of the early Greek philosophy, parti- cularly that of the Eleatic school. Plato, with all the lofty grandeur of his sublime spirit, sought for the absolute, in the archetypes existing in the Divine mind. The Alexandrine philosophers aimed at the solution of the same problem ; mingling their theories with the mysticism of the East, and calling, even, to their aid, the lights of the Christian reve- lation. In more recent times Spinoza originated similar investigations, which were soon moulded into a system of stem and unflinching pantheism ; and in him we see the model, upon which the modem idealists of Germany have renewed their search into the absolute ground of all phenomena. It is, in fact, in the various methods, by which it is

64 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

sapposed, that we are conducted to the absolute, whether by faith, intuition, or reason, that the different phases of the German metaphysics have originated; and, consequently, it is by keeping our eye upon this point, that we shall possess the most ready key to their interpretation.

Before we proceed, however, to the exposition of the modem idealism, we must concentrate in a few lines the chief results of the Kantian philo- sophy, in order that we may thus keep up the historical connexion, and shew the process, by which the systems, that have flourished during the present century, have been developed.

According to Kant, there are three great fii- culties which compose our intellectual nature; sense, understanding, and reason. All the material of our knowledge comes to us through the me- dium of the first, but it comes in a chaotic mass, without form and void. The faculty, which gives shape and distinctness to this material, and which thus forms it into notions, is the understanding. Then, lastly, the reason is ever employed in gene- ralizing our notions, in making them as abstract as possible, and thus in giving to them a systematic Unity. From this it follows, that the only true knowledge having objective reality answering to it, is that which lies within the bounds of our sense- perceptions; that all else is merely /ormaZ, and, if supposed to be otherwise, must prove delusive and contradictory. It follows, moreover, that, as

THE GERMAN SCHOOL. 65

the bare matter of our notions comes from without, and everything which shapes them into distinct conceptions is communicated by the forms of our own understanding within, therefore all our know- ledge of things beyond the mere fact that they are^ is purely subjective, and, were our understandings differently constituted, might be entirely altered. The real objects we know to be actually present, otherwise all our knowledge would be foi'mal, as in logic ; but they can only be to us what we feel them. Nothing can ever come to our know^ledge at all except through the medium of the laws of our own subjective faculties ; so that, what we see in matter is not its real qualities, but a reflection of the forms of our own understanding. It is to be remembered, also, that when we speak of the material of our knowledge coming through the senses, all we are to understand by this material is bare phenomenon ; for Kant proceeded to shew that the purely rational ideas of substance, of the soul, and of God are but personifications of our own modes of thinking, and cannot be shewn scieniificalhf to have any objective reality answering to them ; although it is quite conceivable that this may be the case, and quite impossible to prove ought to the contrary.*

• It will be remembered that Kant counteracted the scep-

ticiam to which his theoretic philosophy led, respecting morals and natural theology, by the conclusions of his practical phi«  losophy.

VOL. !!• F

66 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

Now, in these conclusions there is a twofold element involved ; there is, on the one hand, some- thing without, which is independent of our subjec- tive activity, and which exerts a direct influence upon our minds (for Kant assumed as indisputable the veracity of our sense-perceptions) ; and on the other hand there is the strongest possible tendency to pure subjective idealism ; for the clement given in sensation was not only regarded as mere phe- nomenon, but also as having in it no distinctness, no form, no property, nothing, in fact, by which it could be marked, known, or defined, imtil it was shaped into notions by means of the understand- ing and in accordance with its subjective laws. These two points, then, in the Kantian philosophy have given rise to a double stream of speculation in the more modem metaphysical schools of Ger- many. Jacobi, on the one side, laid hold of the realistic element, and strove to assign it a still higher place amongst the first principles of human know- ledge than was allowed by Kant himself; and Her- bart carried out the tendency thus commenced by making the real objective fact given in perception (das faktish Gegebene) the very foundation-stone of his system. On the other side Fichte, deve- loping Kant's subjective and idealistic tendency, easily snapped asunder the slender thread by which the objective world retained its hold upon our theoretical belief, and made all existence abso- lutely synonymous with thought. This branch has

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been since followed up by the still more extraor- dinary speculations of Schelling and Hegel. These six names, then, Kant, Jacobi, Herbart, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel stand at the head of well- nigh all that is original and peculiar in German philosophy ; the other writers have merely afforded different phases of the same ideas, or applied them to other objects, or attempted a reconciliation between the different schools above indicated.

As the idealistic side of the Kantian philosophy is, without question, the more pre-eminent, it will, perhaps, be most natural to commence Avith the great branch of metaphysical speculation, which we have regarded as having taken its rise from that source. Jacobi Avould, doubtless, have claimed the prior notice chronologically considered ; but the element of faith which he introduced to supply the deficiency of reason, removes him more pro- perly to the ranks of the mystics ; while Herbart, who came much later, is scarcely intelligible, until we know something of the purer idealistic systems against which his whole philosophy was directed. In the present section, therefore, we shall first trace the regular development of the ideal philo- flophy from the close of the last century to its culminating point as seen in Hegelianism; next, we shall exhibit the method, by which Herbart sought to uphold a realistic philosophy in direct opposition to the other prevailing systems; and, lastly, we shall allude to the still more recent

F 2

68 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

manifestations, which speculative philosophy has exhibited on the ever frnitfiil soil of Germany. The consideration of Jacobi we must, of course, reserve for the chapter on mysticism, where we shall find the faith-element he introduced, com- bining with the other rationalistic systems, and thus filling up a very considerable space in the phUosophical history of the present century.

The intelligent reader can now start, we trust, with a distinct idea of the position which Kant holds in the road to subjective idealism. The prevailing and most fruitful notion in his philo- sophy is that of self ; for, although the idea of a really existing not-self in nature is allowed, yet all we know of it is, as it were, a mere surface without any characters, which reflects back the subjective forms of our own understanding; and, although the conception of God is also acknow- ledged, yet, scientifically, it cannot be regarded as anything else than the generalizing power of our own reason personified. Still, with all this, so long as the veracity of our sense-perceptions and, consequently, the reality of outward phenomena was accepted as a fact, resting without need of further proof, upon the direct testimony of our consciousness, there was, of course, an empirical as well as a rational element in his philosophy.

Eeinhold, however, perceiving that there were two original elements of consciousness admitted by Kant as the basis of his philosophy, namely,

THE GERMAN SCHOOL. 69

the forms of our personal activity on the one side, and the material of our thoughts as given in perception on the other, proposed to supply an analysis of consciousness itself; to attain in that way a single instead of a douhle basis for philo- sophy, and thus to complete the system which Kant had so skilfiiUy commenced. This propo- sition of Reinhold, to find the foundation-principle of all philosophy in the depths of our own con- sciousness, proved in fact, the transition-point between the doctrine of Kant and that of Fichte, whose first idea was not by any means to introduce a new theory, but only to shew how the Kantian metaphysics, which had been attacked by the scep- ticism of Schulz and Maimon, might obtain a solid and uniform foundation. To this celebrated author, then, we must now revert.

John Gottlob Fichte, was bom at Eammenau, in the year 1762; became a student at Jena in 1780 ; from 1784 to 1793 was occupied in private tuition ; and then received an appointment as professor of philosophy in Zurich, where he married a relation of the poet Klopstock. After remaining there only one or two sessions, he was invited to a chair in Jena, where he enjoyed a few sessions of happiness in conjunction with some of the first minds of the age, which were then ga^ thered together at that university. In 1795 he relinquished his post at Jena, and became editor of the ^^Niethammer Philosophical Journal." This

70 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

office he held till the year 1798, when, in conse- quence of an article, which appeared to savour of atheism, he was frowned upon by the Weimar Government, and, consequently, took up his resi- dence in the Prussian states. His arrival in Berlin excited some attention, and his lectures were attended by men of the first rank and ability, until he was induced to leave that place also, by an invitation to the chair of philosophy at Er- langen. The French war next unsettled his repose, and obliged him to fly successively to Konigsberg and Copenhagen, in order to avoid all connection with a nation and an enemy, for whom, jn common with every true German, he had the greatest abhorrence. In 1807 he returned to Berlin, and undertook, in connexion with many others, who were appointed for that purpose, the organization of the xmiversity ; in the precincts of which he delivered, during the first vnnter his celebrated "Addresses to the German Nation." He remained there occupying some of the most important and responsible stations in the univer«  sity, until the freedom war broke out in 1812, by which he was excited in behalf of his country to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. He was not destined, however, long to take his share in the struggles of his beloved fatherland ; for his wife, having taken fever from her attention to the sick and the wounded, he only witnessed her recovery in order liimself to fall a victim to the same

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disease, which took place on the 12th of January, 1814, in the fifty-second year of his age. Such was the eventful life of one of the greatest thinkers which Germany ever produced.

In attempting to explain, connectedly, Fichte's philosophical principles, we must remember, that in early life he had entered fully into that portion of the Kantian metaphysics, which teaches us to regard all the properties of external objects as determined by the laws of our own understanding. According to this, we know every thing only as, by virtue of our faculties, we represent it to our minds. The forms of our sensational faculty, the categories of the understanding, the conceptions of pure reason — these are, in the Kantian view, the neces- sary and unalterable ideas imder which every thing, both in the material and spiritual world, is viewed. Having been for some time, however, a consistent Kantist, the sceptical ^vritmgs of Schulz and Maimon at length convinced him, that Kant had not built his system upon a foundation sufficiently deep and immoveable. The objective reality of our sense-perceptions, was, on his hypothesis, taken for yra«<«/, without any reason being assigned for it; so that here was one whole branch of that system resting upon an empirical basis, and therefore, as he supposed, lying out of the region of strict scientific truth. Fichte's object was to find out what we can be said absolutely to Anoir, and having discovered this, to erect a system, not of philosophy, but of

72 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

rigid scientific knowledge, against which no scepti- cism could possibly rear an objection. Hence it was that, in place of " Philosophy^ he assunled the term " Wissenschaftslehre," as most designative of his great purpose.

Scientific truth, according to Fichte, is that which, starting from one self-evident basis, infers every succeeding position, step by step, with demon- strative certainty. But then the question is, where must we start from, in order to be perfectly secure in every succeeding deduction ? Not, as Kant did, from the supposition of an objective world standing co-ordinate, and as though it were equally certain with the facts of consciousness; but simply and solely from those facts themselves. All we are immediately conscious of, argues Fichte, are the states and processes of our own thinking self. Our sensations, perceptions, judgments, impressions, ideas, or by whatever other name they are desig- nated, these form the material of all the knowledge which is immediately given us — knowledge which no sceptic, not Hume himself, ever disputed ; nay, which cannot be disputed without our performing in order to do so, one of the very processes, and admitting some of the very conceptions whose existence we dispute.'

Knowledge^ therefore, that which has about it no element of mere faith, must commence absolutely and solely with my subjective self Whatever I experience immediately, i. ^., whatever forms a part

THE GERMAN SCHOOL. 73

of my own direct consciousness, is surely and certainly known-known in a manner, in which nothing whatever can possibly be, that does not pass through my real mental experience. Suppose, for a moment, that there were an objective world ; how could we know this to be the case, when everything, that lies without us, can only become known at all by passing through our own con- sciousness 1 If it be said, that our inner conscious- ness is so formed as to give us a perfect representation of the world without, then we may reply. How can you verify this fact ? The means of verifying it, if they exist at all, must arise from the capacity of com- paring the reality with the representation — a process which implies (what has just been given up) the power of perceiving things out of the consciousness without any representation at all. We can only at- tempt to verify our first representation of things, by making another representation of them ; try as we will, we must, after all, confess that we have an im- mediate consciousness, and consequently an imme- diate knowledge, onljf of our subjective states; and that if anything do lie beyond them, we can only come to the knowledge of it through their medium. Such is Fichte's first position.

But it might be urged, again, that our intelligence is so formed, that we are obliged to accept our inner consciousness as a veritable picture of the external world. To this, Fichte rejoins, that the very intel- ligence which obliges us to do so is purely subjective;

74 MODERN PHILOSOPHY,

it is but the name we give to our own mental con- stitution; so that, after all, we do not get a step beyond the circle of our own selves. And if, lastly, the opponent should give up all idea of representa- tion, and urge that we are so constituted, that it is absolutely necessary to suppose the real existence of material things around us, then our philosopher reiterates the same argument as before, and urges in reply, that we do so only as necessitated by our own inward fisu^ulties, or the laws of our own sub- jective reason; so that we find ourselves still confined within the circle of our subjectivity, without the possibility of getting a sure passage into the external world. What we know is simply the contents of our own consciousness; if there is an objective world, it can only exist to us when it becomes part and parcel of those contents.

Now, in pursuing this line of argument, Fichte did not intend to deny practically the reality of external things ; aU he intended was to give an exact natural history of the human mind ; to shew in what its knowledge commences; of what it consists ; and within what limits it is confined. In other sciences men may assume the objective, and proceed accurately enough on that assumption ; but in philosophy, properly so called, (i. e., in Wissens- chaft,) where nothing is to be assumed, and every point knaum^ he considered that a rigid consecutive method did not allow us to go a single step beyond what is to us absolutely real, namely, the facts of

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our own mental experience. He imagined the mind to be, as it were, an intelligent eye, placed in the central point of our inward consciousness, sur- veying all that takes place there, and it was from that point of view (the only absolute and scientific one) that he wished to give an account of our moral and intellectual historj', detailing the rise, the progress, and all the events of our real inward life, from its commencement to its maturity. Whether the scenes, which take place within this subjective circle, betoken any objective existence or not, that was to him a matter of no consequence ; well he knew that, if this were the case, it was only just in proportion as the objects could lay aside, as it were, their objectivity, and transport themselves within the subjective sphere of the mind's vision, that they could be observed and known ; or what is the same thing, that to us they could ejnst The real history of every man, urged Fichte, is the history of his mind, the flow of his conscious existence ; for what are to us woods, mountains, trees, or stars, but names we attach to certain facts of our consciousness? what are all forms of the material world, but certain visions which have passed through our own minds — sensa- tions which we have inwardly experienced ]

This being the case, the next enquiry is, Are we, in proceeding scientifically, to regard the supposed objective reality around us as the generative principle of our subjective states ; or are we to consider our

76 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

subjective states as the generative principle of the supposed objective reality ? Do we experience sub- jective phenomena (as, ^.^., sensations) because there are objective existences around us ] or do we suppose objective existences to exist, because we experience certain subjective phenomena 'i Scientifically speak- ing, there can be no doubt but that to us the sub- jective is the primitive ; from this we take our start ; on the ground of this we proceed ; and if we believe in an objective world at all, it is only because our subjective states or laws of thought have led us to do so. What is immediately true to us, are our sensations and perceptions, — it is our reason which supposes an external world, in order to account for them. Whatever, therefore, the real feet may be to the eye of the creator, the only scientific plan we can proceed upon, is to analyze our own con- sciousness, to regard self as the absolute principle, and to view everything else as constructed, so fer as we are concerned, by the necessary exertion of its own subjective laws. Man begins by observing the facts of his consciousness ; on the faith of those facts he conceives for himself all the forms of the external world ; in those facts he remains shut up till he leaves the stage of his earthly existence. Philosophy, therefore, must disregard everything else, and confine itself simply to this subjective sphere. To it nature is nothing, mind is every- thing, for nature is only known as imaged in the mind.

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In constructing, then, a science upon these principles, we must first look attentively at the consciousness itself in its primitive state. We find, in doing so, that as far back as our recollection goes, sensations, perceptions, representations of various kinds, and in various degrees of intensity, have ever existed there. How they have come, it is not for us to explain ; all we know is, that they are there, apparently in accordance with the original constitution of the active, thinking principle, which we term mind, or self. In some of our mental processes we are conscious of putting forth our own free activity ; but in the case now before us — that of our sensations — the mind is not free; on the contrary, it feels itself constrained, opposed, deter- mined. We are obliged to have certain feelings, and to possess certain objects in our consciousness ; and the only reason we can give for it is, that we are so formed by nature, and that the spontaneous activity of our minds is such as necessarily to produce them. Feeling ourselves, however, thus circumscribed, we imagine that an actual reality out of us exists, from which this resistance proceeds ; in other words, we objectify the laws by which our activity is limited, in order to explain the phenomena of that limitation, and call it matter.

Let any one regard the facts of our experience from the subjective point of view we have above explained, and see whether what we have just written is not the true description of them. The

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ordinary procedure of philosophers has usually been exactly the reverse. They have first assumed an external world, and then from that assumption have explained all those facts of our consciousness, which come within the limits of sensation. The true scientific procedure, however, is undoubtedly this: I am conscious of certain feelings, certain represen- tations, certain inward pictures so to say; and in order to account for them, I infer the existence of external things. To say first that the objects exist, and then that our sensations come from them, just reverses the chronological order of the process, and is no other than involving ourselves in a vicious circle, by reasoning first, that our sensations exist because there are objects present to cause them, and then, that real objects must be present because we have the sensations. Two realities cannot be mutually generative of each other; the one must be the antecedent, the other the consequent ; and in this case there can be no hesitation in assigning the &ct of ponsciousness as the antecedent, since it is only through it, that we could ever come to have the slightest idea of any objective reality.

The true history of our inner life's experience, then, from the subjective point of view is the following. The mind is first of all unconsciously active ; in this unconscious or spontaneous activity, we soon find ourselves Umited by the laws of our being ; and then, ere we come to the idea of self as the real subject of all these experiences, we throw

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ourselves entirely into the contemplation of these limitations, objectify' them, and term them an ex- ternal world. After a time, however, the spon- taneous action of the mind begins to give way to the reflective; we become gradually conscious of our own activity ; we recall our thinking self from its absorption in what it regards as an outward world ; we commence reading the contents of our own consciousness as such ; and at length find that the mind alone is the sphere of its own operations ; that it is at once subject and object, the absolute starting point, and the sole sphere of all theoretic knowledge.

The necessity of certain limitations existing to the mind's activity is seen from the fiact, that were it not so, we should lose ourselves in the infinite ; we should never come to a resting point, never have any clear and defined perceptions; all this, how- ever, is prevented by the original constitution of our being, which keeps us within proper bounds, and stops us at certain limits, which limits we term outward and material reality. This is what Fichte means when he speaks of those " inexplicable abso- lute limitations," which in his system are to take the place of external things ; he puts the inward conscious reality in the place of what is with other philosophers the outward object ; he puts the per- ception in place of the thing perceived ; the feeling of resistance or limitation in place of the matter which resists and limits ; in a word, he views everything

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subjectively from the central point of his own con- sciousness, describes everything as it appears from thence, and makes that point the pedestal of his whole system.

Let it be remembered, however, that it is only in the theoretical point of view, that we are com- pelled to this rigid course of reasoning. If we are required to describe what we can positively know, all we can do is to give the history of our conscious- ness. Whatever has passed there we know to have been, as far as we are concerned, a reality ; what- ever lies beyond it can be the object of faith, but not of science. In the practical point of view, however, where we can step from the region of knowledge into that of faith, external things again find their real meaning and importance, they be- come then the work-tools of our life's activity, the instruments by which we perform our duty and attain our destiny.

Having given this general description of the nature and spirit of Fichte's subjective idealism, we shall just point out the formal and technical method by which he expressed and systematized these results.

First of all, he shews that the absolute principle of all philosophy must be found within us, since it is our subjective states alone, which we can know immediately, and which can afford, therefore, a certain ground to start from. Moreover, when we look within, all we are conscious of are certain acts

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or processes ; of the substance of the mind, of pure essential spirit, we know absolutely nothing. The clearest notion, then, which we have of the mind is that it is the power of thinking ; the clearest that we have of the consciousness, that it is the point or focus in which all our thoughts and sensations unite, and from which they appear to emanate.

The mind, however, is at first unconscious of its real movements; it is entirely sunk in its own involuntary representations, as though they were external objects ; its whole being is altogether of the spontaneous kind ; it is as yet only potentially that, which it may afterwards by reflection become actually.

The first step, then, into the reflective life (which must also be the first step in philosophy) is that, by which the mind becomes conscious of itself, by which it affirms its own existence. This first step of all actual knowledge, the most certain truth in the world, is expressed by Fichte, thus, " Das ich setzt sich selbst^'* — the ine affirms itself, which when expressed more abstractedly becomes Ego = Ego or A = A. By this act of self-consciousness, " the me " separates itself as the acting and knowing subject, from itself as the perceived or represented object ; it holds up itself as the image, which it contemplates, and learns to view itself as the matter of its own spiritual vision.

The second step which is ever connected and sjnichronous with the first is that, by which the

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consciousness separates itself from everything else which is not at that moment in it, and which is expressed hy Fichte in the sentence, ** Das ich setzt ein Nicht-ich," the me affirms a not-me, which might be reduced to the form Non-ego = Non-ego or — A = — A. Of these two formulas of thought the one affirms a positive existence, the other affirms a negation; there is still need of another formula, in which the me and the not-me, the positive and the negative, should unite. Now the union of the positive and the negative gives us the notion of limitation^ a notion which partakes of both, and consequently the third formula of fundar mental philosophy may be thus expressed, "Das ich setzt sich als bestimmt durch Nicht-ich," the me affirms itself to be determined by a not-me. The meaning of this is, that the general or abstract power of knowing or thinking, which was our first idea of self, now becomes determined or brought into the state indicated by some particular sensa- tions or perceptions, by the affirmation of something else which we term an external world ; although it is still conscious that this affirmation is purely an act of its own, and that the whole representation is but a particular modification of itself. Such were the absolute judgments all springing forth from the original formula A = A, on which Fichte proposed to ground his whole system. In this way he pro- posed to do away with all empiricism in philosophy, and reduce the whole to one rationalistic principle.

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By SO doing he considered that the problem of realism and idealism was fully resolved, inasmuch as the nature of the relation, that subsists between the perceiving mind and the object of its percep- tions, is at length unfolded. The mind itself is the absolute principle and source of everything ; by its original and spontaneous movement it constructs for itself the notion of an external world, and again by its reflective movement it comes back to the perception of its own personal exertion put forth in the whole process. The idea of the objective arises from the limitation of our own free activity, and answers to a mental affection; the idea of the sub- jective arises from the direct consciousness of our free activity, and answers to a mental exertion. The one serves to develop the notion of the other ; without subject there is no object perceived, with- out object there is no subject. The me affirms or constructs the not*me, and the not-me, on the other hand, determines the me; and consequently the claims of realism and idealism here unite, and the absolute principle of all knowledge is discovered in the centre of our own consciousness. Thus, at length, the great frindamental question of philo- sophy, that which seeks to determine the relation of thought and existence, is settled, because all existence is shewn to be synonymous with thought, and the union of the two notions is found in the spontaneous movement of the inind itself.

From these principles, again, Fichte derives a

g2

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psychological explanation of all the different phe- nomena of the human mind. If we reflect upon the laws, by which our activity is limited, the result is termed feeling or emotion ; if anything is viewed independently of the operation which originates it, the consciousness is termed sensation ; and when the mind loses itself in the object perceived, a feel- ing of force or compulsion is produced, as in all our perceptions of the external world. The power by which our sensations are fixed and retained is that usually termed the understanding. The act of self- determination is that, which is understood by the word thinking. The judgment is that which unites the free working of the mind, termed imagination, with the understanding ; producing a free decision upon the various objects which our understanding creates ; and, lastly, if we overcome all limitations, and view the mind alone in its free all-producing power, we have the highest faculty in man, that denominated pure reason. To attain this point is not possible in the theoretical, but is seen first in the practical, branch of philosophy.

The system we have just described gives, as succinctly as we were able to make it, the main features of Fichte's original doctrine, as developed in his " Wissenschaftslehre." Before we point out in what way his later opinions differed from these, we shall advert to his practical philosophy — the part which he appears most of all to have elaborated.

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In the theoretical part of Fichte's system we have seen that The Me is determined by a noUme ; that there are certain limitations of its own free and intelligent activity, certain resistances to its own powers of conception, which are personified and regarded as external realities. This circum- scribing of our freedom, and the consequent necessity of imagining a material world around us, we are unable theoretically to account for : all we can say is, that such is the constitution of our consciousness, such the truth of things as given in our own expe- rience, and that we can go no further towards an explanation of the phenomenon. In the practical view of the case, however, we can go one step further back, we can shew that the limitation of our free intelligence does not arise from any foreign source, but may be deduced from the original, though unconscious activity of the mind itself.

To shew this, we must observe tliat mind, though positively free, though viewed abstractedly only in the light of pure spontaneous activity, whose essence is independence and self-existence, yet is not by any means a vague, aimless, useless activity. It has a purely rational nature, by virtue of which it sets before itself its own aim, the object of its own free activity. To deny this would be to deny the very existence of mind itself: to ask why it is so would be to ask why truth is truth. The mind, or, as Fichtc always terms it, the me, ever strives after self-development ; it seeks to realize fully its own

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nature, and to bring into actual existence all that lies potentially in its consciousness. This perpetual striving after self-development is the most profoimd and essential truth of our existence, it is the centre of our activity, the one realistic point around which all that activity revolves, and for which it is all put forth.

Here, then, we can shew the reason of the limitation of our free intelligence. The mind striving after its self-formed aim would proceed onwards in its progress into infinity — it would thus find no point at which to stop, nothing to give a determination to its activity, no means of becoming a cause of something else. Accordingly, to prevent this, it places an obstacle in its own way — ^it sup- poses a real objective existence, and in this manner gives definiteness and satisfaction to its own inward practical impulse. From this point we see the utility, yea, the necessity, of supposing a material world around us. Without it we could never realize our duty, or have the material necessary for working out our destiny. " The world," says Fichte, " is the sensized material of our practical life, the means by which we place before us, as object, the aim and end of our existence."

The whole principle of practical or moral philo- sophy, then, is easily deduced from the original activity of the me^ as the absolute, the self-determined existence. The law of our duty, the categorical imperative, as Kant has it, is the original striving

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of mind after self-development; and since activity is both the essence and the end of our being, every- thing else is constructed by it in order to subserve this great purpose. We would not convey, however, the notion that Fichte, in his practical philosophy, completely subverts the idealism of his theoretical ; all wc mean is, that the practical view of the ques- tion gives us the reason or ground of the phenomenon which wc term matter ; shewing us that the limita- tions of our intelligence or the obstacles to our activity, (which in his system take the place of objective reaUty,) are the necessary product of the mind itself in its attempts to accomplish its duty, and at length to realize its final destiny.

That such a system of subjective idealism as we have just portrayed, can arrive at no conclusion respecting the existence of God, is almost self- evident. If we look out into the universe, what do we see ? Simply the reflex of our own activity, the objectified laws of our own being. If we ask after the creator of the universe, therefore, the answer returned is, that it is created hy ourselves for the sake of realizing our own self-development. Self being once laid down as the absolute principle of all philosophy, we can never get beyond it so as to affirm the objective reality of aught, either in the material or spiritual world. The only God we can affirm is simply the idea of moral order — an idea to which we can only by a Ic^cal fedlacy append the notion of any essential and personal

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existence. To have an idea of God, is to limit him, that is, to destroy the very notion of an infinite being ; so that in fact every notion we form of God must be an idol. It was from this conclusion that originated the reputation of atheism which Fichte incurred, and which drew down upon him the enmity and opposition of many both of the learned and the great.

It will be seen from the above sketch, that the philosophy of Fichte brought to a complete con- summation the subjective idealistic tendency. With him the idea of nature, and the idea of Grod abso- lutely vanished : self became the sole existence in the universe, and from its own absolute power and activity everything else, human and divine, was constructed. Notwithstanding the results, to which his philosophy led, it is still impossible to read any of his more celebrated writings without being struck with admiration at the powerful eloquence, the unwearied energy of thought, the close and almost pitiless logic, with which he compels you on from one conclusion to another. So far from answering to the idea of a mystic recluse, dreaming away life in the midst of the ethereal and shadowy creations of his own &ncy, we venture to aflirm that never was there a man more intensely practical ; never one more formed to struggle with the stern and bitter sufferings of life ; never one who was more able to dispel the shadows and phantoms that deluded the world, and to gaze

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upon everything in its naked reality ; never a mind more clear, more deep, more sternly logical, more solemnly earnest, than was that of Fichte. His orations to the German people are amongst the finest sj^ecimens of patriotic enthusiasm, and this conduct was in accordance with the fire of his discourse : his philosophy throughout bore the stamp of a mind inured to an almost unexampled degree to abstract thinking, and his life gave a perfect mirror of that philosophy, inasmuch as the independence of his spirit was ever asserting its own native liberty, and ever breaking with un- ceasing effort through the shackles by which it was confined.

The fundamental error, which Fichte committed in his philosophy, was that of intrenching himself so closely within the circle of his consciousness, that it was impossible to find any scientific passage from thence into the objective world. The differ- ence between those operations of the mind which are purely rational or purely imaginative, and those wliich connect us with the world without, was entirely overlooked. In opposition to this, we maintain, that consciousness, to which he appealed as the supreme judge, testifies most clearly, that while the notions involved in memory, in judgment, &c., depend simply upon the subjective power of those fisu^ulties, our perceptions come from a foreign source, and contain an objective element which, in each sensation, combines with our subjective self.

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Fichte, indeed, acknowledges that this is the phenO' menon presented in perception ; he admits that we see7n to be really conscious of an opposing and limiting force, or, in his own words, of a not-self^ but he attempts to account for this by supposing, that there are certain absolute and inexplicable limits (absolute unerklarliche Schranken) in the very constitution of our own minds, and that the obstacle (Anstoss) to our free activity presented by that which we term the objective world, is self- constituted according to the laws of our intellectual nature. It is just at this critical point, the point which determines the complete subjectivity of his whole system, that Fichte has failed, and become involved in absurdity. He supposes mind to be pure spontaneous activity, and yet he assigns to it certain limits lying within its own nature ; in other words, he makes it to be in the very nature of a perfectly free and spontaneous being to have some limit to its freedom — an idea which plainly implies a contradiction in terms.

This limitation or obstacle which holds so impor- tant a place in the system before us, was, in fitct, never satisfactorily explained; and while it pre- sented an insoluble point itself, it prevented the frdl and final solution of the great problem of ideal philosophy, viz.^ that of identifying thought and existence. The sphere of existence, in Fichte's system, was supposed exactly synonymous with the sphere of thought ; but the unexplained limitation

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of the mind's activity implied the real existence of somewhat, altogether beyond the bounds of that consciousness ; so that, after all, the conflicting claims of realism and idealism were not satisfied, thought a!id existence not absolutely identified in their source.

Another objection might also be raised against Fichte, viz., that he never shewed on what ground we are at liberty to conclude, that although the me and the not-me mutually determine each other, and only exist as determined by each other, yet that the former is a real existence, and the latter a nonentity. If the one proves to be nothing per se, who shall say that the other may not i^rove the same ; and >\ ho is to prevent the whole system before us from incurring the charge laid against it by Jacobi, of ending in absolute nihilism ? Again ; how is it to be accounted for, if to each individual the-me is the absolute principle of all things, that there are so many absolute principles in the world ? as many, in fact, as there are men? The only explanation of this point that can be attempted is, that it is not the hnlividual me that manifests itself in every man, but the absolute or divine nie^ of which every man is an image or reflection. If the former hypothesis be taken, then the most absurd system of nihilism, as above indicated, is the result ; if the latter, then we have Spinoza*s doctrine over again in another form, and this pretended structure of a critical philosophy becomes, in fact, a purely dogmatical

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system, which, on Fichte^s own principles, as an advocate of ^^ Wissenschaftslehie," ought to be summarily rejected.

That Fichte felt the force of these and similar objections made against his philosophy, is evident from the &ct that he relinquished his purely sub- jective position, and afterwards attempted an entire revision of its fundamental principles. To these later views, therefore, we must now, in conclusion, briefly refer. In the original form of his meta- physics, Fichte not only banished the idea of matter as a solid impenetrable substance, but allowed no other real existence at all beyond that of a certain activity (Th'atigkeit), ever working in accordance vrith a given law or design. Mind was with him simply action, and everything else was the product of mind, brought into being by virtue of the original laws, to which it is subjected. What we see in the world of objective existence was with him simply the reflex of our own faculties ; and to be a pure subjective idealist was to absorb the whole notion of existence in that of law, the law of our personal activity. The office of sustaining a system of philosophy on this purely subjective basis, as we have seen, proved no easy task. The enquiry was perpetually urged. What is the ground or essence of the activity, which we term mind ? Whence its laws, its limitations, its characteristics ? Must there not be something real at the foundation of all these subjective pheno-

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mena'i In truth is not something of this nature admitted by the fact of your admitting an original constitution at all, by which the laws of our con- sciousness are determined? Questions of this description, together with many objections of a theological kind, gradually led Fichte to seek for another absolute principle, more deep and more comprehensive than the former, upon which his philosophy might securely rest.

On reflection he saw, that to deny aU real existence in our perceptions, does not lead, as he intended it, to a system of pure dynamical idealism, but rather, as we have she\vn, to a system of nihilism. Allow that our free activity represents certain notions to itself, there must be, thought Fichte, something which is represented. Mere knowing can be nothing, unless there is something which is known ; mere thinking can be nothing, unless there is something which is thought; and mere perception can be nothing, unless there is something which is perceived. To make our subjective activity in the act of knowing, perceiving, &c. the absolute^ is to suppose that the only reality in the universe is a perceiving which perceives nothing, a thinking which thinks nothing, a knowing which knows nothing.

But, then, the question returns. How is it possible to arrive at this real essential existence which is imaged and represented in our own minds ? for the moment we attempt to do so scientifically, the old argument against representationalism returns, which again seems to shut us up within our own consciousness. Pure subjective idealism, which admits no real existence beyond our own consciousness, is beset with difficulties on the one hand ; but the ordinary dualism of philosophers is exposed to equal objections on the other hand. In the former case there is no basis, on which the superstructure can rest, to keep it from sinking into the abyss of Nihilism ; in the latter case we have no guarantee for the accuracy of the inward representation of the outward reality, and, consequently, no means of arriving at absolute knowledge at all. Is it not possible, then, thought Fichte, to find some via media^ by which the diffi- culties of both these extremes could be avoided ; by which a foundation might be added to a system of idealism otherwise baseless, and a relief found for the contradictions of dualism. The only re- source left was to grant ane absolute existence^ which is the same both in the subject and the object; to assert equally the reality of the Me and the Not-me, and with it the identity of both ; to find a common principle from which all subjective and all objective phenomena spring, and to re- cognise in this principle an absolute subject-object. This thought, the origination of which is disputed between Fichte and Schelling, was the foundation of the doctrine of identity (Identitatslehre) ; a doctrine which, if it did really spring from the

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improved philosophy of the former, was only developed to its proper form in the writings of the latter.

Under this view of the case the starting point of Fichte's philosophy was now completely altered. Instead of regarding self as the absolute, by which everything else is constructed, he now admitted an essential reality as the foundation both of self and not-self, and in this way attributed a real existence, although still a spiritual one, to the objective world. The doctrine of identity thus propounded, evidently had a close affinity with the pantheism of Spinoza. The only difference of the two lay here, — that, while Spinoza fixed his eye upon the notion of substance^ until he made it the absolute and infinite essence of which all things existing are but different modi, Fichte still re- tained firm as ever the notion of free and intelligent activity, and regarded infinite reason, or if we will term it so, eternal mind or the Divine idea, as the absolute, all-real, self-existent essence, which manifests itself alike in the subjective and the objective world. According to this view, what- ever we experience within ourselves and whatever we see without, are both alike the manifestations of one and the same absolute mind, t. e. of the Deity himself; not merely creations of his power, but actual modifications of his essence. The common idea of matter Fichte never for a moment

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re-admitted. He still held to his original position, that mind is the sole existence, that the whole universe is a spiritual universe, and that to speak of dead lifeless substance, lying as the substratum of what we term material properties, and of the laws of action, which we perceive around us, is going entirely beyond the region of our actual knowledge. Nay, further, he did not allow that the objective world can make any impression whatever upon the subjective self; but, as they are both forms and manifestations of the same Divine idea, he considered that we know, to a certain extent, what passes without us, from our direct consciousness or intuition of what passes within.

Although Fichte had thus gained a crude and indistinct notion of the doctrine of identity, yet he did not live to develop it in all its clearness, or to apply it to the laws and processes of nature in the world. The phenomena of the physical world, indeed, still constituted a dark and imre- solved point in his philosophy ; objective existence, as seen in nature, was not yet placed on the same footing with subjective existence, as exhibited in the laws of mind ; the identity of the two was not completely thought out; the phenomena of our sensations not fully explained; the absolute unity of thought and existence, as attained in the infinite Being, not completely deduced. To

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perfect the doctrine of identity and to apply it more especially to the world of nature, was the merit and the boast of his illustrious successor.

As this particular aspect of the German philo- sophy, therefore, will be more fully elucidated in the sequel of this sketch, we shall forbear to enter more particularly into the views of it which Fichte entertained, and which may be found embodied in his extraordinary treatise on the Constitution of Man (Bestimmung des Menschen), as, also, in the posthumous writings edited by his son. We only remark, that this latter form of Fichte's philosophy was in many respects superior to the former. It not only overcame many of its con- tradictions, but pointed more decisively to a region, in which faith, as a principle of knowledge higher than reason, could assure us of the reality of the world, of God, and of an immortality to come ; in which the subjective limits of our rational nature could be surpassed, and life be rendered blessed in the confidence of our partaking the Divine nature here, and rising to the fuller participation of it hereafter. Much as the writings of this ener- getic thinker have more lately fallen into neglect, yet it is unquestionable, that they lie at the basis of all the modern German metaphysics ; nor has philo- sophy since his time found an advocate so clear, so earnest, and so fervidly eloquent as it found in him.*

• Note F, Vtde in Appendix, an account of Fichte'8 works.

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We must now pass on to the consideratioii of Schelling and his philosophy, by which we shall be brought almost into the midst of the discussions in which Germany is at present involved. Fre- derick William Joseph Schelling was bom in January, 1775, at Leonberg Wiirtemberg, He studied first at Tubingen, where he formed an acquaintance with Hegel, while both were yet in their early youth. After this he went to Leipsic and Jena, where he devoted himself chiefly to medicine and philosophy, in the latter of which departments he attended the lectures of Fichte. In 1 798 he succeeded Fichte in the chair of philo- sophy at Jena, and obtained, by the efforts of his then rising genius, the greatest approbation. In 1803 he accepted the professorship of philosophy at Wiirzburg, and in 1807 removed to Munich, where, with some few intervals, he resided up to the year 1841. His acceptance of a professorfiftiip at Berlin, in that year, excited the greatest atten- tion throughout the philosophical world; without satisfying the expectations, however, which were aroused, he soon relinquished his arduous post, in order that he might end his days (which God grant him) in peace.

Schelling, as we have seen, came upon the stage just at the time when Fichte had carried his subjective philosophy to its very highest pitch. The notion of self had with him absorbed every other; the individual mind was made the abso-

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lute generating principle of all existence. By assigning, however, to mind certain limitations lying within its own nature, he unconsciously destroyed its absoluteness, and involved himself in inextricable contradictions. Schelling saw clearly, that the subjective tendency had been carried by him to an extreme ; that it was neces- sary to return to the admission of some actual objective reality ; and that the Absolute must be found in something beyond the limits of our own individual consciousness. Whether the first notion of the doctrine of identity (that which traces both subject and object to one common source) ^vas given by Fichte or Schelling, we cannot determine : certain it is, that the latter was the first to see the doctrine in all its clearness, and the first who em- ployed it as the groimdwork of a complete system of philosophy.

Before we enter into an analysis of Schelling's system, we must make a few preliminary remarks upon the method he has followed in his investi- gations. With him the great organ of philosophy is

• ' intellectual intuition " (intellectuelle Anschauung),

by means of which faculty, he supposes, we have an immediate knowledge of the absolute. This in- tellectual intuition is a kind of higher and spiritual sense, through which we feel the presence of the infinite both within and around us ; moreover it affords us a species of knowledge, which does not require the relation of subject and object, but

h2

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enables us to gaze at once by the eye of the mind upon the eternal essence itself, from which both proceed, and in which thought and existence are absolutely identical. Before the time when creation began, we may imagine that an infinite mind, an infinite essence, or an infinite thought (for here all these are one) filled the universe of space. This, then, as the self-existent One, must be the only absolute reality ; all else can be but a deve- loping of the one original and eternal Being ; and intellectual intuition is the faculty, by which we rise to the perception of this the sole ground and realistic basis of all things.

The absolute, from the first, contains in itself^ potentially, all that it afterwards becomes actually by means of its own self-development ; and the great aim of true philosophy is, first, to fix our eye upon this original essence, and then to shew how everything is derived from it — that is, how from the absolute subject or natura naturans^ is derived the absolute object or natura naturata. This primary essence is not, as Spinoza held, an infinite substance, having the two properties of extension and thought, but an infinite, acting, producing, self-unfolding mind — the living soul of the world. Unless we can disentangle ourselves from our unreflective habits of thinking, imless we can look through the veil of surrounding phe- nomena, unless by this spiritual vision we can realize the presence of the Infinite, the only real,

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and eternal existence, we have not the capacity, said Schelling, to take the very first step into the region of speculative philosophy. If, however, we can view all things as the development of the original and absolute principle of life, reason, or Being, then it is evident, conversely, that we may trace the marks of the absolute in everything that exists, and consequently may scan them in the operations of our own minds, as one particular phase of its manifestation. Every mind is the image or reflection of the eternal mind; every individual reason the exemplar of the infinite reason ; and, therefore, by gazing inwardly upon the development of our o\vn minds, we may learn the principle or process, by which everytliing else is developed likewise.

Now, in viewing our own consciousness for this purpose, we find that there is combined there the knowing and the known— the subject which per- ceives, and the object which is perceived. But, then, what is the process by which every such perception takes place, what the law of the mind's own activity? This, observes Schelling, was shewn by Kant, when he assigned time and space as the two forms or categories of sensation. The notion of space arises from the mind's activity going forth, and expanding itself without limit, and in every direction ; on the other hand, time is that which bounds and measures space, — it is the reflex or attractive force, by which our activity is restrained.

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and which answers, therefore, tx) Fichte's " unex- plained limitations." The one is a positiye force, the other a negative ; and what we suppose to be a material existence is the result of these two forces, — the expansive giving the matter o( it, tiffi attractive the form.

Intellectual intuition sees both subject and object, knowing and known combined in our own consciousness; it regards them as being but the twofold law, by which the soul operates ; but ordi- nary and unphilosophical thinking views them as entirely separate, and regards the one movement, that in which thought, is predominant, as the subject, and the other movement, that in which existence is the predominant notion, as the object, thus making a generic distinction, which does not really exist, between the mind within and the world without Both, in &ct, are one and the same essence running exactiy parallel to eacl^^ other ; so that, if we begia with the objective side, we can easily deduce firom it the subjective ; and if we begin with the sub- jective, we can as easily deduce the objectiye. Hence, there are two kinds of philosophy, philo- sophy of nature and philosophy of spirit, both having their root in the absolute, and both affording a firm point, from which we can take our departure. The office, therefore, of philosophy is, either from intelligence to construct a nature, or from nature to construct an intelligence ; thus

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shewing that thought and existence have their ground in the same identical essence.

To make the subsequent part of our sketch more intelligible, we must now request the reader to fix his attention closely upon the law, or rythm, by which the absolute, and everything else, as being a manifestation of the absolute, proceeds in its self- development. This law comprehends three move- ments, which Schelling terms powers, or as we will term them, for distinction's sake, potencies. The first is the reflective movement (Potenz der Reflexion) ; this answers to the negative or expansive force, and viewed philosophically is the attempt of the Infinite to embody or represent itself in the Finite. The second movement is that of subsumption (Potenz der Subsumption), which is the attempt that the absolute makes, having embodied itself in the Finite, to return to the Infinite. The third move- ment is simply the union or indifference point of the two former, which Schelling terms the potence of reason (Potenz der Vemunfi;), as being that in which the expansive and attractive, the subjective and objective movements are blended.

Having thus prepared the way, we can now give a r^ular and connected sketch of Schelling's " Philosophy of Identity," as it was developed in his earlier writings.

The foundation-stone upon which the whole rests is the absolute and infinite existence (Seyn), which forms of itself the whole real essence of the universe,

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and to the consciousness of which we attain by means of intellectual intuition. This infinite Beings containing everything in itself potentially which it can afterwards become actually, strives by the law which we have above indicated after self-develop- ment. By the first movement (the potence of reflection) it embodies its own infinite attributes in the Finite, In doing this, it produces finite objects, I. e. Finite reflections of itself, and thus sees itself objectified in the forms and productions of the material world. This first movement then gives rise to the philosophy of nature. The second movement (potence of subsumption) is the regress of the Finite into the Infinite ; it is nature, as above constituted, again making itself absolute, and re- assuming the form of the Eternal. The result of this movement is mind^ as existing in man, which is nothing else than nature gradually raised to a state of consciousness, and attempting in that way to return to its infinite form. The combination of these two movements (Potenz der Vemunft) is the reunion of the subject and object in divine reason ; it is God, not in his original or potential^ but in his unfolded and realized existence, forming the whole universe of mind and Being. This is the proper view of Schelling's pantheism.

Having thus seen the absolute dividing itself into object and subject, nature and spirit, by the original laws of all being, we shall go onwards with these two branches of philosophy, and follow

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Schelling step by step in the construction of his whole system.

Now, just in the same manner as we perceived three potencies in the absolute itself, so also shall we find three potencies in each of the two divisions of philosophy which have thus originated, namely, in nature and in mind. These three potencies will again form three subordinate spheres of being, each of which still continues to exhibit the same law, shewing two oppositive movements and a point of indifference in which they both unite. Schelling terms the movements which come within the philo- sophy of nature the real side of the question, those which come within the philosophy of spirit the ideal ^ both absolutely answering to each other, but the one in the lower state of unconscious existence, the other in the more highly developed state of self-consciousness. Nature and spirit are thus both the emanations of the eternal mind, but the one in a higher potence than the other. To make the matter clear to the eye, and at the same time to furnish an index to our subsequent explanation, we shall here give the outlines of the whole system in the following scheme.

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Now, in directing our attention first to the real side of the above plan, we must remember, that, according to Schelling, external nature, the move- ments of which are there delineated, contains the absolute essence comji^Z^te, only viewed predominantly from an objective point of view.

First sphere. — The first sphere, tliat of matter mechanically considered, is the streaming forth of the infinite into the finite ; it is the development of the productive power of nature into some actual product; the union of the infinite essence with finite form. Matter is the production of, or rather emanation from, the great eternal muid^ it is, strictly speaking, that mind itself seen in its primary reflec- tive movement, and making itself finite in order to become the object of its own happy contemplation. God saw all he had made — all that came forth from himself, the type of his own power and glory, and behold it was very good.

Matter, however, as being a complete exhibition of the Absolute in one particular aspect, and ajs forming a universe in itself, must exhibit all the three potencies above indicated. The first of these is repulsion, or the expansive power ; the next is attraction, or that by which the expansive or objec- tive tendency is limited, and referred back to the centre from which it sprung. Just as by their centrifrigal force the planets individualize them- selves in their own separate orbits, and by their centripetal all tend back to one centre, so matter

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in general by repulsion is individualized, and by attraction tends back again to unity. The indiffer- ence of these two forces is gravity^ that which makes matter what it is, and gives it the appearance of being the dull, lifeless, impenetrable mass which we ordinarily conceive it to be in things around us. The first generic potence, then, of nature is the imion of the repulsive and attractive forces, forming the whole phenomena of the material universe, statically considered.

Second Sphere. This being the reflective move- ment of the real side, as above shewn, we now look for the second generic potence, that of sub- sumption, by which the material world will exhibit a regress movement back from its finite forms towards infinity. This second potence is the principle of light. Light is the soul, of which matter is the body ; it is that by which nature gazes upon itself. Nature, accordingly, when viewed in this potence, is no longer seen as dull inert matter, but as replete with perpetual move- ment and activity. This dynamical sphere of nature's operations, has likewise three movements. The first is magnetism^ in which the motive power is seen, by means of polarity, dividing itself into two opposite directions, and always acting in a right line. The second is electricity^ which shews again the unity of the positive and negative poles of the magnet, and acts over surfaces. The third is the chemical process, or galvanism, which is the

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combination of these two forces, and gives the third dimension to space.* From the two foregoing spheres — that of matter, and that of light — of statics, and dynamics, the existence of the three realms of nature is explained. Hard unyielding matter is the kingdom in which weighty or gravity, is predominant — that in which movement predomi- nates is the air, and the indifference of these is water.

Third Sphere. Having thus seen nature in its first potence, as attraction and repulsion, giving rise to the phenomena of mechanical matter ; — having seen it also in its second, or dynamical potence, taking the appearance of light, in the forms of magnetism, electricity, and galvanism, we now come to the third potence, that in which the two former are perfectly combined, and in which is shewn the whole working of the Absolute towards its great end, in a finite form. There is one great aim after self-development in all nature ; but as in the real or objective side the Absolute is seen individualized, the aim of nature must there result in individual productions, each of which is a little world (a microcosm) in itself. This is realized in organization, or life; in which matter and light,

• For the method by which Schelling acconnts for the three

dimensions in space, we refer the reader to a little work con- taining the Elements of Schelling's Natur-Fhilosophie, entitled, '* Schelling's alte und neue Philosophie," von J. L. Si'hwarz. The details are too abstruse for the present sketch.

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the maternal and paternal principle, the mechanical and dynamical potencies, are perfectly combined. Every organization is the complete representation or image of the Absolute in a finite form; it is subject-object exhibited in nature ; and constitatetf the highest perfection of physical existence. The three movements of this sphere are, first, repro- duction — the embodying of the essential life-piitt- ciple into new forms; secondly, irritability — the power of independent and unimpelled movement ; and thirdly, sensibility, in which the reproductive and self-moving principles are combined. Here we have followed nature in its different objective spheres, up to its highest development ; sensibility forming the point in which mere organized life ends, and spiritual life begins.

In giving this rapid sketch of Schelling's philo- sophy of nature, we have concentrated in a few pages the matter of some two or three volumes. To shew how the different processes are deduced one from the other — ^how in the first sphere the principles of mechanics are developed ; how in the second the phenomena of chemical agents are elucidated; how in the third the progress of organized life is traced, from the lowest kind of plant, through all the varieties of vegetable and animal existence, to the very highest organization, would take more space than can be here allotted to the subject. We have been anxious to give the principles, upon which the whole system proceeds.

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as clearly as possible, and must refer the student, who would understand it more fully, to the works of Schelling himself, or to the numerous analyses which exist of his philosophy in the German language.

We have already followed nature, then, through the successive potencies, in which it appears as matter, light, life. All these unconscious produc- tions are but unsuccessful attempts in nature to raise itself to intelligence ; they are exhibitions of mind, as yet in a state of slumber ; and when at length we get beyond them into a higher potence, and pass from philosophy of nature into philosophy of mind, we have to do precisely with the same essence, only in another form ; and to view precisely the same processes, only raised to the loftier position of self-consciousness. Mind is the second move- ment of the universal law, by which the absolute unfolds itself; it is nature returning from the Finite, in which it had embodied itself, back again to the Infinite ; and just as we saw, that on the real side there were three movements of objective nature, so, on the ideal side, we find answering to them three movements of subjective mind. The first sphere is that of knowledge, and this corresponds to matter in the objective side, inasmuch as the laws of per- ception and of thought exactly answer to the real productions of nature, as was already shewn to some extent by Kant, and more clearly by Fichte. The second sphere corresponding to the dynamics of nature, is that of practice, or mind in its firee

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activity. And, lastly, the third sphere in which knowledge and practice are combined, is that of orf, which exactly answers to the organic power of nature. This affords us three divisions in the science of mind, — the philosophy of intelligence, philosophy of practice, and philosophy of art ; the contents of which we shall now pourtray.

First Sphere. The philosophy of intelligence, being the first sphere of the subjective development of the Absolute, must bear upon it the characteristic feature of the first potence, namely, the embodying of the infinite in the finite.. In other words, mind, (or the me,) in coming to the distinct knowledge of anything, must have its free activity limited, and this limitation, (or obstacle, as Fichte termed it,) which gives us the idea of an actual objective product, is the infinite activity of the subject in the process of constituting itself finite.

In this sphere, again, we shall have three move- ments as before. The first is sensation^ in which the mind's activity gives rise to a distinct image, that is placed before it as object of its own con- templation. The second movement is reflection^ in which the mind is no longer sunk in the contemplation of its own production objectively viewed, but becomes aware of the process by which the consciousness of the moment is pro- duced. The result of this self-conscious process is called a Notion (Begriff*), and the process itself is termed Judgment (Urtheil). Judgment is the

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reference of a particular to a general (as we see, e. g. in the proposition, horsic is an animal) ; and in it, therefore, the finite perception, which we attained to in sensation, is carried back again to the infinite essence (the category) to which it belongs. The union of sensation and reflection give rise to freedom^ which is the third movement ; for, by means of reflection, we become conscious that sensations, though apparently constrained, are the products of our own activity.

Second Sphere. — The idea of freedom brings us to the second sphere of the subjective side, namely, the philosophy of practice. Under the former sphere we have the analysis of the intellectual powers, under this the principles of action; and, as in knowledge, the Me was seen to be limited, throwing itself into a finite product, so now in action it essays to rise again to the Infinite ; for in all moral action Deity itself, in its essential qualities, is manifested. Knowledge shews the essence of the Absolute expressed in a form ; action shews the form again returning to the essence. In practical philosophy, as in all the other spheres, we still have three movements. The first is, that in which the active intelligence shews itself operating within a limited circuit, as in a single mind. This is the principle of indi- viduality ; not as though the infinite intelligence were something different from the finite, or as though there were an infinite intelligence out of

VOL. II. I

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and apart from the finite, but it is merely the absolute in one of its particular moments ; just as an individual thought is but a single moment of the whole mind. Each finite reason, then, is but a thotiffht of the infinite and eternal reason. Under this head of individuality, Schelling explains all the phenomena connected with volition and per- sonality, deducing the nature of the passions, impulses, and moral feelings, all of which appear before us as springs to our individual action.

The second movement in this sphere, is that in which the individualized action of the absolute seeks to generalize itself; in which man no longer acts alone as an individual, but, in combination with other men, forming a state. Hence arises the philosophy of jurisprudence and political economy. Now, as men, when acting indivi- dually, act under the influence of freedom, so in their political combinations they act from blind necessity. A country is urged forward in its progress towards civilization, not by any distinct volitions of its own, but by a necessary law of development. Every nation plays its part in the drama of the world, and every one performs its proper mission, but it marches on to its destiny, not with design, but by some unknown yet necessary cause.

This leads us, accordingly, to the third move- ment, in which freedom and necessity are com- pletely blended, and that is history. History is

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the absolute combination of the freedom of the individual with the necessary development of the race. Every act of which history is composed is a free act ; and yet man, with all his freedom, cannot help contributing to the accomplishment of the destiny of the whole nation and the whole race, to which he belongs. History is thus the great mirror, from which the soul of the world is reflected; it is an ever-unfolding epic of the Di\dne intelligence ; and in it we see how the one eternal mind, which operates in us all, reveals itself successively to view tlirough the medium of our individual freedom.

In historj' SchcUing lays down three great periods. The first was the period oi fate^ when everything appeared absolutely under the influence of a bUnd and irresistible power. This may be termed the tragic age. The second period is that in which the power of fate reveals itself as a law of nature^ that coerces everything into a certain plan of development, which it is compelled to subserve. This period commences with the ex- tension of the Roman empire, from which period we can trace the elements that have moulded our modem history down to the present time. The third period, will be that, in which we no longer speak of fate, nor of the laws of nature, but where we view the whole as a Divine revelation upon the theatre of the world. This will be the age of Providence.

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Third Sphere. — Having now considered the two former potencies of the subjective development of the absolute ; having seen it first in the sphere of knowledge, causing its activity to assume the ap- pearance of an image or notion, its essence to clothe itself in a finite form ; having seen it, secondly, in the sphere of practice, returning to its original mode of existence as a boundless activity or ab- solute law ; we now come to the highest potence of mental existence, that of genius, as seen in the production of art In this we find the complete concentration of all that has gone before, whether in the real or the ideal side of our philosophy.

Art, as the union of the two former spheres of the ideal philosophy, must contain in it a blending to- gether both of knowledge and of action, of form and of essence ; and this is precisely its great charac- teristic. Theory and practice are there completely united. Freedom and necessity, which we saw working in the other spheres separately, in this higher sphere work together; the artist is impelled by an inward inspiration to his labour. Moreover, art being the highest point of the actual development of the absolute, as it rises from the lowest forms of matter to the highest intelligence, must unite in itself both the subjective and the objective: and what, in fact, are the productions of genius but the embodying our ideal creations into actual objective forms 'i Again, art must shew the features both of the finite and the infinite;

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and, accordingly, infinite perfection, the beau-ideal of beauty and sublimity, is shadowed forth by the artist in his own finite productions. Lastly, as nature and mind shew the two characteristics, the one of unconsciousness, the other of self-conscious- ness, so the inspirations of genius are partly conscious and partly spontaneous. And thus the infinite mind having passed through its various forms of objective and unconscious development, as seen in matter, light, and organization, attains to its state of self-consciousness in sensation, reflection, and freedom, and is carried by the practical move- ment to the highest point of self-realization, where by means of art its subjective or ideal forms be- come objectified. Here, then, we have the unity or indifference of the real and the ideal, and come, at length, at the end of the process, to a self-produced, or rather a self-developed, subject" object.

The above sketch, however brief and imperfect, may perhaps suffice to give an idea of the general character of Schelling's original philosophy. The sensation it produced was manifest throughout Germany, and many of the rising philosophers of the day entered eagerly into a system at once so comprehensive and so poetical. Many of Schelling's pupils aided him in the journal which he published as the organ of his views, and some of them exerted a reflex influence upon the master himself, leading him to recast some of his opinions and to expand

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others. By the time his system as above described was completed, Schelling began to perceive that he had elaborated too much the objective points in his philosophy; and that in the intense view, which he had taken of the absolute, he diminished, nay, almost lost sight of the notion of any finite existence possessing freedom and personality. With him the absolute essence had become everything ; and its development was not the free and designed opera- tion of intelligence, but rather a blind impulse working, first unconsciously in nature, and only coming to self-consciousness in mind. On this principle, all difference between God and the universe was entirely lost; his pantheism became as complete as that of Spinoza ; and as the absolute was evolved from its lowest forms to the highest, in accordance with the necessary law or rhythm of its being, the whole world, material and mental, became one enormous chain of necessity, to which no idea of free creation could by any possibility be attached.

Accordingly he now began to enter upon another course of philosophy, not intended to contradict the former, but rather to perfect it, by placing the whole question in a new light. Many dififerent treatises were published by him one after the other, before he appeared to have written himself clear as to what his real design was ; but at length he came forth with the declaration, that there are two kinds of philosophy, the jwsitive and the negative; that

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he had supplied the negative side, in his original system ; and that he was now about to complete it, by supplying the positive. The difference between the two, according to Schelling, consists in this, that while the negative philosophy deduces the idea (Begriff) of God as an idea^ the positive supplies his real essential existence. The positive philo- sophy starts from being, and comes to thought; the negative starts from thought, and seeks (though in vain) to attain to existence.

God, the object of all philosophy, stands to us in two points of view. On the one hand, there is the abstract idea of him, i. e. the notion of his attri- butes, or of what he is ; on the other hand, there is his being or existence, embodying the truth that he is. The negative philosophy begins with a low and crude idea of the absolute, and evolves from it a higher; in this way it proceeds step by step through all the realms of nature and spirit, until it attains the highest notion which we can have of Deity ; but when it has done all this, it is only the notion of God we have deduced, and not the existence. The positive philosophy, then, adds to this idea of God his real existence ; much in the same way as in Kant's system we saw that his theoretical philo- sophy attained a notion of God which appeared simply as a personification of our own faculties, while his practical philosophy, on the other hand, supplied the essential reality.

The chief objects, then, of this new or positive

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philosophy may be stated as follows : — 1st. To raise us beyond the pantheistic view, given in the £3rmer system, and exhibit the Deity as a free personal supra^mundane Being. 2dly. To shew the necessity and the process of the creation of the world out of God. 3dly. To explain the relation of man to God, as an independent and yet dependent being. 4thly, and, lastly, To unfold the nature and possi- bility of moral evil. Let us view these four points in succession.

1. In order to rise above the pantheistic point of view, we must distinguish between the Absolute^ as ground of all things, and Godhead^ as one particular manifestation of it. The primary form of the Abso- lute is will or self-action. It is an absolute power of becoming in reality what it is in the germ. The second form in which it appears is that of being ; i. e. the realization of what its will or power indi- cated to be possible. But as yet there is no personality, no Deity properly so called. For this we must add the further idea of freedom, which is the power that the Absolute possesses of remaining either in its first or its second potence, as above stated. In this unity , which contains the three ideas of action^ of existence^ and of freedom^ consists the proper idea of God. God, before the existence of the world, is the undeveloped, impersonal, abso- lute essence, from which all things proceed ; it is only after this essence is developed, and has passed successively into the three states of action, of objec-

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tive existence, and of freedom, that he attains personality, and answers to the proper notion of Deity.

2. With regard to creation, we can now explain the existence of the world without identifying it with Deity, as is done in the ordinary pantheistic hypothesis. The absolute is the real ground of all things that exist, but the absolute is not yet Deity. That element in it, which passes into the creation and constitutes its essence, is not the whole essence of Deity ; it is not that part of it which, peculiarly speaking, makes it divine. The material world, then, is simply one form or potence in which the absolute chooses to exist ; in which it freely deter- mines to objectify itself, and consequently is only one step towards the realization of the full concep- tion of Deity, as a Divine Person.

3. Man is the summit of the creation — he is that part of it in which the absolute sees himself most fully pourtrayed as the perfect image or type of the infinite reason. In him, objective creation has taken the form of subjectivity; and hence he is said, in contradistinction to everything else, to have been formed in the image of God.

Lastly. — To solve the problem of moral evil, we must keep in mind, that man, though grounded in the absolute, still is not identified with Deity ; since the divine element, namely, the unity of the three potencies of the original essence, is wanting to him. Still, man bears a perfect resemblance to God, and

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third is the religion of John — the union of both in love. The first and second are now passing away, and the next great form of Christianity will be that, in which love will conquer all in the perfect union of the objective religion of the Catholic, vidth the subjective piety of the Protestant.

It is now easy to see the vast comprehensiveness of Schelling's philosophy as a whole. It begins by advocating a kind of divine intuition, by which we gaze upon the realistic ground or hdsis of all the phenomena, both of mind and matter. From this it goes on to construct, by means of an absolute and a priori law, the whole phenomenal universe, deriving it from the self-unfolding of the Absolute. One region of existence after another yields, as by a magic spell, to the bidding of this law, and con- fesses its secret unveiled. Matter, with all its dull inertia, puts on the garb of contending powers, and shews itself to be the objective reflection of the Absolute itself; those subtile agencies which we term magnetism, electricity, galvanism, light and heat, each owns itself to be but one pulsation in the self-developing process of the universal mind ; and even the phenomena of organized life is still but the complete objectifying of the absolute, each animal nature being a perfected type of the eternal nature itself. From the philosophy of nature, Schelling passes in one unbroken chain of argu- ment, without a chasm between, to the philosophy of spirit. The same great law of the absolute

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solves the mysteries of sensation, of intelligence, and of human freedom ; from thence it proceeds to explain the phenomena of man as an individual agent ; of man in his connexion with society ; and, lastly, of man as he has developed his being upon the broad page of history. Finally, it enters into the mazy regions of human genius and art, and finds in them the crown and tlie summit of the whole process — the highest expression of the Deity in the world.

Here it might be supposed, that the author would have found his goal, and having constructed the universe out of almost nothing, have at length enjoyed his Sabbath in peace. But, instead of this, we find that the work is only half done ; he has developed the law of the universe, but not ex- plained the substance ; he has exhibited the fonn^ now he must go to the matter ; he has analysed the full idea of God, and now he must make manifest his existence. Upon this, with unwearied wings, he begins another flight, — pantheism is left behind, and the real Triune Jehovah is placed before us in aU the plenitude of a divine personality. Next, the whole nature of the dependent creation is developed, the procedure of the material universe from the absolute expounded, and the mysteries of existence, which had been hidden before in thick darkness, made irradiant with light and intelli- gence. The destiny of man then comes upon the stage. To shew this, we have the origin of moral

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evil discussed ; and the question, so long tossed upon the billows of controversy, for ever set at rest The door being thus open into the region of Chris- tian theology, the philosopher boldly enters in to grapple with the great ideas which we there met with. The law, which has unveiled the mysteries of nature and the soul, we may be sure does not fail in explaining the whole rationale of Christian faith. The great doctrines of revelation — the fidl of man — the theory of redemption — the effusion of the Spirit, — all are converted from objects of faith to objects of science ; all flow, as by natural consequence, from the great rhythm of existence ; nay, the controversies of the Church themselves are settled, and the repose of the world announced in the predominance of the doctrines of the beloved apostle over the equally partial views, both of Pro- testant and the Catholic. Such, and far more sweeping than we have represented it, is the phi- losophical system, by which the name of Schelling is destined to go down the stream of time to the latest posterity.

To give any elaborate critique upon Schelling's philosophy, we imagine is in this country quite unnecessary, inasmuch as it would be arguing about a system, which very few as yet understand, and perhaps no one believes in. We shall only offer one or two reflections upon some of the main positions which almost necessarily suggest them- selves. First of all, where is our guarantee for the

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validity of the intellectual-intuition principle, upon which the whole truth of the system rests, and without which, as Schelling acknowledges, no one can take one single step into his philosophy? Respecting our knowledge of the Absolute, there are in fact no less than three hypotheses in vogue. The first is, that the knowledge of it is altogether impossible, there being no higher faculty than the understanding, and that being cognisant simply of relative and finite phenomena. The next hypo- thesis maintains, that we have a faculty superior to the understanding, namely, the reason ; by which we gain an idea of the absolute as the primary existence in which all finite things are grounded. The third hyjwthesis is, that of intellectual intuition, by which, as Schelling imagines, we are not only cognisant of the absolute, but have an insight also into the very laws of its development in creation.

Now Schelling fully admits that the Absolute cannot be known by our ordinary intellectual faculties ; in other words, that the actual essence of things cannot be attained to simply by our under- standing. Instead of contenting himself, however, with the faculty of reason^ as the revealer of absolute existence, he has ventured to run into an altogether wild hypothesis, and under the fiction of intellec- tual intuition, has pretended to unfold, a priori^ all the secrets of nature, as being various modi of the divine existence ; in a word, to re-produce in our own consciousness Deity itself. We cannot but think

128 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

that Schelling has far too gratuitously taken for granted, both the reality of the process, which he terms intellectual intuition, and the reality of the product ; especially as he professes to erect a scien- tific system, having self-evident axioms at its basis. If his doctrine of identity means anything, it means that thought and being are essentially one ; that the process of thinking is virtually the same as the process of creatiag ; that in constructing the universe by logical deduction, we do virtually the same thing as Deity accompUshes in developing him- self into all the forms and regions of creation ; that every man's reason, therefore, is really God: in fine, that Deity is the whole sum of consciousness immanent in the world. " This doctrine," says M. Willm, in his "Memoir to the French Academy," "is founded, —

" 1. Upon an illusion. For it takes the process of ordinary generalisation for an absolute law of reason ; and erects the principle at which general- isation stops, into the real and essential principle of things themselves.

" 2. Upon a paralogism. For it confounds the order of knowledge with the order of existence.

• • 3. Upon an exaggeration. For it exaggerates

the harmony which exists, or which we naturally affirm between our intelligence and reality, by making it an identity^ and attributing to reason so absolute an authority, that everything must be as it thinks, from the moment that it thinks it.

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" 4. Upon an hypothesis. For it is a gratuitous supposition to place all truth in the reason, and thus to equal reason with God."

To be convinced that Schelling's axioms are not the soundest, we have only to look next to some of the actual conclusions of his philosophy, and consider whether they be not in the highest degree unsatis- factory. As an example of this, we imagine, that his original system of identity, which makes the whole phenomena of the universe one chain of necessary development, is entirely inconsistent with the facts of physical and moral evil ; and equally so with the conscious freedom of man as a moral agent. Again ; the view maintained by Schelling respecting Deity, as coming gradually to self- consciousness, and realizing himself only in man, is utterly inconsistent with the perfections of God, as displayed in the design of the universe, and felt in the holier emotions of man's religious nature. Further ; the result of the system, as a theory of natural philosophy, by no means answers to the expectations it excites. One would think, that if the very laws of material existence were laid bare, there could be no further need of experimental investigations. What then is the fact? — ^within the bounds of experimental philosophy not an idea is introduced, which can bear any other title than that of pure hypothesis ; while the rough path of induction must still be beaten as diligently, as though Schelling's great d priori discoveries had

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130 MODERN PHILOSOPHY. .

never da^vned upon the world. If we are to have a purely rational philosophy at all, which shall satisfy the phenomena of the universe, and explain the whole experience of the human consciousness, it must rest upon a far surer foundation than that which SchelUng has laid, and answer far more perfectly to the external and internal facts, which come before our daily observation. The day, we imagine, is far distant, before we shall have to welcome the development of any great physical laws from one who entirely sets at nought the whole logic of induction.

With regard to Schelling's Theosophy, we can hardly view it as meriting the title of philosophy at all, in any true or proper sense; indeed, we believe it is very generally rejected in Germany, even by those who had been warm admirers of his original system. With these obvious objections, however, we must admit, that, as an instance of bold generalization, of fertile fancy, of reasoning, ingenuity, abounding at the same time in original views on many topics, and exhibiting a most exten- sive acquaintance with almost every branch of human knowledge, the philosophy of Schelling exhibits a monimient of genius, which, in the same department, has been seldom equalled, and perhaps never exceeded, in the world.*

Fichte and Schelling represent the two opposite sides of the modem German idealism ; the one

♦ Vide Note G. Appendix.

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starting from the subjective principle, the other from the objective — the one regarding self as the absolute, the other, the infinite and eternal mind — the soul of the world. Hegel, to whom we must now turn our attention, has passed beyond the region both of the one and the other, and attained to the elevation of what is usually termed absolute idealism. Fichte supposed that there is a real subjective existence, in whose nature resides those limitations, by which he has accounted for the phenomena of the outward world ; and Schelling maintained an original, absolute, living essence, containing within itself the laws of its owa self- development. Hegel has first resolved everjthing into a process of thought, and claimed to reach the point, at which all speculative philosophy aims — that in which thought and existence perfectly coincide. George AViUiam Frederick Hegel was born at Stuttgard, in the year 1770. At the age of seven- teen he went to the university of Tiibingen, where he devoted himself to the study of theology, and, in the philosophical department, attended the same lectures with Schelling. After having taken his degree, and having occupied some years as a private tutor, he went to Jena in the year 1801, where he began his lectures as a professor, with an auditory of four students. The next sixteen years of his life were spent, partly as a professor, partly as rector of a gymnasium, and partly as an editor aind author. At length, in the year 1818, he was

K 2

132 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

called to Berlin, where he lectured with great success till his death, which took place Not. 14, 1831.

Hegel began his philosophical career as a firm partisan of Schelling ; and when he first ventured beyond the pale of his authority, the aim was rather to give system and unity to Schelling's doctrines, than to advance any altogether new ideas. Schelling, as we have sufficiently seen, was anything but systematic in his philosophical writings ; in continuing to pour forth the produc- tions of his inventive genius, through the medium of his journals, he seemed to aim more at putting his thoughts in different points of view, than at building up the regular framework of a scientific superstructure. Hegel, with less invention, pos- sessed greater logical acumen, and far more method than his contemporary ; and to this mainly is owing the great extent to which his school has now spread itself throughout Germany.

The entrance into philosophy, according to Schelling, was by the door of intellectual intuition, a faculty by which we were supposed to gaze immediately upon the absolute, as we gaze by ordinary sensation upon the forms of the material world. Hegel considered this principle to be unphilosophical, and strove to do away with the necessity of a faculty, which might be so easily abused, and would so naturally open the door, (as was actually the case,) into the regions of mysti-

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cism. With this object in view, he sought to constnict a purely logical system^ where there should be no inexplicable phenomena remain- ing, — where no real essence, either subjective or objective, should be admitted, that was not fully sublimated into thought, and that might not form indeed a logical part of the very process of philo- sophy itself.

With Schelling, there was a primary essence in the absolute, previous to its development, and which therefore did not originate in the developing pro- cess ; in more technical language, there was an (^r) which remained to the last unresolved in his philo- sophy. Instead of beginning with zero, and explaining all existence, he began with a realistic ' point — a certain absolute power or law, perceived through the medium of intellectual intuition, and made this the basis of everything else. Beyond the region of thought there lay, as he conceived, the region of real existence, containing in it the principle of its own self-unfolding. With Hegel, however, the case was different : he allowed of no original essence whatever, which was not identical with thought, and which was not completely worked up into his philosophical process. The x was with him entirely resolved ; for, beginning with nothing^ he shewed with logical precision how everything had n^larly proceeded from it.

Another point of difference between these two great philosophers lies here. Schclling's inhiition

134 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

was of such a nature, that the law of the universe, (the process of objectifying and again subjectifying,) was learned by experience. The rhythm of all existence was supposed by him to be cog^sable at the same time by the inward experience of the subjective self, in the outward operations of nature, and likewise in the progressive course of the world's history. Hegel's philosophy, on the contrary, is pure rationalism, from the very first step to the last : it results from resigning oneself entirely to the laws of thought^ as seen in speculative reasoning, and regards the self-development of that thought as being the true revelation of the Absolute, that is, of God. Thoughts are, with him, as much concrete realities as anything else ; and logic, as being a true description of their processes, is at the same time a true description of the laws of the universe. With other philosophers, logic had been merely a formal science; but although its dignity had been much raised by Kant, as also by Fichte and Schelling, yet it was reserved for Hegel to deny altogether its formal character, to make it a real branch of metaphysics, and to admit it as a part of the process by which the whole universe of things is constructed. Not only (as in the philosophy of Schelling) is the method of logic regarded equally with the pheno- mena of nature as a manifestation of the Absolute, hut it is a part of the very process in which the absolute itself consists. With these principles, it is easy to sec how significantly the Hegelian philo-

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ssophy has been dcuominated a system of absolute idealism.

Philosophy begins, then, on the Hegelian prin- ciple, by our gaining a clear conception of the laws of thought ; those laws by which the knowledge of anything whatever is arrived at. In attempting to observe these laws, we soon discover, that the process of knowing implies a threefold movement. First of all, our consciousness exists in a condition in whicli it is one with the object. Pure sensation, (as is generally admitted,) would never give us the knowledge of an external world ; all that it affords us is a bare feeling ; so that the primary step in the attainment of the knowledge of any object, must be the state, in which there is a complete blending of subject and object. Secondly^ instead of remaining in this state of consciousness, we soon objectify it; sensation becomes perception, and we refer our feeling to some real outward existence as the cause. The faculty, by which this separation between subject and object is effected, is the understanding (Verstand), answering to judg- ment in the ordinary division of the scholastic logic. The third process is that, in which our consciousness again returns to complete union with the object, even whilst the object remains before us in all its clearness. In this last movement, we perceive the object as a predict, or state of our own minds : while, therefore, it is, as an outward reality, destroyed, (auf gehobcn,) yet as a state of our own conscious-

136 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

ness it is preserved ; or, in the words of the author, the ohject is siiblatum^ the state is servatum. As the former movement was the effect of the under- standing, so this is of the reason (Vemunfl).

In this process, then, which we find to be uniformly followed, when we attain the knowledge of anything, we see the law, or the rhythm of all nature, and all existence. Take any object whatever and ask how it becomes to us a real existing idea or thing (for with Hegel these two are the same). Philosophers ordinarily say, that when we have a perception there is implied the mind or subject that perceives on the one side, and the object which is perceived on the other, the two communicating by some unknown process. The pure idealist, it is true, denies the reality of the object, and regards it as a production of the subject ; but Schelling had exploded this notion, and introduced the doctrine of identity, according to which we must admit a real subject and a real object, but must r^ard them as two corresponding manifestations of the same absolute existence. Hegel, however, now goes one step further in his analysis. He says, that there is neither subject or object separately con- sidered, but that they both owe their existence and reality to each other. The only real existence, then, is the relation ; the whole universe is a universe of relations ; subject and object which appear contra- dictory to each other are really one — not one in the sense of Schelling, as being opposite poles of

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the same absolute existence, but one inasmuch as their relation forms the very idea, or the very thing itself.

This process, then, by which everything comes into being, is the very soul and essence of life, of nature, of the absolute ; and Deity, which was in the other systems an original and self-existent reality, is now a process or movement ever unfold- ing itself, but never unfolded. God only realizes himself, in fact, in the progress of the human con- sciousness ; and the process by which this realiza- tion is effected is absolutely synonymous with himself. In a word, the dialectic process is Hegel's method; the dialectic process is his Deity: the dialectic process is everything: all nature, all mind, all history, all religion, are but pulsations of this movement, and God himself is but the same law taken absolutely in its whole comprehension. In the threefold rhythm of all existence, as given by Hegel, there is a manifest affinity with the three potencies of Schelling; but it was Hegel alone who ventured to make a universe of pure relations, and to raise the process, the very method of his philosophy, to the dignity of being itself the ahs(h lute idea = God.

With these preliminary observations we must now proceed to look a little closer into the interior of the system. The point on which we must stand, in order to take a comprehensive view over the

138 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

whole range of Hegel's philosophy, is that of the absolute idea. The Absolute is with him not the infinite substance, as with Spinoza, nor the infinite subject, as with Fichte, nor the infinite mind^ as with Schelling ; it is a perpetual process, an eternal thinking, without beginning and without end. This process, however, rolls onward in its course by the threefold movement we have already deduced. The first step is the infinite idea in itself (Idee in sich). The second is the idea in its objective form, or in its differentiation (Idee in ihrem anders-seyn). The third is the idea in its regress. These movements, viewed in connexion with the process of thinking in which the absolute consists, and in which they are perfectly represented, give us, 1st, bare thought (Denken an sich), 2dly, thought externalizing itself = nature, and, 3dly, thought returning to itself == mind. Accordingly, philosophy has three corresponding divisions ; — logic, philosophy of nature, and philosophy of mind. The first is the region of bare thinking, the second is the region of thought in its objective forms, and the third is the region of thought in its refiective movement in the soul of man. The whole object of philosophy, therefore, is to develop existence firom its most empty and abstract form up through logic, nature, and mind, to its highest and richest elevation as attained in the human consciousness. In this w*e shall find the same process perpetually repeating

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itself, and gaining something fresh at every pulsa- tion, until it arrives at its highest perfection. We begin, then, with Logic.

This is the region of abstract thought, in which the absolute appears in its first and most unde- veloped form. Logic, the region of Idee an sichj is intended to shew the subjective processes of thought ; to point out the method by which, from the most empty of all our notions, we rise gradually to the most rich and full. To explain the true process of logical thinking we must observe, that all knowledge consists in a separation or distin- guishing of one thing from another. In every thought there are two parts, which stand opposed ; both of which are absolutely necessary to give it a clear and actual meaning. It is the same whether we view thought in the form of sensation, or of perception, or of reflection; in every instance, there must be something separated, defined, dis- tinguished, or placed in opposition to something else. We have no notion, e. ^., of a finite without an infinite; no idea of cause without effect; no idea of subjective without objective. So also in nature there could be no north-pole without a south, and no idea of material substance without immaterial.

This being the case, it is not possible for any notion to exist as an absolute unity ; it must, in every instance, consist of two sides, a positive and a negative; and, to complete it, these two sides

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must be combined so as to form one perfect idea. This is called by Hegel, the doctrine of contradic- tion (Widerspruch), which simply means, that in every idea we form, there must be two things opposed and distinguished, in order to afford us a clear conception and a definite meaning. In this doctrine of contradiction, or rather we would term it, of opposition, Hegel finds the rhythm of the whole logical process, the two opposites answering to the two former movements of the dialectic pro- cess above described, and the union of these two in one idea, corresponding with the third or highest movement of the same.

Now if the problem were placed before us, to trace the existence of all things from their very first coming into being to the attainment of their present form, we should have (beginning with things as they now are) to follow them hachwardsy until we came to nothing, and there we should find the starting-point of the process of creation. In like manner, when we attempt to analyse the deve- lopment of thought (which with Hegel is identical with existence), we must seize the very emptiest, most abstract, most meaningless notion we can find, and from that deduce all the rest in regular course by the process already laid down. This primary and most abstract of all notions is that of being (seyn), and forms the first division of Hegel's logic.

First Division. — Doctrine of Being. — ^In asking how a thing can begin to be, we require to see its

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transition from nothing into Being. Without the idea of not^being, or nothing, we could never have that of being, and vice versa ; so that the two stand to one another as opposites, and both to- gether combine to form a complete notion, viz., that of bare production, or the becoming (werden), of something out of nothing. This, then, is the first step in philosophy, the primary pulsation of the dialectic process. In it being and nothing stand as the poles ; and the conjunction of them forms the notion of existence. In these three (sein, nichts, werden), we see the type or symbol of all thought, shew^ing us, that for every complete idea there must be the combination of two opposites. Neither being or not-being can exist as a reality of itself; each is but the opposite pole of the other, and it is in their indifference that the act of coming into existence first appears. Hence the meaning of the extraordinary equation that stands at the threshold of Hegel's philosophy, Sein = Nichts ; and hence, the first conclusion, that the notions of being and not-being combined form that of existence. This may appear clearer to the German scholar, if we say in Hegel's language, that Sein and Nichts form Daseyn.

Now, the same process goes over again. Da^ seyn gives rise to a two-fold movement, by which a still higher point in the scale of being is attained. An existence may be viewed in relation to itself, or in relation to the things around it ; it may be

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existence an sick or existence fur andre ; in plainer terms, we may regard it as substance or as quality. Now, substance and quality are opposites to each other ; we cannot conceive of a substance without qualities, nor can we conceive of qualities without a substance, in which they adhere. Both these correlates are nonentities in themselves, but united they give us the general notion of reality. A substance and qualities combined form a real existence (etwas), and thus complete the first cate- gory, namely, that of quality ; the three steps of which are, accordingly, being, existence, and self- subsistence, or, in the original, Seyn, Daseyn, Fur- sich-seyn. This category clearly shews us how the original infinite becomes finite. A real some- thing (etwas) is distinguished from all other things, by its being limited or bounded-ofF: destroy these limitations, and it flows back into infinity. Thus, the notions of finite and infinite are both per se incomplete ; the one is necessary to the other, and both arise from that movement of logical thinking, by which we rise from the bare notion of being to that of some particular existence.

The three ideas, we have just deduced, falling under the category of quality, all point to the inner nature of things, and not to their outward form. The next category in the doctine of bare existence (Seyn) is that of quantity. Under this are explained the notion of continued size and divisible size ; of pure quantity and of a particular

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quantity ; these two united forming the notion of degi-ee (Grad). Degree, then, as imphing a quan- tity joined to a quality, gives the idea of measure (Mass), or the relation of one quantity to another, and thus completes the first di^ison of logic, or " die Lehre vom Srin."

Second Divisiou. — Doctrine of Essence. — In the second division of logic. Being appears in a more determined, definite, and independent form. Instead of having the characteristic of bare empty existence, it has now that of real con- crete existence, and gives rise to the doctrine of essence, " die Lehre vom AVesen." This second movement of the logical process, as seen in nature, answers to the second movement in mind, where the understanding separates the object from the consciousness, and places it as a distinct reality before the mind. Here, again, we have a three- fold division. Essence may appear either as the ground, or substratum of existence (as in the words, matter, spirit); or it may appear as pheno- menon, i. e.j as expressing those qualities of objects which cannot be separated firom them ; and, then, by uniting the notion of substratum and attribute, we attain the conception of a thing in plain con- tradistinction from that universal essence of which it forms a part. Here, then, is resolved the great problem before which the Eleatics paused, that of reconciling the individuality of each separate thing with the unity of the absolute essence.

144 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

We have now traced the dialectic process through two of its spheres of action, and shewn how from the hare idea of heing we come, at length, to that of a distinct, essential, real thing. When we attempt to proceed heyond this, we get into a higher region of thought, the doctrine of notions (die Lehre vom BegriflF), answering to the reasoning process in formal logic, and in nature answering to all organism and life, up to the highest developments of mind itself.

ITiird Division. — Doctrine of Notions. — The three divisions of logic, will now stand thus, in relation to each other: — 1. The doctrine of Being, answers to the abstract conceptions of time and space, giving us only those ideas which are purely qualitative or quantitative. 2. The doctrine of Essence, answers to time and space, not in the abstract but the concrete, filled up, the one with actual existence, the other with real phenomena, such as those of substance, attri- bute, cause, and effect, &c. Then, lastly, the doctrine of notion (begriff)^ refers to all those things which have peculiar characteristics of their own — real and definable objects, whether in the region of organized or inorganized existence. This last doctrine, that of notions, in the same manner as the other two, has three divisions : first, notion in its subjective point of view, giving the different movements of the mind as seen in simple appre- hension, judgment, reasoning ; secondly, notion in

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its objective point of view, giving us the concep- tions of the three realms of nature — the mecha- nical, the chemical, and the organized ; and thirdly, we have the union of subject and object, expressed by Hegel in the word idea^ which rises, also, through three successive steps : first, as life ; then, as intelligence ; and lastly, as the absolute idea — the summit of the whole process, and synonymous with Deit}\

To give a clearer idea of the several divisions and subdivisions of Hegel's logic, we shall subjoin the following scheme, which the reader may now compare with the above description.

LOGIC COMPREHENDS.

I.

The Doctrine of Beino (Die Lelirc vom Seyn).

A. Quality.

a. Being (Seyn).

b. Existence (Daseyn).

c. Independent existence (Fiir-sich-seyn).

B. Quantity.

a. Pure quantity (Reine Quantitat).

b. Divisible quantity (Quantum).

c. Degree (Grad).

C. Measure.

(Mass.) The union of quality and quantity.

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II.

The Doctrine of Essence (Lehre vom Weeen).

A. Ground of Existence.

a. Pure notions of essence.

6. Essential existence (Existenz).

c. Thing (Ding).

B. Phenomenon.

a. Phenomenal world (Welt der Erschei-

nung)-

b. Matter and form (Inhalt und Form).

c. Relation (Verhaltniss).

C. Reality. Union of Ground^ and Phenamen&n.

a. Relation of substance.

b. Relation of Cause.

c. Action and reaction.

III. Doctrine or Notion (Lehre vom BegriflF).

A. Subjective Notion.

a. Notion as such (Begriff als solches).

b. Judgment (Urtheil).

c. Inference (Schluss).

B. Object.

a. Mechanical powers (Mechanismus).

b. Chemical powers (Chemismus).

c. Design (Teleologie).

C. Idea.

a. Life (Leben).

b. Intelligence (Erkennen).

c. Absolute idea (Absolute Idee).

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In the above sketch of Hegel's Logic we have given only the chief divisions ; of the ingenuity and logical acuteness, with which these divisions are deduced the one from the other, and the whole framework built up, we can give no idea whatever. To comprehend this fully, we must refer the reader to his Cyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences, pub- lished in a complete edition of his works by his most distinguished pupils (Berlin, 1840).

We must now proceed to the second division of philosophy, namely. Philosophy of Nature.

The transition from the logic to the philosophy of nature is by no means a clear and intelligible step in the Hegelian system. Logic is the region of bare thought; the philosophy of nature is the region of thought extenmlizuig itself. Nature is still thought, but thought in its objective move- ment, being the exact opposite to logical thinking ; while both combine in the philosophy of mind. In order to account for the process of thought in the universe taking that objective form, in which it appears as nature, Hegel has recourse to a some- what far-fetched doctrine concerning the descent of the absolute idea from its original unity, as subject-object, into a state of separation ; just as in pure logical thinking the understanding separates what was one in the original consciousness. Schel- ling, as we have already seen, regarded nature as a part of the process, by which the absolute realized itself: he viewed the process of development

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accordingly as necessary, and regarded all existence to be the play of a supreme fate. Hegel regarded the dialectic movement, by which the absolute separates itself and externalizes itself in nature, as perfectly /r(?^, so that his pantheism did not profess to destroy the notion of the freedom and absolute personality of God.

Now, just as in logic, the absolute process appeared in its threefold movement, so also does it appear in the three correspondmg ones in nature. Nature in its empty undetermined forms (answering to the doctrine of Being) appears in that peculiar aspect which is taken of it in the science of mechayiics. Here there are, first, the purely mathe- matical ideas of matter, as existing in time, space, and motion; next, there are the mechanical pro- perties of matter, as gravitation, &c. ; and, thirdly, there are the absolute properties as viewed at large in the construction of the material universe, ^yhere the fixed stars, the binary stars, and the solar system, give us illustrations of the different kind of forces which are actually in operation.

The second division of the philosophy of nature is physics. Here we take into consideration, first, the general forms of matter, as earth, water, light, &c. ; secondly, the phenomena of specific gravity, cohesion, elasticity, &c. ; and, thirdly, the specific forms, as acids, alkalies, metals, &c.

The third division of this branch of philosophy is organism^ in which the other two movements are

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combined ; the first giving to nature its matter, tlie second its form, the third affording that in which matter and form are united. Here, again, we have Jirst^ the geological world ; secondly, the vegetable world ; and thirdly, the animal world ; the last lead- ing us to the point where the philosophy of nature ends and that of spirit begins. To give a clearer idea of the chief steps, under which this branch is treated, we aimex the accompanying scheme.

PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE COMPREHENDS.

1. Mechanics, o. Mathematical properties. h. Mechanical properties, r. Properties of absolute motion in space.

II. Physics, a. General forms of miatter. 6. Relative forms of matter, r. Specific forms of matter.

III. •Organism.

a. Geological structure.

b. Vegetable structure* r. Animal structure.

150 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

Each one of these triplets forms one complete pulsation of the dialectic process, and were it not entering too fax into detail, each one of the minor divisions would be seen to contain a minor move- ment of the same threefold process as well. We hasten on, however, to the third division of philo- sophy, namely. Philosophy of Mind.

At the point where nature leaves off^ having carried on her operations to the very highest pitch of perfection in the human organization, the philo- sophy of mind begins ; in which, as the third great division of philosophy, we have pure logical thought and nature (the subjective and the objective) fully combined. The steps of this, corresponding with those in logic and nature, are as follows.

PHILOSOPHY OF MIND.

I. Viewed subjectively.

a. Anthropology.

b. Psychology.

c. Will.

IT.

Viewed objectively.

a. Jurisprudence.

b. Morals.

c. Politics.

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III.

Absolute Mind, a. JSsthetics. 6. Religion, r. Philosophy.

Each one of these several points contains a separate branch of mental philosophy in itself. Thus, in the subjective movement, we have, under anthropology^ the different races of mankind dis- cussed, varying, as they do, according to the rela- tive development of their moral and intellectual being. It is, in fact,' the doctrine of the soul in its original constitution. Under psychology^ we have the nature and peculiarities of the different mental processes in feeling, perceiving, remem- bering, imagining, &c. all analysed and arranged ; while under the title of will^ we have the classifi- cation of our active powers, shewing how they lead to all the results of practical life.

In the objective movement we are introduced to the whole range of moral philosophy, or mind in its relations to those without. This is divided — first, into the rights of person and property, as in jurisprudence ; secondly, into the rectitude of actions generally, viz., morals; and thirdly, into domestic and public duties, which may be termed (in the extended meaning of the word) politics.

Lastly, when we rise to mind in its absolute form, we no longer view it as belonging to the

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individual, but to the race, and look for its development, not in the life of a single man, but in the history of the world. The primary deve- lopment of the human mind, in the process of civilization, is that of art; for the age of poetry precedes all others, and mythology is ever the form in which truth is first embodied, recognised, and taught. To this succeeds the age of religion^ in which God is regarded as a distinct personality, separate from the world and separate from the mind of the worshipper, — a Being to whom we owe entire allegiance and submission. Under this head Hegel discusses the various forms of religion which have appeared in the world, from the earliest ages to the present. Last of all comes the age of philosophy^ in which religion rises to its pure re- flective form, and truth comes forth from her symbols to appear in her naked reality. The con- clusion, then, and at the same time the top-stone of mental science, is the History of Philosophy^ as it has appeared in the world ; in which we find thought developing itself gradually (according to the process given in the science of logic), from the period of Parmenides, who stood upon the lowest step (that of bare existence), up to the present day, in which Hegel himself has deduced the absolute idea in all the ftilness of its truth and glory !

Before we quit this our skeleton sketch of the Hegelian philosophy, it will be desirable to* give our readers some idea of its application to various

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important questions of a religious nature. First, with regard to the nature and personality of God, Hegel is far from departing so widely from pan- theistic opinions, as to admit a distinct personality out of and apart from all other finite personalities. With him God is not a person^ but personality itself, i. e.j the universal personality, which realizes itself in every human consciousness as so many separate thoughts of one eternal mind. The idea we form of the Absolute, is to Hegel the Absolute itself, its essential existence being synonymous with our conception of it. Apart from, and out of the world, therefore, there is no God; and so also, apart from the universal consciousness of man there is no Divine consciousness or personality. God is with him the whole process of thought, combining in itself the objective movement, as seen in nature, with the subjective, as seen in logic, and fully realizing itself only in the universal spirit of humanity. With regard to other theo- logical ideas, Hegel strove to deduce philosophi- cally the main features of the evangelical doctrine. He explained the doctrine of the Trinity by shewing that every movement of the thinking process is, in fact, a Trinity in Unity. Pure independent thought and self-existence answers to the Father — the objectifying of this pure existence answers to the Xoyos irpo^piKos the Son, God manifested in the flesh; while the Spirit is that which proceedcth from the Father and

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the Son, the complete reunion of the two in the Church.

HegeFs Christology, agam, agrees in the main ideas with the evangelical doctrine, except that his attempt to deduce the whole from philoso- phical principles gives to it a complete air of rationalism. He views the idea of redemption as the reunion of the individualized spirit of man with the Spirit of eternal truth and love. By £aith we hecome one with Grod, forming a part of himself, memhers of his mystical body, as symbolized in the ordinances of the Church. This view of the Christian doctrines has been more fully developed by Strauss, who has entirely denied a historical truth to the New Testament, and made the whole simply a mythological repre- sentation of great moral and spiritual ideas. On the doctrine of immortality, Hegel has said but little, and that little by no means satisfEU^ry. However the depth and comprehensiveness of his system may charm the mind that loves to rationalize upon every religious doctrine, it can, assuredly, give but little consolation to the heart, that is yearning with earnest longings after holiness and immortality.

In some other points, not of a religious nature, Hegel has given us many views of great originality. His philosophy of history is epecially valuable, as containing investigations into the peculiar charac* teristics of the different ages of the world, that

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throw great light upon the mtellectual progress of civilization. Into this, however, we shall not enter ; we have attempted to give a comprehensive view of his whole system, just sufficient, we trust, to guide the student in appreciating the place it occupies at the head of the idealism of the present century, and must leave him, however unsatisfied with our details, to follow them up from the original source.*

In reading the £3regoing sketch, it will pro- bably surest itself to many of our readers — How could a system of philosophy so strange, so para* doxical, so entirely opposed to all the ordinary habits of thinking common to mankind at large, be seriously maintained by any earnest and truth- ful mind] A little consideration, however, may tend to shew us, that his doctrine of absolute identity is not so unnatural and extravagant as some might at first imagine. Really speaking, it aU turns upon two fundamental points: first, the imity of con- tradictories, or opposites, as the principle of human knowledge ; and secondly, the identity of being and thought.

Now, with regard to the former of these prin- ciples, there is, undoubtedly, a germ of truth in it, which every one must admit. What is knowledge, but the perception that two different things are fundamentally onel Take any judgment, any proposition you choose, and you find that it con-

• Note H, Ai^iendix.

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tains the assertion, that two different things form a unity or identity between them. The subject and predicate are the differences — the copula expresses their identity. In proportion as knowledge ad- vances, the tendency to generalize becomes greater; differences become more and more merged into higher principles ; until finally, as all theists admit, the universe, with its infinitely diversified pheno- mena, is seen to spring by some process of creative power from God, the first cause — the highest unity. Thus Hegel's doctrine of the fundamental unity of opposites, which has been so often reproached as a contradiction in terms, has its germ in the common sense and common belief of humanity. The other principle, the identity of being and thought, is, perhaps, somewhat more abstruse, but still, it is not so utterly baseless as some suppose. For, if all finite existence can be referred, as we have just seen, to a primitive unity ; if there is an absolute ground in which all things subsist, then the phe- nomenal, the finite, the so-termed material^ is but mere appearance, the real substratum is the infinite essence. But this infinite essence only exists as it is thought; universal Being is a purely rational conception, a necessary idea ; it does not come to its full reality except in the human consciousness. Hence, the real and ideal meet in one ; the very essence of the former consisting really in a process of the latter.

Admit then these two fundamental principles,

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and the other parts of the Hegelian theory follow step by step. The ideal and the real being one, thought and existence being identical, the pro- cess by wliich thought is developed must be the process of the whole of nature ; the laws of logic must be the laws of the universe ; and the dialectic movement, or the method by which our notions arc eliminated, is the method by which all things come into being and subsist. The rhythm of existence thus being found, all that is necessary is to apply it to the construction of a complex system of philo- sophy, which shall draw within its mighty grasp the totality of the phenomena of man, of nature, and of Deity.

Whilst, however, there are some considei'ations, Avhich appear to justify the Hegelian hypothesis, yet there are, as it appears to us, insuperable objec- tions under which it labours. First of all, we would ask, Whence does this process, this great rhythm of existence proceed ? Hegel pretends to have solved the whole secret of being ; to have no realistic starting point; to begin with zero, and deduce everything. This pretension, however, is not fulfilled. The law of existence is still assumed j still unaccounted for; so that the huge fabric of philosophy he has erected upon it, however inge- nious and admirable in itself, still is equally dogmar tical, in its ground principle, with the pantheism of Spinoza, or the ordinary theism of mankind. In principle^ it is just as easy to imagine an Infinite

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Being, the God of Christianity, as the source of all things, as an infinite law. And such a supposition, we need not say, is infinitely more in consistency with the phenomena of the human mind, and of the structure of nature around us.

Secondly, there is a confusion between the logical or formal processes of thinking, and the real process of things themselves, which can never be reconciled with human experience, and never gain the prac- tical belief of mankind. The logical idea, com- mencing with nothing, simply by its own inward movement or self-unfolding, creates the universe! Of course we may, in thought, begin with the most abstract notion, and then go on adding attri- bute to attribute, till we have placed the whole concrete universe before us. But this can never be put down as identical with the process of crea- tion itself. A logical or universal whole is, speaking realistically, a nonentity ; whereas Hegel makes it the essence (seyn) which contains in it potentially the whole phenomena of being.

Thirdly, the system of Hegel is utterly incon- sistent with the results of psychology, i. e., widi the most obvious facts of the human consciousness. Human freedom entirely vanishes imder its shadow. The man is but the mirror of the absolute; his consciousness must ever roll onwards by the fixed law of all being ; his personality is sunk in the infinite ; he can never be ought but what he really is. Moral obligation must here perish, because

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freedom is annihilated; and the law of progress being fixed, man becomes irresponsible ; this con- clusion is one against which no logical finesse can ultimately save us. Either the man (or the me) is himself absolute €md infinite, or he is a finite personality, having the source of his being out of himself. To suppose the former, altogether contra- dicts the consciousness of self, which is that of a finite power capable of being resisted. If he is the latter, then there is that in being, which does not pass through our own individual thoughts, and beyond the logical process there is a something absolutely unknown.

Finally. In the Hegelian system, Theism, with all its mighty influence on the human mind, is compromised ; for Deity is a process ever going on, but never accomplished ; nay, the divine conscious- ness is absolutely one with the advancing conscious- ness of mankind. This being the case, the hope of immortality likewise perishes, for death is but the return of the individual to the infinite, and man is annihilated, though the Deity will eternally live. Religion, if not destroyed by the Hegelian philo- sophy, is absorbed in it, and, (is religion^ for ever disappears.

Hegel died in the full blush of his reputation, and before he had published half the views, which he had matured, beyond the walls of the lecture- room. At his death, seven of his most distinguished pupils combined, according to his own vnsh, to

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publish his lectures, collated at once from his own manuscripts, and from the notes they had themselyes taken of them as orally delivered. The names of these seven are Marheineke, Schulze, Gans, von Henning, Hotho, Michelet, and Forster. Under their superintendence, an edition of his works has now been completed, which is regarded as the last and authoritative view of his whole system . Not only, however, have Hegel's pupils done justice to the memory of their master by the publication of his works and remains, but, forming themselves into a school, they have at once defended his doctrines against the numerous attacks which they have had to sustain, and applied them vigorously to the difier- ent branches of theology, law, history, and science. Amongst these, Henning and Schulze have further elaborated his views on natural philosophy ; Grans, on jurisprudence ; Michelet, on morals ; Weisse, Hotscher, and Hotho, on aesthetics; whilst in theology, a host of writers have sprung forth to wield the Hegelian weapons, and contend on every side for a religion of complete Rationalism.

It is in the department of theology chiefly, that the great battle of Hegelianism has been, and is still being fought. Within the last ten years, indeed, philosophy and theology in Germany seem to have become almost synonymous; the tran- scendent importance of the great fundamental principles of man's religious belief absorbing almost every other purely philosophical question. Inca^

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pable, however, of coming to a united under- standing upon these topics, the Hegelian school has separated into three divisions, each regarding the nature of religious truth in a different point of view. To explain the variations of these three parties, we must observe, that there are two inward sources from which religious ideas may be supposed to spring ; the one is the direct intuition of our religious nature, excited either by faith or experi- ence ; the other is pure logical reasoning ; and it is according to the predominance of one of these sources over the other, that Hegelianism takes its lower or its higher pantheistic signification.

The first, and least rationalistic branch of the Hegelian school is that, which is represented by Goschell, Schaller, Erdman, and Gabler. According to the view of these writers, our religious perception must be the criterion and judge of all our logical inferences. That it is possible to deduce rationally the whole sum and substance of theological truth, they freely admit, (otherwise they could not take their station among the rationalists,) but in every case, they affirm, our religious ccmsciousness must be consulted, to confirm and approve the inferences of our reason. Hence, on the ground of this consciousness, they assert the full personality of God, and likewise defend historically the literal views given by the Scriptures of the person of Christ, as the God-man — the Mediator between the human and the divine. These opinions, there i^

VOL. II. M

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every reason to believe,^ very much accorded with those of Hegel himself, who ever professed his belief in the ordinary faith of the Lutheran Church.

The second branch of the Hegelian school, at once the most numerous and influential, is repre- sented mainly by Rosenkranz, Marheineke, Vatke, and Michelet. By these writers, the religious perceptions and feelings are only appealed to as a secondary source, by which we simply illustrate the results of logical thinking. Accordingly, the per- sonality of God is taken by them in a far more general and pantheistic sense, as agreeing better with the nature of that dialectic process by which all theological, as well as other ideas, are developed. The doctrine, again, respecting Christy his union with human nature, and his redemption of the world, is taken from its plain historical meaning, and made to represent general ideas, such as the reunion of the fallen and separated will of man, with the infinite reason — the soul of the world ; while the immortality of the mind is made to refer, not so much to the duration of our per- sonality, as to tho general perpetuity of thought^ of which our minds are but individual movements.

Up to this point, then, in the Hegelian school, religious consciousness and the deductions of reason had gone hand in hand, only with a varying pre- ponderance of importance attached, either to the one side or the other ; but in the third and newest Hegelian party there is a complete breach formed

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between the two, . it being formally declared that we have to follow the dictates of our reason, to whatever extent they inay contradict the dictates of our religious perceptions and instincts. The repre- sentatives of this school are Strauss, Bruno Bauer, Coni-adi, and Fcuerbach. With them. Pantheism attains the point at which it ever tends, that, namely, in which it becomes fully synonymous with Atheism. In their system, no God is admitted to exist, out of and apart from the world; i ^., in the proper sense of the term, there is no God at all. With reference, moreover, to the New Testa- ment, it is well known that these writers have rationalized upon it to the furthest possible extent, regarding the whole of the historical portion as a designed mythology, in which are conveyed to us great and immortal trutlis.

Since Hegel's death, the conflict between the Hegelian school and their opponents, (especially with Schelling, and those who adhere to his doctrine,) has gone on with unmitigated vigour, and even rancour. Up to the present hour, work after work is teeming from the press, in which the respective claims of these two great absorbing systems are advocated ; whilst on theological grounds they are both alike attacked by the more orthodox, with all the weapons of learning and eloquence.

To enter into this endless discussion would be altogether impracticable in the present sketch, and

m2

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perhaps equally uninteresting to the majority of our readers. Krug, in his history of the modem philosophy, fills three large volumes in detailing the battle of Hegelianism up to the year 1837 ; and were the history to be continued, it i? probable that as many more volumes would be required to complete it. The general feeling amongst all, except those who are pledged almost to the very words of the master, is, that Hegelianism proper is on the wane. The idealistic movement found in it its culminating point; that point is now past, and a tendency is already manifesting itself in the general tone of philosophy to come back to a more realistic system, in which matter and form shall not be confoimded, or the divine personality denied, or the foundations of man's immortality undermined.

Mournful as are ihe final results of the sweeping rationalism we have detailed, the works to which it has given rise have tended to throw light, perhaps to an unprecedented degree, upon many of the most important points connected with the philo' sophy of matter and of mind, of human nature, and human destiny; neither shall we have to regret the whole rationalistic movement, if the atmosphere of truth is cleared by the storm that sweeps across it — if errors are carried away in its course, and the great foundations of man's belief left standing more visible and more certain than ever.

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If the reader will turn back to the commencement of this section, he will be able to refresh his memory respecting the twofold course which philosophy has taken in Germany since the time of Kant. In his system, as we then remarked, there is, on the one hand, an idealistic, on the other, a realistic element. There is a real existence given in sensation, but yet all we know of it is bare phenomenon. The course, in which the idealistic side of Kant's philosophy has flowed, we have now pointed out. We have seen the speculative method, as the modern idealism is sometimes termed, in its subjective movement, completely realised in Fichte: we have seen its objective movement set forth with great copiousness by Schelling : and we have seen it rising beyond both, up to its most abstract form, in Hegel. In Fichte, the Absolute is to every one his own indi vidual self, beyond the powers and perceptions of which self, he shews, we are utterly unable to reach : in Schelling, the Absolute is the living soul of the universe, of which everything, both in the natural and mental world, is an expansion : in Hegel, the last realistic point is resolved, the Absolute be- comes a process, ever unfolding and renewing itself in the world, and that, too, identical with the process of thought — with the method of philosophy. Here we have idealism reaching its culminating point, the matter of our knowledge becoming synonymous with the form ; thought one with existence.

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Having traced the ideal side, therefore, up to- this position, and witnessed its culmination, we leave it to futurity to mark its descent, and turn now to the realistic philosophy, which has originated from the Kantian principles. The immediate elaborator of this element was unquestionably Jacobi, whom, on chronological grounds, we ought now to have taken under review, but that hii mystical tendency removes his system onward to a future chapter. There is one name, however, which stands forth with great prominence among the philosophers of the present age, who, though an idealist, has, almost single-handed, stemmed the torrent of ultra-idealism, and acquired a reputation, second only to the heads of those great systems, which we have already considered. The name to which I refer is that of Herbart.

John Frederick Herbart was bom in the year 1776, at Oldenburg. In 1805, he became professor of philosophy in the University of Gottingen ; in 1808, he succeeded Kant at Koningsberg; and in 1833, returned to Gottingen, in order to supply the place of Schulz, where, in the summer of 1841, he died.

Herbart's philosophy was the reaction produced by the boldly-advancing idealism of Fichte and Schelling. Their extreme principles on the ideal side threw him back upon a completely realistic hypothesis, which, for many yeai-s, he sustained single-handed, with a patience and a logical ability

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that reflected the highest credit upon his talents and perseverance. In terming Herbart, however, a realist, we are not to suppose that he returned to the ordinary notion of matter, as being a hard, dull, impenetrable substance, that is perceived immedi- ately by the aid of sensation. This position, (that of common sense,) he never admitted; on the contrary, he asserted, that we can never get beyond our own consciousness, but that all we can know immediately are the phenomena which take place there. From this principle, however, he drew a dif- ferent conclusion from that of Fichte. Fichte asserted that the idea which actually passes through the mind is synonymous with its objective meaning: Herbart shewed that the idea (the actual inward process) is one thing, and that the reality which is implied in it is another. We have, for example, the idea of matter; and as, of course, we know nothing of it which is not contained in our idea, Fichte concluded that, to us, matter, and the idea of matter, are the same. On the other hand, Herbart shewed that the idea is simply the mental or subjective phenomenon, and that this pheno- menon implies an objective reality, of the truth of which it is at once the voucher and the test. It is true that our ordinary perceptions involve, in many instances, the most palpable contradictions; and the consequence is, that some thinkers have lost all confidence in man's intellectual powers, while others have denied the reality of the objects themselves ;

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but the proper course of philosophy is manfully to solve the difficulty, instead of falling into scepticism on the one hand, or pure idealism on the other.

The basis of all philosophy, then, according to Herbart, is the whole sum of the phenomena which pass through the human mind. Instead of laying down the existence of an absolute essence, from which all things are derived, he regarded the whole mass of our ordinary convictions as containing the matter, from which alone we must take our start in erecting a system of philosophy. That we have a mass of ideas, which arc naturally formed in the mind by its own constitution, and the circumstances in which it is placed, none can deny : these ideas, then, we must detain, examine, elaborate ; and, if truth can be arrived at by man at all, it must be arrived at by this process. Herbart's notion, therefore, of philosophy was very simple; it was an analysis and investigation of our ideas, so as to resolve any contradictions they may seem to imply, and to educe from them all the truth which they contain. This is the office of logic.

The process by which the necessity of philosophy comes to be felt is the following: — When we look round us upon the world in which we live, our knowledge commences by a perception of the various objects that present themselves on every hand to our view. What we immediately perceive, however, is not actual essence, but phenomena; and after a short time, we discover that many of

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those phenomena are unreal, that they do not pour- tray to us the actual truth of things as they are, and that if we followed them implicitly we should soon be landed in the midst of error and contra- diction. For example, what we are immediately conscious of in coming into contact with the exter- nal world are such appearances, as green, blue, bitter, sour, extension, resistance, &c. These phe- nomena, upon reflection, we discover not to be so many real independent existences, but properties inhering in certain substances, which we term things. Again, when we examine further into these substances^we discover that they are not real ultimate essences, but that they consist of certain elements, by the combination of w^hich they are produced. What we term the reality, therefore, is not the thing as a wholcy but the elements of which it is com- posed. Thus the further we analyze, the further does the idea of reality recede backwards ; but still it must always be somewhere, otherwise we should be perceiving a nonentity. The last result of the analysis is the conception of an absolutely simple element, which lies as the basis of all phenomena in the material world, and which we new as the essence that assumes the different properties whicli come before us in sensation. Experience, then, on the one hand gives us a vast number of phenomena, which appear to be so many actually existing realities ; reason, on the other hand, obliges us to reject these phenomena as realities, and assign a

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simple element for the basis of them, as that which is alone essentially true. Here, then, arises a con- tradiction between reason and experience ; and as we cannot fall back upon scepticism without being involved in a still greater difficulty, we look to philosophy so to elaborate and interpret our ideas, both those of experience and of reason, as to solve the contradictions, and to give us a clear insight into the truth. The philosophy which accomplishes this object is termed Metaphysics.

Now, in order to see what branches the science of metaphysics contains, we must consider how many fundamental ideas there are, to which our ordinary perceptions may be generalized. From the first moment we perceive objects around us, we begin to classify them, and express the classification by general terms ; this process goes on until we come to the three fundamental notions of thing ^ matter^ mind ; the first being the notion of a unity with several properties; the second being that of an object existing in space ; the third designating that, which has self-conscious- ness. All these three notions give rise to contra- dictions in the following manner.

First, if we contemplate a thing, as e. ^. a piece of gold, we observe that it is yellow, heavy, mal- leable, &c. And all these properties together go to make up the unity which we term gold. If one of these properties were taken away, it would be gold no longer ; and if they were all taken away,

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nothing whatever would remain to our perception ; 80 that here we come to the contradiction, that the unity is in fact a plurality. Secondly, if we con- template the notion of matter, we perceive that it is that, which fills a certain space, while at the same time it consists of atoms infinitely divisible; and which, therefore, in their ultimate form can fill no space at all. Here, then, is another seeming contradiction, viz., that atoms, ultimately immaterial or having no extension, should give rise to extended and solid substance. Thirdly, if we contemplate the mind, we find that it is at the same time in continual change or perpetual movement, and yet is ever the same unalterable personality. Now these three fundamental ideas, each giving rise to a separate contradiction, point us to three branches of metaphysics. The first is Ontology^ which in Herbart's sense means the science that treats of the nature and constitution of things in general, and more especially the explanation of the problem— " How can the one be a multiple, and the multiple a unity ? " The second branch is synechology (from <nw and €%«), which is the doctrine of matter^ or the phenomena of the real as existing in time, space, and motion. The third branch is termed eidolology (from €i&»Xoi/), which means the doctrine of ideas or images, and includes psychology, or the science of mental phenomena.

I. Of Ontology. The great problem here to be solved is, to shew how different predicates can exist

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in one substance ; and conversely, how one simple substance can exhibit a plurality of predicates, This problem is explained through the medium of a principle which is termed by Herbart the method of relations. The principle is briefly as follows : — Instead of supposing a thing to be composed of one absolutely simple essence, we must suppose it to be composed of mani/^ all independent of each other; and it is the different relations in which they stand to each other, that give the appearance of many predicates existing in one subject. Just as a binary star appears one to the naked eye, but is seen to consist of two by the medium of the telescope, so an object in nature, i. e., a thing^ appears to be one, but by means of philosophy is discovered to be manifold. The separate and independent essences of which all things are composed ever remain absolutely the same, as they are entirely self-sustained ; but when viewed in different lights, and from different points of view in relation to each other, thence they exhibit a multitude of different characteristics.

To shew how this principle accounts for the phe- nomena in question, Herbert explains very fully his doctrine of accidentul views (Zufallige Ansichten). In mathematics, we know that one and the same line may be often viewed either as sine, or tangent, or radius of a circle, without its ceasing to be a straight line, and the same straight line. In music, again, a tone may be a fourth, fifth, or sixth, &c., according to the key in which wc are playing ; so

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also here the same essences may remain the same, and yet appear different, according to the relation in which we view them. On this principle, then, Herbart seeks to explain the contradiction which lies at the basis of ontology; i. e.^ to shew that in different lights the same object may be both a unity and a plurality at the same time.

II. Synechology. The object of this branch of metaphysics is to give an intelligible explanation of the phenomena of matter ; to shew how things exist or hold together in space ; and thus to solve the contradiction of infinite divisibility. To ac- complish this purpose, Herbart first attacked and refuted Kant's theory of time and space, which, as we have seen, makes them simply the subjective laws or. forms, under which all sensation is carried on. Instead of this, he shewed that the notions of time, space, and motion express certain rela^ tions in which objects stand to each other. Now the idea of extension, as applied to matter, is the direct result of the idea of space ; whatever, there- fore, will explain the notion of space will also explain that of extension.

Herbart's doctrine of intelligible space, by which he sought to elucidate these points, is in brief somewhat of the following nature; — He begins with viewing each ultimate monad as a mathe- matical point, thus expressing the negation of all extension with reference to them in their primary form. One mathematical point, as also one monad.

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expresses simply locality, and no space whatever; if, however, we add another point to it, and then another to that, in the same direction, we get the idea of a line^ which is the first dimension. By the addition of other points we are led in the same way to fill up the intervals by the notion of dis- tance, and thus at length to complete the idea of space in all its three dimensions. Space, then, has nothing to do with the monads singly, and can in no sense of the word be attached to them ; but no sooner do we see them in relation to each other than the idea of continuity, of space, of extension, arises in the mind. Precisely the same thing is true both of time and motion ; so that, by this same method of relations in another view of it, the main problem of synechology is solved as well as that of Ontology.

Matter, then, according to Herbart, is in the ordi- nary sense immaterial, and without extension ; but it obtains all the primary properties, such as ex- tension, inertia, &c., from the relation which the monads hold to each other. Upon the same principle he explained the phenomena of attrac- tion and repulsion, and, then, of organization; by which means he finds a transition from the abstract sciences of matter into the philosophy of nature, and a method of explaining the constitution of all the varied portions of the vegetable and animal world.

III. Eidolology. — In this branch of metaphysics,

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the principles already deduced in the other two branches are now to be applied to elucidate the phe- nomena of the human mind, and to shew how those principles agree with our own inward experience. This is the part of his philosophy, which Herbart elaborated with the greatest assiduity, and in which he has most displayed, at once, the power and originality of his genius. The mind we feel to be one ; at the same time it is conscious of an ever-changing multiplicity of states and feelings, which we must shew are perfectly consistent with its unity. Here, then, the method of relations again comes to our assistance, separating the human consciousness into its proper elements, and shewing that, what could not be predicated of the individual parts can be predicated of the whole, in their various relations to each other. The mind, as subject, is ever the same ; but it sees itself^ as object, existing in numerous different states— those, for example, of feeling, thinking, willing, &c., and all these different states we call at the time one self.

To account for these different states, Herbart goes into a singular mechanical theory of con- sciousness ; the idea of which is, that all mental phenomena are simply different relations in which the mind exists to other things. When these relations are such that no particular point stands oat from the rest to claim our attention, but all, as it regards our consciousness, are in a state of

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equilibrium, we are in a condition of mental quiescence. When one particular point becomes prominent, then it represses the rest, just as a greater force does a smaller, and a corresponding state of consciousness is the result. When there is a struggle for some perception to become prominent over the others, the state of mind is termed desire. Feeling is the condition pro- duced by the obtrusion of a perception between two antagonist powers. In this way Herbart explains all the facts of consciousness by a species of mechanical calculation, making them all result simply from the mental relations, in which the mind stands to the different objects that work upon it. Having thus completed the province of metaphysics, properly so termed, he calls in, at length, the aid of faith^ in order to lay a basis for the philosophy of religion, with which his system concludes.

From this slight view of Herbart's method, it becomes at once evident, that it stands in direct opposition to the purely idealistic systems we have before considered. The reader, who has looked far into the history of philosophy, will not be at a loss to see the affinity there is between Herbart's theory of matter and that of Boscovich ; while the similarity of his doctrine of monads to that of Leib- nitz, compels the conclusion that many of his ideas must have been directly borrowed from that acute thinker. That Herbart has fully sustained his

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ground against the energetic idealism to which he stood opposed, would be too much to grant ; but, unquestionably, he brought to light much truth on the other side of the question, nor, perhaps, have his exertions been amongst the least of the means, which have succeeded in giving to the phUosophy of the present age an incipient, although a very decided realistic ten- dencv.

The names which have passed under our review, namely, those of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Herbart, comprehend, w-ith the exception of the mystical school, almost all that is really original in the German metaphysics. There are a few thinkers, however, of a recent date, who have attempted to mould the Hegelian philosophy into a more satisfactory form ; and a few others, who have set up some new philosophical principles, although they are not of sufficient reputation to need any very particular mention at present. The four writers, who are termed by Michelet, in his History of German Philosophy, Pseudo-Hegelians, are Fischer, Fichte, jun., Weisse, and Branis. These authors all acknowledge the excellency of Hegel's method, and allow him due honour for the discovery, but they all agree with Schelling, that H^el has only taken up the negative side of philosophy, that his system can only afford the

TOIi. II. N

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purely logical process of thought, and that he has not succeeded in shewing, that his categories express the real essence of existence as well as the form. In a word, they protest against the absolute idealism of the Hegelian system, and shew the path back again to a realistic or posi- tive philosophy, from whence the material is to be obtained, by which the bare forms of the categories of thought may be filled with a real and essential existence. With regard to the idea of God, moreover, they attempt to step beyond the Hegelian point of view ; to deduce his proper personality ; and to explain the process of creation by which the world exists as a distinct entity.

With regard to those philosophers, who have put forth new ideas, we might mention Suabe- dissen, Hillebrand, Troxler, and Krause, as the principal ; always, of course, excepting those who have taken a direction in favour of mysticism. The peculiarity of these writers is, that they have all made the attempt to combine in one the subjective and the objective branches of the modern idealism, to unite the principles of Schel- ling and Hegel. Suabedissen has, with peculiar care, elaborated the philosophy of religion, in which he has combated the idea, that God is the eternal process of the universe, and deduced from the bare notion of self-existence, the proper essence, spirituality, and personality of Deity. Hillebrand, also, has bent his chief attention upon

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this same theological point. His great principle is, that God, or the Absolute, has revealed himself to us immediately in our own consciousness: to prove, however, that we can trust our consciousness upon these points, must be the province of philo- sophy ; and it is in this sense only that philosophy can give any proof of the existence of a Deity. Troxler's philosophy is of the microcosmic order. To him the source, the centre, the object of all philosophy is man. All truth and all knowledge is simply the revelation of the original elements of our own reason, and the reality which is implied in them. The soul is a perfect mirror of the universe, and we have only to gaze into it with earnest attention, to discover all truth which is accessible to humanity. What we know of God, therefore, can be only that, which is originally revealed to us of him in our own minds.

Lastly, Krause terms his philosophy a system of transcendental idealism, in which, commencing with the subjective principle of observing what exists in our own consciousness, he raises himself step by step to the acknowledgment of one, eternal, self-existent being. To characterize these different shadings of the ideal philosophy of Germany more accurately would hardly consist with the brevity of our present plan, we shall, therefore, now take leave of this most remarkable page in the history of the world's philosophy, with a single obser- vation.

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The great peculiarity, which distinguishes the modem philosophy of Germany from that of every other country, is the use of the ontological instead of the psychological method. Descartes, Locke, and others, following up the Baconian principles, affirmed, that in taking a survey of the whole mass of human knowledge, we must commence with an observation of the powers and conceptions of the human mind, as the instrument by which alone everything is to be comprehended; t. e., we must make an induction of the facts of the case. The German philosophers, on the contrary, despising this method, begin by laying down the most primitive and abstract notion we have of existence, as though it were a reality, and proceed onwards, until step by step they have constructed the whole universe. Now, those who follow the psychological method, give us for the most part a valid philosophy, but too often a shallow one. Bent upon the observance and classification of the facts of mind, they too fre- quently remain altogether within this circle with- out touching upon any of the deeper problems which ontology brings before us. On the other hand, the abettors of the ontological method, be- ginning to philosophize before they have investi* gated the instrument, by which alone they can proceed, and consequently, having no definite boundaries fixed within which human knowledge must be confined, are obliged to assume their first position, (such as that of intellectual intuition, or

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the dialectic process,) and are thus imperceptibly led into a region of philosophy as extravagant as it is baseless. The true march of philosophy is the union of the two. Starting from the analysis of the liuman mind, trying, as Locke expresses it, the length of the line by which we are to sound the ocean of truth, we must go steadily on directed by the light of induction, until, at length, we find ourselves legitimately landed within the region of ontology. From thence we may start upon a new voyage of discovery, still guided by an analysis of the facts and implications of our reason, until we run out our line to the full length, and wait for the brighter apocalypse of another world.

" It is time," says M. De Remusat, speaking of the German philosophers, "it is time that w^e should venture to fix our eyes upon the object which they have set before them, and to enter into the region in which they have marched ; without, however, following their footsteps. We must imitate them, preserving at the same time those precious guarantees of method of erudition, of language, of experience, which are the foundation of our philosophical wisdom. Let us bring reasons as well as ihey for grasping fundamental questions, but let us feel bound either to resolve them in a contrary sense, or to conclude upon the impossi- bility of resolving them at all. In one word, let us reinstate that which is most difficult, but most elevated in all philosophy, namely — Metaphysics."

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Sect. III. — The English School of the Nineteenth

Century.

In sketching the history of idealism generally, from the revival of philosophy in modem times, I termed that of our own country polemical idealism^ as originating rather from opposition to sensationalism than from the spontaneous ten- dencies of the national mind. In Germany the ideal tendency has ever seemed to spring from the very soil, and to have flourished there without any of the excitement derived from opposition; in England, on the other hand, it has lived upon warfare ; and whenever the bold advances of sen- sationalism have ceased, it has always been inclined to cease with them. The deistical writers, who at the close of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries sustained their sceptical principles by expanding the germs of senssr tionalism, which lay hid in the philosophy of Locke, gradually died away; and with them dis- appeared, one after the other, the traces of our idealistic philosophy. By the close of the eighteenth century the school of English idealism may be said to have become altogether extinct, and every attempt at metaphysical speculation seemed to merge in the supreme authority of Locke, or the efforts of his successors.*

• A few idealistic works, such as Druminond's "Acade-

mical Questions,** appeared about the beginning of this century, but not of sufficient weight to need any particular mention.

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At the opening of the nineteenth century, therefore, we may consider that, as far as idealism is concerned, the ground was perfectly clear. Sen- sationalism, indeed, was again advancing with rapid strides, urged on by the impulse acquired from the brilliant literature of France, and fostered by the writings of Priestley, Belsham, and the school of which they stood at the head; but of the ideal tendency hardly the slightest appearance was left in England to remind us, that it was still the country of Cudworth, Clarke, and Berkeley. Neither, indeed, has the present century, in its progress, been very forward to supply the meta- physical deficiency which existed at its birth. That the reaction has now set in we fiiUy believe ; but it has come tardily and unwillingly, and it may yet^ to all appearance, be some years before an energetic anti-sensational school shall grace the literature of our native land.

With regard to the sources^ from which the seeds of a more rationalistic system of philosophizing have been imported, there are two which almost immediately suggest themselves to our minds, namely, Scotland and Germany. Great as is the difference between the philosophy of these two countries, yet there are, unquestionably, some important points of resemblance, which place them tc^ther as the antagonists of empiricism ; and we can hardly be mistaken in saying, that all the reaction which has been experienced in

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England against sensational principles has borne the complexion of one or other of these two philosophical schools. Scotland, true to its prin- ciple of " common sense," has insisted on the validity of those ideas, which appear to be the natural product of the human reason, and resisted every attempt to resolve them into sensational elements; and Germany, boldly grappling with the deepest questions of ontology, has drawn a broad distinction between the phenomenal world, as viewed by the senses, and the real world as comprehended by the intellect. In both cases there is a direct appeal made to the authority of reason, and an equal deteimination not to remain shut up within the boundaries of sense.

England, with the clear-headed practical wisdom for which it stands pre-eminent, has been gazing, from time to time, upon the results of both these schools, and has been considering what there is in each that is likely to prove unsound, and what that can be safely adopted. It has entered with earnestness into the philosophy of Reid, and ap- propriated its results without copying its too often tedious dialectical dulness; while, on the other hand, it has been lately approaching the borders of the German spiritualism, and shewing a dispo- sition to sift the wheat out of the large mass of chaff which that voluminous school presents. From these circumstances, then, we are ftirnished with a principle of classification under which to describe

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the manifestations of idealism, which have appeared in England during the present century. We shall divide them into two classes : —First, the English metaphysical school, which is predominantly under Scottish influence; and secondly, that which is predominantly under German influence; leaving at the same time in each some scope for the working of the peculiar characteristics of the national mind.

(A,) Scoto-English Metaphysicians.

That so profound a writer as Dr. Reid, followed up by the elegant and learned additions of Dugald Stewart, should raise a vigorous school of phi- losophy in Scotland without producing some effect upon English philosophical thinkers, could hardly have been possible. The labours of these northern metaphysicians, more especially in disabusing the world of the errors couched under the phraseology of the ideal system, became, during the earlier part of this century, more and more appreciated through- out the whole of our country, until gradually their works came to be widely regarded in the south as the best text-books of intellectual science. The tone and character of philosophical writing in England by degrees were altered ; and if it did not entirely follow the Scottish models, yet, at •least, it exhibited the great influence, which those models had exercised upon the ordinary habits of metaphysical thinking. It is the history and

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nature of this influence, accordingly, which we now purpose to depict. To do this we shall not make out any chronological list of authors, who have manifested this leaning to the northern school ; but we shall briefly present the names of the most prominent metaphysical writers, who have been distinguished respectively by a more near or remote degree of approximation to the Scottish system, as illustrative of the influence of that system upon the country at large.

1. And first, we notice those who have followed Scottish authority almost without deviation. Not a few of our countrymen, (who have either been educated at the Scottish universities, or have con- fined their philosophical reading to the volumes of Reid, Stewart, and Brown,) have so entirely imbibed the philosophical spirit of the north, as never to depart from it except here and there on some very few, and those unimportant, points. Those who have read Dr. Payne's " Elements of Mental and Moral Philosophy," will see in it an excellent example of the style of metaphysical writing we are describing. With good abilities for analysis, and a mind well versed in habits of abstract thinking, the Doctor has furnished us with an abridgment of Brown's philosophy, which, while it wants the poetry of the original, at least equals it in the clear and succinct statement of the philo- sophical doctrines which are advanced. In the moral department, moreover, the errors and im-

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perfections of Brown are well pourtrayed, and an attempt is made, if not entirely successful, yet at least forcible and well sustained, to lay afresh the foundations of the emotional theory of morals. In this attempt he has been seconded by Spalding, in his " Philosophy of Christian Morals," another author (now unhappily no more), who, while he adopted for the most part the Scottish system of philosophizing, yet knew well how to take an original view both of its principles and its results. To dwell upon this peculiar feature of our English philosophy, however, is unnecessary, since we may regard it almost as a pure reflection of the Scottish school : let it suffice here to notice the simple fact, that such a reflection has existed in this country and has given rise to some few excellent digests both of moral and psychological science.

2. We may point out the existence of certain other metaphysical writers, who have used the productions of the Scottish school, not so much in the light of authorities^ as of guides and incentives to their own independent thinking and research.

At the head of these we should place Isaac Tatjlob, a name now, indeed, better known in the controyersies of the theological, than those of the philosophical world. The metaphysical works of this profound and voluminous author began with a small book, entitled, Elements of Thought," which hsB gone through several editions, and remains, to

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the present day, we believe, the only brief and elementary introduction to mental philosophy (which is worthy the name) in our own language. The works, however, upon which Mr. Taylor's philo- sophical reputation now mainly rests, are the four volumes, which appeared successively under the titles of the " Natural History of Enthusiasm,'* " Fanaticism," " Spiritual Despotism," and " The Physical Theory of another Life." In these trea^ tises, he has opened what may be considered, in our own land, a new field of philosophical observa- tion. Impatient oT confining himself to the study of mind in its isolated state ; not content, like the closer followers of the Scottish system, simply with looking within, and marking the processes of the individtial self, he has cast his eye upon the broad surface of humanity, and attempted to gather results from the action of mind, as seen working on the vast theatre of the world. Mr. Taylor's genius is of the telescopic rather than the microscopic cast. In the sweep of his thought he may overlook some of the smaller points which lie in the road, but assuredly the range of his vision is far beyond men of the ordinary stamp, and his power of generalizing often of the most striking character* Every volume he has published is, in its tone and spirit, a stern rebuke to the pretensions of that shallow sensationalism, which is apt to carry away the unreflecting mind by its vaunted simplicity,

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and bears an uneqnivocal witness to the majesty of the human reason, even in its wanderings and its follies.

With all this independence of thought, however, with his capacity of grasping great principles, and drawing inferences from the widest survey of facts, there is still, we think, impressed upon many pages, the bias derived from Scottish philosophy. With a mind so vigorously constituted, a spirit not to be daunted by difficulties, a reason that does not shrink from the most recondite and startling conclusions, when they come in its way, and a disposition to identify truth, though it lie at present in the twilight of man's vision, we see everything in this author that would almost necessitate a sympathy with the more able and profound of the continental metaphysicians, were his sympathies transferred for a time from Britain to Germany. An elaboration of the most valuable points of German meta^ physics, adapted to the capacity of English minds, would, in such hands, prove of incalculable sei-vice, in satisfying the now growing demand for a sounder system of metaphysical science. For the realiza- tion of this service, however, we have no ground of expectation, as Mr. Taylor has become too much entangled in party strife to be able to devote himself to those deeper problems, from neglect of which such strife really proceeds. It is not, assuredly, one of the least complaints we have to make against the din of theological controversy.

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that it should entice minds such as these from the calm pursuit of a lofty and spiritual philosophy into its vortex, and cause the more local and temporary questions of the day to ahsorh those intellects, which might he establishing the greater principles that lie at the foundation of human knowledge, and by the establishment of which, alone, we can hope for repose from the noise and confusion of lesser contention. As it is, however, the name of Isaac Taylor, in connexion with the philosophy of human nature, as developed in his Histories of Enthusiasm, Fanaticism, and Spiritual Despotism, in connexion with his physical theories on the spiritual state, and also in connexion with his more recent advocacy of the sanctity and invio- lability of moral obligation, will ever hold a decided place in the history of English metaphysics during the nineteenth century.

3. There is yet another class of thinkers, some- times expressing their opinions through the pages of the Magazine or Review, and, in a few instances, by original works, who, while they oppose the Scottish philosophy cis a whole^ yet avowedly borrow from it many of their views and principles. Such a writer is Mr. Smart, the author of a volume containing three separate treatises, and entitled, "Beginnings of a new School of Metaphysics." Mr. Smart is a professor of elocution of long and established reputation, and has been allured fit>m his proper department — that of rhetoric — into the

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kindred topics of logic and metaphysics.- His first work upon these subjects was entitled, " Sematology ; or, the Doctrine of Signs," in which he lays down the respective nature and limits of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. The view which is taken of the two latter branches gives us a very clear line of demar- cation between them ; logic being regarded as " The right use of words, with a view to the investigation of truth," and rhetoric as " The right use of words, with a view to inform, convince, or persuade."

According to these definitions, Jogic is the art of gaining knowledge through the medium of words, while rhetoric has the sole office of placing them in such positions, whether they form syllogisms or anything else, as to inform or convince others. This division has certainly the merit of some degree of originality, and the method in which the matter is argued is highly ingenious ; although we cannot make up our mind as to the propriety of altering so widely the ancient landmarks between the two branches in question. As a metaphysician, Mr. Smart proposes to re-model and revive the philosophy of Locke, and combine with it the more recent results of the Scotch metaphysicians. Through the whole of his treatises, great stress is laidy as might be expected, upon words, as the signs and media of our thoughts. He wishes, in hctj to do away with the philosophy of mind, as such, and to reduce all science to these three

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branches: — 1. The study of things physical, or those which exist distinct from our thoughts; 2. The study of things metaphysical, or those which do not exist apart from our thoughts, (as a circle — man — good — the edge of the table — the power of God ;) and, 3, Logic, which is to shew the method of procedure to be followed in both. Many good thoughts are scattered up and down these pages, although, as a whole, we cannot divest ourselves of the feeling, that they lead to an inde* finite and unsatisfactory result. They afford us, however, at present, a very obvious example of the working of the Scottish philosophy upon the modem Lockian school of England, and the influence it has had, both in moulding its phraseology, and in reversing its sensational tendency,

4. We mention, lastly, under this head, the present Cambridge school of metaphysics, which is the transition point between the English philosophy that partakes of the Scottish, and that which par- takes of the German character.

For above two centuries past, the University of Cambridge has given indications of a sympathy with metaphysical speculation, which, though some- times almost disappearing, has ever and anon made its re-appearance, as circumstances have called it forth. During the seventeenth century, the Platonic divines, to whom we have before referred, excited a spirit of philosophical inquiry, which must be reckoned among the most remarkable literary mani-

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festations of the age. Locke, though himself one of the ornaments of Oxford, yet, after his death, was far more zealously studied and admired at Cambridge than in his own University, and it was there first that a school of metaphysics was formed which owned him expressly as its authority and its guide. Dr. Law, one of the greatest advocates of the Lockian sensationalism^ was a resident at Cambridge, and Dr. Hartley, the originator of the modem school of association, was a student at the same university.

The earlier philosophical school of Cambridge was idealistic ; the latter was decidedly sensational. Perhaps the brilliant discoveries of Newton in physical science may have tended to absorb all purely metaphysical investigation, or where it did not absorb-, to divert it into a more objective channel. But, notwithstanding the ardour with which physical science long has been, and still is, studied at Cambridge, we are mistaken if the dawn of a new philosophical spirit is not even now mani- festing itself within the walls of that university. Many are the intimations which are given there from time to time of a sympathy with the German idealism; many the attempts to revert from the wonders of nature to the deeper wonders of the spirit of man; many the intimations that, amidst all the blessings conveyed by the extension of physical science, yet " there are fields of grander diseoyery; that though Nature's works be great,

VOL. II.

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we are greater than all these; that what we can least do without is not our highest need ; that man cannot live by bread alone." *

The new intellectual spirit, now rising in the university of Cambridge, may be perhaps most clearly seen in the reform of its moral philosophy. Paley, who stood almost alone for a long space of years as the moral philosopher of Cambridge, was clearly of the empirical school, and accordingly advocated, with some peculiarities of his own, tha sensational theory of ethics, that which grounds all virtue upon utility. The reaction against this school has now most decidedly set in. Very plain intima- tions of it appeared as far back as the year 1834, when Professor Sedgwick published his admirable Discourse on the Studies of the University, and attacked the philosophy of Locke and of Paley, both in their principles and in their effects. " The Essay on the Human XJnderstttnding," he remarks, " produced a chilling effect on the philosophical writings of the last century, and many a cold and beggarly system of psychology was sent into the world by authors of the school of Locke, pretend- ing, at least, to start from his principles, and to build on his foundation. It is to the entire domi- nation his Essay had once established in our university, that we may perhaps attribute all that is faulty in the moral philosophy of Paley." Again, the same author, speaking more particularly

y*de Professor Lushington's Inaugural Lecture at Glasgow.

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of the philosophy of Paley, sums up his many lucid remarks in the following striking and emphatic words : — " Lastly, we may, I think, assert, both on reason and experience, that wherever the utilitarian system is generally accepted, made the subject of a priori reasoning, and carried, through the influ- ence of popular writings, into practical effect, it will be found to result in effects most pestilent to the honour and happiness of man."

These are by no means the only indirect evidences, which might be adduced, of a nascent idealistic school in the university of Cambridge. It seems almost certain, that the reaction against the exces- sive pursuit of physical science, the growing sym- pathy with the most lofty-minded of the German philosophical writers, the profound and at the same time elegant reflections upon spiritual truth, which for some time past has characterized many of the sons of that university, must give rise to a spiritual philosophy which, like that of the seventeenth century, tnay play an important part in the future literature of our country.

It is, however, in the writings of Professor Whewell that we are to look for the more marked characteristics of the modem Cambridge meta- physics. The influence of the Scottish and German philosophy are there almost equally visible, but both receive a colouring from a mind deeply im- bued with physical science, and accustomed to walk amongst the highest regions of mathematical

o2

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investigation. The great work in which Dr. Whewell has embodied his metaphysical opinions is that entitled, " The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences," the object of which is to shew the foun- dation principles of all scientific research. This work is divided into two parts, the former of which treats of ideaSj and the latter of knowledge. In pursuing the investigation of our ideas, Whewell has closely followed some of the principal results of the Kantian philosophy. In imitation of Kant, for example, he shews, that in all our notions we have to distinguish the matter and the /orm^ the matter coming through the senses, the form being the mould in which this matter is shaped by the mind itself. Time and space, which, with Kant, are the two categories of sensation, are viewed by him virtually in the same light, namely, as the two necessary conceptions^ under which all our sense- perceptions appear. A sensation itself he regards as tlie bare impression of an external object upon the mind, the form under which that sensation is viewed he terms an idea. Those ideas which are the ground-forms of our knowledge, such as time, space, cause, are called fundamental; secondary ideas arising from them, such as length and breadth, number and succession, are termed ideal conceptions. In all this strain of thinking the philosophical student will not fail to see not merely a tendency to, but a decided appropriation of, some of the most valuable parts of the Kantian metaphysics

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Whilst, however, we discern, on the one hand, the influence of Germany, there are several points, on the other, in which the results of the Scottish metaphysics are very manifest. One of the prin- cipal of these is the adoption of the muscular-tactual sense, as first explained by Brown ; a theory which Dr. Whewell, in fact, not only adopts, but carries out still further, so as to account for many of the phenomena of vision, as well as those of resistance. In the general phraseology of the work, indeed, as well as in some of the theories it upholds, we plainly see that the writings of Reid, Stewart, and Brown have had, perhaps imperceptibly, no incon- siderable influence upon the mind of the author.

Without entering more minutely, however, into the peculiar features of the elaborate treatise before us, we must endeavour to shew in what manner it may be regarded as presenting a very important step in the transition, which philosophy is now undergoing, from the sensationalist to the idealistic tendency. The principal points where this tran- sition process is exhibited in the work before us are the following.

1. In the broad distinction laid down between sensations and ideas ; a distinction, in which (unlike that of Locke, Mill, and many others) the latter are shewn to have no direct dependence upon the former, but an a priori existence of their own.

2. In the opposition that is pointed out between necessary and contingent truth, the one being

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grounded in experience, the other in the minds own primitive constitution.

3. In the doctrine propounded concerning time and space as being the forms of all our perceptions, and existing consequently in the mind previous to our first sensations.

4. In the explanation that is offered of the notion of causation, as the fundamental idea, on which the mechanical sciences are founded, and not an effect of habit or association.

6. In the view which is taken of human know- ledge generally, as resulting from the appropriate combination within the mind of facts and ideas.

Dr. Whewell's work, beside its own intrinsic ex- cellence, has likewise the merit of being the first in our own country in which the Jogic'of induction has been fuUy and fairly discussed. Since its ap- pearance, indeed, it has met with a formidable rival in Mr. Mill's ** System of Logic," but by no means yields to it, as it appears to us, either in the accu- racy of views, depth of analysis, or copiousness of examples. Presumptuous as it may seem, to judge between two works of such unquestionable merit, nay, which may be both viewed as the highest efforts of the human mind upon these subjects, we cannot forbear expressing our belief, that Mr. Mill, biassed by the psychology he has inherited almost by birth, has neglected some of the most important subjective elements in the formation of our simple and original conceptions, which elements the Cam-

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bridge philosopher has seized with great clearness, and illustrated with great power.

In brie^ Dr. Whewell, though an ardent lover of mathematical and physical science, has never allowed the earnest pursuit of objective knowledge to obscure the necessity of investigating the sub- jective grounds, on which these pursuits ultimately repose. He has boldly grappled with the meta- physical conceptions, which lie at the basis of science, overturned the sensationalism which too often has attached itself to the physical inquirer, shewn with admirable clearness the dependence of all objective knowledge upon subjective ideas, and raised, we trust, an effective barrier against the recurrence of those abuses, to which the Baconian principles have so often been exposed. Eespecting Dr. Whewell as a moralist we would rather observe an unassenting silence. As his work on morals does not profess to contain a full discussion of the principles of ethical philosophy, we pass it by with the hope, that when he undertakes to develop them, the subject will have assumed a more definite form, than it appears at present to have assumed in his mind. We must pass on, however, to the con- sideration of that more decisive influence, which the German philosophy is at present exerting on our country.

{B.) Gbbhano-English Metaphysicians. The voluminous and profound school of German

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pliilosophy, though somewhat repolsiTe in its first iiflpect, could not in the nature of things remain sliut up within the limits of the Gennan States. Philosophical tliinking, in this as in most other cti8(^s, has pursued its course irrespectiYe of all national barriers, and has already found its way into England, France, and America. Amongst our own countrymen. Sir James Mackintosh, whilst in India, obtained some little insight into this philo- sophy, idtliough he never gave the results of Im investigations on it (which we imagine were not very profound) to the world. The first of our Isnglish thinkers, as far as we know, who entered with real enthusiasm into the subject, and clothed the tliouglits of German philosophical writers in the I'^iUglish dress, was Coleridge. Much of the revival, which spiritualism has more recently expe* rienced amongst us, is probably due to the zeal and eloquence, with which that extraordinary man advo- cated his doctrines of modem Flatonism, doctrines to which he was manifestly led by his ardent study of German philosophy.

In France the modern German idealism has found a still more energetic and efficient champion in M. Cousin, the efifects of whose writings upon philosophy generally are probably but now in their infancy. America, too, has recently been arousing herself from the dream of practical utilitarianism, and giving birth to a school of philosophy (grounded chiefly upon the writing of Cousin) which bids fcir

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to prove as productive, though not certainly as profound, as the European sources, from which it springs. Amongst these, George Ripley and Dr. Henry have done good service by presenting their country with many excellent translations from the French eclectic writers, which have found their way into this kingdom. H. P. Tappan of New York has re-argued the question of the freedom of the will, in opposition to the rigid conclusions of Jonathan Edwards, and given a very lucid com- pendium of logic on the principles of the new philosophy. The names of Emerson, Brownson, and Parker are well known through various of their productions, which have been reprinted in England, as belonging to the school of American Transcendentalism; while a monthly publication, termed " The Dial, the organ of this party, has, until lately, brought over to us an exhibition of the progress which idealistic principles are making upon the Western Continent. With such seeds of idealism scattered amongst us from so many dif- ferent quarters, all originating primarily from the philosophy of Germany, it were unreasonable not to look for some decided effect upon our own national habits of thinking.

In adverting to the philosophy of England, which bears the German stamp upon it, almost every one will immediately recall the name of Thomas Garlyle, a name which stands first and foremost among the ide.9listic writers of our age. In bringing the

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works of Carlyle for a moment before our attentioii, we shall not give any opinion respecting his theo- logical sentiments, inasmuch as these lie quite beyond our beat, and have to be judged of before another tribunal, beside that of d priori reasoning. Neither do we wish to track his philosophical views to the German originals, from which it is unques- tionable that many of them have sprung. In the case of a writer so powerful, so original, and so fuU of native fire and genius, it is a thankless task at best to assign a foreign paternity to the bummg thoughts, that we find scattered with no sparing hand almost through every page. That Mr. Carlyle has learned much truth, and added much inspira- tion to the force of his genius, from the literature and philosophy of Germany, he would himself be among the first to own; but his sentiments have not been so much borrowed from these sources, as inspired from them : he has used these philosophers as his famiUar companions, rather than as his masters; and instead of sitting at their feet, we should rather say ^' that his soul has burned within him, as he has walked with them by the way."

It is in vain that we open the volumes, which have come from the pen of this fertile writer, in order to find there a system of philosophy ; and yet his philosophical opinions may be traced there with a clearness and a certainty which leave no room either for misunderstanding or doubt. The great and prominent feature of all his writings is a

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marked contempt for the shallow objective sensa- tionalism of the age we live in; and an earnest struggle for the re-establishment of an exalted and a spiritual philosophy. He has seen clearly and felt deeply, that the objective element in our know- ledge is threatening to absorb everything else ; that our literature, our science, our laws, morals, pohtics, and religion, are all tainted with this tendency; and he considers it to be his mission to lift up the voice like a trumpet, in order to warn the age of its folly and its danger. The idea of self^ the mind, the real man, he considers, has degenerated almost into that of a living machine, hardly sepa^ rated by a boundary line from nature in her visible organization ; the idea of the eternal, the infinite, the divine, has become too often the artificial God of a sect or party ; it is his aim, therefore, to hold up these two fundamental thoughts of humanity again to our view, to shew their great reality, and to infuse by this means into the philosophy and feeling of the age precisely the two elements, which it has either marred or lost. Whatever be the subject on which he writes (and he writes more or less upon nearly all), this aim is never lost sight of, nay, appears to be the great ruling thought around which the others cluster as their central point. If he comes upon morals, with what infinite scorn is it that he scouts and tramples upon '* the Gospel according to Jeremy Bentham ;'* with what inten- sity does he point out as existing in God the reality

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of an eternal justice, and in man the reality of an eternal obligation, that must break down every passion and every selfish interest until it be accomplished. If he enters the wide field of law and politics, you see him impatiently pushing aside all the clever arithmetic of law-makers and statesmen, and grasp- ing at once the broad principle that man is divine, that he exists here under great spiritual laws, and that it is in vain to reckon up profit and loss, vain to number stiips and soldiers, vain to balance parties and interests, while the great duties between man and man, and between man and God, are trodden as an unholy thing in the dust.

In his joyous rambles through the regions of elegant literature and poesy, there are the same tendencies apparent, the same purposes kept in view. " The pretty story-telling Walter Scott," that required no thought to read him, that spoke not to the inner soul of man, that described only the visible, and had no eye for the invisible world, finds but little favour in the stem hands of oar spiritualist. The snarling, impious Byron, the poet of misanthropy, and earthly passion, is hardly pitied and heartily despised. On the contrary, Bums, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and more than all Goethe, sing music to his inmost spirit, and seem to revive the long-silent strains of Shake- speare, of Dante, and of Homer.

Much would we say of Carlyle's earnest appeals on the religion of the age, were we not afraid to

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venture into so fruitful and, we might almost say, so dangerous a subject; but here, too, we find him uttering his lamentations or his anathemas against the hollow-hearted formalism of Christen- dom, against the sham worship which has taken the place of the undaunted faith and burning love of the prophets and apostles of God. Without distinction of name, of rank, or of popular favour, he tears the mask from the features of hypocrisy, and places again and again, in no very flatter- ing contrast, the pompous, easy, formal, soulless worship that is seen in many a Christian temple, with the Hindoo, the Mohammedan, or even the untutored Indian, who sees God in everything he sees, and hears him in everything he hears. " Will you ever bip calling heathenism a lie, worthy of damnation, which leads its devotee to consecrate all upon its altars, and with a wonder, which transcends all your logic, bows before some idol of nature ; while those who with sleepy heads and lifeless spirits meet in a framed house, and go over a different set of forms, are the only elect of God % Clear thy mind of cant! Does not God look at the heart ?" With a truly Platonic contempt for the material, and as ardent a love for the intel- lectual, the ideal, the Divine, our author wanders through all the regions of literature, of morals, of religion, of the habits, customs, laws, and institu- tions of our day, chastbing all that is shallow and

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insincere, and pleading for everything that is earnest and true in human life.

With such tendencies of mind, it is not difficult to see of what nature must be his philosophy. The Scottish metaphysics he respects as being in its day a powerful protest against sensationalism ; but it is in the German idealism that he finds his true element. There he meets with men who strive to look through the world of phenomena into that of absolute reality, there, at length, he finds the world of matter assigned to its true place of inferior dignity, and the absolute, the real, the essential, the eternal raised to its lofty position in the contemplation of the intellect, and the affections of the heart.

Had Carlyle, like his German coi^mporaries, fashioned his philosophy into a system, and sent it into the world all bristling with repulsive words and formulas, he might have been read by a fisw, and lived and died to the mass unknown. Instead of this, however, he has rushed into every subject of popular interest, cast around his thoughts the drapery of bold poetic imagery, and thus succeeded in carrying his philosophy into a thousand avenues, which it had otherwise never reached. That he will make many feeble imitators is a matter of certain prediction, nay, already of actual expe- rience; that he will prove a stumbling-block to many sceptical minds, who have an eye for his

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boldness but no heart for his spiritualism, is equally certain ; but, assuredly, we have no writer, who is so adapted to stem the current of empiricism, and to hurl defiance at the noisy and shallow preten- sions of the materialistic or sensational systems of the age ; none who holds so important a place in the transition, which is now effecting, from the de- generated philosophy of Locke, to a new and, we trust, a rational idealism. For our own part we are thankAil that Carlyle has lived, thought, and written ; he may scandalize the few, as every bold thinker will, but the world in the end will be the better; it will be a truer and an honester world for his life and his labours. That he should have involved himself in certain aberrations of philo- sophy and good sense is not to be wondered at. No man ever wrote so earnestly on one side of a question without doing so. Disgusted with formalism, he has made sincerity the whole test of moral greatness. He tends to make Paul the persecutor as elevated a hero as Paul the apostle. He tends to sink all consideration of the object towards which our zeal is directed in the glory of the zeal itself. Such a principle, if there be any distinction between truth and untruth in the world, we must learn to repudiate ; but let us retain the deep impression of the sentiment he so earnestly labours to inculcate, — that all our outward life is destitute of moral excellence, while the soul does

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not act ^ with fervour and sincerity and godly fear within.

The influence of Carlyle's writings, and of the German philosophy generally, are already be- coming apparent in several different quarters. In America they have operated powerfully, espe* cially upon the numerous body of Unitarian Christians who exist there, turning that system of Christianity, which sprung originally from a sensational philosophy, into a far more profound and a far more spiritualized system of religious rationalism. The same effect is visible, though not to the same extent, in our own country. The influence of the German philosophy is visible among the more deep-thinking of the Unitarians; it is visible in a new and increasing party hi the Estabhshed Church, that usually denominated Young England ; it is visible to a certain degree, even among those reputed to be most rigidly attached to their symbols. There can be little doubt, indeed, but that theology, without, we trust, giving up any of its distinctive features, is about to be the medium for popularizing and spreading some of the main principles of an idealistic philo- sophy.

In the meantime there are some other minor manifestations of sympathy with the present eclectic philosophy of France, springing too, in some cases, from sources where it was least to be expected. Any

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one may satisfy himself jof this by directing his attention to a series of works published by that promoter of elegant typography, William Pickering, termed " Small books on great subjects." In one of these little treatises, entitled " Philosophical Theories and Philosophical Experience," there is a new psychological classification of our mental phenomena, into — I. Material and Animal Func- tions, those subjected to bodily change; and II. Spiritual and Unchanging Functions. In another of them, written by John Barlow, M.A., of the Royal Society, a professed physiologist, there is a deduction of man's spirituality and immortality from the power of the wUl : in fact, both these treatises are strongly characterized by their giving prominence to the notion and the power of self^ and assigning it its due place in their metaphysical philosophy. We might mention also, a treatise of Isaac Preston Cory, Esq., on Metaphysical Enquiry, and another on Logic and the Laws of Thought, by Rev. Wm. Thomson, each of which gives a pleasing instance of the growing tendency, which now exists, to the culti- vation of the abstract and metaphysical sciences. What the hopes of the next generation may be we do not now inquire; but we shall, perhaps, find an opportunity of throwing out a few specu- lations on this subject when we come to speak of the tendencies of the speculative philosophy of the nineteenth century.

VOL. II. P

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The modem idealism of France might, perhaps, naturally be looked for under this chapter; but, as it has assumed the eclectic form, we reserve it for a separate consideration.

CHAPTER VI.

CHARACTERISTICS OF MODERN SCEPTICISM.

Sect. I. — Modem Scepticism generally —

In England,

'he interest that attends the history of philosophy 1 any age, will always attach itself mainly to the wo opposed schools of sensationalism and idealism, ^rom them originate most of the deeper problems, ipon which the mind of man delights to dwell, ind to their efforts we naturally look, to have those problems clearly solved. It is, however, one of the nost universal failings of humanity, to run into extremes in different directions. Hardly is the lecessity realized of investigating closely the facts )f sensation, than the philosopher, absorbed in this )bject, and overwhelmed, perhaps, with the variety, nagnitude, and number of the phenomena pre- lented, makes sensation the basis of every mental (tate, and, in the same proportion, disparages the ralne of all the other fSEunilties.

But the opposite extreme is equally natural. Season, as all admit, is the noblest part of man, for

p 2

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it regulates and guides all the rest. Once, then, let the metaphysician become wrapped in the con- templation of its grandeur, and he will, in all probability, begin forthwith to detract from the value of the senses, to look with contempt upon empirical knowledge, and thus to lose sight of one, at least, of the most fertile sources of our ideas.

The abuses both of sensationalism and idealism have been, we trust, already sufficiently pourtrayed. In the former case, we have seen them leading to egotism in morals, atheism in religion, and mate- rialism in philosophy ; in the latter case, they have given rise successively to religious rationalism, to fatalism, and, ultimately, to complete pantheism. Now the logical deduction of false results in any philosophical system, always betrays a falsity in one or more of the fundamental data, from which they are evolved. The error, it is true, may be invisible; yet, if such conclusions actually clash with the indisputable facts of daily experience, we may be sure that it is lurking somewhere in the foundations. The mind, indeed, which is totally given up to system, will admit many a startling conclusion, nay, perhaps, many a contradictory one, without any difficulty. Full of confidence in the princiides it has adopted, it is borne along with the stream of argument to all their results ; and should insoluble difficulties arise, it leaves them, as points which transcend the powers of the human mind to unravel or to comprehend. There is a limit, how-

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ever, at which the force of system stops, and beyond which it cannot impose upon human cre- dulity ; and when this limit is arrived at, not only does the mind refuse to advance any further, but, system being once found in error, a flood of suspi- cion pours itself even over those conclusions, which had been heretofore most firmly believed. Such is the origin of scepticism, which, in its first aspect, is really nothing more than the common sense of mankind rising in rebellion against the authority of the current philosophy of the age.

The proper office of scepticism is, to act as a check or drag upon the too rapid progress of all dogmatical systems. As such, it has been eminently beneficial in every age ; nay, has formed an indis- pensable movement in the advancement of specu- lative science. It dispossesses the mind of man of its excessive love of system, pulls down its bUnd attachment to authority, and moves out of the path some of the greatest obstacles, which oppose the investigation of truth. Never, perhaps, was there a philosophical system more widely diffused, more deeply inwrought into the beUef of mankind, and more sternly contended for, than that of Aristotle. The ideal theory of human knowledge, which originated there, was for ages looked upon as possessing authority almost amount- ing to axiomatic certainty; and it must have appeared little less than madness to attack a belief 80 universal, and established, in all appcanince, for

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endless perpetuity. The instrument, however, by which this was overthrown, was the scepticism of Hume. It was he who, regardless of consequences, carried the principles in question to their furthest results, shewed that they involved in them univeisal unbelief^ and thus gave them virtually their first refutation. The scepticism of Hume, which may be called a ^^ reductio ad absurdum^'* aimed agtmst the ideal system^ necessitated a thorough recon- sideration of the very first elements of human knowledge, and was instrumental in suggesting, both to Kant and to Reid, the primary idea of a philosophy based upon sounder principles.

Had scepticism been content to keep within its proper limits, and quietly to perform the office assigned to it, it would have ever appeared in the light of a friend and bene&ctor ; but, not content with pronouncing the actually existing systems to be in error, it often seeks to advance still further, and affirms that no possible system of philosophy can develop any truth whatever with absolute car* tainty. Here, then, having resisted and exposed the errors of others, it falls itself into the most startling errors of all, and having profifered a blessing with one hand, withdraws it with the other.

Now in taking a general view of scepticism, we must point out as clearly as possible the different aspects which it assumes, smce in doing this we shall be the better able to estimate the amount of influence it is now exerting in our own country.

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Scepticism, then, regarded generically, may be divided into three subordinate species, which we may term absolute scepticism, authoritative scep- ticism, and the scepticism of ignorance.

1 . By absolute scepticism we mean, a disposition of mind to admit nothing as absolutely true, accompanied with a formal denial of the certainty of any branch of human knowledge. This species of scepticism, in the very nature of things, must be rare, and when it does appear, must be altogether limited to the more thinking classes of mankind. The natural and healthy state of the human mind is one of belief. We instinctively give credit to our senses, our memory, our reason, our moral sentiments; and ere distrust in any of them is experienced, a considerable process of thinking and of reasoning must have passed through the intellect Ordinarily speaking, men have neither the leisure nor the taste to sit down and investigate the foundations of knowledge, and, consequently, they give themselves up, without any hesitation, to their natural and instinctive beliefs. It is only here and there, in men of deep reflection — men who have gone, or imagined that they have gone, to the very bottom of those foundations, that any idea is entertained of the absolute uncertainty of the whole superstructure.

The natural history of this species of scepticism may be briefly pourtrayed in the following manner. We will suppose a man, vigorous in his natural

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capacities, earnest in his purposes, and eagerly devoted to the investigation of truth. Too pene- trating to be imposed upon by vulgar modes of thinking — too independent to admit, without testing, the common opinions of those around him — ^he scatters the faith of his childhood to the winds, and seeks to re-cast, for his own satisfaction, the primary elements of his real philosophical belief In doing so, he soon finds himself involved in questions of the most intricate nature. The more easy and superficial problems are spumed with contempt ; he wants to go at once to first prin- ciples, and to convince himself that everything there is firm and stable. To his grief and astonish- ment, however, he finds that those fundamental questions, upon which everything else must rest, are among the most difficult, both of comprehension and of proof The greatest minds of former ages, he discovers, have in this region perpetually lost their way ; and he sees nought in prospect but a conflict of opinions, as endless as it must be unsatisfactory. In his perplexity, he appeals to the great dogmatical systems which have had the chief reputation in the world ; he tracks the history of them from Plato down to Kant ; and the probable consequence is, that the arguments of the one party completely neutralize those of the other. In this painful position, the fearful question begins to dawn upon his mind, — Is there such a thing as truth at all ? Can we have a certainty upon any-

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thing? Are we not the sport of an ignorance which dazzles only to delude us with the hope of ahsolute truth ? Such a thought, once entertained, acts like a spell upon aU his researches, and throws suspicion over every argument. It gains force from the very fact, that it seems so plainly to unfold the causes from which the contests and disagreements of philosophy have arisen. A disgust at aU dog- matism next ensues ; and at length he determines to rest in the conviction that each man must see truth for himself alone, because absolute truth lies entirely beyond the reach of tlie human faculties.

This disposition to universal unbelief, then, once fixed in the mind, it soon manifests itself upon almost every subject, that lies open to man's consi- deration. It begins of course, by attacking the ground-principles of philosophical truth, — in one breath denying the certain existence of the material world, and in another, that of the spiritual ; thus leaving, ultimately, nought but a bundle of impres- sions and ideas. Next, it loosens the strong bands of moral obligation. Virtue to it is either a nonentity, or but another name for that which produces pleasure ; and vice is a similar cypher, except it be that which produces pain ; but as to the word duty^ it has absolutely no meaning, since no obligation can be shewn why I should pursue happiness any more than misery. Next, the foim- dations of man's natural religion fall under its

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stroke. Men may have (grants the sceptic) each one for himself, the idea of God, and this idea may prove very beneficial in directing or constraining his actions; but who is to prove that objective reality is to be attached to it 1 In a word, once let confidence be shaken in the veracity of our natural faculties, and there is not a buttress left to support any portion of the edifice of truth.

Now the philosophical error, which lurks in the principle of absolute scepticism, is by no means difficult to discover and expose; in &ct, as a system, it carries within itself its own refutation. The sceptic distrusts the veracity of man's natural faculties ; but by what means, we would ask him, has he arrived at this his startling conclusion \ Of course, by the use of his faculties — the vd!ry faculties which he distrusts. But if our reason is ever leading us astray in other matters, and if it never suffers us to attain certainty, then why may it not have led him astray ? and on what groimd can he affirm the certainty of the conclusion to which he has arrived 1 The sceptic, above all men, is fond of employing the power of reasoning, in order to pull down the systems which exist around him ; but if he has already undermined the veracity of reason itself, why does he believe his own arguments 1 Why not take for granted, that he is as fiu: wrong in pulling down as others may have been in building up? For an absolute sceptic to argue at all is a piece of folly, only second to the folly of those

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who argue with him. If there is no credence to be given to the working of our intellectual powers, the former, for consistency's sake, might spare himself the trouble of using them against the belief of his neighbours; and the latter might, with equal propriety, avoid the useless task of arguing with one, who professedly has no faith in argument. The sceptic, in fact, writes at once his own defence and his own reply : he may make out the best possible case against his opponents ; but then who, of all those whom he convinces of the futility of human reason generally, will be likely to pay any respect to his own application of it ? The only rational eflfect of scepticism, when it is carried to this length, is to throw aside all the weapons of philosophy together, and let the world quietly go on as it does, without either encourage- ment or restraint. In other words, the influence of it, rationally considered, is equal to zero.

If this be the case, then, it might be said, why is it worth while to oppose a sceptical system, which rationally has no influence whatever, for good or for evil 1 We answer. Because men ynUl make an irrational use of it, and we wish to cut off the plea which it affords them for doing or thinking what is evil. The mere assertion of sceptical principles in the abstract, is of extremely little consequence, as they exert in this way hardly any perceptible influence upon the conduct of any one ;

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but, unfortunately, there is ever a sufficiency of half-ignorant minds, who, without having depth enough to see the inconclusiveness of scepticism as a whole, are very ready to catch at the notion of the universal uncertainty of all human knowledge, and to urge it in opposition to everything that is good or great, whether in religion, morals, or philosophy. Thus the loss of confidence in the powers of the mind soon makes itself felt, more or less, in every department of science ; it represses exertion, fosters a contempt for all systematic truth, weakens the ties of moral obligation, and tends to the degeneracy, rather than to any advancement of the human race.

Absolute scepticism, as now explained, has, for- tunately, at present no decided representative in this country. Its last great advocate was David Hume, who for a time gave origin and support to a class of petty unbelievers, that, without entering into the depth of his argument, much less seeing its self-refutation, learned, notwithstanding, to sneer at evidence and despise truth. This spirit was arrested, at least to some extent, by Reid, and others of like views, who combated, step by step, so earnestly for the reality of our knowledge, that a sweeping unbelief has not as yet, during the present century, made its re-appearance in this Island. Many, it is true, are the different faiths now in vogue throughout the community;

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but amongst these we hardly find one, the principle of which is to have no faith at all. We go on, therefore, to describe —

2. The scepticism which bases itself upon authority.

It is possible to deny the capability of the human mind to gain absolute knowledge for itself without denying the fact that such knowledge is actually in our possession. If, e. ^., we supposed truth to be infused into us miraculously, we might in this way avoid the sweeping conclusion, that there is no such thing as truth at all cognizable to man, whilst at the same time we might regard the self-acquisition of it as altogether impracti- cable. Now this exactly describes the opinions of many, who look upon the scriptures as the only source of absolute truth, and who, standing upon the platform of revelation, scout at the very notion of philosophy.

The system of opinions to which we now refer, is somewhat of the following kind. Man, whatever he might have been in his first creation, is now naturally blind and foolish ; his reason is perverted; his moral nature overturned ; and he is thus ren- dered totally unfit for the great office of acquiring knowledge, with any perfect degree of certainty. Upon this state of helpless darkness the light of xevelation dawns ; the shadows of ignorance gradu- ally disperse ; and a source is opened from which we may at length gain absolute truth— an acqui-

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sition otherwise impossible. Let it be remembered that the question here is by no means, whether or no revelation unfolds to us truths which could not have been attained by us in any other way : this is admitted by all who hold the special inspiration of the Bible. The question is, whether all moral truth must be derived from thence, or whether some abso- lute knowledge cannot be attained by man, quite independent of supernatural assistance. Those who hold revelation to be the only source of certain knowledge to man, would, no doubt, start at being ranked under the title of sceptics, and yet, in truth, this principle contains the germ of a scepticism, under which both religion and philosophy would soon be seen to expire.

Let us weigh this question a little. The human faculties, it is urged, are perverted: there is no confidence to be placed in them: they lead us astray at every step. How then, we ask, can we be ever assured that the revelation, to which we apply for light, is a true one ? The veracity of it, as far as our convictions go, mitst rest upon a process of reasoning. We must collect evidence; we must decide what is valid as evidence, and what is not ; and then from this we must draw our inference respecting the truth of the revelation itself. What, then, are the instruments by which all these processes are carried on, and by which 'the ultimate conclusion is at length arrived at? Of course, our own reasoning &culties. But these

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faculties are said to be fallacious : why, then, may they not have failed us in this particular argu- ment? If we cannot trust to their decisions generally^ what certainty is there in that revelation, upon the truth of which they alone can decide ?

The argument becomes still stronger, when we pass from the question of revelation to that of the being of God. Without this truth already estab- lished, inspiration is a word without any meaning whatever. But how is it established, except by the inferences of our own reason ? To imdermine the authority of reason, therefore, is to undermine that of revelation as well ; once destroy the validity of the subjective world within, and there can be no longer a certainty left in any objective reality. The scepticism, therefore, which builds itself up upon authority, is in its nature inconclusive. It holds some truths as absolutely sure ; but if it could only expand its own principles to their legiti- mate extent, it would discover that the knowledge which it allows is no more certain than that which it rejects; nay, that the truth of the one is indissolubly connected with the truth of the other.

Whatever scepticism now exists in England is, we imagine, nearly aU of this kind. The philo- sophic spirit is with us, for the most part, at a low ebb, whilst the religious is developing itself often with great intensity. The effect of this is to depress the value of metaphysical truth, and to hold up

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that of revelation as altogether independent of it. Our ordinary religious literature abounds in crude assertions of this nature. Many of those who write for the religious public, conscious that they never thought themselves clear upon any of the first principles of truth, suppose that no one else has; conscious that their own reason is inconclusive in its researches, stamp the whole reason of mankind as equally so; assured that their own knowledcre is .len 'entirely up« trort from tradition oftte Scriptures, suppose that all men must take theirs from the same source. Men who have been brought up to a certain belief, and whose minds have never broken away from the blind but confiding feith of their infancy, have not, in many instances, the slightest idea of the amount or the kind of evidence, which would be necessary to prove the truth of Christianity to a mind without any faith at aU. Their own belief is in no sense whatever the result of evidence, but simply a matter of education ; and consequently it is no wonder if they commit mis- takes with respect to the real evidence upon which such knowledge must ultimately rest. This con- tempt of philosophy, into which the religious world so frequently falls, we feel convinced, is extremely detrimental to the best interests of religious truth. While it may here and there deter a solitary mind from involving itself in the web of human sophistry, it is, on the contrary, infusing into many other minds strong prejudices against admitting the full

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claims of revelation, and weakening the evidences of it in the minds of those who do.

It is a fact, not to be disputed, that some of the most enlightened minds of the day have nurtured a secret opposition to the doctrines of Christianity, owing to the intellectual intolerance of its abettors. And while such intolerance lasts, can it possibly be otherwise? Is not every mind impelled to the admission of all truth, the evidence of which it has itself thoroughly evolved ? Did not the same God, which speaks in revelation, create the powers of the human spirit 1 and when Christianity is made to contradict and repel the natural results of our own faculties, yea, to deny the certainty of that, upon which its own evidence rests, is it to be won- dered at that the prejudices of men should be aroused and their assent refused 1 We regard the heliever, who would raise the value of religion by invalidating the due authority of human reason, as committing an error which in time must prove fittal to his own belief. To mention any particular works, in which this species of scepticism is dis- ooverable, would be a task more invidious than Ufieful ; we merely point out the general fact, that such a method of viewing things is but too common in our own country, and shall rest content with having thus briefly but firmly recorded our protest against it

3. There is yet a third species of scepticism riliiiTniTig our attention, to which we have given the

v<n«. II. Q

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name of the ^^ scepticism of ignorance/' This is peculiar to the less educated and more unthinking portion of mankind. Men, in general, as we have already remarked, impose a most implicit reliance upon the evidence of their senses and their faculties, which it is almost impossible for anything to shake. But there lie, beyond these, certain other great principles of belief, absolutely necessary to ih repose and well being of the human mind, the con iidence in which varies, even amongst the masses of mankind, in different ages and in differen ; countries.

Man requires faith in moral obligation, &ith in God, faith in immortality ; and this faith cannot be shaken without at the same time endangering the very framework of human society. Faith in these great objects, it is true, always forms a constituent part of the religion of the age, so that want of belief in them might be termed religious scepticism, with which we have at present nothing to do ; bat so far as unbelief touches the great fundamental prin* ciples of natural religion, in so &r it is strictly speaking a philosophical, as well as a religious scepticism. There have been in the history of the world eras of intense faith as well as eras of general unbelief upon these matters; and it is the latter which we now note down as being cha- racterized by the scepticism of ignorance. Corrent systems of belief (as was the case at the Reforma- tion) will sometimes, from various causes, be shaken

SCEPTICISM IN ENGLAND. 227

to their very centre, and then the community at large, sympathizing in the work of destruction, are apt to go onwards with it, until they have left no temple of faith at all, in which they may worship. The next generation, accordingly, will grow up xmeducated in any belief; and, as the consequence of this, there will ensue a scepticism, not arising fiom any designed rejection of the spiritual faith of humanit}', but from actual ignorance of what there is to believe in. Such to a great extent is the present state of France, and such a phenomenon, in some few instances, is seen in our own country, amongst those classes in which infidelity has most frequently taken up its abode. Happily, however, the diffusion of religious truth is too general in this country to admit the return (except, indeed, under most extraordinary circumstances) of another age of unbelief in the groundwork of man's natural religious sentiments. Of the three forms of scep- ticism we have mentioned, it is the second only from which anything is at present to be appre- hended. For absolute scepticism we have too little philosophy, for the scepticism of ignorance we have too much religion; vnth regard, however, to the sceptiGiflm of authority, we cannot conceal our fear, that should the theological odium pursue the spirit of philosophy vdth the rancour, which has too often been experienced, the result must in time prove fieital to the best interests of morality and of religion itself.

a 2

228 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

Sect. II. — Modem Scepticism in FVance.

The state of France, philosophically speaking, previous to the Eevolution, has heen already glanced at in the chapter which traces the history of sen- sationalism from Bacon down to modern times. We have seen, moreover, in another chapter, the main features, which French philosophy assumed, when the storm of the revolution had passed away, and the comparative repose of the present century had commenced. The principles of Condillac, to whose writings the philosophic spirit seemed then to revert, we have noticed developing themselves successively in the physiological theories of Ca* hanis, in the metaphysics " of Destout de Tracy, and in the ethics of Volney. The triumph of sensationalism, however, was not destined to be of long duration. Every extravagant and onensided system contains, in fact, the seeds of its own over* throw, refuting its assumed data by means of the very consequences to which they lead. A striking example of this is seen in the materialism of France. The germ of the modem eclectic philosophy began to appear amongst the very triumphs of the rnate^ rialistic school ; and then commenced the struggle which has now brought about the glory of the^ former. and the humiliation of the latter. Thc^ rise and progress of the eclectic philosophy, how ^ ever, we have yet to exhibit ; our present busines-^

SCEPTICISM IN FRANCE. 229

is to track the footsteps of those different forms of scepticism which have arisen out of the contest.

The sensationalism of France was eminently irreligious. It delighted to scoff at all veneration for the Divine, to shock man's deepest sentiments of spiritual duty, and to substitute the indefinite idea of nature for that of the living God. The op- ponents of sensationalism, in the mean time, taking up another hypothesis, shewed many indications of running into the opposite extreme of pantheism ; the pantheistic principle being, in fact, equally &tal to the cultivation of an intelligent and effi- cient theism as the atheistic itself. The natural effect of these results upon many minds must be at once obvious. The efforts of man's natural reason, whether it flow in the sensational or ideal direction, was made to appear as though in plain contradiction to our indestructible religious senti- ments ; a distrust of the power of reason naturally followed ; and confirmed scepticism, at length, made its appearance on the stage. This scepticism naturally placed itself in opposition to the irreli- gious tendency of the age ; and as the other current philosophies seemed to undermine the authority of revelation in fiivour of reason, it, on the contrary, sought to substitute for reason the dictates of re- velation itself. The most decisive philosophical scepticism of France, accordingly, is that which bases itself upon authority ^ and aims at restoring

230 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

the power and influence of the Church. To this school, then, we must now briefly revert

The idea of appealing to Divine authority, and bolstering up the weakness of our natural reason by the cultivation of our faith, was widely diffused throughout France in the seventeenth century, by the writings of Huet, Bishop of Avranches. Huet may be regarded philosophically as the type and exemplar of the sceptics, to which we are now referring; and just in like manner as his views came forth from the rival schools of Gassendi and Descartes, so theirs have come from the similar contest of the materialists and eclectics of the nineteenth century.

The Count Joseph de Maistre (bom 1763, died 1821) appears to have been one of the earliest of these modem theologico-philosophical writers — one, too, who, by the liveliness of his style, and the fertility of his fancy, no less than by the gloomi- ness of his opinions, was well adapted to excite the attention, though not perhaps to gain the suffirages of his countrymen. M. de Maistre, it is true^ can hardly be called in strictness a philosophical writer at all, so entirely does the religious element preponde^ rate over the metaphysical ; yet, still, the whole tone of his thinking was such, as to prepare the way fiw future speculations, and still more decided attacks upon the validity of our natural faculties. There are three principal works in which he has explained

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his views upon human society and human life. The first, published in the year 1819, is "On the Au- thority and OflBice of the Pope," the object of which work is to shew, that his Holiness is a universal appeal for mankind, not only in spiritual matters, but in social and political also ! The next work is " On the Galilean Church, in relation to the So- vereign Pontiff." The last of his works, published posthumously in the year 1821, is entitled *' Eve- nings at St. Petersburg, or Conversations on the Temporal Government of Providence ;" and it is here that he has, at once, given his meditations upon some of the most profound problems of human life, and proposed their solution.

The chief design of this work, as the title in- dicates, is to explain and to vindicate the conduct of Providence in relation to man in the present world. The lot of humanity is to suffer. From this none are exempt, although the wicked may in the long run suffer much more than the vir- tuous. The cause of this suffering M. de Maistre traces up very consecutively to original sin, taking the orthodox doctrine of the Church as his guide throughout the whole discussion. The means by which suffisring is to be alleviated, he considers, are prayer n3aA,merit^ the one securing us the constant fa- vour of God, the other allowing the supererogatory righteousness of the saints to stand in the place of the deficient righteousness of the sinner. As theology, these sentiments, of course, must stand

232 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

or fall according to the evidence of a purely spiritual nature, which can be shewn for or against them. The deceptiveness which runs through the whole work, scientifically speaking, arises from its being tacitly taken for granted, that there can be no valid philosophy of human nature which does not build itself up upon these foundations of in- spired authority.

Far would we be from detracting ought from the inestimable value of revelation, or from de- nying the light which it casts upon human life; but it does not follow from the truth or authority of revelation, that our reason must necessarily be weak and delusive in those subjects, which are not exclusively of a religious nature. There is assu- redly enough of truth accessible to our minds in the intellectual and moral constitution of man where- with to erect a system of pure philosophy, without the aid of revelation ; nay, upon the philosophical accuracy of our knowing faculties depends the value, even, of revelation itself, which, like every- thing else, must be known through their medium. Whilst, therefore, we would willingly allow M. de Maistre, or any one else, the " liberty of prophe- sying," i. e., of treating and arguing theology, as theology, upon its proper evidence, we cannot for a moment allow their right of intrenching them- selves within the authority of the Church, and claiming a complete dictatorship over the philo* «ophical or the religious belief of mankind.

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Such dogmatism it is the more necessary to resist, when we consider the conclusions which are drawn from it. As mankind exists, says our author, in the present world only by suffering to atone for the sin of the fall, he ought meekly to yield to every misery, that is inflicted upon him for that purpose. Amongst other methods of exacting penance, God has appointed human power to restrain the licence of the will, and this power, consequently, best answers its purpose when most stringent and severe. The duty of mankind, then, politically, is abject submission to authority ; and, as all authority delegated by God centres in the Pope, we must in everything yield implicit obedience to him, whatever he may inflict or command. When sentiments like these are deduced, — sentiments which turn the world into a purgatory, man into a slave, and human life into gloom, it is, assuredly, high time to hold up either to ridicule or to reprobation the intolerant dogma- tism in which they are nursed and cradled. Let a religionist dogmatise upon theology, speculatively considered, as much as he will ; but never let him enslave mankind under the yoke, or on the. plea of his crude opinions.

The tendency shewn by M. de Maistre to sub- stitute fidth for knowledge, and authority for philo- sophical investigation, in matters where such a substitution is not admissible, has been still further developed in more modem times by the Abb6 de

234 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

la Mennais. This remarkable writer was bom in the year 1780, and must, therefore, have grown up amidst the very storms of the revolution, with which his country was agitated. Being naturally of a deeply religious tendency of mind, he could not but look with sorrow, and even with bitterness of spirit, upon the almost universal reign of un- belief; and it must have become early a ruling passion of his nature to recal his countrymen back to the exercise of a faith in Grod and immortality, to which they seemed to have grown insensible.

To aid him in this design, philosophy seemed entirely unavailing. As to sensationalism, it had already banished Deity from the temples erected to his honour, yea, if possible, from the temple of the universe, filled though it be vnth his own glory. The antagonist system of idealism, vnth its rationalistic spirit, likewise afforded but little that was satisfactory to an ardent mind, longing to rush with enthusiasm into the great question of human destiny, and to bring man's duty to God vnth intense earnestness and vivid perspicuity be- fore its contemplation. Resigning, then, all trust in philosophy, he took his stand upon the doctrine of the Catholic Church, and proposed to find there the one principle of truth, from which all veradoos human knowledge really proceeds. His work, en- titled "De rindifference en Matiere de ReUgion," was the first to rouse the public attention at once to himself, and to the theme of his passionate in-

SCEPTICISM IN FRANCE. 235

terest. It is the production of a mind disgusted M^ith the sensualism and immorality of society, tired of the petty objects which were absorbing the attention of mankind, and longing to gain peace and satisfistction in higher thoughts and nobler feelings. Such a satis£Eu;tion he finds in religion as held by the Church in all ages ; and therefore, n^lecting every other avenue of know- lege as vain and fruitless, he will have this to be the one great and sole channel, through which Grod has communicated truth to his crea- tures below.

In order to establish this principle, the first requisite was, if possible, to destroy the confidence of humanity in philosophy, of whatever kind ; and thus to compel them to take refrige in the ark of £uth, against the universal deluge of absolute scepticism. He had to found, consequently, a pbilosophicaf scepticism, in order to establish the full authority of his theological dogmas. The Boeptidsm which M. de la Mennais, with this object in view, maintained, if not profound, nevertheless is such as will be always sure to find a response in many minds. His spirit of combined mysticism and misanthropy; his restless weariness at the delusive glare of human things ; his contempt for the errors, the failings, the follies of mankind ; his disappointment over the frailty of his own cherished hopes ; all these will ever touch a chord of sym- pathy in many a heart which has struggled through

236 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

the same experience, and arrived, perhaps, at the same results.

"What philosophy is there," he exclaims, (wc quote from one of his own critics, M. Daminm,) " whose pretensions are not all uncertain — all felsel The senses deceive us, and attest nothing that can be termed clear, positive, complete. Feeling is not more sure : its object, although in appearance moie evident and more simple, still, unless we are on our guard, is nothing less than a continual series of doubts and illusions. As to reason, it is to be still more suspected; for, first of all, it only operates upon the data furnished by the senses, or the feelings, (data upon which it cannot count,) and, secondly, when the data are at hand, how does it operate ? and what guarantee have we of the legitimacy of its procedure? What are we to think of the contradictory conclusions which it draws from the same principle t what of the iden- tical ones it draws from different principles i What truth has it not denied? — ^what error has it not established? In a word, must it not associate memory with all its operations? — and is memory fl faithfrd ally? Eeason, feeling, sense! — faculties without control ! — vain means of gaining know- ledge ! — principles of error and incertitude ! These it is, which deprive man of all hope of having either knowledge or faith from himself; there is for him no reality, either within or without ; there is nothing, up to the very truth of his own exist-

SCEPTICISM IN FRANCE. 237

ence, in which he has any right to believe, unless he has some other reason than his own private sentiment, and his own individual consciousness."

M. de la Mennais, we thus see, has himself exactly fallen into the error, against which Plato makes Socrates affectionately warn his friends, in the conversation before his death. "Is it not lamentable, O Pheedo," he says, " that when there is such a thing as true and valid reasons, capable of being comprehended, any one, from meeting with other reasons, some of which appear to be true, and some not, should fail to lay the blame upon his own unskilfulness, but at last should delight to thrust the error from his own shoulders upon reasoning itself, pass the rest of his life in hatred and contempt of it, and thus be deprived of the truth and knowledge that he seeks ^ "

It will not be necessary here to repeat the argu- ments, by which this sweeping procedure of scep- ticism is met and refuted. We have already shewn, that all absolute unbelief in the human faculties is answered by the very principle which it attempts to establish. If our senses and feelings, our memory, our reason, all are delusive, then every system of philosophy is placed hors de combat^ and the reasoning which has established scepticism itself, may be just as erroneous as any other. Against all wanton unbelief of this kind, the common sense of mankind protests. That we may fidl into many errors and many delusions through

238 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

false reasoning, is unquestionable; but ihere aie some points of knowledge, in wbicb we feel that error is impossible. Here mankind have ever taken their stand ; and equally vain is the attempt to shake the confidence of humanity in that which bears the marks of necessity and universality, as it is to inspire a fear lest the solid basis of the everlasting mountains should crumble beneath onr feet.

M. de la MennaLs, however, having begun by establishing a philosophical scepticism, does not purpose, by any means, to leave us in doubt and perplexity as to what is true, and what false ; on the contrary, he goes on to propound a theory of human knowledge, by which we may arrive at certainty upon all the great questions of human interest. The theory in question is that of autJuh rity — a theory which we must now attempt briefly to explain.

Man having no criterion of truth within himself as an individual^ must find one in the universal assent of the whole race. The principle, " Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus," taken in its widest possible acceptation, gives us the sole test of what is most assuredly true. This principle being settied, the next question is, where and haw «uch universal assent is to be found. Opinions on all ordinary subjects within the range of human contemplation, have been perpetually changing. There have been different views advocated in art,

SCEPTICISM IN FRANCE. 239

in science, in philosophy, in almost every depart- ment of general knowledge; so that it is vain to look for common consent, and, consequently, for absolute truth, in any of these directions.

In religion, however, the case is diflFerent. Here there has been really but one system among the enlightened of mankind, from the earliest ages of the world to the present time. Revealed at three different epochs, it has not changed its essence in passing from one age into another, but only varied its form. The religion of the Patriarch, of the Jew, of the Christian, is really one and the same ; and the truth which it contains has gradually been developing itself, with greater clearness, from one dispensation to another. The existence of false religion is no obstacle against this view of the case. False religion is simply a defective view of truth ; while true religion, amidst aU its various developments, and all its corruptions, has ever retained its fundamental unity. Here, therefore, we are to look in order to find The Teuth, — that, namely, which rests upon the authority of the T?hole world, from its creation to the present hour, and which proceeded originally from the direct intervention of God himself.

Now the depository of truth, which was formerly vested in the patriarch, and in the Jewish priest, in the present day is vested in the Catholic Church. This is the receptacle of the universal consent of mankind ; this has preserved it in its purity ; this

240 .MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

can boast the sole authority from Ood, both to expound it, and to enforce it upon our attention ; and the man, therefore, who abandons the Church of Home, necessarily plunges into the abyss of error, both as it regards religion and everything else beside. Such being the case, it is the duty of every state in the world, (as the guardian of the best interests of the subject,) to support, by every possible means, that one Church, and that one doctrine, which alone can give stability and peace to society ; to punish any dissent from it as a crime against human happiness; and to give implicit obedience to the popedom, as the living concent tration of universal consent, the sole guide and arbitrator of human reason. Such is the extra- ordinary system, which M. de la Mennais has propounded and supported, with a learning, power, and eloquence which raises him to the very summit of the living writers of France.

It is the learning and eloquence, however, we imagine, which abound in the work now before us, rather than the soundness of its arguments, to which it owes all its popularity and success. The principle of authority, put forward as it is in the light of a philosophical, rather than a theological dogma, and stripped of its imposing dress, will hardly bear the test of a moment's close investigar tion. Put in plain language, it comes just to this — listen not to yourselves but to those who are worthy of your confidence, and remember that neither you

SCEPTICISM IN FRANCE. 241

or they are able individually to know for certain anything whatever, whether it rest upon reason or experience.

ITie Abbe, perhaps, did not perceive that in undermining the authority of the human faculties he virtually undermined every other. Admitting that there are persons who are in possession of truth, they must have received it from some who went before them ; they again from the generation before that; and so on, till we come back to the mind which received the truth directly from God. But these first recipients must have used their osvn fitculties ; they must have recorded their ovra im- pressions, obtained either through sense, reason, or feeling ; and they must have transmitted them through the medium of other minds. If these fiEunilties, therefore, are so weak, wavering, and deceptive, as our author supposes, what guarantee have we that they have either appreciated or trans- mitted truth with faultless accuracy] Must not tradition be corrupted by the very channel through which it has flowed ]

Or, to put the subject in another point of view, let us suppose the Abbe himself in the act of seek- ing for truth premaus to the time when he had found the sole fountain, out of which, as he affirms, it can be obtained. How, we would ask, did he come to the conclusion that we must fall back upon authority t How did he prove satisfactorily to his own mind, that the source and centre of authority

VOL. II. R

242 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

is in the Catholic Church ? Did he not read, and search, and argue, and meditate "{ has he not written whole volumes of controversy on the subject, to persuade men to adopt his opinion ] But on his own principle, what is the value of all this argu- ment ? Does not his reason totter and err, as well as that of other people % and has he not, in fact, followed his own private and consequently fisdlible judgment, in choosing to yield himself to the supreme direction of his spiritual head ]

In matter of fact, private judgment mmt be exercised, whether we will or not. We come into God's world without any mark upon our spirits to tell us where we are to find the truth, and it is equally a matter of private opinion, whether we determine to work out our own system of religious belief for ourselves, or whether we determine to yield to the authority of others. K reason, there- fore, be invalid, this very determination, which it makes, to resign itself into the hands of authority, may be an erroneous judgment. In short, if the validity of reason be once destroyed, nothing — not even revelation (which must be received through its medium) — can save us from universal scepticism; that is, a universal " reductio ad absurdum.^'

That our reasoning here is correct, the subse- quent conduct of M. de la Mennais himself has given the best possible proof. At the breaking out of the Revolution of 1830, he began to advocate the complete independence of the clergy, and to

SCEPTICISM IN FRANCE. 243

rgue that as they were in allegiance to another nd a superior power, they ought to have nothing whatever to do with the temporal government. 'his doctrine was opposed at the same time by the lergy and the pope. In 1834 he published a mall work, entitled, " Paroles d'un Croyant," he object of which was to advocate pure demo- racy on the principles of the New Testament ; a heory which was so unpalateable in the same [uarters, that the work itself was publicly con- lemned.* Baffled and spumed by the supreme luthority, which he had formerly represented as he very concentration of truth, he had nothing eft but to declare against it, to commit the crime vhich he had before held up to reprobation, and o afford another proof, that those who pretend to ubmit most implicitly to authority are actually, in [oing so, equally following their own private judg- aent, and quite as ready to exercise it, as all other nen are, whenever the occasion may require.

There are several other works beside those of k£. de la Mennais, which might be discussed in x>nnection with the school of philosophical scep- icism grounding itself on authority ; of these, how- ever, we shall hardly do more than mention the luthors, since in them all the priti^npley metaphysi- cally considered, is the same. The Vicomte de Bonald, one of those to whom we refer, is usually

• This work has been recently translated into English, bj ReT. E. S. Pryce, B.A.

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That there is somewhat of ingenuity in the theory before us, and much art in working it f^ to an appearance of probability, may be readSf admitted ; but there are two considerations espe- cially which deprive it at once of much of its value. First, it cannot be demonstrated that there was any (frimitive language at all, beyond the natural pro-

SCEPTICISM IN FRANCE. 245

pensity implanted in the human mind, to embody its thoughts in external signs. To most minds, indeed, the latter hypothesis is by far the more probable and simple. Again, if we are to study truth from the words in which it is expressed, we must remember, that those words have ideas answer- ing to them, so that after all it is to the human reason or consciousness we must look as the source, from which every thing proceeds, and which makes words themselves the fixed representatives of thought. If it should be replied, that the first thoughts of the mind must have been divinely inspired, then the whole question is removed from the platform on which it was before argued, and merges into the higher discussion respecting the origin of our ideas. Taking up the matter in this point of view, we think that our author's eloquence would hardly serve him to make the whole theory appear in quite so plausible a light.

Another writer, similar in theory, but very different in spirit, is M. Ballanche, the author of the works entitled respectively, " Essai sur les Institutions Sociales," ^' La Faling6n6sie Sociale, &c." The principle of these works, as of those just referred to, is that man at his creation received his knowledge by direct communication from God, and that all subsequent knowledge proceeds from the primitive revelation thus afforded. Owing to sin, the brightness of this first revelation was darkened, error and vice succeeded, and we must have been

246 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

irrecoverably lost had not Grod provided a plan, by which man might expiate his guilt by suffering, and recover his lost position. This plan is the Gospel, which was given for all mankind, and which incorporated into all the institutions of human life will one day become the law of the world.

The main object of this author seems to be the development of the plan of Divine Providence in the advancement of humanity onwards towards perfection. It is by means of social institutions, civil and reUgious, that he considers this advance- ment is to be made, this perfection to be attained ; and he looks forward to the time when the evils of society shall be all overcome, and we shall rejoice in the complete accomplishment of God's providen- tial designs.

Then shall the reigu of truth b^in on earth, And starting fresh as from a second birth, Man in the sunshine of the world's new spring. Shall walk transparent like some holy thing.

^'M. Ballanche," remarks M. Damiron, in his critique, ^4s in fact of the same fidth as M. de Maistre, but of altogether different feelings; — having greater tenderness for his brethren, greater sympathies, and better hopes. K h^ has not, indeed, the wdng of the eagle, still he is without its stem look, its pitUess cry, its thunder ever ready

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to strike. In a region, less high, but more serene and calm, he goes like the dove, scattering ever on his way sentiments which do not trouble, and words which console. In his eyes humanity is not destined never to be good except by fractions; to have externally its plebeians and patricians, its weak and strong, its righteous and wicked; from day to day it will extend the circle of its influence, and will evangelize the multitude, and at last will be entirely good and happy at the same time." Such, according to M. Ballanche, is the origin of truth, as far as man is concerned, such its republication, such its progress, and such its final issue.

There is yet another name belonging to this school, which we must not entirely pass over. The Baron d'Eckstein, to whom we refer, though a native of Denmark, yet, from the conclusion of the last European war, became a regular inhabitant of France, and identified himself with her in all her religious and political interests. A man of great learning as well as great readiness in embodying his opinions in writing, he undertook the editorship of a periodical entitied " Le Catholique," from the articles of which alone his philosophy is to be gathered. With a tone more mild and liberal than most of those we have already noticed, he attached himself^ for the most part, to the views of that theological party, denying (and here consists his scepticism) the possibility of obtaining truth from

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SCEPTICISM IN FRANCE. 249

it has had its variations, its accidents, its vicissi- tudes — we must accordingly follow them through all their movements — we must explain and system- atize them ; and by so doing only can we embrace the whole subject, and give to our ideas the character of catholicity."*

This brief summary may give a general idea of the method by which the Baron proposes to search after truth ; and on what grounds he lays so much stress upon the principle of authority.

In concluding this sketch of the French autho- ritative scepticism, we shall make one or two observations upon the principle of authority itself. And, first of all, we are far from denying its value, upon many important topics within the range of hiunan knowledge. In theology, for example, when once we have got beyond the precincts of natural religion, authority is our sole guide; — inspired authority standing foremost, that of tradi- tion acting occasionally as its interpreter. With the truth upheld by such authority, philosophy has almost nothing to do, except testing the validity of the evidence on which it rests ; for beyond this it can only reserve for itself the power of pronouncing a veto upon any dogma which absolutely contradicts our faculties. The God of revelation and the creator of the human &culties are the same ; and if these seem to contradict each other, it only proves either

• See Damiron, *' Historie de Philoeophie," vol. i., p. 315.

250 MODERN FHIIjOSOFHT.

that the levelation is spurious, (we know that our Acuities are not.) or that we have misinterpreted its meaning. With this exception, however, we conceive that the authority of a well-authenticated revelation must be regarded within its own proper limits, as paramount and supreme.

Authority, however, while it is most valuable within the province of theology, yet, even within the range of philosophy itself^ is often of no little service. The appeal to the common consent of mankind, is one which has great weight in aiding us to determine accurately the entire phenomena of the human consciousness. Individual observation may prove imperfect or fietllacious ; but where the common consent of mankind bears testimony to the certainty and uniformity of any of our mental phenomena, we can have the less hesitation in regarding them as valid. What other than the principle of authority, as &r as regards psychical observation, was that of Reid, when he appealed to the common sense of mankind? What other is the principle of all who strengthen the testimony of their own consciousness by that of their fellow- creatures? In philosophy itself, therefore, authority is not to be altogether despised ; while with r^;aid to matters of faith and mere opinion, it is the great appeal in which we must take refuge — ^the best guide by which we can be directed — ^the clearest voice that speaks to us amidst the discord- ant sound of private judgment.

SCEPTICISM IN FRANCE. 251

Now the error of the school which we have just described lies here, — that instead of thankfully receiving the aid of authority in those questions on which it is entitled to speak, it has exaggerated, if not its value, still the extent of its application, and made it at length the sole organ or channel of all truth. The fallacy couched in this procedure becomes evident at once from the consideration, that no truth which comes to us through a secondary medium, as does that of authority, can be absolute and fundamental. However unobjectionable the medium itself may be, still the knowledge it conveys has to be received through our own facul- ties ; and if those faculties be not of equal credi- bility, of course the whole result may be vitiated. To plant oneself upon authority, and then deny the validity of the human intelligence to discover, test, or appreciate truth, is like sawing off the bough of the tree upon which we are standing. As the bough, severed from the stem, must £dl and hurl us with it to the earth, so authority, if severed £pom the whole tree of human knowledge, must sink to the ground, and carry those who trust to it to the same ruin. Gad makes his first and funda- n^ental revelation to us in the constitution of our own minds. If the credibility of this primitive revelation be rejected, it is impossible ever to prove the reality of any other. For how can we prove it ? How, except by the laws of reason and the rules of testimony ? In these, accordingly, all truth, as far

252 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

as we are concerned, must be grounded; and the scepticism, which would shake their authority, though it attempt to furnish another in its place, must at length prove detrimental to the stability of the whole edifice of human knowledge.

^

.^

The scepticism we have just described is without^^ doubt that which possesses, in France, the m learned and accomplished supporters. It is by no means, however, that under which the greatest number of minds in that country are to be enrolled. In England, the popular scepticism, if there be any, is that which sacrifices philosophy on the shrine of theological faith: in France, on the contrary, it is rather of the nature we have already described, under the appellation of the scepticism of ignorance — a scepticism in which many of the most necessary beliefs of humanity have been, altogether lost. The history of France, during the last two or three centuries, unfolds to us the process, by which that country has well nigh sunk its faith in God and immortality. The age of the reformation caused to resound through the French provinces, as it did through the whole of Europe, the war-cry of intelligence and liberty against spiritual despotism. Persecution and bloodshed followed, and the holiest precepts of religion were often violated by those, who stood forth as its firmest

SCEPTICISM IN FRANCE. 253

champions. The effect of this upon the minds, that stood hy to gaze upon the contest, could not "be long of an equivocal nature. Their faith in the Christianity they professed was shaken at once by the arguments of the Reformer, and the practice of the Catholic, the former appealing to their intel- lectual, the latter to their moral nature ; and they learned, unhappily, to despise the one, before their belief was replaced by the other. The results of this soon became evident in the rise of men, who, like Voltaire, sported with the most solemn truths of human belief; in the establishment of the atheistical school of the French Encyclopaedists ; and, what was still more decisive, in the sympathy 'with which their works were greeted by thousands throughout the country.

What was thus fairly commenced, the horrors of

the revolution so effectually completed, that there

was hardly a single region of human thought in

which the tide of opposition, that raged against

everything existing under the old regime, was not

manifested. Monarchical institutions gave way to

complete democracy ; the various classes of human

Society were all thrown down to the broad level of

citizenship ; the religion of Christ, (the religion of

pure spirituality,) gave way to the grossest mate-

^alism ; the morality of the Gospel, which enjoins

%elf-8acrifice, was exchanged for that selfish system

^hich knows no good but pleasure, no evil but

pain. The reaction, in a word, was intense, com-

254 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

plete, universal, and as the next generation (one which had been bom and fostered in these prin- ciples) grew up, though there was still the moral nature and the religious capacity innate within them, yet, alas! there was no virtue for* the one, no God for the other. The nineteenth century, accordingly, has exhibited to us the people of France, to a vast extent, without a belief in the great truths of God and immortality : happy will it be, if, too eager to supply this want, it does not again rush into the dim regions of religious mysti- cism and superstition. Perhaps we should be hardly correct in terming the scepticism of igno- rance a philosophical school at all : it is rather the negation of a school ; still it is a great fact in the present aspect of that country, and, as such, we thought it not right to pass it by without a cursory notice.

Sect. III. — Modern Scepticism in Germany.

The intellectual atmosphere of Germany is one by no means calcidated to encourage the growth of scepticism, least of all to cherish those two species of it, which we have described as existing to a large extent in France. Whatever other characteristics the German mind may or may not possess, there are few who would deny to it a power of deep reflection upon the world within, and a quiet independence that loves to probe every

SCEPTICISM IN GERMANY. 255

moral question to its foundations. The Germans have long proved themselves to be the thinkers and the investigators of Europe, furnishing the material out of which the more adroit and polished minds of England and France draw perpetual supplies for their higher literary productions.

If this be true, what should we say is likely to be the influence of two such mental qualities as those above mentioned, within the region of phi- losophy 1 It appears evident, we think, at first sight, that a people who reflect deeply, and who investigate patiently, are not likely to become, to any wide extent, involved in the scepticism of ignorance. It is those, who allow their faith to be destroyed, without having reflective habits of mind sufficiently active to supply the loss with equal rapidity, that are liable to fall into such « state of mind. The German mind, however, capnot well be without a faith. If one system of T)eKef fells another rapidly springs up ; if one dogma comes to an end, another is ready on the instant to take its place. So great is the fertility of thought and speculation in the German world of intellect, that there seem to be theories in store to supply any imaginable series of intellectual loss, that the Aituie may present. There may be among the Oermans hypotheses monstrous as well as credible, t:liere may be systems of metaphysics and of theo- Vogy extravagant as well as sober ; there may be X^des for the poetical, and wanderings for the

256 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

eccentric; but there cannot well be an absolute nonentity of belief from not knowing what there is to believe.

These same mental qualities, again, stand almost

as much opposed to the scepticism of authority.

To search into the monuments of antiquity, is,

indeed, a labour for which the German mind is

admirably qualified ; but when all the authority

of these records is discovered, its independence

prompts further questions of this nature : — ^What

is the authority of this authority? What means

had men of yore to discover truth more than I

have myself? Or, if the authority be Divine; the

question still comes, What is the testimony on

which it rests? What the process by which it

reaches my own mind? The German thinker is

too subjective in his views and tendencies to be

satisfied with any merely objective evidence. He

wants to know what must necessarily be true to

himself individually; what confidence is to be

placed even in the dictates of his own reason and

his own consciousness ; in other words, he wants

a fundamental philosophy as a substratum, before

he can allow to authority the command, which it

claims over the human mind.

The only scepticism, then, of which Germany is in danger, is that of the philosophical or abso- lute kind; for, should the reflections and the in- vestigations of her metaphysicians in any instances so clash with one another, that no definite results

SCEPTICISM IN GERMANY. 257

can be arrived at, such a scepticism, of course, must follow. The only instance, perhaps, in the whole philosophical history of Germany, in which a shallow scepticism came into vogue, is to be found during the reign of the Leibnitzian-Wolfian metaphysics. At that time the influx of French writers, on the one hand, disseminated a low worthless sensationalism ; while, on the other, the pedantry and formalism of the idealistic school brought the deeper method of philosophizing into universal contempt. The result was what we just remarked ; a low, shallow, and railing scepticism, un-Grerman in its real character, but rendered suffi- ciently influential by circumstances to produce a baneful efiect, both upon literature and morals. It was this, in fact, that roused up the mighty spirit of Kant to an intellectual eflbrt, which swept away all the minor actors from the stage, and com- menced a new scene in the wondrous drama of the world's philosophy.

Whilst Kant, however, opposed so successfully

the shallow scepticism of the age in which he lived, his philosophy contained many germs of another species of scepticism far more deep and philosophical. Determined to silence for ever the quibbles and sophistries, in which so many were indulging, respecting the fundamental questions of ontology, of morals, of religion ; he conceived the idea of removing them into a region alto-

VOL. II. s

258 MODERN FHIL080PHT.

gether inaccessible to the reach of ordinary logic, and there to let them repose in solemn majesty.

The general idea of the Kantian metaphysics is, we trust, sufficiently remembered by the attentive reader to render repetition needless ; but still, to prevent the obscurity, which a too great breyity might cause, we shall re-enumerate one or tm of the principal conclusions. Of the three great faculties of the human mind, sensation, unde^ standing, and reason, the first alone is capable of furnishing the material of our knowledge, the two latter are merely formal Sensation gives us the simple fact of objective existence; understanding gives form to whatever notions we may have of it Sensation, accordingly, in making known to us the reality of an objective world does not tell iw of what it consists, whether it be of a spiritual or of any other essence ; it simply assures us of objective phenomena ; and to these phenomena, w> cordingly, our real knowledge of the world witbomt must be confined. Again; since the understanding gives to our notions all their peculiar forms and aspects, defining their quantity, quality, relation^ and mode of existence, this part of our know- ledge must be purely subjective, and its truth, consequently, depend upon the validity of our faculties. But further; not only is the under^ standmg merely formal m its nature, but reason is so likewise. Reason strives to bring the notions^

SCEPTICISM IN GERMANY. 259

of the understanding to a systematic unity, and in doing so, it personifies its own laws, and regards them as having a real objective existence; the three personifications being the soul, the universe, and the Deity. Any logical reasoning upon these diree ideas, upon their existence, or their nature, Kant shews to be entirely fallacious, giving rise in each instance to endless paralogisms. They are, in fBLCtj M ideasj the spontaneous productions of >nr own reasons, and to argue upon them as being either realities or non-realities, is allowing the understanding to intrude upon a province [that, namely, of the supersensual or spiritual) with which it has nothing whatever to do.

In this way Kant removed the chief points aioond which scepticism delighted to linger en- tirely out of the reach of all argumentation. If any one disputed respecting the material world, his reply was, ^' Of what value is discussion about an existence, of which we can never know ought beyond mere phenomena I " Should any one contest w piropound any theories respecting the nature of the soul, the origin of the world, or the existence 3f Gk)d, the same withering repulse was given, '• Why reason of that which lies beyond all rea- soning t" '^ Your notions of the soul, of the universe, of Grod," he would continue, **are but subjective ideas; they are personifications of yonr own mental processes ; I can give you ttiong reasons of a moral nature to believe in the

s 2

260 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

soul and in God ; but, as for logic^ it is incapable of saying anything whatever, whether it be for or against'^

But now it becomes a question to us, whether Kant, in cutting off the plea of the sceptic of his day, did not prove too much; and whether he does not give occasion to another kind of scepticism more deeply laid than that which he destroyed. Let us see the results, to which his principles gave origin. Reinhold, whom we must look upon as the immediate continuator of Kant's philosophy, was dissatisfied with the analysis which it furnished of the perceptive faculty. The truth of our sense- perceptions, he considered, was too rapidly taken for granted ; and he suggested, therefore, the pro- priety, nay, the necessity of going one step back- wards, and analyzing the consciousness itself^ as that in which the perceptions themselves are to be found. The reality, therefore, of an objective world lying without our Consciousness was put in a much less obvious light by Reinhold than by Kant. The latter took the phenomena of sense at once for granted, as much so, indeed, as did Locke himself; the former, on the contrary, afiirmed, that a philosophical conviction of their " reality must result from a due analysis of the con-— sciousness, and a recognition of the objective^ element which it contains.

The spirit of speculation being thus once mor^^ aroused, scepticism began to make its formal

SCEPTICISM IN GERMANY. 261

pearance in the person of Gottlob Ernst Schulz, then professor of philosophy at the university of Helmstadt. In the year 1792 Schulz published an anonymous work, entitled " CEnesidemus, or a Treatise on the Principles of the fundamental Philosophy of Professor Reinhold." In this work he denies that Reinhold has succeeded in proving, that any distinction of subject and object, of matter and form, can be learned from the analysis of man's inner consciousness. There exist in the conscious- ness itself, without any controversy, the varied phenomena which it presents to us; but as to separating these phenomena into different ele- ments, and shewing that the one belongs to the subjective, the other to the objective world, this he affirms to be impossible.

In urging these results, Schulz does not intend to deny the existence of an objective world, he merely intends to shew, that it is impossible for us to prove it. His scepticism, therefore, consists in the conviction he professed, that a fundamental philosophy, in which the phenomena of existence are explained and man's relation to the outward world deduced, cannot possibly be realized. His reasons for this are condensed by Michelet, in his History of Modem Philosophy, into the following particulars. First, in so &r as speculative philo- sophy must be a science (Wissenschaft), it requires principles which are unconditionally true. Such principlesi however, are impossible, because the

262 MOD£EN PHILOSOPHY.

coincidence of the idea of a thing with the thing itself is never given necessarily and immediate^. Secondly, whatever the speculative philosopher asserts that he knows respecting the fundamental principles of conditional existence around him, he knows only through the medium of his own ideas. The understanding, however, which is conversant simply with ideas, has no power to represent to itself any ohjective reality. Representations are not things themselves, and ideas can neyer decide upon the objectively real. Thirdly, the speculative philosopher rests his science of the absolute grounds of conditional existence mainly upon an inference drawn from the nature of an effect to the nature of a corresponding cause. From the nature of an effect, however, that of its cause cannot . vdth the slightest safety be con^ eluded : for, that is no other than concluding the conditioned from the imconditioned. By aiga* ments of this kind, Schulz aimed at resisting the pretensions of speculative philosophy ; and had he followed out his principles, would, in all proba- bility, have furnished in its place a theory of human knowledge grounded entirely upon expe- rience as the only real foundation.

The sceptical tendency, however, which was so plainly manifested by Schulz, was not followed up to any extent by after- writers. Jacob Sigis-- mond Beck and Salomon Maimon, it is true^ added somewhat to the sceptical arguments againsfl

SCEPTICISM IN GERMANY. 363

Reinhold, and for some time threatened to found another school of philosophy, in which all the conclusions of the human reason respecting the grounds of our knowledge should be contested and denied. This sceptical tendency, however, proved of short duration ; and from the opening of the nineteenth century to the present hour, Germany has presented no school whatever, we might almost say no individual, who could be accused of cherishing the spirit of absolute scepticism.

The younger Fichte, in summing up the different directions in which the speculative spirit of Germany in modem times has flowed, makes the following mention of Schulz and his principles, together with their nature and their origin : — " The reflecting (or subjective) school, since its revival by Kant and Jacobi, has included within itself its whole pirocess of development. We need only to place the individual forms of it as they stand by them- selves in connexion, or to develop them logically from one another, in order to embrace the whole cycle of their possible phases. The separation of the consciousness from objective reality in our reflection, can, on the one had, proceed to the complete n^ation of the possibility of deciding upon truth (scepticism of Schulz); or, on the other hand, reflection may bethink itself of the original and unalterable certainty attached to the consciousness, whether it arise from faith or in-

SCEPTICISM IN GERMANY. 265

appealing to faith, or intuitive reason, or any other principle, by which its reality might be established, Pichte boldly denied the real existence of it in philosophy altogether; accounted for the pheno- mena of the case upon purely subjective grounds ; and thus crushed the rising efforts of scepticism under the more potent arms of idealism. From that time idealism has been the national philosophy of Germany, without allowing a rival to appear in the field.

The result of this chapter may be concentrated in one sentence. With few exceptions, the chief scepticism of England is, that of authority; the chief scepticism of France, that of ignorance ; the chief scepticism of Germany, that of an absolute kind, which bases itself upon the denial of the fundamental laws of the human nature.

CHAPTER VII.

CHARACTERISTICS OF MODERN BfYSTICISM.

Sect. I. — Modem Mysticism generally ;'r^In

England.

We have now, at some length, traced the course, which three of the great generic systems of philo- sophy have taken during the present century. We have seen the efforts which sensationalism has made to analyze all the materials of human knowledge, and deduce the primary elements of which it is composed : and, even while pointing out its many errors and defects, we have acknowledged the fruitful results, which its close investigation of oar sense-perceptions has ever produced. Next, we have marked the deeper channel in which idealism has flowed, and ohserved its tendency to become lost in a sea of interminable speculation upon sub- jects, which no soimding line of human constmc- tion can ever fathom. Both the systems admit, that truth can be discovered by man*s natural fSEU^ulties, only the former allows no source of ideas to be possible except the senses, while the latter

MYSTICISM IN ENGLAND. 267

contends for another and a profounder source, which has its seat in the very depths of man's intellectual nature. Thirdly, we have noticed and weighed the efforts of scepticism to undermine the whole foundation of truth, and bring us to the comfortless conclusion that our highest knowledge is to perceive, that we know nothing. The fourth generic system yet remains — that which, refusing to admit that we can gam truth with absolute certainty either from sense or reason, points us to fidth, feeling, or inspiration, as its only valid source. This we term mysticism.

As the two former systems are those aroimd which metaphysical speculation and inquiry for the most part gather, scepticism and mysticism have ever played a somewhat subordinate part in the history of philosophy. Instead of being the spon- taneous production of the human mind, they have genenUy arisen from the errors and extravagancies of other attempts. Scepticism may be regarded as a kind of corrective process to prevent the erection of a philosophical superstructure upon an insecure foundation. The precise office which mysticism has performed in the progress of human knowledge is that of discovering and asserting the worth of man's emotionsj whether they be instinctive, moral, or religious ; for there is great danger both in the case of the sensationalist and the idealist, lest devoted, the one to the analysis of sense, the other of reason, they should overlook those sensibilities

268 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

of our nature which often speak the language of truth as certainly, if not as clearly, as reason itself. In am ca«, ft/voice of myrticil w«n. them rf their error; it tells them that there is a source of truth which they have both left unnoticed, and which might often avail, even when nothing else perhaps can, to direct the reason into the right path of investigation.

To elucidate the origin and nature of mysticism, we must glance for a moment at the connexion which subsists between the intellect and the emo- tions in the constitution of the human mind. Man may be said to have been created for two purposes, . to know and to do. We can conceive of a mind utterly passionless, gazing with piercing transpa- rency of vision upon truth ; but yet unimpelled by motives to any sphere of action whatever. A being thus formed might possess the most commanding intellect, but it would never be fitted to fulfil any destiny. To rouse a mind to action there must be feelings, emotions, desires, passions : by their means alone it is that it begins to exert its influence upon things around, and stepping forth from the sphere of its silent contemplation to live for a purpose as it regards the universe at large. The intellectual and the practical side of humanity, however, are not severed entirely firom each other. Our emotions spring forth, in some mysterious manner, from our ideas or conceptions ; so that what the intellectual force pictures to the mind as truths the emotive

MYSTICISM IN ENGLAND. 269

force reduces to feeling or impulse, and by that means at length to action. These explanations are by no means novel ; they are laws or principles of our nature which many have already observed, many described ; in the department of ethics, especially, the dependence of our moral feelings upon the con- ceptions of right and wrong which precede them have been repeatedly asserted and illustrated by the advocates of the intellectual theory.

It may be found, however, upon a closer investi- gation, that these two departments of our mental constitution run more parallel with each other than has been generally supposed. M. Cousin, in one of his lectures on the true, the beautiful, and the good, has hinted at this parallelism, but not having carried out the idea to any great extent, he has left the subject fully open to future research, so that we need no apology for offering one or two additional thoughts upon it.

In examining, then, the phenomena of inteUi- gence, we see a gradual progression from bare sen- sibility (the lowest intellectual process) to the very highest efforts of reason. We may easily observe the process in its various steps, if we imagine to ourselves an infant mind in its progressive develop- ment. That mind begins by experiencing a sensa^ tion; and this sensation brings with it the first gleam of knowledge, for it announces the existence -of some phenomenon, though of course it says nothing respecting the origin or the nature of it.

370 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

Next, after sensation, comes perception. Here a primitive judgment is exercised, by which the phenomena of sensation are all referred to a cause without us, to an objective world.

Thus far, indeed, the life of man and of the bmte creation run completely parallel. The in&nt mind, however, expands still further. Having made itself acquainted with the external world, in its various forms, it begins to compare, to generalize, to com- bine ; it observes qualities, and abstracts them ; it indicates things by signs, and forms language ; in a word, it shews all the marks of understanding, as we see it exercised in the various engagements of our outward life. Of this faculty the brute shews but a feeble glimmering; just sufficient, however, to indicate the possession of it to a slight degree. But understanding is not all ; the mind, thus fiur expanded, begins to look beyond the world of phenomena into that of realities ; it oversteps the region of sensible into that of spiritual things; thoughts of Grod and of immortality occupy iti deepest moments, until it rises to the loftiest attain* ments of human knowledge, and longs for the revelation of a brighter world. This fsu^ulty, it is almost needless to remark, is reason — ^the great prerogative of man alone.

Now, to each one of these different gradations of intelligence, we may see that certain gradations of sensibility precisely answer. To sensation on the intellectual side, answers instinct on the practical

MYSTICISM IN ENGLAND. 271

These two, in fiewt, form the lowest step of hoth, that in which they seem well nigh to unite ; for instinct is, as it were, an impulsive or preictical sensation. To our perceptions, again, perfectly answer the lower desires and passions; those, I mean, which are shared alike by the man and the brute. We perceive objects as they stand affected to our own interests, and our feeUngs are excited by them accordingly. So far man is not a moral or accountable agent; but now comes the human intelligence applying itself to all the frame- work of society, to all the relations between man and man, to all the outward aspects of human duty ; and to this part of our intellectual nature we have the moral emotions standing in exact correlation. The actions to which we are induced by the under- standing are moral actions ; they all have an ulterior purpose in view ; and it is according as this purpose is consistent or inconsistent with our nature and destiny, that they are to be regarded as morally right or wrong. Finally, standing in correlation with our purely rational and spiritual ideas, we have the spiritual and religious affections — affec- tions the most potent as also the most refined of which our nature is capable. We may present fhese correlates to the eye in the following manner : —

272 MODERN PHII/)SOPHY.

man's life is

I. Intellectual^ 11. PrMtical^

comprehendingy comprehendmgy

a. Sensation, to which answer Instincts. h. Perception The Passions.

c. Understanding .... Morals.

d. Keason Religious affections.

Now in every one of the above gradations the intellectual -state chronologically precedes the emo- tional, and is that from which the other emanates. Naturalists, for example, tell us that the remarkable impulse termed instinct arises from some sensatum which is experienced by the animal in some portion or other of the bodily frame. When our passions again are roused, there is always some object fit>m the perception of which those passions appear to origi- nate. In our moral nature the case is still clearer. There must be first the notion of right and wrong, then the contemplation of some action to which merit or demerit is attached, before any feeling of moral approbation or disapprobation can be excited. Lastly, our religious affections always spring from religious ideas. Just according to our conceptions of God, their great object, will be the feelings we exercise in worship towards him. As a whoU^ therefore, the intellectual man must be said to guide the practical man, the groundwork of all our emotions being found in our conceptions.

Such, however, cannot be said to be entirely and

MYSTICISM tV ENGLAND. 273

exclusively the case ; for these emotions when once excited react in their turn upon the intellect. They invest its ideas with new lustre and beauty ; they add intensity to all its operations ; and by their natural tendencies they often direct it in its re- searches after fresh truths. The result is, that in estimating the human mind as a whole, and giving their proper place to all the phenomena of its con- scious existence, due stress must be laid both upon the intellectual and the emotional element; if either side be left unappreciated, error will be the sure result.

Now the sensationalist and the idealist both neglect, to a great degree, the emotional element contained in our nature. The former, more fre- quently than not, confounds emotion altogether with sensation, making them but different modifi- cations of the same power; while the latter too commonly confines himself simply to the analysis of reason, neglecting the refiex influence which the emotions exert upon it. On the contrary, the mystic goes exactly into the opposite excess. To him the emotions of the human mind are regarded as supreme ; so that, instead of allowing the intel- lectaal faculty to lead the way, it is degraded to an inferior position, and made entirely subservient to the feelings. Season is in that case no longer viewed as the great organ of truth; its decisions aie enstamped as uncertain, faulty, and well nigh i^udess ; while the inward impulses of our sensi*

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274 MODERN FHILOSOFHT.

bility, developing themselves in the form of feith or of inspiration, are held up as the true and infallible source of human knowledge. The funda- mental process, therefore, of all mysticism is to reverse the true order of nature, and give the pre- cedence to the emotional instead of the intellectual element of the human mind.

This, then, being the common groimd of all mysticism, we have next to seek after the varioM forms which it assumes, and to make out as &r as possible some classification of them. Cousin, in the lectures to which we before referred, has given a twofold classification of the different mysticisms grounded upon the two fundamental ideas, or cate- gories, which lie at the basis of all human know- ledge ; those, namely, of the finite and the infinite, of the relative and the absolute, of phenomena and substance. Phenomenal mysticism with him is that which actually transfers the phenomena of oui inner self into the natural world, giving rise^ first, to paganism, or the deification of nature, and then, as a natural consequence, to invocation, evocation, and theurgy. Substantial mysticism is that which imagines the infinite being to reveal himsdf immediately to the feelings of the human soul, giving rise to those extraordinary attempts (for which some have been celebrated) at sinking down, in their inward contemplation, beneath the veil of mere phenomena, and gazing fisu^e to fiu)e upon God. In this classification there is unquestionably much

MYSTICISM IN ENGLAND. 275

truth and mach ingenuity ; as it is, however, too recondite and too subjective for our present pur- pose, we shall attempt another, which may better answer the purpose we have in view, that, namely, of describing the history of philosophy from a more objective point of view. We divide the various species of mysticism, then, into three classes. It arises —

I. When truth is supposed to be gained in pur- suance of some regular law or fact of our inward sensibility : this may be variously termed philoso- phical fsdth, or intellectual intuition.

II. When truth is supposed to be gained by a fixed supernatural channel.

III. When truth is supposed to be gained by extraordinary supernatural means.

We do not assert, that any ene of these suppo- sitions is absolutely and uniformly incorrect; nay, we are far from denying that knowledge cannot be communicated by all three of these methods to the human mind. The mysticism which attaches itself to such views lies in the belief^ that some one of these three is the great, if not the sole channel by which we have to gain infallible truth. The former, it will be seen, is par excellence a philosophical mysticism, the two latter partake more largely of the religious element.

L We begin, then, with the first of these three modes of mysticism, that which supposes truth to be gained m pursuance of some regular law or fact of our inward sensibility. Here, of course, as in

t2

276 MODERN PHIL080PHT.

all philosophical systems, there is to be noted a progressive advancement from the milder to the more intense form, in which it makes its appearance to the world. The first step in the development of a new metaphysical school is often so indgnificant, that we can scarcely perceive in what it really differs from those already in existence ; just as the first deviation of two lines which form an extremely acute angle can hardly be observed, while in thdr progress they soon become widely separated. Such is precisely the case with respect to the point, in which idealism and mysticism first commence to diverge from each other. The former accepts reason as the organ of truth, the latter &ith ; but reason and faith, however they may stand apart as distinct phenomena in their ordinary acceptation, yet in their higher acceptation blend together like the colonn of the spectrum, without our being able to say where the one ceases and the other begins.

Now the writer, whose works fill exactly this angle of our philosophical literature, is Coleridge. Our literary periodicals and reviews have teemed, for the last twenty years, Mdth articles or obsenra* tions upon the genius, the style, and the opinions of this our great poet^philosopher. To record any- thing here respecting his life and character would be to repea.t what almost every one already knows. His dreamy youth, his opening manhood, his colle- giate life in Cambridge and in Germany, his wild purposes only created to fade away, his lectorings,

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his writings, his marvellous conversations, all have formed the topics of many a page and many a reminiscence. Waving, therefore, all further allu- sion to these subjects, we shall now merely attempt rightly to estimate and determine the place, which Coleridge holds on the philosophical stage of our country.

The philosophy which Coleridge was first tatight must have been the sensationalism of Locke, as adapted to the wants and contingencies of modem times. The moral philosophy he heard at Cam- bric^e, if indeed he ever attended it, was that of Faley; and strange must it have seemed to his profound and earnest spirit, then beginning to dive into the deeper world of speculation^ to hear an unpoetical utilitarianism delivered from the post of instruction in that venerable university. No wonder that he craved after the more congenial minds of Grermany ; of Germany Mdth its mystery, with its poetry of life, with its spiritual philosophy : and no wonder that tbe literature of that country, when he once knew it, exerted a mighty influence upon him through the rest of his life — an influence which shews with what eagerness he gazed upon the new Tirorld of thought and of feeling, which was there opened to his wonder and delight.

Having mastered the principles of Kant, and looked into those of Fichte, Coleridge returned home with his predispositions to the higher meta- phyucs at once fixed and directed. Had he been

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brought up amongst the metaphysicians of Germany he would undoubtedly have been a Grerman idealist of the true stamp; as it was, howeyer, the com- mingling of his early education with the idealism of Kant and Fichte gave to his mind a tinge of mysticism, which was only heightened by his pas- sionate love of poetry and ocsthetics. To compre- hend, then, the exact nature of this mystidsm, (which is the precise object we have now in view,) we must first attempt to grasp some of the grand metaphysical principles, which our author laboured to establish.

Man is viewed by Coleridge as possessing (besides some minor ones) four great and fundamental faculties: — sensation, understanding, reason, and will. With regard to sensation, we find nothing in his writings that can be considered of any im- portance. The reality of our sense-perceptions was antecedently admitted by him, just as ihey were by Locke, Kant, and most others; in no case, that I am aware of, did he venture upon any transcendental theory to account for these ph^o- mena, or dive so far into the spirit of idealism, as to deny their objective validity. In proceedingi however, from sensation, to understanding and reason, we soon get at one of the main points (^ Coleridge's metaphysical opinions. The distinction drawn between the Verstand and the Vemunft^ i^ the philosophy of Kant, has been already explained at some length. Coleridge seized this distinction

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with great clearness, and, haying done so, preached, defended; and illustrated it, with all the ardour of his profound and philosophic mind. The one he terms reasoning hy sense^ the other, reasoning beyond sense. The one is confined to the objects and relations of the outward world, the other, to those of the spiritual world ; the one relates to the forms, under which we view the finite and contin- gent — the other relates to the forms, under which we image to ourselves the infinite, the absolute, the eternal This distinction, to which we have already so often referred, unquestionably underlies a very large proportion of CJoleridge's philosophical theories.

Our author, however, has not only imitated Kant in reference to the general distinction between understanding and reason, but has also accepted twofold division of reason itself into the theO' and the praciicaL The one is reason, as applied to the comprehension of truth — the other is reason, as applied to the regulation of actions. Pore reason tells us what is necessary and real in existence— practical reason tells us what is incum- bent upon us as moral agents. The one has to do simply with the intellectual man — the other has to do with the will. All the moral philosophy, we believe, which the writings of Coleridge contain, ultimately rests upon the validity and the authority of the practical reason, as a categoric imperative,

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an indisputable law, formed to regulate and control human life.

The part of our constitution, however, which Coleridge dwells upon with the greatest deUght is the will. It had been the effort of sensationalism to identify volition with pathological and sensap tional phenomena ; that is, to sink the personality of the human will in feelings arising from oar nervous sensibility. Coleridge had drunk deep enough into the subjective spirit of Kant's philo- sophy, to see the complete futility of all such attempts : he learned there to look with an almost piercing intensity of vision into thfe native consti- tution of the mind, the original power of the Mt; and applying this keen perception to the practical side of our humanity, he recognised in every man A WILL, a spiritual force (entirely distinct from his animal nature) given to him by God, to regulate his higher life. This will, accordingly, he regarded as the source of moral obligation, the germ of our religious being, the link by which our earthly nature is united to those higher natures, which evince a pure spontaneity for eternal holiness and love. These elements, therefore — the understandingt the reason, and the will — form the basis of Cole* ridge's metaphysical speculations. The view whidi he takes of them, though strongly marked, yet is by no means original ; the counterpart of all his notions on these subjects is to be found somewhere

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or other among the German idealistic writers — the greater part of them in the philosophy of Kant

So far, then, Coleridge is to be reckoned properly as idealistic in his tendency ; and, had he stopped here, must have been classed as one of that school. Having carried on his investigations, however, up to this point, he proceeds to construct, out of the elements above mentioned, a new organ of truth, termed faith, by means of which a fresh light, unattainable by reason alone, is shed over the whole mind. Reason, according to Coleridge, blends with the will : in other words, the faculty, by which we gaze upon absolute truth, unites with that, by which we are conscious of our own per- sonality ; and from hence originates a new insight into the secrets of man's destiny both in time and eternity. " Faith," to use his own words, " con- sists in the synthesis of the reason and the indi- vidual will. By virtue of the latter, therefore, it must be an energy ; and, inasmuch as it relates to the whole man, it must be exerted in each and all of his constituents, or incidents, faculties, and tendencies : it must be a total, not a partial — a continuous, not a desultory or occasional energy. And by virtue of the former (that is, reason), faith must be a light — a form of knowing — a beholding of truth. In the incomparable words of the Evan- gelist, therefore, fiuth must be a light, originating in the Logos, or the substantial reason, which is

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coetemal and one with the holy will, and which light is at the same time the life of men."

From this passage it is evident, that the faith- element enters decidedly into the higher branches of Coleridge's metaphysical system; that tmths are supposed to be conveyed to us by its means, which could not come solely through the under- standing or the reason, and that there is a mixture of mysticism, therefore, with his idealistic prin- ciples, shewing itself particularly in the application of his philosophy to religion. At the same time, faith, as viewed by Coleridge, is not a distinct and independent faculty, but the blending of the higher faculties in one ; so that his mysticism is of a kind, which stands on the very verge of idealism, not daring to venture without the sight of the reason, nor choosing to trust itself to the uncon- trolled suggestions of faith or of feeling.

The extraordinary value of Coleridge's writings, we think, must be fully admitted by every impartial mind. They form the first successful attempt of modem times, in our own country, to ground any of the great doctrines of Christianity upon a philo* sophical basis, without at the same time detracting aught from their peculiarly evangelical character. Added to this, they open a sphere of metaphysical thinking well adapted to counteract the objective tendency of our national philosophy, and direct the mind to those lofty views respecting human nature and human destiny, which, in the turmoil of our

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practical life, and in the want of a more spiritual system, we are so inclined to forget.

To estimate the mind of Coleridge philosophically, we should say, that most of his opinions and ten- dencies arise from the predominance which the ideas of self and of God ever held in his intellec- tual being. The former idea led him to the deep investigation of the intellectual fEiculties, and the will ; the latter led him to apply his metaphysical principles to the truths of religion. When, there- fore, he found that the objects of religious contem- plation transcended the powers of his rational nature to comprehend, immediately he sought to bring in the aid of his moral nature, and to construct out of the reason and will combined, another faculty, which should be adapted to the perception of these subUme truths. In so far as he has attributed to this new power of faith a super-rational capacity, must Coleridge be termed a mystic; but his mysticism simply consists in attempting to explain by these means the scriptural doctrines which most men receive, simply upon the authority of inspiration. The influence of Cole- ridge upon the age has been, and still is, more extensive than many imagine. His works form just the turning point in the philosophical history of our country, in which the advancement of sen- sationalism came to a stand, and the tide of spiritualism began to return. That tide has since continued to deepen and increase, and we anticipate

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ere long the time, when England shall again boast a philosophy which is worthy the name, and take its stand with France and Germany, as partner in the further development of abstract truth.

Another somewhat remarkable development of philosophical mysticism appears in the works o^ Thomas Taylor, the learned translator of Plato^ This, we should say, is chiefly remarkable as bein^^ a complete revival of the ancient Platonism— a^-^ fresh establishment of it amidst the varied systems of modern times. The power of gazing upon £he pure forms of all existence — of seeing the arche- types of all creation, reposing in the mind of Deity, we must regard as being a kind of intellectual intuition, sufficiently distinct from reason to warrant the appellation of mysticism rather than idealism, as distinctive of the system. The Platonic point of view, we regard, indeed, as one step in advance a£" Coleridge ; it not only advocates that kind of immediate intuition of truth — that gazing upon pure ideas, which Coleridge admitted ; but it denies the possibility of rising to this lofty contem- plation, while the mind is debased by the perpetual contact of material things. Listen to Mr. Taylor's reflections upon this point — " The conceptions of the experimental philosopher, who expects to find truth in the labyrinths of matter, are not much more elevated than those of the vulgar ; for he is ignorant that truth is the most splendid of all things ; that she is the constant companion of the

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divinity, and proceeds together with him through the universe ; that the shining traces of her feet are conspicuous only in form; and that in the dark windings of matter she left nothing hut a most ohscure and fleeting resemblance of herself. This delusive phantom, however, the man of modem science ardently explores, unconscious that he is running in profound darkness and infinite per- plexity, and that he is hastening after an object, which eludes all detection and mocks all pursuit."

Coleridge would scarcely have proceeded to this extent. He would have asserted the combination of our best Acuities into one supreme faith-prin- ciple, by which truth could be immediately conveyed to the mind ; but he would not have insisted upon the renunciation of physical investigation, and the absorption of the mind in Deity, as the only method of rising to the heights of true science. It is through advancmg such opinions, that the name of Plato, even to the present day, stands on the threshold of almost every system of mystical phi- losophy.

The most remarkable phase, however, of this school of mysticism has been realized in the notions of James Fibrrefont Q reaves, the fiiend, and, for some time, the coadjutor, of Festalozzi. Mr. Greaves was bom near London, in 1777, and edu- cated to mercantile life. On meeting with some reverses in business, he went to the Continent, and spent some time at Heidelberg, where he gathered

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many of the rising literati around him, and first hegan to open his new and strange opinions. From thence he went to Switzerland, and lived ten years with Pestalozzi, engaging ardently with him in the work of infant tuition, and maturing still fiirther his spirit-philosophy. On his return to England, he devoted himself to the improvement of popular education, and to spreading the views he had formed among his fellow-men. He died in the year 1844, heloved hy many, and admired by a few.

To gain a clear conception of Mr. Greaves* philosophy, is a matter of no ordinary difficulty; and still more difficult is it to explain it. The idea which lay at the basis of all his thoughts, seems to be the superiority of beinff to all knowing and doing. He considered that the great evil in life was selfishness, i. e., the regard to individual instead of general being; that before any improvement could be made, the inner man must be appealed to, and united with the love-spirit — the eternal and divine nature. His philosophy was, in fact, a species of spiritual socialism, in which all human natures were to be united and harmonized by the perfect submission of every soul to the law of love, and the passive yielding itself to the impulse of the spirit.

Nothing would be easier than to go on mold* plying explanations of his philosophy in similar terms ; but we fear that the reader, like ourselves,

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would fiEul to grasp the essence of it after all. As, however, Mr. Greaves has some followers and ad- mirers, of whom we may name Mr. H. N. Wright in England, and Mn Alcott in America, who has already written many valuable thoughts on educa- tion, we must look forward to see whether there is really a germ of living thought lying under the uncouth phraseology with which we are scandal- ized; and whether it can ever unfold itself to a system of philosophic truth. Meantime, we must request the reader, whose curiosity would prompt him to look into this form of modem mysticism, to consult "The Contrasting Magazine," published in 1827, a small volume, entitled, "Physical and Metaphysical Hints for Everybody," " Thoughts on Spiritual Culture," and a pamphlet, entitled, " The sentiments of R. Owen and J. P. Greaves con- trasted." To attempt fully to explain the system which these works unfold, would be attempting to explain that of which we have never succeeded in gaining a dear conception ; — we merely point out the above works as containing one of the most mystical of all the mysticisms of the present age.

n. The second mode of mysticism is that which supposes truth to be gained by a fixed supernatural channel. And, first, we must shew the distinction between the mysticism we have now to consider, and the scepticism, based on autho- rity, to which we made reference in the former chapter. In that case, it will be remembered,

2SS MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

there was a formal denial of the validity of the human fiumlties; truth attainable by no other means, was supposed to flow by various channels from a primitive revelation of God to man ; and the mind, well-nigh powerless in itself, was re- garded as the bare receptacle of ideas coming to it from an outward source. In the mysticism now before us, there is, indeed, the same denial of validitv to the intellectual &culties in their original state ; but by supernatural interposition, regularly and systematically supplied, they are imagined to be so enlightened and stimulated, as to apprehend truth — even such as lies beyond the reach of the natural man. We term the former scepticism ; because, on the hypothesis there made, the mind of man never becomes per se cognisant of absolute truth, but simply receives it through a given medium from an objective source. We term the latter, on the other hand, mysticism; because the mind is made actually capable sub- jectively, of acquiring truth, but is conditioned fix this process by supernatural agency.

This form of mystical philosophy has bedv maintained in our OAvn country, chiefly by teach.^^ of religion, some of whom have put forth schkv^ ments on the subject sufficientiy remarkable to demand our attention. Their speculations, ^ might be expected, refer rather to moral tham^ ^ metaphysical truth, their object being to shew, "^bat a valid moral philosophy is impossible when the

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assistance of revealed religion is not embraced in the creation of it. We shall attempt, therefore, to give a brief analysis of the system, as it appears in the writings of one or two of its abettors.

And, first, we shall refer to a somewhat small volume, entitled " Christian Morals," by the Rev. W. Sewell, M.A., formerly Professor of Moral Phi- losophy in the University of Oxford, — a volume pretty extensively known, as containing the ethical system adopted by the Tractarian Theologians. In this work there is, undoubtedly, much to admire, but much also, as we think, to repudiate; much good reasoning, but still more unwarrantable assumption ; many glimpses of truth, but still too many admissions of error. With the anti-sensa- tionalism of the author we fiilly coincide^ and have rejoiced in the stem rebukes with which he has met its shallow pretensions ; but, with the excep- tion of what bears upon this point, we can find very little, that assumes a truly scientific character in the whole volume.

The object of the work, it should be understood,

is to sketch out a complete system of ethics; to

^cooiint for the existence of moral truth in the

>9irorld ; to explain the nature and growth of the

^noral emotions in the human mind. The author,

^Blmofit at the outset, abjures all the attempts which

m rationalistic or ideal philosophy is able to make,

in order to do this ; with equal decision he denies

VOL. II. u

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the claims both of eclecticism and syncretism ; and, having thus cleared the way, introduces, at length, his own theory on the subject. The essence of this theory may be stated in few words.

Man, by the very constitution of his mind, is adapted to perceive certain relations, as existing between persons, just in the same manner, as by a primitive judgment we perceive relations between things.

The feelings, which arise within us, on the per- ception of them are instinctive, and, consequently, both universal and eternal.

In this perception, then, and in these feelings, lies the primitive germ of our moral being.

Man, however, at his birth is under the influence of a corrupt nature ; the evil spirit has dominion over him ; so that, instead of perceiving these moral relations aright, he views them distortedly, and acts, as the consequence, incongruously.

All moral education consists in impressing upon minds the right knowledge of these relations ; be- cause from right knowledge of them, right actions wiU infaUibly flow.

This education begins in the act of ChristiaiB. baptism; by which we are placed in an entiiel]^ new position with respect to moral evil, the hear""^ being in that act regenerated and the powers evil exorcised.

The moral Acuities being thus set right, th( must be fiirther enlightened, strengthened.

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perfected by the instruction of the Catholic Church ; by perfect submission to all its requisitions; and by the mystery of the holy communion, in which we become partakers of a Divine nature — the old man being crucified and dead.

In this manner the moral emotions become healthy and active; the dim undefined light of nature is no longer our guide ; but we follow the road pointed out to us by the authorized teachers of Catholic Christianity, our faculties having been prepared beforehand rightly to receive and clearly to comprehend all their instructions.

These ideas, then, we select out of the mass of theories and opinions which come before us in the work under consideration, as containing the essence of its moral system. The whole, in fact, may be compressed in these few words. Man is bom with a moral capacity, but in a confuised and perverted state; the grace conveyed in baptism sets him morally right; and the living teaching of the Church has to perfect what is thus commenced.

Now, in the whole development of this system, however ingenious it may be, it cannot be con- cealed that the writer is aiming at a particular purpose, rather than investigating impartially scientific truth. The whole plan of it is so he- terogeneous, that it could hardly have been formed in any mind without the influence of oertain outward motives to mould the opinions advanced into their fantastic shapes. It is with

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the greatest difficulty, indeed, that we can arrange the system, scientifically speaking, under any par- ticular school. The first step in man's moral development, as our author views it, is pure idealism, — it affirms innate moral powers and instincts. The next step is scepticism; for it affirms the fundamental disorder of these powera, and the consequent impossibility of gaining moral truth by them alone. The third step is mysticism; for by a supernatural agency, the nature of which is not very explicitly stated, the moral perceptions are all rectified in a moment, the spirit that haunted them exorcised. Lastly, with all the author's horror for eclecticism and syncretism, yet we find him culling from Plato, from Aristotle, from the Christian fathers, as well as all the different phi- losophical schools of modem times, to which we have just alluded. Let any one compare the ethical philosophy of Jouflfroy (the great eclectic moralist of France) with the work now before us, and say in which lies the greatest unity, both of design and of execution. We doubt not, but that any impartial and scientific judge would give the palm in this respect to the former.

With the idealism and, to a certain extent, with the eclecticism of Mr. Sewell (for eclectic he assuredly is) we can ftdly sympathize; they harmonize perfectly with the principles we have maintained throughout this whole work ; with his scepticism and his mysticism, however, we entirely

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disagree. Let us turn our attention for a moment' to his scepticism. The principle upon which this proceeds is shewn, first of all, in the contest that he undertakes against rationalism. The author here attempts to repel and to pour abundant ridi- cule upon the attempt, which some philosophers have made, to form for themselves a system of ethics simply by the exercise of their own reason. Moral truth, derived in this way, he considers as synonymous with the fancies of individual men^ and strives to prove that, whatever may be viewed upon this ground as right one day, may be proved wrong the next.

To bear out his assertions on this point, he takes some two or three parallel (! J illustrations from the experimental sciences — as geology, chemistry, &c.; as though it followed, that, because men cannot form right conclusions on these matters without the aid of the observation and testimony of others, therefore they cannot do so in the case of abstract and necessary truth. Why, the argu- ment of the idealist provides against this very objection. He contends that there are certain principles of eternal and immutable truth in the i¥orid ; that, while empirical facts must be gained by observation, by diligent colligation, and by the testimony of others on the same points, there are certain foundation-truths, which rest upon the necessary constitution of our own minds, and for the pledge of whose validity we need no second

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tions aright ; and that the evil cannot be rectified vdthoQt the rite of baptism and the aid of the Church. What is here involved, we would ask, but a perpetual paralogism ? The duty of belief, the duty of submission, the duty of entire trust to authority, is reiterated and asserted to satiety ; but whence, it is demanded, does the obligation of exercising such belief and such submission flow? My friend over the way, perchance, was never canonically baptized; he has never had the mysterious influence supposed exerted upon him ; he has never sat at the feet of a Catholic, or Anglo-Catholic priest ; his moral nature, there- fore, is unsound; he cannot possibly view the relations of duty aright. On what ground, then, do you urge upon him the duty of belief? He has not, on the hypothesis before us, the capacity to 4eel it to be a duty. Words to him are nothing ; for there is no correct moral sensibility to work upon. Talk not of his sin, his pride, his re- nstance of law, his rejection of God's authorized teachers; if his fundamental notions of moral obligation are perverted, duty is to him, in com- parison with a baptized person, a nonentity. In brief, if those without the Catholic Church are J^ 00 p^verted, that their moral nature does not ^ ax^ht within them, then all argument to bring AUfffO- to the pale, all attempts to prove them yf^X^S'^ must be unavailing : the only course must cajole them to the font, and having rege-

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Derated them, then, at length, to appeal to their renewed hearts. Whilst, however, the moral fe- culties are all twisted, in the name of consisteDcy do not blame them with a want of belief^ the obligation of which they are morally incapable of perceiving. Again we say, to deny the validity of a man's moral Acuities, and then to affirm him wrong in not performing the moral act of belief implies a paralogism in reason, and an absurdity in practice.

Into the author's mysticism we should be tempted to enter far more largely, were we writing on theo- logical principles rather than those of speculative philosophy. As, however, we certainly r^;ard it entirely out of place, in a work pretending to scientific rigour, to advance so loosely and affirm with so little proof the reality of sacramental efficacy, so we should be stepping out of our own track in marshalling any arguments, derived from Scripture or experience, which may Ue agamst it. But extraordinary it certainly appears to us, that any one should accuse man's instinctive moral convictions of indefiniteness, and then appeal fc> an abstraction, called the Catholic Church, to obtain a scientific system of ethical truth in whiA this indistinctness should be rectified. Let any one consider the mass of conflicting opinions, both on religion and ethics, which has been held by the visible Church in different ages ; let any one con- sider the difficulty of deciding which out of this

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^hole mass must be Catholic truth and which the incrustation of error ; let any one look round him now, and see how many authorized teachers of the Church itself are giving completely contradictory views on the same points, and those of fundamental importance ; let any one, in fine, estimate the diffi- culty and uncertainty of historical inquiry reaching back into remote ages, the chief monuments of which have perished in the wreck of time, and then say, whether he is willing to rest the fun- damental principles of moral obligation upon this basis.

Leaving, therefore, the Anglo-Catholic system of ethics, we go on to notice another form in which this same species of mysticism is sometimes advanced, and that is, when the authority of the Bible is substituted for that of the Church. I might mention Dr. Wardlaw's " Christian Ethics " as an instance of that, to which I am now alluding ; in which it is maintained that human nature is too perverted morally ever to arrive at pure ethical truth without the influence, which the revealed word exerts upon the mind. Here, as in the other case, there is a principle involved, which, if con- sistently maintained, would strike at the root of all moral obligation. For, not only must our personal responsibility on this hypothesis be dimin- ished, but even religion itself must lose its foun- dation and its force, when once the sanctity of conscience, as an inward law, is disowned. All

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were deranged, so, also, no course of moral instruc- tion, not even a revelation itself, could ever give ns the perception of good and evil, if our moral sensibilities were thrown into conAision.

m. We come now to consider the third mode of mysticism, to which we have alluded ; that, namely, which supposes all truth to be gauied by extraordinary supernatural means. This, of course, must be regarded simply as a species of religiousi mysticism, held for the most part by those who make but little pretension to philosophical investi- gation. It results frequently, for example, from an exaggerated view of the Scriptural doctrine of Divine influence. Not a few earnest believers in Christianity, with a mistaken desire of enhancing the value of revelation, would have us to suppose, that all absolute truth must be communicated by the special operation of the Spirit upon the mind. Man, it is argued, is blinded by sin, his reason is bedoaded, he cannot understand revealed truth though it blaze forth in the clearest light from the sacred page ; but a special enlightenment comes over him, and then truth becomes plain and obvious.

In this system we see simply the exaggeration of a great theological doctrine. That the eternal and infinite Spirit should communicate with those finite spirits, which are emanations fix)m its own essence, is philosophically probable, and theologically cer- tein ; but far is this from justifying the sweeping

300 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

conclusion that all absolute truth must depend upon such especial communings of God with man. To the spiritual nature of man, indeed, they may be all in all ; but God has not left him so irrespon- sible as it would be implied that he really is, were he entirely dependent intellectually upon the extra* ordinary communications of spiritual influence, in order to view truth aright. This idea, in feet, if developed to its fidl extent, lands us exactly upon the doctrine of Swedenbourg, who imagined that he had received certain special revelations from God, by which not only spiritual truths, but abo a complete system of philosophical science was un- folded to his mind. That direct intercourse with God is permitted, and that it answers a purpose infinitely important in human destiny, we fiilly believe; but assuredly it was never intended to supply the place, or to contravene the duty, of our own intellectual efibrt. As these phenomena, how- ever, come more under the idea of religious than philosophical mysticism, we shall now, having indi- cated their existence, forbear to pursue them any farther.

To sum up, then, our remarks upon the modem mysticism of England, in few words, we would remind our readers that the errors which it contains are all errors either of defect or of ewaggeratiaa ; and that every form of it really contains some germ of truth at the basis, to which it owes its existence. Look at the first form. That truth may stream in

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rays of beauty upon the mind through the medium of our inward sensibility (since all our aflFections have their appropriate object) we can hardly enter- tain a doubt; but when sensibility is substituted for reason, and raised to a position superior to it in the development of our knowledge, then there is an error admitted, which only needs a little unfold- ing to produce the wildest fancies of the philoso- phical mystic. Again, to adduce the second form — we should be far from denying that there is such a thing as a fixed supernatural channel, by which God reveals his will to mankind ; for the Bible, as we regard it, is such a channel, and so also is the Church. But when the Bible on the one hand, or the Church on the other, is raised up as an autho- rity upon the ruins of human reason, we cannot but think that a suicidal act is virtually committed, inasmuch as if the validity of reason is undermined, the possibility of proving the authenticity of revela- tion itself is for ever destroyed. Lastly, to adduce the third form of mysticism, we do not reject the illumination of the soul of man by especial out- pourings of Divine influence ; but we contend that such influences relate to man's religious progress in his probationary state, and are not to be regarded as the channels for conveying to any mind either physical or metaphysical truth. Mysticism, in fact, within its due limits, expresses what is true and sacred ; beyond those limits it becomes a vain and a pernicious assumption.

302 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

Sect. II. — Modern Mysticism in France.

France is a country by no means fiivonrable to the rise or the growth of mysticism. In no other nation of Europe is the understanding so perfectly developed as there. In none is the higher reason, generally speaking, developed so imperfectly. Afl a consequence of this, sensationalism has long been and still is the philosophical system of the mass; and although a strong reaction has set in, it has not yet worked long or powerftdly enough to raise the minds of many into that lofty region of thought, which is chiefly accustomed to be swept by the clouds and vapours of mysticism. France is the country of clear transparent mathematical thinking. Its language is of all others definite ; its idioms of all others most logically correct, and least poetical In vain do we search in France for the poesy of England or the deep mystic and reflective spirit of Germany. Extravagant romance may be suffi- ciently at home there, both in literature and in life; but the spiritual nature, the spring oC^ what is greatest in humanity, is for the most untouched.

The stirring scenes of the Revolution, and th< expectations which it raised throughout the worl< of the coming regeneration of human sodei directed the thinking minds of France more paiss^ ticularly to the philosophy of social life ; and it ^-^

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in this department that speculations nearest border- ing upon mysticism have made their appearance in that country.

The name of St. Simon is well known as heading a band of political regenerators. The system, how- ever, which he originated embraces not only the details of a new social constitution, but some other doctrines, which demand a little consideration under the present section. The mystical element, we should premise, does not attach itself to St Simonism in its principles, so much as in its details and its spirit. However rational the grounds of any system may appear, yet when its advocates separate themselves from the rest of the world, as some superior race; when they adopt a peculiar garb, and dress ; when they announce a great crisis in the world's history, and promise a complete r^eneration of human society of which they are themselves the precursors ; it is hardly possible to withhold from such visionary enthusiasts the charge of mysticism. St. Simon not only attempted to introduce new social principles, but a new Chris- tianity. Moses, it was said, had promised to men a universal fraternity. Jesus Christ had prepared it: St Simon has reaUzed it In him the universal Church at length appears, in which the whole man, socially as well as individually, is embraced.

Claude Henri Count de St. Simon was bom at Paris, A.D. 1760, of a noble family. At an early age he went to America, and served in the repub-

MYSTICISM IN FRANCE. 306

has to do. St. Simon's doctrine, therefore, gives a philosophy of mindsy rather than of mind ; it pre- sents a science of humanity as a whole, rather than of human nature in its isolation. This ^;rmc/p/^ is one to which no real objection that we are aware can be made; nay, we regard it as a most important branch of philosophy, to trace the mental progress of mankind in the world. All the mysticism attaching to it in the present instance arises from the enthusiasm with which the law of development was proclaimed, as a divine discovery of the new prophet, and as a substitute for all philosophy, all politics, and all religion for the future.

And what, then, is the law of development, by

which humanity marches onward to perfection?

Society, according to St. Simon, has shewn two

great phases or epochs, which, in long cycles, have

alternated with each other. The one is the organic

epoch, the other the critical. Under the former,

society is always bound together by some general

law — all its £[icts are regulated by some great

theory. Under the latter, all law and theory is

broken up ; unity of action ceases ; and individual

interests go on clashing mth each other. This

alternation has already taken place twice in the

liutory of humanity. The ancient pagan period

^f^ras an organic state ; the breaking up of paganism

the critical. This led to the second organic period,

t>y the consolidation of human opinion under the

|X>wer of the Catholic Church ; while the second

306 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

critical epoch, commencing with the reformation, found its climax in the French revolution. St Simon considered himself raised up to announce the advent of a third organic period, now just at hand, in which war, confusion, discord, shall all cease, and man be united by the triple bo|id of a moral, intellectual, and industrial perfection.

In this state of society, there will be due pio- vision for education, legislation, and religiooB worship. Every man must be a producer, and every class of producers must have its own proper sphere of action. Priests of religion — men of science, and industrial classes ; these will form the whole mass of society. The most eminent of the three divisions will form the aristocracy ; the whde together will form at once the Church and the State ; and the great principle of action will be— Each man according to his capacttjfj and each capacity according to its works. Such is the general idea of St. Simonism, as given by the disciples of it, Jn a work entitled, ^^ Doctrine de St. Simon," and published at Paris (second editivith in the writings of this school, there is much benevolence and philanthropy. In this species, indeed, of historical mysticism generally, there is a germ of truth — that of the intellectual develop- ment of humanity — which gives it all its force. Impossible as we conceive it is to ground a whole philosophy upon such a basis, yet it seems not improbable, that, to the method of St. Simon and Fourier, perfected, as it has more recently been, by M. Comte, social science is likely to owe its chief advancement in futurity. Such, then, in brief, is the modem social mysticism of France. Whatever other elements of mysticism that country may con- tain, are not of a character, as far as we are aware, to claim a place amongst the philosophical systems of the nineteenth century.

Sect. III. — Modem Mysticism in Germany.

Germany is a country, in which mysticism has ever found a somewhat congenial resting-plaoe. Religious mysticism, for example, has often exhi-

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bited there some of its most remarkable phases. Even Luther himself, the great religious hero of the country, may be said to have shewn a decided tendency to it in several features of his character ; and modem times have not wanted instances still more marked and decisive. It is not our intention, however, to dwell, even for a moment upon the purely religious mysticism of Germany, as this would carry us too far from the proposed object of the present history ; our purpose will be simply to delineate, as clearly as possible, the philosophical mysticism, which that country has originated during the present century. This course is rendered the more satisfactory, because philosophy and theology, in Germany, more than in any other part of the world, delight to go hand in hand ; so that mysti- cism in religion, as it exists there, is for the most part but the application of philosophical mysticism to theological questions.

In describing any particular department of the modem philosophy of Germany, we must always revert to the Kantian period, as that from which it has taken either its origin, or its chief tendencies. In order to carry our readers back, then, for a moment, to that period, we would remind them, that Elantism contained in it a two-fold element. On th^ one hand, Kant admitted the objective validity of our sense-perceptions ; and herein con- sisted his realism : on the other hand, he made all the peculiar features of these perceptions dependent

310 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

upon the subjective laws of our own understanding; and herein consisted his idealism. The expansion of the idealistic element we have followed through the writings of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and the respective schools to which they gave rise; the realistic element, on the contrary, was that upon which Jacobi linked his speculations, and from which he originated his profound system of philo- sophical mysticism. It is from this system that aD the German mysticism of the nineteenth centuiy, which is worthy of notice, has regularly flowed.

Frederick Henry Jacobi was bom at Dusseldor( on the 25th of January, 1743. In the eighteenth year of his age, he went to Geneva, and studied under some of the most celebrated professors in the different departments of mathematics, medicine, and philosophy. Being of a family that was pos- sessed of some rank and consequence in the wodd, he devoted himself chiefly, on his return to Diissel- dorf, to public aflairs, residing at his country seat at Fempelfort, and occupying his leisure hours in philosophical researches. The extensive corres- pondence, which he carried on with many of fte first scholars and writers of the age, during thu period, may, in some measure, account for the wide and rapid influence of his own productions. In 1807, he was made President of the Academy of Sciences at Munich, and there, on the 10th rf March, 1819, he died.

Jacobi came just at the period when some

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attempt at founding a mystical philosophy was naturally to be expected. The energetic idealism of Kant had swept away, after a manful struggle, the pretensions of empiricism, throughout the whole country; and, not content with that, had given a manifest opening to the revival of a pro- found scepticism, such as we have already noticed in Schulz. Sensationalism, idealism, and scepti- cism, therefore, had all three beSn engaged in the struggle to which the giant of Konigsberg gave occasion; and now mysticism stepped in to assert its claims also to the reverence and the confidence of mankind. Haumann had, some time before, attempted to found a system of faith-philosophy, and Herder, to graft his results upon the meta- physics of Locke; but it was Jacobi who first brought the faith-philosophy into repute, and, by his profound genius as well as elegant taste, raised it to a position, in which it was enabled to contest the supremacy with the other philosophies of the age and country.

One of the first things we observe in the writings of Jacobi, is his deep-rooted aversion to those rationalistic systems of metaphysics, for which Germany especially had been &mous. He assailed the Wolfian school, the pantheism of Spinoza, and all other dogmatical systems of a similar kind, with a force and perseverance, amounting almost to rancour. To comprehend the method of this opposition is by no means a difficult matter. All

312 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.'

knowledge, he affirmed, communicated to us through the medium of the understanding, (or the logical faculty,) must be of a contingent character, and can never attain the marks of the universal, the infinite, the purely philosophical. To demonstrate any truth, we must infer it from another, that lies beyond it ; this, again, from another still more general; and so on, to an infinite series. The human under- standing^ therefore, can never get beyond a series of conditions ; it can never rise to first principles ; never reach that point where truth is known and gazed upon by a direct intuition of the soul. Hence, he shews, that the philosophy which is grounded simply on the understanding, and which attempts to define and demonstrate all things, necessarily leads to fatalism. The philosophy of Spinoza, he regards as the complete type of these demonstration- seeking systems — systems which can never really transcend the finite and the conditioned — never attain to the absolute and real ; and, consequently, never consistently admit a Deity, except in that pantheistic sense, which regards God as the totality of finite and conditioned existence.

"It has been," he remarks, "since the time of Aristotle, the increasing striving of all philosophical schools, to make immediate knowledge secondary to mediate ; to make the original perceptive capacity, which grasps all things immediately, secondary to the reflective capacity, which is conditioned by abstraction ; to make the prototype secondary to

MYSTICISM IN GERMANY. 313

the type — the essence to the definition— and intu- ition to understanding; yea, to make the former altogether vanish in the latter. Nothing is allowed to hold good hy these philosophers, except what admits of being proved, yea, twice proved, by turns, in the intuition, and in the conception — in the thing itself, and in its image or its name ; so that in this last alone the thing itself is supposed to lie, and to be really seen."

To these kind of remarks, the dry and formal definitions of the Leibnitzian-Wolfian philosophy had certainly given abundant occasion. It seemed to be imagined by the adherents of that school, that no sooner could any thing be defined by the rules of logic, than its whole nature was deter- mined. Jacobi, impressed by the folly of this procedure, opened a campaign against all dogma- tical systems whatever, and, with great ingenuity, drew the conclusion, that a purely demonstrative philosophy, as it has no first principles to rest on, must lead to scepticism and absurdity.

The philosophy of Kant he excepted from these sweeping objections ; although he did not consider even this to be by any means fundamentally sound. He admitted, that that great thinker had efiectually opposed the dogmatical systems of the day; that he had shewn their futility, in his theoretical philosophy ; and pointed out the road to truth, in his practical : but still he objected to him, that, having once admitted the validity of demonstra-

314 MODERN PHILOSOPHY.

tion, and, by its means, having undermined the arguments, on which our belief in God and immor- tality rests, he could not consistently restore by his practical movement what he had destroyed by his theoretical. It was evident to him, that some more i^ndamental principle was wanting ; some- thing to furnish a basis for Kant's demonstrations, and to give validity to his practical conclusions. This principle, then, he asserted to be faith — ^the direct inward revelation of truth to the human mind.

The true idea, then, of Jacobi's philosophy lies here : — that all human knowledge, of whatever description, must rest, ultimately, upon faith or intuition. As it regards sensible things, the under- standing finds the impressions, from which all our knowledge of the external world flows, ready formed. The process of sensation itself is a mys- tery ; we know nothing of it, tiU itself is past, and the feeling it produces is present Our knowledge of matter, therefore, must rest entirely upon our faith in these intuitions. There is, however, another and a higher species of fidth than this. Just as sensation gives us an immediate knowledge of the world, so there is an inward sense— a rational intuition — a spiritual fsu^ulty — ^by which we have a direct and immediate revelation of supersensual things. God, providence, freedom, immortality, moral distinctions, &c. — these are things which come not to us by demonstration.

MYSTICISM IN GERMANY. 315

We gaze upon them by the inward eye ; and have just as firm conviction of their reality, as we have of those material objects, upon which we look with the bodily eye. It is by this twofold faith or reve- lation, that man has access to the whole material of truth— material which his understandmg afterwards moulds into various shapes, and employs, on the one hand, for the purposes of this life, and, on the other, for preparation for the life to come. Leave out, however, this direct inlet to our knowledge, and all demonstration, all definition — in short, all philosophy is but a sport with words, -^ a superstructure, sometimes complete enough in itself, but baseless as the most airy visions of the imagination.

It may now be easily seen, how Jacobi linked his views of philosophy upon the realistic principle of Kant Kant admitted, without proof, the reality of our perceptions : here, then, was the &ith-prin- ciple already in operation, and only needed some additional fencing against the encroachment of the ideal element, to give it its due weight and import- ance. While Kant, therefore, supposed the sense- perception to be a subjectively formed image, in which, not indeed the thing itself, is represented, but fidmply the existence of an objective phenomeiion declared, Jacobi affirmed the real object of our perceptions to be a true and perfect representation of the outward reality; so that he completely fortified this part of our mental constitution against

MYSTICISM IN GERMANY. 317

is as much dependance to be placed, as upon those of the senses.

In brief, Jacobi, at a time when idealism seemed preparing to sweep away all the great and recog- nized boundaries of human knowledge, stood forth as the apostle of realism — a realism which rested upon faith in our direct intuition of truth, whether human or divine. " He shewed," says Chalybaus,