philosophers, who would have been conspicuous in any age, and will hereafter, we think, be named with Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Descartes, and Leibnitz, among the greatest thinkers of the world. They are Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. Silently these lights arose and went up the sky, with out noise, to take their place among the fixed stars of Genius and shine with them; names that will not fade out of heaven until some ages shall have passed away. These men were thinkers all; deep, mighty thinkers. They knelt reverently down before Nature with religious hearts, and asked her questions. They sat on the brink of the well of truth, and continued to draw for themselves and the world. Take Kant alone, and in the whole compass of thought, we scarce know his superior."

The panegyric as well as the complaint both indicate the prominent position which Germany occupies in modern philosophy. Now what is the tendency of the German mind and the German philosophy? We will answer in the words of one of the Lowell Institute lecturers, whom it is but faint praise to call the Jouffroy of America: "The tendency of the great leaders of the German mind, of Descartes, Leibnitz and Kant, was towards spiritual ism, and if carried out exclusively, and applied to religion, it would be apt to degenerate into Pantheism. I do not mean that there is any danger of the Germans becoming Pantheists, but their great thinkers put the mind on that track. It leaned that way, and, if it fell, would fall that way.'

The tendency then to adopt a German mode of thought and philosophy, is a tendency of philosophy towards spiritualism.

We have seen that the tendency to ultraism was more or less characteristic of every movement of humanity. We have also inferred from the nature of the philosophy of a preceding age, that the general tendency of modern philosophy would be spiritual. And by the "general tendency" of philosophy is meant the tendency to develope its own nature, to go on in the peculiar direction in which its movement commenced. Thus, for instance, the general tendency of the school of Locke, Hobbes, Bentham, &c., was towards materialism, or sensualism;

starting from the finite and sensual to carry these ideas to their furthest limit.

We have regarded the tendency to accept of German modes of thought, from the spiritual character of the German mind, as another evidence that the general tendency of modern philosophy was towards spiritualism.

Passing by the intermediate systems, which merely compose the steppingstones from sensualism to spiritualism, let us glance at the great leaders in Germany, that land of "cloud, mist, and ether"-of modern speculation and philosophy-among whom, by universal consent, Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel occupy the foremost position. Different, in the conclusions to which they have arrived, as may be the members of the spiritual school, the disciples of Kant from Kant himself, it seems hardly possible to deny that he was the first to give definite form to the philosophy of this school, that he is the great leader, at least of that part of it who derive from his works the title "Transcendental." Difficult, nay! almost impossible, as it is fully to understand the terms of the nomenclature he himself invented, or to get at the thought through his peculiarly dark and involved phraseology, we can hardly expect to arrive at the clearest notions of his system ourselves, much less convey it to others, especially as the complaint was early made by his own countrymen of its incomprehensibility, and disputes often arose, among his immediate disciples, concerning the meaning of many of his propositions. We will therefore trust to wiser heads than our own to give an account of his system, and with but a few extracts from his writings proceed to those of his followers.

And, in passing, it may not be inappropriate to notice in few words the tendency of modern speculators in our own land as well as elsewhere, to imitate their leader, not only in the use of a new technical vocabulary, but, in what seems to us, his indistinct and involved phraseology. In adopting a new mode of philosophizing, Kant might perchance have found it necessary to employ new and more exact terms than those commonly in use. But, in accepting those parts of the new nomenclature that seem necessary, what need is there of adopting a

barbarous jargon, unintelligible certainly to the great mass of readers, and an occasion of trouble, as well as regret, to every man of clear perceptions and pure taste? Why write English in a German idiom, and place simple thought in a mystical dialect? We sometimes are disposed to doubt, whether these writers do not occasionally find themselves in the condition of Kant himself, who was compelled to answer the demands of his friends for an explanation of some of the most ambiguous passages in his writings, that he knew very well at the time he wrote them, what he meant, but that he had better business afterward than to be writing commentaries on his own books.

To the above criticism it has been answered, that the subjects treated of, in this dark and cloudy phrascology, were so deep, so far beyond the common consciousness, and the capacity of common minds to fathom, that no words and phrases, in common use, could be linked together in such a way as to reach them. Finally, that the language of a material philosophy was wholly unfit, as well as insufficient, to express the ideas of a new and spiritual sys

tem.

Jouffroy certainly does not move in shallow waters, and yet he is always simple, clear, and lucid. So it is with our own Channing, who has reached, and placed in clearest light, the deepest spiritual themes. And, in our neighboring city, during the last three winters, no superficial or shallow views have been given by a distinguished philosophical lecturer, of the profoundest depths of thought, which the human mind is capable of sounding, in language as clear, distinct, and wellarranged, as the thoughts it expressed. But to return to Kant and his philosophy; and if, from his own words, we do not receive a correct idea of his philosophical notions, we may, perhaps, not without some reason, lay a part of the blame on the great philosopher himself, as well as on our own dullness and stupidity. Leaving the ground occupied by the materialists, that the nature of the mind and soul was to be learnt from the effects produced upon them by the influences of the outward world, and therefore that the finite, outward, and sensual, was the true starting-point of all philosophy,

he takes his stand in the mind itself, and observes the action of the inward world upon the outward, regarding the mind, not as formed and fashioned by external influences, but as itself fashioning and moulding the external world.

In his own words: "It sounds strange, indeed, at first, but it is not less certain, when I say in respect to the original laws of the understanding, that it does not derive them from nature, but imposes them upon nature." He therefore commences with the inquiry, "How synthetical judgments, 'à priori,' are possible with respect to objects of experience?" that is to say (as we understand it), how, and on what grounds, such ideas as those of power, beauty, goodness, cause and effectwhich, originating before, and independent of, all experience, we attach, at first glance, to certain objects and events- exist. These "synthetical judgments à priori," or intuitive ideas which have in them something beyond what experience can give, arise, according to our philosopher, from a faculty of the soul itself. "Reason," says Kant, "is the faculty which furnishes the principles of cognition à priori," therefore, pure reason is that which contains the principles of knowing something absolutely à priori. "I term all cognition 'transcendental,' which concerns itself, in general, not so much with objects, as with one mode of cognition of objects, so far as this may be possible à priori-a system of such conceptions would be called transcendental philosophy." In investigating the pure reason, he finds that all its conceptions, in other words, "all transcendental ideas may be brought under three classes, of which the first contains the absolute (unconditioned) unity of the thinking subject; the second, the absolute unity of the series of the conditions of the phenomena; the third, the absolute unity of the condition of all objects of thought in general. The thinking subject is the object of Psychology; the complex of all phenomena (the world) is the object of Cosmology; and the thing which contains the supreme condition of the possibility of everything that can be thought (the essence of all essences), is the object of all Theology; consequently pure reason furnishes the idea of a transcendental doctrine of the soul (psychologia rationalis); of a transcendental science of the world

(cosmologia rationalis); and, finally, also of a transcendental cognition of God (theologia transcendentalis)." In the words of another commentator on Kant, then, "The reason, finally, is the sublime of human spontaneity. It takes cognizance of that which is selfevident, necessary, absolute, infinite, eternal. Its objects are beyond the sphere, not merely of time and space, but of all ratiocination; and it is among these objects, above the stir and smoke of this dim spot, which men call Earth,' that the transcendental philosophers have most successfully expatiated. While the understanding is discursive, and collects proof, and deduces judgments, the reason is selfsufficient, intuitive, immediate, and infallible, in all its dictates." Another writer, on the same subject, observes: "According to the transcendental philosophy, then, what is properly termed knowledge, is entirely confined within the limits of experience. We know nothing, and can know nothing of any object that may not be conceived to exist in space and time, which may not be assumed under the categories, or laws of thought, relative to the understanding. The reason does, indeed, form to itself pure ideas, which go beyond the limits of sense and experience, but, as we know no object to which these are applicable, they remain as mere ideas wholly incognizable. Such are our notions of God, of moral freedom, and of immortality, which wholly transcend the limits of our intellectual nature."

Kant himself says, all knowledge "of things derived, solely, from the pure understanding, or from pure reason, is nothing but empty show, and truth is to be found only through experience." Thus we see God and immortality, according to Kant, are mere ideas, exist only in human reason, in the consciousness of men. This is an inevitable conclusion from his premises, however desirous the philosopher might have been to conceal or avoid it, and of this we shall see that his followers have made a use which he seems hardly to have anticipated.

In the limits of an Article like this, it is scarcely possible to do more than glance at some of those who have followed in the footsteps of Kant, and widened, modified, and improved the path of philosophy he opened. Speak

ing of these, and their system, in connection with the material school, Professors Edwards and Park remark: "The Germans, however, have launched forth to the other extreme. It is said that Kant's system is in ruins; but Kant's influence is not. Other systems, it has been observed, have rolled over his, and have been themselves, in turn, displaced. Yet all these systems have conspired to one general effect. They have all been at antipodes to Locke and Paley; they have all made war upon the sensual and the outward. The basis of everything has been laid upon the internal and the independent powers of the human soul. Hence the German language is so rich in all the terms which are applied to spiritual phenomena.” And, in the last sentence, by the way, we have the reason hinted at for the use of German phraseology and the technicalities of German systems of philosophy; but though, in Germany, originated, or rather was earliest expressed and developed the spiritual philosophy that distinguished the times, it would be highly irrational to call it a German philosophy, or suppose that it was wholly imbibed from Germany, by its disciples and advocates in other lands. Many here, as well as in other countries, were charmed by the unfolding to their own minds of spiritual ideas, and lofty "transcendental" conceptions, when, as yet, German literature was to them a sealed book, and before modern spiritualism had any confessed friends, any living English authors. No! let us rather believe that, led by a divine hand, humanity passes from thought to thought, from system to system, from one height to another, in the great ascent to heaven.

Next to Kant comes Fichte, his disciple and contemporary. According to Cousin, Fichte's formula is: "The me supposes itself, it supposes the world, it supposes God; it supposes itself as the primitive and permanent cause with which everything commences, to which everything is referred as at once the circle and the circumference; it supposes the world as a simple negation of itself; it supposes God as a negation of itself, taken absolutely." Again: "According to Fichte, God is nothing but the subject of thought, conceived as absolute; he is, there

fore, still the I." "Fichte distinguishes between a twofold I, the one phenomenal, namely, the I which each of us represents; the other is itself the substance of the I, namely, God himself. God is the absolute I." To quote still further from Cousin: "The last result of the system of Fichte, was the me supposed, or rather supposing itself as the sole principle. Having arrived at this extremity, it was necessary that the German philosophy should either depart from it or perish. Schelling is the man who took it from a labyrinth of a psychology at once ideal and skeptical, in order to restore it to reality and life. Especially he vindicated the rights of the external world, of nature; and it is from this circumstance that his philosophy derives its name: The system of identity, or philosophy of the absolute.' In his opinion, philosophy must rise, at first, even to the absolute being, the common substance, and the common ideal of the me, and the not me, which does not relate exclusively either to the one or the other, but which comprehends them both, and forms their identity. This absolute identity of the me and the not me, of man and nature is God. It follows from this that God is in nature as well as in man ;" and that "their only difference is that of consciousness and non-consciousness," &c.

Of Hegel, the same author says: "Hegel has borrowed much of Schelling; I, far more feeble than either, have borrowed from both. I publicly called them both my masters and my friends, and the leaders of the philosophy of the present age." Thus we see that while, according to Fichte, God is the substance of the subject of thought, the person, the absolute I; with Schelling, God is the substance equally "of the me and the not me, of man and nature," but in man and not in nature is God conscious. This, if it does not expressly assert, would seem strongly to imply, first, that, as God is the common substance and the common ideal of the me and the not me, all things are God; and, secondly, that God only arrives at consciousness and personality in man; hence the tendency of modern philosophy is to panthe ism, and, at the same time, to the apotheosis of humanity. "Pantheism," according to Dr. Walker, whom we

must again be permitted to do the injustice to quote from memory, "Pantheism makes the Infinite, all, and the Finite, nothing; and as Atheism loses God in nature, so Pantheism loses nature in God. We may begin with the Infinite, with God, and attempt to deduce the Finite from it; if we fail in this, as, in strict logic, I think we must, we shall not attain the Finite at all. Hence Pantheism.”

Is it necessary to go on further with our quotations from the great leaders of modern philosophy? If so, the next on the list, and not the least distinguished, is the professed disciple of Schelling and Hegel, Victor Cousin, of France, from whom we will quote a few sentences, characteristic, we think, of the author and his philosophy.

"The invisible," he says, "which is eternally concealed from all direct apprehension, is revealed to humanity by the reason. Reason is the faculty, not of perceiving, but of conceiving the Infinite (God). By what means is the Infinite revealed to reason? . . By its idea. And what are the forms in which the idea of the Infinite is presented to human reason?

The forms of the True, the Beautiful, the Good," &c. Of nature, he remarks: "The world, accordingly, is of the same stuff with ourselves, and nature is the sister of man; it is active, living, animated like him; and its history is a drama no less than our own. Nature, like humanity, is composed of laws and of forces, of reason and of activity," as "all law supposes a reason, and the laws of the world are nothing but reason, as manifested in the world." "As we have

reduced the laws of reason and the laws of her force to two, could we not also attempt a reduction of the forces of nature and of their laws? Could we not reduce all the regular modes of the action of nature to two, which, in their relation with the spontaneous and reflective action of the me and of reason, would exhibit a still more intimate harmony than that which we have just indicated between the internal and external world?" "It will be perceived that I here allude to expansion and concentration.

What physical inquirer, since Euler, seeks anything in nature but forces and laws? Who now speaks of atoms? And even molecules, the

old atoms revived, who defends them as anything but an hypothesis? If the fact be incontestible, if modern physics be now employed only with forces and laws, I draw the rigorous conclusions from it, that the science of physics, whether it know it or not, is no longer material, and that it became spiritual when it rejected every other method than observation and induction, which can never lead to aught but forces and laws. Now what is there material in forces and laws? The physical sciences then, themselves, have entered into the broad path of an enlightened spiritualism."

A few more remarks of Cousin, on Reason, and we finish our quotations: "If certainty is to be obtained, if there are universal truths, it is because Reason, which teaches them to us, has itself a sovereign and universal authority." "Indeed, which of our faculties is it that, in the reading of the Holy Scriptures, must receive this sudden light? Examine, and you will find that it must be reason. It is reason which, endowed with the power of recognizing the True-the Good-the Beautiful-the Grand-the Holy-the Divine-wherever it is, recognizes it in the Holy Scriptures as it recognizes it in Nature, as it recognizes it in conscience and in the soul, which is also a Bible in its own way." "Reason, then, is literally a revelation, which is wanting to no man, and which enlightens every man on his coming into the world. Reason is the necessary mediator between God and man-the Aoyos of Pythagoras and Plato-the word made flesh which serves as the interpreter of God and the teacher of man -divine and human at the same time. It is not, indeed, the Absolute God in his majestic individuality, but his manifestation in spirit, and in truth; it is not the Being of beings, but it is the revealed God of the human race.'

From the hasty survey, then, we have made of modern philosophy, as we find it developed in the works of its most distinguished advocates in Europe, we cannot but perceive how entirely spiritual is its direction and character; that the tendencies of this philosophy are not only towards an extreme Spiritual Rationalism, but to Idealism, Pantheism, and Mysticism, and to exalt the inward above the outward,-spirit above matter, reason above sense, -man

above nature; finally, it would lead us, when carried out to its fullest limit, to regard man as the centre and source of all truth, all knowledge, all power. Not only, to repeat the words of Kant, "the understanding imposes its laws upon nature," but, in the language of Cousin, "the Infinite-the True-the Good-God himself is revealed to humanity by the reason alone."

We perceive, then, many subordinate and particular tendencies that grow out of the nature of modern philosophy, that are merely subdivisions of the great general tendency to the extreme of Spiritualism,-various expressions of the same grand principle. Let us, therefore, conclude these remarks by noticing the influence of some of these tendencies upon the intellect, the heart, and the life of man. In other words, let us examine the practical tendencies of modern philosophy.

And first, the tendency to Rationalism, as the Infinite: in other words, "the True, the Beautiful, the Good," is only "revealed to humanity by the reason," to use the language of Cousin; and to it alone "we owe the knowledge of universal and necessary truths, of principles which we all obey and cannot but obey; and, as she alone is "the interpreter of God and the teacher of man," then all must stand or fall by her decisions.

Thus, in the present age, in the name of reason, everything is challenged to show its colors, give her watchword, or die. Every human institution is questioned to declare the principle in which it exists; and, if this does not accord with reason, it must perish. Art, science, government, religion, each in turn must stand forth and give a full account of itself. Reason sits on her judgment-seat, and, in her hall, lighted from on high, are no dark corners for folly and falsehood to hide in. Before her powerful light, the wan spectres of fear, superstition, and blind credulity fade away, with the clouds and darkness, in which they had their birth. Before the authority of her word, the bands of tyranny and hypocrisy, vice and bigotry, cower and tremble, and shrink away into their graves. No matter how time-honored, how powerful, how esteemed among men, reverence for the outward has no place in this system: whatever cannot prove itself a friend of reason, and in