from the class of things, and the human person burst the concealment in which it had hitherto slumbered. In our present state, when we cease to govern our faculties, they return to their primitive and natural independence; that is to say, they act with their own movement and not with ours, no longer obeying the free intelligent will of the person, but fatality, like the properties of things.

"It is not impossible to observe the birth of personality in the developement of the external faculties of the infant. In the first place, it does not know how to make use of its arms, or its eyes; it is evident that it sees before it observes, and that it moves before it directs its motions. Soon we perceive a faint commencement of will, that is to say, of direction, in these two capacities; but this will does not become master at once; time is needed to substitute voluntary direction for spontaneous developement. A kind of struggle takes place between the two impressions; each of which is seen by turns to triumph. Finally, at length, the will subdues and disciplines these two capacities; and the eyes and the arms of the infant become what they should be, that is, submissive instruments which readily obey his desires.

“It is a very remarkable circumstance, that with those individuals whose sluggish will neglects the direction of certain faculties, those faculties seem to accustom themselves to their independence, and cannot again be reduced to subjection, but after an incredible resistance. Thus when we have formed the habit of suffering the faculty of thought to wander at pleasure, it is only with great difficulty and by constant efforts, that we can apply it and fix it upon a particular subject; it every moment escapes us, and we are obliged to pursue it, to call it back and to press it, if I may so speak, with all the weight of our authority, in order to retain it on the subject. It is the same neglect, which deprives some persons of the ability to restrain the violence of their passions. As a general rule, our authority over ourselves is supported only by continual exercise; it is by this alone moreover, that it can increase, and acquire facility. The measure of this authority is also the measure of the dignity of the man, because this authority, in fact, is the man himself.

There are three principal degrees in the establishment of this authority; and these three different degrees constitute three different internal states, around which are grouped all the variations of moral dignity which are presented by the spectacle of human consciousness. Naturally, the capacities are not submissive, because the authority of the will imposes on them a direction, which is contrary to their natural tendency. Now, the greater part of men have their capacities in this state of insubordination; or at the most, they subject one or two of them, whose docile service is indispensable to the profession which they exercise. Hence it follows, that as each capacity acts at random, their whole inward nature is the image of anarchy and disorder; while man ought to rule over them, they rule over him; and he is the slave of all the sensations, all the passions, all the errors, all the imaginations, all the follies which they produce. If an occasion be presented which demands the prompt and vigorous action of one of these faculties, the will

in vain attempts to employ it; as it has not been accustomed to serve, it resists its orders, and leaves it impotent and weak, when it ought to have triumphed. The repeated experience of this inability throws man into a state of profound discouragement, and, if he does justice to his nature, produces a dissatisfaction with himself which makes him completely miserable. In most cases, he does not find the strength to escape from this condition; terrified by the difficulties, corrupted by the habit of weakness, he abandons himself; and continuing to go down, from one degree of debasement to another, he falls at length almost to a level with things, forgets himself entirely, and presents the melancholy spectacle of a noble nature enervated and degraded by its own fault.

"There is only one way to escape this deplorable fate, and that is to establish in ourselves, by the most strenuous efforts, the dominion of the will. This task is easier in some natures than in others, and it is one of the advantages of a good education, that it prepares man for it in his infancy, and makes its accomplishment far less difficult. But the most happy dispositions and the most judicious education can only mitigate the struggle, but cannot take away its necessity. There are many souls, which, obedient to the noblest impulses, engage in this generous struggle, during the bright days of Youth; but few which sustain it with constancy. The greater part soon yield to fatigue, and, without renouncing the combat, pass their lives in the alternations of courage and of frailty, which render them by turns happy and wretched, elated with success or dissatisfied with themselves, and which keep them at an equal distance from moral degradation and from moral perfection.

"These perhaps are indebted to the shortness of life, for if their moral dignity is preserved, it is, in most cases, because they have not had time to lose it. In an affair like this, to vibrate between victory and defeat, is to be nearer to defeat than victory, for defeat is more natural than victory. Still, this struggle to whatever degree it be carried, is noble; but it is sublime, only when it is persevering; and it is the more sublime, in proportion as it is long and painful. It is only a persevering struggle, moreover, which can conduct men, in the brief duration of this life, to the third degree of personal dignity, which is the highest point of perfection that it is possible for him to attain.

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In this third state, the characteristic of which is beauty, the capacities are so trained to obedience by the effect of a long and severe discipline, that they yield without resistance to all the commands of the will, and move under its direction with the same facility as the keys of an instrument under the touch of a skilful musician. All struggle has ceased, and the will, happy in the exercise of an easy authority, governs almost without thinking of it, and calls forth prodigies with a free and graceful unconsciousness. The sight of its dominion would lead us to believe that its authority was natural; we should say that it was the authority of an angelic spirit, which had never known the uneasiness of thought, the storms of the passions, and the revolts of a capricious sensibility. An ineffable harmony is manifested in whatever it does, since all its faculties, obedient to its voice, conspire to execute its slightest purposes, precisely as it wishes, and in all cases, with equal facility.

Every thing which it does, moreover, is complete and finished. As all effort has disappeared, the energy of personality appears less clearly in this state than in that of struggle; it renders the character less imposing, but more lovely; less sublime, but more beautiful. It is the difference between the oak, which, on the summit of a lofty steep, resists the everlasting tempests which beat upon it, and in spite of the winds, puts forth its short but vigorous branches; and the majestic plane-tree, which, in the depths of a happy valley, serenely raises its head towards the sky, and spreads the riches of its foliage on every side with an harmonious luxuriance.

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There are, as we perceive, infinite degrees in the authority which we can exercise over our capacities. This authority varies in different individuals, to so great a degree, that perhaps there are not two in whom it possesses the same extent. It is extremely limited in the greater number, because as the faculties are not naturally submissive, there is required in order to subject them to the will, a vigorous action upon ourselves, of which few men are aware, or of which they are willing to take the trouble. A part only undertake the labour at all; few sustain it with perseverance; and but a very small number, in the short duration of this life, arrive at the end proposed, and obtain a complete and easy authority over themselves. Besides these differences, there are many others. We see men who have the greatest power over one of their faculties, and none, or next to none, over the others; thus, the philosopher, accustomed to reflect, controls his intellectual faculties with the greatest ease, while he often has no government over his passions; others have a great command of their passions, but cannot fix their mind on any subject of thought; we find men who have nothing in subjection but their fingers; finally, every day, and almost every minute, the voluntary power is weakened or strengthened in the same individual; sometimes puny and languid, sometimes energetic and active, it continually rises and falls, and with it, the personality which it constitutes. When man arrives at a great old age, he usually ends where he began, that is to say, in the impersonal life which, in the infant, precedes the birth of the will; and hence the common observation that the old man is in his second childhood. We observe, in fact, among

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old men, a considerable and progressive diminution of the personal power; it seems as if the will, fatigued with the long service it has performed, abandons its task in the evening of life, and gradually falls into repose, while waiting for the slumbers of death. Extreme old age suggests at once the idea of sleep and that of infancy; and, this is because, in truth, sleep, infancy and old age, are but the same phenomenon, in three different forms, that is, the feebleness of personality, which awakes in the infant, reposes in the sleeper, and fails in the old man. The debility of the organs, which render the exercise of the functions more painful, may indeed contribute to the discouragement of the will in the aged ; but there is also no doubt, that in ceasing to make use of the faculties, the will, in its turn, contributes to their decay; for the remark deserves to be made, that the dominion of the will over our capacities, contributes to their developement; as if, by giving them a forced direction, it

made them keener, more pliable, and more vigorous. Our capacities never cease to be in operation, whether we make use of them, or neglect them; but it is observed that they are injured when we neglect them, and strengthened when we employ them. The senses acquire a remarkable subtilty in those who are obliged to make constant use of them by their profession, or their mode of life; the case is the same with the taste for the Beautiful in those who cultivate the arts, with the faculty of thinking in philosophers, or of imagining in poets; while in persons who lead an idle or sensual life, the powers of intelligence, of imagination, and of taste, rapidly decline. The locomotive activity, in like manner, increases by exercise, and is diminished by a sedentary life, as in the case of females and of clerks. Thus, we are not only disgraced, but actually degraded, when we neglect to develope in ourselves the power which distinguishes man from things, which gives him a resemblance to the Deity, and which forms his sole claim to the sovereignty of creation.

* * * *

The work of the personal power consists in withdrawing our capacities, as far as possible from the stream of phenomena which bears them away, so as to apply them according to its will, and only according to its will. It undertakes, therefore, a constant struggle against external necessity, of which the prize at stake is the direction of our capacities. Personal life is nothing but this fatiguing struggle of man or liberty, against the world or necessity; and as the personal power cannot destroy the necessary current of external phenomena, nor prevent it from soliciting our faculties, it must do two things in order to govern them; that is, restrain them when they wish to obey the solicitations which address them, and fix them on the particular subject to which it attempts to apply them. Whenever we make use of one of our faculties, we are conscious of this twofold effort of resistance and application. While we hold the faculty attached to the subject which we wish, a thousand distracting influences tempt it away; it feels them all; it always makes a movement to escape which we are obliged to repress, without which it would pass from our power, and again fall under the dominion of fatality. Such is the primary action of the personal power on our faculties; it gives them a direction which is not their natural direction; this direction comes from itself; it is personal; their natural direction is given by external necessity.

"The other effect of the action of the personal power on our capacities is to concentrate their force. The world, which is variety itself, in taking possession of our faculties, disperses, so to speak, their energy. In fact, it never leaves them a moment occupied with the same object; it holds them successively by a thousand phenomena which it presents to their notice, and makes them share its infinite mobility. For this reason they only glance at the surface of things, and their energy is expended without their developement. We are perfectly conscious of this.... whenever the external world gains amore than ordinary dominion over us, as in the beautiful days of spring, for example. Nature is then so enticing, that we have not the strength to resist her; we are drawn towards the delightful sensations, the attractive images, of

which she is so profuse; we yield ourselves up to her charms; we let her do with us as she pleases. Then we feel our internal energy decomposed, as it were, and stealing away through all our senses. It seems as if the external world took possession of it and divided it into a thousand parts, and that these parts were dispersed and lost within its capacious bosom. The feeling of this state is delightful, because it is only the suspension of the painful struggle which we sustain. As the will quits the field of battle, all effort of our own ceases, but also all energy; all our faculties sport at their ease, but all are feeble; it is the action of the will which gives them strength, because as it fixes and retains them on a single point, it concentrates all their power on this point, and, by the duration of this concentration, multiplies it. To combine all the energy of a capacity on a single point, to retain it there for some length of time, this is the second effect of the action of the personal power on our faculties. Hence the prodigious efficiency of a strong will; hence the miracles of attention, and the miracles of patience, which have suggested the remark that genius itself is nothing but unwearied perseverance. All these great effects are the result of the concentration of our faculties by the personal power; the authority of the personal power, therefore, over our faculties, constitutes our efficiency as well as our dignity.

"To direct and to concentrate,—such, then, is the twofold action of the personal power on the developement of our faculties. The means of exercising this twofold action vary with the faculties to which it is applied, as well as the extent to which it can be carried; but the formula is exact in relation to every faculty; such at least is the result which we have obtained from the comparison of the spontaneous and of the voluntary developement of our different faculties."-pp. 354-379.

E.

ART. X.-BAUER'S THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.* C. Fox.

WE are glad to see this style of Publication rendered accessible to English Readers. It may indeed be said that there is little encouragement for even a spirited Publisher to undertake works of such a tone on such a subject. But it should in all fairness be remembered too, that there has been very little encouragement given to the Public to foster a taste for them-the supply

*The Theology of the Old Testament; or, a Biblical sketch of the Religious opinions of the ancient Hebrews, from the earliest times to the commencement of the Christian æra. Extracted and translated from the Theologie des alten Testaments of Georg Lorenz Bauer, Professor of Oriental Languages and Logic at Altdorf, and afterwards of Oriental Languages and Biblical criticism at Heidelberg.'