one places the ghost without, the other within, the line of circumference.

I have only to add, that these different shades of meaning form no valid objection to the revival and readoption of these correlative terms in physiology* and mental analytics, as expressing the two poles of all consciousness, in their most general form and highest abstraction. For by the law of association, the same metaphorical changes, or shiftings and ingraftings of the primary sense, must inevitably take place in all terms of greatest comprehensiveness and simplicity. Instead of subject and object, put thought and thing. You will find these liable to the same inconveniences, with the additional one of having no adjectives or adverbs, as substitutes for objective, subjective, objectively, subjectively. It is sufficient that no heterogeneous senses are confounded under the same term, as was the case prior to Bishop Bramhall's controversy with Hobbes, who had availed himself of the (at that time, and in the common usage), equivalent words, compel and oblige, to confound the thought of moral obligation with that of compulsion and physical necessity. For the rest, the remedy must be provided by a dictionary, constructed on the one only philosophical principle, which, regarding words as living growths, offsets, and organs of the human soul, seeks to trace each historically, through all the periods of its natural growth, and accidental modifications—a work worthy of a Royal and Imperial confederacy, and which would indeed hallow the Alliance! A work which, executed for any one language, would yet be a benefaction to the world, and to the nation itself a source of immediate honor and of ultimate weal, beyond the power of victories to bestow, or the mines of Mexico to purchase. The realization of this scheme lies in the far distance; but in the meantime, it can not but beseem every individual competent to its furtherance, to contribute a small portion of the materials for the future temple-from a polished column to a hewn stone, or a plank for the scaffolding; and as they come in, to erect with them sheds

* "Physiology,” according to present usage, treats of the laws, organs, functions, &c. of life; "Physics" not so. Now, quære: The etymological import of the two words being the same, is the difference in their application accidental and arbitrary, or a hidden irony at the assumption on which the division is grounded? φύσις ἄνευ ζωῆς ἄνευ λόγε, οι Λόγος περὶ φύσεως μὴ ζώσης ἐστὶ λόγος ἄλογος.

The

for the workmen, and temporary structures for present use. preceding analysis I would have you regard as my first contribution; and the first, because I have been long convinced that the want of it is a serious impediment-I will not say, to that selfknowledge which it concerns all men to attain, but-to that selfunderstanding, or insight, which it is all men's interest that some men should acquire; that the heaven-descended Trði Yeaviór," (Juv. Sat.) should exist not only as a wisdom, but as a science. But every science will have its rules of art, and with these its technical terms; and in this best of sciences, its elder nomenclature has fallen into disuse, and no other been put in its place. To bring these back into light, as so many delvingtools dug up from the rubbish of long-deserted mines, and at the same time to exemplify their use and handling, I have drawn your attention to the three questions:-What is the primary and proper sense of the words Subject and Object, in the technical language of philosophy? In what does Objectivity actually exist? -From what is all apparent or assumed Objectivity derived or transferred?

It is not the age, you have told me, to bring hard words into fashion. Are we to account for this tender-mouthedness on the ground assigned by your favorite, Persius (Sat. iii. 113):

"Tentemus fauces: tenero latet ulcus in ore

Putre, quod haud deceat crustosis radere verbis ?"

But is the age so averse to hard words? Eidouranion; Phantasmagoria; Kaleidoscope; Marmorokainomenon (for cleaning mantel-pieces); Protoxides; Deutoxides; Tritoxides; and Dr. Thomson's Latin-greek-english Peroxides; not to mention the splashing shoals, that

-confound the language of the nation With long-tail'd words in osity and ation,"

(as our great living master of sweet and perfect English, Hook ham Frere, has it), would seem to argue the very contrary. In the train of these, methinks, object and subject, with the derivatives, look tame, and claim a place in the last, or, at most, in the humbler seats of the second species, in the far-noised classification-the long-tailed pigs, and the short-tailed pigs, and the pigs without a tail. Aye, but not on such dry topics!—I submit.

S*

You have touched the vulnerable heel-'Iis, quibus siccum lumen abest," they must needs be dry. We have Lord Bacon's word for it. A topic that requires steadfast intuitions, clear conceptions, and ideas, as the source and substance of both, and that will admit of no substitute for these, in images, fictions, or factitious facts, must be dry as the broad-awake of sight and daylight, and desperately barren of all that interest which a busy yet sensual age requires and finds in the "uda somnia,” and moist moonshine of an epicurean philosophy. For you, however, and for those who, like you, are not so satisfied with the present doctrines, but that you would fain try "another and an elder lore” (and such there are, I know, and that the number is on the increase), I hazard this assurance-That let what will come of the terms, yet without the truths conveyed in these terms, there can be no self-knowledge; and without THIS, no knowledge, of any kind. For the fragmentary recollections and recognitions of empiricism,* usurping the name of experience, can amount to opinion only, and that alone is knowledge which is at once real and systematic—or, in one word, organic. Let monk and pietist pervert the precept into sickly, brooding, and morbid introversions of consciousness--you have learnt, that, even under the wisest regulations, THINKING can go but half way toward this knowledge. To know the whole truth, we must likewise ACT : and he alone acts, who makes-and this can no man do, estranged from Nature. Learn to know thyself in Nature, that thou mayest understand Nature in thyself.

But I forget myself. My pledge and purpose was to help you over the threshold into the outer court; and here I stand, spelling the dim characters interwoven in the veil of Isis, in the recesses of the temple.

I must conclude, therefore, if only to begin again without too abrupt a drop, lest I should remind you of Mr. in his Survey of Middlesex, who having digressed, for some half a score of pages, into the heights of cosmogony, the old planet between Jupiter and Mars, that went off, and split into the four new ones, besides the smaller rubbish for stone showers, the formation of

* Let y express the conditions under which E (that is, a series of forms, facts, circumstances, &c. presented to the senses of an individual) will become Experience—and we might, not unaptly, define the two words thus: E+yExperience; E-y= Empiricism.

the galaxy, and the other world-worlds, on the same principles, and by similar accidents, superseding the hypothesis of a Creator, and demonstrating the superfluity of church tithes and country parsons, takes up the stitch again with-But to return to the subject of dung. God bless you and your

Affectionate Friend,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

LETTER III.-To MR. BLACKWOOD.

DEAR SIR,-Here have I been sitting, this whole long-lagging, muzzy, mizzly morning, struggling without success against the insuperable disgust I feel to the task of explaining the abrupt chasm at the outset of our correspondence, and disposed to let your verdict take its course, rather than suffer over again by detailing the causes of the stoppage; though sure by so doing to acquit my will of all share in the result. Instead of myself, and of you, my dear sir, in relation to myself, I have been thinking, first, of the Edinburgh Magazine; then of the magazines generally and comparatively;—then of a magazine in the abstract; and lastly, of the immense importance and yet strange neglect of that prime dictate of prudence and common sense-DISTINCT MEANS TO DISTINCT ENDS.-But here I must put in one proviso, not in any relation though to the aphorism itself, which is of universal validity, but relatively to my intended application of it. I must assume— I mean, that the individuals disposed to grant me free access and fair audience for my remarks, have a conscience—such a portion at least, as being eked out with superstition and sense of character, will suffice to prevent them from seeking to realize the ultimate end (i. e. the maxim of profit) by base or disreputable means. This, therefore, may be left out of the present argument, an extensive sale being the common object of all publishers, of whatever kind the publications may be, morally considered. Nor do the means appropriate to this end differ. Be the work good or evil in its tendency, in both cases alike there is one question to be predetermined, viz. what class or classes of the reading world the work is intended for? I made the proviso, however, because I would not mislead any man even for an honest cause, and my experience will not allow me to promise an equal immediate cir

culation from a work addressed to the higher interests and blameless predilections of men, as from one constructed on the plan of flattering the envy and vanity of sciolism, and gratifying the cravings of vulgar curiosity. Such may be, and in some instances, I doubt not, has been, the result. But I dare not answer for it beforehand, even though both works should be equally well suited to their several purposes, which will not be thought a probable case, when it is considered, how much less talent, and of how much commoner kind, is required in the latter.

On the other hand, however, I am persuaded that a sufficient success, and less liable to drawbacks from competition, would not fail to attend a work on the former plan, if the scheme and execution of the contents were as appropriate to the object, which the purchasers must be supposed to have in view, as the means adopted for its outward attraction and its general circulation were to the interest of its proprietors.

During a long literary life, I have been no inattentive observer of periodical publications; and I can remember no failure, in any work deserving success, that might not have been anticipated from some error or deficiency in the means, either in regard to the mode of circulating the work (as for instance by the vain attempt to unite the characters of author, editor, and publisher), or to the typographical appearance; or else from its want of suitableness to the class of readers, on whom, it should have been foreseen, the remunerating sale must principally depend. It would be misanthropy to suppose that the seekers after truth, information, and innocent amusement, are not sufficiently numerous to support a work, in which these attractions are prominent, without the dishonest aid of personality, literary faction, or treacherous invasions of the sacred recesses of private life, without slanders, which both reason and duty command us to disbelieve as well as abhor; for what but falsehood, or that half truth, which is falsehood in its most malignant form, can or ought to be expected from a self-convicted traitor and ingrate?

If these remarks are well founded, we may narrow the problem to the few following terms,-it being understood, that the work now in question, is a monthly publication, not devoted to any one branch of knowledge or literature, but a magazine of whatever may be supposed to interest readers in general, not excluding the discoveries, or even the speculations of science, that are generally