tions, they differ somewhat among themselves, and may, as we have said, be divided into three classes.

1. The first class name the vis intuitiva reason, and contend that the vonuara, spiritual cognoscibles, or the immaterial realities capable of being known, are really exterior to and independent of the subject knowing, and are simply apprehended on occasion of the sensible phenomena by which they are rendered present. Thus, they contend that the ideas of cause, of cause in general, necessary cause,—in a word, all the Kantian categories, are entertained by the mind and applied to sensible phenomena, by actual intuition of the objects of these ideas,-not merely the ideas themselves -really existing in the non-sensible world. Yet they call this non-sensible world reason, and represent these ideas, objectively considered, that is, as objects existing in re, not as mere mental conceptions, to be its constituent elements. Taking ideas in this sense, as the object, reason may be termed the regio idearum, or world of absolute and necessary truth. It is impersonal and objective, and operates spontaneously, by an energy not human, but which is the energy of God, whose word or speech reason is. Containing in itself absolute ideas or absolute truth and goodness, reason is a measure of truth and goodness; and as it is divine, it must be an exact measure. Whatever it pronounces true is true; whatever it pronounces beautiful is beautiful; whatever it pronounces good is good.

But this reason, though declared to be impersonal and objective, is also assumed to be a faculty of human nature, a faculty of the human soul, its only light, that by virtue of which it is essentially intelligent, and knows all that it does know, whatever the sphere or degree of its knowledge. Hence, of two things, one, either man is identical with God, intellectually considered, and it is God that sees in man, which must plunge us, in the last analysis, into absolute pantheism; or reason is human, an attribute, if not of the human personality, yet of man. This class of transcendentalists deny that they are pantheists. Therefore, they must regard absolute reason as a human faculty; and then, since reason is the measure of truth and goodness, man himself, taken in his totality, if not in his simple personality, as the same measure. If, however, it be denied that this reason is human, and it be assumed to be God, as Cousin also contends, then man and God become one; and as God is unquestionably the measure contended for, man must also be it; be

cause it matters not which term you use, Man or God; since, if identical, what may be predicated of the one term may equally be predicated of the other. Therefore, in either alternative, this class of transcendentalists assume that man is the measure of truth and goodness.

2. The second class, in which we are disposed to rank the author of the volume before us, do not, perhaps, differ very essentially from the first class, but they state their views somewhat differently. They hold that the ideas we have mentioned, and others of a like nature, if others there are, are intuitive, indeed, but are intuitions because they are inherent in the soul,-are the soul itself, or its original garniture, endowment, or patrimony. They are the types of the world without us. Hence we cognize the world without us by reason of its correspondence to the type or idea withinus. The idea or type of all cognoscibles is in us, and it is by virtue of this fact that we are intelligent and they intelligible. Knowledge is the perception of the correspondence between the inward idea and the external object. "But these [material things]," says Mr. Parker, "are to us only a revelation of something kindred to qualities awakened in ourselves. . We see out of us only what we are internally prepared to see; for seeing depends on the harmony between the object without and your own condition within."* Hence we know that this or that is true, beautiful, or good, only because it corresponds to the idea or type of the true, the beautiful, or the good in the soul itself. Hence, then, the standard, or criterion, or measure of truth and goodness is assumed to be in the soul. Nothing can be assumed to be naturally in the soul but the soul itself. 66 By nature," says Mr. Parker, "there is nothing in man but man himself." Man and the soul are identical; at least, the term man covers all that can be covered by the term soul. Then man is the measure of truth and goodness. Therefore, this second. class adopt the proposition in question.

3. The third class, at the head of which stand Ralph Waldo Emerson, A. Bronson Alcott, and several notable women, do the same. These may be distinguished into two subordinate classes. They all agree that the soul knows, and can know, nothing exterior to itself; but the first division of these hold that it knows only by reason of the identity of subject and object, and therefore knows, and can know,

*Excellence of Goodness, pp. 3, 4.

only what it is. "What we are," says Mr. Emerson, (Nature, p. 92,) "that only can we see. The soul knows not by seeing, apprehending, but by being; and knows all, because it is all. The second division-and these are the majority-hold that the soul knows by containing, and that knowledge is the soul protending or projecting itself. "Not in nature, but in man, is all the beauty and worth he sees." -Emerson, Essays, 1841, p. 120. Objects are cognoscibilia, because they are contained in the soul; and the soul knows all, because it contains all. The outward or sense world is phenomenal, unreal, a shadow without a substance, and we abuse ourselves when we regard it, and the term knowledge, when we call perception of it, by that name. Knowledge is inscience, or science of what is within. The true sage never looks abroad, but closes the external apertures of the mind, shuts his eyes, stops his ears, holds his nose, opens the internal aperture through which he looks into the profound abyss of the soul itself. Look not, say they, upon this delusive, this vain show, which men call the world, but into the great soul, which conceals all things in itself, even the infinite and eternal God! "I am God," said Mr. Alcott, one day to the writer of this, "I am God; I am greater than God. God is one of my ideas. I therefore contain God. Greater is the container than the contained. Therefore I am greater than God." With the members of this class, it is a mark of weakness, of littleness, of shallowness, to be intelligible. Light is an enemy. It defines objects too sharply, and presents them in disagreeable outlines. It permits nothing to loom up or spread out in dim and awful infinity,-allows the soul no scope to display its loftier powers and diviner instincts, to stand up and swell out in its sublime proportions into the infinite and eternal God!

These, evidently, in either division, hold that the soul is the measure of truth and goodness; for it must needs be the measure of what it is, and of what it contains. If it be truth and goodness, or if it contain them, it must be their standard or measure. The soul and the man are the same, at least so far as concerns the present question, as we have just seen. Therefore, this third class, as well as the other two, adopts the proposition that man is the measure of truth and good

ness.

That all the transcendentalists, of whatever class, do adopt this proposition is still further evident from the rule of faith and practice which they all avow and contend for. This rule,

it is notorious, is that of unrestricted private judgment. They reject the authority of the church, the authority of the Bible, of the apostles, of Jesus,-nay, all authority but that of the individual himself.

ers.

"Jesus," says Mr. Parker, "fell back on God, on absolute religion and morality, -the truth its own authority; his works his witness. The early Christians fell back on the authority of Jesus, their successors, on the authority of the Bible,—the work of the Apostles and Prophets; the next generation, on the Church,—the work of the Apostles and FathThe world retreads this ground. Protestantism delivers us from the tyranny of the Church and carries us back to the Bible. Biblical criticism frees us from the thraldom of Scripture, and brings us to the authority of Jesus. Philosophical spiritualism liberates us from all personal and private authority, and restores us to God, the primeval fountain, whence the Church, the Scriptures, and Jesus drew all the water of life wherewith they filled their urns."-p 483.

This is sufficiently explicit; for the concluding remark, about restoring us to God, simply means restoring us to ourselves, to God as he is immanent in each individual soul,as is evident from what Mr. Parker elsewhere says.

"To obtain a knowledge of duty, man is not sent away outside of himself to ancient documents, for the only rule of faith and practice; the word is very nigh him, even in his heart; and by this word he is to try all documents whatever."-p. 216. "Jesus is not the author of Christianity, . . . . its sanction and authority. We verify its eterna!

truth in our soul.”—p. 280.

The God to whom we are restored is, then, evidently, the God in the soul, and in each individual soul. If so, it is God in the soul, either naturally or supernaturally. Not supernaturally, because transcendentalism denies the supernatural. Then naturally. But then identical with the soul; for, as we have found by Mr. Parker's own concession, p. 191, there can be by nature nothing in the soul but the soul itself.

Furthermore, the appeal is always made to the individual reason, conscience, and sentiment. In the individual is the authority before which all must bow, the tribunal before which all claimants must plead. The transcendentalist summons all religions to his private bar, and assumes his right to judge them all. The Bible he holds to be the word of God so far as he judges it to be true, and not his word where he judges it to be not true; holding that he has the right to decide by his own reason, conscience, and sentiments, what is true and what not. In like manner he summons before him Jesus and the apostles, makes them answer to him, and tells

them when they speak wisely, truly, and when falsely and foolishly. Christianity itself is amenable to the same authority. "Christianity, then, is a form of religion. . . . It is to be judged of as all other forms of religion, by reason and the religious sentiment."-p. 240. But the fact is notorious, and there is no need of proofs. We all know that the transcendentalist denies the authority of the church, of the Written Word, of Jesus, of prophets and apostles, of all inspired messengers, and of the common assent or belief of mankind, claiming for each all that may be claimed for the whole. "What Adam had, what Cæsar could, you have and may do." If they speak respectfully of Jesus, it is as a modelman, because in their view he spoke out from his own mind, acknowledging no external authority, and in this set an example we all should follow. Their leading doctrine is, that each man may and should be a Christ, and speak from his own proper divinity.

But, if our transcendentalists recognize the unrestricted right of private judgment in all cases whatever, they must, in order to have a basis for that right, assume that each man is the measure of truth and goodness. Every judgment involves three terms, the matter judged, the judge, and the rule or measure by which the judge judges. Now, the rule or measure must be identical with the matter, with the judge, or distinct from both. The first is inadmissible; for, though the matter must needs be the measure of itself, yet its measure is unascertainable, if measured only by itself. The third is denied by the denial of all authority out of the individual reason, conscience, and sentiment, to which the judge is bound to conform his judgments. Then, the second must be adopted, namely, that the individual is his own yardstick of truth and goodness,-not only the judge, but the rule or measure of his judgment; which is what the proposition in question asserts.

This will not be denied. The right of private judgment, as the transcendentalists assert it, is the denial of all rules, measures, or standards, out of the individual reason, conscience, and sentiments, to which he is obliged to conform his judgments. Then either man judges without any rule, measure, or standard by which to judge, or he assumes himself as the standard. The first is absurd; for a judgment which has no rule, which is by no standard, is no judgment at all. Then the last must be assumed, or private judgment is impossible, and the right of private judgment utterly base