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limited circle, and (like the French affair of the diamond necklace) had sunk into neglect only when all clue seemed lost for perfectly unravelling it, would revive in all its interest when a discovery came before the public, viz., a claim on the part of Francis to have written the famous letters, which must at the same time point a strong light upon the true origin of the treacherous disclosures. Some astonishment had always existed as to Francis—how he rose so suddenly into rank and station: some astonishment always existed as to Junius, how he should so suddenly have fallen asleep as a writer in the journals. The coincidence of this sudden and unaccountable silence with the sudden and unaccountable Indian appointment of Francis; the extraordinary familiarity of Junius, which had not altogether escaped notice, with the secrets of one particular office, viz., the War Office; the sudden recollection, sure to flash upon all who remembered Francis, if again he should become revived into suspicion, that he had held a situation of trust in that particular War Office; all these little recollections would begin to take up their places in a connected story: this and that, laid together, would become clear as daylight; and to the keen eyes of still surviving enemies Horne Tooke, "little Chamier," Ellis, the Fitzroy, Russell, and Murray houses-the whole progress and catastrophe of the scoundrelism, the perfidy and the profits of the perfidy, would soon become as intelligible as any tale of midnight burglary from without, in concert with a wicked butler within, that was ever sifted by judge and jury at the Old Bailey, or critically reviewed by Mr. John Ketch at Tyburn.

Francis was the man. Francis was the wicked butler within, whom Pharaoh ought to have hanged, but whom he clothed in royal apparel, and mounted upon a horse that carried him to a curule chair of honour. So far his burglary prospered. But, as generally happens in such

cases, this prosperous crime subsequently avenged itself. By a just retribution, the success of Junius, in two senses so monstrously exaggerated-exagge rated by a romantic over-estimate of its intellectual power through an error of the public, not admitted to the secret—and equally exaggerated as to its political power by the government in the hush-money for its future suppression, became the heaviest curse of the successful criminal. This criminal thirsted for literary distinction above all other distinction, with a childish eagerness, as for the amreeta cup of immortallity. And, behold! there the brilliant bauble lay, glittering in the sands of a solitude, unclaimed by any man ; disputed with him (if he chose to claim it) by nobody; and yet for his life he durst not touch it. He stood-he knew that he stood— in the situation of a murderer who has dropt an inestimable jewel upon the murdered body in the death-struggle with his victim. The jewel is his! Nobody will deny it. He may have it for asking. But to ask is his death-warrant. "Oh yes!" would be the answer, "here's your jewel, wrapt up safely in tissue paper. But here's another lot that goes along with it—no bidder can take them apart-viz. a halter, also wrapt up in tissue paper." Francis, in relation to Junius, was in that exact predicament. "You are Junius? You are that famous man who has been missing since 1772? And you can prove it? God bless me sir; what a long time you've been sleeping: every body's gone to bed. Well, then, you are an exceedingly clever fellow, that have had the luck to be thought ten times more clever than really you were. And also, you are the greatest scoundrel that at this hour rests in Europe unhanged!"-Francis died, and made no sign. Peace of mind he had parted with for a peacock's feather, which feather, living or dying, he durst not mount in the plumage of his cap.

TO THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF AN HUMBLE EPISTLE TOUCHING SCORN OF LOW BIRTH.

Yes, I am one for your contempt,

Your lordly scoffing born

By blood the heir of your proud sneers,
By birthright, lord, your scorn;
Fate doomed not my ancestral blood

Through noble veins to flow,

My fathers, lord, were honest men-
I'm low, my lord, I'm low.

No-no-my lineage cannot mount
To one who slew his way
From beggary to cursed rule

On Hastings' murderous day;

No feudal plunderings-Norman wrongs
My race's records show-

My fathers only fought for rights-
I'm low, my lord, I'm low.

I boast no scoundrel ancestry

Like those your grace's pride,

Kings' favourites-honest men's disdainAt courts who fawned and lied;

No diplomatic cheat can I,

My race's glory show-
My fathers knew not how to lie
I'm low, my lord, I'm low.
No unearned heritage I own

Of park and ancient hall,
My hard-won wages, lord, alone
My own of wealth I call ;
I cannot claim the bought respect

That want to wealth must show-
I am but honoured for my worth-
I'm low, my lord, I'm low.

Of honest men I'm not the scorn-
I never, lord, have striven
To prostitute to my own gain

Power by the nation given;
The records of my life, my lord,

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No corn-tax votes can show Jer My luxury never starved the poc

I'm low, my lord, I'm low.

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No lackey dogs me with respect,

That paid for I'd disdainFor fawning menials at my heels

Men look, my lord, in vain.

Of human forms, thank heaven, not one
My livery's shame can show-

My pride in man's contempt garbs none-
I'm low, my lord, I'm low.

I cannot boast of uselessness,

For no man doing aught

I earn my living with my hands,
Disdaining aught for nought;
For that I win I labour pay,

My every day can show,

I'd scorn to live on others' toil-
I'm low, my lord, I'm low.

And yet, my lord, though strange it be,
I, whom you high deride,

Your scoff-your scorn-your social drudge-
I too, lord, have my pride;

Yes, proud of some things, too, dare I

Front pride with pride; ay, though
With nought that makes you nobles high-
I'm low, my lord, I'm low.

I'm proud that, with undoubting trust,
My word all men can take;
That woman's heart I never won-
Won, villain-like, to break;

That upright, spite of poverty,

To no man aught I owe;

That duns and debts are yours, not mine,
Though I, my lord, am low.

I'm proud in honest labour, lord,

My useful days go by;

That no white, weak, unhorned hand,
No silken palm have I;

That for the right I've ever stood,
As far as right I know;
Nor urged a wrong for private gain-
Though I, my lord, am low.

These things are poor in your esteem;
And yet I rank them more
In mine, ay, than the proudest name
That Norman blood e'er bore;
Nor would I, for your worthlessness,

My scorned worth barter, though
Ten times your vaunted rank I won-
Though I, my lord, am low.

No, keep your pure-your Norman blood,
Your coroneted shame,

Light weigh a hundred coats of arms
Against an honest name;
Despite your scoffs, despite your scorn,
Poor worth, I've learned to know,
May well look down on titled shame-
Ay, though, my lord, 'tis low.
Greenwich,

W. C. BENNET.

LITERARY REGISTER.

SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY.*

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feels bound to speak with much modesty of his own laTHAT Mechanism is getting exhausted, and intellee-bours. A bold dogmatism is not only the prerogative, tuality expanded, is the excuse of the author for the pro- but ought to be the property of a writer who sets up as duction of this work. The appearance of a second edition, the valuator of philosophical opinion; and it is disagreewithin a very short time, proves the validity of that ex- able to find, or even suspect him, in verba magistri cuse, even beyond the author's expectations. He frankly jurasse." Dr. Tholuck,* and the late Dr. Chalmers, t admits that he did not give credit to the British public appear, however, to regard the author as too implicitly at large for sufficient interest in the abstruser questions following Cousin, whose French electicism is not just the of philosophy." Agreeably deceived in this opinion, he philosophy of which we think the English revival should has again offered his work to the public, "in an improved avail itself. "The reason," says Mr. Morell, in his new and more legitimately historical form." And the proof preface, “I have followed, in the main, Cousin's critithus afforded of the demand for a book, more like an cisms is, primarily, because I consider them very near emanation of German than of English literature, favours the truth; and, secondly, because they present the subthe supposition that the interest in speculative philosophy ject in a form best calculated for giving a popular view of is reviving. Saving Tenneman's "Manuel of the History the whole question." But there is, we suspect, another of Philosophy"—of which an Oxford translation, by the reason, in the force of which Mr. Morell may be selfRev. Arthur Johnson, has been for a dozen years in deluded that sort of admiration which attaches to the scholastic use-and Mr. G. H. Lewes's popular "Bio- teaching of Cousin as the last master under whom the graphical History of Philosophy," we have no English to have studied. account of modern philosophy beyond what may be found in the celebrated "Dissertation" of Dugald Stuart, prefixed to the "Encyclopædia Britannica."

In this state of matters there was room for Mr. Morell's History. It were, perhaps, to have been wished that his pretensions to authorship had been previously somewhat confirmed. Modern philosophy is, of all conceivable subjects, the most critical on which "the first thoughts" an author ventures to intrude upon public notice can be elaborated. And it scarcely compensates sufficiently that, under such circumstances, the author

* An Historical and Critical View of the Speculative Philosophy of Europe in the Nineteenth Century. By J. D. Morrell, A.M. Second Edition. John Johnstone, London and Edinburgh, 1847; 2 vols. ; pp. 590 and 666.

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"Whilst going through a systematic course of study," he states, in London, I was induced, from a somewhat undefined idea of the importance of the subject, to take up Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding.' The perusal of that immortal work seemed to open a region of surpassing grandeur; but, at the same time, gave few results upon which it was possible to rest with calmness and satisfaction. I next betook myself to the lectures of Dr. Thomas Brown, hoping to find there the satisfaction I required. In this hope I was not, for the time,, disappointed. The style was so captivating, the whole thing so complete, that I was almost insensibly views so comprehensive, the arguments so acute, the borne along upon the stream of his reasoning and his eloquence. Naturally enough, I became a zealous disciple; *Literarischer Anzeiger. + North British Review. Preface to second edition, p. 20.

I accepted his mental analysis as almost perfect; I defended his doctrine of causation; with him I stood in astonishment at the alleged obtuseness of Reid; and, with the exception of his ethical system, was ready to consider "ipse dixit" as a valid argument for the truth of any metaphysical dogma. Induced by the lively admiration I had conceived for the Scottish metaphysics, I proceeded to the University of Glasgow, and studied philosophy in the class rooms which had been honoured by the presence, and enlightened by the genius, of Reid and Smith. Here the veneration for Brown began to subside; I felt that there was a depth in the philosophy of Reid which I had not fully appreciated, and that the sensational tendency of the former, though it added popularity to his thoughts, was an ill exchange for the incipient spiritualism of the latter. Hoping to probe the questions relating to the foundation of human knowledge more to the centre, I attempted to read Kant's Critick of Pure Reason,' and some few other continental works; but they, for the most part, opened a region so entirely new, that I felt quite unable to compare their results, as a whole, with those of the Scotch metaphysicians. Desirous, however, of pursuing the subject still farther, I repaired to Germany; I heard Brandis and Fichte expound German philosophy in their lecture rooms, and spent some months in reading the standard works of the great masters. The different systems which were here contending for the preference gradually became intelligible, but, alas! they stood alone -in complete isolation; but to compare their method, their procedure, their aim, their results, satisfactorily with those of our English and Scottish philosophy appeared as yet almost impossible. To gain light, therefore, upon these points, I turned my attention to France; the name of Eclecticism seemed too inviting to be turned away, as it often is, on the charge of Syncretism or want of profundity; and my hopes were not altogether deceptive. I found, or thought that I found, in the writings of Cousin, and others of the modern eclectics, the germs of certain great principles upon which a comparison of all the philosophical systems of the present age could be advantageously instituted, and saw that such a comparison would be of very important service to one who should be anxious to travel, as I had done, over the broad field of European metaphysics. How cagerly should I have welcomed such a directory myself while I was toiling to get some clear light upon the conflicting systems of Ger

many; how highly should I have valued a simple and definite statement of the foundation principle of the different schools; how intensely rejoiced in a work which should show the relations of the one to the other! It was with a view, therefore, of supplying the want which I had myself felt, that I began the sketch which has now swelled into these two volumes."

Such is the candid narrative in which the author shows cause for his undertaking. He is not, perhaps, the first who has undertaken to teach others by the process of acquiring knowledge at the same time for himself. But ho is not unlike one of those veracious Irish guides who accompany you to St. Kevan's Kitchen and Ded along the lone and gloomy shores of Glendalough, requiring your implicit belief in the romantic miracles of which they show the localities, otherwise you could not attach the slightest interest to a single spot of them all. The naïveté of Mr. Morell's confidential candour has such a charm, that how little soever we may be disposed to adopt the principles of Cousin as the touchstone of the philosophy of the present age, we are constrained, whilst we bear him company, to resign ourselves to his guid

ance, reserving, however, for after-thought and more mature reflection, to determine the real value of his comparative estimate of modern philosophical systems.

philosopher in the cradle, spontaneously forming his acquaintance, and an extensive acquaintance too, before emerging from the cloud of infancy, with the external world. The first man that reflected was the first speculative philosopher. His text hardly contains the definition, althongh it gives an explanation of philosophy; and the only definition offered (in a note*) is one suggested to the author as comprehending every essential point:— Philosophy is the science which reduces all things to the region of pure ideas, and then traces their connection and unity."

66

If

The objections against philosophy are grounded on the confinement of our knowledge to sensible phenomena—on the facts that the deepest thinkers come to opposite conclusions-that philosophy has no practical utility, and is superseded by revelation. To these four objections the author deems it prudent to reply. Metaphysicians are well convinced that the former is a fallacy. Many of our sensations have nothing external corresponding. colours arise by the separation of rays of light, and sounds by pulsations of the air, we cannot pretend that anything exists without at all like the impressions of colours or sounds within. And if this be the case with some of our sensations, why not with all? Again, for the notions of self, of right and wrong, of causation, &c., we are certainly not indebted to our sensational faculty. With regard to the second objection, he compares the contradictions of opinion in philosophy to the completely opposite views men of the greatest sagacity adopt in politics, which are yet conducive to national prosperity; and to the different forms founded on the common data of Christianity, without impairing the truth of the system. He proclaims all error, in fact, to be negative—a falling short of the fact. Of such a thing as positive error, he denies the existence. Thus he is enabled to maintain that philosophy in its past history has had a progressive development. In answer to the third objection, Mr. Morell beautifully illustrates what he terms the law of the descent of thought; from the first or highest order of thinkers descending to those one degree below them, losing at each descent something of the scientific form, till it reaches the mass, in the shape of some admitted or bare fact, which they appropriate to their own use, simply as being an acknowledged truth :

"The first school-boy you meet would very likely tell you with some accuracy what is the rapidity of light: but as to any observations on the occultations of Jupiter's satellites, or on the phenomena of abbration, or any other stowed a thought. The commonest seaman that has such method of computing it, on these he has never be learned the use of his sextant, applies to his own purposes all the necessary formulas of trigonometry; but, as to the methods of investigating such formulas, such matter lie entirely out of his reach.”

Following up the analogy of these mathematical formulas by the parallel case of historical formulas, and the historical by formulas for the various theories of the fine arts, we are led insensibly to the conclusion that in like manner there are philosophical or metaphysical formulas,

acted upon by thousands every day of their lives, to whom all metaphysical thinking is completely foreign. Thus in the middle ages, when Aristotelianism cor pletely moulded the minds of those who did think, i'

At the outset of his work the author is very careful to impress us with the simplicity of the thing called philo- up with the religious opinions of thr sophy, tracing its operations even in the mind of the little

*Page 4, vol. 1.

results, mingled day, reached the

whole of the popular intellect. And in France, during | menon, of absolute cause and relative causes, of the perthe last century, complete materialism, with implied denials of man's immortality and God's existence, took possession of the people at large, who neither read the sensualistic writings of Locke, nor studied the distorted edition of his principles, published by Cordillae, nor comprehended the farther development of the process by Cabanis, but simply caught up the formulas of that false philosophy in the very intelligible propositions in which it came before them; so that, instead of being restricted to the few, and unintelligible to the mass, the results of intellectual philosophy practically influence the mass of mankind more than those of any other department of knowledge. The objection that revelation renders speculative philosophy unnecessary, is disposed of by showing that revealed religion itself is rested on the foundation of natural religion, and so far from putting a check upon philosophical investigation, renders it the more necessary. Going a step farther, speculative philosophy is to be regarded as absolutely inevitable-“ as inevitable,” says Morell, as the wants, desires, and tendencies of the human mind can make it."

"Every age of the world," he adds, "and every nation, the mind of which has attained to any degree of cultivation, have had their different philosophies; that is, have attempted to unravel the problems of their own existence and those of the universe they behold around them. The grave and contemplative Asiatic silently brooded over those subjects in the earlier stages of man's history; the lively and versatile mind of Greece could not fail to think deeply, and to grapple earnestly with the same great questions; the Roman intellect, at first taken up with the practical toils of warfare and government, was constrained, so soon as the opportunity came, to tread in the same path, notwithstanding it had been already so diligently explored; and Christianity, when it offered peace to the spirit of man, wounded by consciousness of moral imperfection, and satisfied the heart's longings after immortallity, did not repress but rather incited the intellect to greater exertion, in order to sound the depths of our being, and fully to comprehend our relation to the Infinite and the Eternal. The middle ages, which witnessed the almost total decline of literature, present us still with the spectacle of the human reason struggling on amidst all the surrounding darkness, in order to look beneath the phenomeral world, and to seek after the foundations of human knowledge; and ever since the revival of our modern civilisation, has given a fresh impulse to the human mind; the whole region of speculative philosophy has been one of the principal objects upon which it has applied its awakened energies. It is no more possible for the spirit of philosophy to become extinguished, than for the poetic fire to die out of humanity, or the religious faculty to cease to operate within the mind of man; for as long as the impulse of the intellectual faculties exists, it will ever be seeking after satisfaction."

The inevitable rise of philosophy is also shown by the fact, that the power of accurate generalisation is the measure of true knowledge, and that every branch of human knowledge, when fully generalised, lands us in the region of metaphysical research.

Aristotle, Kant, and Cousin, in turn attempted the resolution of all our knowledge into categories of primary ideas. Aristotle, dealing with the matter of our ideas, reduced his categories to ten; Kant, applying himself to their forms, by his deep, clear, criticism, reduced to two fundamental ideas, contingent" and "necessary," which, he says, "you can represent to yourself under the formula of unity and multiplicity, of substance and pheno

fect and the imperfect, of the finite and the infinite."
But to collect a full view of philosophic opinion, it is
necessary to attend to the definitions of the principal sys-
tems of modern philosophy. Sensationalism, the philosophy
of the French Encyclopædists, and in tendency of Locke,
made the senses the sole fountains of human knowledge,
and built up a whole metaphysical system on the basis of
external nature. Idealism, the philosophy of Berkeley
and Fichte, and in tendency of Kant, and, in its first
movement, also of Reid, followed the contrary direction
of a too close and partial analysis of self, and based a
whole philosophical system in this one notion. Out of
the contradictions of these systems arose Scepticism, a
philosophy capable of detecting falsehood without attempt-
ing to build up any system of truth. Then followed Mysti-
cism, in which the mind last of all takes refuge. To the
mysterious spiritual nature within, the mystic looks for a
knowledge for transcending the feeble results of reflection.
Eclecticism, the school of Victor Cousin, recognises one
and all of these four philosophies as movements of the
human reason, and rejecting in each its apparent extra-
vagancies and inaccuracies, pretends to build up from the
residuum of truth a new and more perfect system.

A review of the progress of sensationalism, from the period of Bacon to the commencement of the 19th century; and of the progress of idealism, from the period of Descartes to the same time; with a development of the different forms of scepticism and mysticism which have arisen from these preceding systems, on the Continent and in England, furnishes Mr. Morell with the proximato sources of the philosophy of the nineteenth century.

Into these systems we do not enter, however, at the commencement of modern philosophy. The two great cras in the history of metaphysics undoubtedly resolve into the ancient and the modern. But even the period of transition from the one to the other, and the scholastic age itself, mere renewal as it was, with some peculiar modifications of ancient philosophy, must, with all deference to Mr. Morell, be allowed some place in the commencement of modern philosophy. That scholasticism had to be combated before the new philoSchosophy could arise, is nothing to the purpose. lasticism was principally a form; and what was the substance with which this shadow was overthrown? Mr. Morell himself supplies the answer; it was altogether a renewal of the ancient contest betwixt the porch and the academy; upon the arena of modern history Plato everthrew Aristotle and the peripatetics.

The interval, till the age of Bacon, was therefore exclusively occupied with the renewal of the ancient doctrines. Amongst which those of Plato had a foremost place, under the Medicis at Florence, although those of Aristotle still retained a part, and were upheld by such men as the German reformer, Melancthon. Inferior spirits, such as Lipsius and Heinsius, advocated a modification of the doctrine of the Stoics. To one and all of these prevalent doctrines must we assign some influence over the future philosophy of modern times. must we ascribe it to the logical science of Peter Ramus; the physics of Telesius and Campanella, and the novel theories of the independent thinkers of those times, such as Patritius and Bruno. It is yet indisputable that all these minor and indefinite influences merged in the ef

Much more

forts of two gigantic minds-those of Bacon and Descartes | Reid, promised, at the period in question-the close of

-to turn the stream of scientific investigation into those two main channels of modern inquiry it has ever since been pursuing. Both dealt in analysis. Bacon in the analysis of Nature; Descartes in that of thought.

The influence of Bacon's experimental philosophy upon the progress of speculative science-different from that of the Cartesian-was necessarily indirect. Bacon threw away the useless Aristotelian philosophy which he had studied in his early youth, and substituted for it his Novum Organum, or new method of investigation-the inductive method-consisting of something more than collecting observations and predicating concerning the class any quality observed in each. This would have given but a small extension of knowledge. He instructs us first to collect a Natural History, of which we are to classify the facts, expunging the useless, and viewing the significant by their relative value and the test of experiment, until the causes of phenomena, or the constitution of bodies, begin to appear. Without excluding from his method psychological investigations, Bacon directed his chief attention to the great want of his age, a knowledge of facts; and the example of the master led to the sparing application of his method in higher science; and whilst his doctrines upheld the importance of metaphysical analysis, the tendency of his system was in favour of sensationalism.

Hobbes proceeded upon this ground to develope the Baconian philosophy, so as to make sensation the real basis of every mental operation, sole originator of ideas, sole medium and test of truth. Matter, therefore, became with him the only reality. His whole doctrine was the doctrine of bodies. But these he divided into Natural bodies and Political bodies. In physics he inculcated observation, and leaned to the atomistic theory of Gassendi. In psychology, he viewed the mind as wholly material, the phenomena of consciousness as the direct result of organisation.

The criticism of Locke and the effects of his sensationalism in England, as seen in the writings of Collins, Dodwell, Hartley, Priestley, and Horne Tooke, as well as in France and Germany in those of Candillae, Bennet, Helvetius, St. Lambert, Baron D'Holback, and the French Encyclopædists, fill up the chapter of the progress of sensationalism. That in the progress of idealism is developed, in four movements, emanating from the influence of Descartes; the first including Malebranche and Spinoza; the second English polemical idealism, commencing with Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and including Cudworth, Clarke, Butler, Berkeley, and Price; the third, German idealism, including Leibrutz, Wolf, Kant; and the fourth, the Scottish philosophy of Hutcheson, Smith, and Reid.

The grand result is, that modern philosophy, up to the opening of the present century, just exhibits four different movements in four different parts of Europe. The first is the French movement of the school of Descartes, dwindling away into the revived plalsuism of Malebranche, or the realistic pantheism of Spinoza. The English polemical idealism was well nigh extinguished under the successors of Locke. The German idealism, however, of Leibrutz enjoyed a prosperous career under its Wolfian connection; and, taking another direction, seemed only preparing for a grander flight through the influence of the immortal works of Kant. The fourth, the Scottish philosophy, most vigorous and original in the hands of

the century-a development of its resources commensurate with its victories over scepticism. The two antisensational forces of this particular era were, therefore, the respective philosophers of Scotland and Germany.

The masters of the Scottish school we need not pause to discuss. The merits of Dugald Stewart, Dr. Thomas Browne, Young, Milne, Ballantyne, Abercrombie, are too well known to require comment. Morell regards the great excellency of the Scottish philosophy as to a great extent consisting in having perfected the method of metaphysical research; its main defects as taking a false or inadequate view of the reflective method in mental philosophy, and, as consequently, wanting comprehen siveness as to the legitimate objects and extent of philosophy at large.

The German school of the nineteenth century he tries, through its six representatives, Kant, Jacobi, Herbart, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel; requiring us to bear in mind that, instead of the analysis of the powers and faculties of the human mind being, as with us, the chief point, it is comprehended by the Germans in one very subordinate division, termed psychology, and their three great problems are the existence and nature of God, the universe, and human freedom.

In noticing the numerous characteristios of modern scepticism, Mr Morell's present edition is characterised by a digression on Dr. Lamennais' "Esquisse d'un Philosophe," of which he made no mention in his previous edition.

The residue of the work, after illustrating the fourth generic system of philosophy of the nineteenth century, viz., mysticism, as exemplified in England by Coleridge Taylor in one department, and Sewell in another; in France by St. Simonism, Fourier, Pierre Leroux; and in Germany by Jacobi; is devoted to the Eclectic school of the nineteenth century, Royer, Collard, Cousin, and the modern French writers. The tendencies of the philosophy of the nineteenth century are summed up apart. The tendency of modern sensationalism is, the author argues, in science to push aside the doctrine of Providence as altogether exploded, as in such works as "Combe's Constitution of Man,” and “ Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation;" and, in politics, to base all human legis lation upon mere expediency, discarding moral principle, staking the outward happiness of the community as the sole guide of the legislator, as exemplified in the political school of Jeremy Bentham; whilst, as respects theology, just in proportion as the sensational element becomes predominant, spiritual truth dies away-as exemplified in the materialism of Priestly and his numerous followers in England and America. The tendency of idealism, again, is shown to be to raise the idea of nature in physical science, above mechanism, and to impart to it life and soul; this is illustrated in the writings of Sir John Herschel; whilst in those of Coleridge and Carlyle we have exhibited the tendency of idealism in the practical walks of legislation, adjudging institutions not to be right because they appear expedient; but to be expedient because they are right. With regard to the religious tendencies of idealism, Mr. Morell exercises a wide discrimination betwixt the cases of England, France, and Germany. He appeals to such writers as M'Culloch and Whewell, and Lord Brougham, in his "Preliminary Discourse," who have ap

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