than half a century old; while the possibility of a science of human actions, or social phenomena, requiring yet larger generalizations, is still admitted by only a few of the boldest minds. We may place the pure mathematics at one extremity of the series, and this latter, sometimes designated by the barbarous name of sociology, at the other, and we shall find it equally true of all intermediate departments of science, that those which are based on the fewest and simplest facts are the first to assume a definite form.

The metaphysical method started from a set of assumed, and abstract notions. The properties of bodies were conceived of as so many abstract entities; whiteness, blackness, hardness, and the like, were treated as actual existences. An object was said to be beautiful because it possessed this abstract entity called beauty, somewhat as we popularly say that a bar of iron is red hot because heat has been imparted to it, or that a steel needle is magnetic because it has received magnetism. Such explanations on our part would be worthless, but those of the ancient philosophers were all of that kind. As they assumed such and so many of these abstract entities as they wanted, they had a most facile but unsatisfactory mode of explaining every thing. Actual knowledge being unnecessary, their speculatious were for the most part directed to objects not merely unascertained, but wholly unascertainable; such as the nature of the deity, the origin of the universe, the methods of creation, and the essential nature of matter, aside from its sensible forms and properties.

Modern thought is slow and laborious in its processes, but its toils are rewarded by a rich harvest of knowledge, and the promotion of all the interests of civilized life; that of the ancients was light, airy and rapid as some strong-winged bird, but it filled no gleaner's hand with ears, or reaper's bosom with sheaves. Mitscherlich declared on a public occasion that it took fourteen years to verify a new fact in chemistry; yet that most widely useful of all the sciences, is almost wholly of modern growth. We think it may be reasonably doubted whether metaphysical studies, even when confined to what is generally deemed their proper sphere, have ever conferred, or are likely ever to confer, much benefit on mankind. However that may be, it is certain that the metaphysical method applied to the problems of

nature was as barren of valuable results as the imagination. The speculations of the old philosopher were little more than bold guesses, sometimes indeed so fortunate as to seem inspired, as in the case of the atomic theory of Democritus, which is to this day the utmost limit of speculation in that direction; at other times they were scarcely more rational than the dreamings of his poetic predecessor; but in no case were they based on any large repertory of facts, or made subservient to the requirements of human life. The old Greeks, for example, even when the most curious and suggestive facts were thrust upon them, seldom turned them to much account. It is related that an old shepherd found upon the hills of Magnesia a kind of iron-stone which attracted iron and imparted to pieces of that metal the property of attracting other pieces; yet notwithstanding this invaluable kernel of fact, the Greeks contributed to magnetism only the name. We may adduce a still more striking example to illustrate the different methods of ancient and modern philosophy. It was known from very early times that electron when rubbed on a suitable cushion acquired the property of attracting light substances, but that was all the ancients ever knew of electricity. No sooner, however, had the awakened mind of western Europe been called to it, than the bit of amber became a centre around which were gradually gathered facts destined to grow up into the most marvellous of all the departments of natural science. The English Gilbert, of Colchester, better known for his discoveries in magnetism, first took up the old sterile fact, about the year 1600 and discovered that upwards of twenty other substances possessed the same property in common with amber, and that the electric manifestations were influenced by the condition of the atmosphere. By 1709, Boyle had added to the number of electrics; Otto Guericke had discovered electrical repulsion and the electric light; and Newton and Hawksbee had greatly improved on the experiments and apparatus of their predecessors. By 1733, Stephen Gray had found that the rubbing of such a thing as amber calls something into existence, or at least into manifestation, which travels with the speed of light; to which some bodies present an easy highway, and others an impassable barrier; and also that electrics were non-conductors, and conductors non-electrics. At the same time he observed that, com

paring small things with great, the electric phenomena resembled thunder and lightning; and Dufay, in France, conveyed the mysterious influence a quarter of a mile on lines, and discovered the distinction between vitreous and resinous electricity. A scientific character being now acquired for the group of new phenomena, there followed rapidly electric machines, leyden jars and batteries, ignition and fusion by electric heat, and the polarizing and reversing of magnetic needles. In 1752, Franklin verified the conjecture of Gray, and identified artificial with atmospheric electricity; and in 1790 Galvani, in Italy, made the discovery that led to the knowledge of that other kind of electricity which was to supersede the original, and in less than threescore years materially affect the arts of life, and the political relations of the world. We now have electricity applied to all kinds of printing, plating and gilding, the blasting of submarine rocks, chemical analysis, the cure of inveterate diseases, and the conveyance of intelligence alike through crowded cities, and over seas and deserts; and we shall not be surprised to see within ten years, daily communications by the same subtle agency with Pekin and Jeddo. Such is the difference in results between the philosophy of abstract ideas and that which has taken its place.

With all its glaring deficiency, however, the metaphysical method was a step gained in the right direction. It admitted that the universe was not the sport of a personal and changeful will, or exposed to the conflicts of many such. It admitted an ascertainable certainty in the phenomena of nature, which man might study with a reasonable hope of understanding. Its great defect was, that instead of seeking larger knowledge from which to generalize its conclusions, it sought only by the assumption of abstract notions to account for the few phenomena which obtruded themselves without being looked for. It passed at a single stride from the slenderest footing of fact, to the loftiest heights of specuulation, regardless of the rich fields of practical knowledge that intervened. It scorned the sorded aim of mitigating familiar evils, or supplying wants, and aspired only to the determination of questions which man in this life has no faculties for answering; and, as a natural consequence, it remained to the last unfruitful as the barren sea,- -a system of lofty but idle speculations.

It remains to be remarked, that as the imagination is constantly the first, so the metaphysical is as uninformly the second type of thought, both of the individual and of the race. Personification is the method of the child; abstract notions the method of the boy; while that of the mature man is a third, quite different from both. We leave it to our readers to say, how many of them, between the ages of ten and twenty, were inclined to abstruse metaphysical speculations, and to the settlement of practical questions on the basis of abstract notions, with little reference to facts. We see the same thing daily in persons of superior natural intelligence, whose education and reading have been limited. Their active minds have an insufficient stock of knowledge for their full exercise, and are naturally busied with abstruse and vain assumptions and deductions, and fruitless attempts to know what is beyond human ken. Along with acute reasonings and far-reaching conjectures, they mingle errors, which to an educated man of half the talent would be impossible.

Some nations, as the Hebrews, stopped short at the first stage of thought; while to the end of the middle ages, no people had advanced beyond the second, or abstract. The Chinese present a remarkable example of a people who have stood still at the metaphysical point for twentyfive centuries; and their whole national thought is the best illustration of the barrenness of that method. We of the present age have discarded it almost wholly, except in theology, which, as has been remarked, is invariably an old type of thought; and the weakly repetition of obsolete notions, in which no sensible man any longer feels an interest, may be reckoned as one of the causes of the deadness of the churches -a lethargy disturbed only by the periodic visitations of an epidemic revival. Yet even the sanctuary is becoming accessible to the third form of human thought; and the most efficient and successful preachers are precisely those who deal most largely in the facts of every day life.

S. R.

ART. XI.

The Movement to Revive Calvinism.

The American Theological Review. Edited by Rev. H. B. Smith, D. D., and Rev. Joseph Tracy. Volume i. No. 1. Boston: Moore, Munro, & Co. January, 1859.

THE appearance of this periodical marks an important crisis in American Theology. Its avowed and real purpose is the restoration of genuine Calvinism, as opposed to varied counterfeit forms thereof-forms which, while retaining the name and the technicalities of Calvinism, nevertheless explain away and pervert its original meaning. Its avowed purpose is indeed to wage war against Unitarianism, Universalism, and what it is pleased to rank with these, rationalism and infidelity. But it expects to reach these palpable heresies by first rectifying the more subtile departures from first principles within its own communion. Without anywhere calling them by name, it is easy to perceive that its objects of direct assault are the Parks, the Beechers, and the Bushnells; and it hopes either by reclaiming or expelling these exponents of a diluted and mystified Calvinism, to revive in all Orthodox ranks the battle carried on in a former age, by Edwards, Bellamy, Hopkins, and Emmons! The doctrine of God's "absolute sovereignty, both as the dispenser of providential events and the enacter of laws; of man's utter ruin by nature; of his accountable ability and moral impotence; of Christ's allsufficient atonement; of electing grace; of justification by faith; of instantaneous regeneration, wrought alone by the Holy Spirit; of spontaneous obedience, arising from controlling desires to vindicate Christ's character, and to promote the interests of his kingdom,”—all these it purposes to bring vividly before the mind.

There are several respects wherein we feel a deep interest in this movement. First of all, we find in its central doctrine of the sovereignty of God, what we deem the first truth of religion. It is upon this foundation we, as Universalists, build the superstructure of our faith. A doctrine