next; what is true for to-day is not true for to-morrow. Now, our own philosophy, whether physical or mental, attempts not, for the most part, to go beyond the limits of this scene of phenomena; but, taking its position in the centre of it, seeks to observe the generic characters which the phenomena themselves present, and arrange them in the most convenient order. Not so the philosophy of Germany. Convinced that mere phenomena cannot be self-existent realities, it begins by inquiring after the principle from which they spring; it seeks for a uniform and unchangeable basis, which underlies all the fleeting appearances of things; it demands truth which must be eternally truth, and from which, as the prime unconditioned existence, everything else has proceeded. The very first requisite, therefore, in understanding the rationale of the German philosophy, is to fix the eye of the mind upon the notion of " the absolute," and thus to pass mentally beyond the bounds of changing, finite, conditioned existence with the unchangeable, the infinite, the unconditioned.'-Vol. ii. pp. 61, 62.

We think the paragraph so true, and so admirable, that we propose to take it as our text, in this paper, as far as it relates to the Divine nature and Divine existence. HAVE WE ANY SIGNIFICANT CONCEPTION, WHEN WE SPEAK OF AN ETERNAL, AN INFINITE, AN UNCONDITIONED BEING? AND HAVE WE ANY GROUNDS TO BELIEVE IN HIS OBJECTIVE REALITY? These are fundamental questions in religion. Unless answers can be given in the affirmative, its entire superstructure is baseless. Now the sources from which replies are to be expected, are revelation, or sensationalism, or transcendentalism. And if it can be proved, that the last, and the last only, is competent as an evidence—and that its witness is affirmative, then its claims upon our reverence, and the reasons for its continued investigation, will be irrefragable.

I. It will not be necessary for us to enter on any elaborate argument to prove that no revelation can furnish us with the answers. It may assign to its professed Divinity names which involve self-existence, and infinitude, and eternity.-Its avowed Author may declare "I am that I am." It may demand, "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven, what canst thou do? Deeper than hell; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth and broader than the sea.' It may preface its statements with, Thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy.' But the least thought will show us that, before this is admitted to be of Divine authority, the existence of the source of that authority must be assumed as a fact. To perceive this, it may be well for us to imagine a condition of things prior to any revelation whatsoever. Suppose a human intelligence accosted for the first time with the words, Thus saith the Lord.' What would be its Divine authority if the existence of the Lord' were not previously conceded?There could be religious awe, or religious reverence, or religious love on the receipt of the message thus prefaced. It might be uttered

from a mount burning with fire and engirdled with blackness and darkness, and the voice might be so terrible that the hearer might exceedingly fear and quake: still, this would be no more than the natural emotion of the terrible sublime. It might be an edict obviously so expedient that the judgment might promptly give it welcome and acquiescence: still this would be no more than an act of extraordinary homage to wisdom. Or it might be couched in language so tender and so touching, and its burden might be so kind, as that the best sympathies and affections might instantly respond : still the emotion of natural love, though so intense, would not be transcended. Before the communication can be religiously feared, or obeyed, or loved, the mind must accept, as a fact, the existence of its author in the infinite grandeur of his immensity, his duration, and his benevolence. Undoubtedly we should now have said too much did we mean that in precise sequence to intellectual conviction such would be both the order and growth of either of these emotions. But we contend that such is their strict logical relation.

If it be argued, on the contrary, that revelation is accompanied by miracles, that these miracles are, acknowledgedly, supernatural -and that, therefore, they can be adduced in proof of the Divine nature and Divine existence, we reply by denying the validity of the conclusion. Miracles may, indeed, be advanced in evidence of an authority superhuman. They may, therefore, claim for the message, of which they are the accidents, the awe, or the reverence, or the love which the fact of its author being greater in power, or more sagacious in wisdom, or overflowing in kindness, might awaken. The restoration of the blind to sight, of the dumb to the power of speech, of the lame to agility, of even the dead to life, are not suggestions of a being infinite, eternal, unconditioned. They could consist with a pure polytheism, and be the wonder-works of various independent divinities. They do not, therefore, of themselves prove the existence of the Absolute.'

Mr. Morell has given us a different but equally conclusive view of this question.

'All religion reposes upon the idea of God as its foundation. Without this idea, revelation itself has no authority, inasmuch as its authority is solely derivable from the fact of its coming from God. The being of a God, therefore, is a truth that must be impressed upon us before we open the very first page of inspiration; nay, its very first proposition would be unintelligible without it. In the beginning, says Moses, God created the heavens and the earth. But who is God? All those must be settled points before the Scriptures can be to us of the slightest authority, and they cannot be settled, when once started, without deep inward reflection upon nature, and upon man as its interpreter. But, perhaps, we shall be reminded that the Scriptures carry with them their own evidence of the Divine existence, the evidence, namely, of miracles openly performed and well authenticated.

True, to a certain extent they do, but to an extent which can by no means dispense with the other evidence we have mentioned; for what mind is there that would be convinced of the being of a God from the witnessing of some temporary change in the laws of nature, when it had totally failed of gaining such conviction from the perpetual and standing wonder of creation itself? Assuredly, if nature, in her most beauteous forms and most striking operations, were insufficient to lead our minds to the conception of an efficient Creator, none of [what would then be] her freaks and wanderings would do so. Nay, when we speak of the evidence of miracles as testifying of the hand of God, that evidence, if I mistake not, derives all its strength from the previous confidence we have in the existence of an Almighty power the framer of the laws of nature, as we see them usually in operation, and which laws, we argue, could not be changed by any power less than that which first called them into being. If chance, or fate, or any other blind impulse could create the world, and fix its laws, it has likewise power to alter them; and if, therefore, our reflection upon the constitution of things around us as they are, and the application to them of the great law of causation, is not sufficient to lead us to the conviction of an intelligent cause from which they sprang, neither would a perpetual series of miracles be able to do so. Miracles, indeed, were never intended to convince any one of the existence of God, and it is nought but a misapplication of them to use them for this purpose; they were merely intended to convince us that this Being (of whose existence we have previous and higher evidence) operates in some particular manner, or through some particular medium.'-Vol. i. pp. 27, 28.

II. But it is contended that there is another order of revelation, the revelation of God in nature, and that thence answers can be obtained relative to the Infinite and the Eternal.

In canvassing this pretension, we would premise, that there is a difference between an illustration and a proof; that they are distinet from each other in order of time and in purpose. The illustration follows the proof. The proof is designed to convince-the illustration to enlighten. Now, we shall be far from disputing that nature is an illustration of power, and wisdom, and goodness, but we deny that it is a proof that that power and wisdom and goodness centre in a Being infinite and eternal.

If, as the anti-transcendentalist argues, we know nothing beyond the phenomena and laws of nature, how can we attain conceptions of the Infinite and Eternal? The devout mind, when anxious to gain a sublime impression of the immensity of God, will ask, Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.' But, notwithstanding this device of a lofty imagination, it will confess such knowledge is too wonderful for me, it is high, I cannot attain unto it.' The grandest discoveries of astronomy may suggest to it 'the broad expanse of nature, but while in awe at

the thought that God fills the whole, there will remain a sense of the deficiency of the illustration, for it will still be limited. And the same devout mind, when anxious to gain a sublime impression of the eternity of God, may muse as it exclaims, 'Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God.' Nevertheless, how often soever it may add cycle to cycle, thus to estimate the age of the eternal Father, the effort will be fruitless, for the conception will be limited. Vast as nature is, it is not infinite. Its chronology is unknown-still it is not eternal. It may suggest to us by its forces, its adaptations, and its tendencies, that a Being of transcendent power, and wisdom, and goodness superintends it; but it cannot prove that that Being is supreme, that in another far distant region of illimitable space there is no other, no grander system, and no other, no greater God. It may, by its compensatory provisions, give us a profound idea of stability, and so may lead us to think of its ruler as immeasurably above what is transient or contingent, but it cannot prove that his years shall never fail.

Now we ask the anti-transcendentalists most seriously to weigh these statements. We address them on the assumption that they do believe in the infinity and eternity of God,-that they attach to these terms some intelligent significance; and we contend that both the conception and the belief must have had some other origin than that of the phenomena of nature.

To this we might add a still more stringent view of the case as given by Mr. Morell. Can positive science ever bring us to the conviction of the being of a God? M. Comte says authoritatively it cannot, and we believe him to be right. Far are we from attributing this sentiment to those who advocate the positive prineiple, since there is nothing more unjust than to draw our own conclusions, and then force them upon other people; but we cannot see how the atheistic conclusion, into which the master openly sinks, can ultimately be avoided by the pupils. If all we can do is to observe phenomena and deduce their laws, if all inquirings both into causes and essences are entirely beyond our reach, we are quite at a loss to see how the belief in a God can be any other than what Comte represents it; namely, a delusion incident to the more infantile state of humanity. We contend, then, for a philosophy of religion. We affirm, that the grounds of our religious belief, and the facts of our spiritual nature, can be subjected to philosophical investigation, as well as any other part of our mental phenomena. We believe that the history of every mind, if it be closely examined, and the history of humanity in the mass, all tend to prove some connexion with a spiritual world, without which man were a problem utterly inexplicable; and we look with

jealous eye upon any system which tends to absorb the notions of the human spirits or the Infinite Spirit in that of nature, to cut us off from that which gives us all our dignity, and lends to human action all its grandeur and elevation.'*

III. Before we enter on the last source, whence we may look for answers in regard to the Absolute,' we would make a few remarks in anticipation of an objection. The objector will most probably be prepared to disavow Locke's theory of ideas; he will most probably rank himself with the metaphysicians of the Scottish school, and, on his acceptance of the distinction between necessary and contingent truths as fully as ourselves, will deny that a positive philosophy is the necessary alternative of transcendentalism.

As immediately bearing upon this protest we may quote from Mr. Morell:--

'The main defect of the Scottish school lies in the fact, that it has never taken a sufficiently comprehensive view of the legitimate objects and extent of philosophy in general. It regards intellectual science as a co-ordinate branch of knowledge with the other sciences; it supposes them each to have their separate objects; and labours to show that the same method is in every respect applicable to them all. It takes for granted, that as the march of the natural sciences mainly consists in observing facts, and then classifying them into groups by virtue of certain similarities, so likewise we are fulfilling all the conditions of intellectual philosophy, by giving a simple classification of the facts of our consciousness; and forgets, in the mean time, that the full analysis of reason leads us from the region of mere subjective phenomena into that of real existence itself, and that the highest aim of philosophy is to discover necessary truth, by grounding the observed facts in principles, which are absolute and unalterable. "When," observes Cousin, "on the occasion of a finite, contingent, and relative existence, which experience attests, I conceive the infinite, the necessary, the absolute, the universal; when in presence of the phenomena which I observe in the world, I contemplate the great laws of that world, those laws which make the harmony of its movements, the order and beauty of its plan; when, in retiring within the precincts of my own nature, I attach the phenomena, so variable and evanescent, which I behold there, to one simple, identical, and immoveable essence, I do not imagine, I do not dream, I do not compose, I simply conceive. My conception is a necessary and legitimate act of my mind, as much as the most simple perception."

On what authority, then, we ask, do these pure conceptions rest? what is it that separates them from the fictions of imagination? why do I know my imaginations to be mere fictions, whilst I attribute a real objective existence to the Infinite Being, to the laws of the universe, to the essence of the soul? Here are questions, grounded indeed upon the facts of our consciousness, but requiring as answer, somewhat more than a mere classification of facts: requiring, in truth, nothing less than a critique of those purely rational or metaphysical deductions, in which the first principles of ontology are grounded.

Vol. ii. p. 523.