emotion enough to be in a rage-except, indeed, for that other object, of chastising those who will not join the great masquerade, or who attempt to expose it. Perhaps there is no man given to occasional reflection who does not catch a glimpse, now and then, of the hollowness of the illusive scene through which he is moving; and start at the sight. The truth is, there are two invisible worlds the God-made, and the man-made; the future and the present. Things as they are are coated over and concealed, and are wide as the poles from things as they seem. The great majority have to leave the world in order to know it. Now much of the surprise and resentment which may be supposed to await them at the unveiling of the scene, Foster antedated, for to him the veil was more than half transparent. This just resentment, indeed, became ill-judged and indiscriminate when it led him to the length of reprobating all church organisation. Between the Christian church as an institution, and the conduct of its members, there is the same relative distinction as between society as an institution and the character of the individuals composing it; and yet, bad as men may be, he would not have thought of calling for the utter disruption of society. In describing the inconsistent condition of a large proportion of so-called Christians, we are quite ready to admit that even he could not easily have employed language of too great strength: 'As to religion, they are in a religious divingbell; religion is not circumambient, but a little is conveyed down into the worldly depth, where they breathe by a sort of artificial inlet a tube.'

Another of Foster's characteristics, to which we also adverted in our opening remarks, was his power and habit of introspection. By this, he was able to go in, so to speak, and inquire into the reasons of his individuality.

He, the subject, was almost habitually his own object. God had given him that most wonderful of created things—a mind, and he set himself apart to study its phenomena. I am obtaining the analysis of it, piece by piece,' said he, at the cost of a great and sometimes painful attention.' Objects which beguile the ordinary mind away from itself, his mind appropriated, enclosed, and carried away,' to operate on apart, and at leisure; the very process making him, not the less, but the more vividly conscious of his mental life. Hear him when he is in the presence of nature:- Stood in a solitary grove, just opposite to a large cascade, on which I looked with long and fixed attention. Most interesting to observe the movements of my own mind, particularly as to the ideas which come from distant, unseen objects and The images of several favourite persons, but particularly one, came around me with an aspect inconceivably delicious. Tried to ascertain how much of this charm was added to those

scenes.

images by the influence of the beautiful scene where they appeared to me.' When he appears most absorbed by the external, he is at his favourite post within, watching what is going on there. The cascade puts into motion the machinery of his mind, and forthwith he can look at nothing but how it works. In another part of his journal he records, I have often noticed the process in my mind, when, in the onset of a journey or day, I have set myself to observe whatever should fall within my sphere. For some time at first I can do no more than take an account of bare facts; as, there is a house; there a man; there a tree; such a speech uttered; such an incident happens; and so on. After some time, however, a larger enginery begins to work; I feel more than a simple perception of objects; they become environed with an atmosphere and shed forth an emanation. They come accompanied with trains of images, moral analogies, and a wide, diffused, vitalised, and indefinable kind of sentimentalism. Generally, if one can compel the mind to the labour of the first part of the process, the interesting sequel will soon follow. After one has passed a few hours in this element of revelation, which presents this old world like a new vision all around, one is ashamed of so many hundred walks and days which have been vacant of observation and reflection.' Thus the most resolute determination to observe other things, not only cannot prevent him from observing the effect upon his own mind, but becomes the occasion of selfstudy.

Conceive of a man who should be suddenly made conscious of all the vital operations which are constantly going on within him; every part of his body transparent; every process audible; now marking, as he moved, the strain and stress of his muscular cordage; and now listening, as he sat, to the loud play of every veinvalve as the streams of his blood rushed through their many channels. Such is an image of what Foster's mind appears to have been to him, as an object for observation. Its phenomena appear to have stood out distinctly to his eye-as distinctly as the 'cascade and, like that, to have riveted his gaze. It should be remembered, however, that this remarkable habit of self-observation presupposed that the phenomena observed were remarkable. The power would never have become a habit-the eye, charmed by external objects, would never have accustomed itself to look away to the world within, unless it had been sure to meet with something which would richly repay it.

Now it was this habit of introspection, partly, and the profound interest which he felt in studying his mental states, that made him refer to his mind so frequently as to give to his remarks an appearance (we do not say of egotism, but) of egoism. He himself seems to have dreaded and deprecated misconstruction on this

point. The truth is, however, that such philosophical self-consideration is natural-is inevitable-to a mind in a right state. Conversion itself includes self-restoration; a restoration which, so far from producing vanity, kills it. And we can easily conceive of Foster watching the surface of his mind, and reporting every ripple that appeared on it, with as utter an absence of self-reference as if the object of his regard were the mind of a stranger, or the face of a lake. Indeed, he often speaks of it as if it were a foreign mind; or as if he had managed somehow to place it opposite to him, and had then sat down to gaze at it. As far, however, as he studied it with a moral self-reference, it was a discipline of humiliation. A glance at it often called forth the language of keen self-reproach. To his habit of self-observation, and to the knowledge of human nature which he thus acquired, may also be traced, we think, that genuine politeness which marked his conduct to the young and the poor, and which has been well defined as benevolence in little things. By a kind of mental substitution he adapted himself to their position, and made them feel that they were of some consequence. To the same source, partly, may be ascribed the power which he possessed-the dramatic power-of so presenting an abstruse view as to be intelligible, and even interesting, to the uneducated. He saw it for them, before he showed it to them.

Perhaps the most obvious attribute of Foster's mind-though not more conducive to originality than those already named-was great activity and intensity of philosophical imagination. If the other qualities which we have specified, made him, to a certain extent, a man by himself, this gave him a world of his own to live in. I like my mind,' said he, for its necessity of seeking the abstraction of every subject; but, at the same time, this is, without more knowledge and discipline, extremely inconvenient, and sometimes the work is done very awkwardly or erroneously.' The abstraction which he attained, however, was not that of metaphysical truth. He was satisfied with the how, without seeking for the preceding why. And it was the perception that he had not explored this preceding sphere of inquiry, probably, which produced that sense of self-dissatisfaction of which he here complains. As an illustration, we may cite that entry in his journal in which he remarks on it as a ' certain fact, that whenever a man prays aright, he forgets the philosophy of it, and feels as if his supplications really would make a difference in the determinations and conduct of the Deity.' Now the way in which the mind comes to feel this, its perplexities and struggles, and its state when entirely occupied with this great practical conviction, he would have analysed, and exhibited, and placed in the most impressive light; but the metaphysical truth which it presupposes, or forgets,' he too would. either have passed by as uncongenial to his taste, or else would have

seen it intuitively and have simply announced it; in this respect, resembling his own description of Lord Chatham, that, in his speeches, he did not reason; but struck, as by intuition, directly on the results of reasoning, as a cannon-shot strikes the mark without revealing its course through the air as it moves towards its object.' He himself deplored it as a great defect in his intellectual economy, that, though he had made many observations on men and things, he had allowed these observations to remain in insulated bits, and had seldom referred them to any general principles of truth, or of the philosophy of the human mind. And he closes the reflection with this query,' Has this defect been owing to indolence or incapacity?' The question appears to us to be sufficiently answered by his own statement, that such writers as Cudworth, Locke, and Hume, he could not understand. Such confessions, indeed, from such a man, must be always received with large abatements; for genius measures itself by its own ideal standard. But, evidently, his mental constitution was decidedly averse to mere metaphysical abstractions. Truth, in its bare logical relations, had no charms for him. And we can easily conceive that the subtile disquisitions of the schoolmen, or the pure abstractions of transcendentalism, would have maddened him. Speculation, indeed, was one of his most congenial exercises; but his remotest speculations loomed in the imaginative atmosphere of his mind, and came near. Abstractions came to him only to be clothed; and metaphysics to be painted. He could not see a truth until it had become radiant in the imagery with which his own mind invested it. And that imagery-how appropriate, varied, unexpected! Objects the most remote, unpromising, and familiar, are alike, and with the greatest facility, laid under contribution. Images, from all elements and worlds, come to do his bidding. Literally, they do his bidding, not he, theirs. Imagination never seduces him from his object, but obediently waits on his judgment; never leads him to indulge in those vague generalities of statement which resent and resist all exceptions and modifications. On the contrary, such qualifying clauses abound, at times, to redundancy ; except, indeed, that they serve to show his extreme anxiety not to impair his usefulness by magnifying a fact, or exaggerating a sentiment.

One of the subjects which had a fearful attraction for his imagination was the invisible world. He wondered, as he said, 'that we should be here so remarkably separated by that thick-shaded frontier of death, which I see yonder, from the amplitude of existence.' The strength of his imagination made that frontier so palpable, and brought it so near, that he seems to have felt impatient at his not being able to enter it at pleasure. Mentally, he often saw people approaching the confines of the future state-just

6

entering and he felt amazed at their insensibility to the fact, He considered that one object of life should be to accumulate a great number of grand questions, to be asked and resolved in eternity.' Accordingly, the death of a friend almost excited his envy, and filled him with impatience to be initiated into the secrets of the unseen state. The nearer I approach by advancing age,' said he, to the grand experiment, the more inquisitive—I might almost say, restlessly inquisitive-I become respecting that other scene and state of our existence.' From early life he appears to have been fascinated by the 'superlatively grand and consoling idea of death.' The most attractive parts of his religious correspondence are those which relate to the state after death.* And the deep interest which he felt in one who was to be admitted before him into the invisible region, is seen in the nine admirable letters to a dying child. 'Before you will have returned from the continent,' he impressively wrote to Sir J. Easthope, a few days before his dissolution, I shall have made a much greater and more mysterious journey;' and his long habit of intense communion with the mysterious region lying at the termination of that journey, awakens the idea that he would enter it as a scene comparatively familiar, and many of whose wonders he must have previously anticipated. We may here express our conviction, that his rejection of the doctrine of eternal punishment was ascribable, chiefly, to the vividness of his apprehension of endless duration. This is a doctrine on which, of course, Scripture is the only authority. But the force with which his imagination projected itself into the depths of futurity, grasped successive ages, and made their crowded suffering present to his mind, appears to have incapacitated him for doing justice to the language of Divine revelation on the subject. The truth is, he could believe the doctrine only as he painted it-made it present and actual to his mind. And as the conception was unendurable to his imagination, he rejected it. The imaginative part of his nature it was which recoiled from the awful doctrine.

His ardent admiration of grand natural scenery may be traced, partly, we think, to the sense of dissatisfaction with which he would desist from his imaginative attempts on the invisible world. It was like returning from a region where he had been fretted, frowned on, and unsuccessful, to one which waited to welcome and smile on him. To a mind disquieted and harassed by an habitual wrestling with moral difficulties, every stream is an Abana, every tree and shrub medicinal. This healing effect of nature is produced, partly, by its peculiar power of diverting the mind from the subjects which had pre-occupied it; and, partly, by the interesting,

* As, for instance, in his beautiful letters addressed to Mrs. Mant.