PART 111.

PHILOSOPHY AND ETHICS.

CHAPTER I.

OF PHILOSOPHY.

The case

THE world has been pleased, for some time past to throw great discredit upon the very name of philosophy. is common with all those terms, the signification of which is capable of much extension; they are the objects of benediction or blame among mankind, according to their use in fortunate or unhappy periods; but, in spite of the casual injustice or panegyric of individuals and of nations, philosophy, liberty, religion, never change their value. Man has spoken evil things of the sun, of love, and of life; he has suffered, he has felt himself consumed, by these lights of nature; but would he therefore extinguish them?

Every thing that has a tendency to set bounds to our faculties, bears the stamp of a degrading doctrine. We ought to direct those faculties to the lofty end of our existence-our advance to moral perfection. But it is not by the partial suicide of this or that power of our nature, that we shall be rendered capable of rising towards such an object; all our resources are not too numerous to forward our approach to it; and, if Heaven had granted more genius to man, he would nave advanced so much the more in virtue.

Among the different branches of philosophy, metaphysics have, especially, occupied the attention of the Germans. The

objects which this science embraces, may be divided into three classes. The first relates to the mystery of the creation; that is, to the Infinite in all things; the second, to the formation of ideas in the human mind; and the third, to the exercise of our faculties, without ascending to their source.

The first of these studies, that which applies itself to the discovery of the secret of the universe, was cultivated among the Greeks, as it now is among the Germans. It is impossible. to deny that such an investigation, however sublime in its principle, makes us feel our impotence at every step; and discouragement follows those efforts which cannot attain a result. The utility of the third class of metaphysical observations, that which is confined to the knowledge of the acts of our understanding, cannot be contested; but this utility is limited to the circle of daily experience. The philosophical meditations. of the second class, those which are directed to the nature of our soul, and to the origin of our ideas, appear to me the most interesting of all. It is not likely that we should ever be able to know the eternal truths which explain the existence of this world: the desire that we feel for such knowledge is among the number of those noble thoughts which draw us towards another life; but it is not for nothing that the faculty of selfexamination has been given to us. Doubtless, to observe the progress of our mind, such as it exists, is already to avail ourselves of this faculty; nevertheless, in rising higher, in striving to learn whether this mind acts spontaneously, or whether we can only think when thought is excited by external objects, we shall cast additional light upon the free-will of man, and consequently upon vice and virtue.

A crowd of moral and religious questions depends upon the manner in which we consider the origin and formation of our ideas. It is the diversity of their systems in this respect, above all others, that distinguishes the German from the French philosophers. We may easily conceive, that if the difference is at the fountain-head, it must show itself in the derived streams; t is impossible, therefore, to become acquainted with Germany without tracing the progress of that philosophy, which, from

the days of Leibnitz down to our own, has incessantly exerted so great a power over the republic of letters.

There are two methods of considering the philosophy of the human mind; either in its theory or in its results. The examination of the theory demands a capacity which belongs not te me: but it is easy to remark the influence which this or that metaphysical opinion exercises over the development of the mind and of the soul. The Gospel tells us, "that we must judge of prophets by their works:" this maxim may also guide our inquiry into the different systems of philosophy; for every thing that is of immoral tendency must be sophistical. This life has no value, unless it is subservient to the religious education of our hearts, unless it prepares us for a higher destiny, by our free choice of virtue upon earth. Metaphysics, social institutions, arts, sciences, all ought to be appreciated accordingly as they contribute to the moral perfection of mankind; this is the touchstone granted to the ignorant as well as to the learned. For if the knowledge of the means belongs only to the initiated, the results are discernible by all the world.

It is necessary to be accustomed to that mode of reasoning which is used in geometry, in order to gain a full comprehension of metaphysics. In this science, as in that of calculation, if we omit the least link in the chain of evidence, we destroy the whole connection. Metaphysical reasonings are more abstract, and not less precise, than mathematical; and yet their object is indefinite. We must unite, as metaphysicians, two of the most opposite faculties, imagination, and the power of calculation: we have to measure a shade of thought with the same accuracy as a field; and there is no study which requires such closeness of attention; nevertheless, in the highest questions there is always some point of view within the reach of everybody, and it is this point which I propose to seize and present.

I one day asked Fichte, one of the greatest thinkers in Germany, whether he could not more easily tell me his ethical system than his metaphysical? The one depends upon the other," he replied; and the remark was very profound: it

comprehends all the motives of the interest that we can take in philosophy.

We have been accustomed to regard it as destructive of every belief of the heart; it would then indeed be the enemy of man; but it is not so with the doctrine of Plato, nor with that of the Germans; they consider sentiment as a fact, as the primitive fact of mind; and they look upon the power of philosophical reasoning as destined solely to investigate the mean ing of this fact.

The enigma of the universe has wasted the meditations of many, who have still deserved our admiration, because they felt themselves summoned to something better than the present world. Minds of a lofty kind wander unceasingly around the abyss of thoughts that are without an end; but still they must turn themselves away from it, for the mind fatigues itself in vain in these efforts to scale the heavens.

The origin of thought has occupied all true philosophers. Are there two natures in man? If there is but one, is it mind or matter? If there are two, do ideas come by the senses, or do they spring up in the soul? Or, in truth, are they a mixture of the action of external objects upon us, and of the internal faculties which we possess?

To these three questions, which at all times have divided the philosophical world, is united the inquiry which most immediately touches upon virtue; to wit, whether free-will or fatality decides the resolutions of man.

events.

Among the ancients, fatality arose from the will of the gods; among the moderns, it is attributed to the course of Fatality, among the ancients, gave a new evidence to free-will; for the will of man struggled against the event, and moral resistance was unconquerable: the fatalism of the moderns, on the contrary, necessarily destroys the belief in freewill: if circumstances make us what we are, we cannot oppose their ascendency; if external objects are the cause of all that passes in our mind, what independent thought can free us from their influence? The fatalism which descended from heaven filled the soul with a holy terror, while that which