and of the cause of good and evil; it is one of the most profound and argumentative works upon the theory of the infinite; the author, however, too often applies to that which is without bounds, a sort of logic to which circumscribed objects alone are amenable. Leibnitz was a highly religious man; but, from this very circumstance, he believed it a duty to ground the truths of religion upon mathematical reasoning, in order to support them on such foundations as are admitted within the empire of experience; this error proceeds from respect, oftener felt than acknowledged, for men of cold and arid minds; we attempt to convince them in their own manner; we acknowledge that arguments in a logical form have more certainty than a proof from sentiment; and it is not

true.

In the region of intellectual and religious truths, of which Leibnitz has treated, we must use consciousness in the room of demonstration. Leibnitz, wishing to adhere to abstract reasoning, demands a sort of stretch of attention which few minds can support. Metaphysical works, that are founded neither upon experience nor upon sentiment, singularly fatigue the thinking power; and we may imbibe from them a physical and moral pain, so great, that by our obstinate endeavors to conquer it, we may shatter the organs of reason in our heads. A poet, Baggesen, has made Vertigo a divinity; we should

or the Theology of Reason, independent of Revelation. 'It proposes to establish the existence of a being infinitely perfect, and to determine his uttributes and essential relations to the world.' It treats of the existence, attributes, and providence of God, and the immortality of the soul-which were formerly included under metaphysics.

According to Kant, the objections which a theodicy should meet are: 1. The existence of moral evil, as contrary to the holiness of God. 2. Of physical evil, as contrary to his goodness. 3. The disproportion between 'he crimes and the punishments of this life as repugnant to his justice. He approves of the vindication adopted by Job against his friends, founded on our imperfect knowledge of God's ways.

"When the Jewish mind began to philosophize, and endeavored tc produce dialectic proofs, its theodicean philosophy, or justification of God, stopped, in the book of Job, at the avowal of the incomprehensibility of the destinies of mankind.'"-Bunsen, Hippolytus, vol. ii. p. 7.-(Fleming Vocab. of Philos., p. 513.)-Ed.

recommend ourselves to the favor of that goddess, when we are about to study these works, which place us in such a manner at the summit of ideas, that we have no longer any ladder to re-descend into life.

The metaphysical and religious writers, who are eloquent and feeling at the same time (such as we have seen in some examples), are much better adapted to our nature. Far from requiring the suppression of our faculties of feeling, in order to make our faculty of abstraction more precise, they bid us think, feel, and wish, that all the strength of our souls may aid us to penetrate into the depths of heaven; but to cling close to abstraction is such an effort, that it is natural enough for the generality of men to have renounced the attempt, and to have thought it more easy to admit nothing beyond what is visible.

The experimental philosophy is complete in itself; it is a whole, sufficiently vulgar, but compact, circumscribed, consequent; and while we adhere to the sort of reasoning which is received in the affairs of the world, we ought to be contented with it; the immortal and the infinite are only felt through the medium of the soul; the soul alone can diffuse an interest over the higher sort of metaphysics. We are very wrong to persuade ourselves that the more abstract a theory is, the more likely it is to guard us against all illusion; for it is exactly by these means that it may lead us into error. We take the connection of ideas for their proof; we arrange our rank and file of chimeras with precision, and we fancy that they are an army. There is nothing but the genius of sentiment that rises above experimental, as well as above speculative philosophy; there is no other genius but that, which can carry conviction beyond the limits of human reason.

It appears then to me, that, notwithstanding my entire admiration for the strength of mind and depth of genius in Leibnitz, we should wish, in his writings upon questions of metaphysical theology, more imagination and sensibility, that we might repose from thought by the indulgence of our feelings. Leibnitz almost made a scruple of recurring to it, fearing that he should have the appearance of using seductive arts

in favor of the truth; he was wrong, for sentiment is truth itself in questions of this nature.

The objections which I have allowed myself to make to those works of Leibnitz which aim at the solution of truths insoluble by reasoning, do not at all apply to his writings on the formation of ideas in the human mind; those writings are of a most luminous clearness; they refer to a mystery which man, to a certain degree, can penetrate; for he knows more of himself than of the universe. The opinions of Leibnitz in this respect tend, above all, to our moral perfection, if it be true, as the German philosophers have attempted to prove, that free-will rests upon the doctrine which delivers the soul from external objects, and that virtue cannot exist without the perfect independence of the will.

Leibnitz has combated, with admirable dialectic force, the system of Locke, who attributes all our ideas to our sensations. The advocates of this system had vaunted that well-known axiom, that there is nothing in the intellect which has not first been in the senses; and Leibnitz added to it this sublime restriction, except the intellect itself. From this principle all the new philosophy is derived, which so much influences minds in Germany. This philosophy also is experimental, for it endeavors to learn what is passing within ourselves. It only substitutes the observation of internal feeling for that of our external sensations.

The doctrine of Locke gained many partisans in Germany among those who endeavored, like Bonnet at Geneva, and many other philosophers in England, to reconcile this doctrine with the religious sentiments which Locke himself always professed. The genius of Leibnitz foresaw all the consequences or this sort of metaphysics; and that which has built his glory ɔn an everlasting foundation, is his having maintained in Germany the philosophy of moral liberty against that of sensual fatalism. While the rest of Europe adopted those principles which regard the soul as passive, Leibnitz, with unshaken con

• Nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu, nisi intellectus ipse.

stancy, was the defender of the idealistic philosophy, such as his genius had conceived it. It had no connection with the system of Berkeley; nor with the reveries of the Greek skeptics upon the non-existence of matter; but it maintained the moral being in his independence and in his rights.

CHAPTER VI.

KANT.

KANT lived even to a very advanced age, and never quitted Königsberg; there, in the midst of northern ice, he passed his whole life in meditation upon the laws of human intelligence. An indefatigable ardor for study enabled him to acquire stores. of knowledge without number. Sciences, languages, literature, all were familiar to him; and without seeking for glory which he did not enjoy till a very late period (not having heard the noise of his renown before his old age), he contented himself with the silent pleasure of reflection. In solitude he contemplated his mind with close attention; the examination of his thoughts lent him new strength to support his virtue; and although he never intermeddled with the ardent passions of men, he knew how to forge arms for those who should be summoned to combat those passions.

Except among the Greeks, we have hardly any example of a life so strictly philosophical; and this life itself answers for the sincerity of the writer. To such an unstained sincerity, we must further add an acute and exact understanding, which served for a corrector to his genius, when he suffered it to carry him too far. This is enough, it seems to me, to make us judge at least impartially of the persevering labors of such a man.

KANT' first published several works on the natural sciences ;

1 "Immanuel Kant was born April 24, 1724, at Königsberg in Prussia Here, as a student in the university, his youth was devoted to the inde

and he showed, in this branch of study, so great a sagacity that it was he who first foresaw the existence of the planet Uranus. Herschel himself, after having discovered it, acknowledged that it was Kant who announced the future event. His treatise upon the nature of the human understanding, entitled Critique of Pure Reason, appeared near thirty years ago and this work was for some time unknown; but when at length the treasures of thought, which it contains, were discovered, it produced such a sensation in Germany, that almost all which has been accomplished since, in literature as well as in philosophy, has flowed from the impulse given by this work.

To this treatise upon the human understanding succeeded the Critique of Practical Reason, which related to morals; and the Critique of Judgment, which had the nature of the beautiful for its object. The same theory serves for a foundation to these three treatises, which embrace the laws of intellect, the principles of virtue, and the contemplation of the beauties of nature and of the arts.

I shall endeavor to give a sketch of the principal ideas which

atigable study of natural and moral philosophy, and of the metaphysical sciences. In 1770, he was appointed professor of logic and metaphysics. Nine years afterwards he gave to the world his Kritik der reinen Vernunft. In this critical inquiry into the nature of Pure Reason, the attempt was made to define the extent and limits of the capacities of human thought, and the fundamental principles of Kant's philosophical system were first set forth. In order to avail himself of the labors of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, Kant studied the English language. In 1787, he followed up his former publication by Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, a work of great erudition and profound thought. Churchmen would find that this critique, though written ostensibly to combat the error of the Scotch philosopher, taught a greater skepticism than that it denounced; that though in it he spoke of the Bible, and also of Christianity, in terms indicative of the highest reverence, admitting them to be designed as the medium by which the knowledge of practical truth should be generally diffused, yet the direct tendency of many of the propositions therein laid down is to deprive ‘he Scriptures of any more authority than attaches to the Zendavesta or the Koran.' He assumed the ultimate judgment on such questions, and on historical truth of any kind, to be metaphysical not historical: the living light within a man, not the dead letter from any past age.'

"Of Kant's other works the most important are: Die Kritik der Urtheils kraft and Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, 1798 He died in his native place on the 12th of February, 1804."-Ed.