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without troubling himself with that which they have derived from custom. This appears to me a great error; for the attention of the reader is exhausted in efforts to understand the language, before he arrives at the ideas, and what is known never serves as a step to what is unknown.

We must nevertheless give Kant the justice he deserves, even as a writer, when he lays aside his scientific language. In speaking of the arts, and still more of ethics, his style is almost always perfectly clear, energetic, and simple. How admirable does his doctrine then appear! How well does he express the sentiment of the beautiful and the love of duty! With what force does he separate them both from all calculations of interest or of utility! How he ennobles actions by their source, and not by their success! In a word, what moral grandeur does he not give to man, whether he examines him in himself, or in his external relations; man, that exile of heaven, that prisoner upon earth, so great as an exile, so miserable as a captive!

We might extract from the writings of Kant a multitude of brilliant ideas on all subjects; perhaps, indeed, it is to this doctrine alone, that, at the present day, we must look for conceptions at once ingenious and new; for the notions of the materialists no longer offer any thing interesting or original.

than that God exists, infinite, eternal, invisible, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. To discern these truths is the province of Reason, which therefore is to be cultivated as the highest faculty in man. Not by logic and argument does it work; yet surely and clearly may it be taught to work: and its domain lies in that higher region whither logic and argu ment cannot reach; in that holier region, where Poetry, and Virtue, and Divinity abide, in whose presence Understanding wavers and recoils, dazzled into utter darkness by that 'sea of light,' at once the fountain and the termination of all true knowledge.

"Will the Kantists forgive us for the loose and popular manner in which we must here speak of these things, to bring them in any measure before the eyes of our readers? It may illustrate this distinction still farther, if we say, that, in the opinion of a Kantist, the French are of all European nations the most gifted with Understanding, and the most destitute of Reason; that David Hume had no forecast of this latter, and that Shakseare and Luther dwelt perennially in its purest sphere."—( Carlyle's Es· says, pp. 31-34.)- Ed.

Smartness of wit against what is serious, noble, and divine, is worn out; and in future it will be impossible to restore to the human race any of the qualities of youth, but by returning to religion by philosophy, and to sentiment by reason.

CHAPTER VII.

OF THE MOST CELEBRATED PHILOSOPHERS BEFORE AND

AFTER KANT.

THE philosophic spirit, from its nature, cannot be generally diffused in any country. In Germany, however, there is such a tendency towards habits of reflection, that the German nation may be considered, by distinction, as the metaphysical nation. It possesses so many men capable of understanding the most abstract questions, that even the public are found to take an interest in the arguments employed in discussions of this kind. Every man of talent has his own way of thinking on philosophical questions. Writers of the second and third rank, in Germany, are sufficiently deep to be of the first rank in other countries. Those who are rivals, have the same hatred towards one another there as elsewhere; but no one would dare to enter the lists, without having evinced, by serious study, a real love for the science with which he is occupied. It is not enough ardently to desire success; it must be deserved, before the candidate can be even admitted to compete for it. The Germans, however indulgent they may be to defects of form in a work, are unmerciful with respect to its real value; and when they perceive any thing superficial in the mind, the feeling, or the knowledge of a writer, they try to borrow the very pleasantry of the French, to turn what is frivolous into ridicule.

It is my intention to give, in this chapter, a hasty glimpse of the principal opinions of celebrated philosophers, before and since the time of Kant; the course which his successors have

taken cannot well be judged of, without turning back to see what was the state of opinions at the time when the Kantian doctrine first prevailed in Germany: it was opposed at the same time to the system of Locke, as tending to materialism, and to the school of Leibnitz, as having reduced every thing to abstraction. The ideas of Leibnitz' were lofty; but his disciples, Wolt

1 "Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz was born in 1646, at Leipsic, where his father was professor. Having chosen the law as his profession, he entered the university in 1661, and in 1663 he defended for his degree of doctor in philosophy his dissertation de principio individui, a theme well characteristic of the direction of his later philosophizing. He afterwards went to Jena, and subsequently to Altdorf, where he became doctor of laws. At Altdorf he was offered a professorship of jurisprudence, which he refused. The rest of his life was unsettled and desultory, spent for the most part in courts, where, as a versatile courtier, he was employed in the most varied duties of diplomacy. In the year 1672 he went to Paris, in order to induce Louis XIV to undertake the conquest of Egypt. He subsequently visited London, whence he was afterwards called to Hanover, as councillor of the Duke of Brunswick. He received later a post as librarian at Wolfenbüttel, between which place and Hanover he spent the most of his subsequent life, though interrupted with numerous journeys to Vienna, Berlin, etc. He was intimately associated with the Prussian Electress, Maria Charlotte, a highly talented woman, who surrounded herself with a circle of the most distinguished scholars of the time, and for whom Leibnitz wrote, at her own request, his Theodicée. In 1701, after Prussia had become a kingdom, an academy was established at Berlin, through his efforts, and he became its first president. Similar, but fruitless attempts were made by him to establish academies in Dresden and Vienna. In 1711 the title of imperial court councillor, and a baronage, was bestowed upon him by the Emperor Charles VI. Soon after, he betook himself to Vienna, where he remained a considerable period, and wrote his Monadology, at the solicitation of Prince Eugene. He died in 1716. Next to Aristotle, Leibnitz was the most highly gifted scholar that had ever lived; with the richest and most extensive learning, he united the highest and most penetrating powers of mind. Germany has reason to be proud of him, since, after Jacob Boehme, he is the first philosopher of any note among the Germans. With him philosophy found a home in Germany. It is to be regretted that the great variety of his efforts and literary undertakings, together with his roving manner of life, prevented him from giving any connected exhibition of his philosophy. His views are for the most part developed only in brief and occasional writings and letters, composed frequently in the French language. It is hence not easy to state his philosophy in its internal connection, though none of his views are isolated, but all stand strictly connected with each other."-(Schwegler, History of Phi bsophy, translated by Seelye, pp. 312, 313.)-Ed.

at their head, encumbered them with logical and metaphysical forms. Leibnitz had said, that the notions which come by the senses are confused, and that those only which belong to the immediate perceptions of the mind are clear: without doubt his intention was to show by this that invisible truths are more certain and more in harmony with our moral being than all that we learn by the evidence of the senses. Wolf' and his disciples have drawn this consequence from it,-that every

"The philosophy of Leibnitz was taken up and subjected to a further revision by Christian Wolf. He was born in Breslau, in 1679. He was chosen professor at Halle, where he became obnoxious to the charge of teaching a doctrine at variance with the Scriptures, and drew upon himself such a violent opposition from the theologians of the university, that a cabinet order was issued for his dismissal on the 8th of November, 1723, and he was enjoined to leave Prussia within forty-eight hours, on pain of being hung. He then became professor in Marburg, but was afterwards recalled to Prussia by Frederic II, immediately upon his accession to the throne. He was subsequently made baron, and died 1754. In his chief thoughts he followed Leibnitz, a connection which he himself admitted, though he protested against the identification of his philosophy with that of Leibnitz, and objected to the name, Philosophia Leibnitio- Wolfiana, which was taken by his disciple Bilfinger. The historical merit of Wolf is threefold. First, and most important, he laid claim again to the whole domain of knowledge in the name of philosophy, and sought again to build up a systematic framework, and make an encyclopedia of philosophy in the highest sense of the word. Though he did not himself furnish much new material for this purpose, yet he carefully elaborated and arranged that which he found at hand. Secondly, he made again the philosophical method as such, an object of attention. His own method is, indeed, an external one as to its content, namely, the mathematical or the mathematico-syllogistical, recommended by Leibnitz; and by the application of this, his whole philosophizing sinks to a level formalism. (For instance, in his principles of architecture, the eighth proposition is-'a window must be wide enough for two persons to recline together couveniently,'-a proposition which is thus proved: 'we are more frequently accustomed to recline and look out at a window in company with another person than alone, and hence, since the builder of the house should satisfy the owner in every respect (§1), he must make a window wide enough for two persons conveniently to recline within it at the same time.') Still this formalism is not without its advantage, for it subjects the philosophical ontent to a logical treatment. Thirdly, Wolf has taught philosophy to speak German, an art which it has not since forgotten. Next to Leibnitz he is entitled to the merit of have made the German language forever the organ of philosophy."-(Schwegler, History of Philosophy, translated by Seelye, pp. 222, 223.)-Ed.

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thing, about which our mind can be employed, must be reduced to abstract ideas. Kant carried interest and warnith into this lifeless idealism; he assigned to experience, as well as to the innate faculties, its just proportion; and the art with which he applied his theory to every thing that is interesting to mankind, to ethics, to poetry, and to the fine arts, extended its influence.

Three leading men, Lessing, Hemsterhuis, and Jacobi, preceded Kant in the career of philosophy. They had no school, because they founded no system; but they began the attack against the doctrine of the materialists. Of these three, Lessing is the one whose opinions on this point are the least decided; however, he had too enlarged a mind to be confined within the narrow circle which is so easily drawn, when we renounce the highest truths. Lessing's all-powerful polemics. awoke doubt upon the most important questions, and led to new inquiries of every kind. Lessing himself cannot be considered either as a materialist or as an idealist; but the necessity of examination and study for the acquisition of knowledge, was the main-spring of his existence. "If the Almighty," said he, "held truth in one hand, and search after truth in the other, it is the latter I should ask of him in preference."

Lessing was not orthodox in religion. Christianity, in him, was not a necessary thing, like sentiment; and yet he was capable of admiring it philosophically. He understood its relations with the human heart, and he always considers opinions from a universal point of view. Nothing intolerant, nothing exclusive, is to be found in his writings. When we take our stand, in the centre of ideas, we never fail to have sincerity, depth, and extent of mind. Whatever is unjust, vain, and is derived from the desire of referring every thing to certain partial views, which we have taken and appropriated to ourselves, and which we make the objects of our self-love.

narrow,

Lessing expresses in a pointed and positive style, opinions ull of warmth. Hemsterhuis, a Dutch philosopher, was the first vho, in the middle of the eighteenth century, showed, in nis writings, the greater part of the liberal ideas, upon which

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