dation of the ideas is very well kept up in this recital, and the picture of the agonies of the mind is represented with eloquence that redoubles the terror caused by the most dreadfu. of all remorse.

I have in another place quoted a passage from the Messias, in which the poet supposes that, in a distant planet, where the inhabitants are immortal, an angel arrived with intelligence that there existed a world where human beings were subject to death. Klopstock draws an admirable picture of the astonishment of those beings who knew not the grief of losing those they loved. Engel ingeniously displays an idea not less striking.

A man has seen all he held most dear, his and his daughter, perish. A sentiment of bitterness and of revolt against Providence, takes possession of him; an old friend endeavors to reopen his heart to that deep but resigned grief which pours itself on the bosom of God; he shows him that death is the source of all the moral enjoyments of man.

Would there be affection between parent and child if man's existence was not at once lasting and transitory; fixed by sentiment, hurried away by time? If there was no longer any decline in the world, there would be no longer any progress; how, then, should we experience fear and hope? In short, in every action, in every sentiment, in every thought, death has its share. And not only in reality, but in imagination also, the joys and sorrows which arise from the instability of life are inseparable. Existence consists entirely in those sentiments of confidence and of anxiety with which the soul is filled, wandering between heaven and earth, and death is the principal cause of our actions in life.

A woman, alarmed at the storms of the South, wished to remove to the frigid zone, where thunder is not heard, nor lightning seen. "Our complaints against our lots are much of the same sort," says Engel. In fact, nature must be disenchanted, if all its dangers are to be removed. The charm of the world seems to belong to pain as to pleasure, to fear as much as to hope; and it may be said that human destiny is

ordered like a drama, in which terror and pity are neces sary.

Undoubtedly these thoughts are not sufficient to heal up the wounds of the heart; whatever we feel we consider as the overturning of nature, and no one ever suffered without thinking that a great disorder existed in the universe. But when a long space of time has given room for reflection, repose is found in general considerations, and we unite ourselves to the laws of the universe by detaching ourselves from ourselves.

The German moralists of the ancient school are, for the most part, religious and feeling; their theory of virtue is disinterested; they do not admit that doctrine of utility which would lead us, as it does in China, to throw children into the river, if the population became too numerous. Their works are filled with philosophical ideas, and with melancholy and tender affections; but this was not enough to struggle against the selfish morality, armed with its sarcastic irony. This was not enough to refute sophisms, which were used against the truest and the best principles. The soft and sometimes even timid sensibility of the ancient German moralists was not sufficient to combat with success an adroit system of logic, and an elegant style of raillery, which, like all bad sentiments, bowed to nothing but force. More pointed weapons are necessary to oppose those arms which the world has forged; it is therefore, with reason that the philosophers of the new school have thought that a more severe doctrine was requisite, a doctrine of more energy and closer in its arguments, in order to triumph over the depravity of the age.

Assuredly all that is simple is sufficient for all that is good; but when we live at a time in which it has been attempted to range wit on the side of immorality, it is necessary to attempt to gain over genius as the defender of virtue. Doubtless it is a matter of much indifference whether we are accused of sillihess, when we express what we feel; but this word silliness causes so much alarm among understandings of mediocrity, that we ought, if possible, to preserve them from its infection. The Germans, fearing that we may turn their integrity into

ridicule, sometimes attempt, although much against their natu ral disposition, to take a flight towards immortality, that they may acquire a brilliant and easy air. The new philosophers, by elevating their style and their ideas to a great height, have skilfully flattered the self-love of their adepts; and we ought to praise them for this innocent species of art; for the Ger mans have need of a sentiment of superiority over others to strengthen their minds. There is too much milk of human kindness in their characters, as well as in their understanding. They are, perhaps, the only men to whom we could recommend pride as the means of moral improvement. We cannot deny the fact that the disciples of the new school have followed this advice to rather too great a length; but they are, nevertheless, the most enlightened and the most courageous authors of their country.

What discovery have they made, it will be asked. No doubt what was true in morals two thousand years ago is true at the present moment; but during this period the arguments of meanness and corruption have been multiplied to such an excess, that a philosopher of good feeling ought to proportion his efforts to this fatal progress. Common ideas cannot struggle against a systematic immorality; we must dig deeper inwards, when the exterior veins of the precious metals are exhausted. We have so often seen, in our days, weakness united to a large proportion of virtue, that we have been accustomed to believe in the energy of immorality. The German philosophers (and let them receive the glory of the deed) have been the first in the eighteenth century who have ranged. free-thinking on the side of faith, genius on the side of moral ity, and character on the side of duty.

CHAPTER XXI.

OF IGNORANCE AND FRIVOLITY OF SPIRIT IN THEIR RELATIONS TO ETHICS.

IGNORANCE, such as it appeared some ages ago, respected knowledge, and was desirous of attaining it. The ignorance of our days is contemptuous, and endeavors to turn into ridicule the labors and the meditations of enlightened men. The philosophical spirit has spread over almost all classes a facility of reasoning, which is used to depreciate every thing that is great and serious in human nature, and we are at that epoch of civilization in which all the beauties of the soul are mouldering into dust.

When the barbarians of the North seized upon the possession of the most fertile countries in Europe, they brought with them some fierce and manly virtues; and in their endeavors at self-improvement, they asked from the South her sun, and her arts and sciences. But our civilized barbarians esteem nothing except address in the management of worldly affairs; and only instruct themselves just enough to ridicule, by a few set phrases, the meditations of a whole life.

Those who deny the perfectibility of the human understanding pretend that progression and decline follow each other by turns, and that the wheel of thought rolls round like that of fortune. What a sad spectacle is this! the generations of men employing themselves upon earth, like Sisyphus in hell, in constant and useless labor! And what would then be the destiny of the human race, when it resembled the most cruel punishment which the imagination of poetry has conceived? But it is not thus; and we can perceive a destiny always the same, always sequential, always progressive, in the history of

man.

The contest between the interests of this world and more

elevated sentiments has existed at every period, in nations as well as in individuals. Superstition sometimes drives the enlightened into the opposite party of incredulity; and sometimes, on the contrary, knowledge itself awakens every belief of the heart. At the present era, philosophers take refuge in religion, in order to discover the source of high conceptions, and of disinterested sentiments; at this era, prepared by ages, the alliance between philosophy and religion may be intimate and sincere. The ignorant are not, as formerly, the enemies of doubt, and determined to reject all the false lights which might disturb their religious hopes, and their chivalrous self-devotion; the ignorant of our days are incredulous, frivolous, superficial; they know all that selfishness has need to know ; and their ignorance is only extended to those sublime studies which excite in the soul a feeling of admiration for nature and for the Deity.

Warlike occupations formerly filled up the life of the nobility, and formed their minds for action; but since, in our days, men of the first rank take no part in government, and have ceased to study any science profoundly, all the activity of their genius, which ought to have been employed in the circle of affairs, or intellectual labors, is directed to the observation' of manners, and to the knowledge of anecdotes.

Young persons, just come from school, hasten to put on idleness as soon as the manly robe; men and women act as spics upon each other in the minutest events, not exactly from maliciousness, but in order that they may have something to say when they have nothing to employ their thoughts. This sort of daily censoriousness destroys good nature and integrity. We are not satisfied with ourselves when we abuse the hospitality which we exercise or receive, by criticising those with whom we live; and we thus prevent the growth and the continuance of all sincere affection; for in listening to the ridicule of those who are dear to us, we tarnish all that is pure and exalted in that affection: sentiments in which we do not maintain perfect sincerity, do more mischief than indifference.

Every one has his ridiculous side it is only at a distance