We trust and pray that the expectations which this volume will raise, respecting Dr. Jarvis's promised History, may not be disappointed; but that God's providence will spare, and God's grace incline him to apply the same candor, learning, and ability, which are manifested in this "Introduction," to the preparation of a HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST.

ART. VII.-Elements of Logic, together with an Introductory View of Philosophy in general, and a Preliminary View of the Reason. By HENRY B. TAPPAN. New-York and London: 1844.

A STRIKING characteristic of the American mind, in many of the fields of its operation, is its originality. In the various means of locomotion, in the mechanic arts, in the construction of implements of every kind for facilitating labor, our countrymen, having no easy access to the methods employed in Europe, have been driven, by the necessities of their position, to create for themselves the means of accomplishing the objects which have been presented in a country of such vast resources, and such novel features, as

our own.

Even in the experimental sciences there have been exhibited a freshness, vigor, and independence of thought which have been productive of the most fruitful results, adding essentially to the great stock of human knowledge in this important department, and placing some American names high on the roll of fame.

In literature it has been different. Here, we fear, little boast can be made for us of originality. Books, like cloths and cutlery, are easily transported. The high degree of civilization which they require, and the great number of readers necessary before the expense which their publication involves will admit of their production, especially if they be of an elevated character, have made us dependent, until a very recent period, upon England for almost everything in the shape of literature in the English language. Our school books, our works of history, poetry, fiction, criticism, and periodical literature, were for a long time almost exclusively English. It was thus that our tastes were formed, and our standards of excellence conceived, under the trammels of a system which had kept the European mind strait-laced for centuries, and which was the worse in our case as being received

at second hand. We were not only confined, by a servile consent, to copy implicitly the specimens placed before us, but our models themselves were miserable imitations of original beautiful workmanship. The desire which has been felt by our own writers to achieve for themselves a fame reaching beyond our new world, in which readers are supposed to be easily satisfied-a fame coextensive with the whole region of English letters-is no doubt laudable; but it has led to a more cautious conformity with the patterns of successful authorship abroad, inasmuch as they were supposed to be safe guides to the approbation of the foreign critics, whose favor we were seeking to win, and to whose authority we knew we could safely trust for our reputation at home. The dominion of these foreign professional critics over the minds of the betterinformed class of readers in this country is quite absolute. No one here will venture to admire a book which the English quarterlies have condemned. With our own review writers we venture sometimes to differ. Nay, we never read one of their articles without being on our guard against the errors to which we think them occasionally liable.

To some extent English readers look with a similar eye of caution upon the critical notices which they find at home. Especially is this the case, if they suspect any political bias in the writers; for political motives mix themselves up with the productions of literature in England to an extent of which we know little in our own experience. But if the English themselves do not swallow everything with a good grace which their reviewers choose to thrust down their throats-a form of expression which the dogmatic tone of these gentlemen warrants us in using-we, it is to be feared, do; and a more creditable reason may be found for it than might at first view be supposed. It results from the misleadings of our imaginations, which very naturally present to us the conception of a state of things in the far-off world of European letters much above the reality. We look across the water, and there see the old seats of learning; the systems of education which have been centuries in perfecting; the vast confraternities of educated men; the intellectual and cultivated character of the political and social organization; and we are very ready to take for granted, that the writers in the periodicals of chief repute abroad must represent the highest order of intellect of the age, and such as it is preposterous for us to attempt to cope with. And yet there are wise men, who have had opportunity of looking at the machinery behind the scenes, who tell us that these oracles, as we are accustomed to regard them, are superficial, rash, unscrupu

lous, and impose upon the credulity of their readers by the promptness and apparent confidence with which they utter their dicta, often most strongly expressed when founded upon least knowledge or information.

Unreasonable as is this intellectual slavery of ours-which we find harder to shake off than that political slavery under which we suffered as colonies, and subsequently when we submitted to the right of search upon the high seas-it operates most powerfully to check that freedom of mental action where the mind, reveling in the consciousness of its own inborn power, calls forth from an uncorrupted imagination the inimitable forms of native beauty, or evolves from the deep recesses of thought those luminous exhibitions of truth which excite the admiration and become the guides of the world. Such freedom produced a Homer and a Burns; while the slavery of artificial systems during all the ages of both ancient and modern times has produced neither. A genius of this unfettered growth must, we think, ere long appear among us. England herself looks for a heart and voice to convey a vivid transcript of this new world, with all its wild romance, its young hopes, its freshness, its giant forms, its mighty destiny.

An original work in philosophy has been attempted by scarce any author in this country since the time of Edwards, our writers in this department having confined themselves to the business of compiling books of instruction from the ablest productions abroad. The work before us, however, is certainly to be regarded as possessing some claim to be viewed in a different light from the great mass of its predecessors. If not original in the matter, it is certainly so in the mode of presenting it; and the complexion of the whole is so affected by the author's peculiar turn of mind, that the thoughts of others, if others they be, assume the appearance and much the value of new truths. The period of time, and the peculiar position of our country in its relations to science abroad, are most favorable for the appearance of such a work, both as regards the writer in fitting him for his task, and his readers in qualifying them to appreciate its performance.

When, a few years since, Coleridge, tossed upon the ocean of uncertainty, and longing for truth with that deep anxiety which might be expected in a mind as gifted as his, yet preserved from worldly and common-place systems of belief by misfortune sufficient to keep keen the edge of sensibility, set out upon his German pilgrimage, the first link was formed in the chain of events which terminated in an entirely new state of philosophy both in England and America.

With the humility of true genius, Coleridge was content to sit at the feet of Kant and Schelling, instead of striking out, as he was capable of doing, by the aid of his own capacious and wellstored intellect, a more perfect system of philosophy than had been produced by those whom he was willing to acknowledge as his masters. His highest ambition was the honor of introducing their philosophic views, and if possible a Germanized style of writing upon philosophic subjects, into his native country; though the latter, we believe, he afterward abandoned as an unnecessary, if not an ill-judged, undertaking-at any rate, a hopeless one. What he did in this way was irregular and fragmentary, serving rather to excite thought and more full and orderly development in other minds, particularly of those just coming into the philosophic arena, than to perfect its fruits in his own. And, indeed, this would seem to have been his principal object, as the title of one of his largest works," Aids to Reflection," distinctly shows. He lived scarcely long enough to see his merits and services acknowledged; but, dying poor, and not only neglected, but reproached by his countrymen, for, as they said, wasting extraordinary gifts, yet, shortly after his death, when he came to be fully understood, and justly appreciated-which was first the case beyond all doubt in this country, and in consequence probably afterward in Englandhe was lauded as the great man of the age.

Coleridge's writings became known in this country through the good taste and discernment of his American editor, our countryman, Marsh. The work found many readers here who gladly exchanged the hackneyed systems of the Scotch school for a more spiritual philosophy. A taste was created which led to a desire for better acquaintance with German philosophical writers, and the German language and literature having begun already to be cultivated, the way was open for many to have this desire gratified. The eclectic philosophy of the French school, and particularly the writings of Cousin, whose volume upon Locke was translated by Professor Henry, and introduced into some of our colleges, served still further to extend the views of the more cultivated minds in this country beyond the narrow limits in which they had been shut up by the inherited prejudices and prescriptive authority of the old standards.

These late philosophical writers in France, necessarily, from their favorite principle of eclecticism, taking a wide range in their investigations of the philosophies both contemporaneous and anterior to their own, have saved great labor to the general reader by the brief though clear expositions which they have given of the

principal systems, ancient and modern. Even the English and Scotch philosophical writers have been better understood by us through their aid, owing to the searching analysis to which they have been subjected, and to the comparisons which have been instituted between them and those who have written not only independently, but in actual ignorance of their performances. The peculiar features of the late philosophy in France have led its disciples to pay much attention to the history of philosophy, and, so far as their influence has extended in this country, it has created a disposition to become acquainted with the learned and able writers in this department in Germany, and, through them, with more primitive sources.

The effect of all these influences upon the American mind, so far as it has been directed to subjects of the class under consideration, has been to enlarge and liberalize its views-to give a sort of universality to its philosophical conceptions, analogous to the influence produced by the contemplation of nature herself, with the advantage of all the achievements of the human mind in past ages and other countries, without the narrowing effect of prejudice, which, under the influence of a more partial training, it is impossible to resist.

This favorable state of things in our country for the last ten or fifteen years might fairly be expected to exhibit some fruits. We think that we can see its effects distinctly in the work before us. These are, an independence of thought and of style, a comprehensive acquaintance with the various philosophical opinions which have prevailed from the most ancient times to the present, showing itself, not by a repetition of them in the forms in which they were originally presented, or, still worse, in which they have been again and again retailed, but by an infusion of their spirit into the writer's own mind, and thence into his exhibitions of truth; so that we have in brief space in his book the most useful and profound views which have ever been given to the world, presented in a unity of relation and clearness of formn requiring powers of analysis and combination of no common order. Besides which, there is no small quantity of matter entirely original, that contributes an important addition to the great stock of human thought. In the Preface the author thus speaks of his own performance :

"With all humility I acknowledge my indebtedness to the great thinkers who have preceded me. I have of course read as well as thought; and my thinking and reading are naturally blended together. With this acknowledgment, may Ï be permitted to go on with my work without stopping to note narrowly in my own mind, or to remark to my reader, when I am drawing from original, and when from other sources."-P. 4.