sis, or cause her to reveal herself in her primeval elements, by the powerful solvent of his own scientific method. The favorite field of the other is the moral, the religious, and metaphysical-into the darker recesses of which departments he loves to penetrate; and having gone with you to a certain depth, he prefers then to worship, rather than farther to explore, to pause in mute wonder, or to relieve himself of the mystery under which he labors, by some splendid and lofty mythus, or ornate and finished description. Hence, his doctrine of truths forgotten in a former state, but recalled in this, of men confined in a cave to the view of their own shadow, as cast by the light above upon the farthest wall, of the chariot drawn by unequal steeds, etc., which are sometimes taken by 'his more devout, not to say, credulous disciples, in a sense somewhat more scientific than the master designed.

Such are some of the contrasts between these venerable masters of Grecian science. Opposite in many intellectual characteristics, and fitted by their modes of instruction, and the intellectual training which they impart, to produce philosophers who will differ, and that most widely, but still in no sense deserving to be set over against each other, the one as constituting the school of empiricism and of unbelief, and the other, that of science and of faith.

Rather should we style them, the one, the imaginative and mythical school, the other, the analytic, and we will not yet say, the more purely philosophical. We grant also, that each have their peculiar exposures to error,-that while that of the Aristotelian is to deny that to exist which does, in fact-that of the Platonist is to bring into being that which is not; in a word, the besetting sin of the one is unbelief, that of the other, is idolatry and superstition. Which is the more hostile to science we do not hesitate to affirm. Which is the more a foe to true religion, it would be hard to decide. The spirit of both is equally a spirit of science and of faith. Yet the Aristotelian, often, when he has arrived at a great first truth,-principium et fons congnoscendi,-deems it important to survey it with a more careful exactness, and to test the certainty of its being one of the truths, for which faith alone, or rather intuition, must vouch, or whether it is susceptible of a still nicer division. As the naturalist, when the nucleus of the crystal has been uncovered, and presents its brilliant surfaces to his view, still must search for a new

cleavage, till he sometimes batters its fair face with his chisel, or it breaks in pieces under his hammer, so does the analytical philosopher, with the primal elements of knowledgeeither refining them till they cease to be objects of faith, or denying that any can be attained on which the mind may fasten. So did Hume; and others besides him have thus destroyed the elements which make possible either science or faith. Hume was altogether an Aristotelian, it is true, but the results to which he arrived are in no sense the legitimate consequences of the Aristotelian philosophy, but only their possible perversion.

The Platonist on the other hand, has his exposures. From his disposition to believe rather than to question, to wonder or worship rather than to analyze, he receives as general laws, and primal elements, those facts which a closer examination would lead him to refer to a law still more general. He imposes upon himself, as facts, the merest figments of words. He multiplies first truths, and thus destroys the simplicity of science, and does dishonor to the simplicity of nature. So also, through his fondness for certain mysterious entities, which he calls ideas, is he tempted to render them a vague and almost idolatrous worship, to substitute them as objects of love and honor, in the stead of his brother-man, and his sovereign God. Not unfrequently does he thus fall into a demon-worship of the powers of nature, or referring them back to one grand idea, to bow before it, as To Tav, an entity, not personal nor yet material, not living nor yet unconcious; the supreme reason, the great idea,-the vital force, the fount of being, or whatever be the name under which he chooses to veil his pantheistic divinity.

The different methods in which the opposite schools use language, has been adverted to in passing; there are in it consequences, which it is much to our purpose to notice. The Aristotelian employs the language of abstraction, which, though clear and precise, and not without interest to the reflecting mind, is yet the most remote from the looser language of common life, and not less unlike the diction of the excited orator, or the rapt poet. He employs images indeed, but they are briefly presented, and instead of withdrawing the mind from the scientific truth, reflect a stronger light upon the argument, and set it forth in a finer relief. He presents, from common life, facts and illustrations, but such only as carry the mind back again, with a freshened interest to the

truths which they illustrate. The Platonist adopts with freedom, the poetical and figurative diction, and is solicitous to avoid the lifeless and naked style of the follower of Aristotle. Nay, often when the severest simplicity of scientific statement is required, and all the powers of a strictly philosophical expression should be tasked, he is content darkly to show forth what he deems the truth by an allegory or an image, and thinks that he has given a triumphant solution, when he has only hit upon a happy illustration, and covered the knot of the problem by a veil of graceful diction. Even if the two should possess the same scientific truth, and should see with a metaphysical exactness equally nice, they would adopt a method so different, and forms of language so entirely unlike, that the truths propounded might seem scarcely the same. Then, too, the associations which they awaken, the emotions which they kindle, the allusions in which they are at home, and the nomenclature with which they are familiar, are all so different, that they often seem to be combatants, even when they are fellow-soldiers, for the same great truths. We are quite certain that truths have been propounded by Locke and Reid, on which Kant and Coleridge have prided themselves as peculiar to their own system, and as giving it an indisputable advantage over the opposite school. More than one determined partizan of Coleridge has been unable to see such a truth in a plainer style and under a different form of expression, through the merest trickery of language, and the splendid fascinations of a portico-philosophical diction.

Indeed, to the spiritualist of our day, the naked and abstract language of mental and moral science, is most offensive, contrasted with the gorgeous coloring of his own favorite authors and their warmer and more moving style. He counts it reason enough, for his rejection of any writer, that his speculations are dead; that they have not that living force which of itself wakes up the intellect and warms the heart. His language of them all is, "Let the dead bury their dead," while he directs you to his own adopted teachers, and asks no other reason for the excellence of their philosophy than its influence on the minds of those who study it.

We are not insensible to the fascinations and the power of that style which delights to invest some grand truth, concerning God or man, in the splendid drapery of a creating imagi

nation, and to awaken a new and startled interest in facts, over which man is ever prone to slumber.

We do not object that any truth which deeply concerns man should be presented by the philosopher in such a way as to take the strongest hold of his faith and his feelings. But it should be remembered that the attitude of the philosopher, in investigating truth and announcing to others the results, is essentially different from that of the meditative believer, or the devout worshipper. When, then, it is insisted that he shall be both at once, that he shall use the language both of worship and of science, the attempt is made to combine elements more unlike than oil and water. Let the philosopher use the language of the schools, when he is in the schools; when he is a poet, let him chant the language which the muses shall teach him; when he worships let him pray; when he summons his fellow-man from his sleep of death and sin, let him startle him with the awakening tones of the prophet. But let every thing be done in its place, and let the language of the place be adhered to. True it is, that much philosophical truth can be, and doubtless is, conveyed in a style thus fascinating to the imagination. It would be bigotted folly to deny that many profound observations, on intellectual, moral and theological science, on the history of opinions and of man are thus presented. It is even granted that the entire circle of principles that are received in metaphysical science, may be announced in such language, and there be no important error. We certainly do not value the truth the less, nor do we deny that it is philosophical truth, because it is presented in a poetical garb. We deem works thus written to be of the highest interest and importance, at certain stages of mental progress, and would recommend them as of the highest use, in awakening a philosophical spirit, and in calling into action the reflecting faculty. But we must contend, the while, that it shows a most limited acquaintance with the nature of real science and the kind of language it demands, to suppose that such a diction can be employed in its more refined and attenuated investigations, or can express and make permanent the results of its more refined analyses; that because it can convey certain general facts, concerning the soul, in its wants, and aspirations, and immortality, that it can name all its powers, and allot their functions, and distinguish between false and sound logic, and ́

make new investigations, and leave the results graven on the page of science, in distinct and legible characters, for coming generations. It is more bigotted still to demand that no other than a style so unnatural shall be employed, and to be incapable of discerning in the homely phraseology of a Locke or Reid, the truth that sparkles and entrances as uttered by Coleridge or Cousin. And, yet, if all this were understood as it should be, what an end it would bring to a vast deal of fine writing about vital metaphysics, and the necessity of a spiritual philosophy, and the blight which the common philosophy breathes upon the life of faith.

We are far from defending the homely diffuseness, and the loose inconsistencies of Locke and certain of his English followers, and farther still from expressing any complacency in that hardest of all metaphysical styles, the ungraceful and untutored diction of the New England metaphysicians. A perfect philosophical style is not unsusceptible of sparkling vivacity or of graceful ease. Nor does it entirely forbid the rising from the even progression of its ordinary course into the excited ardor of lofty emotion. Still it should ever be remembered that the mien of science is chastened and severe, that her distinctions are many, and to all but her devotees, they seem excessively minute and over-refined; that the language which she employs is not that of ordinary life, and must be a naked and lifelesss thing to him, who has not himself known the thoughts which the words describe. When, then, the spiritualist will have no other than what he terms vital metaphysics, i. e., a philosophy which employs a diction, which will waken the intellect by its electric impulses, and stir the emotions, and is in no way contrasted with a style that is concerned with the realities of nature, rather than the names of science, he demands an impossibility. He even seeks an element, the very presence of which proves the metaphysics to be, at best, but very general, and, perhaps, very superficial philosophizing. Science in all her departments, and, most of all, mental science, begins with abstraction. Her very first effort is to give generic names-names which must be divested of that interest which pertains to the picture language of the senses. As she prosecutes her work, one of her highest attainments is to keep to her terminology with a severe precision, and to guard it with a determined caution; 14

SECOND SERIES, VOL. VIII. NO. I.