was the mouth-piece of his age; and that though, through him, the philosophy is more fully uttered, and more distinctly articulated, it is, however, expressed in the general literature, &c., of the times; that the results to which the philosophy of an age is leading-in other words, the tendencies of SUCH philosophy—may be deduced not only from the statements of the philosophy itself, but from the applications already made by the common sense of mankind -by the age-to the affairs of life.

Having thus hastily discussed these general questions of philosophy, let us proceed without further delay to the more immediate subject of this article, "the spirit and tendencies of modern philosophy;" and ascertain, from a comparison with the philosophy that has preceded it, as well as from the testimony of its originators and advocates :-first, the peculiar character of our own philosophy; secondly, observe the probable tendency of its principles, if carried out; and, in conclusion, mark whether, in the applications that have been made of it, and in the partial results attained, such tendencies are not proved to be real.

In examining the philosophy of the last age, we cannot but see that it referred all mental phenomena to outward causes-looked to the material, rather than to the spiritual world, for the solution of every problem that presented itself. The outward, the finite-that which the senses take cognizance of was itself the great principle or reality which could explain all things. Hence, the sensual or material school, which was distinguished by the intellect of such men as Bacon and Locke, and included Hobbes, Bentham, Condillac, and a host of other writers, taking the ground that all ideas, all knowledge, are derived alone from sensation, and reflection upon the ideas gained through the senses, and denying that any additional knowledge can be derived from the soul itself. Locke very naturally supposes even "that God, in his omnipotence, might have endowed matter with the faculty of thought." Cabanis, a French disciple of the same school, made the soul, with all its faculties, the intellect and will, a mere product of the nervous system, and suspected "that the brain secretes thought, as the liver does the bile.' Thus the other disciples of this school, if not Locke

himself, were gross materialists. The soul-the spiritual nature-was lost sight of, and sunk in the external and phenomenal, and mind was but an attribute of matter. Disbelieving in any real sentiment of right and wrong; and regarding, in the words of Locke himself, "conscience as nothing else than our own opinions of our own actions,' morality, as well as civil polity, became a matter of choice and expediency. Hobbes, Volney, and others, founding their ideas of good and evil entirely upon the agreeable or disagreeable sensations (or influences upon their senses) that certain actions give rise to, made enjoyment, and not virtue, the great object of life. Thus the moralists of this philosophy were all sensualists. In their view, the health and comfort of the body should be the great aim of every man; and to contribute to this was the highest virtue; to neglect this alone was vice; while real virtue, which is the true and healthy state of the mind and soul, was entirely shut out from their consideration.

With La Place, men of science made matter and motion the only existences in the "system of the world." Thus matter and sense became the great object of worship, in which man, his intellect, his soul, nay, even the Deity, became merged. The outward, material and sensual, had a real existence; the inward, unseen and spirival, was but a fiction-a vain dream of the fancy.

Such-carried to its extreme, its final limit or end-was the philosophy of the past age; a philosophy that is still visible in the effects it has produced, and that still holds sway over many minds.

And here, perhaps, we may be excused for dwelling a moment on that tendency to ultraism that we may perceive in the philosophical movement just described; that we continually notice as an important fact in all the movement and progress of the human race, especially as it has been so severely rebuked, as a peculiar tendency of modern philosophy and of the present age. For, what is ultraism? Is it not the pursuit of an object to its goal-to its final extreme? And is not such a pursuit an indication of moral energy and perseverance? Who should falter in that path which, however mistaken, he sincerely believes will lead him

straight to the temple of Truth? It is true, the seeker may be amenable to the charge of narrowness, one-sidedness, and fanaticism, from the fact that he supposes his peculiar path alone the right one. But it is necessary that the beginning and the end, as well as every turn and winding of the path, be known. How far in its direction it varies from the course of truth? How far is its termination from the door of her temple? It is for the benefit of all her followers-all mankind (for all in their way pursue Truth, or the great reality of all things)—that all paths that humanity treads should be thoroughly investigated; that all their errors, imperfections, and difficulties should be known.

To this purpose, they must each be pursued to their final extreme, their furthest bound. Has not, then, even ultraism its apology? For, has it not its necessary and useful part to play? Yet truth must be examined in every direction-approached on every side. Not one phasis of her heavenly orb, but the full and complete light of her whole brilliant sphere, must be seen and long contemplated; and as slowly through the ages, Humanity revolves around her calm and holy light, Philosophy, with telescopic eye, makes curious survey, and takes careful observations, of each single phasis she presents to man, her dependent satellite. Not from one set of observations can we know fair Truth; each is but partial—but an approximation. To know To know her completely, we must study them all; we must have seen her on every side; we must have completed our revolution. Thus it is, that the most complete "many-sided" man has been in former days, and at different times, one-sided and ultra.

The ultraism of the last school, then, as well as that of the present, has its apology. True, it carried sensualism out to its further extreme. Starting from the finite and the seen, and utterly abjuring "the element of the infinite," it made enjoyment the highest morality, expediency the highest polity, outward rules and laws the religion, where it allowed religion to exist. But thus the true nature of the finite, its uses and deficiencies, its incapability to explain, alone and by itself, the phenomena of life, became fully evident.

Not only in going to the extreme it came to its termination-the end of its path, the limit of its power-but, by that very fact, proved that it could not lead to all truth, and thus declared the absurdity of its too arrogant pretensions. Mankind, finding that in the end this philosophy rejects certain great realities, such as intuitive ideas, the soul, spiritual existences, and thus God himself, deny its claims to be considered the only right path to truth, the perfect solution to the great problems of life; and ask for another way to be tried-a new solution sought out. And, whatever the philosophy of our time may be, we are not only certain that it will be carried out to its furthest limits, but that the tendency will be to go just as far as possible from the boundaries of a former philosophy whence it set out; that it will be apt to take everything that is most distant, foreign and opposite from what it has left behind. Dissatisfied with the former path, wearied with its peculiar difficulties, and disgusted with its reiterated errors, the seeker-man-naturally turns, in his new endeavor after truth, to the course most different and remote from the path by which he has before been misled.

Ennuyed with rest, he seeks motion, action; wearied with toil and continual movement, he sighs for rest and repose. Over the bright sunshine and noisy bustle of day, how gratefully falls the shadowy curtain and soothing silence of night! The first blades of green grass on the sunny stream-bank, and the earliest anemones of spring, gladden us, weary of the freezing north-blast, more than the rich foliage and gorgeous flowers of summer time; and winter, with his fleecy showers, his robes of dazzling purity, his brilliant fretwork, and hangings of crystal, once so beautiful to our vision, we would banish from earth for ever, so that the inner life of nature might break forth in waving leaf and bursting bud, in the dancing of streams let loose from their fetters, in the soaring wings and gushing songs of birds. So the philosopher, tired and dissatisfied with the outward, welcomes, with a thrill and shout of joy, the first leaves and buds that burst forth from the inward life, the earliest notes of a spiritual melody; and would banish for ever,

in the haste of unreflecting enthusiasm, the cold, formal, dead outward that has chilled his soul.

Having come to the limit of a sensual philosophy, the very principle of ultraism, then, the tendency to depart as far as possible from a former philosophy, and to proceed to the furthest extreme in a new path, would induce a determination towards spiritualism, and lead us to expect that spiritual philosophy, in which all that materialism had denied should be fully asserted, and all that materialism had affirmed should be either passed by unnoticed, or utterly rejected, would succeed the sensual school, a philosophy that made man and not nature, the soul and not the sense, the infinite and not the finite, its starting point. We might therefore prophesy that such would be the leading philosophy of the present age. Though there may be at the present, as in all past, time, different philosophies existing at one and the same moment, and obtaining to a certain extent among men; yet it will not be denied, that there is always some one particular philosophy or mode of thought, more prominent than all others, which characterizes the age in which it prevails, and is the particular mode which the mind of the age takes, to solve the problems proposed to it. It is true, the inhabitants of one State may be carrying out the principles of the sensual school, while those on its very borders may have commenced the application of a new and spiritual philosophy. Yea! in the very same community there may be a similar difference. But the philosophy adopted by the most thinking, cultivated and advanced people, by the most speculative and philosophical, rather than the most practical nation, and by the greatest thinkers in such nation, is the leading and distinguishing philosophy of the age; the philosophy that will soon be, if it is not already, applied and carried out by practical men, in whose applications of philosophy we look to discover its tendencies. Thus Germany is known as the land of speculators, scholars, philosophers; France seems to have been appointed to state the results of German speculation in clear, distinct propositions and practical rules; while the office of England has been to apply and carry out these speculations, so stated, in actual life. This

is, at the present day, at least, the relative position of these nations; and the tone of thought, the philosophy, that prevails in Germany, will prevail among the speculators, the thinkers, the philosophers, of France, England and America. Indeed, even now, German literature and German thought are exerting a mighty influence upon the civilized world.

One distinguished writer in our midst complains: "If we are to make experiment of a new system, we would fain have it fully and fairly before our eyes; which can never be the case, so long as we receive our 'philosophemata' by a double transportation from Germany viå France, in parcels to suit the importers ;-as fast as the French forwarding philosopher gets it from Germany, and as fast as the American consignee can get it from France.' And again, speaking of the "hierophants of the new system," the same writer continues: "Some of them are busily learning French, in order to read, in that language, any rifacimento of Teutonic metaphysics, which may come into their hands. Some are learning German; others have actually learned it. He who cannot do either, strives to gather into one the Sibylline oracles, and abortive scraps, of the gifted but indolent Coleridge, and his gaping imitators; or in default of all this, sits at the urn of dilute wisdom, and sips the thrice-drawn infusion of English from French, and French from German."

Another, in different style, lauds German literature and its influence to the skies: "To our apprehension," he remarks, "German literature is the fairest, the richest, the most original, fresh and religious literature of all modern times. We say this advisedly.' And, after declaring that the Germans are the best classical scholars, the most thorough grammarians, the most erudite and philosophical historians, the most profound critics; and, enume-rating the long list of German authors. distinguished in each of these several departments, he adds, "It is only the Germans in this age who study Theology, or even the Bible, with the aid of enlightened and scientific criticism. But this is not all, and by no means the chief merit of German scholars. Within less than three-score years, there have appeared among them four

philosophers, who would have been conspicuous in any age, and will hereafter, we think, be named with Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Descartes, and Leibnitz, among the greatest thinkers of the world. They are Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. Silently these lights arose and went up the sky, with out noise, to take their place among the fixed stars of Genius and shine with them; names that will not fade out of heaven until some ages shall have passed away. These men were thinkers all; deep, mighty thinkers. They knelt reverently down before Nature with religious hearts, and asked her questions. They sat on the brink of the well of truth, and continued to draw for themselves and the world. Take Kant alone, and in the whole compass of thought, we scarce know his superior."

The panegyric as well as the complaint both indicate the prominent position which Germany occupies in modern philosophy. Now what is the tendency of the German mind and the German philosophy? We will answer in the words of one of the Lowell Institute lecturers, whom it is but faint praise to call the Jouffroy of America: "The tendency of the great leaders of the German mind, of Descartes, Leibnitz and Kant, was towards spiritualism, and if carried out exclusively, and applied to religion, it would be apt to degenerate into Pantheism. I do not mean that there is any danger of the Germans becoming Pantheists, but their great thinkers put the mind on that track. It leaned that way, and, if it fell, would fall that way."

The tendency then to adopt a German mode of thought and philosophy, is a tendency of philosophy towards spiritualism.

We have seen that the tendency to ultraism was more or less characteristic of every movement of humanity. We have also inferred from the nature of the philosophy of a preceding age, that the general tendency of modern philosophy would be spiritual. And by the "general tendency" of philosophy is meant the tendency to develope its own nature, to go on in the peculiar direction in which its movement commenced. Thus, for instance, the general tendency of the school of Locke, Hobbes, Bentham, &c., was towards materialism, or sensualism;

starting from the finite and sensual to carry these ideas to their furthest limit.

We have regarded the tendency to accept of German modes of thought, from the spiritual character of the German mind, as another evidence that the general tendency of modern philosophy was towards spiritualism.

Passing by the intermediate systems, which merely compose the steppingstones from sensualism to spiritualism, let us glance at the great leaders in Germany, that land of "cloud, mist, and ether"-of modern speculation and philosophy—among whom, by universal consent, Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel occupy the foremost position. Different, in the conclusions to which they have arrived, as may be the members of the spiritual school, the disciples of Kant from Kant himself, it seems hardly possible to deny that he was the first to give definite form to the philosophy of this school, that he is the great leader, at least of that part of it who derive from his works the title "Transcendental." Difficult, nay! almost impossible, as it is fully to understand the terms of the nomenclature he himself invented, or to get at the thought through his peculiarly dark and involved phraseology, we can hardly expect to arrive at the clearest notions of his system ourselves, much less convey it to others, especially as the complaint was early made by his own countrymen of its incomprehensibility, and disputes often arose, among his immediate disciples, concerning the meaning of many of his propositions. We will therefore trust to wiser heads than our own to give an account of his system, and with but a few extracts from his writings proceed to those of his followers.

And, in passing, it may not be inappropriate to notice in few words the tendency of modern speculators in our own land as well as elsewhere, to imitate their leader, not only in the use of a new technical vocabulary, but, in what seems to us, his indistinct and involved phraseology. In adopting a new mode of philosophizing, Kant might perchance have found it necessary to employ new and more exact terms than those commonly in use. But, in accepting those parts of the new nomenclature that seem necessary, what need is there of adopting a

barbarous jargon, unintelligible certainly to the great mass of readers, and an occasion of trouble, as well as regret, to every man of clear perceptions and pure taste? Why write English in a German idiom, and place simple thought in a mystical dialect? We sometimes are disposed to doubt, whether these writers do not occasionally find themselves in the condition of Kant himself, who was compelled to answer the demands of his friends for an explanation of some of the most ambiguous passages in his writings, that he knew very well at the time he wrote them, what he meant, but that he had better business afterward than to be writing commentaries on his own books.

To the above criticism it has been answered, that the subjects treated of, in this dark and cloudy phraseology, were so deep, so far beyond the common consciousness, and the capacity of common minds to fathom, that no words and phrases, in common use, could be linked together in such a way as to reach them. Finally, that the language of a material philosophy was wholly unfit, as well as insufficient, to express the ideas of a new and spiritual sys

tem.

Jouffroy certainly does not move in shallow waters, and yet he is always simple, clear, and lucid. So it is with our own Channing, who has reached, and placed in clearest light, the deepest spiritual themes. And, in our neighboring city, during the last three winters, no superficial or shallow views have been given by a distinguished philosophical lecturer, of the profoundest depths of thought, which the human mind is capable of sounding, in language as clear, distinct, and wellarranged, as the thoughts it expressed. But to return to Kant and his philosophy; and if, from his own words, we do not receive a correct idea of his philosophical notions, we may, perhaps, not without some reason, lay a part of the blame on the great philosopher himself, as well as on our own dullness and stupidity. Leaving the ground occupied by the materialists, that the nature of the mind and soul was to be learnt from the effects produced upon them by the influences of the outward world, and therefore that the finite, outward, and sensual, was the true starting-point of all philosophy,

he takes his stand in the mind itself, and observes the action of the inward world upon the outward, regarding the mind, not as formed and fashioned by external influences, but as itself fashioning and moulding the external world. In his own words: "It sounds strange, indeed, at first, but it is not less certain, when I say in respect to the original laws of the understanding, that it does not derive them from nature, but imposes them upon nature." He therefore commences with the inquiry, "How synthetical judgments, 'à priori,' are possible with respect to objects of experience?" that is to say (as we understand it), how, and on what grounds, such ideas as those of power, beauty, goodness, cause and effectwhich, originating before, and independent of, all experience, we attach, at first glance, to certain objects and events exist. These synthetical judgments à priori," or intuitive ideas which have in them something beyond what experience can give, arise, according to our philosopher, from a faculty of the soul itself. "Reason," says Kant, "is the faculty which furnishes the principles of cognition à priori," therefore, pure reason is that which contains the principles of knowing something absolutely à priori. "I term all cognition 'transcendental,' which concerns itself, in general, not so much with objects, as with one mode of cognition of objects, so far as this may be possible à priori-a system of such conceptions would be called transcendental philosophy." In investigating the pure reason, he finds that all its conceptions, in other words, "all transcendental ideas. may be brought under three classes, of which the first contains the absolute (unconditioned) unity of the thinking subject; the second, the absolute unity of the series of the conditions of the phenomena; the third, the absolute unity of the condition of all objects of thought in general. The thinking subject is the object of Psychology; the complex of all phenomena (the world) is the object of Cosmology; and the thing which contains the supreme condition of the possibility of everything that can be thought (the essence of all essences), is the object of all Theology; consequently pure reason furnishes the idea of a transcendental doctrine of the soul (psychologia rationalis); of a transcendental science of the world