clear streams may flow. If Germans disbelieve, it is not from their activity of intellect; their clear searching glances; it is more from what they leave undone than from what they do; from what they have not than from what they possess. Some of their marked writers want that imaginative power, so necessary in religious speculation,-which brings the many into one, and judges the parts with reference to the whole. Mr. Arthur Hallam, whose Remains inspire some who knew him not with deep regret that they are remains, not first fruits, and commencements, has said on this subject: 68 "I do not hesitate to express my conviction, that the spirit of the critical philosophy, as seen by its fruits in all the ramifications of art, literature, and morality, is as much more dangerous than the spirit of mechanical philosophy, as it is fairer in appearance, and more capable of alliance with our natural feelings of enthusiasm and delight. Its danger 68 Remains in Verse and Prose, p. 189. I think that Mr. A. Hallam might perhaps have modified his opinion of the Critical Philosophy, had he lived and thought longer. As a substitute for Christianity it is indeed but a beautiful shadow; unite the two and it becomes substantial. A really searching system can be injurious to none but those who are undone already, and adopt it as a goodly cloak for their own bare and hideous heartunbelief. There will ever be in the world born Mechanicians, Pelagians, Psilanthropists, Antinomians, Judaizers, who will have systems that suit their feelings. But these systems are positively false and tend to corrupt the heart; while the Critical philosophy, considered apart from the religious opinions of Kant and some of his followers, has never yet been proved so by syste matic and searching argument. See remarks in the Mission of the Comforter, vol. ii. pp. 799-800, on injustice done to German writers by party judges, slightly acquainted with their writings, whose irrelevant fine sayings are taken for confutations of their untouched adversaries. ous tendency is this, that it perverts those very minds, whose office it was to resist the perverse impulses of society, and to proclaim truth under the dominion of falsehood." The difference between the critical and the mechanical philosophy is this, that the latter is incongruous and inconsonant with Christianity; while the former (as far as it goes,) is capable of flowing along with it in one channel and even blending with it in one stream, as I contend that it does in the Christian philosophy of my Father. The latter blunts the religious susceptibilities-perverts the habits of thought— suppresses the inward fire which, at the impulse of the external revelation, springs upward into a living flame, as the flint draws the hidden fire from the rock. But the critical philosophy cultivates the moral sense while it clears the eye of reason; its positions are compatible with every spiritual truth, and to the spiritual are spiritual themselves. It is like the highest poetry-like the poetry of Mr. Wordsworth, not religion itself, much less dogmatic divinity, but cognate with it and harmoniously co-operative. Let it be understood, however, that by the critical philosophy, I mean the really critical part of Kant's teaching, all his purely philosophical and metaphy 69 I do not speak here of the Ecclesiastical Sonnets, or parts of The Excursion expressly Christian and Catholic, but of Mr. Wordsworth's poetry in general, including much of an earlier date than those productions, in which formal religion is not apparent, but in which the spirit of Christianity is "the spirit of the whole." I do not say so much as this of the Critical Philosophy, but still I think it has been evolved by Christianity, (that is, by the general spirit of the religion surrounding men's mjuds as an atmosphere,) and agrees with it, though by itself it is not Christianity. sical doctrines, which have a most important bearing on religious belief a posteriori, but do not treat of it directly-of which the bulk of his works consist. I speak particularly of his Logic, Prolegomena to every future system of Metaphysics, Critique of the Pure Reason, (his greatest production), Critiques of the Judgment and of the Practical Reason, Only possible ground of proof for demonstrating the Existence of God, and Metaphysical Elements of Natural Philosophy. I do not speak of his Religion within the bounds of pure Reason so far as the doctrine of that work really conflicts with all outward Revelation and Historical Christianity. The treatise just mentioned,-which forms scarcely more than a four or five and twentieth part of the author's whole writings, though in the minds of some persons it seems to form the whole contains an application of the critical philosophy, which many, who embrace the philosophy itself, may and do reject—which certainly my Father never adopted. His argument in the first Lay Sermon on miracles supposes the historical truth of the miracles recorded in the Bible, and the admiration he expresses of the treatise above-mentioned refers not to any portion of it, which is irreconcilable with the substance of the Catholic Faith, but to that part only which serves to place it in more complete accordance with Practical Reason, (the moral-intelligential mind,) than the primitive or mediæval conceptions. The general character and aim of the critical philosophy has been described by my Father, when he speaks of "that logical προπαιδεία δοκιμαστική, that critique of the human intellect, which previously to the weighing and measuring of this or that, begins by assaying the weights, measures, and scales themselves; that fulfilment of the heaven descended nosce teipsum, in respect to the intellective part of man, which was commenced in a sort of tentative broad cast way by Lord Bacon in his Novum Organum, and brought to a systematic completion by Immanuel Kant in his Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Kritik der Urtheilskraft, and Metaphysische Anfangs-gründe der Naturwissenschaft.70 "It was of the Kantean Philosophy considered in this point of view that Schiller said, in his correspondence with Goethe, though its "form shall one day be destroyed, its foundations will not have this destiny to fear; for ever since mankind has existed, and any reason among mankind, these same first principles have been admitted and on the whole acted upon." Mr. Dequincey has spoken with horror of Kant's table talk infidelity. What authority he has for such a horrid charge I know not: he does not write well on personal points, though admirably always, when he keeps away from the Maremma or Snake Marsh of private anecdote. This is certain, that Kant's disciples and commentators in general are a most silent and discreet set of men if their master "planted his glory in the grave and was ambitious of rotting for ever." They seem profoundly ignorant of this part of his creed. This also is certain that he has amongst the admirers of his writings Churchmen and good Christians, who have found a coincidence between the more important parts of his teaching and the ideas of the Catholic faith, together with suggestions, that throw light on some of the dark places of divinity by clearly exhibiting the structure and limits of the human 70 Works. Leipzig, 1839. vol. ii.—vol. vii. p. 1-364.—vol. viii. p. 441-559.-Remains III. p. 157. mind,-which enlighten the object by pouring light into the subject. Is it of no use to religion to clear and correct its intellectual form? A great deal of superstition may hold a great deal of spiritual truth, as the wax of the honeycomb holds the pure nourishing honey. The honey may be drawn off into a glass bason; and how necessary would this be if the comb were not merely insipid and innutritious but unwholesome or even poisonous! It should ever be remembered that intellectual error in religion injures those least who are least intellectual; and hence it is a fallacy to argue that because men in past times, or simple Christians at all times, have lived holy lives though their creed may be challenged as in part irrational, therefore contradiction to the laws of the understanding in theological articles is of no consequence. It is of the more consequence the clearer-sighted we become; it is one thing to shut our eyes to falsehood, and quite another not to see it. Most desirable is it that philosophy should be independent of religious shackles in its operations in order that it may confirm religion. It is even a benefit to the world, however great a loss to himself, that Kant, with his mighty powers of thought and analysis, was not religiously educated. Had he been brought up a Churchman he could never have divested himself of dogmatic divinity; he could never have given the a priori map of the human mind as independently as he has given it; and, if it had been less independently and abstractly given, the correlation of Christianity with the mental constitution of man could never have been so evident as it now is to those who have studied his writings, and who know and love and revere the Bible. I do not, of course, mean that mere spirituality interferes |