his

age, his private and political life is said | reached the extreme point towards which to have been repugnant to his historical mo- the general sentiment of Europe has been rality. "The reader of Müller is desirous impelled by the calamities of a philosophical of believing that of all the virtues which he revolution, and the various fortunes of a strongly felt in the composition of his works, twenty years' universal war. They are pethere were at least some which he perma- culiarly adverse to French literature, which, nently possessed." since the age of Louis XIV., has, in their opinion, weakened the primitive principles common to all Christendom, as well as divested the poetry of each people of its originality and character. Their system is exaggerated and exclusive: in pursuit of national originality, they lose sight of the primary and universal beauties of art. The imitation of our own antiquities may be as artificial as the copy of a foreign literature. Nothing is less natural than a modern antique. In a comprehensive system of literature, there is sufficient place for the irregular works of sublime genius, and for the faultless models of classical taste. From age to age, the multitude fluctuates between various and sometimes opposite fashions of literary activity. These are not all of equal value; but the philosophical eritic discovers and admires the common principles of beauty, from which they all derive their power over human nature.

The estimate of literary Germany would not be complete, without the observation that it possesses a greater number of laborious scholars, and of useful books, than any other country. The possession of other languages may open more literary enjoyment: the German is assuredly the key to most knowledge. The works of Fulleborn, Buhle, Tiedemann, and Tennemann, are the first attempts to form a philosophical history of philosophy, of which the learned compiler Brucker had no more conception than a monkish annalist of rivalling Hume. The philosophy of literary history is one of the most recently opened fields of speculation. A few beautiful fragments of it are among the happiest parts of Hume's Essays. The great work of Madame de Staël On Literature, was the first attempt ou a bold and extensive scale. In the neighbourhood of her late residence, and perhaps not uninfluenced by her spirit, two writers of great merit, though of dissimilar character, have very recently treated various parts of this wide subject; M. de Sismondi, in his History of the Literature of the South, and M. de Barante, in his Picture of French Literature during the Eighteenth Century. Sismondi, guided by Bouterweck and Schlegel, hazards larger views, indulges his talent for speculation, and seems with difficulty to suppress that bolder spirit, and those more liberal principles, which breathe in his History of the Italian Republics. Barante, more thoroughly imbued with the elegancies and the prejudices of his national literature, feels more delicately the peculiarities of great writers, and traces with a more refined sagacity the immediate effects of their writings. But his work, under a very ingenious disguise of literary criticism, is an attack on the opinions of the eighteenth century; and it will assuredly never be honoured by the displeasure either of Napoleon, or of any of his successors in absolute power.

One of our authoress' chapters is chiefly employed on the works and system of William and Frederic Schlegel; of whom William is celebrated for his Lectures on Dramatic Poetry, for his admirable translation of Shakespeare, and for versions, said to be of equal excellence, of the Spanish dramatic poets; and Frederic, besides his other merits, has the very singular distinction of having acquired the Sanscrit language, and studied the Indian learning and science in Europe, chiefly by the aid of a British Orientalist, long detained as a prisoner at Paris. The general tendency of the literary system of these critics, is towards the manners, poetry, and religion of the Middle Ages. They have

* Coppet, near Geneva.

The Third Part of this work is the most singular. An account of metaphysical systems by a woman, is a novelty in the history of the human mind; and whatever may be thought of its success in some of its parts, it must be regarded on the whole as the boldest effort of the female intellect. It must, however, not be forgotten, that it is a contribution rather to the history of human nature, than to that of speculation; and that it considers the source, spirit, and moral influence of metaphysical opinions, more than their truth or falsehood. "Metaphysics are at least the gymnastics of the understanding." The common-place clamour of mediocrity will naturally be excited by the sex, and even by the genius of the author. Every example of vivacity and grace, every exertion of fancy, every display of eloquence, every effusion of sensibility, will be cited as a presumption against the depth of her researches, and the accuracy of her statements. On such principles, the evidence against her would doubtless be conclusive. But dulness is not accuracy; nor are ingenious and elegant writers therefore superficial: and those who are best acquainted with the philosophical revolutions of Germany, will be most astonished at the general correctness of this short, clear, and agreeable exposition.

The character of Lord Bacon is a just and noble tribute to his genius. Several eminent writers of the Continent have, however, lately fallen into the mistake of ascribing to him a system of opinions respecting the origin and first principles of human knowledge. What distinguishes him among great philosophers is, that he taught no peculiar opinions, but wholly devoted himself to the improvement of the method of philosophising. He belongs neither to the English nor any

other school of metaphysics; for he was not | series of English writers from Hobbes to a metaphysician. Mr. Locke was not a Bolingbroke. Secret unbelievers were friendmoralist; and his collateral discussions of ly to Christianity and Protestantism,as instituethical subjects are not among the valuable tions beneficial to mankind, and far removed parts of his great work. "The works of from that anti-religious fanaticism which was Dugald Stewart contain so perfect a theory more naturally provoked in France by the of the intellectual faculties, that it may be intolerant spirit and invidious splendour of a considered as the natural history of a moral Catholic hierarchy. being." The French metaphysicians of the eighteenth century, since Condillac, deserve the contempt expressed for them, by their shallow, precipitate, and degrading misapplications of the Lockian philosophy. It is impossible to abridge the abridgment here given of the Kantian philosophy, or of those systems which have arisen from it, and which continue to dispute the supremacy of the speculative world. The opinions of Kant are more fully stated, because he has changed the general manner of thinking, and has given a new direction to the national mind. Those of Fichte, Schelling, and his other successors, it is of less importance to the proper purpose of this work to detail; because, though their doctrines be new, they continue and produce the same effect on national character, and the same influence on sciences and arts. The manner of philosophising remains the same in the Idealism of Fichte, and in the Pantheism of Schelling. Under various names and forms, it is the general tendency of the German philosophy to consider thought not as the produce of objects, or as one of the classes of phenomena, but as the agent which exhibits the appearance of the outward world, and which regulates those operations which it seems only to represent. The philosophy of the human understanding is, in all countries, acknowledged to contain the principles of all sciences; but in Germany, metaphysical speculation pervades their application to particulars.

The reaction of the French Revolution has been felt throughout Europe, in religion as well as in politics. Many of the higher classes adopted some portion of those religious sentiments of which they at first assumed the exterior, as a badge of their hostility to the fashions of France. The sensibility of the multitude, impatient of cold dogmatism and morality, eagerly sought to be once more roused by a religion which employed popular eloquence, and spoke to imagination and emotion. The gloom of general convulsions and calamities created a disposition to seriousness, and to the consolations of piety; and the disasters of a revolution allied to incredulity, threw a more than usual discredit and odium on irreligious opinions. In Great Britain, these causes have acted most conspicuously on the inferior classes; though they have also powerfully affected many enlightened and accomplished individuals of a higher condition. In France, they have produced in some men of letters the play of a sort of poetical religion round the fancy: but the general effect seems to have been a disposition to establish a double doctrine,—a system of infidelity for the initiated, with a contemptuous indulgence and even active encouragement of superstition among the vulgar, like that which prevailed among the ancients before the rise of Christianity. This sentiment (from the revival of which the Lutheran Reformation seems to have preserved Europe), though not so furious and frantic as the atheistical fanaticism of the Reign of Terror, is, beyond any permanent condition of human society, destructive of ingenuousness, good, faith, and probity,-of intellectual courage, and manly character,and of that respect for all human beings, without which there can be no justice or humanity from the powerful towards the humble."

The subject of the Fourth Part is the state of religion, and the nature of all those disinterested and exalted sentiments which are here comprehended under the name of 'enthusiasm. A contemplative people like the Germans have in their character the principle which disposes men to religion. The Reformation, which was their Revolution, arose from ideas. "Of all the great men whom Germany has produced, Luther has the most In Germany the effects have been also very German character. His firmness had some-remarkable. Some men of eminence in litething rude; his conviction made him opinionated; intellectual boldness was the source of his courage; in action, the ardour of his passions did not divert him from abstract studies; and though he attacked certain dogmas and practices, he was not urged to the attack by incredulity, but by enthusiasm."

"The right of examining what we ought to believe, is the foundation of Protestanism." Though each of the first Reformers established a practical Popery in his own church, opinions were gradually liberalised, and the temper of sects was softened. Little open incredulity had appeared in Germany; and even Lessing speculated with far more circumspection than had been observed by a

rature have become Catholics. In general, their tendency is towards a pious mysticism, which almost equally loves every sect where a devotional spirit prevails. They have returned rather to sentiment than to dogma,— more to religion than to theology. Their disposition to religious feeling, which they call religiosity,' is, to use the words of a strictly orthodox English theologian, "a love of divine things for the beauty of their moral qualities." It is the love of the good and fair, wherever it exists, but chiefly when absolute and boundless excellence is contemplated in "the first good, first perfect, first fair." This moral enthusiasm easily adapts itself to the various ceremonies of worship,

and even systems of opinion prevalent among men. To affect any tenderness in pointing mankind. The devotional spirit, contemplat-out its defects or faults, would be an absurd ing different parts of the order of nature, or assumption of superiority: it has no need influenced by a different temper of mind, of mercy. The most obvious and general may give rise to very different and apparently objection will be, that the Germans are too repugnant theological doctrines. These doc- much praised. But every writer must be trines are considered as modifications of allowed to value his subject somewhat higher human nature, under the influence of the re- than the spectator: unless the German feelligious principle, not as propositions which ings had been adopted, they could not have argument can either establish or confute, or been forcibly represented. It will also be reconcile with each other. The Ideal phi- found, that the objection is more apparent losophy favours this singular manner of con- than real. Mad. de Staël is indeed the most sidering the subject. As it leaves no reality generous of critics; but she almost always but in the mind, it lessens the distance be- speaks the whole truth to intelligent ears; tween belief and imagination; and disposes though she often hints the unfavourable parts its adherents to regard opinions as the mere of it so gently and politely, that they may play of the understanding,-incapable of escape the notice of a hasty reader, and be being measured by any outward standard, scarcely perceived by a gross understanding. and important chiefly from reference to the A careful reader, who brings together all sentiment, from which they spring, and on the observations intentionally scattered over which they powerfully react. The union of various parts of the book, will find sufficient a mystical piety, with a philosophy verging justice (though administered in mercy) in towards idealism, has accordingly been ob- whatever respects manners or literature. It served in periods of the history of the human is on subjects of philosophy that the admiunderstanding, very distant from each other, ration will perhaps justly be considered as and, in most of their other circumstances, more undistinguishing. Something of the extremely dissimilar. The same language, wonder excited by novelty in language and i respecting the annihilation of self, and of the opinion still influences her mind. Many world, may be used by the sceptic and by writers have acquired philosophical celebrity the enthusiast. Among the Hindu philoso- in Germany, who, if they had written with phers in the most ancient times, among the equal power, would have been unnoticed or Sufis in modern Persia,-during the ferment soon forgotten in England. Our theosophists, of Eastern and Western opinions, which pro- the Hutchinsonians, had as many men of duced the latter Platonism,-in Malebranche talent among them, as those whom M. de and his English disciple Norris, and in Staël has honoured by her mention among Berkeley himself, though in a tempered and the Germans: but they have long since irremitigated state, the tendency to this union coverably sunk into oblivion. There is a may be distinctly traced. It seems, how-writer now alive in England,* who has pubever, to be fitted only for few men; and for them not long. Sentiments so sublime, and so distant from the vulgar affairs and boisterous passions of men, may be preserved for a time, in the calm solitude of a contemplative visionary; but in the bustle of the world they are likely soon to evaporate, when they are neither embodied in opinions, nor adorned by ceremonies, nor animated by the attack and defence of controversy. When the ardour of a short-lived enthusiasm has subsided, the poetical philosophy which exalted fancy to the level of belief, may probably leave the same ultimate result with the argumentative scepticism which lowered belief to the level of fancy.

An ardent susceptibility of every disinterested sentiment,- -more especially of every social affection,-blended by the power of imagination with a passionate love of the beautiful, the grand, and the good, is, under the name of enthusiasm,' the subject of the conclusion, the most eloquent part (if we perhaps except the incomparable chapter on Conjugal Love,) of a work which, for variety of knowledge, flexibility of power, elevation of view, and comprehension of mind, is unequal among the works of women; and which, in the union of the graces of society and literature with the genius of philosophy, is not surpassed by many among those of

lished doctrines not dissimilar to those which Mad. de Staël ascribes to Schelling. Notwithstanding the allurements of a singular character, and an unintelligible style, his paradoxes are probably not known to a dozen persons in this busy country of industry and ambition. In a bigoted age, he might have suffered the martyrdom of Vanini or Bruno: in a metaphysical country, where a new publication was the most interesting event, and where twenty universities, unfettered by Church or State, were hotbeds of speculation, he might have acquired celebrity as the founder of a sect.

In this as in the other writings of Mad. de Staël, the reader (or at least the lazy English reader) is apt to be wearied by too constant a demand upon his admiration. It seems to be part of her literary system, that the pauses of eloquence must be filled up by ingenuity. Nothing plain and unornamented is left in composition. But we desire a plain groundwork, from which wit or eloquence is to arise, when the occasion calls them forth. The effect would be often greater if the ta lent were less. The natural power of inte resting scenes or events over the heart, is somewhat disturbed by too uniform a colour

of sentiment, and by the constant pursuit of | is at variance with such facts, and logically uncommon reflections or ingenious turns. leads to the denial of their existence, is a The eye is dazzled by unvaried brilliancy. strictly philosophical objection to the theory: We long for the grateful vicissitude of repose.—that there is a real distinction between In the statement of facts and reasonings, right and wrong, in some measure appreno style is more clear than that of Mad. de hended and felt by all men,-that moral Staël-what is so lively must indeed be sentiments and disinterested affections, howclear: but in the expression of sentiment ever originating, are actually a part of our she has been often thought to use vague lan-nature,-that praise and blame, reward and guage. In expressing either intense degrees, punishment, may be properly bestowed on or delicate shades, or intricate combinations actions according to their moral character,of feeling, the common reader will seldom are principles as much more indubitable as understand that of which he has never been they are more important than any theoretical conscious; and the writer placed on the ex- conclusions. Whether they be demonstrated treme frontiers of human nature, is in dan- by reason, or perceived by intuition, or reger of mistaking chimeras for realities, or of vealed by a primitive sentiment, they are failing in a struggle to express what language equally indispensable parts of every sound does not afford the means of describing. mind. But the mere inconvenience or danThere is also a vagueness incident to the ger of an opinion can never be allowed as language of feeling, which is not so properly an argument against its truth. It is indeed a defect, as a quality which distinguishes it the duty of every good man to present to from the language of thought. Very often the public what he believes to be truth, in in poetry, and sometimes in eloquence, it is such a manner as may least wound the feelthe office of words, not so much to denote a ings, or disturb the principles of the simple succession of separate ideas, as, like musical and the ignorant: and that duty is not always sounds, to inspire a series of emotions, or to easily reconcilable with the duties of sincerproduce a durable tone of sentiment. The ity and free inquiry. The collision of such terms perspicuity' and 'precision,' which conflicting duties is the painful and inevitable denote the relations of language to intellec- consequence of the ignorance of the multual discernment, are inapplicable to it when titude, and of the immature state, even in employed as the mere vehicle of a succes- the highest minds, of the great talent for sion of feelings. A series of words may, in presenting truth under all its aspects, and this manner, be very expressive, where few adapting it to all the degrees of capacity or of them singly convey a precise meaning: varieties of prejudice which distinguish men. and men of greater intellect than suscepti- That talent must one day be formed; and bility, in such passages as those of Mad. de we may be perfectly assured that the whole Staël,-where eloquence is employed chiefly of truth can never be injurious to the whole to inspire feeling,-unjustly charge their own of virtue. In the mean time philosophers defects to that deep, moral, and poetical sen- would act more magnanimously, and theresibility with which they are unable to sym- fore, perhaps, more wisely, if they were to pathise. suspend, during discussion,* their moral anger against doctrines which they deem pernicious; and, while they estimate actions, habits, and institutions, by their tendency, to weigh opinions in the mere balance of reason. Virtue in action may require the impulse of sentiment, and even of enthusiam: but in theoretical researches, her champions must not appear to decline the combat on any ground chosen by their adversaries, and least of all on that of intellect. To call in the aid of popular feelings in philosophical contests, is some avowal of weakness. It seems a more magnanimous wisdom to defy attack from every quarter, and by every weapon; and to use no topics which can be thought to imply an unworthy doubt whether the principles of virtue be impregnable by argument, or to betray an irreverent distrust of the final and perfect harmony between morality and truth.

The few persons in Great Britain who continue to take an interest in speculative philosophy, will certainly complam of some injustice in her estimate of German metaphysical system. The moral painter of nations is indeed more authorised than the speculative philosopher to try these opinions by their tendencies and results. When the logical consequences of an opinion are false, the opinion itself must also be false: but whether the supposed pernicious influence of the adoption, or habitual contemplation of an opinion, be a legitimate objection to the opinion itself, is a question which has not yet been decided to the general satisfaction, nor perhaps even stated with sufficient precision.

There are certain facts in human nature, derived either from immediate consciousness or unvarying observation, which are more certain than the conclusions of any abstract reasoning, and which metaphysical theories The observation may be applied to Cicero and are destined only to explain. That a theory | Stewart, as well as to Mad. de. Staël.

REVIEW OF THE CAUSES

THE REVOLUTION OF 1688.