CHAPTER V.

Ir we attempted, however slightly, a survey of what this great subject implies, we should deal (a) with Metaphysical, (b) with Physical, Philosophy. Such a survey would force us to review the history of Rationalism. A few remarks only will be permitted by the compass of this book. In the present day we have both a wider and a restricted definition of Rationalism. The first definition would make Rationalism consist in the efforts of human reason to emancipate itself from the mists of ignorance and superstition. It is, of course, competent for any writer to give such a definition, and to write a history in accordance with such a definition. This, however, by the fallacy of an ambiguous middle term, would confound things which, in ordinary language, are generally kept asunder. We rather take the well-known definition of a well-known writer:* "The effort to reduce the whole essence of Christianity to a logical or scientific product, or a denial of there being any thing contained in it beyond the facts which actually are, or

* Mr. Morell.

F

70

ANCIENT ERRORS IN MODERN GUISE.

which can be, contained in a connected series of propositions." Our limited acquaintance with the literature of Rationalism reminds us of a saying of Bacon's, that "Mind hath its deserts no less than Region." Rationalism has its vast Saharas of the intellect, which, save for sparse and scanty oases, are unrelieved by the touch of verdure or the music of living rills.

It is not likely that the English mind, with its practical tendencies, will ever be corrupted by any à priori investigation, which begins with an inquiry into the nature of God, and ends with a philosophy of the Unconditioned. Much of the infidel philosophy which appears in a modern guise is from time to time ascertained to be nothing more than old difficulties and controversies which have in their day received an ample measure of debate. As Proteus sank or soared, became beast or vapour, flying bird, flame, or running water, so the substantial error, found in divers philosophies, linked with strange terminologies, subsists in undisturbed identity. What Mr. Hallam says of Spinozism, is true of most of the philosophy of unbelief in which German writers hold so conspicuous a position, that one must despair of any attempt to make them "intelligible to those who have not habituated themselves to metaphysical inquiry.' 66 I have often said," writes Niebuhr, “I will not begin with a metaphysical God. I will have no other than that of the Bible, who is heart to heart." On his

THE GERMAN UNION OF PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY. 71

death-bed Hegel said: "There is only one person who understands my philosophy, and he does not." Sir William Hamilton, from whom we derive the story, asks: "But did Hegel understand himself?" It is no reflection on the mental power of any individual to confess an inability to comprehend Hegelianism. He advanced to a region more shadowy and gloomy than Locke's closet or Plato's cave. Through mist and darkness, we are conducted to utter scepticism.

Philosophy seems to have exhausted all the possibilities of human vagaries. Molière, in his philosophical family, might well say that reasoning had turned reason out of doors. Truly runs the saying,* "Nihil est tam absurdum quod non dixerit aliquis philosophorum" -"Nothing is so absurd as not to have been defended by some of the philosophers." Like the procession of Banquo's ghosts, they pass by and disappear. They perish in internecine strife. They slay the slayer, and themselves are slain. If we feel tempted at times to think slightingly of the confusion of language and thought, and the national passion for metaphysics, in Germany, assuredly German earnestness has its rebuke for the narrow-minded and careless among ourselves. The German union of philosophy and theology arises from the earnest and deeply seated conviction that all principles of philosophy are immeasurably outweighed by the transcendent importance of the principles of religious belief.

*Cic. de Divin. ii. 58.

72

PHILOSOPHY IS FOR PHILOSOPHERS.

If we have our regrets for those who think amiss upon the Continent, these feelings must be more intense for those among ourselves who never pause at all for severe and serious thought. Even those writers who are most adverse to the Scripture scheme, have not failed to establish separate propositions of the highest value, and to suggest at times reasonings fraught with hope and consolation to the religious mind; but if in their wild guesses these men have shot forth fiery arrows into the dark, the surrounding gloom is rendered all the drearier for the transitory brilliancy. Who in philosophy alone has found a resting-place for poor humanity in its common needs? Who, in the circumnavigation of those bitter waters, has ever found a calm haven of peace, the fountain and the palm, or aught beyond the unsatisfying and delusive mirage? Is it any satisfaction for childhood's questioning, or woman's weakness, or manhood's stormtossed mind, to be referred to the Absolute and the Unconditioned, or some system which is only a philosophy for philosophers? What concern have the great masses of humanity with mental science, to whom its literature is inaccessible, the terminology barbarous, the principles unmasterable? Amid the changes and chances of life, in sickness, in gloom, in restlessness, in doubt, in the presence of overwhelming calamity, in the slow advance of age, in the approach of death, the instinctive cry of the sons and daughters of earth is that of the Galilean fisherman,-" Lord,

to whom can we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life."

But infidelity has become weary of the meta

physical tide of scepticism. Moreover it may be said that the metaphysician, versed in the operations of mind, and fully cognisant of the total difference of matter from spirit, is indisposed, from à priori considerations, to that great bulk of infidel teaching which tends directly towards materialism. The unbelief of the present day leans mainly towards Pantheism and Atheism, the two extremes which meetthe two poles of the same system. God is every thing, and every thing is God, says the Pantheist. Let Mr. Emerson give us a conception of AngloAmerican Pantheism. "Standing on the bare ground," he writes, "my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God." Let, too, the noble and unhappy English poet, whose own inmost soul seems nevertheless to have shrunk from such conclusions, also state the doctrine:

"My altars are the mountains and the ocean; Earth, air, sea, sky, all that springs from the Great Whole, Who hath produced and will receive my soul."

Some well-known lines in Pope's Essay on Man would give a popular notion of Pantheism; but Pope, in all probability, is rather rhetorical than philosophical. It is, indeed, no new thing, this pantheistic