universe is the actualized God,-God in his completeness and integrity. Then nothing more remains to be evolved; the work is done; and God, from whom and for whom are all things, is completed. Plurality and variety are commensurate with unity, and God and the universe may go to sleep, or, as Fourier seems to hold, may die altogether, and universal night and silence close the scene.

But as simple, as beautifiul, and as scientific as all this may seem to our modern philosophers, it by no means reconciles the different ideas which are forced into juxtaposition. By resolving creation into evolution, the author loses Christian theism, and falls into pantheism; and by placing multiplicity and variety in God in order to be able to assert evolution and progress, he dissolves his pantheism, and falls into pure atheism; for atheism consists precisely in the denial of unity, and the assertion of multiplicity, plurality, variety, in the first cause. Atheism, again, is irreconcilable with progress; for multiplicity, plurality, variety, &c., are subsequent to unity, and inconceivable without it. Hence, if placed in the first cause, represented as essential in the first link of the series, by excluding unity, they deny themselves, and therefore all existences, and then all progressibles. Thus every effort the author makes only removes him the further from the goal he seeks, which we have found to be uniformly the case with every one who engages, outside of the City of God, in schemes of world-reform, however great their abilities, or praiseworthy, in itself considered, the general or peculiar end they propose.

A little sound philosophy and common sense, we should think, might enable the author to perceive, that, if he takes multiplicity and variety for his starting-point, though he must arrive at nihility, he can never arrive at unity; and that unless he asserts Christian theism, he can never assert progress, for it is only inasmuch as he admits a creative God that he can conceive of progressibles. He must assert the God of the Christian and common sense, or the dead unity or uncreative God of old Xenophanes and the Eleatics; or, in fine, he must deny unity and assert plurality in the origin of things, with the atheist, and therefore nihilism, since we have already shown, that, without the conception of God, no conception is possible. If he asserts the second, he loses the universe, and can talk no more of progress, for unity has no progression, and, however multiplied into itself, gives and can give only unity for its product. If he says the

third, still he can talk no more of progress, for nihility has as little progress as unity. But if he takes the first, he escapes every difficulty, and can assert the universe with all its variety; for then he supposes for it an adequate cause. He can also, since he has a world of space and time, talk of progress, not indeed in attaining to a perfection never actual, and by means of imperfection, but in recovering a perfection lost, and approaching a perfection eternally actual in God. Progress is conceivable only in space and time, and to be able to assert its possibility we must be able to assert the reality of the world of space and time, which we cannot do either as pantheists or as atheists. Progress also implies motion, but motion is inconceivable without a prime mover, who is himself immovable, at rest. This is as true in the moral as in the physical world. Pantheism denies the prime mover, by asserting a dead, uncreative unity, which, if immovable, nevertheless imparts no motion; or, if you take Mr. Channing's view, God, as anterior to creation, is not actual, but merely potential; and the potential cannot move, for it cannot act, since only the actual can act. Atheism, of course, denies the prime mover; for, rendered consequent, it denies all things, is universal negation. Christian theism asserts a prime mover, the eternal and immovable God, who causes motion, but does not himself enter into motion. Under any and every point of view, then, our modern advocates of progress could never have committed a more serious blunder than in denying the creative God, -Deus creator,-and in seeking a foundation for their doctrine in pantheism and atheism.

But "the divine idea of man is of many men made one." In what are they made one? The unity of the human race, that is, of what is for Mr. Channing the human race, does not now exist, and he admits it does not by the very fact that he is seeking its unity, and proposes it as the end to be gained. If made one, then, they must be so made in something which they are not and have not. What is this something? Variety? So Mr. Channing appears to teach; but this is a mistake. Never will you arrive at unity through variety; for the further you travel in variety the further do you recede from unity. Mankind, in themselves considered, are many, as Mr. Channing himself concedes, otherwise he could not speak of "many men made one." If many, if a multitude, as they certainly are, they have not, and cannot have, the principle of unity in themselves, and can be made

one only by virtue of some principle of unity above themselves, existing out of them and independent of them. What or where is this principle, of which men may participate, and by participation become one in it. It is not in nature, for nature is multiple, diverse; it is not in man, for the very idea of man, Mr. Channing says, is of many men made one, and therefore the many must participate of it before man is conceivable; it is not in grace, for the author recognizes no order of grace distinguishable from the order. of nature. If not in one or another of these, it can be nowhere, cannot be at all. Mr. Channing, then, really recognizes no principle of unity, nothing in which the many are or can be made one. And yet he calls his doctrine the unitary doctrine,-professes to be seeking unity, in obedience to unitary tendencies!

"The centre of this race is God in man." Thus, according to Mr. Channing, God lives in man, and not man in God, as religion teaches. This confirms what we have presented as his doctrine, that God lives in his evolutions, and is completed, actualized or perfected in them; that is, the cause is completed, fulfilled, in the effect, and therefore the cause depends on the effect for its perfection! "The centre of this race is God in man." This proves conclusively that Mr. Channing recognizes no unity, or principle of unity. He cannot say the human race attain to unity by participating of God, and becoming one in him; for he is in them, not they in him; and although he is in them, they are, nevertheless, without unity. God cannot, then, impart unity to them, or by their union with himself make them one. Let the author talk no more of unity. But if God lives in man, what more do you complain of? "Its destined end, a heaven of humanity." The end of the race can, whatever it be, be actualized only in individuals. If the end is humanity, it can be nothing else than the production of individuals, that is, the fulfilment of the command, if command rather than permission it is, Crescite et multiplicamini super eam (sc. terram). But what is the destined end of individuals? Do they count for nothing in your world-scheme? It is remarkable how little account our modern reformers make of individuals, and of individual rights. They are genuine philanthropists,-love all men in general, and no one in particular: seek to make all happy in general, and render every one miserable in particular. "Its destined end, a heaven of humanity." A heaven of humanity! What is that? We are sure we do not know.

But we are transcending our limits, and are weary of the subject. We have, either in what we have heretofore advanced or in what we have now said, anticipated all we wish to say on the remaining propositions we have cited. We have aimed throughout to preserve our gravity, and to treat Mr. Channing with the kindness and affection due to the sweetness of his disposition and the gentleness of his inanners. Whether we have in all instances succeeded, or not, our readers must judge. Mr. Channing sees, as all men see, and not more clearly nor more vividly, perhaps, than thousands of others not of his school, that there are innumerable evils in the world; and he holds that every man should do all in his power to remedy them. He believes men might and should live as brothers, and that, if they would, wrongs and outrages would cease, there would be no more war, no more oppression, no more injustice, and the whole earth would be filled with love and joy, and so do we. If every man did right, nobody would do wrong; if every one lived as he ought, nobody would live as he ought not to live. Nothing in the world more true. We agree with you exactly. But how do you purpose to make all men live as brothers? Here is, for you, the question of questions. This, the only question that it was necessary to answer, Mr. Channing answers not; and none of our modern world-reformers or system-mongers answer in a very satisfactory manner. We have listened to most, perhaps to all the more notable, of their answers, but not with much edification. The only direct and practical answer we recollect to have heard is the world-famous answer of the Jacobin, "Be my brother, or I will kill you." This is plain and direct, and has, at least, the merit of expressing truly the spirit of those who deafen us with their everlasting declamations about " brotherhood," "universal fraternity."

Mr. Channing, we cheerfully admit, does not precisely hold to killing; but he has a great affection for the Jacobin, and takes him under his protection. Moreover, in his unwearied efforts to stir up discontent, to make people sensible of their sufferings, to open the wounds of society, to uncover its running sores, and exhibit them to everybody,-in dwelling upon the evils we suffer, forgetful of the good we receive, so much more than we deserve, and exciting hopes that can never be peacefully realized, nay, never realized at all, he, whatever his intention, effectually prepares the millions, so far as his influence extends, for the Jacobin

movement, and the adoption of the Jacobin answer. The associationists, we deny not, profess to be opposed to the resort to physical force, and to advocate only peaceful modes of reform; but, if we recollect aright, Robespierre made his first appearance before the public as the author of an essay against capital punishment. The associationists, whatever their intentions or professions, are but panders to the physical-force party, or, if they like the figure better, recruiting-sergeants to the destructive army of revolutionists. Let them not imagine that we can be taken with their professions, even when we do not question their sincerity. They cannot promulgate their principles, and continue their declamations against civilization and society, without loosening all social bonds in their adherents, and rousing up the wild and ferocious passions of our nature,-passions which no theory, no reasoning, no smooth-toned rebuke or mild entreaty, can restrain, and which, when once broken loose, will precipitate the populations moved by them into war, bloodshed, and plunder. Hope not, madmen, ye can apply the lighted torch to flax without having it burn, or to a magazine of powder and not have it explode. You cannot go on, year after year, denouncing social order, denouncing society itself, denouncing every restraint of law, all faith, piety, conscience, every thing the race has hitherto held sacred, and hope that the multitude, if they heed you, will remain quiet, charmed to peace by the dulcet persuasions you, at rare intervals, let fall from your sweet lips, or that they will not take up arms to realize the visions of Mahomet's paradise on earth, with which you have maddened their brains and inflamed their lusts. We should shudder at the bare thought of doing you injustice. We would not willingly offend your pride or wound your sensibility; but we tell you, pretended peaceful reformers, that the basest and most horror-inspiring criminals, on whom our society inflicts the supreme vengeance of the law, are harmless in comparison with you, pure-minded, moral, and heroic as ye fancy yourselves, and kind-hearted as ye really may be; for you kill reason, you murder the soul, you assassinate conscience, you sap society, render order impossible, take from law its moral force, from our homes all sanctity, from our lives all security, and leave us a prey to all the low, base, beastly, cruel, violent, wild, and destructive propensities and passions of fallen nature. O, mock us not with the words Brotherhood, Fraternal Love, Universal Peace! We have