Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

lar, and has ever since been sustained, with equal zeal, though somewhat variously interpreted, by all the different parties that have successively appeared in the country. How it happened that a system, which, while under discussion, seemed to please nobody, should have been found, when adopted, to please everybody, is a rather curious question, which we have not room to examine here in detail. It may be remarked, in general, that the different parties in the Convention probably attributed too much importance to the particular points on which they differed, and too little to the great idea of an effective Union of the States, which, if realized, was sufficient of itself to ensure the success of the Constitution. The only radical defect of the old Confederation was the want of any direct action by Congress on the individual citizen. Almost any plan which contained this

principle would have proved, in practice, a complete remedy for the existing evils. The other schemes submitted to the Convention, all of which provided for an effective national judiciary department, acting directly upon individuals, though objectionable in some of their details, would, perhaps, have become, if adopted, as popular as the existing Constitution. Be that, however, as it may, the Constitution, as adopted, has justified, in its actual working, all the praise that could well be merited by a perfect system. It has already secured to the country more than half a century of a degree of prosperity and progress, unexampled in the history of the world; and if it were stricken to-morrow by any unexpected event from the roll of things that are, the period of its existence would be remembered for ever after as the golden age of America.

SONNETS.
I.

THE PALACE AND THE HOVEL.

Behold yon palace, lifting up its dome

'Mid wood-grown parks, and gardens sweet with flowers,
And fresh with fountains, where the happy Hours
Pause in their flight, and Gladness dwells at home,
In perfumed bowers, and bright saloons where Wealth
Holds his high court;—and then, not distant far,

Mark the low cottage, through whose thatch, by stealth,
The morning sun peeps in, or evening star,
As if afraid with glance too bold to look

Where Want and Penury their vigils keep ;-
Ay, gaze on both, and there, as in a book,
Read the world's history, and treasure deep
The sad, sad lesson-ne'er was palace made,
But the thatched hovel sprang beneath its shade.

II.

THE TWO MURDERERS.

News comes that one hath died-that Murder's hand
Hath 'reft him of his life-and all the town

Is filled with anxious hearts, and up and down
Men hurry with flushed cheeks, or, talking, stand
By the street-corners, planning how the thief,
Who stole his blood, may not escape. The while
Revenge sits on each heart, a voice of grief
Calls from a narrow lane, where on a pile
Of filthy straw another lieth dead,
Who died of Hunger; but no tongue is there,
That speaks of punishment, though by the bed
His murderer stands, and with complacent air
Looks on the hopes, his Pride hath brought to blight,
And tearless turns away-strong-armed in legal right!
RH. S. S. ANDROS.

[blocks in formation]

SCHMUCKER'S PSYCHOLOGY.*

BY O. A. BROWNSON.

MOST Americans, and, we were about to say, all Englishmen, of the present day, who devote themselves to philosophic studies, take altogether too low and contracted views of philosophy; and seem to have no suspicion of the real grandeur and extent of its province. They make philosophy, even when wishing to commend it to our love and reverence, consist in mere speculation; or in the mere analysis and classification of dry abstractions, or the dead phenomena of our past lives, utterly incapable of affording us either light or warmth for the duties that lie before

us.

Rightly defined, philosophy is so much of the religion of a given country, or of a given epoch, as the human mind in that country or epoch is able to understand and appropriate. It is the science of life, and embraces within its view God, Man, and Nature. Its aim is to enlighten the mind and warm the heart. It does not merely make discursions on what is, or what has been; it does not seek merely to explain and account for the past and the present, to make us familiar with the laws of Providence, of the universe, or of humanity; but it aims to disclose to men a new and a loftier Ideal of wisdom, beauty, and goodness; and, therefore, to have an immediate bearing on everyday life. It surveys the past and the present, it is true; is erudite and observant; inquires into the nature of man and the universe, into the origin and relations of their respective phenomena; but always with a view to practical life, always with the sole aim of making mankind wiser and better; of ameliorating their moral, intellectual, or physical condition, and of inducing them to live in stricter obedience to the law of their being, and the will of their Maker.

They wholly mistake the nature and purpose of philosophy who define it to be a merely speculative science. It is not, as too many of our modern psychologists contend, the product of mere reflection, of what M. Cousin terms the reflective reason. Its province is precisely that of religion, of which it is merely a special phase; it embraces the same objects, contemplates the same ends, uses the same means, and relies on the same authority. The philosopher is never a cold, dry, withered-up being, without heart or soul, surveying with indifference, without passion or sympathy, all systems, all opinions, all beings, and all phenomena; but he is a living man, deeply, often terribly, in earnest, and manifesting in its most awful energy, man's threefold power to know, to love, and to do. He is no amateur, no dilettante; but a fullgrown man, hearty, robust, and resolute; meaning what he says, and doing what he means. He thinks, speculates, feels, acts, always to some end. He has always a point to carry-a purpose to accomplish. His philosophizing is never but a means to an end. He is one who is not and cannot be satisfied with what has already been gained. Prevalent systems of faith strike him as defective, false, or mischievous; approved practices as low, corrupt, and corrupting; established forms of worship as puerile, cold, and uninspiring; existing governments as oppressive, tyrannical, grinding, at best inadequate to man's wants, rights, duties, and destiny; and over them all, over the whole Actual, there hovers to his mind, a bright and kindling Ideal of something fairer, freer, loftier, wiser, and better; more conducive to the glory of God, and the relief of man. To this Ideal, seen clearly or dimly, which forsakes him never, his

Psychology; or, Elements of a New System of Mental Philosophy, on the Basis of Consciousness and Common Sense. Designed for Colleges and Academies. By S. S. Schmucker, D.D., Professor of Christian Theology in the Theological Seminary, Gettysburg, Pa. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1842. 12mo. pp. 227.

soul is wedded, for better or for worse, for life or for death, time or eternity; and he studies, toils, struggles, suffers, lives, dies, but to realize it in the practical life of his race. No man is a philosopher who has not an ideal Good, as well as an ideal Truth or Beauty, which he burns to realize, and which he will realize, cost what it may. Something more than reflection, then, is necessary to make the philosopher. He needs to be inspired, as much as does the genuine poet, the prophet, or the founder of a Church.

Philosophy is not merely the science of man, of nature, or of God. It is the science of sciences; that which brings all the special sciences up to a common unity, disclosing the common basis of them all, and directing their cultivation and application to a common end, -the continued progress of mankind, or the uninterrupted amelioration, in the speediest manner possible, of their moral, intellectual, and physical condition.

In this high, this religious sense, we have no generally recognized philosophy among us. We have sciences, but no science. All is special, individual, anarchical; nothing general, catholic, orderly. Thought has no unity, either in aim or result. The special sciences we cultivate are not subjected to one and the same law of thoughtare not pervaded by one and the same living idea-and do not conspire to one and the same social and religious end. Theology, geology, chemistry, physiology, psychology, ethics, politics, are treated as so many distinct and separate sciences; not merely as different branches of one and the same science. In studying one of them, we must learn what we must unlearn in studying another, receive in this as true what in that we must reject as false. Contradiction, confusion, falsehood, therefore, reign in our scientific world, and science is able to do comparatively little for the advancement of the

race.

In consequence of this anarchy, arising from the individualism which predominates, all the sciences, not except ing even theology, have with us somewhat of an irreligious tendency. The radical conception of religion is that something which binds, lays under obligation, is authoritative, has the right to legislate, to command. Reli

gion is always authoritative, always legislative; it imposes the law; commands, nay, enforces us to do our best to realize the ideal it proposes. Of this ideal it permits us to lose sight never; but compels us to seek it, though at the risk of being scorned and derided, though we must brave exile and the dungeon, the scaffold, or the cross. But none of our sciences are authoritative; none of them propose an ideal and bind us, in foro conscientiæ, to realize it. They have, then, no religious, but an irreligious character. Their authority is lost by the fact, that they are mere individual sciences, wanting a common bond of unity, a vivifying principle, embracing, explaining, and uniting them all in one uniform and catholic science. They are now weak, and mutually destructive, like a mass of individuals thrown together, and striving to exist together without any power of cohesion, or principle of social order, which is out of the question; for each is infinitely repellant of the other, and one perpetually neutralizes or thwarts the efforts of another.

The secret of this scientific anarchy may be found in the separation which has for a long time been attempted between religion and philosophy. Philosophy is asserted to be of human origin, and religion to be of divine origin. Religious people formerly condemned philosophy as repugnant to religion; philosophers have latterly condemned religion as repugnant to what they have been pleased to call philosophy. More lately still, the rational and betterinformed among religious people have contended that God cannot teach through nature one doctrine, and an opposite doctrine through Revelation; and they, therefore, have sought to harmonize religion and philosophy, by making the teachings of the one quadrate with those of the other. This is what Leibnitz attempts in his "Theodocea."

But these last fall into as great, though not so obvious, an error as the other two; and do equally separate religion and philosophy. Philosophy is said to be that amount of truth to which we attain by the natural exercise of our faculties, without any special aid from our Maker: religion is the truth which we are taught by supernatural revelation. Here are then two systems of truth, and, if we exa

mine their contents, we shall find them treating precisely the same questions. Now these two systems must needs be either opposing systems or parallel systems. If philosophy, acknowledged to be of human origin, be true, what need of divine revelation? If divine revelation be necessary to teach us the truth, what is the use of philosophy? Or how can philosophy, resting upon a basis independent of revelation, possibly be true? The separation of religion and philosophy, then, necessarily declares, to say the least, that one or the other is superfluous.

But there is no separation between religion and philosophy admissible. We do not mean to say by this, that the two coincide or harmonize in their teachings; but that the two are not two, but one. We have no original means of arriving at the knowledge of truth but the supernatural revelation of God. This revelation is the necessary basis of all that can be received as truth, whether termed religious truth or philosophical truth. Reyelation is as necessary to furnish the basis of philosophy, as it is to furnish the basis of religion. Philosophy, then, is not a system of truth built up on a separate foundation, independent of religion, and able, and therefore having the right, to sit in judgment on religion, to overthrow it, or to explain and verify it; but is, if it be philosophy, identical with religion—the form which religion necessarily assumes when subjected to the action of the human mind. Instead, then, of seeking to reconcile religion and philosophy, we should seek their synthesis, to resolve philosophy into religion, and to find in divine revelation the one solid basis for our whole faith, whether termed religious or philosophical.

A people believing in the Christian religion can have, can at least tolerate, no philosophy resting on a basis independent of Christianity, and contemplating any Ideal but the Christian. Christianity is the philosophy, and the sole philosophy of Christendom. It is with all Christian people the supreme law of life. It has then the right to preside over the whole moral, intellectual, and physical development of humanity. Its Ideal is the only authorized Ideal. In Christianity, then, we must seek the science of sciences, the common bond, the catholic principle,

that raises up all special sciences to a common unity, vivifies them, and directs their application to a common end. The anarchy and irreligious tendency of modern sciences grow out of the fact, that the authority of Christianity in regard to them is denied, and the principle of individual liberty, in its most unrestricted sense, is affirmed. This must be corrected. For after all, we cannot get rid of Christianity, nor of its authority, even if we would; and our efforts to do so only confuse our language, and render us unintelligible each to himself, and all to one another. Christianity has become our life; it lies at the bottom of all our literature; and we cannot think, feel, or act, without thinking, feeling, acting it. It, so far as we have realized it, has become human nature, natural reason, the soul, the heart, the mind of all men. What is needed, then, in the philo sophical world, is the reassertion of the legitimate authority of Christianity, in all that pertains to human development. By this reassertion we shall attain to a complete and living synthesis of every branch of human science; and the whole of life will be harmonious and consistent, and society in all its departments will be subordinated to the one catholic principle of the Gospel, for the realization on earth of the true Christian Ideal, that is, the establishment of the reign of God in all human affairs.

The work before us is a sincere effort of its author to contribute his quota towards advancing our knowledge of ourselves; and, as such, whatever estimate may be formed of its positive merits, deserves to be cordially welcomed, and honestly considered. We have read the work with some interest. We like its spirit; its general tone and sentiment. It has given us a favorable opinion of the worth and ability of its author, as a man whose personal influence on the young men committed to his care must be pure and elevating. As a work on an interesting branch of science, it displays more than ordinary capacity, and makes us regret that the author did not enlarge his views, adopt a more comprehensive plan, and take in a wider range of topics. Still, it bears on its face, and we are able to find, after the most diligent search, no proofs

that its author has any tolerable conceptions of philosophy in the broad, catholic sense in which we have defined it. It is true that he professedly treats only a special department of philosophy, and it would be unjust to demand, in a work intended to discuss merely a particular science, all that belongs to science in general. We do not, therefore, complain of the book because it treats merely a special branch of general science, nor because it confines itself to what properly belongs to that special branch; but because it does not treat that special branch in the light of general philosophy. The author does not show us its precise place in universal science; its relation to the Christian Ideal; nor its practical bearing on the great duties of every-day life.

A genuine psychology-one worth the writing or the reading-cannot possibly be written but in the light of a general philosophy of God, man, and nature. Such a work must answer the questions of man's wants, rights, duties, and destiny. But these questions are never answered by studying man in the abstract, as isolated from nature, from his race, and his God; but by studying him in the concrete, as a living man, as existing in God, in nature, in humanity; that is, in his actual relations, connexions, and dependencies. To study man in these relations, connexions, and dependencies, is to study him in the light of a general philosophy. Dr. Schmucker does not so study him, and therefore leaves all these great questions of man's wants, rights, duties, and destiny, not only unanswered, but even unasked.

A psychology which leaves out these questions, the only questions of any practical importance in the conduct of life, is, to say the least, of questionable utility, and by no means precisely the psychology a wise man would wish to have studied in our colleges and academies. For, after all, what is its subject-matter? Man as a living being? a social being? a moral being? a religious being? Not at all; but simply man as an abstraction, as isolated from God, nature, and humanity; in which sense he has no actual existence, does not live at all, and is at best a mere possibility, or virtuality. To know man in this isolated and abstract sense, in which the questions of his wants, his

rights, his duties, and his destiny, find no appropriate place, is no more to know man in any true and worthy sense of the term, than knowledge of the properties of the triangle is knowledge of that threefold energy of our natures by which we are able to act, to know, and to love. Dr. Schmucker seems to us, therefore, like a great many others, to have mistaken in the outset the real significance of psychology, and the real questions it ought to discuss. By rejecting the concrete man-the living man-man in his relations with God, with nature, and with other men, and confining him solely to the mere isolated and abstract man, he has given us not psychology, but at best a mere psycho-anatomy, bearing no more relation to psychology, properly so called, than anatomy does to physiology. It is a mere dissection of the dead subject, an analysis and classification of the phenomena of the dead subject, which can throw little or no light on the living.

But not to cavil at a term-admitting that the work before us is rightly named psychology, or an analysis and classification of the phenomena of the soul, we may still ask, what is its use, if it leave out all religious, ethical, social, and political questions? What does man live for? In relation to what should he be instructed? Is a work which throws no light, which does not even profess to throw any light, on any of the great practical questions of real life, precisely the work for our young men to study-a work that indicates no lofty social, political, moral, or religious Ideal on the part of the author, and that demands no pure, deep, serious purpose, no high, holy, and moral aspirations on the part of the student? What, again, do we live for? Has life no purpose? Was man made merely to play at marbles? If man was made for an end more serious, high, and solemn, what is it? "What is the chief end of man?" That end once determined, should not all instruction, all education, nay, all life, be directed to its fulfilment? Will Dr. Schmucker tell us what relation there is between making ourselves familiar with these psychological abstractions, distinct from all the great practical questions of life, and living to fulfil the end for which God made us, and clothed us with the power to do, to

« AnteriorContinuar »