American life, between outward activity and inward consciousness; which implies, however, so far as it prevails, a want of full self-possession and self-control, in the case of our outward activity itself; a want that is extensively felt already throughout the social system to which it belongs, and that may be expected to work itself out sooner or later, if not met with proper seasonable remedy, into the most disastrous, if not absolutely fatal, practical results. We need earnest, profound THOUGHT, born and cradled in the inmost philosophical consciousness of the age, by which to understand the problem we are called to solve as a nation, and so to turn our action to right account. Action, of course, is all important for the proper use of life; it belongs to our nature, not simply to mirror in itself the sense of the surrounding world, but to mould this also into its own image; and it is only under this form, that it can ever possibly show itself complete. Philosophy without action, is always something helpless, and liable to disease, as we see exemplified on a large scale in the history of speculation among the modern Germans. But then, action without philosophy will be found just as little worthy to be trusted also, in the end, for the great purposes of human life. No imagination can well be more false, than to suppose that our American practical talent is sufficient of itself to accomplish all that is comprehended properly in our Vocation as a people. Power, to be efficient for moral ends, must be accompanied with light. The force of mind, sundered from the inward illustration that should of right go with it always, is made to resemble, more or less, the force of mere nature, and becomes of the same order with the strength of the whirlwind or mountain torrent. It may carry all before it for a time, but the action, at last, is neither rational nor free. We need not only the energy of will, which now distinguishes us above all the nations of the earth, but the clear insight of speculative reason, also, to clothe our will with its full right to be thus energetic and strong. Let our national spirit be brought to know and possess itself fully in a free way, so that the action of the nation, in all the spheres of its life, may be filled and ruled with the soul of a true self-consciousness, VOL. 1. NO. II. NEW SERIES. 11 in the form of philosophy, and we shall then be prepared to fulfill indeed the high destiny that seems to be assigned to us on the part of Heaven. Such a union of action and speculation, joined with the vast resources of our outward life, and the mighty scope thrown open to us by the genius of our political institutions, might be expected to carry us, in due time, far beyond all the world has yet been permitted to reach, in the way of moral progress, under any other form. May we not say, indeed, that this is the very problem of problems, which our new-born America is called at this time to solve, for the universal benefit of men in all time to come? At present, as already remarked, we are manifestly suffering through the want of speculation, and not from its excess. Action is allowed too often to overwhelm or crowd out thought. There reigns among us, indeed, a wide-spread prejudice against philosophy, in its true and proper character, which makes it difficult to secure any earnest attention to its claims in any quarter. In the mean time, besides, to make the case still worse, a false empirical scheme of thought, (since all action must have some spiritual bottom on which to rest in this way,) claiming to be philosophy itself, though only its wretched caricature, in fact, has come to underlie our activity on all sides, and is now ready to resist all, deeper thinking, as an invasion upon its own rights. The general character of this bastard philosophy is, that it affects to measure all things, both on earth and in heaven, by the categories of the common abstract understanding, as it stands related simply to the world of time and sense. These categories, however, being in themselves the forms or types only of things in this outward world, and representing therefore the conditions merely of existence in space and time-something relative always and finite by the very nature of the case-become necessarily one-sided and false, the moment we attempt to carry their authority beyond these limits, and to apply them to the truths of the pure reason. This has been triumphantly shown by Kant, in his immortal work on the subject; whose argument thus far, at least, can never be nullified by the skeptical use to which it was turned in his own hands, but only makes it necessary to surmount this skepticism by pressing forward to still higher ground. It should be understood, and borne in mind always, that the skepticism of Kant is not something from which we escape by falling back simply on the sensuous philosophy, once for all demolished by his gigantic criticism. As against this, his argument and the bad use he makes of it, are alike legitimate and sound. With the premises of Locke, it is not possible successfully to withstand the reasoning of David Hume; and the reasoning of David Hume, brought to understand itself, and pushed out to its proper universal form, conducts us over with like necessity to the critical Idealism of Immanuel Kant. If our knowledge can have no other ground on which to rest, than that which is offered to us in the forms of the sensible world, as apprehended through categories of thought, simply answerable to their outward and finite nature, it ought to be clear, surely, that it cannot reach, with any true force, and as knowledge, to objects that lie beyond this sphere. The system of Locke pretended to do so, indeed, building its faith in the absolute and infinite upon deductions from the simply relative and finite. This pretension, false from the beginning, Kant has fairly and forever overturned, leaving the world, so far as that philosophy could help it, without any sure hold upon a single truth beyond the range of its present experience. And yet it is just this false and helpless system of thinking that still insists, too generally among ourselves, on its right to rule our whole life, and that is ready, alas! on all sides, to stigmatize as transcendental nonsense, if not something still worse, every attempt that is made to go beyond itself in the way of earnest and profound speculation. The whole tendency of this philosophy is towards materialism and infidelity; as we may see abundantly exemplified by its past history in other parts of the world, particularly in France, It may be associated, it is true, with an opposite system; as commonly in this country, where it claims the spiritual and supernatural, indeed, as peculiarly its own province. But so far as such connection goes, it is outord only and traditional, not inward and The philosophy itself has no power ch the spiritual and supernatural, and in pretending to do so, only drags it, in fact, downward into its own sphere, so that it is in the end truly neither one nor the other. It reasons from time to eternity with vast dexterity and ease; establishing, by strict Baconian comparison and induction, the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the truth of revelation; but it is all in such a way as turns eternity itself into time, and forces the whole invisible world to become a mere abstraction from the world of sense. The empirical understanding affects to become transcendent, (as Kant calls it,) and may please itself with the imagination of having actually grasped in this way the truth which lies beyond its own horizon; but it is the illusion of one who dreams himself to be awake, and, behold, he is asleep: the object grasped, when all is done, belongs to the sphere of sense, and not to the sphere of spirit. This philosophy makes no room at all for ideas, in the proper sense of the term; its ideas are all intellectual abstractions merely, that as such carry in themselves no necessary or universal force. How is it possible, that such a system should have depth or strength; that it should penetrate the interior sense of life, in any quarter; or that it should communicate true spiritual earnestness to the general character and conduct of men, in any direction? All the higher interests of our nature must necessarily be made to suffer, wherever it prevails. The bad power of this system is widely exemplified among us, in our reigning indifference to philosophy itself, and our want of faith generally in the objects with which it is of right concerned. Speculatin and action are very commonly regarded as opposite spheres, only outwardly related to each other; in which view, the first must ever be shorn of all earnest independent interest, on its own account. It is either held to be of no force for actual life at all the unprofitable metaphysical pugilism, merely, of the schools, by which the world can never be made wiser or better-or else, to save it from such reproach, it is forced to quit the skies wholly, and become the mere shadowy echo of experience and "common sense," as it is called, in the service of directly material ends. It is pursued accordingly either as a pastime only, or as a restricted trade. Few have any faith in philosophy as the original and rightful mistress of life. Few have any firm, solid belief in the reality of ideas, as anything more than the generalizations of sense, or the wisely calculated results of common utilitarian experience. He is counted too generally to be the best philosopher, whose thinking is found to move most fully in the orbit of the common understanding, while it shows itself at the same time most skillful in discerning the relation between means and end, and is crowned at last with the largest percentage, in the way of practical benefit and profit. The bearing of all this on our national life, is sufficiently plain in every direction. Our literature and science, our economics and politics, nay, our very ethies and divinity, are all made to suffer in the same way. They are not properly scientific. The defect is particularly obvious and worthy of notice, in our general system of education. Whatever advantages this may possess in other respects, it is characterized almost universally by a sad want of true philosophical spirit. The idea of a separate department or faculty of philosophy, as necessary to complete the conception of a university education, is almost gone from our minds. The prejudice of tradition is indeed too strong, to allow its total banishment from our colleges, in an open and formal way. Every institution feels itself bound to include in its course of studies something which it is pleased to dignify with the title of philosophy, in the shape particularly of metaphysics and ethics, as a sort of crowning distinction in honor of the Senior year. But the crown, alas! is not what it ought to be, the keystone of the academic arch, that binds and supports the whole; it is at best an outside ornament simply, of most light and airy structure, set loosely on its summit, of which, in a short time, no trace whatever is to be fonnd. We may safely say, that the way in which philosophy is taught and studied in our colleges generally, is suited only to bring it into discredit. It stands in no organic connection with the course as a whole; it is handled in the most mechanical and external way, as a thing of simple memory and report; and to complete the misery, it is acknowledged only in a form which subverts its whole sense, by substituting for it a poor parody that is wholly unworthy of its name. its own nature the most earnest of interests, it is thus metamorphosed into the most frivolous and trivial. We need not wonder, that in such circumstances, it should appear shorn of all strength. We need not wonder, that the interest of liberal study generally, deprived in this way of its proper soul, should be made to suffer at every point. An earnest philosophy is indispensable to an earnest education, as through this again it is indispensable to all real earnestness in life. J. W. N. In they almost universally consider very pedantic and dry; and although they cannot but admit there are some humorous characters in Shakspeare, they would rather see him on the stage than read him. As they grow up into life, however, if they continue (as, alas! but few of them do in our spreading country,) to love lit the greatness of these wonderful men, and acquiesce more and more in the general verdict of the world. Thus the process forever goes on, the pure art of poetry standing before the race like a pillar of fire, seen by all, but seen best by those who are in the van, or now and then seen best of all by the far-reaching eye of genius. taining to most traits of character in our celestial antipodes, what they consider elegant poetic writing, we should class with the maxims of poor Richard. "Keaou Seen Sang," says the Rev. Mr. Smith, a late traveller, "seemed to revel in a paradise of self-complacency, as we sat to listen to his magniloquent intonations of the classics. The impassioned gesture and literary studies, they see more and more of erary enthusiasm of Keaou, would have led us to believe that his mental enjoyment was very great, and the ideas conveyed by the composition very sublime. But, on translating the immortal fragment, it was frequently found to consist of some such sentiment as these: He who makes just agreements, can fulfill his promises; he who behaves with reverence and propriety, puts shame and disgrace to a distance; he who loses not the friendship of those whom he ought to treat with kindness and respect, may be a master."" These are very sensible worldly maxims, but they are certainly not much more poetic to us than "Time is money," "An honest man's the noblest work of God," or any of the points and antitheses which may occur in poetry, and belong to it, but can exist without it-the pure products of the raised intellect. So, if we are content to seek nearer than China for an illustration, we may discern that what is poetry to one is not so to another; for who has not seen eyes suffused by the recitation of ballads of the most silly character possible? Political elections often engender serious poems of this sort. The Miller doctrine was a myth that gave birth to hymns at once lofty and laughable. The temple of the Mormons, no doubt, echoed to the songs of bards. In the multitude of tastes between these extreme productions and those of Shakspeare and Milton, there can never be a consensus omnium as to the true definition of POETRY, any more than there can be among artists as to what are the requisites of HIGH ART. There is, however, a constant tendency towards such an unanimous agreement, as generations rise up from youth to age, through the experience of passion and the growth of reason. It is very well settled that the names we have just mentioned stand at the head of our poetic literature. Some college students prefer Byron-others Tennyson; Milton There was one not many years ago that saw it, as it would seem, in its very purity; who had approached, with his self-consciousness all awake, into its empyreal circle, and could define its form and fix its qualities and limits-COLERIDGE, the most poetic of philosophers, and the most profound and candid of critics. His mind seemed peculiarly formed to be at once the exhibiter and expounder of the highest forms of poetry; he could assume the lyric frenzy, and could analyze it also; he not only wooed the pure muse successfully, but without losing his own heart; he united, in short, in one person, the rarest qualities of artist and critic, actor and reflector, doer and observer. The definition of poetry he has given in his Biographia Literaria, and especially in the volume containing the immortal criticism of Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads, is one whose excellence appeals to a man's individual growth in the same manner with that of all the great models of art, viz. : it grows better by time, and is more understood the more it is studied. Few persons in active life have leisure to read Coleridge; indeed, it is questionable whether his peculiar, minutely guarded, yet eloquent, philosophical style should be recommended to young persons engaged in active literary or professional pursuits; he is a writer who were perhaps better left to those who cannot avoid him. Any such one who may have fancied that he fully comprehended the distinctions in the definition we are speaking of several years ago, will probably find on re-reading the pas sage, ample argument for modesty in the retrospection. And this will arise, not from a certain theory's wedding itself to his mind and confining it to a particular track, but simply from his own personal experience of life; he will understand them better, as he does his Milton and Shakspeare, not from their having educated him, but from his having grown older and thought and suffered more. It is our purpose to recur briefly to these distinctions and principles, culling out and explaining some of the most important of them, and then to apply them to the work under review. In the first chapter of the second volume of the Biographia, a new edition of which has just been issued by the Messrs. Wiley & Putnam, after a short account of the origin of the Lyrical Ballads, the author proceeds to explain his ideas, first, of a POEM, secondly, of POETRY itself, in kind and in essence. Of a poem he observes: First. That it must be in metre or rhyme, or both; it must have the superficial form. Secondly. Its immediate purpose must be the communication of pleasure. But, thirdly. "The communication of pleasure may be the object of a work not metrically composed, as in novels and romances. Would, then, the mere superaddition of metre, with or without rhyme, entitle these to the name of poems? The answer is, (and this distinction we italicize, that the reader may observe it carefully,) that nothing can permanently please which does not contain in itself the reason why it is so, and not otherwise. If metre be superadded, all other parts must be made consonant with it. They must be such as to justify the perpetual and distinct attention to each part, which an exact correspondent recurrence of accent and sound are calculated to excite. The final definition, then. so deduced, may be thus worded: A poem is that species of composition, which is opposed to works of science, by proposing for its immediate object pleasure, not truth; and from all other species (having this object in common with it) it is discriminated by proposing to itself such delight from the whole, as is compatible with a distinct gratification from each component part." The discrimination here made seems to cover too much; for the gratification re ceived from each part in a true poem must be such as is also compatible with the delight to be inspired by the whole; each must help each and all. But the philosopher does not overlook this in his next paragraph : "If a man chooses to call every composition a poem, which is rhyme, or measure, or both, I must leave his opinion uncontroverted. The distinction is at least competent to characterize the writer's intention. If it were subjoined, that the whole is likewise entertaining or affecting, as a tale, or a series of interesting reflections, I of course admit that this is another fit ingredient of a poem, and an additional merit. But if the definition sought for be that of a legitimate poem, I answer, it must be one, the parts of which mutually support and explain each other; all in their proportion harmonizing with, and supporting, the purpose and known influences of metrical arrangement. The philosophic critics of all ages coincide with the ultimate judgment of all countries, in equally denying the praises of a just poem, on the one hand, to a series of striking lines or distichs, each of which, absorbing the whole attention of the reader to itself, disjoins it from its context, and makes it a separate whole, instead of an harmonizing part; and on the other hand, to an unsustained composition, from which the reader collects rapidly the general result, unattracted by the component parts. The reader should be carried forward, not merely, or chiefly, by the mechanical impulse of curiosity, or by a restless desire to arrive at the final solution; but by the pleasurable activity of mind, excited by the attractions of the journey itself. Like the motion of a serpent, which the Egyptians made the emblem of intellectual power; or like the path of sound through the air; at every step he pauses, and half recedes, and, from the retrogressive movement, collects the force which again car ries him onward. Precipitandus est liber spiritus, says Petronius Arbiter, most happily. The epithet liber, here balances the preceding verb; and it is not easy to conceive more meaning, condensed in fewer words." We have quoted largely this characteristic passage for its beautiful clearness and breadth and condensation of thought. But the definition, it must be remembered, |