Though whirlpools yawned, and tempests Nor yet had ceased his labors vain, Then Death appeared upon the sea. And "Thou dost chase," he said, "my child! "Thou hast thus roused each slumbering might, The "Oration" and the "Discourse," exhibit, also, a still higher mental attribute than those before alluded to-the capacity of philosophical speculation; and are entitled to high rank as illustrations of the application of the ideas of philosophy to the explanation of history. The former is an argument to prove that, in the progress of civilization, discoveries in science and inventions in art precede social and political improvements, in the order of cause and effect. This is asserted to be the law of the progress of the race; and its truth is illustrated by reference to the social and political consequences of the introduction iato Europe of gunpowder, the art of printing, the mariner's compass, and the more recent applications of the power of steam. The existence of such a law is here rather assumed than proved; but the evidence in favor of it is more fully set forth in the author's system of philosophy contained in the Panidea. Perhaps, however, a broader statement of this doctrine would have furnished a more solid basis or the argument. For if the improvenent of social and political institutions is a esult of discoveries and inventions in cience and art, these latter terms must be anderstood as comprehending all general ruths discovered, whether in the world of atter or the world of mind, together with heir applications. In the first instance, I such discoveries and inventions are made by the master spirits of the race; from them, they pass gradually into the common sense of the more intelligent portion of society; and finally become imbodied in social and political institutions. This, undoubtedly, is the law of the progress of civilization called, in more popular language, the order of Divine Providence in the world. The "Discourse" is an attempt-a very able one-to trace out the historical development of the idea of religious toleration. Its origin in history is detected in the minds of those who first suffered persecution for conscience' sake; it was dimly shadowed forth in the doctrines of the Waldenses and the Albigenses; the Protestant Reformation was the fruit of the idea, more fully understood; a still further unfolding of it steered the pilgrim's bark to this new continent; and at last, in its perfect development, it was made the corner stone of a civil state, erected, on the banks of the Mooshausic, by those who described themselves as "a poor colony, consisting mostly of a birth and breeding of the Most High, formerly from the mother-nation in the bishops' days, and latterly from the New England over-zealous colonies." There the pure idea of religious freedom was first incorporated into a constitution of government, in the immortal phrase, which concludes the compact made by the original settlers of Providence-" only in civil things." Having traced the doctrine of toleration up to this point, the "Discourse" proceeds to show its operation in the legislation of the town of Providence; where, indeed, the newly adopted principle stood a good chance of being well put to the test, for if Dr. Mather is to be credited, the settlement was "a colluvies of Antinomians, Familists, Anabaptists, Anti-Sabbatarians,_Arminians, Socinians, Quakers and Ranters; everything in the world but Roman Catholics and real Christians; so that if a man had lost his religion, he might find it at this general muster of opinionists." The action of this fundamental principle is next shown in the formation and government of the sister settlements of Newport, Portsmouth and Warwick, and the course of legislation after their union with Providence under the first charter, when, too, it was maintained in circumstances of most trying difficulty, growing out both of the domestic and the foreign relations of the Plantations. In short, the practical working of this great prolific truth of the freedom of conscience is ably, though briefly, exhibited not only in the whole course of Rhode Island legislation, and in its influence in forming the distinctive features of the Rhode Island character, but also in its remoter effects on the legislation of the other American States, and on the establishment of the Federal Constitution. Besides the main source of its interest, this Discourse derives also no little value from its very successful delineations of the character of the leading settlers of the Plantations. The picture introduced of the village of Providence, the principal theatre upon which these persons acted, is so good a specimen of the author's power of imaginative description, that we give place to it. "Would that it were in my power, by a mesmeric wave of the hand, to bring Providence before you, as she then was. You would see the natural Mooshausic, freely rolling beneath his primeval shades, unobstructed by bridge, unfringed by wharf or made land, still laving his native marge-here expanding in the ample cove-there winding and glimmering round point and headland, and, joyous in his native freedom, passing onward, till lost in the bosom of the broad-spreading Narragansett. You would see, beneath the forest of branching oak and beach, interspersed with dark-arching cedars and tapering pines, infant Providence, in a village of scattered log huts. You would see each little hut overlooking its own natural lawn, by the side of fountain or stream, with its first rude inclosure of waving corn; you would see the staunch-limbed draught-horse grazing the forest glade; you would hear the tinking of the cow-bell in the thicket, and the bleating of flocks on the hill; you would see the plain, home-spun human inhabitants-not such as tailors and milliners make, but such as God made; real men and women, with the bloom of health on their cheeks, and its elasticity and vigor in every joint and limb. Somewhat of an Arcadian scene this yet it is not, in reality, precisely what it seems." Historical Discourse, p. 13. Of this little community, even then divided into two hostile parties, Roger Williams and William Harris were the chief leaders. To the former is very justly ascribed the possession of two intellectual mits, which gave a strongly marked out line to his character-"originality of conception in design, and unyielding perseverance in execution." He represented the conservative element in the infant State; while the wrong-headed, but strongminded Harris, who contended that “whosoever conscientiously disbelieved the authority of human government, ought to be exempted from the operation of its laws," was the first Jacobin, and the head of the hopeful battalion of reformers in Providence. Graphic but brief descriptions are given, also, of the zealous John Clarke, the good Samaritan of Aquidneck; of William Coddington, staid and worthy, who "had in him a little too much of the future for Massachusetts, and a little too much of the past for Rhode Island;" and of Samuel Gorton, as profound as mystical, the clouds round about whom became, in certain aspects, transfigured even into a skirt of glory, as of one who looked on the face of God. Men like these, it was; who stamped their image indelibly on the Rhode Island character. Hence, that atbeen the birthright of all their descendtachment to freedom of opinion, which has ants, as well as that jealousy of the clerical order, which prevails even to this day among them. Hence, too, is it that, while tion than the Rhode Islanders, whether on none have displayed more gallantry of accently, been behind the other New Engour land or our lakes, they have, until reland States in their patronage of common schools, and the higher institutions of learning. The man of independent mind, not of cultivated tastes, has hitherto been their favorite exemplar. The man of mother wit-the advocate at the forum. who, not encumbered too much by other men's opinions, relied boldly on his own native resources, audax et semper paratus; the divine, who drew in his inspiration direct from the breath of the Almighty, and could make his boast that he had the landed proprietor, who administered never slept under the roof of a college: justice among his neighbors without the formalities of the courts, whose downright sense uttered itself in contemptuous defiwho swore by his own right hand and ance of the laws of the King's English, idols of the Narragansett commonwealth. changed not; these have been the popular Common sense-for there has been this advantage has not been displaced by education among the inhabitants of its hardy hill-sides; a practical ingenuity has existed, self-educated, along the course of its busy streams; a proud sense of personal independence has built its humble homes in the hunting grounds of Massasoit and Miantinomo; and while generations before the present saw in the State of the Anchor and of Hope, few monuments of an enlightened public sentiment, or of a banded Christian charity, they were preeminently distinguished for the possession of a strongly marked individuality of character, which has given rise to success in the diverse occupations of agriculture, commerce, manufactures and the mechanical arts, and has introduced into social intercourse the great charm of variety of disposition and unprohibited diversity of opinion. Nor should we omit to add that, in this rough granite of the Rhode Island character, may be found the basis for a superstructure, which shall be supported by all the virtues, and ornamented with the graces of the highest civilization. Already, indeed, a most admirable system of popular education is beginning to elevate and expand the native good sense of this people; the patronage of the higher seats of learning, formerly monopolized by a noble few, is now claimed as the honor of the many; and a new philanthropy, touched no less by the sufferings of the "mind diseas'd," than by the degradation of the mind uneducated, has just constructed a retreat, where to "Raze out the written troubles of the brain; And with some sweet oblivious antidote, Cleanse the charg'd bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart." The principal city of the State can now boast of a private library, second to none of its particular class in the country, and of a public one, rapidly increasing on a plan, in some respects, original and truly scientific; while such specimens of a chaste architectural taste are rising within its limits, such a growing interest in public improvements is passing out from this centre into all parts of the State, and appropriating a liberal share of the general wealth to works of utility and beauty, that one may almost behold, from afar, the coming of the time, when Rhode Island shall stand amid the larger republics, as fair and imperishable as stood the little temple of Vesta, surrounded by the over-topping fabrics of the Palatine and the Capitol, in the magnificent days when Rome was ruled by the Cæsars. In conclusion of this subject, and without repeating the observations made in the progress of our essay, let it be briefly added that in Judge Durfee were combined not only all the virtues of the earlier type of Rhode Island character, with but few of its defects, but also whatever in its development at the present day is most to be commended. Of the writings of Mr. Durfee, there remains but one to be mentioned, the greatest and the last,-though for reasons which need not here be stated, published anonymously. The Panidea has, indeed, found no readers. Ushered into the presence of our popular literature with a title so uninviting and uncouth, and with a table of contents, the phraseology of which was apparently as unintelligible as it was fantastic, it met with a reception not unlike that which might have happened to an unfashionably clad stranger, from parts unknown, who had intruded into genteel society without a friend to introduce, or a letter to accredit him. The intruder might, nevertheless. have descended from an exalted sphere of existence, though little known; and the work, in fact, is one which we hesitate not to pronounce the most remarkable metaphysical treatise written in this country since Jonathan Edwards's Inquiry into the Nature of the Will. If not a complete and elaborate intellectual system of the universe, it is, at least, a model in miniature of one-wrought with exceeding skill, harmonious in all its parts, entire within itself. Although, as in other branches of knowledge, the author's reading in philosophy was small, being confined chiefly to the writings of Coleridge, the English translations from Cousin, and some brief epitome of the history of metaphysics, yet the Panidea lays no claim to originality in its general results. It is a system of eclecticism; similar in most of its doctrines to those before advocated by the ideal or transcendental philosophy; sometimes resembling the views of Berkeley or Spinoza, and sometimes approaching to the conclusions of Fichte or Schelling. | Like the systems constructed by these cele- would be in vain to attempt to give either brated metaphysicians, it attempts to frame an analysis or a critique of such a work and establish such a conception of the as the Panidea. It may be sufficient for universe as shall get rid of the dualism of our purpose to call the attention of those the popular philosophy. While to the of our readers, who take an interest in human mind, the external world is declared metaphysical inquiries, to this work, as a in the Panidea to be a reality, and such a serious and, withal, not a presumptuous reality as our senses represent it to be, still, attempt to give, by a process of reasoning relatively to the mind of God, it is pro- somewhat novel, a new solution of those nounced to be no more than the imagery great problems in philosophy, which have of His own thoughts. That this repre- occupied the attention of the most gifted sentation of the external universe is the minds, but to which all the answers hitherto true one, is attempted to be proved by an worked out seem only distant approximaargument designed to show, that the so tions towards the truth. Persons not called primary qualities of matter no more familiar with metaphysical studies, would have an existence independent of the rea- probably find great difficulty in comson than have the secondary; and that, prehending so abstruse and spiritual a therefore, even to the reason, as it is man- scheme of philosophy; though no one, ifested in the human mind, matter is known who does understand it, will fail to peronly by the spiritual properties ascribed to ceive the extraordinary coherency as well it. But the human reason, it is declared, as subtilty of the arguments-to acdoes not differ, in substance, from the di- knowledge both the clearness with which vine reason in man is the omnipresent the conceptions are expressed, and the Logos, though limited in its action, by a aptness with which the demonstrations quasi freedom of the will, giving rise to a are illustrated-and to be favorably imquasi personal identity. This limitation is pressed by the moral spirit of the author, represented to be little less than abso- however false he may regard the premises lute," and of such a nature as to prevent of his reasonings, or however strongly the author's general view from degenerat- | he may feel himself called upon to depreing into pantheism and necessitarianism. cate the practical tendency of his conThere is, indeed, no lack of modes of ex- | clusions. pression, which, if not interpreted in accordance with the spirit and meaning of the whole theory, would as necessarily imply a belief in the pantheistic doctrine, as might even the expression of the Apostle Paul, if construed by itself, when he says that in God we live and move and have our being, or that of the Saviour himself when he declares not only himself and his Father, but his disciples also to be one. It may, perhaps, not be impossible to prove that the Panidea is pantheism; but such proof would, at once, introduce remediless confusion into the whole system of the author, and would have been sufficient to convince even himself that it was a fabric built upon the sands. That which entitles the Panidea to the rank of a system of philosophy, is, mainly, the originality of its method. The peculiarity of this can be understood only by a study of the work itself; though it may re be briefly characterized as a method monstration, founded on experiment. | the narrow limits of a review, it The construction of this system of metaphysics, was the work of a life-time. Some of the fundamental views contained in it, were committed to writing as early as during the author's connection with Congress; though the consolidation of his opinions into a logical theory took place. undoubtedly, at a much later period. ! Probably his philosophy would have been presented in a far more accessible form, had he lived to compose another work, long meditated, and which was designed to show the application of his metaphysical doctrines to the interpretation of history. But the execution of this purpose was frustrated by a disease which, though not occurring until the fifty-seventh year of his age, must be lamented as premature. In bringing this paper to a conclusion. we cannot forbear repeating the hope. that the entire writings of Chief Justice Durfee will be given to the public. Even the publication of the " What-cheer" made the name of its author favorably known to a large circle of readers in England; | questions will be asked here-they will be and his speculative writings, particularly, answered here. And let not a shallow are well worthy not only to be read in ridicule presume to deride that which his own country, but to occupy a per- it does not understand; nor a narrow manent rank in the history of its literature. | utilitarianism anathematize that which Hitherto the questions of metaphysical it knows not how to appropriate. Let philosophy have been discussed in the philosophy be tolerated in a country secluded groves of the Platonic academy, where all things beside are tolerated; or the still shade of the Stoic porch; in for thus will it be best improved. And the myrtle-scented villa of Tusculum, or when it raises its majestic voice so loud beneath the mingled palms and sycamores that the accents of it may be caught even of Alexandria; by the cloistered scholars amid the bustle of the Rhode Island loom of Germany, and by the great English and spindle, let us attend to the lessons minds of an era less enlightened than the which may be taught, in these new present. It remains to be seen what view circumstances, by the practical mind of is to be taken of those philosophical America; and cheerfully admit to the freeproblems, which necessarily arise in all dom of our republic of letters, the philosospeculative minds, in this new world-in pher who brings on his well prepared a land holding sacred the freedom of credentials the seal of that State, which opinions-in the soil of common sense was the first to lay its foundations on the and the practical understanding. These rock of "soul liberty." |