Euclid. This philosophy was very favourable to the cultivation of logic, which science was again applied to morals, which were then the peculiar province of the Protestant clergy. But, generally speaking, they founded them on the Holy Scriptures, while the more critical theologians and the philosophers based all moral obligation on dry mathematical deductions." By degrees, the influence of art, called forth questions on the beautiful and sublime, which in Germany are comprised under the word æsthetics; music was brought to its highest degree of perfection, sentimentality gained ground both in poetry and religion; produced all circumstances which called for a closer investigation of the feelings, and which necessarily drove the dry mathematical philosophy of the seventeenth century from the field. Mendelssohn, Reimarus, Platner, Abt, Sulzer and others, collected every experience of psychology, and advanced a variety of systems respecting the operations of the soul, which ultimately enabled Kant to build up his own system, which has formed so great an epoch in German philosophy. Kant,' says our author, as great through his mind as through his high position on the pyramidal elevation of all former philosophers, became the founder of that great epoch of German philosophy, from which the last century is dignified by the appellation of the philosophical. Kant builds his philosophy on the nature of man. He examined the human organs by which he receives his perceptions; and showed that we can not inquire what the world is, but only in what manner we perceive it. His philosophy was criticism of pure reason.' Kant met with much opposition: many, alarmed by his new terminology, asserted that he had done nothing more than give new names to well known philosophical positions; while others again opposed his doctrines of æsthetics and morals, or even attacked the basis of his philosophy. The latter was particularly the case with some of those who had been at first his most ardent disciples. The position, that all our knowledge must ever be relative, seemed too great a tie to those ardent minds, who, notwithstanding the experience of ages, cannot persuade themselves that absolute knowledge is unattainable by man. Kant, in demonstrating that all our conceptions of the world are subjective, or in the soul, did not, like Berkley, deny the existence of the objects themselves. All we know of them, he says, is the sensations they produce in us; they are the primary cause of these sensations, but what they are besides, we shall never learn, unless we obtain the faculty of transporting ourselves out of our being. Therefore, those who sought for absolute knowledge, separated themselves. Some went absolutely to deny the existence of any thing out of the soul, while others made the conceptions of the soul dependent on the essence of the outward object; while others, again, assumed an absolute identity between soul and matter, the perception and the object perceived. Kant viewed all the organs of the human soul as the emanation of one great capacity, and rendered equal justice to all; while others have each taken up some separate organ for their peculiar study and development. One took more interest in nature, another in morals, a third in logic, on each of which he built his separate system. The most important result of these party views,' says Mr. M. is the consistency which Kant has brought into them. All philosophies are con nected with his, as either springing from, or being opposed to it. All which divides the parties, is founded on the contrasts of conditional and absolute knowledge, the subjective consciousness, and the objective world, and again, on those of the individual organs of consciousness, and the corresponding series in the objective world.' There are, however, many who, having remained faithful to the principles of Kant, have continued, and continue still, to investigate and criticise the mental faculties and their perceptions; and while others dogmatically explain what the world is, they modestly continue to inquire, how do we perceive the world? On which our author beautifully observes, No doubt both tend to promote science. Absolutism is an eternal evolution of the mental faculties, through genius; criticism insures their harmony. When the critics demonstrate to what limit the human mind may penetrate; it is well that the absolutists do penetrate to it. Although every philosopher should be obliged at the end of his career to exclaim; with Socrates, that it is the greatest wisdom to know that we know nothing! no one will become a philosopher who believes in this axiom. The greatest of those who, rejecting the relation between the soul and matter, and who reduced the whole of philosophy to the absolutism of the mind, was Fichte. His system was a triumph of the intellect too flattering to human vanity not to have had many enthusiastic adherents. It required, however, no uncommon skill of logic, to defend such an extravagant position as this for any length of time; nor has there ever been a philosopher who dis played greater powers of the intellect, and a more gigantic strength of will, than Fichte. Mr. M. justly calls him a brave spirit.' His whole sysem tended to establish an absolute morality, springing from the omnipotence of the will, independent of every external motive, even that of religion. It was, however, impossible to keep long in this extreme of idealism. It had been favoured by the spirit of abstract reasoning, so prevalent in Europe during the age of the French encyclopædists. But this age was succeeded by that of natural inquiry. The discoveries made in the organization of matter, again revived the doctrine of a spiritual principle of pantheism in nature, and the absolute dominion of the understanding lost its sway. Besides the enthusiasm for art and beauty, which, encouraged by the writings of Winkelmann, Göthe, Schiller and others, began to predominate about the same time, awakened the gentler feelings, and added still farther to the love of nature and its more intimate study. Schelling again took up the relation between subject and object, and raised them to absolute identity. Having, in the first instance, to contend against the rationalism of Fichte, he exerted himself to demonstrate the organism in nature, and vindicate its spirituality, which made him appear to many as a mere natural philosopher. Schelling's doctrine, however, seems to be founded on a dualistic identity of matter and spirit, both appearing to him mere emanations or phenomena of the divinity. He therefore shows no predilection for either spirit or nature, but reviews them in a parallel course, and binds them up into one general mass. In both spirit and matter, he sees but the agency of two principles: that of organization, and that of destruction; and through these he endeavours to demonstrate the great enigma of the world. Schelling's school, again, has been split into two parts, according to its elements. Oken, the greatest naturalist Germany perhaps ever produced, places the identity of spirit and nature in the spiritual character of nature, while Hegel considers nature as a mere reflection of the material character of the spirit. Schelling and the whole of his school are mystic, that is to say, they endeavour to abstract the divine idea, not by the strict arguments of logic, but by a mysterious combination of spirit and matter; as they may reflect themselves in a poetical mind, but as they can never be demonstrated. Indeed, their style is more apodistical than argumentative; they present their feelings as absolute truths; and the poetical obscurity, or dazzling rhetoric of their diction; and still more, the vast knowledge of nature they generally display, have procured them a very extensive influence. Kant, by his deep investigations; his close analysis, coupled with the utmost urbanity and tolerance, made an impression on science and literature never to be effaced. By the impulse he gave, the sciences were studied more systematically, and with greater application; criticism of every kind became more enlightened and elevated; and the psychological studies, to which his anthropological system gave rise, gave to that host of sentimental novels, pastorals, domestic plays, satires, &c.-which were first called into existence through the imitation of French and English works of the same class-that turn of originality, which, in both their faults and excellencies, gives them a national character. Fichte stood too high; his system was too absurd to be extensively felt in its effects. It is true, that the dream of moral regeneration, which, proceeding from France, then agitated all the enthusiasts in the civilized world, induced many historians, politicians, and instructors, to embrace the sublime doctrine of this philosopher. But it was but a dream, from which most of them were roused by the horrid effects of the French revolution. Schiller, and as far as we are able to understand him, Novalis (Hardenberg) seem to have been the only poets of distinction who followed Fichte. Both,' (Fichte and Schiller) says Mr. Menzel, dived into their proud hearts, and challenged the human will to the combat with the sensuality and weakness of the age; both contended chivalrously for freedom, honour, and virtue, and both have sunk early in the stream against which they struggled.' But Schelling's philosophy, corresponding so fully with the misty darkness of the modern romantic school, has found many adherents among the poets of this class, such as Tieck, the two Schlegels (especially the late Frederic), Arnim, and Brentano. As regards natural philosophy, there is a contest between the experimentalists and mere collectors of facts, and the philosophers. The former are content to arrange and analyse all natural productions, as far as they are perceptible to the human senses; while the philosophers endeavour to penetrate to the essense of substances, and find out the general cause of all phenomena, the centre from which they justly suppose all natural appearances to diverge. The effort is praiseworthy, as it is at least a noble exercise of the mind; besides, it will, like the seeking of the philosopher's stone, undoubtedly lead to discoveries at which our merely practical men would never arrive. And although it should not-if in our own bustling and practical country, we have neither the inclination nor the leisure to enter into vague speculations-let us, at least, not scoff at men, who, whether from living under different circumstances, or from a natural bent of their minds, employ their mental faculties in such high and disinterested pursuits. Our men of science know that the Germans have not been idle in the accumulation of facts; but, as Mr. M. observes, Germany will never be a mere lumberroom for all sorts of knowledge.' ART. VIII.—Missionary Journal of the Rev. J. Wolff, Missionary to the Jews. Vol. III. London: Duncan. 1829. THERE is a touch of chivalry in the character of the missionary Wolff, which interests, in spite of themselves, even those who are opposed to his style of preaching. He enters upon a mission like a knight of old, dashing proudly into the midst of a tournament, ready to break a spear with all comers; one only idea engrossing his thoughts, one only hope animating his heart. He turns not to the right nor to the left; he allows no mingling of other thoughts, no interruption of the oneness of that hallowed purpose which is the beginning and the end of his labours, even by such considerarations of policy and prudence, as might eventually promote its success. He laughs at any thought of utility, which is not a direct utility; he despises, we believe, Št. Paul himself for working occasionally at his trade of tent-making, instead of labouring, in season and out of season, at his apostolical vocation. On the occasion of a miserable luke-warm creature, who was neither hot nor cold in the cause, telling him that a missionary ought to learn a little medicine, for the purpose of enabling him to gain a livelihood, he quotes the saying of Schiller, respecting science :-"To some she is the sublime and heavenly goddess; to others, a fat cow, who procures butter for them." Religion, adds he, is to pater Isaiah nothing else than a milch-cow. The abruptness of his speech, and the paucity of the words in which he conveys a gigantic meaning, are in excellent keeping with the rapidity of his movements-the natural mercurialism of his constitution. "Tramp, tramp, across the land he speeds, appearing like a spirit in the path of the infidel, to "shew his W. Jesus of Nazareth, of the descendants of David, according to the prediction of the Scriptures, and the Son of God, according to the prediction of the Scriptures, whom our ancestors have slain; He is the only one, who is able to send redemption to Israel; He is the Messiah, the long expected Messiah, who will put on your head a crown of glory; and He designs you to become a kingdom of priests, a kingdom of true believers; and then you shall live in peace with your adversaries, who will see and understand, that they have to learn the will of the Lord from the children of Zion, and the word of the Lord from the children of Jerusalem. There will be no crying among you, and your tears shall be wiped away; and then you shall see that Jesus Christ, who was in former times despised and rejected of our brethren-despised and rejected of Israel, whose brother He was. He will be the King of Kings, and the, Lord of Lords. He will say to you, "My people !" and ye shall say to Him, "My God!"'—p. 23. It would be gross injustice, however, not to acknowledge that |