1842.] Emerson's Oration. 221 which rises for ever out of the eastern sea, and be ourselves the children of the light. I stand here to say, let us worship the mighty and transcendant soul.” P. 27. Again: Accept the intellect, and it (!!) will accept us. Be the lowly ministers of that pure omniscience, and deny it not before men.' - p. 28. Now such language, however wild or mystical, might perhaps be capable of a sound interpretation were it but a casual expression; such, however, is not the case. It is the very exponent of their whole system. The soul of man, as being in fact and truth identical with God, is the key to all their blasphemous rhapsodies. "Not thanks, nor prayer," says Emerson," seem quite the highest or truest name for our communication with the Infinite, but glad and conspiring reception -reception that becomes giving in its turn as the receiver is only the all-giver in part and in infancy. Not of adulation," he adds, we are too nearly related in the deep of mind to that we honor."— p. 6. How little of" adulation" these worshippers give to God and his blessed Son, it is almost painful to note. "I am God," is "a truth of thought," says Emerson, and "a lie only to the ear." "All things are mine," is the language he ascribes to God, "and all mine are thine." - p. 6. So, too, of our blessed Lord, his words elsewhere are: "The true Christianity, a faith like Christ's in the infinitude of man, is lost. None believeth in the soul of man, but only in some man or person old and departed—that is, in Jesus Christ." Such, then, is the blasphemous rant of one whose heart and intellect, we well believe, God hath tuned for better things before he call him to his account, and such the teaching contained in a discourse actually delivered before the divinity school of Cambridge. Who but must wonder to see such teacher there sitting "in Moses's seat," the seat of rigid Calvinistic orthodoxy? Who but must shudder to hear of such teaching passing as Christian with a Christian audience? and who but must learn from it the all-needful lesson, how quickly man's wisdom becometh folly when it deserts the oracles of God?. how surely the Christian ministry sinks into nothingness when it falls away from the apostolic platform-how silently, yet how fearfully, religion itself melts into the rhapsodies of sentimental pantheism, even in the purest and noblest of minds, when entrusted but to human reason to teach it, and to a church of man's creation to guard, explain and enforce it? But we will, before closing, do justice to our praise, as well as censure, of Mr. Emerson's oration. Of nature he thus speaks as truly as beautifully: atom. "How silent, how spacious! what room for all, yet without place to insert an In graceful succession, in equal fulness, in balanced beauty, the dance of the hours goes forward still. Like an odor of incense, like a strain of music, like a sleep it is inexact and boundless. It will not be dissected, nor unravelled, nor shown. Away, profane philosopher! seekest thou in nature its cause? This refers to that, and that to the next, and the next to the third, and every thing refers. Thou must ask in another mood; thou must feel it and love it; thou must behold it in a spirit as grand as that by which it exists ere thou canst know the law. Known it will not be, but gladly beloved and enjoyed."— p. 10. Or, to take his closing words, the outburst of what we should term a holy confidence, could we but find in his system any solid ground for such lofty feeling: "I draw from this faith courage and hope. All things are known to the soul. It is not to be surprised by any communication. Nothing can be greater than it. Let those fear and those fawn who will. The soul is in her native realm, and it is wider than space, older than time; wide as hope, rich as love. Pusillanimity and fear she refuses with a beautiful scorn; they are not for her who putteth on her coronation robes, and goes out through universal love to universal power." How beautiful and how true! were it not baseless as the wind, and stained, moreover, with the pride of the infidel mind. 3. An Epitome of the History of Philosophy, being the Work adopted by the University of France for Instruction in the Colleges and High Schools. Translated from the French, with Additions, and a Continuation of the History from the time of Reid to the present day, by C. S. HENRY, D.D., Professor of Philosophy and History in the University of the City of New York. In two Volumes. New York: 1841. Harper and Brothers. THESE Volumes form the one hundred and forty-third and one hundred and forty-fourth numbers of that valuable series, published by the Messrs. Harpers, under the title of the Family Library. It may have contained more popular treatises, but none, we think, more useful in the highest sense to which that much abused word is applied. A work of this kind in English was certainly needed; a work that should be elementary, comprehensive, didactic, and at the same time, adapted to popular reading, as far as, consistently with the nature of the subject, this latter object could be accomplished. Enfield's history is not designed for general circulation, and is comparatively useless in consequence of not being brought down to the period of those new developments, which the subject has undergone within the present century. We allude by this, not so much to new discoveries, as to the peculiar aspect which philosophic inquiries have assumed. Philosophy seems to have paused to 1842.] Henry's History of Philosophy. 223 contemplate itself, to review its past efforts, and connecting them with the present, to gather from all quarters those elements of truth which, by their interest, have ever kept the human mind engaged in their anxious search, and to discover the sources of those errors which, by mingling with these truths, have ever prevented their being formed into a complete and satisfactory system. It is this species of eclecticism which forms one of the peculiar features of modern philosophic investigation. Whether this method is calculated to lead to better results than the vigorous pursuit of some one system until its truth or falsity are clearly shown, we are not prepared to decide. It may be safely asserted, however, that those who pursue it have superior advantages for writing an impartial history of philosophy, and are less likely to be led into distorted accounts by exclusive attachment to any one system as a whole. The intelligent reader cannot fail being struck with the truth of this remark, on contrasting the present work with that of Tenneman, in which every thing is colored, and many things essentially changed by the peculiar medium in which the author thought and wrote. All who are in any degree familiar with the subject, must concede to the present work the high merit of the utmost fairness. We can unreservedly trust its statements of the opinions of the different schools of philosophy, although we might not yield our entire assent to that eclectic system, to which its authors may perhaps be regarded as inclined. The translator, Dr. Henry, has contributed what are decidedly some of the most valuable portions of the work. The section (by him) on supernaturalism and mysticism, contains an admirable sketch of the philosophy of Cudworth, the most genuine Platonist since the days of Plato himself. He has also supplied a great deficiency in the original work, by his history of the English philosophy between the periods of Locke and Reid. The appendix is wholly by the translator, and brings down the history of philosophy from Reid to the present time. It is this portion of the work with which we have been most pleased. We have been particularly interested in his account of the philosophy of Bentham, and his clear and accurate discrimination between him and Hobbes, in which he shows that the former departed from his one fundamental principle, by confounding personal and social utility. The section on Brown, and the difference between him and Stewart, also possesses great value, and especially on account of the fact, that careless and superficial readers have generally regarded these writers as belonging in all respects to the same school. Admitting, however, that this is an excellent history of philosophy, some might perhaps ask, cui bono? Why should it have a place in such a popular series as the Family Library, to the exclusion of more practical works? We reply, that this is a practical work, a useful work, in the highest sense in which the term can be employed. A careful perusal suggests two ideas of the utmost practical value to every thoughtful mind; first, that the human soul has ever been struggling after something which may be styled absolute truth, with a conviction of the reality of the object of its search, which the failures of many centuries could not weaken; and secondly, that this intense inquiry has, in the main, resulted only in a mass of contradictions, furnishing the most melancholy proof of the imbecility of human reason, and its utter incompetency as a sure guide to those higher truths which lie beyond the region of phenomena or sensation. From this, any one who reads such a work with that degree of thought which it demands, must derive a conclusion of the highest practical utility. Either the human mind must sink down into the despair and utter darkness of scepticism, or there must be a revealed standard of absolute truth of the highest kind, accommodated to all conditions, and expressed not in the conflicting and indefinite phraseology of human philosophy, but in "those words by which the Holy Spirit teacheth," a standard making known, in clear and explicit terms, the true relation between man and God, and from thence deriving the only ground on which there can be a true revelation of man to himself. That there must be such a thing as implicit faith in an authority higher than reason, is the solemn lesson taught by a history of philosophy, and such we believe to be the lesson which every sober mind will derive from the perusal of these volumes. In this way the authors and publishers have rendered an essential service to the community. It is boasted that the theatres have been superseded by the more intellectual pleasures of the lecture-room. May we not hope, from the appearance of such publications in a popular series, for an improvement still more salutary, when the superficial and oft-times erroneous instructions of the crowded lecture-room shall give place to the select reading of the social and domestic circle? Certain are we that all the literary exhibitions which nightly call forth the inhabitants of our principal cities, cannot furnish as substantial food to the meditative mind, as the thoughtful perusal of this and similar productions, revealing the melancholy failures of human reason in its noblest efforts, and thus silently, yet powerfully pointing us to Him who has declared himself" the way, the truth, and the life." 4. Democracy. By GEORGE SYDNEY CAMP. New York: 1841. Harper and Brothers. Family Library, No. 138. 12mo. pp. 244. WHO Mr. Camp is we know not, nor do we think the literary public is as yet acquainted with his name; but he is evidently a writer of more than ordinary boldness of thought, and power in un 1842.] folding and enforcing it. Sound, however, we cannot hold him to be, though with less deviation from it in his practical conclusions than we should anticipate from his theoretical principles. He is evidently a man of strong natural sagacity, not unread as a scholar and historian, and not to be lightly encountered as a logical reasoner-and yet, withal, he is not wise he is not what his subject demands him to be a philosopher-nor, what is also highly needful, he is not, as we conjecture, a travelled observer -one who has seen with his own eyes the working of other systems besides his own, and balanced them in the only safe scales- those of a liberal experience. We may be wrong, however, in this conjecture, but still we cannot conceive the possibility of one who has actually witnessed the operation of limited monarchy in England, or even of the patriarchal autocracies of Denmark, or Austria, passing upon them the sweeping condemnation which he does, of an unmitigated evil and tyranny. But to the work. His motto is from one whose speculations on democracy seem to have given rise to his own. "A new science of politics," says De Tocqueville, " is indispensable in a new world." Upon this hint Mr. Camp has spoken, and brought forth what may well be termed a "new science of politics," inasmuch as it discards the fundamental principles of every other treatise on this subject, ancient and modern, charges folly on all who have lived before him, and threatens destruction to every other form of government, except the pure democracy which he eulogizes no matter how congenial that form may be to the wants or wishes of the people, or however wisely and virtuously administered. Preceding admirers of democracy have been content with making it the best of all possible forms of government. Mr. Camp goes further, and boldly asserts it to be the only form all else is founded and supported by fraud, tyranny, and corruption alone nor is any plea of mitigation to be admitted for a government not purely democratic siderations of expediency- no peculiar circumstances -no attachment of the people no reverence for old established names and usages no prescriptive rights, were it even of ten thousand years" none of these things are to weigh for one moment against man's "inalienable, indefeasible rights of self-government," and the only bar to every man's immediate enforcement of these rights withheld, being the fear that all things are not yet quite ripe for revolt. - 66 -no con Now, that these assertions are doing our author no injustice, we quote at hazard a few of his own, in his own words: "We must be original and independent in our politics. To say that republicanism is the best, while we admit other forms to be legitimate, is occupying but very debatable ground in favor of our own institutions."- p. 127: "An individual has the same right to be independent that a nation has." p. 89. "Man is by NATURE, independently of adventitious circumstances, competent to govern himself."—p. 83. NO. XIX.-VOL. X. 29 |