From this point of view we can now gain a clearer insight into the true idea and real office of philosophy properly so called. Striving as it does to unite all the various objects of mental pursuit, to complete in form the pyramid of human knowledge, to bring even the very foundations thereof to view, it may be regarded as the science of sciences, as that which shows the connexion and the basis of all the rest. The intellectual philosophy, accordingly, of any age may be regarded as the last word which the reason of that age pronounces, inasmuch as its laws, politics, arts, literature, and to a certain extent its peculiar views of religion also, are but the reflex of the philosophy which is then supreme. Or perhaps it might be more accurate were we to say, that the intellectual spirit of any epoch, that which manifests itself in the various channels of literary and practical life, finds in philosophy its highest expression, and shows there most clearly its real undisguised form.1

This will appear more evident if we consider that philosophy places every subject in its most abstract light, and seeks to bring every thing it touches upon into the region of clear and definite thought. Now there is in mankind at large a process of latent thought which is spontaneously produced by the spirit of the age in which they live, but is only seen and acknowledged by the mass in its outward and visible effects. Men, for the most part, view the thoughts and conceptions, by which their minds

1 Cousin, "Cours de Philosophie "-Introd. Leçon ix.

are governed, only in the peculiar phases which the literature, the arts, the religion of the age assume, -for these are the shrines on which the divinities they worship are represented in a symbolical form. On the other hand, the ideas which can only operate upon the mass of mankind through some external channel, and in some objective form, become to the philosopher strictly subjective. He strips them of all their exterior dress, separates the mere appendages from the essence, and views them, not as something out of himself, but as parts or products of his own individual consciousness. In the case of the former, the subject, which observes, entirely separates itself from the object, which is observed. The power of thought goes forth spontaneously, exerts itself spontaneously, and at length embodies itself unconsciously in various symbols, which are then looked upon as having an independent existence: in the philosopher, this same thought, which had been hitherto spontaneous, becomes reflective, and the distinction of subject and object is destroyed in the complete identity that takes place, when thought becomes the object of its own study and contemplation. It is in philosophy, therefore, that the thought of every age comes to the proper consciousness of itself, and appears stripped of the different dresses in which alone it is recognised by mankind at large.'

1 On this point see Cousin's "Cours de Philosophie "-Introduction, Leçon i.

In every period of the world there are some few great ideas or principles at work, which, though sunk deeply and almost hidden at the very core and centre of the spirit of the age, are yet working themselves outward, and impressing their shapes upon every feature of society. What do we mean when we speak of great problems, which are gradually evolving their own solution in the progressive advancement of human things? Is not the real meaning of such expressions something of this nature: That there is some great thought which is lying at present half unconsciously in the minds of the people, and which is emerging gradually but surely more and more into the light of day? Every age assuredly has some such thought, which appears and reappears in a thousand different forms. It shows itself in the habits and customs which then arise; it shows itself in the spirit of the laws and institutions which are then established; it shows itself in the different schools of the fine arts, which ever take the colouring and type of the age that gives them birth; it shows itself in the literature which is then most ardently pursued; and to no little extent does it show itself in the popular forms of religion, which then gain favour and celebrity. The thought which thus almost unconsciously governs the age, at length comes forth in its purest and most simple form, separated from all the extraneous material with which it is mixed up, by the severe analysis to which it is subjected in the crucible of an en

lightened philosophy. There is, if we look deep enough, an intellectual cause to be assigned for the customs and manners of society; there is a psychological ground, from which spring the different forms of law and government; similar reasons may be found for the rise of the imaginative arts, of the different fields of literary pursuit, and even of the various shades of religious worship; for there are but few comparatively who, uninfluenced by the spirit of the age, look through all the forms and phraseology even of Christianity itself, and gaze face to face upon the eternal ideas which they embody. It is the spirit of philosophy, therefore, that is to search for the ground of all these multifarious phenomena, to look under the surface for the ideas from which they all spring; to trace every manifestation of intelligence in human society to those primary laws of our constitution to which they all owe their birth, and to seek thus the completion of our knowledge by laying bare the whole superstructure down to the simple foundation on which it all reposes. Such attempts accordingly we consider to be inevitable, called forth as they are by the natural impulse of the human mind to investigate truth to its most universal and abstract forms, and to discover the primary elements from which all knowledge takes its rise.'

1 It was my hope and intention that the above illustrations should make evident the sense in which I understand the term Philosophy to be properly used. I fear I have not been altogether successful. Dr Chalmers (North Brit. Rev. Feb. 1847) assuming a peculiar defini

SECT. IV.-Primary Elements of Human
Knowledge.

The advancement of human knowledge we have already seen to be indicated by the progress of accurate generalisation. The most ordinary ideas. of mankind are the most complex, and the effect of the united process of abstraction and generalisation is gradually to simplify them, until we arrive at the ultimate elements of which they consist. We may illustrate this by a reference to the progress of chemical science. The objects of nature by which we are surrouuded are extremely complex, and the forms which they assume infinitely diversified. The chemist begins his researches by classifying them under different heads; by noting down certain properties which many in common possess, until he gradually arrives at the knowledge of simpler materials. As his investigation goes on, the analysis becomes more close and accurate, and the ultimate point at which it all tends is to discover the original elements of which the whole material universe consists. In the same manner, the object of the metaphysician is to analyse thought, to reduce the multiplicity of our mental phenomena to a few tion (that which reduces all philosophy to one small section of it,— namely, Psychology), contends that I have greatly magnified its office. Of course I have, if all I meant to include in it is mental philosophy. But no mistake can be greater than to suppose philosophy and psychology to be here taken as identical.