unity be given up, his moral unity cannot be preserved!

The author himself is the best exemplification of the man described in this account of the

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN APPREHENSION AND INTERPRETATION.

The difference between the ordinary visual gaze upon the external universe, and the interpreting glance of science, is felt by every cultivated understanding to be immeasurable;—and the contrast is not less between that dull sense of what passes within him, which is forced upon a man by mere practical experience, and the exact consciousness, the discriminative perception, the easy comprehension of his own (and, so far as they are expressed by faithful symbols, of others') states and affections, possessed by the patient analyst of thought and emotion, and careful collector of their laws. The mighty mass of human achievement and human failure, in intellectual research, in moral endeavor, in social economy and government, lapses into order before him, and distributes itself among the provinces of determinate laws. The structure of a child's perplexity, and the fallacies of the most ambitious hypothesis, lie open to him as readily, as to the artisan a flaw in the fabric of his own craft. The creations of art fall before him into their elements; and, dissolving away their constituent matter, which is an accident of their age, leave upon his mind their permanent form of beauty, as his guide to a true and noble criticism. The progress and the aberrations of human reason, in its quest of truth, are as clearly appreciated by him, as the passages of happy skill or ignorant roving in some voyage of discovery, when the outlines and relations of the sphere on which it is made become fully known. Discerning distinctly the different kinds of evidence appropriate to different departments of truth, and weighing the scientific value of every idea and method of thought, he is not at the mercy of each superficial impression and obtrusive phase presented to him by the subjects of his contemplation; but he attains a certain rational tact and graduated feeling of certainty in abstract matters of opinion, by which he escapes alike the miseries of undefined doubt, and the passions of unqualified dogmatism. In short, the great idea of Science is applied by him to the complicated workings of the mind of man; interprets the activities of his nature, and gives laws to the administration of his life; and, with wonderful analysis, investigates the properties, and establishes the equation, of their most labyrinthine curves.

What a rebuke upon dogmatic sciolists, what a glorious invitation to study, are conveyed in the genial, broad, mental hospitality of the succeeding paragraph!

NECESSITY OF LEARNING IN PHILOSOPHY.

If there is one department of knowledge more than another in which a contemptuous disregard of the meditations and theories of distant periods and nations is misplaced, it is in the philosophy of man,—which can have no adequate breadth of basis till it reposes on the consciousness and covers the mental experience of the universal race; and to construct which out of purely personal materials, is like attempting to lay down the curves and finish the theory of terrestrial magnetism on the strength of a few closet experiments. No man, however large-thoughted and composite his mind, can accept of himself as the type of universal human nature. It will even be a great and rare endowment, if, with every aid of exact learning and unwearying patience, he is able to penetrate the atmosphere of others' understanding, and to observe the forms and colors which the objects of contemplation assume, when beheld through this peculiar medium. Simply to avail one's self of the experience of mankind, and know what it has really been, demands no little scope of imagination and versatility of intellectual sympathy. When these qualities are so deficient in a thinker that he cannot well achieve this knowledge, it is a great misfortune to his philosophy; when the want is such that he does not even desire it, it amounts to an absolute disqualification. Without, therefore, pledging ourselves to the eclectic principles which prevail in the present school of philosophy in France, we must beware of the intolerant dogmatism of Bentham in England, sanctioned, as we have seen, by one of the masters of the antagonist metaphysics in Germany. Indeed, it will be a chief purpose of all my lectures to enable you to profit by the light of other minds; in every province of the vast region which we shall explore together, to indicate the paths which they have traversed before, nor ever to turn away from their points of discovery, without raising some rude monument at least of honest and commemorative praise. To introduce you to the works, to interpret the difficulties, to do honor to the labors, to review the opinions, of the great masters of speculative thought in every age and in many lands, will be an indispensable portion of my duty;—a task most arduous indeed, but than which none can be more grateful to one who loves to trace, through all their affinities, the indestructible types of truth and beauty in the human mind; and to mark the natural laws, connecting together the most opposite continents and climes of thought, as parts, successively colonized and cultivated, of one great intellectual world. But in addition to the study of the several classes of psychological and moral doctrine as they present themselves in the order of science, it will be important to spread out the literature of philosophy before us in the order of time; to gain an insight into the natural development of successive modes of thought on speculative subjects; to notice the action and reaction of philosophy and practical life; to ascertain whether opinion on these abstract matters really advances into knowledge and has any determinate progression, or whether it oscillates for ever on either side of some fixed idea, or line of mental gravitation. In short, having surveyed our subject systematically, we shall go over it again chronologically; and call upon philosophy, when it has recited its creed, and revealed its wisdom, to finish all by writing its history.

The hints given in Mr. Martineau's frequent references to the bearing of scientific knowledge and laws upon theological speculations are very important. We adduce a single example.

PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGION.

An accomplished and thoughtful observer of nature—Hugh Miller, the geologist—has somewhere remarked, that religion has lost its dependence on metaphysical theories, and must henceforth maintain itself upon the domain of physical science. He accordingly exhorts the guardians of sacred truth to prepare themselves for the approaching crisis in its history, by exchanging the study of thoughts for the apprehension of things, and carefully cultivating the habit of inductive research. The advice is excellent, and proceeds from one whose own example has amply proved its worth; and unless the clergy qualify themselves to take part in the discussions which open themselves with the advance of natural knowledge, they will assuredly be neither secure in their personal convictions nor faithful to their public trust. The only fault to be found with this counsel is, that in recommending one kind of knowledge it disparages another, and betrays that limited intellectual sympathy which is the bane of all noble culture. Geology, astronomy, chemistry, so far from succeeding to the inheritance of metaphysics, do but enrich its problems with new conceptions and give a larger outline to its range; and should they, in the wantonness of their young ascendency, persuade men to its neglect, they will pay the[Pg xxviii] penalties of their contempt by the appearance of confusion in