spirit of their Titan predecessors, and suffer the miseries of life on that account. Το submit themselves in patience to the will and worship of Zeus is the way to happiness and restoration. The profound woes of men shall then cease, their ardent longings after lasting joy will then be gratified, and "the golden age" will come.

The chief philosophic queries mooted here are-why is the lot of man a lot of woe?— whence and how may release be attained?-what are the duties of man under the burden of life? There is here, obviously, the awakening of reflection; the tendency to speculative thought is here manifest; the chrysalis is beginning to unfold its wings for the first time to the inviting breeze. At this juncture of events two differing dominant powers— Imagination and Reason being developed in the Greek mind-Poetry and Philosophy, arose. Homer and Hesiod gave individuality and distinctness, names and forms, to the fanciful myths of the Orphic bards, and decorated the old belief with the festooned flowers of poesy, while "the seven sages," adapting these philosophic myths to the practical purposes of life, proverbialized the knowledge of human nature which they had attained, and first gave a verbal embodiment to the contemplative and reflective wisdom which had then begun to dawn, however dimly, on the intellectual horizon. These opot-wise men, were, unquestionably, very different in individual culture and capacity; but they possessed that power over their fellows which man never fails to yield to mental excellence or moral worth. This power they seem also to have used most nobly. Seldom has the pen of history inscribed on her pages the names of purer philanthropists or more disinterested lawgivers than in these early ages; nor, all things considered, have many wiser or nobler men had the diadem of immortality placed upon their brow, or their names heralded to after times, by the melodious voice of Fame.

Zaleucus, the Locrian, Charondas, of Catanea, Triptolemus and Draco, of Athens, Lycurgus, of Lacedæmon, and Minos and Rhadamanthus, of Crete, deserve especial mention as the initiators of philosophic Legislation; but there were seven men to whom the honourable title of "sages" has been awarded by the unanimous voice of antiquity, to whom in consequence we must call particular attention, and whom it would be unjust to pass unnoticed. To them we shall devote our succeeding article.

In the Orphic poets we have seen the beginning of a gradual transformation of Religion into reflective and deliberate philosophy. In our next paper we shall see that "the seven sages" wrought Legislation out into a philosophical development; and we shall then be enabled to perceive how Religion and Law are the parents of Philosophy, and for a period after its birth its natural guardians. But we shall also perceive that an era inevitably succeeds in which philosophy asserts its self-hood, and seeks its own inheritance in the domain of thought. In the conscious possession of untried and indefinite powers, looking forth into the vague and mysterious Future with all the increased means which progressive knowledge may attain, the soul swells at the prospect of unravelling the clue of causes and effects which constitutes the universe, and perhaps entertains a faint and halfacknowledged expectation of laying hold, at last, upon the mighty hand that wound or winds it. Grand, though hopeless task! Shrouded in mystery, the God of Nature is, and must ever remain; he is The Inscrutable to all who seek to know him wholly in his works of creation and providence rather than chiefly in his grace. To such he must still be "the unknown God." But is the sinning child's yearning even thus for its heavenly Father presumptuous or blasphemous? Far, very far, from it! Philosophy may not

explain the nature and the attributes of the JEHOVAH; but if it shows us our wantour need; if it points out to us the correct pathway of investigation; if it enables us to judge rightly and to accept gladly of the revelation which he in mercy makes of himself, it is an invaluable good. May the philosophy which we teach be that which harmonizes free thought with godliness, which advocates not only the love of charity, but the charity of love.

Philosophy.

HAVE WE SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE TO PROVE THAT COMMUNICATIONS ARE NOW MADE TO MAN FROM A SPIRITUAL WORLD?

AFFIRMATIVE ARTICLE.-II.

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our Lord himself raised Lazarus from the Nature and the natural universe. For indead in order to produce belief; and it is re-stance, the conditions of space and time, and corded that " many of the Jews who had the properties of materiality and inertia, are seen the things which Jesus did (in the the predicates of the natural universe, and matter of raising Lazarus from the dead) are not at all applicable to spiritualities, believed on him." This actual incident, except in the way of parabolic relation. therefore, meets point blank W. G. D.'s argu- Moreover, in dealing with scripture parables ment founded on the parable. We will here in this way, we must be careful to note the notice the absurd construction W. G. D. has relative aspects which one spiritual being or attempted to foist upon a passage in "Ben- thing bears to another, since these relations jamin's" article-a construction, however, will affect the details of the parabolic narwhich it will not bear. Benjamin" dis- rative, which, as it were, translates them tinctly says that spiritual communications into natural appearances. In coming to view or manifestations will not be effectual to pro- that particular parable we have under notice duce belief in "all doubters and deniers"- in this way, we observe that the "rich man that there is a class of these whose doubt and Lazarus" are represented as being, reand denial proceed from a moral aversion to spectively, in "hel!" and "Abraham's bosom," religion, its "provisions and restraints," and or heaven-that the one sees the other "afar that of such a class are "those of whom it is off"-that oral communication is effected, written, 'If they hear not Moses and the but that " 'a great gulf betwixt" them preprophets, neither would they believe though vents either passing to the other. Now, one arose from the dead." W. G. D., in his abstracting the merely natural circumstances attempted reductio ad absurdam, has conve- of space, time, and materiality, from these niently left out of consideration the essential particulars, we have heaven and hell not word "all," which would defeat his purpose, places or localities, but states, respectively, since by it is implied that some-those "whose of the blessed and the damned. By their doubts take their rise from the intellect mere- appearing "afar off" is represented the conly"-are susceptible of faith in virtue of spi- trariety of these states, while the great ritual manifestations, and they are the indi- gulf" betwixt them-so described in virtue viduals indicated, for whose benefit the spiri- of the aspects it presents to each respectively tual communications in question are permitted. -denotes an intermediate state, which conW. G. D. professes to have "studied hard to fines their respective spheres. This interarrive at the meaning" of the above-noticed mediate state is just that for which we conpassage. If he had "studied hard" to mis- tended. That its uses for preparatory purposes represent it, he could scarcely have hit upon in respect to recently departed souls should a more ingenious method for his purpose. not be specified or alluded to in this connexion was to be expected, since it answered the purpose of the parable to represent "the rich man and Lazarus" each in his final state of woe and blessedness respectively. That this intermediate state may be the scene of communications between heaven and hell, and thus a sphere where their contrary influences may have play, is denoted by the "oral communication" which is represented as being enacted between the "rich man" in "hell" and "Lazarus” in “Abraham's bosom;" and herein it is shown to answer the uses, in respect to "equilibrium," which "Benjamin” has ascribed to it.

It is a little singular that W. G. D. should suppose the parable of "the rich man and Lazarus" "shuts out" the doctrine of "hades," or the "intermediate state," since some have supposed that it supplies a confirmation of the doctrine in question. "Parables (says W. G. D.) are pictures of what might be." We may go further than this, and say they are representations of spiritual things and conditions made under natural images, so as to accommodate them to the natural apprehension, which otherwise might lose all knowledge of spiritualities for want of ideas adequate to its powers. But if we would extract any "general information as to the constitution and nature of the spiritual universe" from these sources (parables), we must be careful to abstract all those properties and conditions which are proper only to

Again, W. G. D., in allusion to a judgment scene which is described in Matt. xxv. 31— 46, asks, "What saith the Master when calling the wanderers home?" "What mention of 'hades' is here made?" "Why are

Christ and his apostles silent upon a place of so much importance as this?" But let W.G.D. ask himself the question, What sphere might be the scene of this judgment? It could not be either heaven or hell, since the blessed and cursed respectively are sent to these final states of being. It could not be earth; since disembodied spirits, such as may be the subjects of a judgment which assigns them to heaven or hell, "are not made up of flesh and blood, they are immaterial." Neither could earth be the scene of the Lord "in his glory, and all the holy angels with him." It could only be, therefore, an intermediate state, or common receptacle of departed souls, which is here implied, and is implied throughout "the teaching of Christ and his apostles." No wonder that the passages of scripture quoted by our friend "Benjamin" should appear "strange" to W. G. D., when the circumstance of his denying such an "intermediate state" as is implied in the case of the "spirits in prison," who were "preached to," and the "souls under the altar," who "should rest yet a little season," precludes the possibility of resolving them into any coherent sense.

was

regard to the passage in the Apostles' Creed, "He descended into hell," we have already seen what is the tenour of the learned Bishop Pearson's authority. This may be adduced as an offset to the opinion of W. G. D., and something more. Still W. G. D. urges in favour of his opinion-"Why not? They say he suffered in man's stead. Why, then, is it so very strange to think that he was three days and three nights in hell, when that was the place to which man doomed?" We reply, in conformity with what we have already advanced, that hell is a state and not a place, and presence in a state implies unisonance of character or condition with that state. But the result of our Lord's life in this lower world was to make his humanity divine; and this by a process which may be represented as analogous to that according to which man is regenerated in his nature, and made angelic. Our Lord, who was of divine conception, started from the highest plane of being, and resulted in a perfect unition with Deity. His death on the cross was the last purifying process which completed his deification, even to his human body; hence he "rose again W. G. D. insinuates the identity of the on the third day and ascended into heaven," "intermediate state" with the Romish doc- and is now, in his character as God-man, or trine of purgatory. But it is a sufficient the Divine Humanity, the true and proper answer to this, that "hades" was a recog- object of christian worship. Hence the nized part of christian belief long before the "Sun of Righteousness" could no more be church at Rome" assumed its present dis- present in that state of spiritual darkness tinctive features. Bishop Pearson, in the known as hell than the natural sun could notes to his "Exposition of the Creed," under shine at midnight. Thus, when the implied the article, "He descended into hell," gives conditions are known, the "idea" of the numerous extracts from the writings of the Lord's descent into hell (the place of punishGreek and Latin Fathers, which contain a ment) of itself "perishes." W. G. D. takes distinct recognition of “hades,” an interme- exception to the uses of the “intermediate diate state and receptacle of departed souls. state," as set forth by the opener of this Dr. T. Burnet, too, whom no one will accuse debate. "Benjamin's" text is " no man atany leaning towards Romanism, in his tains to so perfect a nature as to be wholly work "On the State of the Dead," says, free from errors imbibed, or evil habits con"The reformed divines, to avoid the terrors tracted, during his natural life; and these of purgatory, have entirely taken away the results attach to the soul or spirit, as the intermediate state; as we are too apt in real essential man; hence he is not fit for avoiding one folly to run into another." "It that state of perfect society we understand is very well known (he continues) that the by heaven. On the other hand, no man, Romish purgatory is adapted to the humours while living in the world, is so wholly diof the people and the gains of the priest; vested of good, derived from the knowledge but why should these phantasms fright us of truth and natural affection, as to be Åt away from the search after truth, and the for immediate consignment to hell." Hence opinions of the ancients concerning the he concludes "to the existence of an intermehitherto unfulfilled state of misery and hap-diate state, or common receptacle of departed piness, before the day of judgment." În spirits, where one class, viz., those principled