cursive, but must always be fixed. By the word discursive, we have always understood, in similar connections, the act of illation,drawing inferences from premises. Now, supposing a man to have a conception of a pure triangle in his mind its angles are points without magnitude, and its sides are lines without thickness. This, we conceive, according to the new philosophy, would be an object of pure reason. But cannot a man proceed, and infer the properties of such a triangle? cannot he show that its three angles are equal to two right angles? and is not this an act of discursive reason? President Edwards' Treatise on the Will, is addressed to the reason. A man of the finest "understanding," cannot comprehend a word of it. And yet the whole book is discursive; that is, it proceeds from premises to conclusions. And yet we are told, that "reason is far nearer to sense than to understanding; for reason is a direct aspect of truth,-an inward beholding,-having a similar relation to the intelligible or spiritual, as sense has to the material or phenomenal."

But the value of every distinction is to be estimated by its use. Although we are solemnly told, by Mr. Coleridge, that there is not an error in politics and religion, which has not arisen from confounding the objects of these two faculties; and that the admission of them, with a clear conception of their difference, would be a two-edged sword, to destroy almost every heresy, that has afflicted the church; yet we cannot remember one point, which he has made clearer to our humble conceptions, by the help of this great discovery. He has indeed shown, that Rousseau's scheme of politics, in his Social Contract, is a matter of theory, and utterly fails, when reduced to practice. But who did not know this before? Who did not know, without the help of this transcendental reason, this organ of the supersensuous, this celestial power, which is one in all minds and all in one, that a system, founded on the relation of abstract ideas, and reasoning on a comparison between them, must fail, when it passes into this world of probability or practice? We believe, too, that either Unitarianism or Trinitarianism is erroneous: the truth of the one, implies the falsehood of the other; and if wrong, on Coleridge's supposition, the erroneous system owes its prevalence to the objects of the reason being addressed to the understanding. Let any champion step forward and show this. He has his vantage ground; he knows where to plant his batteries. Let him play off his new artillery, and let us see the battlements fall. The new Gideons have blown their trumpets; now let them break their pitchers, and show their lamps. We will willingly rejoice in the light.

In a word, we do not remember, in the whole history of human delusions, a more pompous profession ending in a more contemptiVOL. VI.

79

ble nothingism. We may cry out over it, as the tender husband in Terence* exclaims, at the language of his wife,—

It is hardly needful to change the ista into an iste; it is really the philosophy of a pedantic old woman, who, having bewildered her head among the dreams of German metaphysicians, is endeavoring to transfer their verbalisms to English ground. Either this reason," this transcendental and supersensuous faculty, is something so sublime, as to be above our reach, (and indeed we are rather thankful that such a puzzling power has been withheld from us; for if we had reason, we are not sure it would not tip over our understanding,) or it means what has been far better seen, and more clearly expressed, by every sober writer since the days of Locke. "I am aquæ potor," says old Burton, "I drink no wine at all, which so much improves our modern wits; a plain rude writer, ficum voco ficum." How many philosophical systems would be vastly improved, if their authors would only be content to call a fig by its right name!

The other point, on which we will say a word, (though we must be very brief,) is, respecting the views of Coleridge on inductive reasoning. He seems to think, that, if there were not some power in our minds of anticipating the laws of nature, our diligence in making experiments must be aimless and endless. The doctrine, that man is the mere minister and interpreter of nature, he disputes, and seems to regard the same eternal reason, which guided the Deity in establishing the order of the material world, as moving each mind to foresee and conjecture the laws of nature. It were too long to pursue his speculations on this point. We shall merely say, they appear, to our humble apprehension, to contain some truth, but expressed in the worst manner possible. There can be no doubt, when a reasoning mind is brought to examine the operations of the material world, that all implied in such a mind, must be supposed. It must believe in the connection of cause and effect; it must have taken many hints from the ordinary processes of nature; from these hints, it must have implicitly supposed a connection, an order, and end, and aim, in the works of nature; it must have assumed the point, of a great first cause; it must have derived much knowledge from a previous experience, that is, from an experience of its own operations. Indeed there is a difference between induction and experience. I can tell, without induction, that all sensitive beings dread pain; that all moral beings approve of benevolence, rather than malignity; that, as the Kanteans say,

Heautontimoroumenos, Act IV. Scene 1.

if I see one body exist in space, I know that all bodies must exist in space. But all this is not learned without experience; it is the mind experiencing the laws of its own conceptions. But how this goes to add one particle to our knowledge, previous to our interrogations of nature, it is impossible to conceive. All that was ever

meant by the assertion, that all real philosophy must come from induction, is still true. But induction implies the instrument which induces or brings together the facts; it implies the existence of mind, and the laws of mind, as reflected images imply the existence of the mirror, which causes the reflection.

What then does Coleridge mean, when he says, "And now the remarkable fact forces itself on our attention, viz., that the material world is found to obey the same laws, as had been deduced independently from the reason?" Does he mean to say, that the laws of attraction, the ebbing and flowing of the sea, the refraction of light, the power of the galvanic battery, and a hundred other powers, were ever known or suspected, previous to the revelations of experience? It would have been well, to state some instances and examples of these laws, deduced independently from reason, which the material world is found so exactly to obey. One example would have been more satisfactory to a rational reader, than a hundred assertions.

Such are some of the clearest points in this admired writer; other paragraphs there are, in which all comprehension wanders, lost and bewildered; paragraphs in which, like poor Christian, in the slough of despond, it is our fate to sink deeper and deeper, with an insupportable burden on our backs. For example, will any Coleridge man (though it is in vain to implore help from them, for we have generally found, the more they explain, the less we understand them,) assist us to comprehend the wisdom wrapt up in the following paragraphs ?

'EVERY POWER IN NATURE AND IN SPIRIT must evolve an opposite, as the sole means and condition of its manifestation: AND ALL OPPOSITION IS A TENDENCY TO RE-UNION. This is the universal law of polarity or essential Dualism, first promulgated by Heraclitus, 2000 years afterwards re-published, and made the foundation both of logic, of physics, and of metaphysics, by Giordano Bruno. The principle may be thus expressed. The identity of thesis and antithesis is the substance of all being; their opposition the condition of all existence, or being manifested; and every thing or phenomenon is the exponent of a synthesis as long as the opposite energies are retained in that synthesis. Thus, water is neither oxygen nor hydrogen, nor yet is it a commixture of both; but the synthesis or indifference of the two and as long as the copula endures, by which it becomes water, or rather which alone is water, it is not less a simple body than either of the imaginary elements, improperly called its ingredients or components. It is the object of the mechanical atomistic philosophy to confound synthe

sis with synartesis, or rather with mere juxta-position of corpuscles separated by invisible interspaces. I find it difficult to determine, whether this theory contradicts the reason or the senses most: for it is alike inconceivable and unimaginable.' The Friend, p. 77.

The ground-work, therefore, of all true philosophy,is the full apprehension of the difference between the contemplation of reason, namely, that intuition of things, which arises when we possess ourselves, as one with the whole, which is substantial knowledge, and that which presents itself when transferring reality to the negations of reality, to the evervarying frame-work of the uniform life, we think of ourselves as separated beings, and place nature in antithesis to the mind, as object to subject, thing to thought, death to life. This is abstract knowledge, or the science of mere understanding. By the former, we know that existence is its own predicate, self-affirmation, the one attribute in which all others are contained, not as parts, but as manifestations. It is an eternal and infinite self-rejoicing, self-loving, with a joy unfathomable, with a love all-comprehensive. It is absolute; and the absolute is neither singly that which affirms, nor that which is affirmned; but the identity and living copula of both.' The Friend, p. 456.

There are many other paragraphs in this writer equally dark, and distinctions equally futile; but our limits will not suffer us to notice them, and a few specimens will suffice. It were lost labor, to spend time in accumulating proofs on a point so very clear. "When I take up the end of a web," said Dr. Johnson," and find it pack-thread, I do not expect, by looking farther, to find embroidery." Whether there be in this author a peculiar murkiness of mind, which, though the basis of modern poetry, especially unfits a man for didactic writing; or whether it be the want of intellectual sincerity, as we have already hinted; there is a strange uncouthness of thought, from which the majority of mankind can derive no instruction, and with which they can hold no sympathy. Our own peculiar suspicion is, (perhaps it is uncharitable,) that he was the creature of affectation,-that he wrote his dogmas in philosophy, as Warburton wrote his paradoxes in criticism, not to confirm, but to cross the feelings of every reader, who was willing to devote a few hours to literary astonishment.

We have heard it suggested, that the peculiarly high moral tone which this author assumes, the deep reverence he displays for religion, ought to rescue his pages, however darksome, from censure and neglect. Coleridge! it is said,-why he is one of the few of the literati, that is an orthodox man. He defends the trinity; he believes in the bible; he inculcates all the sublimities of a spiritual life! His philosophy is favorable to evangelical religion. We would, however, humbly ask these warm advocates, whether, if a man's conclusions be ever so just, if he defends them on grounds, which must vanish like the morning dew, he may be said to be of

any advantage to the cause he embraces? Christianity has already suffered more from her friends, than her enemies; and for ages, she has been withering and dying under the smiles of a false philosophy. Of all such morbid and fanciful defenders of christianity, it is our wish to cry out with holy indignation,

"Non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis tempus eget."

The visions of such men are to the gospel of Christ, what the pictures of naked cupids and graces, cut by the Jesuits in Catholic prayer-books, around the capital letters, are to the subject-matter of devotion,-more likely to retard, than to assist the mind. Religion has its necessary mysteries; but voluntary mystification only serves to bring the whole subject into contempt. Let the day come, when this dazzling philosophy, whose chief attraction is, that it is so little understood, shall go hand in hand with the gospel, and what will be the consequence? We shall have young misses, mistaking their sentimentalism for piety; young masters, calling their ambition their conscience; and young preachers, giving us ideas for doctrines. We shall have the lily of the hot-bed, for the rose of Sharon; philosophy, for faith; conscience, for the Spirit; the eternal reason, for truth; and the Aids to Reflection, for the bible. We shall dissolve away in the softest dreams, only to debase our principles, and lose our souls.

It may be asked, then,-after all this degrading weakness, this childish playing with bubbles, which glitter while we survey, but break when we touch them,-whence has Coleridge his power? and how has he continued to fascinate and delude so many respectable minds? The answer is obvious. In the first place, he is a man of real genius, and, except when he lays his ill-fated hand on mental philosophy, has some profound thoughts, always richly conceived and beautifully expressed. He is never at a loss for an illustration; and, with some minds, a beautiful illustration passes for a powerful argument. He is a poet, every inch of him, and like other poets, succeeds best in fiction. He owes his weakness chiefly to his affectation. Knowing, that to be puzzled, is one of the con ditions of the profound, he is resolved, that, in the minds of all his youthful readers, (to whom he principally addresses himself,) that part of the condition shall, at least, be effectually performed. He takes us to the bottom of his garden, at the politic hour of twilight, and shows us the gloomy grove, peopled with the awful images of his idolatry, on which the western gleams shed their last expiring light. We see something, which we suppose to lie deep, because it is dark, and magnificent, because it is unknown. He talks of reason, but his power is only on the imagination.

Then, too, he owes part of his power to the errors of some of his adversaries; and, with some people, to prove one side wrong,