egotism and igrorance, and prepare them for receiving the truths he had to lay open in themselves. Plato, Aristotle, the German Methodists, but define and deliver the steps of his method.

BERKELEY.

Of modern philosophic writers, Berkeley has given the best example of the Platonic Dialogue, in his "Minute Philosopher," a book to be read with profit, for its clearness of thought and method. His claim to the name of metaphysician transcends those of most of his countrymen. He, first of his nation, dealt face to face with ideas as distinguished from scholastic fancies and common notions, and thus gave them their place in the order of mind; and this to exhaustive issues, as his English predecessors in thought had failed to do. His idealism is the purest which the British Isles have produced. Platonic as were Cudworth, Norris, Henry More, in cast of thought less scholastic than Taylor of Norwich, who was an exotic, rather, transplanted from Alexandrian gardens, - Berkeley's thinking is indigenous, strong in native sense and active manliness. His works are magazines of rare and admirable learning, subtleties of speculation, noble philanthropies. They deserve a place in every scholar's library, were it but to mark the fortunes of thought, and accredit the poet's admiring line:

"To Berkeley every virtue under heaven."

BOEHME.

MONDAY, 9.

W

RITE to Walton, the British Boehmist, whose letters interest by the information they contain of himself and of his literary ventures. Any disciple of the distinguished Mystic and student of his works, living in foggy London in these times, is as significant and noteworthy as are students of Hegel in St. Louis.* Mysticism is the sacred spark that has lighted the piety and illuminated the philosophy of all places and times. It has kindled especially and kept alive the profoundest thinking of Germany and of the continent since Boehme's first work, "The Aurora," appeared. Some of the deepest thinkers since then have openly acknowledged their debt to Bochme, or secretly borrowed without acknowledgment their best illustrations from his writings. It is conceded that his was one of the most original and subtlest of minds, and that he has exercised a deeper influence on the progress of thought than any one since Plotinus. Before Bacon, before Newton, Swedenborg, Goethe, he gave theories of nature, of the signatures of colors and

* A mystic book entitled "Quinquenergia, or Proposals for a new Practical Theology," by Henry S. Sutton, was published in London in 1854. Mr. Sutton is plainly tinctured with Bochme's theosophy, if not a disciple of his as appears from his book. It is a volume of singular originality, and the latest modern attempt at a Genesis from First Principles that I have met with. It seems to have attracted few readers in England or in this country.

forms, of the temperaments, the genesis of sex, the lapse of souls, and of the elementary worlds. He stripped life of its husk, and delivered its innermost essence. Instead of mythology, he gave, if not science, the germs, if nothing more. And when the depths of his thinking have been fathomed by modern observers it will be soon enough to speak of new revelations and arcanas. Ilis teeming genius is the genuine mother of numberless theories since delivered, from whose trunk the natural sciences have branched forth and cropped out in scientific systems. And like Swedenborg, it has borne a theology, cosmology, illustrious theosophists and naturalists, Law, Leibnitz, Oken, Schelling, Goethe, Baader, and other philosophers of Germany.

His learned English disciple and translator, Rev. William Law, an author once highly esteemed and much read by a former generation of pietists, says of him in his Introduction to Boehme's Works:

"Whatsoever the great Hermes delivered in oracles, or Pythagoras spoke by authority, or Socrates or Aristotle affirmed, whatever divine Plato prophesied, or Plotinus proved, this and all this, or a far higher and profounder philosophy, is contained in Boehme's writings. "And if there be any friendly medium that can possibly reconcile these ancient differences between the divine Wisdom that has fixed her place in Holy Writ and her stubborn handmaid, natural Reason, - this happy marriage of the Spirit of God and the soul, this wonderful consent of discords in harmony,

we shall

find it in great measure in Boehme's books; only let not the non or misunderstanding of the most rational reader (if not a little sublimed above the sphere of common reason) be imputed as a fault to this elevated philosopher, no more than it was to the divine Plotinus, whose scholars, even after much study, failed to comprehend many of his doctrines."

Dr. Henry More, with a qualifying discrimination of Law's estimate, writes:

"Jacob Boehme, I conceive, is to be reckoned in the number of those whose imaginative faculty has the preeminence above the rational, and though he was a holy and good man, his natural complexion, notwithstanding, was not destroyed but retained its property still, and therefore his imagination being very busy about divine things, he could not without a miracle fail of becoming an enthusiast, and of receiving divine truths upon the account of the strength and vigor of his fancy, which being so well qualified with holiness and sanctity, proved not unsuccessful in sundry apprehensions, but in others it fared with him after the manner of men, the sagacity of his imagination failing him, as well as the anxiety of reason, does others of like integrity with himself."*

* Students of Boehme have been few and far between. Edward Taylor appears to have been Boehme's most distinguished disciple in England before William Law. He published "A Compendious View of the Teutonic Philosophy." London, 1670. Also Jacob Bochme's "Philosophy Unfolded in divers Considerations and Demonstrations, and a Short Account of his Life." London, 1690. John Sparrow published Boehme's Tracts and Epistles. Loudon, 1662. John Pordage's "Theologia Mystica, or the Mystie Divinity of the Eternal Invisibles," London, 1683, is a rare volume.

MR. WALTON'S LETTER.

"By Theosophy I understand the true science of Deity, Nature, and Creature. There are two classes of theosophists, or true mystic philosophers. The one such as Gichtel, the editor of the first German edition of Jacob Boehme (whose letters and life in seven volumes are now being translated into English, and if the necessary funds can be raised they will be printed.) Gichtel truly experimented the regenerated life of Christianity according to the science thereof contained in Boehme's writings; Bramwell fathomed Christianity according to the simple prima facie representation thereof in the Gospel; in like manner in another form Terstegan was also a high proficient therein, as were also some of the ancient mystics and ascetics of France, Spain, and Germany, as referred to in the Cyclopedia. In the path of Gichtel there have been few and remote followers.

"The other class is composed of those who have intellectually fathomed the scope of Boehme's philosophy, such as Freher, Law, Lee, Pordage, and others.

--

"As to the pretended independent seers,' outsiders of Boehme's revelations, whose names need not be mentioned, these are of course not to be admitted into the category of the standard theologists, being mere phantasmatists or visionaries, and who, though uttering a great many good, and to some recondite minds, surprising things, say in effect nothing but what