MR. COLERIDGE'S METAPHYSICS.

AMONG the events of the age that may be regarded as indicating to the great family of man the approach of a happier era, the increasing attention to the study of human nature, and the juster views that are beginning to prevail on many of the great questions that respect it, hold an impor tant rank. Whether the instrumentality of this branch of knowledge is to be as great as it is entitled to exert, or not, it can scarcely admit of question that a general prevalence of correct apprehensions respecting it, must naturally carry with it a speedy and wide improvement in almost every department of life. Beside its propitious influence on education and manners, it would also, almost necessarily, among the most certain of its benefits, give birth to a reformation of the false systems of government which contribute so largely to perpetuate the degradation and misery of the race; as well as to correct the perversions of christianity, and obstructions to its influence, which those governments in so many instances legalize and uphold. Precisely in proportion as just views of ourselves, and the causes that influence us are entertained, the conviction will take place that the motives that spring from personal

freedom and security, from knowledge and religion, are the only proper and efficacious instruments of restraining evil passions and prompting to virtue; not those that have their origin in ignorance, dependence, poverty, and wretchedness, and are impressed by mere force or superstition and that the more enlightened men are in all the great branches of knowledge that affect their well being, the better they comprehend their mutual rights, and their relations and obligations to God, and the more amply they possess in themselves the means of enjoyment; the more easily are they controlled by mild and equitable restraints, and made subservient to all the great and useful ends, for which the co-operation of numbers, or the agency of communities and governments is required. And when these shall become the fixed convictions of the authors as well as the obeyers of laws, the rod of oppression will be voluntarily relinquished by those even who possessing unrestrained power, have heretofore known no other guide than the caprices of passion, as unsuited to the objects as well as incompatible with the security of government, and kings become the fathers of their subjects, and make it the great business of their station to educate their people to knowledge, virtue, piety, and the happiness of which they are the means, as the appropriate and sole method and end of a successful and honorable empire.

The prevalence of such views of the great principles of our nature, and the ends of our being, will likewise carry with it, with equal certainty, a reformation of those artificial establishments for the support and propagation of religion, that are the offspring and instruments of unwise and unequal governments, and which making like them, authority and force the chief means of their influence, usually degenerate

into nurseries of worldliness and superstition. These institutions are in truth scarcely less incompatible with a just theory of human nature, than they are with the simplicity and purity of the gospel: as carrying as they do, in their natural operation, injury and irritation to the community; calling into activity the passions they are meant to subdue, and arming temptation with additional energy, instead of counteracting its power; they necessarily make religion and its associated interests the objects to a great degree of aversion, in place of veneration and love.

Whatever the relation may be, however, of the prevalent systems of metaphysics to the existing civil and ecclesiastical institutions, the systems which have for a long period prevailed on this subject, are indisputably fraught with great imperfections; excluding many essential truths, and involving a large share of error. And the methods themselves in which their authors and adopters have conducted their speculations, have been such as almost necessarily to preclude them from a perfect system of truth: one class of them having professedly restricted their search after it within the circle of experience and observation, to the exclusion of the important aids that are furnished by the word of God; and the other having made it their chief business to construct a set of arbitrary theories for the explanation of a few facts and doctrines of that revelation, without either regarding those solutions of them with which we are furnished by the scriptures themselves; or the coincident, though often feebler explanations that are announced to us by the voice of consciousness. The consequence has been that these systems have in many important particulars contradicted alike the voice of nature and inspiration, and proved as inadequate to solve many of the events of ordi

nary experience, as the peculiar phenomena of a religious life. Of the fact itself that the current systems of metaphysics are thus fraught with imperfection, many are becoming deeply sensible; and the conviction is strongly felt, of the desirableness of a modification of the science, that shall unite the light of revelation with that of experience, and carry us forward to all the just results of which the materials exist in those sources. Respecting the nature of these imperfections however, a far wider variety of opinion exists, and the expedients that are proposed for their remedy, are marked by an equal or still greater diversity.

Among these, the suggestions of Mr. Coleridge in his Aids to Reflection and Friend, are naturally, from his literary reputation, and the recommendation by President Marsh, with which they are accompanied, attracting a share of attention, and are suited, if adopted, to introduce important changes in the systems that are generally received on this side of the Atlantic. To determine their claims to such an influence, will not render any consideration necessary of a large portion of the topics of which those volumes treat; which though highly novel, amusing, and in most instances, instructive, have no direct relation to metaphysics. I shall accordingly limit my attention to those views, which both the author and editor regard as involving important improvements on the prevalent systems of mental science.

L. The first of these which I shall notice, to which both Mr. Coleridge and President Marsh attach a very high importance, is a proposed distinction between the understanding and reason, founded as it would seem on the diversity of the objects towards which the perceptive power is directed, rather than on any dissimilarity in the nature of its acts themselves

The ground and nature of this distinction, as presented by Mr. Marsh may be seen from the following passage of his essay prefixed to the Aids to Reflection.

"It must have been observed by the reader of the foregoing pages, that I have used several words, especially understanding and reason, in a sense somewhat diverse from their present acceptation; and the occasion of this I suppose would be partly understood from my having already directed the attention of the reader to the distinction exhibited between these words in the work, and from the remarks made on the ambiguity of the word reason in its common use. I now proceed to remark, that the ambiguity spoken of, and the consequent perplexity in regard to the use and authority of reason, have arisen from the habit of using, since the time of Locke, the terms understanding and reason indiscriminately, and thus confounding a distinction clearly marked in the philosophy and in the language of the older writers. Alas! had the terms only been confounded, or had we suffered only an inconvenient ambiguity of language, there would be comparatively little cause for earnestness upon the subject: or had our views of the things signified by these terms been only partially confused, and had we still retained correct notions of our prerogative, as rational and spiritual beings, the consequences might have been less deplorable. But the misfortune is, that the powers of understanding and reason have not merely been blended and confounded in the view of our philosophy, the higher and far more characteristic, as an essential constituent of our proper humanity, has been as it were obscured and hidden from our observation in the inferior power, which belongs to us in common with the brutes that perish. According to the old, the more spiritual, and genuine philosophy, the distinguishing attributes of our humanity-that "image of God" in which man alone was created of all the dwellers upon earth, and in virtue of which he was placed at the head of this lower world, was said to be found in the reason and free-will. But understanding these in their strict and proper sense, and according to the true ideas of them, as contemplated by the older metaphysicians, we have literally, if the system of Locke and the popular philosophy of the day be true, neither the one nor the other of these-neither reason nor free-will. What they esteemed the image of God in the soul, and considered as distinguishing us specifically, and so vastly too, above each and all of the irrational animals, is found, according