OF THE MIND AS ABSOLUTE.

Under this head Hegel ranges Art or the Beautiful and the Sublime. Here the Idea is symbolized, or rendered sensible by the means of various mediums; such as Stone or Marble, Color, Tone, as also by connected Discourse or Oratory, and by writings either Prose or Poetry. Sculpture, Painting, Music, Poetry, and Eloquence here find place.

OF RELIGION.

Hegel conceives Religion to have in view the reconciliation of the Finite with the Infinite, of Man with God. All religions aim at endeavoring to effectuate the union of Man with the Deity. This is visible in the roughest mode-1st, in the Natural Religion of the East, where the powers of Nature, and various natural phenomena are worshipped as God, and before which all other finite objects are as nought. 2d. In the higher form of Spiritual Individuality, in which the Divinity is considered as the Soul of All. Such is Judaism, or the religion of the Most High, of the Infinite conceived as infinitely powerful and wise; 3d, or in Greece, where artistic beauty was considered as the chief attribute of the Divinity; 4th, or in the Religion of the Romans, which was a matter of the State, and conformable to the bent and intelligence of the KingNation.

But the positive harmony between God and Man in vain sought by various nations, Hegel finds only to exist in the revealed or Christian religion, in which God is personified in Jesus Christ as Man, thus blending both natures in real Unity, and where God is

viewed in the light of the Idea humanized or returning to the primary pristine Nature. In this act of self-privation are found united in One, God as Absolute, God as man or Christ, and God as the Idea or Spirit of God, and this Unity in Trinity Hegel conceives to constitute that deep mystery. The spiritual tenor of revealed religion or of Christianity, is therefore, according to him, the same as that of speculative Philosophy, but with this essential difference, that whilst in Philosophy the Idea is merely a conception of the Mind, it is carried into execution in Christianity, and interwoven with the History of Mankind, in which is to be found the Divine Will or in which is revealed the Will of God.

We shall now take leave of German Philosophy, allowing the reader to follow up, if he pleases, the Idea in later times. To the philosophy of Eclecticism professed by M. Victor Cousin we can only afford a slight allusion, in regard to the use, or mis-use rather, which that Thinker has made of the idea of Negation as presented by Hegel. But on that important subject we must refer to what Professor Hamilton has published. The undue value given by Cousin to Negation or notSelf, which he conceives as bestowing Objectivity on Nothingness, instead of merely involving distinction or difference, is most ably pointed out and illustrated by the above-named powerful writer.

The sixteenth century, which preceded that of Rationalism, that of Descartes and Bacon, was that of the Reformation. This was a century of Action. The yoke of Rome was broken, because Theocracy under pretence of enlisting all human means in the service of God only rendered Mankind subservient to its own purposes.

The seventeenth, that of Rationalism, was a time

of Theory, of Anticipation or Hypothesis; for as such must be esteemed even the systems of Bacon and Des

cartes.

The eighteenth century was one of Scepticism, and Philosophy advances a doubt as to the Truth of that which Belief alone guarantees, even admitting that Belief alone can render Experience available.

The nineteenth has witnessed the unwearied labors of Philosophy to reconcile human Thought and Religion on the common ground of Belief. It is a century in which Credulity has seen altars raised in her honor instead of being dedicated to Faith.

The philosophy of Belief which is therefore more especially that of the nineteenth century, because the elementary beliefs of Thought have been substituted to that staid belief in Self-identity, in the Ego or I, which was the basis of the Cartesian doctrine, may also be termed that of Positivism. Here Intuition and Inference appear struggling for superiority, but Hegel has carried the day. It is now universally allowed by all thinkers that certain conditions are required for given phenomena, which are then said to appear of themselves or spontaneously. These latter terms having often been made use of equivocally, it is necessary to fix their meaning at once. And this we do by referring to what has been said on that important subject by Professor Hamilton, by Stuart Mill and others. Auguste Comte uses the term spontaneously as synonymous with necessarily. As to the term Necessity, Leibnitz, Whately and Stuart Mill are unanimous in the same opinion respecting the utility of discontinuing the use of a term which, serving to express the conditional and the unconditional, has become unphilosophical.

The order of coexistences, and that of successive existences (Leibnitz), embracing all that constitutes the subject of human knowledge respecting Existence, comprehend or rather themselves form Space and Time. The wonders of Space have been revealed by the microscope and the telescope. Not only does Space appear by artificial means to double, treble, or decuple its capacity, which might be conceived as an optic illusion, making an inch appear to be a foot, but still more, myriads of beings are found to people the artificial increase. This is now quite common-place, and it is the same with Time or Duration, for the electric telegraph has taught the most unlearned that as succession constitutes Time, and is therefore a concern of Motion, so the quicker or more rapid the latter, the sooner is Time elapsed. Rapidity of motion thus causes Space to disappear, and ingenious writers have attempted to make Ubiquity or Omnipresence sensible, by pointing to a fact now so clearly perceived. The Roman Catholics have also drawn from thence a kind of proof based on the ignorance of man respecting motion, in order to conciliate their doctrine of the real presence existing at one time in a thousand places. But the matter being one which requires argumentation on the Nature of Him who is only known as the Almighty, and in whom men trust as such, we conceive such explanations to be theological. The nature of Space and Time is now generally admitted to be altogether subjective or mental (see Kant), a proposition which was not agreed to even by the sceptic Bayle, who allows that Space, as mere Extension, is only ideal, but does not admit of the same respecting Time, although Descartes lays it down as an axiom that all we know of Time or Duration proceeds from the succession of Thought. Now, since Space and Time are conceived as mental conceptions, it may

be said by those who admit of that doctrine, that man does not exist either in Space or Time," and thus an apparent absurdity so often reproached to German Philosophy disappears.

But Matter or Substance is of a more stubborn nature than Space or Time. Substance refuses to be reduced to mere extension, and then idealized; so that mathematical points have been invented. A mathematical point, say an atom of oxygen, if all known phenomena are inherent in matter, would be admitted to possess the most contradictory qualities; such as gravity, molecular reaction, vital power, &c.

Coexistences, which include all elementary substances, remain ever the same, as far as human ingenuity can devise. Oxygen, united with hydrogen, forms a radical termed water, but is unchanged. And so in all the various organic radicals forming bases, such as Amide (N H2), Ethyle (C, H), Methyle (C2 Hs), Cetyle (C32 H), Amyle (C10 H11), and Glyceryle (C。 H1), as also in the deduced radicals, either by decomposition (as melone from sulphuret of cyanogen, or acetyle out of ethyle), or by being doubled or tripled (as the radicals of fulminic or cyanuric acid out of cyanogen). It is the same with all the mysterious compounds of Carbon and Oxygen. (Carbonic oxide, C, O2, and carbonic acid C+ Og), and oxalic acid, &c., and those not less fatal formed of Carbon and Nitrogen. In all, the elements remain the same, although compounds of the most varied properties are produced in consequence of very slight differences in the formulas or in the ag gregate parts.

Successive-existences even in inorganic matter exhibit properties, which the component parts can by no means explain by their known qualities, as Ether and Chloroform show to be the case. But in organic com