bounds of the existing economy, or of our actual experience. We are not warranted to assume that the origin of the world, on the one hand, or the establishment of Christianity on the other, may be accounted for by natural causes still known to be in actual operation. In regard to natural events the principle is sound, and it is rigorously adhered to by the expounder of Natural Theology; in regard to supernatural events it can have no legitimate application, except in so far as it is combined with the doctrine of efficient and final causes, which leads us up to the recognition of a Higher Power. It might be safe and legitimate enough, when we find a fossil organism imbedded in the earth, to ascribe its production to the ordinary law of generation, even although we had not witnessed the fact of its birth, provided the same species is known to have existed previously; but when we find new races coming into being, for which the ordinary law of derivation cannot account, we are not at liberty to apply the same rule to a case so essentially different, and still less to postulate a spontaneous generation, or a transmutation of species, for which we have no experience at all. In such a case, we can only reason on the principle that like effects must have like causes, that marks of design imply a designing cause, and that events which cannot be accounted for by natural causes must be ascribed to a Power distinct from nature, and superior to it. It is manifestly unreasonable to assume that nothing can be brought to pass in the Universe otherwise than by the operation of the same natural laws which are now in action; or that, in the course of our limited and partial experience, we must necessarily know all the agencies that may have been at work during the long flow of time. And, in accordance with these views, Sir Charles Lyell expressly limits the general principle to natural events, and shows that "Geology differs as widely from Cosmogony as speculations concerning the Creation of Man differ from his History.”

CHAPTER III.

THEORIES OF PANTHEISM.

Ar the commencement of the present century, Pantheism might have been justly regarded and safely treated as an obsolete and exploded error, an error which still prevailed, indeed, in the East as one of the hereditary beliefs of Indian superstition, but which, when transplanted to Western Europe by the daring genius of Spinoza, was found to be an exotic too sickly to take root and grow amidst the fresh and bracing air of modern civilization.

But no one who has marked the recent tendencies of speculative thought, and who is acquainted, however slightly, with the character of modern literature, can have failed to discern a remarkable change in this respect within the last fifty years. German philosophy, always prolific, and often productive of monstrous births, has given to the world many elaborate systems, physical and metaphysical, whose most prominent feature is the deification of Nature or of Man. France, always alert and lively, has appropriated the ideas of her more ponderous neighbors, and has given them currency through educated Europe on the wings of her lighter literature. And even in England and America there are not wanting some significant tokens of a disposition to cherish a kind of speculation which, if it be not formally and avowedly Pantheistic, has much of the same dreamy and mystic character, and little, if any, harmony

with definite views of God, or of the relations which He bears

to man.

One of the most significant symptoms of a reaction in favor of Pantheism may be seen in the numerous republications and versions of the writings of Spinoza which have recently appeared, in the public homage which has been paid to his character and genius, and in the more than philosophic tolerance the kindly indulgence-which has been shown to his most characteristic principles. He is now recognized by many as the real founder both of the Philosophic and of the Exegetic Rationalism, which has been applied, with such disastrous effect, to the interpretation alike of the volume of Nature and of the records of Revelation. In Germany his works have been edited by Paulus (1803) and by Gfrörer (1830); in France they have been translated by Emile Saisset, Professor of Philosophy in the Royal College; while a copious account of his life and writings has been published by Amand Saintes, the historian of Rationalism in Germany. All this might be accounted for by ascribing it simply to the admiration of philosophical thinkers for the extraordinary talents of the man; and it might be said that his writings have been reprinted, just as those of Hobbes have been recently reproduced in England, more as a historical monument of the past than as a mirror that reflects the sentiments of the present age. But it is more difficult to explain the eulogiums with which the reappearance of Spinoza has been greeted, and the cordiality with which his daring speculations have been received. He has not only been exculpated from the charge of Atheism, but even panegyrized. as a saint and martyr! "That holy and yet outcast man," exclaimed Schleiermacher," he who was fully penetrated by the universal Spirit,—for whom the Infinite was the beginning and the end, and the Universe his only and ever

1 AMAND SAINTES, "Histoire de la Vie et des Ouvrages de Spinoza, Fondateur de l'Exegése et de la Philosophie, Modernes."

lasting love,he who, in holy innocence and profound peace, delighted to contemplate himself in the mirror of an eternal world, where, doubtless, he saw himself reflected as its most lovely image, he who was full of the sentiment of religion, because he was filled with the Holy Spirit!" "Instead of accusing Spinoza of Atheism," says M. Cousin, “he should rather be subjected to the opposite reproach."1 "He has been loudly accused," says Professor Saisset, "of Atheism and impiety. The truth is that never did a man believe in God with a faith more profound, with a soul more sincere, than Spinoza. Take God from him, and you take from him his system, his thought, his life.” Spinoza, although a Jew,” says the Abbé Sabatier, a member of the Catholic clergy, "always lived as a Christian, and was as well versed in our divine Testament as in the books of the ancient Law. If he ended, as we cannot doubt he did, in embracing Christianity, he ought to be enrolled in the rank of saints, instead of being placed at the head of the enemies of God."

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Contrast the language in which Spinoza is now compared to Thomas á Kempis, and proposed as a fit subject for canonization itself, with the terms in which he was wont to be spoken of by men of former times; and the startling difference will sufficiently indicate a great change in the current of European thought. And if we add to this the contemporaneous reappearance of such writers as Bruno and Vanini, whose works have been reprinted by the active philosophical press of Paris, we may be well assured that it is not by overlooking or despising such speculations, but by boldly confronting and closely grappling with them, that we shall best protect the mind of the thinking community from their insidious and pestilent influence.

1 M. COUSIN, "Cours de l'Histoire de la Philosophie," 1. 403. See also "Fragmens Philosophiques," Preface, second edition, p. XXVII.; “Nouveaux Fragments," pp. 9, 160.

But we are not left to infer the existence, in many quarters, of a prevailing tendency towards Pantheism, from such facts as have been stated, significant as they are; we have explicit testimonies on the point, in a multitude of writings, philosophical and popular, which have recently issued from the Continental press. In a report presented to the Academy of Sciences, M. Franck, a member of the Institute, represents Pantheism as the last and greatest of all the Metaphysical systems which have come into collision with Revelation; and describes it as a theory, "according to which spirit and matter, thought and extension, the phenomena of the soul and of the body, are all equally related, either as attributes or modes, to the same substance or being, at once one and many, finite and infinite, Humanity, Nature, God." Conceiving that the older forms of error Dualism and Materialism have all but disappeared; and that Atheism, in its gross 'mechanical form, cannot now, as Broussais himself said, "find entrance into a well-made head which has seriously meditated on nature," M. Franck concludes that Pantheism alone, such as has been conceived and developed in Germany, is likely to have the power of seducing serious minds, and that it may for a season exert considerable influence as an antagonist to Christianity.1 M. Javari gives a similar testimony. He tells us that "that great lie, which is called Pantheism (ce grand mensonge qu'on appelle le Pantheisme), has dragged German philosophy into an abyss;" that it is fascinating a large number of minds among his own countrymen; and that it is this doctrine, rather than any other, which will soon gather around it all those who do not know or who reject the truth." 2 The Biographer of Spinoza, referring to the recent progress and prospective prevalence of these views, affirms that "the tendency of the age, in matters of Philosophy, Morals, and

1 M. AD. FRANCK, "De la Certitude," Preface, p. xxi.

2 M. A. JAVARI, "De la Certitude," p. 509.