3, as in Gen.

. So Psalm

rejoices. 7, the soul, as it is here parallel with xlix, 6, where it is joined with a feminine like Xxx, 13: That my glory [soul] may sing praise unto thee. Psalm lvii, 8: Awake my glory, that is, my soul. Psalm cviii, 1: I will sing and give praise, even with my glory, that is, spirit.

, yea, my flesh shall rest in hope. How shall we interpret "my flesh?" Is it synonymous with in the previous OTĺxos; or is this parallel cumulative, and "my flesh" to be taken literally? I answer in the affirmative. Hengstenberg dissents.

Verse 10. ix, for thou, my God, my portion, and my cup-thou who makest my lot glorious, wilt not leave my soul to sheol. What is the meaning of bis? Is it the grave? If p, the soul, or the animal life, then how can it mean "the grave?" How can the soul or the me be confined in the grave? This meaning, therefore, we abandon as inconsistent with the context. Neither can it mean the world of the lost, for there is no evidence of Scripture that Christ went to the world beneath. See introduction, and this Review, Jan., 1849, pp. 79, 80.

3, then, we take to mean the dead," or the "condition of the dead;" and we render, Thou wilt not leave my soul to the dead, or in the condition of those who are dead. On the morning of the third day my soul shall rise again and be reunited to its own body, and in glorious triumph it shall exult over death.

-155 3, nor wilt thou permit thy Holy One to see corruption. The "Holy One" is Christ. He shall not see corruption. So the apostles Peter and Paul. See introduction. Much controversy has arisen in regard to the word 77, thy Holy One. As it stands in the text it is in the plural. The Masorites have given it in the margin in the singular. So the Septuagint, Peter and Paul, the Chaldee, Syriac, Vulgate, Arabic, Ethiopic, Jerome, the Talmud of Babylon, and ancient rabbies. Still all these may have been influenced by the Septuagint, and the reading found in the text may, after all, be the true one. May it not then be a simple pluralis excellentiæ, as

שַׁדַּי אֲדֹנָי אֱלֹהִים many other names of the divine person, as

(See Nordheimer's Gram., sec. 553.)

Verse 11. in, thou wilt show me the path of life. Thou, O Jehovah, wilt make me to enjoy the way of life-the blessedness of heaven-as the Redeemer of a lost world.

77, fullness of joy is in thy presence. But where is that presence? It is in the world of the blessed, when God unfolds his glory.

, at thy right hand, where the Son of God has forever set down, are pleasures evermore. Thus we are taught, not only the resurrection, but also the ascension of our Lord.

In conclusion, I have only to observe that from the interpretation given by the apostles Peter and Paul of the last three verses, it follows that the previous part of the psalm must be understood of the same person, otherwise all congruity and consistency are destroyed, and all the Philistines of a double sense are at once upon us.

ART. VI.-MAINE DE BIRAN AND HIS PHILOSOPHY.

TRANSLATED FROM THE REVUE CHRETIENNE.

Euvres Inédites De Maine de Biran, publiées par ERNEST NAVILLE, avec la collaboration de Marc Debrit. 3 vols., 8vo. Pp. 1,383.

1859.

Inedited Works of Maine de Biran, published by ERNEST NAVILLE, with the co-operation of Marc Debrit. 3 vols., 8vo. Pp. 1,383.

1859.

MAINE DE BIRAN is one of those men whose reputation has continually increased, because the age which disregarded his first productions has but gradually realized the influence which they have exercised on the progress of ideas and the general advance of the French mind. The same fortune of his works, published as they were at long intervals, and mostly after his decease, has in no small degree contributed to excite our curiosity, and to increase our sympathy for a solitary thinker, who, from his early obscurity, has arisen upon us little by little in his principal features and under forms so varied. The progressive history of this rare genius reproduces, as in epitome, the gradual develop

ment of the minds of our times; and by a marvelous coincidence the first of these two histories has only been known as it unfolded the second in its three principal periods. The philosophy of the nineteenth century, upon its first appearance, assumed the empirical, sensual, and at the same time materialistic direction which had prevailed in the preceding century; but in its second phase, paying a listening ear to the eloquent interpreters of spiritualism, it discarded the imitation of Locke and of Condillac for that of Plato and Descartes; in short, obeying its secret instincts, and at the same time listening to the lessons of experience and history, it has accomplished its third evolution by approaching, timidly at first, but with a decidedly increasing interest, the moral and religious questions which attach themselves to the study of Christianity. The mind of M. de Biran underwent the same changes; it attached itself successively to the ideology of Condillac, to the reaction of spiritualism, and to the meditation of the Gospel. It expressed, it summed up, so to speak, the three successive movements of cotemporaneous science; and after having forcibly co-operated in a species of philosophical revival in our country, it came to associate itself in some sort with our present religious awakening.

When M. de Biran expired in 1824, at the age of fifty-eight years, small was the number of his friends who felt the loss that French philosophy incurred in his death. Among his friends were reckoned Royer Collard, Ampère, Stapfer, Guizot, V. Cousin ; and one of them-Royer Collard-said boldly, "He is our master in all things." Another, the wise M. Stapfer, declared that his death was a calamity, and summed up all his regrets with this declaration: "I conceive that religious philosophy has need of M. de Biran." The public had not been wont to hold this philosopher in so great esteem; it had known but little of him except in his Memoir on Habit, printed in 1803, and which, excepting some expressions of dissent then unperceived, seemed to reproduce, faithfully enough, the doctrines of Condillac. It was scarcely two years after his death, thanks to the most eminent of his disciples, the name of M. de Biran, arising from its semi-obscurity, was hailed as that of one of the founders of the new philosophy. M. Cousin in publishing for the first time, in 1834, the Considerations on the Relations of the Physical and Moral of Man, preceded it by one of those

fine prefaces, of which he alone possesses the secret, and was enabled to fix the attention of the world of letters on the man whom he had often proclaimed his master, and the greatest metaphysician who had honored France since Malebranche. More recently, in 1841, the illustrious editor, wishing to complete his labor, prepared in four volumes the principal works of M. de Biran known to him; and philosophers believed that they possessed all the elements of a definitive judgment on this free and rigorous intellect; which, at first enchained by the ideologic sensualism of Condillac, had been rescued by his own reflections and put off a yoke unworthy of it, and who, after having rejected the prejudices by which it had been nourished, knew how, as we may say, to draw from its own substance a new and fruitful doctrine. Men admired this happy beginning, this thought so profound and strong, and the new school adopted for one of its founders the man whom M. Cousin persisted in calling the first metaphysician of his time.

But the work of the philosopher was not yet entirely known. The most of his productions, and in certain respects the most important, were inedited, and in danger of falling into obscurity, if a man of noble nature, M. François Naville, of Geneva, had not applied himself, with a wonderful perseverance, at first to discover, and then to prepare for publication, a great work on Psychology, on which he knew that M. de Biran had occupied himself for many years, and which all the world, except himself, had believed lost. The ardor of the venerable Genevese pastor would perhaps have been still greater had he known the progress made by M. de Biran; had he known that, after having broken with the philosophy of sensation in the name of the moral liberty of man, he had taken one step more in conceding to man, above the sensitive or animal life, above the human life properly so called, a divine or religious life, which was no other than the Christian life. Such are the facts decisively demonstrated by this publication of M. Ernest Naville, a worthy successor of his father in the pious work of re-establishing the thought of a great philosopher, and of restoring to his memory all the luster of which it is worthy.

The unpublished works of M. de Biran, which have at last come to light, are, 1. The Essays on the Principles of Psychol ogy, which, with a General Introduction of the editor, compose

the first two volumes; 2. Many writings or fragments composing the third volume, the most important of which are entitled New Essays on Anthropology, and are a valuable discovery of the last editor, and the unexpected fruits of his labor and perseverance. It is in this last work that M. de Biran has laid down the results of his lofty meditations, and it is especially here that he teaches his Christian philosophy. Unhappily, the New Essays have been but merely sketched out, and some of them in part only, and they have reached us in a deplorable state of mutilation. The thoughts of the author had then a great need of an interpreter and commentator. We find this indispensable commentary in the General Introduction of the Editor. But this is not the only nor the principal merit of the work. It has others better suited to most readers of this Review. The chief fragment contains not only a philosophical and religious history of an eminent thinker, but it is above all destined to demonstrate a thesis of general interest, namely, that faith does not exclude philosophy, and that our reason and our conscience may lead us by degrees to a free acknowledgment of the truths of Christianity. From the history of M. de Biran the transition to the examination of this grave question was easy; for if it is true that a spirit so bold, and which has proceeded so far and so deeply in metaphysical speculation, has been led by that same philosophy even into the arms of faith, just as in olden times was the case with St. Augustine, does not this excellent example brilliantly confirm the hopes of those who in our day seek peace of spirit in the union of liberal science with the Christian religion? So M. Naville believed, for he starts from this remarkable experience to establish, by the aid of reasoning and of history, the possibility and legitimacy of Christian philosophy. In the following pages we shall examine how M. Naville has acquitted himself of his double task. We will study in him at first an interpretation of M. de Biran, since the Christian desires to show the harmony of all his convictions.

I. All the world knows that M. de Biran at first adhered ostensibly to the method and principles of Condillac, professing, on the authority of the masters, that "all our reasoning is derived fundamentally, and primitively, from our perceptions or reception of impressions." However, although when he entered