the Existence revealed in these opposite forms. Being as known in perception, is the antithesis of Being--as known in self-consciousness. But of their transcendent relations we can say nothing absolutely, and are ready to believe anything that is sufficiently attested in consciousness, and that is not known to be contradictory. This affinity between Scottish "Realism" and the Idealism which is commonly counted its opposite, has not escaped the notice of the philosopher who has modified and developed the principles of Reid with the most signal success. "The general approximation of thorough-going Realism, and thorough-going Idealism," says Sir William Hamilton, "may at first sight be startling. On reflection, however, their radical affinity will prove well founded. Both build upon the same fundamental fact-that the extended object immediately perceived is identical with the extended object actually existing. For the truth of this fact both can appeal to the common sense of mankind; and to the common sense of mankind Berkeley did appeal not less confidently, and perhaps more logically, than Reid. Natural Realism and Absolute Idealism are the only systems worthy of a philosopher; for as they alone have any foundation in consciousness, so they alone have any consistency in themselves." We unite with Idealism in regarding states of mind and qualities of matter as alike immediately known, in the fundamental relation which constitutes finite knowledge. But we recede from Idealism when, with Mr. Ferrier, it becomes ontological, and, in its oversight of the imperfect knowledge of Faith, fails to analyze the philosophic ignorance which is implied in a finite intelligence both of mind and matter. The attempt to confine the universe to the limits that are necessary in human knowledge, reacts on that knowledge itself, and, by involving them in contradiction, paralyzes the mysterious beliefs which are its life.

Self-consciousness and world-consciousness are two co-ordinate phases of our relative knowledge. They constitute its startingpoints. But the knowledge to which they are the starting-points is not self-contained. The one phase seems to be ultimately lost in the mystery of personal identity, and the other in the mystery of parts infinitely divisible. Both phases, in these and other forms, sink beneath the horizon of our knowledge in clouds of mystery. The ultimate propositions regarding Mind and Matter are only imperfectly intelligible, and thus, though seemingly contradictory, cannot be known to contradict one another. Perception and self-consciousness are both, so to speak, charged with the Faith that such knowledge is not absolute

*Hamilton's Collected Works of Reid, p. 817.

The Psychological Study of Reason in Faith.

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Being, and cannot yield materials for an Ontology-that all our descriptions and definitions of the mental and material systems must be relative to our knowledge of these systems-that neither mind nor matter can be perfectly known until God is perfectly known. An exhaustive or absolute knowledge can alone either reconcile or else conclusively expel the beliefs, irreconcilable by us, which are lodged in the heart of every human cognition. The fundamental Faith that contains them, and to which all propositions not known to be contradictory are possible, is the only real antagonist Mr. Ferrier has to meet when he goes in quest of a definition of Being. He may therefore overlook the antagonists he has conjured up, in the counter-propositions and counter-demonstrations of the contradictory system which he has placed beside his own. Most of those adversaries, we do believe, depend for their existence on being conceived by him. In this Faith-diffused as it is through all the manifestations of human intelligence, and even vindicated as it may be by the seeming contradictions for which it opens the possibility of a transcendent reconciliation-let us reverentially watch and wait for the Revelation of the Divine Ideas, that is offered to us in the works and in the word of God. Only in this condition of mind can God be known by man. Only thus, we may add, can one man be known by another. Nay, thus only can we know ourselves. We read ourselves in our own actions. We read others in their actions. We may read the will of God in all. Yet we must read the phenomena, both of the moral and material universe, in the Faith that there are transcendent distinctions too-distinctions which are the foundation of that system of moral government through which we are passing-which mysteriously reconcile personal responsibility with human dependence on Divine Power, and thus "vindicate the ways of God to man." It is in theology especially that the separate rays of the light of finite knowledge seem to converge, and then to set in mystery. Every part of any knowledge must be limited until God is comprehended, for every part of knowledge seems ultimately to converge in the Divine. Man fails to exhaust the meaning of the propositions which express the Omnipotence of God, and also those which announce the conditions of Moral Responsibility in the creature. The only definite meaning that can be introduced by us into the one of these sets of propositions, may thus contradict the only definite meaning that we can introduce into the other. But what is not comprehended, nor reconciled with the objective law of knowledge, cannot be pronounced absolutely contradictory; and may be accepted as the only mode in which it is possible for human reason to approach a transcendent truth. We know enough about "potential existence" to regulate our course under

the Divine moral government; even though we cannot define speculatively, the absolute relations of man to God, or translate into logical formulas the theory of the universe. What the Divine Being absolutely is we cannot tell; but we can read diligently the language of His works and His word. Let us then interpret both, free from the artificial restraints of a demonstrative Ontology. In this mortal life, at least, every system of the kind must be an artificial restraint; for it cannot embody the absolute truth. And perhaps the intellectual barrier may be found as insurmountable hereafter and in a better world, as we find it amid the moral darkness which surrounds us here. But perhaps, too, when the moral darkness has there passed away, we may find ourselves in the enjoyment, not indeed of a logical theory of existence, but of an unbroken humility and love, in which we may serve the Revealed God while we are eternally ignorant of Being.

In parting from Mr. Ferrier, on a system so opposed to the one he has offered to the world, we cannot refrain from a renewed expression of our sympathy with his meditative ardour, and of our admiration for his speculative ability. We have confined this article almost exclusively to a review of the one fundamental principle of his Theory. But we have thus denied to ourselves the pleasure of accompanying him into the many. bye-paths and resting-places, especially of historical criticism, with which he has so agreeably enlivened his course. In these, too, we might, had we followed him, have perhaps found ourselves involved not seldom in friendly controversy; but we should also have had the pleasure of recommending some valuable interpretations of systems ill understood, and opinions inadequately appreciated. And both among the details which command our assent, and in examining the leading principle from which we have so widely differed, we meet an independent devotion to speculations that we love, as rare as it is refreshing in these degenerate days. When we turn from these pages to the dull wilderness of commonplace which spreads over most of the literature that now calls itself philosophical, we remember the inclination of the philosophic Roman-ERRARE malo cum Platone, quam cum istis VERA sentire.

INDEX

INDEX

TO THE

TWENTY-THIRD VOLUME OF THE NORTH BRITISH REVIEW.