world? And it is also a question, whether, with all the prodigious mass of genius and talent which, since the days of Bacon, have been expended upon them, those phenomena and laws are yet studied in the right way; whether they are studied according to those principles which can alone make them conducive to the real and permanent interests of humanity. It is at least allowable to ask, if in the explanation and application of those phenomena, final causes have not been too much neglected?

We are very much afraid, that this is the case. Too much importance is laid upon material causes, and far too little attention directed to the real efficients of the universe. We are indeed grovelling in the dust. All those opinions and practices, founded in the mysterious depths and recesses of human consciousness, and which elevated the soul above earth, and earthly concerns, are either gradually fading away, or openly and violently attacked. The immateriality of the soul is already treated as a phantom of the schools, and its immortality will follow next. Moral affections and moral duties, are all referred to the cold, freezing principle of utility. We love our relations and friends, because it is our interest to do so! We are all instinctively benevolent and grateful, purely from calculations of self interest! And this is what our superior, unprejudiced reasoners, our "lights of the world, and demi-gods of fame," in the plenitude of their wisdom and philanthropy, would substitute for the ethics of the teacher of Nazareth! Alas! alas! if this be truth, well may we exclaim with the German philosopher;* -“Oh! extinguish not these scintillations of our ignorance and superstition, leave us to our dreams, however dark; they are still more pleasing than our real existence !"

* Jean Paul Richter-and a true philosopher he was, with all eccentricities.

It is utterly absurd to appeal to the high authority of Lord Bacon, for that vast extension and all-importance of the physical sciences, which their idolizers are now claiming for them. No one who has properly understood and appreciated his writings, can fail to perceive, that the author of the Novum Organon was as much opposed as any one could be, to extending the empire of sense and understanding over the sciences pertaining to spiritual natures. At the time when he rose like a meteor to dissipate the intellectual darkness which had accumulated for ages, neither the moral nor the physical sciences were cultivated in any legitimate way, or to any good purpose. He taught us, that induction from facts and experience was the only method to give man a knowledge and command over nature and her operations. And it was not long before the excellence of his precepts was manifested in the discoveries of a Boyle, a Harvey, and a Newton. But very far was he from teaching, that inductive reasoning could ever be applied to spiritual things and to moral purposes; or that, because the truths of reason, pure reason, could never be made evident to sense and observation, those pretended truths were only fictions of superstition and priestcraft, and deservedly to be contemned by the unprejudiced philosopher. Neither did he ever teach that the study of the phenomena of nature could ever be productive of truly beneficial effects, unless they were connected with, and viewed in relation to, the one great principle of life, motion, and being.

And it is a great and serious evil attendant upon the mechanics corpuscula philosophy as now taught, that it dissevers operations from their vital causes-the universe from its source. It evacuates the natural world of all nature; and instead of a world created and filled with productive forces by the Almighty Fiat, gives us a lifeless machine, whirled about by the dust of its own grinding. One phenomena is followed by another one operation is consequent upon another

operation ;-nothing is ever attributed to an efficient cause-all is dull, cold, heavy and leaden! "As if," says Mr. Coleridge, "death could come from the living fountain of life-nothingness and phantom from the plenitude of reality-the absoluteness of creative will.

Holy! holy! holy !" continues he, "let me be deemed mad by all men if such be thy ordinance; but oh from such madness, save and preserve me, my God!"

Let our candid readers, then, we most earnestly entreat them, think a little about these things; more especially if they have themselves been led away by the glitter and splendour of a superficial philosophy. They are inexcuseable if they do not; and they will think so themselves, when, perhaps, at the close of a long life, they discover with sorrow and compunction, that the studies and pursuits to which they have devoted the best energies of their minds, have failed, woefully failed, in conferring those habits and those feelings which alone could enable them to enter their final haven with all quietness and with all peace. We make these remarks in the sincerity of our hearts. We do not say-neglect altogether physical studies; but prosecute them as a secondary affair, subservient, at the best, only to the comfort or luxuries of earthly existence. Let the deductions of the understanding be always referred to the intuitions of the reason, and to the still small voice of the human heart (to be heard by all who will listen in humbleness and sincerity), as the final test of their validity. Let them never forget, that the human understanding in its most elevated range, is still but a prison to the soul, unless it is made subservient to the spiritual part of humanity, to those forms of our inmost consciousness, which are in intimate communion with the eternal reason. And above all let them be assured, that no peace, no rest can be found in any philosophical studies, either physical or transcendental, unless all their observations, discussions, and contemplations, are connected, robed, and sanctified by the ever-blessed spirit of human

charity and love. Let them do this;-and they will never regret the hour when they turned their attention from flowing, shadowy, and unsatisfying appearances, to real, permanent, and substantial being.

Nothing can be more true, nothing can be better expressed, than the sentiments of Madame de Stael on this head. "The phenomena of nature," says she, "must not be understood according to the laws of matter alone, however well combined those laws may be. They have a philosophical sense and a religious end, of which the most attentive contemplation will never know the extent."

They have, indeed, a philosophical sense and a religious end; and it will form the high and imperishable renown of the man whose name stands at the head of this article, that he has devoted the best energies of his life and his talents, towards impressing this all-important truth on the minds of his ingenuous countrymen. He has laboured long through evil and through good report, casting his bread upon the waters; and as yet apparently, with but very slight results. Materialism, either openly avowed or unconsciously cherished, is still predominant, and appears to be every day enlarging the boundaries of its gloomy and cheerless empire. But the seeds of a high and spiritual philosophy have not been scattered in vainthey have not altogether fallen upon stony ground. And let the enthusiastic philosopher, aud his few but no less earnest disciples, faint not in their task ;—for those seeds, though sown at present amid dishonour and ridicule, will most assuredly, at no distant period, be reaped with power and never ending glory.

(To be continued.)

ERRATUM." Throughout the whole of the article on Living Poets, in the last number, the reader is requested to read Shelley instead of Shelly. It was written Shelly in the MS. for shortness, and thoughtlessly suffered to be so printed."