once watered them have shrunk to rivulets; the magnificent palaces of old times are in ruins; plate sculptured by the D'Arphes may yet be seen; but, in place of past wealth, Spain now owes to our countrymen, 70,000,0007.: the colleges have ceased to instruct, printing presses are few, and choice manuscripts are falling to dust in neglected libraries; moral vigour is gone, and corruption and venality have vitiated all orders. The Spanish ladies are only skilled to twirl a fan and communicate gossip: the Spanish Court exhibits a degraded contrast to the purity of our own. Yet all is not change in Spain: there is no country in which good has proved so evanescent, and in which what is evil or indifferent has become so firmly and indelibly stereotyped. There is still among the Spaniards abundance of pride, jealousy, and suspicion: the senseless cant about black blood, red blood, and blue blood, has lost none of its force: bull-fights are still national sports witnessed by the Queen and her ladies: the ancient articles of diet remain in esteem-wine much like vinegar, onions, and garlic: the figaro and the ignorant physician are existing characters: the Spanish ventas are still rather Roman than modern: there are still the shorn priest, the image of the Virgin, and the kneeling votary.

What, then, is the cause of Spain's downfall? A philosopher surveying Spain in the period of its grandeur might not have descried that nascent germ of evil which at length grew to huge proportions and poisoned everything around it; but it is impossible for the historian after a patient analysis of facts to overlook it. What species of liberty could co-exist with a despotic sacerdotal engine, paramount to all law, and aiming through means repugnant to justice at an impossible resultnational unity of religious sentiment in every minute tittle? What idea more preposterous than that all individual opinions, on the most momentous of all topics, should be stretched and measured upon the pattern of orthodoxy existent precariously enough in the minds of inquisitors, whose hearts are shut to pity, though they may be open to every selfish, malignant, or imperious motive and caprice? Accordingly, when the "communities" in the reign of Charles V. strove for freedom, Ximenes the minister of the Inquisition crushed Pacheco and his band of patriots; and the final ruin of all that was noble in the institutions of Spain was consummated under Philip II., the type of transcendental Romanism.

England in Elizabeth's reign was denied advantages enjoyed by Spain under Isabella. Elizabeth herself was a princess endowed with inferior virtues in comparison with

Isabella: her restrictions on trade were most unreasonable. Yet England flourished under her sceptre: even her commerce was greatly enlarged-civil liberty grew beneath the shade of religious freedom-the Puritans remained to destroy the Star Chamber and the Court of High Commission. Within less than a century after Elizabeth, England had become a constitutional Monarchy and was respected throughout the world: within less than a century after Isabella, Spain had succumbed to despotism, and had dwindled into a fourth-rate European power.

ART. II.-The Philosophy of Religion. By J. D. MORELL, A.M. London: Longmans. 1849.

THE opening sentence of Mr. Morell's ambitious work will enable us to state its purpose: "Whatever may be the religion proper to man, its real nature and its possible intensity must depend upon the constitution of the human mind"—that is to say, man can neither know, nor feel, nor act, beyond the limits or contrary to the original structure of his mental nature. Hence, Mr. Morell begins with an elementary investigation of the "faculties of the human mind," in order that, having ascertained their nature and scope, he may be able to determine philosophically what is possible and what is impossible to be effected by them. Avoiding, as far as is practicable, the use of technical words, we propose to commence this article with a brief summary of those views of these faculties, with some of our own illustrations, which have led Mr. Morell to conclusions which we regard as full of danger upon one of the most momentous of all subjects-the true claims of the written word of God. We long hesitated whether it were better or not to pass the subject by, especially as the work came to our hands so long after its publication. But, though we hope and believe the work is destined for oblivion, yet we are persuaded it will serve the present purpose of lodging fresh difficulties in the minds of many who will imagine they can comprehend them, though utterly unable to work out their solution.

Beginning at the beginning, then, Mr. Morell seeks to ascertain what the mind is in its essence; and, after an enumeration of the principal phenomena which might seem to lay claim to be so designated, he concludes thus :

"By the process of analysis we find at length that the central point of our consciousness-that which makes each man what he is in distinction from every other man-that which expresses the real concrete essence of the mind apart from its regulative laws of primal processes, is the will......Without will......we should be things, and not men at all. Spontaneity, personality, will, self-these, then, and all similar words, express as nearly as possible the essential nature or principle of the human mind" (p. 3).

Moreover, the mind, thus defined, consists of various faculties, the broad division of which is into "those relating to the acquisition of knowledge on one side, and those subserving activity and impulse on the other "-i.e., the intellectual and the emotional. "Remembering, then, that the power of the will runs through the whole, we may regard these two classes as exhausting the entire sum of our mental phenomena."

But, now, how comes this mind by all its knowledge-and the much higher knowledge supposed by a revelation? For it cannot be allowed to effect any thing contrary to, or beyond, its nature:-for example, if any one possessing no higher faculties than our own should pretend to know the politics, or geology, or religion, of the remotest planets, we should be justified in demanding how he came by such knowledge, because it transcends all the known boundaries of human nature. It is, therefore, demanded to determine two important points-first, how the mind knows; and, secondly, what it can and what it cannot know by its original structure, and to draw as rigidly as possible the limits of both, as bulwarks against scepticism on one side and credulity on the other.

The conditions of the mind's knowing are unquestionably the bodily organism in which it is encased-according to the maxim, "Nihil in mente, quod non prius in sensu." Hence, the first stage of the mind's knowledge is described as sensational consciousness-that is, the feeling produced in the mind by the action of any outward objects upon the senses:-for example, the sight of a flower may produce a mere feeling in the mind of an infant, which, however, cannot properly be called knowledge. But when the mind is in a condition to connect this feeling with the particular object which produced it, that is knowledge, and that by which it was obtained is designated as perceptive consciousness, which is classed by Mr. Morell as the second stage.

The great use of the perceptive consciousness is to bring the subject (the mind) and the object (a tree, for instance) face to

face; so that, without the aid of the reasoning faculties, the mind shall be sure of what it thus knows. And it is important to remark that this principle, if thoroughly established, entirely destroys the sceptical theory of Hume and his fellow philosophers, by making this kind of human knowledge certain: for, if men had to give their reasons why a certain colour before them was white and not black, then there would be room for doubts whether it were white or black; and thus knowledge must_become fundamentally uncertain. But, granting an original structure of the mind, and a similar original structure of colour which necessitates a given affection of the mind when it has been brought into contact with that colour, then does this class of human knowledge rest upon evidence as powerful and perfect as that upon which we know that we have senses and are living beings at all.

If two persons were placed before a white wall, the word by which they might then agree to designate its colour would for ever after remain in their memories as the sign or symbol to denote that same colour; and in all similar minds, which had agreed to adopt that symbol, there would not exist a moment's doubt about the colour of white walls, nor about the particular word set apart as its sign. But, suppose an enquiry should arise as to the magnitude or height of that wall, then the understanding or reasoning faculties would be appealed to; and, out of an indefinite number of independent examiners (without a measuring instrument), no two would agree with fractional accuracy as to its exact height. Here we have, manifestly, a clear distinction in the nature and certainty of knowledge. All would agree about its colour; but, supposing its height to be represented by 7 31-32, not one would even guess it.

The third and fourth stages of Mr. Morell's intellectual scale are described as the logical and the intuitional consciousness a distinction which, as we believe, lies at the foundation of a true mental philosophy. The speculator upon the subject, who does not start with this principle firmly fixed and at work in his mind, lies at the mercy of the sceptic. We will endeavour to simplify this important distinction.

If two square blocks of wood and stone lie before the spectator, what does he know about them? He can, by his senses, determine that they have length, breadth, and thickness, hardness, roughness, &c.; that one will swim in water and the other will sink, and similar properties accidental to either. All this is the work of the understanding, which, by the help of a common language, can be made known to any

other understanding. But, moreover, both these objects have what is called substance. And what is substance, essentially? Various degrees of hardness, softness, roughness, smoothness, &c., are perceived to be the properties of these objects. But what are the objects themselves?-what is this substance, wood or stone? The mind that asks or hears this question has the most perfect certainty of the reality of substance; but yet it is unable to give any logical definition of it, excepting by an enumeration of its accidents. Hence, then, it must be concluded that this kind of knowledge is what is called immediate. The soul is made to know substance by what are called its native intuitions-a direct insight in contradistinction to the processes of the reasoning faculties. And this kind of knowledge is equally certain at least, and far more exact, than that about which the understanding is employed. The mind, by its native structure, cannot help believing in substance, form, beauty, &c., any more than the body, by its native structure, can help feeling a blow, roughness, or smoothness.

Again: music is intuitional knowledge-that is, it depends upon the native structure of the mind; and no definitions, or explanations, or talk of any kind, can make him comprehend harmony whose soul does not at once, without an effort of the understanding, perceive it.

But the vast importance of this distinction will be seen by applying it to the highest object of human thought-God. How comes the mind to know an Infinite Being? In answer to this we quote Mr. Morell's words, which so exactly express our own conviction :--

"If any one imagine that he can ever attain the full conception of the Deity by a process of logical definition or reasoning, he will be utterly disappointed of his hope......... To the intuitional consciousness there is no idea more positive, more sure, more necessary than this. Reason up to a God, and the best you can do is to hypostatize and deify the first product of your own faculties; but, admit the reality of an intellectual intuition (as the mass of mankind virtually do), and the absolute stands before us in all its living reality" (p. 39).

Again: how came we by the knowledge of good and evil? The philosopher's reply is--the human soul is endowed with what is called a moral sense, by means of which it knows these, as it knows external objects by means of the bodily senses. Calculations, founded upon the advantages of good and the disadvantages of evil, are very useful for secondary proofs and by way of explanation. But the things themselves--good and evil-are not so reasoned out by the understanding and given