the Kantians have fallen of making a schism in the body, which in this case is not the church, but the mind. I cannot allow that one part or organ of our nature leads to error, and another to truth. I hope we have done with that style of sentiment, so common an age or two ago, which lamented in so weakly a manner, often with a vast amount of affectation, that reason led to scepticism, from which we are saved by faith, and which was greatly strengthened by Kant's doctrine of the practical reason coming in to counteract the illusion of the speculative reason. The account I have given above makes every part of our nature correspond to and conspire with every other. It does more it makes every faculty of the mind yield its testimony to its Divine author. The understanding collating the facts in nature and the collocations therein, and proceeding on its own inherent law of cause and effect, which I represent as having an objective value, furnishes the argument from design. Then our moral nature comes in, and reveals a law above us and binding on us, and clothes the intelligence which we have discovered with love. I admit that the finite works of God do not prove God to be infinite. I believe no one ever said that they did. But this circumstance has made Kant and his school insist that thereby the theistic argument is made invalid. But as we call in our moral nature to clothe God with rectitude, so we call in that idea of the infinite, the perfect, which the mind has, and which was fondly dwelt on by Anselm, Descartes, and Leibnitz, to clothe him with infinity. Our nature is thus a harmoniously constructed instrument, raising a hymn to its Cre

ator.

I cannot agree with Mr. Mahaffy in thinking that all philosophy was proceeding in the wrong road till Kant set it out on the right. On the contrary, I hold that the critical meth od, the phenomenology, and the à priori forms of Kant were all a departure from the genuine catholic philosophy which has been expounded by the profound and wise thinkers of all ages and nations. I should never think of charging the philosophy of Kant with producing the lethal influence of the scepticism of Hume. It has many and great redeeming qualities in its evolution of the high capacities and ideas of the human soul, and in the deep foundation it gives to morality. But it has

errors which, after lying latent for a time, have come out in that agnosticism which is at present laying an arrest on all high philosophic and religious truth.

I am quite aware that a large body of speculators will look down with contempt on the sober views I have been expounding, and not think it worth their while to examine them. Metaphysical youths from Britain and America, who have passed a year or two at a German university, and have there been listening to lectures in which the speaker has been passing along so easily, and without allowing a word of cross-examination, such phrases as subject and object, form and matter, à priori and à posteriori, real and ideal, phenomenon and noumenon, will wonder that any one should keep on such solid ground as I have done while they themselves are on such elevated heights. But I can bear their superciliousness without losing my temper, and I make no other retort than that of Kant on one occasion, "that their master is milking the he-goat while they are holding the sieve." I am sure that the agnostics, whether of the philosophical or physiological schools, will resent my attempt to give knowledge so firm a foundation. I may not have influence myself to stop the crowd which is moving on so exultingly; I may be thrown down by the advancing cavalcade; but I am sure I see the right road to which men will have to return sooner or latter; and I am satisfied if only I have opened a gate ready for those who come to discover that the end of their present broad path is darkness and nihilism.

I have ventured to suggest that there should be an understood unity of action among those who wish to oppose the prevailing philosophic tendency which combines in an incongruous manner materialism and agnosticism. I do not project the formation of a Solemn League and Covenant like my Scottish forefathers, or a Bund like the Swiss cantons, or a joint-stock company like our merchants. But as there is evidently an understanding and a co-operation and a determination to laud each other on the part of those who reject all positive truth, so there should be an attempt on the part of those who oppose them to combine in principle and in action. I will be glad if Scotland, provided she is not become altogether ashamed of

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her old philosophy take a lead in this campaign.' I should rejoice to find Professor Mahaffy, with or (better) without the assistance of Kant, continuing to oppose Mill and Bain and Spencer. France has never followed Darwin as England has done, and there must be descendants of the schools of Descartes, Jouffroy, and Cousin ready to defend a spiritual philosophy. We might get Italian aid from Mamiani and Ferri, editors of the La Filosophia delle Scuole Italiane. There may be some in Germany, wearied of Hegelianism and pessimism on the one hand, and of Haeckel and materialism on the other, willing to have a philosophy derived from consciousness. But in this REVIEW I would address myself specially to the young men of America. The United States in their four hundred colleges have a greater number of professors of mental science than any other country, I believe than in all other countries, and some of these

"As regards Hamilton," says Professor Mahaffy (Art. p. 213), “it seems ungracious to bring up against him another case of inconsistency, seeing he has received such severe justice at the hands of the present generation in philosophy. His teaching may be called extinct, and it will be difficult in the history of philosophy to find a man more overrated while he lived and despised as soon as he was unable to defend his own opinions." Is there any thing here of the old jealousy of Edinburgh on the part of Dublin? It is certainly humiliating and unpleasant to reflect that while Hamilton called forth a greater number of distinguished pupils than any metaphysician of his age, no one of these has made any effort to defend him. I was one of the first to criticise him, which I did when his pupils regarded him as infallible. Were I ten years younger than I am I would be strongly inclined to say a word in behalf of this philosophy, which was injured mainly by his so far departing from the inductive spirit of Reid to go over to the critical method of Kant. I am tempted to add that I might be inclined, did other pressing duties admit, to say a word in behalf of Mr. Mill's Inductive Logic in opposition to the attack of Mr. Jevons. Mr. Mahaffy adds: “Mansel is another instance, like Hamilton's, of an enormous but ephemeral reputation. He is never so much as now named among philosophers nowadays." Is not this because Oxford is going over to Hegelianism, which I venture to predict will not have so long a reign as Hamilton and Mill have had in that university? I am glad that Professor Mahaffy has had the courage to state how much a materialistic psychology has been promoted by Mr. Bain by the influence of his school in London being so often appointed examiner in the Indian Civil Service competitions, and thus guiding in a very exclusive way the reading and studies of young men. I notice that Professor Flint, in the papers in 1877 set for the Ferguson Scholarship, puts queries requiring some knowledge of Hobbes, Hume, Comte, Kant, Fichte, and Hegel, but never refers to Hutcheson, Reid, Stewart, or Hamilton.

have large numbers (I know one who has two hundred) studying philosophy under them. Surely this country has a duty to do in beating back the fatal tides. I do not recommend that American youth should, on the one hand, as Professor Mahaffy seems to fear, neglect the philosophy of the past, including that of Kant, or that on the other hand they should overlook physiological research; but whatever they call in to aid, let them rear the American philosophy by a careful inductive method on the facts of our mental constitution.

JAMES MCCOSH.

PHYSIOLOGICAL METAPHYSICS; OR, THE APO

THE

THEOSIS OF SCIENCE BY SUICIDE.

A PHILOSOPHICAL MEDITATION.

'HE phrase Physiological Metaphysics is selected simply for precision, because no other expresses our meaning so well. We do not intend by it any single or special science, as when we speak of the science of mechanics, or optics, or chemistry, or geology, or of any other subject-matter, whether physical or psychical. Nor do we use the word collectively for the systematized or interpreted knowledge of several classes of objects, as when modern science is spoken of, and usually though improperly made to include only those sciences which have matter for their sphere. We believe most fervently in science, in each and all of these senses; we rejoice in its progress; we confide in its methods, and are not afraid of the direct or indirect results of any of its discoveries concerning man, the universe, or God. We loyally accord to it independence and supreme authority within its sphere.

Nor do we intend by it physiological science, or that science which has life and living beings for its sphere of inquiry. This science we delight in, most of all the sciences of nature, for the reason that the scientific study of life is the best preparation for and the best introduction to the study of the soul, inasmuch as it effectually disciplines man to do justice to psychical phenomena and all the beliefs and relations which they involve, by first confronting him with the mysteries of life, and then introducing him to those higher phenomena of conscious experience and activity from which these are yet sharply distinguished.

We would not be suspected for a moment, by the use of this