not style myself so, neither do I desire to be known by that appellation." He did not avow himself an atheist in Paris. Sir Samuel Romilly has detailed a characteristic anecdote told of him by Diderot. He dined with a large company at the house of Baron D'Holbach: "As for atheists," said Hume, "I do not believe one exists; I have never seen one.” “You have been a little unfortunate," said the baron; "here you are with seventeen of them at the table for the first time." We suppose there was some sincerity in the statement he made: "I have surely endeavoured to refute the sceptic with all the force of which I am master, and my refutation must be allowed to be sincere, because drawn from the capital principles of my system," only he was not prepared to review his system. In writing to Elliot, he says he wishes to make Cleanthes, the theist, the hero of the dialogue. Adam Ferguson told his son, who reports the incident, that one clear and beautiful night, when they were walking home together, Hume suddenly stopped, looked up to the starry sky, and said, "O Adam, can any one contemplate the wonders of that firmament, and not believe there is a God!" Dr Carlyle tells us, that when his mother died he was found in deepest affliction and a flood of tears, upon which Mr Boyle said to him that his uncommon grief arose from his having thrown off the principles of religion; to which he replied, "Though I throw out my speculations to entertain the learned and metaphysical world, yet, in other things, I do not think so differently from the rest of the world as you imagine." In whatever way we may account for it, there was evidently a consistency in the character of Hume which made him respected by his wordly friends, who thought a man might be good though he had no godliness.

The all-important question is, How is this spirit to be corrected, this error to be met?

First, It must be firmly maintained that an honest mind can spontaneously attain such truth, secular, moral, and religious, as is needful to its peace and progress. This truth does not lie deep down in some pit, which can be reached only by deep digging, or whence it can be drawn only by the cords of lengthened ratiocination; it lies on the surface, and may be seen by immediate perception, or picked up by short discursive processes. By this spontaneous exercise of our faculties and common observation, we reach the existence of God, the accountability of man, and a day of judgment. By such an easy method, we rise to a belief in the Word of God, and in the spiritual verities there set forth. We should hold that man reaches all this by as natural a procedure as that by which he comes to know what path he should take

How it is to be met..

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in the common affairs of this life. No doubt he will at times meet with difficulties, but this only as he may be beset by perplexities in the affairs of this world; and in the one case as in the other, the sincere mind has commonly enough of light to guide it.

Secondly, It should be held that he who undermines the fundamental truth spontaneously discovered, is doing an injury to humanity. Scepticism, as Hume delights to show, can produce no mischief in the common secular affairs of life, because there are circumstances which keep men right in spite of their principles, or want of principles. But it is very different in respect of those questions which fall to be discussed in higher ethics and theology, A man will not be tempted by any sophistry to doubt the connection of cause and effect when he is thirsty and sees a cup of water before him; in such a case he will put forth his hand and take it, knowing that the beverage will refresh him. But he may be led by a wretched sophistry to deny the necessary relation of cause and effect when it would lead him upward from God's works to God himself, or induce him to seek peace in Him. Hence the importance of not allowing fundamental truth to be assailed; not because the attack will have any influence on the practical affairs of this life, but because it may hold back and damp our higher aspirations, moral and religious. Hume hoped that his scepticism might soften asperities, but he did not wish to think that any bad influences could follow from it. On one occasion he was told of a banker's clerk in Edinburgh, of good reputation, who had eloped with a sum of money; and the philosopher wondered greatly what could induce such a man thus to incur, for an inconsiderable sum, such an amount of guilt and infamy. "I can easily account for it," said John Home, "from the nature of his studies, and the kind of books he was in the habit of reading.' "What were they," said the philosopher. He was greatly annoyed when told, Boston's Fourfold State and Hume's Essays.". Certainly the youth must have been in a perplexed state who had been converted from a belief in the Fourfold State by Hume's Essays, or who was hesitating between them.

Thirdly, The philosopher must undertake a more important work. He must inquire into the nature of fundamental truth; he must endeavour to unfold the mental powers that discover it, and to expound their mode of operation, and their laws. He cannot indeed prove first truths by mediate evidence, for if they were capable of probation they could not be first truths; but he can shew that they are first truths perceived by immediate cognition of the objects, and in no

need of external support. He must as far as possible clear up the difficulties and perplexities in which the discussions: in regard to them have become involved. In particular, he must shew that while the reflex consideration of the ultimate principles of knowledge often lands us in difficulties, the principles themselves never lead us into positive contradictions; and that, therefore, while we allow that the human faculties are limited, we cannot admit that they are deceptive. This is what has been attempted by one philo sopher after another since the days of Hume.

In fact, all later philosophy springs directly or indirectly from the thoroughgoing examination to which the Scoteh sceptic had subjected received truths. It has been the aim of the Scottish school, as modified and developed by Reid, to throw back the scepticism of Hume. Reid tells us that he once believed the received doctrine of ideas so firmly as to embrace the whole of Berkeley's system along with it, till, on discovering the consequences to which it had been driven: by Hume, he was led to review the whole theory and abandon it. Kant declares that he was roused from his dogmatic slumbers by the assaults of the Scottish sceptic, and was thus impelled to the task of repelling the attack. It is scarcely necessary to say that all other philosophies, deserv ing the name, which have originated within the last hundred years, have ramified directly or indirectly from the Scottish. and the German schools; one school, the French school of M. Cousin, seeking to combine the two.

It is interesting to observe the respective ways in which the Scottish and the German metaphysician sought to meet the great sceptic. It is evident that his assaults might be repelled at one or other of two places; either where the foe has entered, or after he has made certain advances. That the mind begins with impressions and goes on to ideas, which are mere reproductions of impressions; this is the fundamental principle of Hume. Now this may be denied, we think should be denied. On what ground, we ask, does he allow the existence of impressions and ideas? When he answers, we can shew him that on the same ground he must admit more; that he must allow that the mind has convictions in regard to its own existence, and the existence of external objects, and perceptions of moral goodness. But again, he may be met at the farther stages of his progress. He asserts that the mind can reach no truth except such as it gets from experience. It may be shewn in opposition that it has an original furniture in the shape of tendencies and laws which lead to and guarantee necessary and eternal

truth.

"

How met by Reid and Kant.

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It is interesting to observe that Reid met him at both these points. Reid made a very careful inquiry into the nature of the senses as inlets of knowledge; and shewed that accompanying the sensation there is always an intuitive perception of an external world. He shewed too, though he did not make so much of it as he might, that consciousness is a mental faculty and a source of knowledge. He farther met the sceptic at the more advanced point, and proved that the mind has a primitive reason or common sense which decides at once that things are so and so; that every effect, for instance, must have a cause. We are not of opinion that Reid has thoroughly cleared up these subjects, that he has detected all that is in the senses, that he has unfolded fully the laws of intuition and its mode of operation; but he has established enough to repel the assaults of the sceptic...

Reid possessed many of the best qualities of his countrymen; in particular, he was shrewd and independent; but he was not endowed with great powers of logical analysis. On the other hand, Kant was strong where Reid was weak, that is, in power of dissection and construction; but was deficient where Reid excelled, in patient observation. He neglected, as we think most unfortunately, to oppose the fundamental principle of Hume. He allows that the mind begins with phenomena in the sense of appearances, and these phenomena are just the impressions of Hume. But if it be allowed that in the original inlet we have only impressions or phenomena, it never can be satisfactorily shown how we can reach reality by any composition or decomposition of these. Kant exercised his vast powers in meeting Hume at the other point; that is, in showing that there is an a priori furniture in the mind, independent of all experience. But what he built with the one hand, he took down with the other. For these a priori forms could not, in his theory, guarantee any objective reality. He accepts the conclusion of Hume, and allows that the speculative reason could not guide to truth; he goes so far as to maintain that it lands us in contradictions. This philosophy, intended to overthrow the scepticism of Hume, has thus led to a scepticism which has had a more extensive sway than that of the cold Scotchman ever had. He endeavoured to save himself from such an issue by calling in a Practical Reason, which guaranteed as its corollaries the freedom and immortality of the soul, and the Divine existence. But it was immediately asked how it could be shown that the Practical Reason does not deceive, after it has been conceded that the Speculative Reason leads to illusion? Thus the insecure mound, raised with such labour

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to stem the flood, only aggravated the outburst and overflow as it gave way.

Sir W. Hamilton sought to unite Reid and Kant, but was never able to weld thoroughly together the principles which he took from two such different sources. His doctrines of the relativity of knowledge and of causation as a mere impotency of the mind have prepared the way for a doctrine of nescience now largely espoused. Some of his pupils have betaken themselves to a sort of confused Berkleyanism mingled with Kantism, which will furnish an easy passage to the nescient theory in so shrewd a nation as Scotland, and among so practical a people as the English. Mr Mill, in his Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy, has brought us, we have seen, to a Humism joined to Comtism. This is the dismal creed provided for those who choose to follow the negative criticisms of the day in philosophy and theology, What we need in these circumstances is a new Thomas Reid, not to do the work which the common-sense philosopher did over again, but a corresponding service in this age to what he did in his time.

ART. VII.-Rome and the Roman Question in 1865.

OME is to many the Colosseum, the Forum, the palace

of the Cæsars, the tomb of the Scipios, the city where survive in ruined grandeur the vestiges of republican and imperial Rome, the mistress of the world that has passed away, or that now lives in the history, traditions, and laws of our European nations.

To others, Rome is the catacombs, the basilicas, the city of the mural paintings, tombs, monuments, remains of the early Christians, the fathers, confessors, martyrs of the church, the reputed prison of Peter, the certainly known prison of Paul, the city in which he stood before Nero when no man stood with him, and in which he received his crown of martyrdom.

To others, Rome is the Apollo Belvedere, the Torso, the Dying Gladiator, the Laocoon, the palace of ancient art, the gallery where are gathered the treasures of classic statuary, the wonder, the model, the despair of the modern sculptor.

To others, Rome is the Loggia and Stanze of Raphael, the Last Judgment and Sibyls of Michael Angelo, the Jerome of Domenichino, the roseate morning car, the Aurora of Guido,