establishing the last point. But we must now hurry on to the chapter on miracles. We select this chapter solely because the question of miracles is a cardinal one, and a test by which to try the Christian character of philosophical speculations. The universal prevalence of the idea of miracles, renders the question, on the one hand, more difficult, but, on the other, gives an important hint towards accounting for the phenomenon. It shows, firstly, that our mind is unable to rest content with the ordinary course of human life, and its relation to surrounding nature; secondly, that it has the inkling of a freer relation to nature; thirdly, that it assumes the possibility of a direct personal intercourse between Deity and man, through the medium of a peculiar superhuman use of natural objects. Miracles may, accordingly, be said to be required by, instead of contradicting, the human mind. The term miracle describes the relation of a particular (presumed) fact, to a previously settled system of knowledge. If the fact harmonize with the system, it is termed natural; if a place cannot be found for it in the system, it is termed a miracle, or, at all events, a marvel. Many philosophers maintain that all so-called miracles will, eventually, prove to be mere marvels; that is, be brought into a higher system. Prelate Mehring, at this point, very properly falls back on the question :-Can there be an event which, being absolutely new in itself, is and always must remain a miracle? This possibility is involved in the nature of God, as the primal absolute personality; for it is one of the essential characteristics of personality, to be able to make a real beginning, to be a veritable cause. In other words, the question of miracles depends on the prior question of a living and personal, as opposed to both a deistic and a pantheistic God. We commend Prelate Mehring's work to the careful study of those who are acquainted with German. Die Schöpfungs geschichte nach Natur wissenschaft und Bibel. (Creation according to Natural Science and the Bible.) Von Prof. Dr. F. W. SCHULTZ, Breslau. Gotha: F. A. Perthés. London: Asher & Co. 1865. A new attempt to reconcile Genesis and natural science. Professor Schultz allows that in the two very important points, the duration of the work of creation, and the relation between its successive stages, the Bible does not harmonize with natural science. His enquiry then ishow are we to treat these undeniable differences? We may not arbitrarily reject or restrict the results of natural science; we may not get over them by modes of explaining the narrative; but we must aim at gaining a better insight into the entire manner and nature of the revelation. Many have supposed that to deny the harmony between Genesis and the actual process of creation, would force us to treat the account in the former as a myth. But there is a prior question, namely, whether a revealed representation of events must, necessarily, harmonize with the actuality, in regard to time and other like outward circumstances? Such a representation, we must remember, is not an historical account based on tradition or observation, which as such would be conditioned by the facts themselves and their relations to each other; but a picture of something which is not seen by the natural eye, and as it is in itself; but by the spiritual eye, and as it is in the mind of God. Now that Contemporary Literature. 299 which, in the mind of God, forms an unity, and when revealed naturally, presents itself in this its unity to the inspired mind, will be split up into many parts, divided by long intervals of time and space, when it enters on actual outward existence. The man of science describes the outward creation, the actual history of the realisation of the divine ideas; the writers of the Bible describe what presented itself to their inspired intuition, in the mind of God. In support of this hypothesis, Schultz appeals to the analogy of prophecy, whose manner it was, he maintains, to set forth events which actually required decennia or centuries to their fulfilment, as happening either simultaneously or in a very short space of time. This is in brief the solution offered by Professor Schultz. His book reviews the entire field, in an able and clear manner, and deserves thoughtful attention. Gott und der Mensch. (God and Man.) Von Dr. H. ULRICI. I. Lieb und Seele; Grundsrige einer Psychologie des Menschen. (Body and Soul; Outlines of a Psychology of Man.) Leipzig: O. Weigel. London: Asher & Co. 1866. The above treatise is a sequel to the same author's excellent work on 'God and Nature,' published in 1862. Concerning the design of the two works, Dr. Ulrici expresses himself to the following effect :- My aim is to build up an idealistic view of life and the world, on the foundation supplied by the results of the natural sciences, that is, on the foundation ' of established facts; or, in other words, to show that the soul relatively to the body, the spirit relatively to nature, may not merely claim, but actually possesses independent existence and rule.' It would take a very long review to do anything like justice to the immense learning, the clearness of thought, and the sobriety of judgment, characteristic of this work. It is divided into two parts; one physiological, treating of such subjects as matter and force; the human body in its relation to psychical phenomena; the nerves and the soul; the organs of sense and their functions in their psychological significance (Eye, ear, &c., impulse, instinct):-the other psychological, treating of consciousness; the soul in its conscious relations to its own body and other bodies; walking, sleeping, dreaming; somnambulism; mental disorders; temperaments, &c.; imagination; the impulses of the soul; desire, volition; the education and culture of man; the soul in its relation to God. Dr. Ulrici is, in philosophical parlance, a decided theist; and the last chapter, in particular, is in most, if not in all points, thoroughly in harmony with the Christian system. We know of no better storehouse of weapons of defence and attack against all the modern forms of materialism than God and Nature,' 'God and Man,'-of course from the purely philosophical point of view. Geschichte der Neuern Philosophic. (History of Modern Philo- The spirit and aims of this History of Modern Philosophy, part of which now appears in a second, thoroughly revised, edition, we cannot better describe, than in the author's own words. The task I have set 'myself is, the methodical development of the main systems from which we derive our light, and on which the history of philosophy lives; and 'to reproduce them in such a manner, that my readers shall clearly see in what problems they took their rise, how they solved these problems, and what unsolved problems they left to their successors.' He who ⚫ understands the chief systems of philosophy, will understand the history of philosophy; he too, and he alone, will know what problems occupy the philosophical mind in general.' 'We can no more understand 'philosophy without tracing out the course of its development or its history, than we can understand a man, of the course and tasks of whose life, we know nothing.' The first volume comprises a general introduction, and the system of Des Cartes; the second, Des Cartes' school, Geulinx, Malebranche, and Spinoza; the third, Leibnitz and his school; the fourth and fifth, Kant and the critical philosophy. As each volume contains between 500 and 600 pages, it may be imagined that the accounts given of the various systems, are full and pretty exhaustive. We may add, too, that they will be found characterized by clearness; for Professor Fischer is a precise thinker and good writer. The Introduction consists, mainly, of a brief survey of the course taken by philosophical enquiry, from the Ionians to Des Cartes. Till he comes to Christianity--which is of course a phenomenon demanding either the recognition of its own explanation, or another explanation, at the hands of philosophers-Professor Fischer's exposition of the significance and intent of the various systems that arose, strikes us as very forcible; but at that point he stumbles,-stumbles, because, like too many others of his guild, he is tainted with Pelagianism; because, he does not see that each individual man needs a particular redemption from self and sin; that this redemption cannot be effected by any mere revolution in consciousness, even though that revolution should leave behind in us the belief in the essential oneness of God and man; that what we need is the redintegration of the moral order of the world, and of our own will and heart; and that Christianity is the series of facts and influences, by which this result is produced. Of the rise and essence of Christianity, Professor Fischer seems to take, in the main, the view propounded by the late Dr. Baur of Tübingen. In the chapter entitled Religious Platonism: the problem of the redemption of the world,' which very strikingly and truly describes the problem at which Plotinus, Porphyrius, Iamblichus, Proclus, and Philo-Judaeus, laboured, as the problem of redemption, the problem how to overcome the world, practically and speculatively, there occur the following words :-The problem of redemption requires a 'personal solution. It is solved when a man appears, who really overcomes the world in himself; who is free from the world in the fullest sense of the term; in whom humanity recognises its achetype; in 'whom the redemption has taken place, the idea appeared, the Logos 'become flesh, and God become man. Nothing but faith in such a 'person can satisfy man's need of redemption.' Beautiful as these words seem, they are like apples of Sodom; for we find in the following section on Christianity, that Christ saves rather as the embodiment of a new idea, than as the all-sufficient sacrifice, and ever-living Prophet. We have made special reference to this defect, because we are oldPriest, and King. All philosophy is vain to the extent to which it clashes with the truth as it is in Jesus;' and we are satisfied that the Church's belief has, in the main, ever embodied this truth. THE BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW. OCTOBER 1, 1866. ART. I.-(1.) Maine de Biran: Sa Vie et ses Pensées. Publiées par E. NAVILLE. Paris: J. Cherbuliez. 1857. (2.) Euvres Inedites de M. de Biran. Publiées par ERNEST NAVILLE, avec la collaboration de MARC-DEBRIT. Paris: Dezobry, E. Magdeleine, et Cie. 1859. (3.) Euvres Philosophiques de M. de Biran. Editées par M. COUSIN. Paris Ladrange. 1841. (4.) Fragments Philosophiques. Par V. COUSIN. Tome deuxième, 1838. (Containing Introduction to the Posthumous Work of M. de Biran.') Stat nominis magni umbra. For many years Maine de Biran has been the shade of a great name,' and nothing more. Оссаsionally, this shade lowers vaguely and vastly upon the distant horizon of English thought,* but ere it has gathered itself into The following passage, which introduces the preface of Bulwer's Strange Story,' may be instanced in illustration of the references that allure and perplex English readers with reference to the illustrious Unknown. It will also serve to whet the edge of desire in our own readers, and to indicate the course of thought our article pursues. 'Of the many illustrious thinkers whom the school of France has contributed to the intellectual philosophy of our age, Victor Cousin, the most accomplished, assigns to Maine de Biran the rank of the most original. In the 'successive developments of his own mind, Maine de Biran may, indeed, be 'said to represent the change that has been silently at work throughout the general mind of Europe since the close of the last century. He begins his career of philosopher with blind faith in Condillac and • Materialism. As an intellect, severely conscientious in the pursuit of truth, expands amidst the perplexities it revolves, phenomena, which ⚫ cannot be accounted for by Condillac's sensuous theories, open to his eye. To the first rudimentary life of man, the animal life "characterised by impressions, appetites, movements, organic in their origin, and ruled by the Law of Necessity," he is compelled to add "the second or human life, 'from which free-will and self-consciousness emerge." He thus arrives at ⚫ the union of mind and matter; but still a something is wanted, some key NO. LXXXVIII. Y 6 distinct form, or unveiled its cloudy features, other and nearer objects have crowded it out of view. We are thus haunted by the recollection of a name and a presence which has some mysterious significance, but whose secret we have not fathomed. We purpose, in this article, to discover the secret, to exhibit in definite form and English dress, the thoughts of an eminent French philosopher, whose name has had a sort of cabalistic virtue, but whose works have, hitherto, been wholly unknown in our country. In humbler fashion, the critic's pen will thus rival the poet's, and of the form of things unknown,' Turn them to shape, and give to airy nothings, A local habitation and a name.' It is not in England alone, that M. de Biran has had a phantomal existence. Among his compatriots he has fared no better. M. Naville, thus introduces his admirable little work, M. de Biran, sa Vie et ses Pénsees' (1857),-which was issued as an avant-courier of the large and important volumes, which he published in 1859, and by which he has redintegrated M. de Biran's philosophic history and system. M. de Biran has now 'been dead 33 years. The public, however, has only had a most incomplete exposition of the doctrines of this philosopher, whom · to the marvels which neither of these conditions of vital being suffices to explain. And at last the grand self-completing thinker arrives at the 'third life of man in man's soul. There are not," says this philosopher, 'towards the close of his last and loftiest work, There are not only two principles opposed to each other in man, there are three. For there are, in him, three lives and three orders of faculties. Though all should 'be in accord and in harmony between the sensitive and the active faculties 'which constitute man, there would still be a nature superior, a third life, 'which would not be satisfied; which would make felt (ferait sentir) the 'truth that there is another happiness, another wisdom, another perfection, ' at once above the greatest human happiness, above the highest wisdom, or intellectual and moral perfection of which the human being is susceptible." 6 It will be seen that romance, through the freest exercise of its wildest vagaries, conducts its bewildered hero towards the same goal to which philosophy leads its luminous student through far grander portents of nature, far higher visions of supernatural power, than fable can yield 'to fancy. That goal is defined in these noble words: 'The relations ' (rapports) which exist between the elements and the products of the three lives of man are the subject of meditation, the fairest and finest, but also the most difficult. The stoic philosophy shows us all which can be 'most elevated in active life, but it makes abstraction of the animal nature, ' and absolutely fails to recognise all which belongs to the life of the spirit. Its practical morality is beyond the forces of humanity. Christianity alone embraces the whole man. It dissimulates none of the sides of his nature, and avails itself of his miseries and his weakness in order to 'conduct him to his end in showing him all the want that he has of a " succour more exalted." |