or indifference, in no cold-hearted aversion to an acknowledgment of the being of a God, that any have seemed to embrace, or have actually embraced, the Pantheistic philosophy. There may have been superficial inquiry, hasty and rash generalization, boastful claims of higher and better light, natural pride of opinion, and very natural speculative error; but there has been, we are very sure, nothing of what is meant by the spirit of infidelity; but, on the contrary, a spirit of belief and love, and a real devotion to the interests of truth and virtue. We may well grieve that Pantheism, the public secret of Germany, gives any signs of becoming the public secret of America; that the genius of Cousin should avail through its attractive speculations, in even a single individual, to substitute a mystical faith in a God that is no God, in a Christianity. that is no Christianity, for the faith of the Bible, which so long has answered so well. But, though we doubt not, if such speculations prevailed, that Religion, not only Christianity, but Religion, would for a time decline or perish; we do not believe, on the other hand, that in the case of the few individuals, who at present may be regarded as having received them, they have had any effect injurious to character, or have so much as overshadowed religious hope, in their own view ; we suppose there has been a positive gain, both in the strength of virtue and the firmness of hope. Such we suppose to be the truth of all great heresiarchs. They have departed from the prevalent faith, not for something worse and less efficacious, but for something which they esteemed to be better and more efficacious. To themselves their new doctrines have proved so. It is to their followers and imitators, to those who push their opinions to consequences, they themselves did not see or would not acknowledge to be legitimately deduced, the evil is to be ascribed, that has at length been justly charged upon them. Thus Hegel, if we may believe what we read, is not to be made answerable, except indirectly, for the extravagances in doctrine and morals, that are the characteristics of the "extreme left." Thus much we feel bound to say, and we say it with a deep persuasion of its truth, as to the spirit which actuates some among us. What their doctrines are we do not profess to understand; nor do we know where to look for any explicit statement of them. The Princeton pamphlet cannot be taken as their exponent. However there may be some, one or two, who might admit that they agree essentially with the doctrines of Fichte or Hegel, of Strauss or Cousin, as to the nature of God, human immortality, and the inspiration of Jesus;

we believe that there are but one or two, and that for the remainder they would indignantly repudiate them. But while we accord with heartiness our love and approbation of the spirit which actuates our "modern philosophers," we have none to accord for the doctrines set forth in this pamphlet, whether truly or not, descriptive of one or many among us. They are truly doctrines at which reason stands aghast. They annihilate God, the human soul, and Christianity; or leave only names, phantasms,. shadows, where the glorious substance was. As our correspondent says of the volume of Strauss, "we never read so melancholy a book," so we may say of this exposition of Transcendentalism, we never read so melancholy a book. And what made us more sad than even the fatal doctrines delivered in it was the thought, forced upon us as we read, how the human mind will persist in running round the circle of exploded opinions again and again, grasping at as a novelty what was old two thousand years ago and more, and renouncing the revelation for which the ancients earnestly prayed, in favor of the very dogmas of which they felt the vanity and insufficiency, from the region of which they were ever hoping to escape into a light and truth that should be indeed heaven-descended.

We have said that this pamphlet of the Princeton Reviewers. cannot be in justice taken as an exponent of the opinions of thoseamong us, who have obtained the name of Transcendentalists.. Still we suppose we do no injustice when we say that, in our opinion, the tendency of prevailing speculations is toward the doc-trines here developed. By a few extracts we shall endeavor to show what some at least of these doctrines are; but not having at our command the room we hoped for, our view of them will be necessarily incomplete, yet not so incomplete as to be without some value. We commend to the attention of the reader the pamphlet itself.

The first division of the pamphlet is devoted to a review of the philosophies,-considered especially in their theological bearings, — of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Cousin; the second is occupied by a more full account of Hegel and his followers. We must at present, at least, pass over Kant, Fichte, and Schelling, and come at once to Hegel, whose philosophy seems to be a concentration of the virtues or vices of those that had preceded. In the paragraphs which follow, the Reviewers give a brief sketch of Hegel's system. Let the reader ponder and digest it.

"All philosophy, according to Hegel, is but an attempt to answer a simple question, namely, Quid est? And the answer to this involves all Truth, all Reason; for whatever is, is Reason. All reality is reasonable, all that is reasonable is real. Hence the only real existence

is the ideas of Reason. All reality (Wirklichkeit) being thoroughly rational, is also divine; yea is God revealing himself or developing himself. God reveals himself in creation, or in the universe, by a series of eternal unfoldings, some in matter, some in mind; and thus the Deity is in a perpetual effort towards self-realization. The history of Physics is, therefore, the necessary career of divine self-evolution; indeed, God thinks worlds, just as the mind thinks thoughts.

"In order to philosophize aright, we must lose our own personality in God, who is chiefly revealed in the acts of the human mind. In the infinite developments of divinity, and the infinite progress towards selfconsciousness, the greatest success is reached in the exertions of human reason. In men's minds, therefore, is the highest manifestation of God. God recognises himself best in human reason, which is a consciousness of God (Gottesbewusstseyn.) And it is by human reason, that the world (hitherto without thought, and so without existence, mere negation) comes into consciousness: thus God is revealed in the world.

"God is the Idea of all Ideas, or the absolute Idea; hence our ideal thought is divine thought, and this is no other than reason. 'The doctrine of the being of God is no other than that of the revelation of himself in the idea of him.' 'God exists only as knowledge (Wissen); in this knowledge, and as such, he knows himself, and it is this very knowledge, which is his existence.' We may therefore say with truth, God exists as an Idea.

"After thus arriving at an ideal God, we learn, that Philosophy and Religion draw us away from our little selves, so that our separate consciousness is dissolved in that of God. Philosophy is Religion; and 'true Religion frees man from all that is low, and from himself, from clinging to 1-hood (Ichheit) and subjectivity, and helps him to life in God, as the Truth, and thereby to true life.' In this oblation of personal identity, we must not claim property even in our own thoughts. By a step beyond Emmonism, Hegel teaches, that it is God who thinks in us; nay, that it is precisely that which thinks in us, which is God. Marheineke himself manifests tokens of alarm, when he states this doctrine. The pure and primal substance manifests itself as the subject; and 'true knowledge of the absolute is the absolute itself.' There is but a step to take, and we arrive at the tenet, that the universe and God are one. The Hegelians attempt to distinguish this from the doctrine of Spinoza, but their distinctions are inappreciable; "t is the same rope at either end they twist;' their scheme is Pantheism. And as God is revealed by all the phenomena of the world's history, he is partly revealed by moral action, and consequently by sin, no less than by holiness. Sin is, therefore, a part of the necessary evolution of the divine principle; or rather, in any sense which can affect the conscience, there is no evil in sin, there is no sin. This is a part of the philosophy of Hegel, which has given great pain to pious men in Germany, who have repeatedly complained of it as subverting the first principles of morality, not merely in theory but in practice; and begetting a fatalism, which threatens alike the foundations of religion and of A late pantheistic poet teaches us, that all which we regard as sin, is necessary, and therefore good, and may, to other intelligences, justly appear most lovely! But there are conclusions of the new phi

state.

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losophy still more surprising, for which our inchoate metaphysicians should be getting ready. It is well said by an acute writer already quoted, that when, according to the demands of Schelling, we annihilate first the object and then the subject, the remainder is zero. Though Schelling is not known to have admitted this, his critics were not slow to perceive it. Schulze, in particular, declared, that, according to this system, Everything is Nothing, and Nothing is Everything; and Koppen called this the philosophy of Absolute Nothing. It was reserved for Hegel to abandon all the scruples of six thousand years, and publish the discovery, — certainly the most wonderful in the history of human research, - that Something and Nothing are the same! In declaring it, he almost apologizes, for he says, that this proposition appears so paradoxical, that it may readily be supposed that it is not seriously maintained. Yet he is far from being ambiguous. Something and Nothing are the same. The Absolute, of which so much is vaunted, is nothing. But the conclusion, which is, perhaps, already anticipated by the reader's mind, and which leaves us incapacitated for comment, is this, we shudder while we record it, - that, after the exhaustive abstraction is carried to infinity in search of God, we arrive at nothing. God himself is nothing!"— pp. 27-30.

In offering, in the second part of the pamphlet, a more extended view of Hegel's philosophy, the Reviewers say, we shall avail ourselves of the authority of such men as Leo, Hengstenberg, and Tholuck, men of the highest rank in their own country for talents, learning, and integrity. We shall let them describe this new form of philosophy, which is turning the heads of our American scholars, inflating some and dementing others; and we shall leave it to our transcendental countrymen, if they see cause to accuse these German scholars and Christians of ignorance and misrepresentation."

"It is well known," they go on, "to all who have paid the least attention to the subject, that the prevalent system of philosophy in Germany is that of Hegel; and that this system has, to a remarkable degree, diffused itself among all classes of educated men. It is not confined to recluse professors or speculative theologians, but finds its warmest advocates among statesmen and men of the world. It has its poets, its popular as well as its scientific journals. It is, in short, the form in which the German mind now exists and exhibits itself to surrounding nations, just as much as Deism or Atheism was characteristic of France during the Reign of Terror. That a system thus widely diffused should present different phases might be naturally anticipated. But it is still one system, called by one name, and, despite of occasional recriminations among its advocates, recognised by themselves as one whole. The general characteristic of this school is pantheism. This, as has been said, is the public secret of Germany; and we must,' says Hengstenberg, 'designedly close our own eyes on all that occurs around us, if we would deny the truth of this assertion.' And on the following page, he says, that, though there are a few of the followers of Hegel, who endeavor to reconcile his principles with Christianity, yet they are

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spoken of with contempt by their associates, who, as a body, are 'with the clearest consciousness, and as consequently as possible, devoted to pantheism.' They are, moreover, he adds, hailed as brothers by the advocates of popular pantheism, who denounce, under the name of 'pietism,' at once Christianity, Judaism, and Deism. This was written four years ago, a long period in the history of modern philosophy, and, since that time, the character of the school has developed itself with constantly increasing clearness.

"In allusion to the French Chamber of Deputies, this school is divided into two parts, the right and the left. The former teach the principles of the philosophy in an abstruse form, as a philosophy; the other gives them a more popular and intelligible form. This latter division, again, is divided into the centre left, and extreme left. The one preserving some decorum and regard to public morals in their statements; and the other recklessly carrying out their principles to the extreme of licentionsness. To the extreme left belong the class which is designated the Young Germany,' of which Heine is one of the most prominent leaders. This class profess themselves the true disciples of the extreme right; the extreme right acknowledge their fellowship with the centre left, and the centre left with the extreme left." pp. 73, 74.

Hegel's philosophy was assailed by Professor Leo of Halle, and it is from his work " Hegelingen," or Hegelians of the Left," that the Reviewers draw up their account. Leo charges Hegel and his followers with the denial of a personal God, with turning the Gospels into a mythology, with the denial of the immortality of the soul, and finally with dishonesty and immorality.

"Leo's first charge is this: This party denies the existence of a personal God. They understand by God, an unconscious power, which pervades all persons, and which arrives to self-consciousness only in the personality of men. That is, this party teaches atheism without reserve.' With regard to this charge, Hengstenberg remarks: 'Whoever has read Strauss's 'Life of Jesus,' and Vatke's Biblical Theology,' where pantheism, which every Christian must regard as only one form of atheism, is clearly avowed, cannot ask whether the party in general hold these doctrines, but simply whether the particular persons, mentioned by Leo, belong, as to this point, to the party. About this who can doubt, when he hears Professor Michelet say, beside many other things of like import, 'God is the eternal movement of the universal principle, constantly manifesting itself in individual existences, and which has no true objective existence but in these individuals, which pass away again into the infinite;' [in other words, God is but the name given to the ceaseless flow of being;] when he hears him denouncing, as unworthy of the name, 'the theistical Hegelians, who believe in a personal God in another world?'- p. 22. Professor Vischer,' adds Hengstenberg, 'is so far from being ashamed of pantheism, that he glories in his shame, and represents it as the greatest honor of his friend Strauss, that he has 'logically carried out the prin

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