The Romans conquered the Greeks by arms, but submitted to

They found among them philoThe gloomy and contemplative

their understanding and manners. sophical systems for all tastes. adopted the Pythagorean and Platonic creeds. Brutus was favorable to the union of the Platonic and Stoic philosophy. Cicero was rather a warm admirer and an elegant memorialist of philosophy than a practical philosopher himself. He held Plato in high respect, especially for his philosophy of nature; he also was an admirer of the Stoic system concerning natural equity and civil law; he praised their ideas concerning morals, but he was continually fluctuating between hope and fear, averse to contention, and incapable of vigorous resolutions, and full of vanity. Cato of Utica was a true Stoic;-Lucretius and Horace were of the Epicurean sect ;—Plutarch, like Cicero, rather an interpreter of philosophers than an eminent philosopher himself. Epictetus taught the purest morals, and his life was an admirable pattern of sobriety, magnanimity and the most rigid virtue. Marcus Aurelius was the last ornament of the Stoic school.

About the close of the second century arose at Alexandria the Eclectic system: a mixture of the different tenets of philosophy and religion, to the detriment of both. Pagan ideas were mixed with Christianity, and the different sects of philosophy were arbitrarily interpreted. Subtle distinctions, airy suppositions and vague terms were introduced; and innumerable trifles were proposed under the appearance of profound philosophy.—Pagans became Christians and associated their ideas and language with Christianity, and the fathers of the Christian church studied the ancient philosophers to furnish themselves with weapons against their adversaries, to show the superiority of the christian doctrine, and to adorn themselves with the embellishment of erudition. Many did not distinguish between the light of revelation and that of reason. Nothing could be expected for philosophy from those who were busily occupied in disputes with infidels and heretics.

From the beginning of the seventh century to the twelfth the Scholastic and Mystic theology sprung up. The irruptions of

Barbarians had confined philosophy and learning to monastic institutions, whilst the people were ignorant and superstitious. During the dark ages up to the fourteenth century philosophy resembles a barren wilderness; it was the handmaid of theology; and though the Scholastics paid to Aristotle almost religious reverence, their minds were darkened by Aristotle's dialectics and logic, and their idle contests continued to disturb the world. The syllogistic form of reasoning became general, and the forms of technical phraseology were infinite. I copy only one example from Dr. Th. Brown's lectures on philosophy, (sterotype edition, p. 327) where he quotes how a scholastic logican proves by a long technical argumentation that the impossible differs from what is possible: 'whatever of itself and in itself includes things contradictory, differs in itself from that which of itself and in itself does not imply any thing contradictory. But what is impossible of itself and in itself involves things contradictory, for example, an irrational human being, a round square. But what is possible of itself and in itself, includes no contradiction. Therefore what is impossible in itself differs from what is possible.'

Various sects, as the Nominalists, Realists, Verbalists, Formalists, Thomists, Scothists, and Occamists, were at open war with each other.

The Aristotelian philosophy was kept up, since it was the common opinion that the ancient Greeks had attained the summit of science, so that after all the question was what Aristotle, Plato, or Pythagoras had taught, rather than what was true. Philosophy and religion were so mixed together that some called themselves Scriptural philosophers, not to show that the general principles of reason and the natural law of morality agree with the doctrine of Scripture, but to designate that all philosophy, even of physical and metaphysical science, is derived from divine revelation. Others called themselves Theosophists, and professed to derive their knowledge from divine illumination or inspiration. Fraud and hypocrisy were encouraged, to secure the credit of the church among the vulgar and ignorant. Nay, it became a rule: abroad, with the people; at home as you please.

At last in the fourteenth and fifteenth century, the taste for polite literature revived in Italy, and the bold reformers in Germany endeavored to correct the errors and corruption of religion. Luther perceived the connexion of philosophy and religion, and declared, that it would be impossible to reform the church without entirely abolishing the canons and decretals, and with them the scholastic theology, philosophy and logic, and without instituting others in their stead. Luther, Paracelsus, Ramus and Gassendi were eminent demolishers of the Aristotelian philosophy.

After the revival of letters and restoration of sciences, Bacon, Descartes and Leibnitz were eminent in philosophy. Bacon became the great reformer and founder of true philosophy. He established observation and induction as the basis of knowledge, whilst the essentials of Descartes' philosophy, like those of many predecessors, were thought, and the knowledge obtained by thought. Leibnitz, like Plato, never arranged his philosophy methodically, yet he admitted two kinds of perceptions: one without and the other with consciousness; farther, he considered the knowledge procured by the senses as individual, accidental and changeable, but that obtained by thinking and reasoning as general, necessary and positive. According to Leibnitz the reasoning power is endowed with principles, all phenomena are intellectual, and there is a harmony pre-established between the knowledge à priori and external sensations. The latter only quicken the former. Phrenology denies the established harmony of Leibnitz between innate ideas and external sensations; it considers sensations and ideas as acquired, and admits only innate dispositions to acquire sensations and ideas. Yet it admits also a kind of pre-established harmony, concerning existence, between the special powers and the object of their satisfaction. Wherever there is a power, it finds an object. This has been the cause, that many philosophers have derived the powers from their objects of satisfaction. There are objects to be perceived; these were said to be the cause of the perceptive power, whilst the power of perceiving and the object of being perceived exist separately and are only calculated for each other.

There may, however, be many objectivities which man cannot percieve for want of special powers.

Hobbes was persecuted for his theological and political heresies, and therefore his views of philosophy were neglected, though Locke borrowed from him some of his most important observations on the association of ideas. According to Malebranche, God is wherever there is mind, and God is the medium of sensation. Malebranche furnishes to Locke his notions on habits and genius, to Hartley his theory on vibrations, and to Berkley the ancient theory of Pyrrho, viz. that the material objects have no other existence than in the mind.

Locke's philosophy became the basis of the greater number of philosophical opinions in England and France. He denied the innate ideas and innate principles of morality, and maintained with Aristotle* that all knowledge begins with experience, or that all primary notions begin with sensation. According to him, the mind begins with external sensations, and then by means of its perception, retention, contemplation, comparison, reflection, or by its faculties of composing and abstracting, it executes all the particular operations of thinking and volition. In his system even the feelings and moral principles result mediately from the understanding.

Locke has some merit; he is a great lover of truth, and his work contains many judicious remarks brought together from various quarters, and he has greatly contributed to do away the rubbish of a learned jargon about the innate ideas and Platonic mysticism. But there is a want of originality, consistency and precision in his work. He is a wordy commentator of Bacon, Hobbes and Malebranche. The besetting sin of all his compositions is diffuseness and indistinctness.-Hobbes had compared the mind with a slate, Locke compared it with a white paper. This prepared the errors of Condillac, who gave all to the senses; and to those of Dr. Hartley who explained the operations of the mind by vibrations, and who thought 'that all the most complex ideas arise from sen* Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu.

sation, and that reflection is not a distinct source, as Mr. Locke makes it.'

I think with Dugald Stewart that the work of Locke has been more applauded than studied. The French writers, particularly Voltaire, have most contributed to his celebrity. Voltaire said that Locke alone had developed the human understanding, and he calls him the Hercules of metaphysicians; yet the French did not understand the basis of Locke's philosophy, when they maintained that he denied the innate dispositions of the mind, and when they confounded Condillac's philosophy with that of Locke.

Among the Scotch philosophers the most remarkable are, Hume, who not only confined all knowledge to mere experience, but also denied the necessity of causation ;-Dr. Reid, who speaks of intellectual and active powers of man ;-Dugald Stewart, who deserves more credit for his style than for his ideas ;—and Dr. Th. Brown.

The principal modern schools of philosophy in Germany, are the critical philosophy, the transcendental idealism, and the philosophy of nature. Kant, the founder of the critical philosophy, distinguished two kinds of knowledge, one experimental (Kritik der reinen Vernunft,) and another founded on belief (Kritik der practischen Vernunft.) He maintained that the first kind is only relative, subjective, or phenomenal, or that we know only the relation of the subject to the object; that we do not know either the subject or the object in itself, but both in their mutual relations only, and that this relation constitutes their reality to us. The subject he conceived endowed with particular categories which are applied to the object; whatever is general and necessary in knowledge belonged to the subject, while the particular and variable is the attribute of the object. Hence all experimental knowledge is founded upon dualism; upon the union of the subject and object; for, even the categories, though inherent in the subject, and con ceived by the mind from within, acquire objective reality only by their application to the object. Kant, though he considered both subject and object, had, however, the subject more in mind than the object. He reduced all categories or forms, according to