son for regarding himself as the discoverer of a new doctrine, or at least a reviver of an old one. And yet the almost absolute sway which the philosophy of Aristotle then maintained over the human mind prevented the idea of the earth's sphericity from being wholly lost. Of this we want no better proof than is furnished by the writings of the voluminous Albertus Magnus. Among his multifarious treatises on all subjects, we find one expressly devoted to astronomy. It was written, he says himself, at the request of his fellow ecclesiastics, and intended as a compendium of what was regarded as the established science of the day. Aristotle's argument on the roundness of the earth is given without alteration, diminution, or addition. However much, therefore, the idea may have faded from the common mind even of the learned—so much so as indeed to furnish some ground for the claim of new discovery, or at least, of revival, on the part of Columbus, as put forth by his modern biographers-still the universally received authority of Aristotle kept the doctrine in its place in formal treatises on science and philosophy. This is clearly shown in the servile imitation of the good Bishop of Ratisbon, as exhibited in his astronomical text-book for the use of his monks. Learned as he was, he never thought of departing, in any matter of physical science, from the acknowledged teachings of the Stagyrite. He would hardly have been more cautious, in a question in theology, of differing in the least from the decrees of councils, or the decisions of the canon law. Connected with this doctrine of the earth's sphericity, is the belief in the existence of antipodes. The present article, however, has been extended to so great a length, that the consideration of this, and of some other views of the ancient astronomy, must be deferred to another occasion. Among these may be mentioned the early opinions repecting the motion and position of the earth, (or, in other words, the Pythagorean doctrine of the solar system,) together with the views entertained by some respecting the moon and planets being inhabited, as also the kindred doctrine of the plurality of worlds. ARTICLE VI. THEOLOGICAL SYSTEMS MODIFIED BY MENTAL PECULIARITIES. By REV. L. CURTIS, Woodbury, Conn. WHEN We know the temperament and the predominant feelings of a man, we have an index of his philosophical system. Truth is eternal, but the passions of men modify their perceptions of it. What is merely intellectual, as in mathematics, men see alike. All our systems of algebra express the same relations, and may prove the same problems, though by different modes of demonstration. But art, morality, and religion, address not only the intellect, but taste, sensibility, affection; and these are variously modified in different individuals. Hence in those departments of inquiry which come within the range of both sentiment and reason, men give to their productions the stamp of their individuality. True, ideas when brought into a system, assume an intellectual form; they express only the relations of thought to thought. But it must be remembered that before they thus come out into the light, and run in the open channels of creeds and the schools, they have to filter their way through temperament, and passion, and prejudice, like fountain rills which receive their peculiar tinge and properties from the strata through which they pass. The influence of mental peculiarities in directing and shaping thoughts, may be illustrated by a familiar incident. A man awkwardly stumbles and hurts himself by a fall. One spectator regards him only as an object of compassion. Another would feel pity, but cannot for his life suppress laughter at his ludicrous stumble. Here, the same event arrests attention, but directs it to different incidents, and will ever after awaken different trains of association according to the peculiarities of the individual. And this simple case may show us why we have so many theories in morality and religion. Men view the same facts from different positions, and through the medium of different sensibilities. The germs of Take the example of Augustine and Pelagius. The their respective systems were in their peculiar constitutions and individual experience. Augustine, with an ardent temperament, had, in early life, a warfare between his will and his propensities. But so complete over him had been the mastery of passion, that he denied the freedom of the will. Yet his conscience would not allow him to disclaim all responsibility. Hence he crowded the whole race into the Garden, and made them eat together the same apple. In that first sin, all were free, but then they lost their freedom by corrupting their nature. This notion of original sin was the basis of his whole system, and all other doctrines were made to harmonize with it. Pelagius, on the contrary, had a cooler, evener temperament. Conscious that he was free, and having experienced little of the violence of passion, he denied human depravity, and framed his system accordingly. Thus, both, from their peculiar bias, by making one doctrine exclude the other, formed disproportionate and false systems. The same has been true in recent controversies on the same doctrine; and we have learned that one truth so held as to exclude another, is not a truth, as a right in civil society, so exercised as to interfere with another, is not a right; that is, all truths, as well as rights, are consistent with each other. All false religions take their origin in different elements of the human character. The ideas and passions of men struggle for expression. They obtain it in the forms of art, in social and religious institutions. But the diversified nature of human passions gives shape to these forms. The warrior will have his Mars; the philosopher his Minerva, and the voluptuary his Venus. Buddhism sprung from the gloom, the mysticism and contemplative abstraction of a melancholic temperament, united with a weak moral sense. Conscious of bondage to an animal nature, and also of high aspirations, the Buddhist refers the source of evil, not to the moral depravity of man, but to a Demiurge, or evil being, who united the soul with matter. Hence, the remedy is in afflicting the body by all manner of ascetic severities, and in elevating the soul by contemplation, into a union with God. But Brahminism, which refers the cause of misery to the wickedness of man, springs from a deeper moral sense, and a more ardent temperament. Hence its sanguinary deities, its penitential self-tortures, and propitiatory sacrifices. And these two elements, variously modified and blended, reappear in every age, and attach themselves to every prevailing system. The Fakir of India, the Anchorite of Egypt, the Oriental Gnostic, and the contemplative Pythagorean have their representatives on every soil and under all systems, in the Catholic monk of the middle ages; in the Protestant mystic of the seventeenth century; in the ascetic Puritan of New England; and more recently in those of Oxford notoriety. The same element in the human character will find its expression as well in theological systems, as on human countenances. It will take a thousand different forms and complexions, but it will pervert and shape to itself both the dogmas of faith and the formularies of practice. Pure Christianity is no more proof against the constitutional bias than against the perverted will of man; and from her early twilight in the first, to her orient flush in the nineteenth century, the mists of human passion have either darkened her lustre or discolored her ray. But by the side of the gloomy abstracted Buddhist, and the selfmacerating penitential Brahmin, let us place the easy, good-natured, plump Epicurean of the phlegmatic temperament. What system does he want? No morbid, gloomy imagination shrouds the world to him. An easy conscience prompts no bloody rites of self-torture. His ethereal spirit feels no uncomfortable alliance with a grosser nature, and he will purify the one by solemn abstractions, and starve the other by fasting, when hearty cheer and a good dinner are out of the question. The world, both of matter and spirit, so long as united, is well enough for him, whether made by a Demiurge, a good Being, or by Chance. And the only essential requisite of his ethical and theological system is, that it harmonizes perfectly with the most approved system of Dietetics. He objects not to mysteries, if they are not too deep, and he finds them in perfumes and ragouts. He likes reform in the refectory, and conservatism in the cellar; and he is in favor of the most rigid system of laws, if they prevent cock-crowing in the morning. Think you, the bilious Cato would have framed Epicureanism? Never! His inflexible severity of character could have no sympathy except with the rigid morality of the Stoic. Cicero would have diluted the bile of the one by the lymph of the other, and mingled also the nerve of Socrates with the sanguine element of his own composition. The lymphatic and ardent Asiatic may repose for centuries, except at fervid intervals, under the petrified but crumbling columns and venerable domes of old institutions, dreaming composedly of fate. Your sanguine-bilious Anglo-Saxon seldom sleeps, and then with but one eye. To-day he pulls down-to-morrow he rebuilds, and with a better model. He bows to fate, when he has lost from the firmament of his own breast the star of his destiny. But not only systems, but the manner of constructing them, depends on similar causes. A man like Wolf, of strong reasoning intellect and weak moral sense, forgetting that religion must have its data in the heart, as well as in the intellect, will have a system completely demonstrable or none at all. He takes only an intellectual view of great religious truths which can never be fully comprehended until they are felt. Hence he reasons and doubts and demonstrates till he denies his own existence. But a Jacobi, from the conscious demand of his higher nature, seizes on the great facts of moral obligation, immortality, and the Divine Existence, as first truths. No matter how he come by them. No matter if he cannot give his ideas a systematic development. These truths need no demonstration. They meet the wants of his moral nature, and he is satisfied. And who will prove him unreasonable? The artist does not ascertain the laws of THIRD SERIES, VOL. V. NO. 2 beauty by the unaided perceptions of reason. He listens humbly to the responses of those inward sensibilities to which beauty appeals. He consults these as his oracles. They are the highest tribunals in the empire of Art. And can it be that the moral and religious sensibilities of men have nothing to do with the perception and belief of moral and religious truths? Can reason pronounce upon these great truths independently of those sensibilities to which they are addressed? By no means. And nothing can be more reasonable than that the perception of a truth should be vague, or even its existence denied, when the sentiment to which it appeals is inactive or dead. Multitudes have doubted their immortality till some event, perhaps the loss of a near friend, has quickened their native longings. The earthly affections of the mind are allied to its nobler sentiments, and the highest truths are often realized through the instrumentality of these affections. This fact has been beautifully expressed by an English dramatist : "I have asked that dreadful question of the hills That lucid flow forever-of the stars Amid whose azure fields my raised spirit I feel thy love that kindles through thy beauty But there are others, blessed of Heaven, who need for their faith. neither the force of logic, nor the quickening power of a remarkable event. The universe is to them but a natural language, speaking, hymning forth the highest truths. With their deep moral sensibility, and a natural love of the beautiful, the good, and the infinite, they seem allied to the spiritual world by high instincts. As the swan, while pent up, and treading the dusty ground, far from her native sea, bends her prow-like breast and arches her graceful neck, as if already floating on its buoyant waters, so these men, while on earth, seem to live and move among the highest realities of another life. In them is their true element. There are human souls over whom their "immortality broods like the day, a presence which is not to be put by." The great primal truths shine out upon them like the stars Sophistry may throw a mist over them, as mere abstract, logical truths addressed to the intellect. But they can look within, and the clear images of heaven's lights come twinkling up from the depths of their moral consciousness. They know there are planets, if they cannot ascertain their parallax by mathematical formulæ. Could these men, with the harmonious blending of all the temperaments and sensibilities, combine the logic of the head with the sentiments of the heart and the vision of the soul, so as to con |