ing a whole company at drill, cannot follow the easy and simultaneous movement of the muskets; it is next to impossible to keep the eye fixed on one. But let there be in front what they used to call a fugleman, who directs the rest by exaggerating the requisite actions, or—as I once saw-a grotesque urchin who places himself as near as he may, and imitates with a stick; the unaccustomed spectator will soon have light thrown upon the whole business. Now I shall place a fugleman in front of some of the companies, not meaning of course that the cases I point out are anything but exaggerations of what usually happens.

1. A philosopher, far too respectable to be named with the companions I mean to give him, once contended that, on any theory of consciousness except the one he favoured, man would be the dupe and victim of a perfidious Creator.' According to this announcement God had a duty towards man before * his creation, the violation of which would have been perfidy, that is, treacherous breach of faith. The reader will be surprised to learn that the philosopher quoted was a Genevan, who also believed that God had foreordained-i. e. determined before their creation—that millions upon millions of human beings, designated beforehand, should be punished to all eternity, “to the praise of his glorious justice," as the Westminster confession has it. This instance well illustrates the inconsistency which prevails far and wide among those who find first principles in the fourth source.

* The point of my remark may be illustrated by a very short dialogue which is reported to have taken place between a hero of our literature and a person who desired to be thought of his acquaintance as they came out of church :-'A good sermon to-day, Dr. Johnson.'-' -'That may be, sir, but I'm not sure that you can know it.'

2. Jean Meslier, a French parish priest, who died in 1733, aged 55, was a man who performed his functions without reproach or suspicion, and was benevolent to the utmost farthing he could spare from the wants of life. He left a bulky manuscript which he called his Testament, all or part of which was printed under the title of Bon Sens: it was translated into English in 1826. The doctrine of the work is that there is no God, which is in fact its sole argument. Among the supports of this doctrine is the assertion that 'a universal God would have instituted a universal religion,' that is, would have made all men of one religion. This worthy priest, to whom there was no God, knew how the universe would have been fashioned if there had been one: he looked at the first cause from an earlier point of view.

3. Many years ago, a miserable pot-boy fired a pistol at the Queen. When questioned * about his motive he answered, ‘I don't think a woman ought to rule over such a country as this.' The case is extreme, no doubt: but it fugles admirably for a very large class of the philosophical principles. Politics and social economy are derived from the fourth court, and morals to match from-Heaven doesn't know where.

4. There was an insurrection of colonies against the mother country which had enough of defensible grounds, but the craving for philosophy based it upon a principle—' We hold this maxim to be self-evident, that all men are born free and equal.' No doubt the fact is true; the slightest experience of new-born infants verifies it. But the erection of the fact into a maxim is a good instance of the way in which bias

* Privately, of course, for our law, though it gives such an object the honours of a trial for high treason, does not condescend to solicit an explanation of the principles on which he acted.'

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assumes more than is wanted, and does not know what to do with the rest for philosophy does not allow any part of a 'self-evident' notion to be returned upon her hands. If the sturdy patriots had contented themselves with declaring it selfevident that they must have their own way, they would have given an answer, not only to the claims of Great Britain, but to that awkward question, 'How about the Negro?'

5. Though we have seen something of 'What else can it be?' I add an instance which came to my knowledge many years ago. A certain accusation was contemplated, which turned upon whether goods were or were not, for a time, deposited at 'How can we prove this on oath?' asked one accuser. 'Oh! I'll swear to it,' said another. 'How do you know?' asked the first. 'Why! where else could they have been?' said the second.

Absurd extremes of these and other kinds may enable some, on both sides of the spirit question and others, at least to separate the knowledge of the fourth court,-which takes in all that is neither demonstration, sense, nor testimony-and to take it at a more reasonable valuation than is usual. Our age of the world presumes itself free from reliance on what I have separated from the rest, because it has long known that the preceding age had that very defect. But those who have been much in contact with both see that both have the same features. The development of reasons for this assertion would lead me too far: and the time for it is not come; but it is coming. Other revivals are in progress, besides that of the possibility of communication with higher worlds of thought: among them is the study of those minds which have been on the shelves for a century and a half, covered with dust and nicknames. As this study goes on, it will be accompanied by a comparison which will show that many of the tunes of new

philosophy, though played on another instrument, are the old tunes over again.

I should have been well pleased to have borne equally hard upon both sides of the spirit controversy, but circumstances. make this impracticable. The spiritualist appeals to evidence: he may have enough, or he may not; but he relies on what has been seen and heard. When he assumes that there is a world of spirits, it is no more than all nations and ages have assumed, and many on alleged record of actual communication, which all who think him a fool ought to laugh at. If he should take the concurrent feeling of mankind as presumption in favour of such a world- -a thing which may be known-he is on more reasonable ground than the opponent, who draws its impossibility—a thing which cannot be known—out of the minds of a very small minority. He may be wrong, then, and I hold him too hasty: but his error is one which cannot be ascertained except by further use of his own method; he may work his own cure, if cure be needed. But the opponent philosopher, if he be wrong, is obnoxious to all that can be said against wrong reason. takes a mode in which he can only be right by accident, and in which he can only guard against error by also guarding against truth. Very many may be suspected of the wish to be counted wise by receiving nothing: they know that there are Candides in plenty. 'Oh!' said that simple youth, 'le grand homme que ce Poco-curante: rien ne peut lui plaire.' Those who are inclined to watch anyone of the class, whatever his guiding instincts, will observe the wonderful fertility of his brain; he produces maxim after maxim, mostly negations, and can make them as long as anyone will listen. In many cases his principles have so close a fit that it may be suspected the things they were to apply to were measured for

He

them. This rate of production is suspicious: as the very old* English song against the clergy says

Ther beth so manye prestes, hii ne muwe noht alle be gode. And when a satirist says 'not all' we may be sure he means 'very few.' If the fourth-court reasoner be wrong, his own maxims can never extricate him. Accordingly, his methods of proceeding have a score of weak points for one which is incident to the plan of looking at evidence, and deciding upon it. I will not call him the modern schoolman, because there is one point of difference in his favour, or at least in favour of his deductions. The old schoolman kept close to the meaning of his words, and kept strictly to logic: usually, that is; no rule without exception. Hence a false principle would lead to false deductions. The modern philosopher-I mean the man of the fourth court-is lax in phraseology and illogical in inference; consequently, a false principle may end in a true deduction, either by shift of meaning, or error of reasoning. It may be said that he is just as likely to produce false conclusions out of true principles: this diminishes his advantage, but does not exhaust it, if, as may be suspected, his false maxims far outnumber his true

ones.

The full comparison of the two ages of the world, the old

*The song, which I casually turned up while this page was in progress, has been the means of extruding a line which I intended for the place. When I have noticed philosophical minds, such as we meet with every day, strong in our ignorance as in triple mail, dealing out a profusion of undeniable principles, and sneering away like omninescience at everyone who 'can't see that,' my admiration of the facility with which they supply the power their Creator forgot to give them often brings into my head-but never off my tongue; manners before everything—a slang line which I suppose is part of a more modern song:Go it, ye cripples! crutches are cheap!