ways necessary even to one of the propositions; for we have reasonings of probability, which depend on discordant results of the past. Thus, when we say, from the appearance of the sky, it will probably rain soon, we do not assert any thing absolute; yet we reason; for reasoning does not require universals, but generals. To the exercise of pure reason there is no tendency peculiarly irresistible. The idea of infinity rises in our mind by a law of our nature; but by a law not more powerful than that by which, in certain circumstances, we acquire the sensations of sight or touch.

Of ideals, as opposed to ideas, we do not understand the difference; for nothing is gained by adding our own oneness to absolute unity or totality, which, in the very conception, are one; and it certainly is not meant, that we apply to those ideas any other circumstance of our consciousness, than the fundamental unity; for the ideal of the universe is not invested with our knowledge or passions. The difference of the ideal of the human soul, and of that unity of consciousness which must be felt, previously to the existence of the ideal, is too nice for our discernment.

The amphibolies, paralogisms, etc. of which Kant speaks, are impossible, as they suppose a standard which is not in our possession; a corrector of reference, where reference cannot err; a mode of knowing objects different from that of the constituting forms of our cognition. Till the transcendentalist give us a new mode of discernment, we must believe whatever is invested with space and time to be, by that very investiture, a sensation; whatever is invested with the categories, to be a conception; and whatever is absolute, to be an idea: so that the essor of our application, if in truth there be an error, must, to us, be for ever unknown.

Even on the supposition of amphibolies as capable of being discovered, the peculiar instances are not well explained. If external sensation give us the knowledge only of that which is extended, the mere consideration of it, as absolute, may afford the idea of infinite extension; but not of an indivisible monade. Nor does materialism, in the atheistic sense of the term, arise from the addition of absolute causation to external sensibility; for causation means only the power of producing a change, and has no other reference to the causing substance; which may have existed from eternity, or begun to exist, without a cause, or by divine volition, at the very moment in which its energy was exerted. Between simple causation, a category justly applicable to external sense, and absolute causation, there is, in truth, no difference; for both mean only the power of producing a change and if it be not cause, but effect, which is considered as absolute, the application of this would rather lead to spiritual Theism. That spirit is the general representation of that internal sensibility, of which the form is time, is a proposition more of mysticism than of philosophy. Absolute time is eternity; which, if it be an archetype of any thing, has no nearer resemblance to spirit, as commonly understood, than to matter; and if all that is necessary be the want of dimension, the sensations of sound or smell being as little extended as love or hate, or any other internal feeling, might, with equal reason, be considered as the object of the supposed amphiboly of the human soul.

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The perplexities which arise from the consideration of matter, either as infinitely divisible, or ultimately indivisible, receive no solution from all that M. Villers has stated. Our error, he says, consists in confounding matter, as a mere object in space presented by our sensibility, with matter

as presented by our intelligence in all the aggregate of conceived relations." As an object of sensation, matter must always be reducible to an atom, or first element, which itself also must be in space, and therefore extended; because nothing imperceptible can belong to our sensibility. But, when considered as an object of intelligence, there must always appear a possible division or reduction from the state of matter into that of unextended thought, since it is already as a thought that we consider it; and as there is no apparent transition from the one state to the other, we connect them by interposed infinity, as in the system of monades." In both cases the matter of sensibility is said to be confounded with the matter of intelligence, and to be combined with the transcendental ideas of absolute simplicity and reality. The attempt to explain a difficulty with such increase of difficulty, is like the kindness which would free us from the doubtfulness of twilight, by casting us into utter darkness. In both the cases adduced, we see much confusion of another kind; but we do not see that confusion of the representations of separate faculties, which M. Villers condemns. In both, the perception of matter, as an object in space, is derived from sensibility; but, in both, matter is considered categorically: for we cannot think of division, without the conceptions of plurality, possibility, etc. The atomist, therefore, does not err by confounding the representations of separate powers of cognition, but by using, in reference to products of the same power, terms which are contradictory; for that which is in space, having still dimension, must still be potentially divisible; nor does its infinite divisibility arise, in any manner, from the necessity of combining it with thought, by the medium of infinity. If that were the only reason of inferring it, the difficulties which are its consequence, might be very easily obviated by the simple denial of the antecedent for there is, in truth, no transition, in such enquiries, from matter to thought, but from matter as existing combined to matter as existing separately; or, if we be denied the knowledge of any thing but our own affections, from one thought to another. If there were, indeed, a necessary transition from matter to thought, the interposed infinity, having nothing common with either, could not connect them, more than the sensations of light and fragrance could be connected by a sound. There is, therefore, no aid to the perplexed metaphysician in the principles of transcendentalism, which, if adopted, only establish with greater force that infinity of parts which he is unable to comprehend: for the conception of an object, as a whole in space, is a just application of a category which necessarily involves divisibility; and every object of sensi

* We think it necessary to add the whole passage from the original, as we may have been led into a misapprehension of its meaning, by the attention which M. Villers has paid to an excellent rule of rhetoric: a subiect, in itself most obscure, he has certainly succeeded in treating with all appropriate obscurity. "La question agitée si long-temps, et abandonnée ensuite par désespoir, de la divisibilité ou non divisibilité de la matière à l'infini, ne tirait toute sa difficulté que d'une double amphibolie de cette sorte; les uns voulaient appliquer tout le jeu de l'entendement à la matière comme objet de notre sensibilité; les autres prenaient pour un objet de notre sensibilité la conception de matière; ils confondaient en attribuant l'intuition à l'entendement, et la conception à la sensibilité. Celui qui opère sur la matière en tant qu'objet senti et perçu, doit toujours, en résultat, trouver un premier élément qui soit quelque chose d'étendu et de perceptible, qui occupe un lieu dans l'espace, car on ne peut supposer à la sensibilité aucun objet imperceptible; d'où le système des atômes matériels, et la philosophie corpusculaire d'Epicure. Celui, au contraire, qui opère sur la matière, en tant qu'objet pensé et conçu, doit apercevoir une division toujours possible de l'état de matière jusqu'à l'état de pensée, puisque c'est sur une pensée qu'il opére: or comme entre ces deux états, l'esprit ne voit pas de mode de transition, il y met l'infini; d'où le système des monades. Le tort de l'un et de l'autre, c'est de confondre la matière en tant que représentation de la sensibilité, avec la matière en tant que représentation de l'entendement. Ily a aussi deux idées transcendentales, celle du simple absolu, et celle du réel absolu qui jouent ici un rôle." P. 297.

bility, being confessedly reducible to elements which are still extended, "since we cannot suppose sensibility to have any object which is not perceptible," must, at every stage, be justly conceivable as a whole in space: and we are therefore entitled, without an error of philosophy, to assert, that matter is infinitely divisible. There is, indeed, one sense, in which the result of the reasoning of M. Villers may be understood, and which, in spite of the laboured antithesis of the opposite opinions, we believe to have been that which suggested confusedly his transcendental explanation. It may be said, that in asserting the infinite divisibility of matter, we take for granted matter as an object known to us, while it is of our own feelings only we have real knowledge; and a feeling, being one, is not infinitely divisible. Had this been stated, we should have had less scruple in giving our verbal assent; because the argument is, in truth, unanswerable: but it is unanswerable, precisely as the arguments of Berkeley and Hume against an external world. However impossible it be for us to disbelieve it, we certainly are not justified by any process of ratiocinacion in assuming the existence of objects without; but, having assumed their existence, it is equally impossible for us to conceive their parts as without dimension, at any stage of potential division. The complete denial of external things is the only shelter to which we can safely have recourse. If that alternative, impossible to our feelings, be not adopted, we must submit to the acknowledgment of the infinite divisibility of matter, in all its perplexities of language and of thought.

To the validity of practical reason, it is necessary that we admit the objective certainty of self, and of all those modifications of self of which we are conscious. That objections may be made to this appeal, M. Villers is fully sensible.- Perhaps this immediate consciousness, this internal perception of man is but a new product of that speculative reason which has already deceived me; an ideal forged by itself; an illusion; a phantom! It seems to me, indeed, that it exists independently of all speculation; that it is the great and living being within me. But this very belief may be a mistake. From whom shall I receive a pledge of its reality, a proof that it is something more than a simple conception of fancy?" P. 367. After all this rigour of scepticism, he proceeds to give the desired proof with that complete pomp of demonstration which is implied in the French voici,* for which the more modest English has no corresponding idiom. "The destiny of my being is not simple knowledge. I am formed also, as its higher development, to will and to act: I must influence, and be influenced by every thing which surrounds me. Hence proceeds an order of realities, which have in me their source and principle. My actions, and the volitions which determine my actions, not given me from without, but created and modified by myself alone, have therefore an existence, to me more truly real than that of external things. They arise from the centre of my being, in the fundamental reality of my own internal consciousness; while external things, arriving at that centre only after the modifying influence of the medium through which they passed, have but a secondary reality, of which I may justly doubt. My actions are determined by my will; and my will is the immediate result of that consciousness in which I exist independently of things. My actions, and their directing volitions, are therefore a proof that the feeling of self is not an illusion. Their reality is the desired pledge of its reality. I will and by the sublime truths which my volition affords me,

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I am raised to the rank of a being who lives in all the plenitude of life." To this parade of language, of which, in abridging the verbal amplitude, we have retained all the reasoning, we must do the justice of saying, that we have seldom seen an objection more magnificently evaded. The position. which was intended to be proved has, indeed, been assumed in every sentence; but it has been assumed with such just regard to the principles of harmonics, that, after more than two pages of majesty and melody, we feel something like the remorse of ingratitude, in reverting to the original queslion. The question was, whether the feeling of self, in all its modifications, be not an illusion like that of the phenomenal world? and we are told, that because man is destined to act, and his action is the immediate result of his will, and of his will he is conscious; there are therefore self, and will, and action. Had M. Villers merely said, that because we are conscious of self, self exists; though we should perhaps have denied the agreement of the position with his general scepticism, we should at least have acknowledged its force as felt by ourselves. But when he contends that the mere combination of a series of feelings, which all equally depend on the truth of the question itself, as being all equally real, or equally phenomenal, is a proof of the reality of the feelings combined, we are less disposed to be merciful to inconsistency, and must require from him who considers consciousness as a thing to be proved, some mode of reconciling the belief of the reality of a combination of feelings, with the previous ignorance of their reality, as separate. It is not because man is an active being that he has objective certainty of himself: for the same certainty is equally felt in the most passive of our sensations; and, in truth, we know that we act, only because we have taken for granted that which is considered as proved by action. Our will, before the experience of action, is to our consciousness a passive feeling, and our knowledge of the action is transcendentally less certain, because it can be acquired only from the phenomenal world of space and time, in which the changes produced by our action take place. Even though the explanation were in all its other circumstances just, how many forms of intelligence and sensibility does it consider as realities! The destiny of man, the development of his being, the system of things created by himself, the succession of his will and action, have no meaning, unless we admit time, and causation, and number, and the categories of modality; so that the highest of all realities, the elevating sublimities of our being, are only the illusions of unsubstantial forms, which are at once the cause and the effect of every certainty we feel.

The doctrines of practical reason are four; the liberty of will, the obligation to virtue, our existence in a future state, and our responsibility to a supreme Creator and Judge. On all these subjects, the transcendentalist has more than usual inconsistency. He declares that they are not objects to be known or proved in the strict sense of the terms. He rejoices that he knows nothing of them. "He would even fear to know any thing of his duties, of God, and of his soul; convinced that if they were objects of his knowledge, they must be in themselves illusions, phenomena purely human of his mode of seeing and conceiving." P. 360. Nothing, therefore, is more

How unfortunate is it for a person, who looks forward with such fear to the knowledge of bis duties, that he should afterwards be obliged (though, we make no doubt, with great reluctance) to confess, that they are now irresistibly established by the most rigid proofs!" avec une rigueur de méthode et de preuves, qui ne laissent nul recours raisonnable à l'opiniâtreté qui ne veut pas être convaincu." P. 398.

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evident than that the forms of cognition are not justly applicable to objects which belong not to cognition such an application would be an amphiboly, or a paralogism, or an error of perhaps still longer name; yet there is not an idea of practical reason in which the forms of our knowledge are not involved. Freedom of will implies number, because there is choice; it implies existence, and possibility, and causation, because there is power; it implies time, because there is the succession of will and action: it is therefore an error to say that the will is free. But though the application of the categories were allowable, the feeling supposed does not justify the assertion. Consciousness informs us only of the present, or, if memory too may be included, of that which is really past. It does not inform us of that which might have been the past. Thus it tells us that we did will a particular action; or, that we do will a particular action; or, from that law by which we infer the future from the past, that if we shall will a particular action, the action will ensue. But it is conjecture, and not consciousness, which tells us, that the circumstances of the past having been the same, we might have chosen a different action. It is not enough, therefore, for Kant to say that we have freedom of will, because we are conscious of the power of willing; for the most rigid necessarian does not deny that power. He contends for it even more earnestly than the defender of what has been called its freedom: for action, as far as it is not governed by the motive decisions of reason, resembles more the convulsions of the morbid body than the graceful and spontaneous movements of the healthy limb.

Of moral duty it may be said, in like manner, that transcendentally it cannot exist. The voice of conscience, commanding to certain actions, implies succession, causation, existence, and other forms which are applicable only by an error of philosophising. We have, in certain cases, the feeling of duty; but we have also, in certain cases, the feeling of external independent space. Of this latter, it is at least equally difficult to divest ourselves; and we are convinced that in the mind of others, if of others we may be allowed to speak objectively, the feeling of duty can as readily be laid aside as that of external things. The liveliness of conviction, the universality, every circumstance is the same. But there is no really existing space it is therefore probable, that the voice of conscience is in like manner an illusion. Such appears to us the reasoning of the rigid transcendentalist. But the disciple of Kant, less consistent, admits and rejects with equal readiness where the evidence of both is the same. Nor is the confessed illusion merely of equal strength of evidence: the belief of it seems absolutely necessary to the existence of duty. What room is there for the exertion of virtue, where other beings cannot be known to us as objects? We surely cannot increase the happiness of him of whose desires we are ignorant, nor relieve a misery which exists but in our own forms of thought.

In the maxims which are given to us as a summary of virtue, we observe no peculiar merit; and on the transcendental theory of morality, which supposes it to be a voice within us independent of experience in its origin, and incapable of being aided by any maxims, or stilled by any of the seductions of life, the parade of precept seems to have very little meaning.

This species of strict confutation, ex concessis, will not appear unmerciful to those who have observed the lavish use which the transcendentalists themselves have made of arguments of a similar kind. The only difference is, that we argue from the principles of him whom we oppose : and that they conceive they have triumphed, when they have merely shown the inconsistency of their own opinions with those of any other theorist.