aid it from every object in nature or in art, which may have fallen under the notice.

IV. We may notice some other and allied feelings, so far as they are awakened by objects in nature. Some maintain that there are plants and animals which may be described as ludicrous. If there be, it is because they are addressed to the sense of the ludicrous in us. The feeling of the ludicrous seems to us to be awakened by the discovery of an unexpected relation between objects in other respects totally dissimilar. This, too, seems to point, but in an opposite way, from the sense of beauty to design, to design in bringing things unlike into one category. There are, certainly, grotesque and fantastic objects, both in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, which call up the feelings of the ludicrous. We smile when we observe how like the owl is to an old man or woman with excessive pretensions to wisdom; how like certain orchids are to beasts, birds, or insects; and how admirably the monkey mimics the movements of humanity.

V. There are scenes met with on our earth which are expressively called picturesque. They seem to be peculiarly addressed to the imagining power of the mind; they are picture-like, and raise a vivid picture of themselves in the mind; such as the jagged mountain ridges, the peaked promontories, the perpendicular rocks. The mass of objects on the earth are not of this exciting character. Just as the ground colours of nature are soft, or neutral, so the earth's common scenes are irregular, or simply rounded in their outline. Yet here and there there arise picture-like objects from the midst of them, to arrest the eye and print themselves on the fancy. It may be noticed, that the grass and grain of the earth raise up their sharp points from the surface to catch our

eye. A still larger proportion of objects above us, and standing between us and the sky, have a clear outline or vivid points. This is the case with the leaves and the coma of trees, and with not a few rocks and mountains. Rising out from quieter scenes, they enliven without exciting the mind, and tend to raise that earthward look of ours, and direct it to heaven, to which they point.

VI. Before closing this paragraph, we must allude to another kindred subject, the Sublime, so far as natural objects are fitted to raise the feeling. Visible things can here do nothing more than aid the mind, which uses them merely to pass beyond them.

The feeling of the Sublime is acknowledged on all hands to be intimately connected with the Idea of the Infinite. In the formation-or rather, in the attempt at the formation-of this idea, the mind shews, in a very striking manner, both its strength and its weakness. In expanding any image spatially, it finds itself incapable of doing anything more than representing to itself a volume with a spherical boundary. In following out its contemplation in respect of time, the image is of a line of great length, but terminating in a point at each end. But where the mind shews its weakness, there it also exhibits its strength. It can only imagine this bounded sphere and outline, but it is led to believe in vastly more. It strives to conceive the Infinite, but ever feels as if it were baffled and thrown back. But while the mind cannot embrace the infinite, it feels, at the place where it is arrested by its own impotency, that there is an infinite beyond. Looking forth, as it were, on the sky, it can see only a certain distance, but is constrained to believe that there is much more beyond the range of the vision-nay, that to whatever point it might go, there

"If the mind,"

would still be a something farther on. says John Foster, "were to arrive at the solemn ridge of mountains which we may fancy to bound creation, it would eagerly ask, Why no farther ?—what is beyond ?" It is here that we find the origin and genesis of such idea as the mind can form of the infinite, and of the belief, to which it ever clings, in the boundless and eternal.

Now, whatever calls forth this exercise of mind and the feeling of awe awakened by it, may be described as sublime. So far as picturesque objects are concerned, the imaging power of the mind rejoices to find that it can print them upon its surface. But there are objects which it tries in vain to picture or represent; the imaging power is filled, but they will not be compressed within it. Everywhere in nature are there scenes which are

"Like an invitation in space

Boundless, a guide into Eternity."

A vast height, such as a lofty mountain, is a step to help us to this elevation of thought and emotion. The revelations of astronomy awaken the feeling, because they carry out the soul into far depths of space, but without carrying it to the verge of space. The discoveries in geology extend the mind in much the same way, by the long vistas opened of ages-which yet do not go back to the beginning. Every vast display of power evokes this overawing sentiment; we see effects which are great, arguing a power which is greater. The howl of the tempest, the ceaseless lashing of the ocean, the roar of the waterfall, the crash of the avalanche, the growl of the thunder, the shaking of the very foundation on which we stand when the earth trembles-all these fill the imagination, but are suggestive of something more tremendous behind and beyond. For a similar reason the vault

of heaven is always a sublime object when serene; we feel, in looking into it, as if we were looking into immensity. Hence it is that a clear bright space in the sky or in a painting, always allures the eye towards it; it is an outlet by which the mind may, as it were, go out into infinity.

But whatever may suggest the infinite, there is, after all, but one Infinite. The grandest objects presented to our view in earth or sky, the most towering heights, the vastest depths, the most resistless agencies-these are but means to help us to the contemplation of Him who is "high-throned above all height," whose counsels reach from eternity to eternity, and who is the Almighty unto perfection. They are fulfilling their highest end when they lift us above this cold earth, and above our narrow selves, to revel and lose ourselves in the height and depth, the length and breadth, of an Infinite Wisdom, lightened and warmed by an Infinite Love.

SUPPLEMENTARY SECT-THEORIES OF THE CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHERS AS TO THE RELATION OF THE LAWS OF NATURE TO THE LAWS OF INTELLIGENCE.

We have illustrated, to as large an extent as our plan allows, the facts which bear upon the relation of the subjective mind to the objective world. After such a survey, we are in circumstances to examine the theories of this relation which have been propounded by some of the deeper thinkers on the Continent of Europe, and especially by some of the German metaphysicians. It should be frankly acknowledged that we have derived much new material for thought from the importation into our land of the loftier speculations of German Philosophy; but it is not to be forgotten, at the same time, that there are principles lying at the basis of some of their systems which would go far to undermine, not only revealed, but natural religion in all its beneficent forms. Some of the gigantic systems, which are being eagerly studied by the ardent youth of our land, constitute the chief supports of a pretending pantheism which it is proposed to substitute for the doctrine of a God possessed of personality, that is, of a

separate consciousness and an independent will. Before entering upon the discussion of these systems, it is proper to state that we are to examine them only so far as they relate to our own subject, and as they profess to adduce facts external or internal as evidence in their favour.

In order to understand these theories, it will be needful to trace them historically from their origin. It was a fundamental principle of Descartes -so distinguished for the originality and the independence of his thinking -that there existed in the universe two entirely distinct substances, spirit, whose essence is thought, and matter, whose essence is extension. In his days, it was a universally acknowledged principle that things which were like, and they only, could influence each other. This seems to be an unfounded, or rather a false principle. In this universe, things very unlike affect each other; in polar action, like repels like, and things unlike are attracted to each other. But, being then a universally recognized principle, we find it acting an important part, in the philosophy of the seventeenth century. In particular, it suggested a difficulty which greatly puzzled the school of Descartes;-How can mind influence matter, and matter mind? How does an object, presented to the senses, give rise to an apprehension of it in the mind? How is it, that when we will to move the arm, the arm moves? It does not appear that Descartes uttered a very clear or explicit answer to this question, but the reply was given, and this quite in the spirit of the master, by the disciples, and, in particular, by the ingenious and devout Malebranche. According to him, matter does not influence mind, nor mind matter; the action of matter in reference to mind, and of mind in reference to matter, is the mere occasion of the forthputting of the Divine power, which is the true cause of the effects which follow. Thus, when we will to move the arm, a present Deity, the source of all power, actually makes the arm to move. This is the famous doctrince of Occasional Causes, as maintained by Malebranche. To us it appears that God has been pleased to give a delegated power both to mind and matter, and that there is no greater difficulty in supposing mind to act on matter, than in supposing matter to act on matter.

These principles and speculations, floating among the reading and thinking minds of that era, took a deep hold on the meditative spirit of a glass-grinder at Amsterdam, who had been brought up in the Jewish faith. The influence exercised by this man-despised and persecuted in his own day-upon the whole of the future history of speculation, is one of the most curious incidents in the whole history of modern philosophy. It is acknowledged, he argues, that if mind and matter are totally different substances, they cannot influence each other; but it is very evident, meanwhile, that they have innumerable points of connexion. It is not necessary to suppose them to be separate substances, they are to be regarded as modes of one and the same substance, a substance possessed both of