developed and sustained in action by law. It is most interesting to observe into how small a field the whole of the mysteries of nature thus ultimately resolve themselves. The inorganic has been thought to have one final, comprehensive law, gravitation. The organic, the other great department of mundane things, rests in like manner on one law, and that is development. Nor may even these be after all twain, but only branches of one still more comprehensive law, the expression of a unity, flowing immediately from the One who is First and Last.' But the Development Theory, whether applied to the organic world or to the inorganic, is itself a historical growth, older than the nineteenth century, older even than the eighteenth. We have intimations of it in Aristotle. More or less crudely, it was held by Anaximander over two thousand years ago. 'The originals,' says Emerson, are not original. There is imitation, model, and suggestion, to the very archangels, if we knew their history. . . . Read Tasso, and you think of Virgil; read Virgil, and you think of Homer; and Milton forces you to think how narrow are the limits of human invention.' 6 Philosophy.-As a reaction against the materialism of the eighteenth century, believed to be the source of frightful immorality, Reid in England and Kant in Germany had laid the foundations of a more spiritual creed. At Berlin, students had assembled in crowds to hear the ideal grandeur of Fichte. The transcendental Schelling, the sphinx-like Hegel, were attracting the attention of Europe. In France, the impassioned Cousin was charming the gay Parisians into sympathy with the lofty, profound, and divine. At this juncture a new star rose on the philosophic horizon. Sir William Hamilton, an intellectual athlete, the most brilliant of English metaphysicians, carried to its zenith the fame of the Scottish school for the study of the human mind. His subjective cast, his ideal bent. his elevated conception of speculative problems, appear at the outset in his definition of philosophy itself: "The limitation of the term philosophy to the sciences of mind, when not expressly extended to the other branches of science, has been always that generally prevalent; yet it must be confessed that, in this country, the word is applied to subjects with which, on the continent of Europe, it is rarely, if ever, associated. With us, the word philosophy, taken by itself, does not call up the precise and limited notion which it does to a German, a Hollander, a Dane, an Italian, or a Frenchman; and we are obliged to say the philosophy of mind, if we do not wish it to be vaguely extended to the sciences conversant with the phenomena of matter. We not only call Physics by the name of Natural Philosophy, but every mechanical process has with us its philosophy. We have books on the philosophy of Manufactures, the philosophy of Agriculture, the philosophy of Cookery, etc. In all this we are the ridicule of other nations. Socrates, it is said, brought down philosophy from the clouds,-the English have degraded her to the kitchen; and this, our prostitution of the term, is, by foreigners, alleged as a significant indication of the low state of the mental sciences in Britain.' Consciousness, he holds, is the basis of all intelligence. We are conscious not of the internal alone but of the external, of the non-ego as really as of the ego. Mind and matter are the two antithetical factors always and necessarily given in every act of perception. We have no reason whatever to doubt the report of consciousness, that we actually perceive at the external point of sensation, and that we perceive the material reality.' That is, we have an immediate and direct knowledge of physical objects: 'The total and real object of perception is the external object under relation to our sense and faculty of cognition. Suppose the total object to be twelve, that the external reality constitutes six, the material sense three, and the mind three; this may enable you to form some conjecture of the nature of the object of perception.' Moreover, we can know a thing only as it stands related to our faculties. The latter being different, our knowledge would be different. To know is thus to limit. Hence we can know or conceive only the conditioned, not the infinite or the absolute. 'Existence, absolutely and in itself, is to us as zero.' The absolute commencement of anything that exists is, therefore, inconceivable. Consequently we are compelled to believe that every event has a cause. The idea of causation, we are taught, does not arise from power, but from want of it— the inability to pursue a thing into nonentity. In like manner, we cannot conceive a volition wholly undetermined; that is, a cause which is not itself caused: but if liberty is inconceivable, so also is its opposite, necessity. Though each of two contradictory opposites be beyond the limits of thought, one must be held as true; and the appeal is to consciousness, the Bible of philosophy, which declares in favor of God, freedom, and immortality. Our present concern is, not to ask whether these doctrines be true, but to suggest that the lesson is salutary,- faith in the invisible; and to note, in this revival of philosophy, the change from the sensual to the super-sensual, a change manifest in all the high imaginative literature of the period. Speculation and poetry were alike uplifting and essentially interior, engrossed by interests of the soul; a common character due in part to the universal renewal of ideas and ideality, in part to the importation of systems and dreams across the German Ocean, mainly by Coleridge, Wordsworth, the Scotch thinkers, and Carlyle. Résumé. The death of William IV, in 1837, closes the reign of personal government, and the accession of Victoria marks, amid confusion, discontent, and doubt, the expansion of constitutional freedom. The Tories, or Conservatives, go into office; the Whigs, or Liberals, into opposition; while the rise of the Free-Trade movement and the Chartist agitations indicate the ferment and spread of republican, or democratic, principles. Industrial strikes, socialistic assemblages, reform projects, church dissensions, mechanical improvements, the discoveries of science. and their application to the business of life, prove the period to be one of excitement, of enthusiasm, and of growth. The opinions and contests born of the French Revolution inflame the passions and stimulate the imaginations of Europe. New thoughts, new hopes, new fears, new sentiments, pass into the heart and brain, and inspire a new literature, that reflects the mighty commotions and the numerous agencies which concur in its formation. Poets become innovators. Scott revives primitive feeling and feudal exploit. Coleridge opens the door to a stream of German ideas, while another sweeps in from France. The two currents lead to the study of first principles and the assertion of transcendental truth. Emotion is preeminent; nature, the goddess of adoration. Style becomes a free and direct expression of thought. Poetry, the predominant form of literature, breathes a spirit of universal sympathy; distinguished in its philosophical character especially by Wordsworth, in its imaginative character by Shelley, in its revolutionary character by Byron. The drama is less prolific of excellence. Few of the great venture on the field; still fewer reap any laurels. Fiction communicates the spirit and lessons of history, or exhibits in life and action new theories of education and morals. Much of the intellectual power of the age is expended in reviews. Criticism, aiming at life, clearness, and unity, throws a flood of light upon the past. Historical composition, aiming at the harmony and significance of manners and events, appeals to the thoughtful, cultivated student of human affairs. Utility is the avowed principle of action, and science, spreading with unexampled zeal, is applied to the arts with brilliant success. The consciousness of the Divine presence is being identified with the notion of consistent and regular evolution. Rationalism engenders more liberal views of God, a more fra THE WIZARD OF THE NORTH. 321 ternal disposition, and a purer worship. Benevolence acts on a wider scale. Religious culture flows into new channels, winds its course among humble valleys, refreshes thirsty deserts, and enriches distant climes. America, absorbing within herself and harmonizing the discordant elements of other races, produces little of general interest likely to become classical. The leading impulse is the pursuit of wealth. The cares of existence exclude its embellishments. Originality passes into machines. Religion is expansive and practical. Literature is, to a great degree, an offshoot or continuation of the European. The few who write are largely English in substance, still more in form. Irving and Cooper-though the one remembers Addison or Goldsmith, and the other Scotthave the refreshing flavor of nationality. Poetry, with hardly an exception, harps on the transatlantic strings. Here and there, in this and other departments, are risen or rising lights which render the country conspicuous at a distance. But the literary atmosphere is wanting; and what is done is chiefly prized, on the whole, as a promise of higher and more extensive effort. A stirring, pregnant, eventful age, whose utterance — displaying the prevalent passion for change, the thirst for untried good, the impatience of endured wrong, the deeper sense of human worth comes from the soul in the language of conviction and strong feeling. SCOTT. Blessings and prayers in nobler retinue Than sceptred king or laurelled conqueror knows, Biography.-Born in Edinburgh, in 1771; taken at the age of three to the farm-house of an aged relative to try the efficacy of bracing air on his little shrunken leg; spent his days till his eighth year in the open fields, in the fellowship of sheep and lambs, and fed his imagination on legends of border heroism and adventure; then sent to the High School of his native town, where he became distinguished as a story-teller; transferred to the uni versity, where, instead of the regular course of studies, he pored over Ariosto, Cervantes, and other romancers; contracted an illness by the bursting of a blood-vessel, and, forbidden to speak, did nothing but read from morning till night; became a clerk to his father, and, in the midst of his mechanical duties, made frequent excursions—often on foot in search of traditional relics; became an advocate, and continued to travel, exploring streams and ruins, gleaning legends and ballads; married, settled on the banks of the Tweed, collated the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, and in 1805 appeared as an original poet. From poetry he passed, in 1814, to fiction, beginning the long series of Waverley, and continuing it at the rate of two each year; transformed his cottage into a mansion, tried to revive the feudal life, and dispensed princely hospitality to those who were attracted in crowds by the splendor of his name; went into partnership with his printers, and at the age of fifty-five found himself ruined; resolved, with admirable courage and uprightness, to wipe out by literary task-work a debt of one hundred and seventeen thousand pounds; paid seventy thousand in four years, exhausted his brain, and died a paralytic in 1832. Writings.-Percy's Reliques had prepared the way for the Minstrelsy, which contained many new ballads, with valuable local and historical notes. Its reputation led the world to expect something brilliant. In the maturity of his powers, he wrote the Lay of the Last Minstrel, which was received with a rapture of enthusiasm. This is a story of the sixteenth century reviving the manners and sentiments of chivalrous times. The portrait of the aged harper, last of the race, is inimitable: The way was long, the wind was cold, The narp, his sole remaining joy, |