anatomist. Little, therefore, is left for rationalism to accomplish.

But those who are thus looking forward are unwilling to look back; and when they do, it is with a sneer of compassion, as if all behind them was darkness, while all before is light. Watch, therefore, this feature also in rationalism.

There is an atheistic philosophy, as opposed to our experience as it is irreconcilable with possibility, which would trace back all human knowledge to a state of entire ignorance, just as it would frame a world from the expansion of a point. Art and language, and science and society, as well as morals and religion, are thus supposed to have been collected by experience, and experience alone. It forgets that without art preceding experience, life could not have been preserved to gain any experience whatever; that without language no language could be framed; that without some general principles of reason, which make the foundation of science, science could never have arisen; that instead of the individual preceding and forming society, society must have preceded and formed the individual, or the child could never have lived to become a man; that moral laws could not have been laid down except by virtuous men, and men do not become virtuous without a moral law to guide them before they are good themselves; and that religion could not have been wrought out by the discoveries of physical science and natural reason—that it could not, in a word, have sprung from what is called natural theology, because neither science nor reason could be developed except in an advanced stage of society; and society itself could not be held together without the bond of an antecedent religion. Christianity tells a different tale. It declares that

in art and language, and science and society, as well as in morals and religion, some portion of knowledge, some sketch and outline of truth, sufficient to guide man at the first, however imperfectly developed, was given him at the beginning from a source external to himself, from revelation; that he was not left to elicit light out of entire darkness; to accumulate knowledge without any capital to commence with; to grow without roots; to walk without the power of motion; to climb from the very bottom of the hill without any aid or direction. Something was given him from the first, that he might afterwards gain more for himself. The seed containing

the tree was planted in him, and the tree was to be afterwards thrown out. He was placed half-way up the ascent, and from thence was to struggle to the top. Whoever does not look back with reverence to the past, has no right to look forward with hope for the future; and a wise man, who really understands the history of man, will regard the progress of society, both intellectually and civilly, as a decline rather than an advance.

Lastly, the rationalist makes no distinction between the reason of the child and of the man. He confounds human reason in the abstract with the reason of the individual; he thinks it perfect alike in every one. He assigns to it, therefore, the right to judge of truth in all things, and at all times, and, struggle as he may to escape, he must be compelled either to allow that the child is born with as much power of discernment as the adult, or to fix, as Locke tries to do, some period when these powers are developed say at the age of twenty-one. He must either treat an infant as a sage, or declare that at some fixed period his mind suddenly expands, and he is released from all his obligations to listen to men wiser than himself-this is the dilemma of rationalism.

Great God! what is to become of an age and a nation in which these follies are held; not only held, but laid down as the very foundations of education? And men are taught not to listen to the voice of the wise, speaking to them the words of God; and those are scoffed and mocked at who prophesy the end; when truth shall be torn in fragments, and men's minds be shaken from their foundation; and knowledge will be sealed up; and the power of vision will depart; and the fear of God will perish, and his wisdom be distrusted; and they whom we have taught to think scorn of the wise and the old, with the words of God in their mouth, lest they should fall under the dominion of men, will do the only thing that remains, and rather than have none to guide them, will fall down and worship fools.

"Stay yourselves," says the prophet, speaking of these latter times, "stay yourselves, and wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink. For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath he covered. And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed: and the book is delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned. Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men: therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this

Isaiah xxix. 9-15.

people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid. Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel "—or, as the marginal reference would interpret it, "that take counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin: that walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at my mouth; to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt !"1 "Which

say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things; speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits: get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.' "12 66 Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding?" He knew not, that is, what was in man; and we will go elsewhere to learn it.

1 Is. xxx. 1, 2. It may assist the application, to remember, that Egypt was generally employed by early Christian Fathers as a type of "heathen learning" in its relation to theology. 2 Ver. 10, 11. 3 Ch. xxix. 16.

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ECLECTICISM.

CHAPTER VIII.

You cannot, therefore, in the study of Ethics, become an original thinker-God forbid !—or, in other words, a rationalist, such as the German philosophers would wish you to be, forming your own system by yourself, and trying every thing by it.

But you have another choice. You may become an Eclectic, as it is called; and to Eclecticism you will be kindly invited, if you go to France. What Eclecticism is, you may not know; but it is a thing easily learned, and easily practised. And it is a very well-contrived disguise, a sort of domino, for those who do not like to profess that they go wholly by themselves, and yet are resolved to go in no respect by others.

When, then, you are placed before the various systems of ethics, with their respective teachers at their head; instead of coolly dismissing them all as perfectly useless, you may greet them all most respectfully and affectionately; you may pass them in review before you, Christianity and all; admiring this, praising that, paying some compliment to each; regretting only, that no one system is so perfect but that it may be made more perfect by an addition from some other. You will, therefore, refuse to follow any one; but pick from each its peculiar excellence, kλéyε; cull out what pleases you; and make a perfect system of your own; as Apelles is falsely said to have painted his Venus; who, painted on any such principle, must have been not a Venus, but a monster. So modern architects propose to