"Whether I be right or wrong in my view, this at all events is my view; not that which your reviewer ascribes to me in common with Mr. Frere.

Perhaps I may be allowed to add that, although I deem the premillennial occurrence of what the Church has always understood by the second advent to be a plain scriptural contradiction, and therefore impossibility, I am far from saying that there will not be a temporary visible manifestation of Christ at the close of the Time of the End, for the purpose of destroying the armies of the Antichristian Faction, in the immediate vicinity of Jerusalem. The probability of such a temporary manifestation, analogous to those previous temporary manifestations in the cases of St. Stephen and St. Paul, I gather from Dan. vii. 9, 10; Zechar. xiv. 1-5; and Rev. xix. 11-21; but, antecedently, I would not venture to say more than probability. Such a manifestation, however, would not be what the Catholic Church has always understood to be the second advent, for the purpose of judging individuals, whether quick or dead; for every predicted manifestation, if literal, at the close of the 1260 years, invariably respects, not individuals, but communities. The real second advent for the judgment of individuals is, in Rev. xx. 11-15, distinctly placed, not before, but after, the Millennium; and it plainly corresponds and synchronises with our Lord's parallel prophecy in Matt. xxv. 31-46. Your reviewer is quite correct in saying that I once held the opinion of the Premillennialism of the real second advent; but it was only when I was a young man, and before I had thoroughly sifted the question.

"Sherburn House, April 5th, 1852."

"G. S. FABER,

ART. II.--Meditations et Etudes Morales.
Second Edition. Paris: Didier.

Par M. Guizor.

1852.

THE religious reader of modern French literature will find no small measure of gratification in the perusal of some of these essays. Indeed, he alone is in a condition to appreciate their vast value at the present day. M. Guizot always speaks of his Protestantism courageously, and with that conscious self-gratulation which a deep conviction of having "bought the truth" (Prov. xxiii. 23), at its saleable price of toil and worldly sacrifices, must engender. But this honorable epithet, as applied to him, embraces a wider meaning. M. Guizot has not only protested in a Romish court against the errors of Rome, but he also protests in an infidel country against infidelity; and this seems to be the best praise, speaking distinctively, which can be awarded to some of

these highly intellectual essays. Regarded as the independent compositions of a student they would be valuable; but regarded as the compositions of one whose professional pursuits during a busy life have been mainly historical and political, and as voluntary replies to the most dangerous opinions of some of the world-famous philosophers of France, they are invaluable.

Neither of the two to which we propose to confine ourselves (on the "Immorality of the Soul") are very recent productions, both having been published in 1827. But this makes them the more valuable, because having been published but this year, under the author's immediate control in a collection of his principal works, it proves that his opinions have stood the test of time and experience.

It must be understood that the following opinions and arguments are, for the most part, M. Guizot's: for the manner of stating them we are responsible, changes and explanations having been made principally in reference to the simplification of transcendental doctrines, which most English readers are found to require, though a French author may take for granted the requisite elementary knowledge in the majority of his educated readers.

M. Guizot commences the first of these two essays with the assertion that the idea of immortality lies within the human soul as it proceeded from the hand of its Maker-the idea, but not the formal belief.

We at once meet here with the difficulty which obstructs the path of the unprepared reader of certain philosophical writings-What is meant by the word idea? According to Locke, an idea is something of which we are immediately conscious according to Plato, it expresses that of which we cannot be immediately conscious. It refers to the native structure of the mind. As an illustration of the difficulty, we may refer to something which belongs to the native structure of the body. A man has no belief in the peculiar taste (for example) of olives until one has been brought into contact with his palate; after which the belief of this fact in the world of tastes is called into existence, and becomes, henceforth, a portion of his knowledge. The discovery may have been made very late in life; but the power under which it was made lay in an original physical structure; and would, at any other time, upon a like experiment, have produced the same kind of knowledge. Such kind of knowledge does not depend, in the slightest degree, upon the reason, the will, or the imagination. The only share which the will has in it is to

determine that the fruit shall be applied to the palate: the peculiar effect (as we popularly say the taste) depends upon original organization; and is, in the true human sense of the word, necessary. Once apply the olive to the palate, and it becomes impossible, henceforth, not to believe in its tastethat is, speaking analogically, we might say, that the idea of this taste lay in the original structure of the animal frame; though the belief of it could only be obtained through an especial external action. If the unpractised reader of this branch of mental knowledge will trouble himself to comprehend the terms of this illustration, he will have less difficulty in following M. Guizot's proofs.

The preliminary affirmation is that the idea, but not the belief, of immortality, lies originally within the human soul. True, the doctrine has been doubted and even rejected by serious and sincere minds; and probably, even amongst professed believers of it, there may be much hypocrisy, originating in the shame of a public confession; but at all events they have formed the idea of immortality and have admitted its legitimacy; and a belief of this doctrine is equally implied in the actions of large numbers of such men as profess to have paid no attention to the abstract doctrine, as in their love of glory, in their respect for the dead, and in their hopes or fears of a fact of some kind beyond this life. Spontaneous or reflective, clear or obscure, apparent or hidden, permanent or fugitive, the idea of immortality is met with in all minds.

Now, the inquiry is-From whence comes this idea? By what paths, and what title, does it thus universally introduce itself into the human mind? What light does its origin throw upon its legitimacy?

It cannot come to us from experience; nor can it be borrowed, by way of analogy, from observations upon the outer world; for, in fact, from this quarter proceed those analogies which obscure it and lead to its rejection. For the only spectacle presented by the processes of nature in the outer world are life and death, and the last fact which strikes the observer's senses is his own death. There can be nothing then in the outer world which suggests to man the idea of immortality.

Moreover, it is in those men whose thoughts are chiefly occupied about external things that this idea is established with the greatest difficulty. Take them under situations and occupations the most different: learned men whose pursuits are about material organization-politicians occupied with the temporal condition of the people-sensualists, and all

such as live habitually in the presence, and under the empire, of the external world-these are the classes, to speak generally, which think least of their immortality. And hence all religions, in order to foster the cultivation of this belief in immortality, have enjoined upon their followers a sequestration from the world, less to detach them from it than on account of the obstacles which it opposes to this belief. Indeed, it is necessary to have shuddered with terror at the aspect of the fearful appearance of the act of dying to comprehend the abyss which separates the spectacle of the outer world from the idea of immortality.

It has

Others have sought to trace the origin of this belief to a contemplation of the destinies of man, chiefly in reference to the injustice that seems to be the rule of this life. seemed impossible to such to accept the moral disorder that reigns in the world, the triumph of evil, and the misfortune of the good which is so common, as the law of the righteous governor of the universe. They think that order and justice must be restored somewhere; and hence they conclude that the doctrine of immortality is a necessary belief.

And there is truth in this human instinct-only, as thus stated, it involves an inversion of facts. For, it is not from the necessity of moral order that the immortality of the soul is deduced; but it is because man believes in the immortality of the soul that he, therefore, requires the establishment of moral order. The instinct of immortality is implied in this need of eternal justice and necessarily precedes it. A proof of this may be obtained from the mode in which infidel poets, philosophers, and statesmen, deal with this moral disorder. Determining to reject this natural solution, they have no better substitute than to tell man to yield, as best he can, to an ephemeral destiny; and to resign himself to what is unavoidable, and to enjoy the good he meets with, and to bow his head before evil that must soon pass away. The negativeness of so poor a remedy for such worldly disasters as it professes to render endurable seems to prove that there must be a positive remedy somewhere. The error, however, arises from a confusion of facts; for it is not that a sense of moral disorder craves for immortality so much as that the innate idea of immortality craves for moral order.

Others have deduced the origin of the idea of immortality from the insufficiency of the actual world to satisfy the immensity of the soul's desires, inextinguishable as it is found to be by any happiness, which ever falls short of expectation, is soon used up, or stands ready to elude the

grasp of its fancied possessor. Hence, it has been concluded that this doctrine has been devised as opening before the soul prospects boundless as its desires.

The confusion is here the same as before-the facts are inverted. It is true that the world does not suffice for man; but then this sentiment has not invented, for its own satisfaction, that hope of immortality. On the contrary, it belongs to the nature of this sentiment to reveal to the human consciousness the idea of immortality; and then, when the two facts there confront each other, to yield its parentage to the innate idea of immortality. It is the instinct of an infinite nature which pushes beyond the finite world the ambition of the soul. It is because the soul feels itself to be immortal that it aspires to things which do not pass away.

But can the idea of immortality be deduced by science? Can this doctrine be a philosophical invention, an hypothesis, or a system imagined for the solution of the problem of our nature and destiny? So some think: it appears to them to be more probable than any other, because it explains more difficulties: it gives a better account of moral facts, and, therefore, it has been adopted.

But this would require us to admit the impossible claim of philosophical discovery for an universal idea which is anterior, in the history of humanity, to every proper name and to every school, and which is met with everywhere, under all the forms and degrees of civilization-even in the bosom of gross barbarity; and which exists, vague, obscure, but yet powerful, at the bottom of the sentiments and under the actions of men the most strange to all abstract thought and internal teaching. The supposition that this universal idea should be a philosophical discovery is equally offensive to the instinct of good sense as it is unable to bear calm examination.

When man's nature becomes the subject of investigation, the human spirit is neither so inventive nor so free as it struggles to be. It has been able to explain the physical world; but, when passing from this to the study of the moral world, it is subject to the most imperious laws and fetters, and hence the vast number of philosophical systems may be reduced to some few ideas and fundamental differences. If the ardour of combat has been great, the arena has been narrow and the arms have not been changed. We may allude to the three systems-spiritualism, materialism, and fatalism-which have sprung up from, and repose upon, some one idea comprised in the spontaneous

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