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Reformation. If, in the age of the migration of the northern nations, and in that of the crusades, the universal movement was rather produced by a fresh spring of the imagination, in that of the Reformation, precisely as in our own, it was the understanding, it was thought, that then asserted its supremacy, and proved itself a power either of preservation or destruction. That thought-that god within us-when turned to things divine, should be able to exert so powerful a sway over the world and over time, is in itself something calculated to exalt the dignity of man. How terrific its power and its action may become, if passion and self-love govern its high energies, that age as well as our own offers striking and instructive examples. Hence a careful examination of the Reformation, and especially of its internal causes, will find a fitting place in this series of reflections upon modern history, and constitute a necessary, perhaps even the most important part thereof. The causes wherein originated the Lutheran troubles, and whereby they attained such rapid diffusion and such permanent duration, and, in fine, the reasons why, instead of a reformation of the whole church, a mere schism was the result, these will be set forth in the clearest light by a characteristic description of the following four great and extraordinary Germans.

Reuchlin, Ulric von Hutten, Luther, and Melancthon. were each of them scholars, although the first filled also several considerable offices of state, and the second was a soldier and a knight. As scholars they exerted, by their writings and their eloquence, an influence upon their age and upon the world, such as few rulers and princes of that or any other period have exercised. The two former, Reuchlin and Hutten, as they only prepared the way for and sympathized in the movement, occupy a less prominent place in history, yet was their influence not really the less on that account. Reuchlin was a man of whom it may be said, that if his had been the predominant spirit, if so rare and profound a spirit could have become universal, a reformation in the higher sense of the word, a philosophic illustration and restoration of Christianity, obscured by scholastic disputes, would indeed have been effected; but that never would Protestantism, never would a schism in the church have been introduced. The characters of Ulric von Hutten and Luther account for

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the rise of the schism, and for that spirit of violence, hostile to all reconciliation, which the Reformation assumed from the very outset. Had it been still possible to restore the troubled peace after the rupture had already existed for an entire generation, that work, so earnestly desired by the great emperor Charles the Fifth, would have been more readily accomplished through the mild Melancthon, and other likeminded men, than by any other Protestants. In subsequent times the prevalent modes of thinking were much changed, the spirit of the Protestants became very different. Rightly to understand, however, the moral philosophic causes of that great event, so fertile in results, we must wholly transplant ourselves into that first period, must contemplate the Reformation exactly as it was in its origin.

Reuchlin, one of the first scholars that Germany ever produced, and as much at home in Italy as in his native country, united all the literary culture, all the knowledge and learning, which either country at the end of the fifteenth century could supply. Not content with being the powerful critic and restorer of the then reviving Greek literature, he was at the same time, for all Europe, the founder and creator of oriental studies. Unlike later scholars and men of letters, however, these studies were not with him a mere matter of philology, of historical compilation, or of rhetorical brilliancy, he directed all his researches to the highest object of knowledge, that which the inquiring mind must ever consider its principal concern, namely, the knowledge of man, of nature, and of God.

He was beyond comparison the profoundest philosopher of his age; in the rare combination of depth with perspicuity he surpasses even Leibnitz. With respect to the fulness and scope of his learning, no one at that day could be compared with him, except perhaps one Italian youth, Prince Pius di Mirandola, the wonder of his contemporaries. The latter, however, was snatched away by a premature death, and never attained so much lucidity of thought as Reuchlin. With the external world, with life and affairs of state, Reuchlin was necessarily familiar, as a man standing in closest connection with most of the learned and with many highly educated princes and nobles of his time, both in Italy and Germany. His predilection for oriental languages and oriental philosophy rendered

REUCHLIN AS SCHOLAR AND PHILOSOPHER.

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him an object of dislike and suspicion to some of the more narrow-minded ecclesiastics and theologians of his time. The dispute was animated, and was even carried to Rome; but in Rome the decision was favourable to Reuchlin and to the good cause. Rome was at that time more than ever the seat of learning, of the arts, and of true intellectual culture; and shortly before the breaking out of the Reformation, an independence of thought prevailed there, that must almost astonish us at the present day. Yet it was not the case, as is often represented, that in Rome free-thinking and religious indifferentism prevailed all the more generally in secret, because they were not publicly professed, and had made men tolerant and indulgent in matters of faith, if they did not affect the constitution of the church. This mode of thinking may indeed here and there have manifested itself in Italy, but among the leading men, the better and worthier class of literati, these liberal views sprang from a thorough and profound knowledge of philosophy, as well as of religion and art, and from a conviction of their mutual harmony. Reuchlin's philosophy far surpasses the measure and the limits of common-place ability and common-place views. Isolated portions of it may have certainly appeared dangerous to the more narrow-minded; but the entire system is not inconsistent with the Christian faith. It is, however, very remote from the views and doctrines of the Protestants; on the contrary, it serves as the best proof, that in his peculiar opinions Reuchlin by no means belonged to the Protestant party. It was solely because the controversy regarding oriental languages and philosophy was drawn into the vortex of the Protestant movement, that Reuchlin too was afterwards considered one of the founders and originators of the Reformation, which he undoubtedly, without desiring or foreseeing it, helped to bring about.

Historical accounts of the Reformation usually deduce its origin from the sale of indulgences, and the collections of money made in Germany for Rome, and which were piously intended to complete the noble church of St. Peter's. To derive its origin, however, from this or any individual abuse whatever, were simply to stop short at the first outward occasion of this revolution; an abuse that could have been easily removed without producing such vast consequences, without bringing about an event and a commotion, which even without

this accidental occasion would a little sooner or later have still ensued. Far deeper than in this accidental occasion is the real cause of the Reformation to be sought for, and it existed long before this final outbreak occurred. It lay in the then prevailing philosophy, or rather in the neglect and degeneracy thereof; in philosophy, that is, in the scientific foundation of all higher instruction, and in the inward spirit of public opinion. At that period, more than ever, was philosophy the basis of all higher education, and in all times has it been the inward spirit and the chief moving agent of public opinion, and of the prevailing modes of thinking. In the invisible domain of philosophy, in the mind of the original thinkers of every age, those revolutions are ever first wrought; those modes of thinking have sprung up, which, after they have become for one or more generations generally prevalent, mould public opinion, and produce effects in the external world that are often only too vast and too visible. One would think indeed that philosophy needed not, like other sciences, to grow and enlarge with time, that in general it was not susceptible of change; since the only question then at issue is as to the knowledge of the Eternal, which in the sense of our own imperfection we call God, in respect to our moral destinies, virtue and justice, in reference to our hopes, the immortality of the soul. For knowledge like this may be indeed expressed with infinite variety, but is not capable of any addition. The great progress and the discoveries, of which philosophy from time to time boasts, are only discoveries which have already been made by others also hundreds and thousands of years before, in other forms, however, and in other language. The manner, however, in which this knowledge is expressed, unfolded, and communicated, is of the utmost importance in respect to general opinion, which sooner or later is ever regulated by philosophy. Still more is this the case, if the national mind takes a destructive course, and sets itself in opposition to that knowledge which can alone give moral unity and stability to man and to life; or when the opportunity has been neglected for setting aside the noxious influence of those destructive opinions, while there is yet time. Whenever a state or a creed stands in open or secret opposition to the prevailing philosophy, we may be sure that they will be gradually undermined, and will succumb to violent revolutions.

CHRISTIANITY ALLIED TO PHILOSOPHY.

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From the earliest times, from her very origin, was Christianity intimately allied even by some of her very first teachers with philosophy-a certain proof that this alliance was not accidental, but essential to Christianity. Even her primitive apologists completed the victory over the belief and the principles of heathenism chiefly by the superiority of the Christian philosophy over the stoic-platonic. How injurious then to religion itself must have been that decay and degeneracy of philosophy, which, originating in several unfavourable circumstances, sank to so low an ebb in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. These circumstances were the party spirit, that was so easily kindled and nourished in great and free universities; the discord and the jealousy of the different learned orders, to whose hands science and education were principally intrusted. The newly-adopted Roman jurisprudence also had fostered this philosophic contentiousness. Thus in all European universities the prevailing philosophy had degenerated into a passionate party spirit, a dialectic wrangling, and empty formalism. The better and higher philosophy of some individual and original thinkers, several of whom Germany successively produced, from Albertus Magnus to Reuchlin, could not penetrate into the general modes of thinking, nor attain any wide dissemination, because the existing system was already dominant. Neither was there wanting the permanent secret opposition of a false philosophy alien to God, and whereof the spirit was undoubtedly opposed to Christianity. Whenever the true philosophy is neglected, a false one will inevitably take its place. More especially after intercourse was opened with the East, had infidelity and fanaticism never ceased to spread, although secretly and under various forms. Shortly before the Reformation a propensity to astrological superstitions and to magical arts was very apparent; in these, some physical knowledge not generally known, and joined to much deliberate deception, exercised an equally injurious influence upon the public mind and morals. A philosophic adventurer of this kind peculiarly distinguished by his intellectual powers, and who, under the name of Dr. Faustus, has become the subject of a popular legend, stood in close connection with many influential men of the time. He resided in the castle or Francis von Sickingen, and exercised a great and corrupting influence upon the public mind. The first great attempt like