simple reason that each man looks at truth through his own eyes, and his neighbor's eyes happen to be different. An opinion is the product of two joint factors-the mind and truth-no matter if one of these factors is invariable, yet if the other varies perpetually, the result will vary also. A system of opinions absolutely true, would be seen to be so only by a mind constructed according to the original pattern, ideal, or norm of mind. To all others, it would seem erroneous. But no mind is thus normally perfect. In every one there are preponderances, deficiencies, disproportions. Hence, in every system, there will be some distortion; at the very least, a grain, a minimum of error; and hence endless diversities, sects, controversies, contests. Your eye tinged with red, and you insist that every body else should see all things of the same color. Another man's happens to be yellow, and this makes the difference between you still greater. You look at the same object, and contend about it like the two knights in the story about the gold and silver shield.

is

"But I cannot perceive that my eye is thus clouded." Nay, how should you, since you have only the clouded eye to see with? But assure yourself, that if you see in one way, and a hundred other men each in a different way, it is not that your eye alone is single. You are not the sole possessor of wisdom, neither shall it die with

you.

In psychological science there are two other causes which increase the liability to error. The first of these is, the dif ficulty of reading consciousness aright. To do this requires long habits of introspection and self-study, together with powers of concentration and abstraction beyond those ordinarily possessed. There is a superficial, so to speak, and ordinary consciousness, which accompanies every mental act. But it is necessary to get beyond and below this. The secrets of man's inner nature do not yield themselves up to the careless or hasty observer. The "first springs of thought and will" can be reached only through the medium of longcontinued and patient reflection, added to thorough self-observation. When it is considered how few men practise this, and in what different degrees the capacity for it is pos sessed by different individuals, we shall cease to wonder that each gives a different interpretation of the facts of conscious ness, and that so many crude and superficial theories are propounded in the science of mind.

The second reason is, that all men's consciousness is not absolutely the same. The differences in intellectual structure of which we have spoken, affect psychology more than any other science, because every defect enters twice into the result; first in the subject, and again in the object. Not only the organ with which, but the object at which we look, is distorted; the two being, in this case, identical. We have said that a system absolutely true, would be perceived to be so only by a mind normally perfect; we might say farther, that, in psychological science, it would be true only in relation to such a mind.

But there are other than mere intellectual differences among men. Man is a sentient, an emotive, a moral being; and every part of his nature exerts an influence upon the formation of his opinions. The man of feeble will and strong impulses, of irresolute purposes and violent passions; the man who can never say one day what he shall be or do the next; who cannot trust his firmest determinations, nor be sure that he shall not, at the cry of a turbulent passion, commit some act of madness foreign to all his previous thoughts -what should such a man be but a fatalist? He is not conscious of having fixed his character and position by his own will; but as he looks back upon his life, he seems to himself to have been the sport of some mysterious power, the plaything of an immovable destiny. The blind sway of passion he mistakes for an equally blind fate. He may be accustomed to reflection, but what is reflection without a will to second it? He reflects on the follies of the past only to fall into them anew, and most bitterly feels that "to be weak is to be miserable." What, we repeat, can such a man be but a fatalist? that is, a man who undervalues the element of freedom, and exalts that of necessity; and who, if a believer in Christianity, will resolve every thing into divine sovereignty. But take another individual, of opposite character, with whom force of will is the predominant feature; who has known no obstacles which he did not surmount, no temptations which he did not resist; who has been accustomed to bend, not only his own passions, but those of others, by the force of his will; who never turned back from a purpose; never surrendered a begun enterprise; never said, "I can't"and can you make a fatalist of him?

Augustine and Pelagius may be mentioned, not as belonging exactly to either of the types of character above de

scribed, but as examples in which opinion was evidently the result of natural temperament and constitution. It is not surprising that Augustine, whose ascendency over his passions was gained only through painful struggles, and in whom the strife of the two natures was so apparent and vehement, should have embraced manicharism; nor that afterwards, when increasing light convinced him of his error, he should have taken strong hold of the doctrine of grace. Equally obvious is the connection between the equable, moderate and placid temperament of Pelagius, and the opinions which he held respecting free will and human ability.

We might go on to give the various elements which make up, respectively, a mystic, a utilitarian, an eclectic, or any of the other species into which men are divided; but it is unnecessary. Rather let us ask, what inferences are to be deduced from the foregoing observations, if their correctness be admitted. One inevitable consequence would seem to be, the confirmation of our former position, that uniformity in human opinions is not to be looked for. The grounds of existing diversities having been seen to lie in the nature of man, these diversities will of course continue. So long as the world stands, there will probably continue to be Episcopalians and Congregationalists, Platonists and Aristotelians, radicals and conservatives. Nor is this conclusion, in our view, a just subject of regret. While many evils grow out of the variety of existing sects, there are important counterbalancing advantages. The advantages may be increased, the evils are incidental. For, it should never be forgotten, that true union lies not in forms, nor on the surface; it is an inward principle, and has its growth in the spirit of man. It may co-exist with a wide diversity of outward forms; and, on the contrary, the most absolute external agreement may fail to indicate or produce it, and where it does not it is worthless. What we want is not uniformity; this it would not seem that God has designed, since he has created the diversity of minds, but tolerance, in the widest, deepest, highest sense of the word. Where such a union of spirit exists, differences of form are of less moment.

Moreover, it is matter of thankfulness that the truths most vital and important to us, have not been left to be discovered by our imperfect and distorted faculties, but have been made the subject of revelation. In relation to these points, there fore, error is inexcusable, and where it exists must be traced

to other causes than the necessary limitation of human faculties. And this thought furnishes an answer to another objection which we anticipate to our views, namely, that they relieve men from responsibility for their opinions. If every man believes, as he does, by the necessary constitution of his mind, how can he be justly accounted responsible for his belief. In reply it may be said, that we must first except from the class of truths in regard to which he is non-responsible, all those which God has revealed; in other words, all the truths of morality and religion. And again, we must except all those opinions on other subjects, in the formation. of which, thoughtlessness, voluntary ignorance, prejudice, passion, or self-interest, has exerted an influence, since, for all these, he is responsible. To all of non-responsibility that remains after these two exceptions any man is welcome. No, far be it from us to lessen, in any degree, the fearful responsibility which rests on every man in the formation of his opinions. If he embraces error on any point fundamental to his interests, he does it not only in defiance of written revelation, but of the law written upon his heart, and most awful is the penalty for such guilt and madness. So far, then, as theoretical differences originate in men's moral natures, we may hope for a removal of them just in proportion as love, and purity, and meekness, shall take the place of pride, and selfishness, and passion. Atheism, and other monstrous forms of error, will flee in the day when men shall know the Lord from the least to the greatest.

Nor in philosophical science is the future utterly without hope of advancement. There are certain improvements which may be confidently anticipated in spite of the permanent sources of error which have been described. The ends, instruments, and limitations of knowledge, will be defined with more precision; men will learn of what they are capable, and where to stop. They will comprehend the truth of Scaliger's profound maxim, humana sapientiæ pars est quædam æquo animo nescire velle. They will cease the foolish strife to subject all things to the laws of the understanding, and will acknowledge the inestimable worth of mystery. Mystery! how wide is its domain! Within her vast kingdom lie the beginnings of all existence, the roots of the uniThe primordial forms of all being are wrapped in its shadows. The things we see are but the images and re

verse.

flections of what lives unseen in the region of mystery. Those which we understand are but the twigs and leaves from the huge roots which expand themselves in that land of darkness. For a little while only do we see them ere they · stretch again into that land. For there are all endings as well as all beginnings. There birth and death meet and embrace. What a worth, what a greatness is there in mystery! All fundamental things, all real things, all that is most ancient, most sacred, most terrible, most venerable, belongs to it. Let us learn to think little of the things we understand, and much of those profound mysteries which are the objects of faith, not of science. Then only shall we be in the right road to science.

Another inference which would seem necessarily to result from the foregoing premises is this: it is no argument against the truth of a system, that it appears false or unintelligible to some minds. We are the more willing to bring out this position distinctly, because it is the practice, if not the theory, of many modern would-be philosophers, to condemn and ridicule any system, however venerable, which does not commend itself to their understandings at once, or which requires any greater expenditure of thought and attention than can be given in a leisure half hour after dinner. The cry of obscure! unintelligible! is raised at once, and the condemnation is decisive.

Now there are two requisites at least to the proper understanding of a metaphysical system. The first is, that general training to such investigations, without which no man has any business to express an opinion on a single question in metaphysics, any more than a person wholly ignorant of mechanics has to advise about the construction of a bridge, or a man who knows nothing of the nature of diseases and remedies to administer medicines. Philosophy is a science, however some people may seem not to be aware of it; and a science which does not come by intuition any more than those of law and medicine. It is not with this class of persons, however, that we are particularly concerned at present; nor, indeed, is it needful to repeat what has been so much better said before, on the folly and absurdity of pretending to judge of the truth of a philosophical system without having served even as long an apprenticeship to such studies as is required of a blacksmith or a shoemaker. We have not at hand the passage in which Coleridge so forcibly