Romans in general who believed in a supreme Deity identified him with the Soul of the universe. f Varro undoubtedly had no other notion of Jupiter, and he may be considered as representing the principles prevalent in his time. The later Platonists of the school of Ammonius were lost in the dreams of oriental speculation. Plotinus, likę Spinoza, afterwards seems to have maintained that God was no existence himself, but the cause of all existence, and that matter, soul, and God were inseparable, and had been so from all eternity. It might be a subject of curious investigation to fol

spondit. Quod quidem minime sum admiratus eum philosophum rhetori non esse cognitum, qui ab ipsis philosophis, præter admodum paucos, ignoraretur. Topica, cap. I.

f Dicit ergo Varro adhuc de naturali theologia præloquens, Deum se arbitrari esse Animam Mundi quam Græci vocant Kóσ et hunc ipsum mundum esse Deum. Augustin. Civ. Dei, lib. vii. cap. 6.

A very interesting account of the theology of Varro is given. in Dr. Ireland's learned treatise on Paganism and Christianity compared, chap. 5.

g Plotinus's notion in lib. ix. Ennead. 6. so far as an ordinary mind may be permitted to approach such sublime abstractions, appears to be, that the first original principle is Nothing, yet the cause of all things; having neither quantity nor quality; neither soul nor reason; is neither in motion nor in tranquillity; is neither unity nor number; neither in space nor in time; without thought or will; yet the act of thinking, and the cause of all thought; the smallest, yet the largest; the good, the perfect.

Εὖ νὴ τὸν Ἑρμῆν· ὅτι λέγεις δ ̓ οὐ μανθάνω.

low up the question through the philosophical sects of more modern times, to examine how far the system of Spinoza accords with the doctrine taught in some of the ancient schools, and to pursue the inquiry even to our own day, through the most recent philosophical systems, and ascertain to what extent the charge of pantheism is justly to be imputed to them h. But a superficial view of such subjects seldom fails to produce or strengthen erroneous opinions, and an accurate research would require the labours of a life.

It appears then, that, of the different schools of antiquity, some held the soul of the world to be the chief God, some a secondary Deity; of the former, some believed the universal Soul to pass through matter unmixed, some to be united and form only one nature with it; and of these again, some considered the corporeal Deity to be a kind of divine reason without personality, others a species of vegetative life, called the plastic force of nature. Is it too much to infer, from an examination of such unintelligible theories, that the inventors and supporters had no clear conceptions of their own meaning, and that principles like these

h Die neueste philosophie nähert sich dem system des Spinoza von mehreren Seiten an. Tennemann, art. Spinoza.

i Exposui fere non philosophorum judicia sed delirantium somnia. Cicero de Natura Deorum lib. i. cap. 16.

had very little influence on the practical belief of mankind? And degrading as the picture is which such systems exhibit of the weakness of human reason, it is at least a subject of satisfaction to perceive, that the two great master minds of antiquity, Aristotle and Plato, never cherished those low and debasing views of the Divinity which inferior teachers ventured to inculcate. With that humility which never fails to accompany talent of the highest order, they both express themselves unable to penetrate the darkness and difficulty which involves such questions as those respecting the divine essence and the nature of the soul; and Plato more than once recommends prayer to the Deity, that the understanding may be strengthened and enlightened *.

G.

This must be the feeling of every man conversant with metaphysical systems. If we trace the history of philosophical speculation from its commencement to the present hour1, we shall

k Plato, Timæus, p. 22. Aristot. de Anima, lib. i.

3

1 Φιλοσοφία γάρ τοί ἐστιν, ὦ Σώκρατες, χαρίεν, ἄν τις αὐτοῦ μετρίως ἅψηται ἐν τῇ ἡλικίᾳ· ἐὰν δὲ περαιτέρω τοῦ δέοντος ἐνδιατρίψῃ, διαφθορὰ Twν ȧvoρúπwv. Gorgias, Bekker, pars ii. vol. i. p. 83. These words, originally used by Plato with a different object in view, will apply to the present question.

observe the same forms of atheism and pantheism reviving in different ages, and supported and combated by nearly the same arguments. It would seem as if speculation on its wildest wing was still condemned to soar within prescribed limits, and to pursue the same circling flight. The most subtle and profound thinkers have arrived at little certainty upon subjects of abstract reasoning. Nor are the wild and dangerous theories that have sometimes been adopted, to be attributed to pure malice and malignity, at enmity with the good of mankind, but to a restless desire of knowledge upon questions in which knowledge in our present state can never be attained, and to a spirit of intellectual ambition which allows of no limitation to the exercise of human thought. Hence it is that ancients and moderns, deists, atheists, and Christians, men of immoral and moral life, of pious and impious feelings, have built up philosophical systems equally unintelligible. And some of these have been established upon principles of which it would be very difficult to shew the fallacy, yet upon which no man, not even the inventor of the system, would or could act for a single moment. In seeking to become more, we pay the penalty of our folly, and become less than man. Hume declared that he was afraid to think, on account of the conclusions to which he might

come, and the barriers of separation he might create between himself and the rest of mankind. This feeling should have taught him that the pursuit of truth, properly conducted, could never lead to such a separation, and that there was other and stronger evidence than abstract reasoning alonem. Reid was unable to refute Berkeley's principles, till he appealed to the common belief and conduct of mankind. And as a rule for our own decision in judging of the conviction of a writer, when his philosophy is opposed to his common feelings and language ", it will be much safer to depend upon the latter, than upon inferences from his metaphysical creed°. Anaxagoras is said to have maintained that snow was black, in order to preserve his consistency as a

m Qui nondum ea, quæ multis post annis tractari cœpissent, physica didicissent, tantum sibi persuaserant quantum natura admonente cognoverant. Hæc ita sentimus natura duce, nulla ratione nullaque doctrina. Cic. Tusc. Quæst. lib. i. cap. 13.

Πᾶν γὰρ ὅπερ ἴσμεν κρειττὶν ἢ κατ ̓ ἀποδείξιν τοῦτο κατὰ κοινὴν ἔννοιαν oμev. Origen de Anima, p. 618. ed. Paris. 1618.

La Nature confond les Pyrrhoniens, et la raison confond les dogmatistes. Pensées de Pascal, art. I.

n I do not wish by this statement to set up feeling in religion above reason, but above metaphysical and abstract reasoning. In an argument of reason our natural feelings and desires, together with conscience, should form a part of it.

• Anaxagoras nivem nigram dixit esse; ferres me si dicerem? Cicero Academ. Quæst. lib. iv. cap. 23.

ego idem