very mid-course of thought, harmonizing and developing itself into a rounded and complete circle, and just when he had reached the point from which he intended to prove “that what has happened, and is happening every day," is not only not "without God, but is essentially His work," he was stricken down by the mighty devas tator, cholera, in its most virulent and malignant form, and, after a few hours' illness, passed away from the world of speculation into the universe of reality. His body, by his own express desire, was buried by the side of the noblest and best of modern Germans, Fichte-the law, by which persons dying of cholera were ordered to be buried in a separate grave-yard, being, by authority, departed from in his special case. His widow and two sons survived. The grief of his students was intense; with almost filial love they have combined to place, in their entirety, the works of their master before the world. They have spared no labour, and counted nothing pain, to effect this object. Between 1832-45 an edition, in seventeen volumes, was issued under the superintendence of the theologian, Marheineke; the scientist, Schulze; the jurisprudentist, Gans; Von Henning, the statist; Hotho, the aesthetic; Michelet, the moralist; Förster, the physiologist, &c., &c. Besides raising this "monument of fame" to their friend and teacher, and, as a "memorial of their own kindly affection for him," doing this "praiseworthy deed of disin terestedness, friendship, and love to philosophy," the students and disciples of Hegel have striven to proselytize all departments of thought to his views, and by the activity of their enthusiasm have diffused, though divided into three different and differing parties (right, centre, and left), the influence of Hegel through the politics, the religion, and the arts, as well as the speculations, of Germany, and have made him a living power in all modern thought. The following, we think, will be admitted by students of Hegel's writings to form as nearly an abstract of the ground-work and scope of his most remarkable ideas as is able to be given in the space now at our command, transfused, not translated, into the philosophical language of our own country and times, for the literal reproduction of Hegel's peculiarly gnarled forms of expression would convey little insight to ordinary readers. Logic is the science of pure thought; philosophy is an account of the self-development of thought. The simplest, purest, least limitable, and most abstract of thoughts is being. Being in this wide, absolute sense includes (categorizes) all in general, and yet is nothing in particular. It furnishes the union-bond (copula) of all, esse, seyn, to be. To become conscious is to segregate [our] being in particular from "all in general" and "nothing in particular," and to constitute that primary and synthetic unity (ourselves) which discovers and takes cognizance of itself in each act of perceptivity, or intellectual effort. Mind is self-centred, self-moved, and free. In consciousness it differentiates itself from matter, which is neither self-moved nor free. Being, in becoming self-consciousness, has had to oppose itself to non-being, and, so far as regards the development of self-hood, i.e., as means to an end, "being and non-being are the same." The logical "identity of contrarieties" thus becomes evident, and the dialectical rhythm of thought is shown, and known to be three-fold,-to exhibit itself in tri-logies. Logic starts, then, with the word is (being), but on each side it has the already known, and the as yet not definitely known, to bring together in the identification of thought by that copula. In the very primary processes of thinking, in the efforts and exertions man makes for self-consciousness, as well as for all other knowledge, he must have two premises yielding a conclusion. The supreme categories of thought are being, or immediate substance; essence, or thought-reflection; and notion, or ideation,thought consciously obtained. As being is the prime element of thought, and logic is the science of thought, it follows that every process of logic must also be, in reality, an unfolding of being; and philosophy, like all else, must consist of a trilogy, viz.,-1. Logic, the science of thought in itself. 2. Science, or nature-knowledge, the science of thought's contrary. 3. Metaphysics, the science of conscious mind. So it is that philosophy, by a dialectic process, constructs out of human nature itself, as the germ in which all is implicitly contained, the whole round and circle of science. Thought in itself categorizes. The genesis of consciousness from consciousless being into perceptive power, or the capacity of seeing and knowing otherness, i. e., of discovering, or comprehending, science; and the manner in which intelligence, feeling, and will arise, are involved in this power of categorizing, and it is with those latent conditions and processes of thought which result in, and furnish us with, the categories, that logic primarily concerns itself. The categories had always hitherto been assumed. Aristotle, the schoolmen, &c., accepted them as ultimate facts, or first-truths. Kant first subjected these to a new critique. Fichte continued this criticism, and Jacobi strove to rehabilitate the old system. Fichte's" Doctrine of Science," from a single postulate, endeavoured to give an organic oneness of development to thought. Schelling, with more poetical enthusiasm than philosophical method, attempted to grasp in the tenacious hold of his philosophy all nature, mental and material. Hegel methodized this philosophy, but, in so doing, made it logical, and therefore, less pleasing; logical, and therefore, different in its ground and results, though retaining the same aim. The method is to regard each conception as involving an opposite conception, and so originating-giving birth to a new conception different from either. This calls forth a new contrary, whence there arises a new result; and so, in ever-advancing pulsations, the life of thought proceeds. Here we have affirmation and negation, that is, a limitation of one by another-in other words, quality; and hence our ideas of finite and infinite. Quality refers to limitation in thought, not in sense. Perceptive affirmation and negation implies outward limitation, i. e., quantity. Quantity limited by quality originates the idea of measure. It is thus that the forms of time and space develop themselves in thought, and form the essential categories of science. Thought now sets not being [itself?] as an object of contemplation before it. There thus arises in us the distinction of mere, i.e., impersonal, being and individual existence; out of which, in their contrariety, again springs the notion of things (impersonal existences). Being, opposed to non-being, and realizing that in otherness, produces the conception of phenomena, and phenomena (i.e., appearances) in being, constitutes reality. The previously-given forms, or categories, become filled up and actualized, and we are, in our mind, as in a living mirror, able to reflect nature in its outwardness. In this pulsation, thought has become motion, not a faint copy of a grand externality drawn and painted in evanescent lines in the mind; but the actual and true representations in thought of real being. Notions each seek differentiation. Differentiation depends on the perception of likeness and unlikeness. This leads to generalization, in which all like things are included in one notion. But this, again, leads to judgment, or the assertion that one notion is, or is not, contained in, or classable along with, another. Of such assertions there may be four sorts, viz., qualitative, reflective, necessary, and ideal. Each judgment, then, suggests its contrary, and so brings out into clearer consciousness the latent and implicit power of union it possesses with some other judgment,-its power of being syllogized, or thought into oneness, as to realize its trilogy of terms into a new unity, or totality, so satisfactory, that it is seen that the truth is shut up in it. Hence we have the word conclusion. Notion, however, cannot remain merely subjective, but restlessly craves to objectivize itself, and so to arrange itself into a threefold classification of ideas [i. e., outward things perceived and known], viz., mechanical, chemical, and organic. At this stage notion transforms itself into idea [conscious thought in its highest forms, viz., as life, intelligence, and living-intelligence] in absolute being. This leads us onwards to physiology, metaphysics, and ontology-the sciences of life, thought, and being. So has pure thought in its inner operations, through its own forms, and by its own specific energies, risen from the unconscious to the God-conscious state by processes within the circle of its own individuality. When thought externalizes itself, it produces the philosophy of nature; and when it returns to reflective thought, and seeks to know the laws by which it acts and is governed, the philosophy of mind is originated, and we pass into the regions of selfknowledge, in anthropology, psychology, and will; of mental government, in jurisprudence, morals, and politics; and of relativity, in æsthetics, religion, and philosophy, i. e., the development of thought in organic and systematic activity. Of the mighty sweep of Hegel's thought these are but a few jotted indications. The logic is contained in three massive volumes of almost scholastic dryness; and though it appears in a briefer and more intelligible form in the last edition of the " Encyclopædia of Science," it occupies a large space. His whole works comprise nominally eighteen, but really twenty-one, volumes. This, therefore, is only a summary, in which the leading thoughts are brought toge ther as we best could, so as to form, if possible, a brief, intelligible whole. Such as our presently-given view is, it has been the subject of much thought, and of careful comparison with the results of the impressions of thinkers and scholars on the matter of Hegel's ideas. The form of it, we hope, is plainer than that usually given; and though we have been compelled to employ abstruse and unusual words, as they are in general the language of our own philosophy, they may be better understood than a closer version of the mere forms of speech of one of "The choice and master-spirits of his age." We now notice one or two of the most obviously defective portions of this logic. 1. Hegel seeks, by taking being alone as his sole prime term, to work out the categories from that single conception; but in the passage (or becoming) of being and not-being into the concept consciousness he subsumes the ideas of time and space; for being could not be limited by non-being, unless we conceived space and beginning to be, implies time. 2. That logic is the science of thought may be granted; and yet we may reserve a judgment upon Hegel's implicit assumption that all that is thought is real, and all that is real is thought. 3. The continual immanence [or abidingness] of the eternal in the constant series of becoming, i. e., change, may be looked upon as unproven, if not erroneous. 4. The words antithesis, thesis, synthesis, do not, in fact, express the ordinary process of logical reasoning. 5. The whole scheme implies, and is based upon, the assumption that "man is the measure of the universe." 6. Hegel's scheme, as much as that of Descartes, assumes the axiom, Cogito, ergo sum, "I think, therefore I exist;" for he nowhere shows how, where, and whence the primal force of all philosophy, thought, is generated. These objects may give a clue to the thoughtful reader to the loose joints in the harness of this logic, thick-knit though it be, and will enable him to see that Hegelianism is vulnerable otherwise than by a sneer, a mis-statement, or an absolute denial of any good in the system. The heterodox deductions of philosophico-theologians from the system of Hegel are not justly chargeable upon him, even though it were granted that they were implicitly contained therein. He neither saw, foresaw, nor would acknowledge them. He was himself a great, holy thinker, who believed that truth was not only the creative origin of the universe, but its continual onspur and its crowning perfection-GOD. S. N. See, for further information, G. H. Lewes' "Biographical History of Philosophy;" J. D. Morell's "History of Modern Philosophy;" and his "Elements of Psychology;" Chalybæus' "Hist. Development of Speculative Philosophy," translated by Edersheim or Tulk; Maurice's "Modern Philosophy;" Articles "Hegel," in "Penny" and "Britannica" Cyclopædias, and in the "Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques:" "Rémusat's "De Philosophie Allemande;" J. Willm's papers in the "Revue Germanique," 1835-7; "Hegel," &c., by M. Ott; M. C. Rénouvier's "Manuel de la Philosophie Moderne;" Professor Vera's works on Hegel are incom prehensible; Hegel's "Life," by Rosenkranz, is the source of the facts of our paper. Professor J. F. Ferrier in method, most nearly of British philosophers, exemplifies the Hegelian form of thought. Philosophy. ARE THE INTRINSIC MERITS OF TUPPER'S AFFIRMATIVE ARTICLE.-IV. FEW books have been more severely criticized than "Proverbial Philosophy." Professional reviewers have done their best to undo it. Amid so much hostile opinion, it is a somewhat difficult and hazardous task to stand up in its defence, but we do so convinced that such censures have been written by men incapable of appreciating its merits,-men without any genial impulses, whose cold, prosaic natures would crush sentiment of every kind, and reject as unreal and illusory the bright pictures of the beautiful which poetry creates. With such men we have no sympathy; they may sit down and work out hard mathematical problems-they may study Mansel and Kant-they may untie metaphysical knots-but with poetry they have no right to meddle; they can no more appreciate it than a Laplander can the green fields and sunny skies of Italy! With Mr. Austin, we have lost all faith in "Poetic Reviewers," -they killed poor Keats; and, but a few months since, one of them, in a first-class quarterly journal, called Mrs. Browning's 'Poems before Congress," a perfect shriek!!" 66 99 66 The "merits of a book may be judged from its influence for good upon those who read it-thus the Bible is the best book because, above all others, its teachings make mankind, when brought under its power, pure and holy. We insinuate no comparison between the "Book of books and the work now under discussion, but we affirm that the moral influence of Tupper's "Proverbial Philosophy" is undeniable. With unflinching honesty it denounces every vice, and with brotherly counsel it encourages every virtue. Nor is this all; it commends religion as the paramount duty of man. He says, "C 'Scripture gave the holier themes, the well-turned words of wisdom." Thus, socially and individually, for this world and the next, it shows the true fount whence all the springs of happiness flow. We delight in viewing the bright side of human life; men and women are ever complaining of false friendships-blighted hopesbroken hearts; they look on all with suspicion, adopting as their creed that monstrous popular sentiment, "treat every one you meet as your enemy," as though all men copied Jonathan Wild, and all women Catharine de Medici! Shame on such doctrines! The |