readers will thank us for giving it to them without abridgment.

"GEORGE BERKELEY, a celebrated English metaphysician, author of a psychological doctrine, commonly denominated Berkeley's Idealism.

"We have several times, in this Dictionary, used the word Idealism, and shall have frequent occasion to use it again. We have gone so far as to say, Christian Idealism, and to speak of the idealist doctrine, which, according to us, has been the foundation of Christianity; we have reproached Protestantism, in general, with its want of idealism; we have characterized the decline of metaphysics in the eighteenth century, as an anti-idealist epoch; in fine, we have advanced the opinion, that Idealism is about to be reborn; that all the labors of our epoch tend to its rebirth, and that on this rebirth depend the future destinies and well-being of society. In thus expressing ourselves, we assuredly have not had in view, the several theories commonly termed Idealism; we have by no means intended to speak either of the doctrine of Berkeley, or that of Malebranche, either of the system of Kant, or that of Fichte, or even that of Schelling. A word of explanation, before proceeding to consider Berkeley's theory, is, therefore, necessary; for we should only darken and confuse the minds of our readers, were we to use the same word to express doctrines so radically different.

"For us Idealism comes from ideal, not from idea, (idée,) and is the doctrine of the Ideal; while, in its ordinary acceptation, it is a mere theory of ideas. But what do we understand by the doctrine of the Ideal? An æsthetic doctrine? Have we in view some of those vague notions, of which such a display is sometimes made, when treating of the fine arts and their principles? No. It is not of this detail we would speak; but of a philosophy, which, if true, absorbs by good right all philosophy. We mean rather by idealism, what is ordinarily termed spiritualism; though this word, spiritualism, seems to us a little inexact, and not sufficiently expressive. Words are like those guide-posts, which point out the paths in a forest. The inscription is useful, only in case it is turned towards one of the forest paths. If the post lies on the ground, the traveller may, indeed, read the inscription, but his uncertainty remains. Such is the word Spiritualism. It throws no clear light; it indicates no direction.

"But it is the word in use, we shall be told. True, and it is precisely because it is the word exclusively used, and because

it is made not more expressive, that philosophy advances so little. What, in fact, does this word tell us? Simply, that they, who use it, distinguish two substances, spirit and matter. What light does this give us, if we stop here? This distinction is not the most fundamental of all; so far from it, certain of the Fathers of the Church, and among the most eminent too, have not made it, and yet they have been none the less idealists and Christians. Spiritualism is a recent word, coined in these last centuries, and has been in good use for only about a hundred years. According to us, it is a word which marks a decline, and was invented only after the sense of the deep things of philosophy had already been lost, and forgotten. When Christianity reigned, they, who believed in the Christian ontology, were not called Spiritualists, but Christians. In the beautiful times of Greek philosophy, there are Platonists, Pythagoreans, &c., but do we find that they ever dream of calling themselves Spiritualists? Nor do the Egyptians and Indians appear to have ever thought of obtaining from this distinction of spirit and matter, a name for their beliefs. What, then, is the bond, which, for those at all instructed, connects the school of Plato, that of Pythagoras, and certain beliefs of ancient Egypt and India, with Christianity?

"Christians, certainly, have no better claim to be spiritualists than had the Pagans. Tertullian, who asserts positively, that there is no soul, or spirit, without bodily appearance, is he more of a spiritualist, than Cicero, who decides nothing concerning the nature of the soul? Not here, then, is the dif ferential shade, that separates Christianity from Paganism; nor here the similitude, which compels us to regard the several schools just named, as mutually related, and as having, within given limits, one and the same philosophy.

"Is there, then, in the history of philosophy, a philosophy of the Ideal? People will one day be astonished, that this question could ever have been asked; but we must propose the question, for this doctrine has no longer a name, at least, a name that expresses it truly; and because every day professors and philosophical writers use the term idealism to express quite a different thing, and appear to know no other idealism, than that of Berkeley, or that of Kant. It appears to us so important to recognize a doctrine of the Ideal, to have a philosophy of the Ideal, that we would willingly say, that Idealism, in this sense, is the very name of philosophy, or religion, itself. Philosophy, or religion, is the science of life; and we know no other explanation of life, that is to say, of ontology, than the Doctrine of the Spirit incarnating itself, of the Word

becoming flesh; or, in other words, the Ideal actualizing itself.

"When we come to treat of this subject, in its place, in this Dictionary, we shall easily prove, we think, that all reflections. lead to this ontological theory; and that we may thus come directly, without needing to pass through history, or to be referred as learners to what our fathers have believed, to this ancient solution, which was that of the East, of Pythagoras, of Plato, and of Christianity. The simplest attention, I repeat, will of itself enable us to find again the profound mysteries of the ancient religions. But, if we are able to seize the essence of the doctrine of the Ideal by an à priori, how much more deeply shall we be struck with its importance, when we contemplate it in the light of history!

"The doctrine of the Ideal is the unbroken chain of Tradition. There are epochs in which it has been so vividly comprehended, so unanimously accepted, that it has taken the authority of religion, has, in fact, become religion. Transported from the East and Egypt into Greece, it has formed the philosophy of Pythagoras, and the philosophy of Plato. What, in fact, is the culminating point of the Platonic philosophy, but those archetypal ideas, which every artist, which the Great Artist, God, has objectively before him, yet subjectively in him, and by means of which he performs his work? More lately, invading the world from many sources at once, sovereign in Egypt, sovereign in Greek philosophy, this doctrine has appeared to the wise to unite all traditions; and with their consent it has formed Christianity. It is this doctrine which is concealed in all its mysteries; or rather, in our view, all the mysteries of Christianity are revelations of it. Concentrated in the fundamental doctrine of the Trinity, it is explained, and applied, in Baptism and the Eucharist. It is the very centre, the focus, the soul, of Christianity.

"It is this doctrine, again, which the greatest geniuses of the Middle Ages sought, with a steady eye, in the midst of the darkness of their epoch. All the great theologians, in these so despised centuries, preserve, in various degrees, the sense of this doctrine, which had inspired the Fathers of the Church, who had collected its elements, some from Plato, some from the schools of Egypt, others from Judaism, to unite and fuse them into a new formula under the name of Christianity. After the Middle Ages theology declined. The Church preferred to impose upon the mind the mere shell, so to speak, of her mysteries, rather than to instil the substance into the understanding. Then faith was commanded instead of being pro

duced; and reason, proscribed, turned away from religion, from ontology.

"Here we have philosophy separated from theology; the priests on one side, the philosophers on the other; the one teaching to believe without comprehending, the others abandoning the peculiar province of faith, and pursuing their researches elsewhere. The doctrine of Idealism is obscured and effaced. Philosophers confine themselves to the investigation of phenomena, without concerning themselves with the generation, the succession, the genesis of these phenomena, and end in contemplating, not life, but death.

"When Locke came, when Berkeley came, the philosophical problem was proposed in this form, namely; What is the origin of our knowledge, and what is its certainty? Locke, whatever may have been his actual intention, or whatever the conclusions which have been drawn from him, answered this problem, by sensation, by body, by Matter; Berkeley answered, by Mind, by idea, and maintained that we have no other direct and certain notion of reality exterior to the Me, than idea; but which idea is all the knowledge we need. How shall this answer of Berkeley's be called? It was called Idealism. There was already, it is true, the word Spiritualism, opposed to Materialism, which might have been taken, but it was a general term, which presupposed both spirit and matter, two substances, and, therefore, not the proper term to express a doctrine, which excluded all notion of matter. So they created the term Idealism. This word, since applied to the theories of Kant, Fichte, &c., is not properly formed. To have been regular, it should have been, not Idealism, but Ideism. The question, however, then turning only on the origin and certainty of our knowledge, nobody was shocked at expressing a purely psychological theory, relating solely to the source and validity of our ideas, by a term which seems derived, not from Idea, but from Ideal, or Ideality.

"I repeat, that we should say Ideism, as we say Deism, Pantheism, &c. In saying Idealism, the root of which is, evidently, Ideal, we lead those, who are not well versed in the history of philosophy, into error; give them a confused notion, derived at once from what they know of the doctrines of Berkeley, Kant, and certain other psychologues, and from the induction, which they cannot avoid making, by virtue of the very laws of language, from the resemblance of this name to that which would be logically formed from Ideal, or Ideality! "But the evil would not be great, if it stopped here. But, unhappily, we have a much graver reproach to make to this

word, employed in this sense. It usurps a place that does not belong to it; so that, if we continue to employ it in this sense, we have no word to express the most important of ontological theories, or, to speak more accurately, the great and only ontological theory. Does it comport with the progress of philosophy, to have no term by which to express the sublimest of all philosophies, that which, transmitted from age to age, from the Oriental world even to us, has appeared to be philosophy itself, the greatest and almost the only philosophy, to the finest geniuses of the world, to Pythagoras, to Plato, and to the Fathers of the Church?

"All who have studied the history of the progress, and the aberration, of the human mind, know the importance which words have sometimes had; and we do not hesitate to say, that the vicious use of this term, Idealism, constitutes one of the. most serious obstacles to the progress of philosophy; for this false acceptation tends to divert attention from the doctrine of the Ideal, and to confound it with a theory which has no relation with it; and prevents, therefore, the student from perceiving the luminous summit to which philosophy aspires, in order to rejoin religion, and unite all traditions in one alone."

We pass over here, without remark, M. Leroux's theory of the origin of Christianity, for to treat that subject properly would carry us quite too far for our present purpose; we can only say now, that we have introduced this criticism on the use of the word Idealism, because we believe it to be just, and much needed. We had ourselves made, briefly, a similar criticism, in the Democratic Review, before meeting with this. Idealism, unquestionably, comes from Ideal; but what is the Ideal? That which relates to, or merely participates in the nature of, ideas? So one might at first sight be led to conclude. But this is not the fact. The Ideal is, philosophically considered, the generic, the origin and ground of ideas. The Greek word idea answers to the Latin species, or forma; and the Ideal, taken strictly, is the formative principle, that which forms the species, or specific idea. The doctrine of the Ideal, then, must be more ultimate, and altogether profounder, than the doctrine of Ideas; as the doctrine of the creator must be more ultimate, and profounder, than the doctrine of the creature. The doctrine of the