and, doubtless, reflect all its various and varying moods. It may support, and oppose, first one existing party, sect, or school, and then another. It will be bound by none, but be free to approve, or to criticize, one or all, just when and where its editor judges proper. I will be held responsible for nobody's opinions but my own, and nobody shall be held responsible for mine, unless he chooses to be. All parties, sects, and schools, must. be free, so far as I am concerned, to accept what they like, and to reject what they dislike; to praise me. when they please, and, when they please, to scold me to their heart's content.

This said, so that we may start fair, I will add, that this Review will have certain fixed principles and leading doctrines, which its readers may always expect to find recognized and supported in its pages. I do not start it with uncertain and fluctuating views, with doctrines, that will be taken up to-day, and abandoned to-morrow. I have my doctrines determined, and have prescribed to myself a course, from which no departure need be expected, or apprehended. In this respect, this journal will differ from the Boston Quarterly Review. When I commenced that Review, my views were still, to repeat myself, in the process of formation, rather than formed; and I aimed at exciting inquiry, rather than at positive instruction. The greater part of my essays were conceived and written with the view of promoting liberal inquiry and philosophical investigation; not with the view of teaching any regular system of doctrines, on any subject whatever. My great and leading design was, to awaken the public mind, and to prepare it for the reception of profounder and more kindling views of the Destiny of Man and Society, than those I found generally embraced by my countryThe community appeared to me to be asleep, overcome by a mental vis inertiæ; and the first thing they needed was, to be aroused, by bold and startling appeals, to a sense of their danger, and stimulated to new and more vigorous efforts for their salvation, moral, intellectual, and social.

men.

This first work, evidently, could be necessary only for a time; as soon as the public were awakened, it would cease to be useful, and another work would need to be commenced, - that of PoSITIVE INSTRUCTION. The sleeper awakened asks, "What shall I do?" This question the Boston Quarterly, during the last two years of its existence, it is true, to some extent, attempted to answer; but timidly, and with many misgivings, for I was not yet quite sure of my public, and still less of myself. It was not till the last half year of its continuance, that I succeeded in working myself into the clear light of day, and became able, in my own estimate of myself, to pass finally, in my public communications, from the inquirer to the teacher. Then, only, could I feel, that the fetters, which had bound my soul, and against which I had struggled in vain for twenty-five years, were broken, and that I was free; then, only, was it, that the scales seemed to fall from my eyes, and that I could see where I stood, and what must henceforth be my direction. The mist vanished, and I could see men in their due proportions and proper forms, not merely "as trees walking." Then commenced with me a new intellectual epoch, which must, to some extent, give a new phase to my writings. This new phase will be represented in this journal, as it has been, in relation to some special subjects, in my contributions, the past year, to the Democratic Review.

When I commenced the Boston Quarterly Review, in 1838, I was still under the influence of the French Eclectic school of philosophy, founded by M. Cousin. That school found me in a state of transition from Naturalism to Supernaturalism, and, for a time, took fast hold of me, completely subjecting me, and making me its slave, though not always its willing slave. It was long before I could master it, and recover the free action and development of my own mind. I think I have finally mastered it; but I must not be understood as having rejected it. I am still a disciple of that school, though a free disciple, not a slave. What I

hold to be good in it, I have made my own; and I feel myself able to accept its good, without being obliged to accept also its evil. I think I see its truth, and its error; where and why it has succeeded; where and why it has failed. I have obtained a clear, consistent, well-defined system of philosophy, satisfactory to my own mind; but, in obtaining it, I have assimilated no small share of the teachings of that school, and I cannot but feel myself largely its debtor. It is, men may say what they will of it, the great metaphysical school of modern times, and its founder will take rank, in the history of philosophy, along with Abelard, Descartes, Locke, Leibnitz, and Schelling.

In forming my own system of philosophy, I have also been greatly assisted by the Saint-Simonian school, in which I reckon, though differing, more or less, among themselves, Bazard and Enfantin, Leroux, Lerminier, and De La Mennais. As a metaphysician, the last mentioned of these may not deserve a very high rank, but he deserves honorable mention as a social and religious philosopher. Lerminier does not appear to have any very well defined system of his own; he is more of an erudite, than of a philosopher; yet his Philosophie du Droit contains many valuable and original suggestions, which no student of philosophy will do well to neglect. Leroux is, indisputably, a great man; his, so far as I am able to judge, is the greatest name in contemporary French literature. His resources are immense; his reading is various and extensive; his views, if his judgments are sometimes hasty and unwarranted, are original and profound. Yet, as some of the German writers say of him, he is a philosopher, rather than a metaphysician, and more admirable for his broad and generous generalizations, than for the depth or acuteness of his analysis. His genius carries him to the study of theology, and one is half tempted to believe, that he aspires to the founding of a new religion. He appears to struggle hard, sometimes almost ludicrously, not to be a Christian, and he apologizes to his readers for venturing, now and then,

to speak well of Christianity; but, though ranked, and apparently choosing to be ranked, by the Catholic clergy, among the adversaries of our religion, I much doubt, whether any writings will do more than his to recall the age to a living faith in Christianity, or to unfold the deep significance of the dogmas and symbols of the Church. I have profited much by them, and they rarely fail to bring me nearer the Church, even where they seem designed to remove me farther from it.

The German philosophers have afforded me very little satisfaction. It is true, that I have made no profound study of them; but, so far as I know them, I claim no affinity with them. I feel, and own, the eminent analytic ability of Kant, but I am forced to regard his philosophy as fundamentally false and mischievous. His Critic der reinen Vernunft, if taken in any other light than that of a protest, under the most rigid forms of analysis, against all modern philosophy, is sure to mislead, and involve the reader in an inextricable maze of error. Hegel is no better, if so good. His system, originating in the earlier teachings of Schelling, is, under other forms, nothing but a reproduction of the old French Atheism; and Schelling, rising from the tomb and breaking the silence of near forty years, has recently, at Berlin, entered his solemn. protest against it, and pronounced it insufficient, and a failure; but, as it would seem, without being able to substitute any thing solid, or new, in its place.

In my own philosophic studies, I have found it necessary to go back to Plato and Aristotle, and to follow the main current of philosophy, down through the Alexandrians, the Fathers of the Church, the Schoolmen of the Middle Ages, and to resume its problems, very much where they were found by Bacon and Descartes. I am far from saying, that no advance has been made since the Scholastics; I would by no means underrate, or speak lightly of, the labors of modern philosophers; but I dare affirm, that all the labors of philosophers, from Bacon and Descartes down to Schel

ling, Cousin, and Leroux, have resulted in amassing materials for philosophy, rather than in philosophy itself. These materials are various, rich, invaluable, but the philosophy which is to solve, for us, all the great problems of life, is yet to be constructed, and on a foundation laid by no modern philosopher. I am not so vain as to pretend, that I am able to construct this philosophy; but I do feel that I am able to contribute somewhat towards its construction; for I think I see very distinctly, not only what must be its final cause, but what is, and must be, its foundation and method. And to contribute my share towards its construction, at least to rally and stimulate the workmen, is among the chief motives for commencing this new periodical.

In THEOLOGY, six years ago, I had worked my way up to a considerable distance from zero, where I found myself in 1829; but I still retained, unconsciously, some traces of former Naturalism and Pantheism. I believed, that I was a believer. But there were weighty problems, remaining unsolved, and which I was unable to solve; I had but a feeble glimpse of the mediatorial character of Christianity, of the Gospel as a divinely provided system of means, designed to be, to fallen man, the wisdom and the power of God, to keep the law, according to which he was originally created; I had no just appreciation of the real nature, rights, and offices of the Church, and no clear conception of the profound significance of her principal dogmas and sacraments; I could at best only stammer my faith, which, though sincere, through my want of distinct articulation, seemed to many, and not without some reason, as good as no faith at all. I may deceive myself, but I believe, that, if there are mysteries still remaining, as there are, and always will be, I have, finally, got rid of all naturalistic and pantheistic tendencies, and attained, at least, to the power of distinct utterance. I accept with my whole. heart, without any prevarication, mystification, or men