of glory, whilst all is going to wreck about them. Let us now see what M. de La Menais says.

An

"In certain former epochs," he begins, 66 a common opinion, growing gradually, and at last spreading universally, has prevailed, neither the origin nor the progress of which could be distinctly traced. instinct of an indispensable reformation, of a change in preparation, of a developement, of a revolution, has manifested itself at such seasons in a thousand ways; so that every one has been in a state of expectation, and when the sun rose it has been a question whether he would give his light to the same state of things in the evening he had risen on in the morning. Such a feeling as this is the especial warning which God gives to those to whom he has confided the government either of things divine or of things human, and all the evils which desolate the world, all the disorders which mark periods of transition, are caused principally by the obstinate resistance opposed to the law of progress which should govern the human

race.

"Now at this actual time we are living in one of those epochs in which all things tend to renovation, and are passing from one state to another. Of this no one can entertain a doubt.

Never did there exist

so lively a presentiment, so universal a conviction of a coming change as at present. Some fear, and others hope, according as they look forward or look backward, and see life or death. But I repeat it, all believe in a radical alteration of the world, in a total revolution which is ready to break forth. This then will be accomplished. It is vain to attempt to arrest the flight of destiny, to remount the stream of time, or to build with stability on the chaos of actual society. This is impossi

ble. There is in the womb of events a sovereign, fatal, irrevocable necessity superior to all opposing power. What are those petty arms stretched out to drive back the human race, and what can they do? An irresistible force urges the people onwards. However they may be opposed, they will advance as they should advance. None can stop them in their course on the high-road of centuries, for this is the career, in which, from one generation to another, man, in continual progress, prepares himself for eternity."

Alluding then to the restraints which men find in religion, M. de la Menais thus expresses himself:

"There is then a struggle, a terrible struggle. Man flies from God, if I may venture so to speak, that he may not cease to be man. He turns away from the road

which leads to the temple, when the door through which human nature would force him to enter, is shut against him—(N.B. This door is revolution). He will overthrow the temple itself if there be no other means of cutting out his passage, for he must advance even over ruins; and there is nothing sacred enough to be spared in these moments of enthusiasm, of ineffable possession, in which a mysterious voice from the depths of futurity calls to him to press on. The more sacred the obstacle he encounters is, the more enraged and indignant he becomes. He turns with fury upon every hinderance. Its sacredness only increases his exasperation from the contrasts in which it stands to the Divine power within him, by which he feels himself impelled and ruled," &c.

Whilst translating the above passage, we have heard of another attempt made on the life of the King of the French. A crime like this appears to us indeed only the natural consequence of such sentiments as we have just transeribed, and which Monsieur de la Menais and a whole host of

popular authors are in the habit of scattering, as it were, from a tripod of inspiration among the French multitude. No one can read the extracts, short as they are, which we have given from the volume before us, of one of the most eloquent writers of France, without perceiving that their direct aim is to rouse up into fury all the troubled mind of the nation. The passionate restlessness of the worst part of society is every where represented as a divine impulse towards a great social regeneration. It is no matter of wonder, therefore, that desperate men should lay hold of this doctrine as exactly suiting their condition, and as imparting to such a crime as the assassination of a King, a kind of sinister glory, which their misery and their overheated intellects strongly tempt them to appropriate to

themselves. Such an act is considered by the fanatic theorists, whose works incite to its commission, as nothing more than a flash of lightning from the thunder-cloud. It only confirms them in their views and hopes of approaching revolutions, and far from checking their speculations, is regarded as a direct corroboration of their truth, and encourages them to recommence their declamations with increasing confidence and animation.

We believe we have now given our readers specimens enough of Mon

sieur de la Menais's volume, and we assure them that we could furnish parallel passages from numerous modern works of great popularity, which are issuing daily from the French press. Indeed the extreme exultation of mind which prevails in France constitutes the principal and perhaps the sole danger to which that country is exposed. Happily we know little of this kind of intellectual fever, and therefore may find it difficult, at the first glance, to appreciate the full extent of its dangerousness. With us, for instance, every political agitation has some distinct cause, some definite object of a positive practical nature by which it is for the time bounded; and we confess we think there is comparatively little to be feared, whilst the passions of the people are roused only by subjects closely connected with their material interests. The appeals which are constantly making, in such cases, to practice and experience, soon temper an exaggerated violence, and produce an inevitable sobering reaction; and even in the very tempest of excitement thus occasioned, there exists a species of moderation, inasmuch as the end in view is specific and limited. But in France the disquietude and ferment of the public mind is not created by any precise cause, but arises from a tormenting vague sentiment that things are not as they ought to be, not in this or that particular, but generally and universally. Owing to some peculiarity in the character of Frenchmen, they have ever had the habit of viewing political matters in this wide man

ner.

Even in the Chamber of Deputies to this present day, all topics relating to the material welfare of the state, to the prosperity of separate classes of men, are handed over to the bureaux or committees, and beyond those petty circles attract no regard. An Englishman sojourning in France, or attentive to the proceedings of its representative assembly, is struck with astonishment to find that the great establishments, institutions, and interests of the country, never strongly excite the popular attention. Any new laws or regulations to which these may be subjected, are discussed with coldness and indifference, and are supposed more nearly to concern the subaltern officers of the administration, who have the chief direction of such mechanical affairs, than any one

VOL. XLI. NO. CCLVI,

else.

But as soon as some subject which includes the assertion of a first principle, or which opens a prospect of extensive change, is started, then is there an animation, an eagerness, and a state of tip-toe expectation excited, which agitates the whole nation. Nothing can show more strikingly than this that the hearts and thoughts of the people are at some distant goal. They are not set upon any thing positively existing. Owing to this loose roving state of their political affections, their most precious liberties, actually had in possession, are, in the midst of violent contentions for the abstract doctrines of republican freedom, ravished from them or abridged. Thus the liberty of the press has been lately restrained, and the institution of the jury corrupted; and we can tell our readers, that it is in contemplation, during the present session of the Chambers, to revive an old law of Napoleon's, by which any individual may be banished, either from Paris or the French territory, on a mere suspicion that he entertains dangerous political principles or projects and this tyrannic measure will, we have no doubt, be carried, as others have been, almost without opposition. Why? Because the real substantial details which constitute civil liberty, are not, for their own sakes, loved in France. Theories and speculations occupy, in the minds of Frenchmen, that place which the solid institutions and positive interests of the kingdom ought to fill. There is an exaltation of mental temperament which will not stoop to homely realities, and of this M. de la Menais, and the mystic school, afford the most prominent examples; but in a diminished degree, it is common to almost all the liberal politicians of the French nation; and whilst such men are unengaged and uninterested in practical affairs; till such affairs are rendered popular, disnested from the bureaux of the central government, and put into the hands of the people, there can be no safety or tranquillity for France. Whilst the intelligence of that country ranges wide, as it does now, it can only be compared to lightning. It may coruscate awhile in the clouds, but its great attraction will be towards the social edifice, which-unless such conductors as we have hinted at be found-it will smite and smite again into a heap of ruins.

R

WE now proceed to consider the act of our Intellective Faculty, in the most distinguished and complex operation which our mind performs, namely, in reasoning-a subject which may be viewed in much simplicity when relieved from that load of disquisition which has been heaped upon it.

Reasoning may be considered as of two kinds, Demonstrative and Inductive, and we shall speak of both in order.

Of Demonstrative Reasoning the most remarkable and most perfect example is that which is afforded by the science of mathematics. And it is in this science, therefore, that we mean to consider it.

The distinguishing character of mathematical reasoning is its absolute certainty. This does not require to be insisted on. Every one who has the slightest acquaintance with the nature of mathematics is aware of this fact, and knows that every the least step in this kind of reasoning has a character that is wanting in the most overpowering and irresistible probability in every other. In all other reasonings, all other proofs, however conclusive they may be, however implicitly we may believe and act upon them, still there is the possibility that we may be deceived. But in mathematical demonstration there is no such possibility. We know that we reason aright. To question in the least degree the conclusion amounts to the dereliction of reason itself. Here then is, between the most convincing argument of any other kind and this, a wide and total separation.

This distinctive character of mathematical demonstration rests on two circumstances; the nature of the original grounds upon which the whole reasoning of the science proceeds, or the subjects of enquiry; and that of the successive steps of reasoning.

In all other speculation the subject of reasoning is something that is independent of our intelligence, having absolute existence in nature; and our

reasoning, therefore, proceeds upon observation of the natural facts. Hence there is always in such inquiry a ground of uncertainty, because the knowledge on which we reason is itself uncertain. There is no way in which the human mind can absolutely assure itself, either that its observations are perfectly true, or that they have embraced the whole of the facts which may possibly affect the conclusion. The deduction is uncertain, therefore, because the grounds of reasoning are independent of the intellect which reasons. In mathematical science, on the contrary, the subjects of reasoning have no such independence. They exist not in nature. They subsist solely in the intelligence which is to explore their relations. For the mind itself creates in this instance the subjects of its speculation; and the grounds of reasoning are therefore known entire, and with absolute certainty, to the intellect that is to reason upon them. They do not subsist in nature; for the first essential properties of these subjects are directly at variance with the primary essential properties of material being. The mathematical point is without parts, but the ultimate atom of nature is, in respect to extension, still infinitely divisible. The line is without breadth, but the finest line traced in matter has breadth that is still infinitely divisible. The nearest approach to the perfect evenness of the right line, to the uniform curvature of the circle, must, we conceive, still vary from the exact delineation, in all material lines and curves, fram. ed, as they are, by the apposition of particles, which have figure of their own. Or, if such figures can, or do exist in nature, they are to our mind the same as if they did not, since we cannot ascertain their existence. For we can know them only by our senses, and we know well, that though the form should appear to be in most perfect coincidence with the mathematical description, there can nevertheless be no reliance on the testimony of our

from that exact intellectual truth; but to the perception of our senses they may approach so undistinguishably near, that, as far as regards all our practical purposes, they may be conceived to coincide with it. Hence we are able to apply mathematical reasonings to the various material subjects of scientific observation and of art; the difference, in that application, from the absolute truth, being such as either is not perceptible by us, or such as does not affect our use.

The subjects then of all mathematical enquiry are given in those simple primary relations which are proposed and established in its outset. It then becomes the object of the science to educe by reasoning the other relations which these primary ones necessarily involve; proceeding from one discovery to another, in endless combinations, carried on step by step from these few and simple elements. The labour of the most powerful minds, through a long successon of time, is unable to exhaust the relations involved in the constitution of the subject that was at first so simply determined. "I have no doubt," says Dr Reid, "that after all the investigations of mathematicians, of the simple figure of the circle, it contains many properties, which are yet undiscovered.' So fruitful to intellect is every element of intellectual conception. The thought of a moment produces a subject for the study of ages.

In mathematical reasoning, therefore, what is attained is perfect certainty; the subject of reasoning being relations known absolutely to the mind, which has conceived them; and the process of reasoning being always such a comparison of one subject with another, that the new relation resulting is perceived by intuition; the purpose being from those fixed and known relations to ascertain unknown rela. tions which they involve. And the whole may be thus summed up. subjects of reasoning are known relations the steps of reasoning intuitions-the end other relations-the ground of certainty intuition of relations among subjects certainly known -to doubt its reasonings, the mind must either doubt its own intuitions, which have carried it on at every step -or it must doubt its understanding of its own conceptions, from which originally it set out.

The

Let us now pass to Inductive Reasoning. The object of inductive reasoning is, to obtain knowledge of things having absolute and independent existence, their relations, and their laws of mutual action. The means are observation of the facts falling under our notice, with reasonings grounded on those facts-these reasonings in like manner consist of intuitive perceptions of relations-the grounds of certainty are the confidence of the mind in its own intuitions, and the belief of constancy and unity in the order of nature.

The process of the mind in such inductive reasoning will be best understood by considering particular cases of knowledge thus acquired from the study of material nature.

The first occasion to the great Harvey, of conceiving the circulation of the blood, was the anatomical observation of certain valves, that are placed at intervals in those vessels, which are now known to carry the blood towards the heart, the veins. The structure and situation of these valves is such, that they will permit any fluid contained in these vessels to flow in one direction, and not in the other: that direction is towards the heart. He argued that the blood did flow along them in that direction. It followed that the other vessels, the arteries, in which no such valves were found, must serve to carry it from the heart over the body. This, then, was at first, an hypothesis, grounded on a single observation. Innumerable observations, of various kinds, made during many years, all coinciding with, and explained by this opinion, and none contradicting it, enabled the illustrious discoverer to establish his theory with irresistible evidence. Here, then, was, in the first place, a fact observed-a hypothesis framed consonant to that fact and numberless subsequent observations found coinciding with the hypothesis. The comparison of these observations with the hypothesis, and the perception of their coincidence, is what in this instance is to be understood by inductive reasoning.

As an example of the same process, far more removed, as it might seem, from absolute observation, may be mentioned the discovery by Copernicus of the true orbits of the planets. "When Copernicus," says Maclaurin," considered the form,