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the Pagan mind, that no word exists in classical Greek or classical Latin, which approaches either pole of this synthesis; neither the idea of holiness, nor of its correlate, sin, could be so expressed in Latin as at once to satisfy Cicero and a scientific Christian. Again, (but this was some years after,) I found Schiller and Goethe applauding the better taste of the ancients, in symbolizing the idea of death, by a beautiful youth, with a torch inverted, &c., as compared with the Christian types of a skeleton and hour glasses, &c. And much surprised I was to hear Mr. Coleridge approving of this German sentiment. Yet here again I felt the peculiar genius of Christianity was covertly at work moving upon a different road, and under opposite ideas, to a just result, in which the harsh and austere expression yet pointed to a dark reality, whilst the beautiful Greek adumbration was, in fact, a veil and a disguise. The corruptions and the other dishonors' of the grave, and whatsoever composes the sting of death, in the Christian view, is traced up to sin as its ultimate cause. Hence, besides the expression of Christian humility, in thus nakedly exhibiting the wrecks and ruins made by sin, there is also a latent profession indicated of Christian hope. For the Christian contemplates steadfastly, though with trembling awe, the lowest point of his descent; since, for him, that point, the last of his fall, is also the first of his re-ascent, and serves, besides, as an exponent of its infinity; the infinite depth becoming, in the rebound, a measure of the infinite re-ascent. Whereas, on the contrary, with the gloomy uncertainties of a Pagan on the question of his final restoration, and also (which must not be overlooked) with his utter perplexity as to the nature of his restoration, if any were by accident in reserve, whether in a condition tending downwards or upwards, it was the natural resource to consult the general

feeling of anxiety and distrust, by throwing a thick curtain and a veil of beauty over the whole too painful subject. To place the horrors in high relief, could here have answered no purpose but that of wanton cruelty; whereas, with the Christian hopes, the very saddest memorials of the havocks made by death, are antagonist prefigurations of great victories in the rear.

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These speculations, at that time, I pursued earnestly; and I then believed myself, as I yet do, to have ascertained the two great and opposite laws under which the Grecian and the English tragedy has each separately developed itself. Whether wrong or right in that belief, sure I am that those in Germany, who have treated the case of Classical and Romantic, are not entitled to credit for any discovery at all. The Schlegels, who were the hollowest of men the windiest and wordiest (at least, Frederick was so)- pointed to the distinction; barely indicated it; and that was already some service done, because a presumption arose that the antique and the modern literatures, having clearly some essential differences, might, perhaps, rest on foundations originally distinct, and obey different laws. And hence it occurred that many disputes, as about the unities, &c., might originate in a confusion of these laws. This checks the presumption of the shallow criticism, and points to deeper investigations. Beyond this, neither the German nor the French disputers on the subject have talked to any profitable purpose.

I have mentioned Paley as accidentally connected with my debut in literary conversation: and I have taken occasion to say how much I admired his style and its unstudied graces-how profoundly I despised his philosophy. I shall here say a word or two more on that subject. As respects his style, though secretly despising the opinion avowed by

my tutor, (which was, however, a natural opinion for a stiff lover of the artificial and the pompous,) I would just as unwillingly be supposed to adopt the extravagant opinions, in the other extreme, of Dr. Parr and Mr. Coleridge. These two gentlemen, who privately hated Paley, and, perhaps, traduced him, have hung like bees over one particular paragraph in his Evidences, as though it were a flower transplanted from Hymettus. Dr. Parr pronounced it the finest sentence in the English language. It is a period (i. e. a cluster of sentences) moderately well, but not too well constructed, as the German nurses are accustomed to say. Its felicity depends on a trick easily imitated on a balance happily placed, (viz., ' in which the wisest of mankind would rejoice to find an answer to their doubts, and rest to their inquiries.') As a bravura or tour de force, in the dazzling fence of rhetoric, it is surpassed by many hundreds of passages which might be produced from rhetoricians; or, to confine myself to Paley's contemporaries, it is very far surpassed by a particular passage in Burke's letter upon the Duke of Bedford's base attack upon him in the House of Lords; which passage I shall elsewhere produce, because I happen to know, on the authority of Burke's executors, that Burke himself considered it the finest period which he had ever written. At present, I will only make one remark, viz., that it is always injudicious, in the highest degree, to cite for admiration, that which is not a representative specimen of the author's manner. In reading Lucian, I once stumbled on a passage of German pathos, and of German effect. Would it have been wise, or would it have been intellectually just, to quote this as the text of an eulogium on Lucian? What false criticism it would have suggested to every reader! — what false anticipations! To quote a formal and periodic pile of sentences, was to give the

feeling, that Paley was what the regular rhetorical artists designate as a periodic writer, when, in fact, no one conceivable character of style more pointedly contradicted the true description of his merits.

But, leaving the style of Paley, I must confess that I agree with Mr. Bulwer (England and the English) in thinking it shocking and almost damnatory to an English university, the great well-heads of creeds, moral and evangelical, that authors, such in respect of doctrine, as Paley, and Locke, should hold that high and influential station, as teachers, or rather oracles of truth, which has been conceded to them. As to Locke, I, when a boy, had made a discovery of one blunder full of laughter and of fun, which, had it been published and explained in Locke's lifetime, would have tainted his whole philosophy with suspicion. It relates to the Aristotelian doctrine of syllogism, which Locke undertook to ridicule: now, a flaw, a hideous flaw, in the soi-disant detecter of flawsa ridicule in the exposer of the ridiculous that is fatal; and I am surprised that Lee, who wrote a folio against Locke in his lifetime, and other examiners, should have failed of detecting this. I shall expose it elsewhere; and, perhaps, one or two other exposures of the same kind will give an impetus to the descent of this falling philosophy. With respect to Paley, and the naked prudentialism of his system, it is true, that, in a longish note, Paley disclaims that consequence. But to this we may reply, with Cicero, Non quæro quid neget Epicurus, sed quid congruenter neget. Meantime, waving all this as too notorious, and too frequently denounced, I wish to recur to this trite subject, by way of stating an objection made to the Paleyan morality in my seventeenth year, and which I have never since seen reason to withdraw. It is this: I affirm that the whole work, from first to last, proceeds upon that

sort of error which the logicians call ignoratio elenchi, i. e., ignorance of the very question concerned of the point at issue. For, mark, in the very vestibule of ethics, two questions arise-two different and disconnected questions, A and B; and Paley has answered the wrong one. Thinking that he was answering A, and meaning to answer A, he has, in fact, answered B. One question arises thus: - Justice is a virtue; temperance is a virtue; and so forth. Now, what is the common principle which ranks these several species under the same genus? What, in the language of logicians, is the common differential principle which determines these various aspects of moral obligation to a common genius? Another question, and a more interesting question to men in general, is this: What is the motive to virtue? By what impulse, law, or motive am I impelled to be virtuous rather than vicious? Whence is the motive derived which should impel me to one line of conduct in preference to the other? This, which is a practical question, and, therefore, more interesting than the other, which is a pure question of speculation, was that which Paley believed himself to be answering. And his answer was That utility, a perception of the resulting benefit, was the true determining motive. Meantime, it was objected, that often the most obvious results from a virtuous action, were far otherwise than beneficial. Upon which Paley, in the long note referred to above, distinguished thus - That whereas actions have many results, some proximate, some remote, just as a stone thrown into the water produces many concentric circles, be it known that he, Dr. Paley, in what he says of utility, contemplates only the final result, the very outermost circle; inasmuch as he acknowledges a possibility that the first, second, third, including the penultimate circle, may all happen to clash with utility; but then, says he, the outer

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