resided, though there is scarcely a town in Egypt where one could pass a few months more pleasantly. Mr. Bayle St. John has visited it, and profited by his familiarity with so beautiful a spot. At the end of the volume, we are pleased to see announced a series of views illustrating his visit to the Oasis of Jupiter Ammon.

ART. III.-History of the Philosophy of Mind. By Robert Blakey, Esq. 8vo. Four Vols. London: Saunders.

FEW subjects have been expressed under a greater variety of names, than that of which the history is proposed to be given in the volumes before us. Intellectual philosophy, metaphysics, psychology, the physiology of the mind, are examples of these terms, among many others. On the continent, this study has been known by the designation of speculative philosophy; and sometimes it has been simply called-philosophy. In Scotland, we may find it laxly included, together with ethics, under the name of moral philosophy. In England, it has long been called the philosophy of mind, the term chosen by our author. The only objection that we know of to this otherwise strictly appropriate designation is, that, according to the letter, it expresses more than it is intended to convey-which is the philosophy of the human mind.

The philosophy of mind, in general, cannot with propriety be restricted to the human mind. In strictness, it concludes a vast field limited only by the line of demarcation which separates the gross materialism everywhere surrounding us, and certain forces and agencies (such as heat, light, and the various electricities), from those phenomena which, in the form of will, intelligence, and feeling, present to our observation something which we know not how to class in any category of mechanical or chemical causation. Thus we speak of mind in brutes. Nor can we help doing so. The sagacity of some animals, apart from their wonderful and unvarying instincts, at once leads us to a sort of comparative philosophy of mind, which obliges us to confess our ignorance respecting some of our theoretic distinctions between man and the creatures immediately below him, however familiarly these distinctions may have been supposed by us to be ascertained. We need not say, with some, that man is only the evolution of a molluscum, in order to render consistent our

certificate from his employer as to his respectability and honesty, may have books lent to him.' We have also the assurance of his Excellency, M. Van de Weyer, that the fourteen libraries of Belgium are all accessible to the public; any person, without any letter of authorization, may go into them and be supplied with a book, if he asks for it.' The same privilege is shown to exist in the libraries even of jealous and priest-ridden Italy. M. Libri states that, in almost every town of Italy, there are public libraries freely accessible to the public-a concession limited only by the necessity of applying for permission to read forbidden books, over which the Church and the government keep a strict watch. For instance, the Florentine History of Macchiavelli' is prohibited, and there are many others to which the same restriction extends. Generally speaking, the books are not lent out to individuals to read at home; but the libraries attached to all the universities of Italy lend books to professors; whilst the privilege of reading, instead of being monopolized by the students, is shared by the public at large. The access in Italy is more unrestricted than that enjoyed at the British Museum. Respecting the libraries of Germany, C. Meyer, Esq., German secretary to his Royal Highness Prince Albert, says: They are, with few exceptions, freely accessible; they are, moreover, lending libraries, which is one most important difference between the English and the German libraries. Every citizen has free access to the town library, and every member of the University has free admission to the University library; and each of these two classes of readers can mutually introduce the other to the respective libraries they are privileged to attend. Thus the system in the German towns is somewhat analogous to that adopted at the British Museum, with this important distinction, however that the latter is not a lending library, whereas the introduction to a German library confers the right of taking away books.'

Now it appears that we have only one library in Great Britain that affords the same measure of advantages and facilities with the glorious array of foreign collections at which we have glanced; and that is the library founded by Humphrey Chetham, in Manchester. There are ten or eleven libraries to which admission may be secured by the production of some sort of recommendation; and there are about twenty in addition that are accessible as a matter of grace and favour.

In our metropolis there are a few old and scanty libraries, but which, however resuscitated and improved, would never be commensurate with the mighty wants of our extending population. The more ancient part of London is the spot best supplied. The vast population which is being almost daily added to our modern

Babylon, is withdrawing further and further from the feeble beams which these conservatories of light diffuse. The City, and the precincts of the British Museum, are the localities best furnished with books. But so far as libraries may be regarded as auxiliaries of sound learning, and as an index to popular intelligence and intellectual progress, a kind of literary darkness and stagnation seems to prevail over the congregated masses inhabiting the newly-formed districts of the metropolis. For instance, there is no public library to be found in Pimlico, none in Marylebone, none in Finsbury, none in Islington or Hackney, none in Southwark, and only the shadow of a departed one in Westminster. Almost every collection of books in London or the provinces that can aspire to the character of a public library, owes its origin to a somewhat remote date; showing that our ancestors, with all their imputed inferiority, paid more attention to the formation of such institutions than ourselves. We will give a few particulars respecting some of them.

Dr. Williams's Library, situated in Red Cross-street, in the City, was opened in 1729. It originally constituted the private collection of Dr. Williams, an eminent Presbyterian divine, to which he subsequently added the library of Dr. Bates. It is vested in trustees, who, early in the trust, placed it under the administration of the Court of Chancery, for the purpose of transferring all responsibility from themselves. Many valuable donations and bequests have been, in past years, made to the foundation; and the number of volumes now contained in the library is about 20,000. The specific object of the founder in establishing it is not defined in the will. The trustees have recently extended its advantages to every person of respectability, free of all expense and trouble. The works are principally on theology, ecclesiastical history, and biography, with a few in all the more important departments of learning. There is accommodation for fifty or sixty readers; but the number who frequent the room during the year does not average more than fifty or sixty, and these are chiefly divines. Being, in common with all our libraries, only open during the day, when the multitudes are necessarily busily engaged in the pursuits of trade, its influence and utility are very slight. The librarian thinks it is situated in a bad locality, and suggests its removal to the neighbourhood of University College, where, by an increase of accommodation, and by being thrown open in the evening, it might become a real blessing to our fellow citizens.

Not far from Dr. Williams's Library, in London Wall, is situated the library of Sion College, founded by Dr. White, rector of St. Dunstan's in the West, in the year 1636. The conditions of admission are somewhat similar to those of the British Museum.

but think that, in the hands of this eminent writer, a syncretism, sometimes heterogeneous, of opposing systems, has been produced, rather than an eclecticism throughout consistent with itself. This was to be expected from an attempt to force into union schools so different as those of Reid and Hegel. We are far from thinking that there are no good points in the philosophy of Cousin, or that this acute and eloquent writer has not done good service to the science of the subject by his contributions to its history. Not, indeed, that we regard him as always a safe guide, even in the detail of other men's opinions. This, we think, it would be easy to exemplify; for instance, by reference to his criticisms on Locke and Kant. But what is equally-if not more worthy-here to be noted, is, that Cousin appears, in our judgment, to fail in a just appreciation of the difficulty of the ontological department of metaphysical philosophy. He seems to regard the passage from psychology to ontology' almost as smooth and easy as walking out of one room into another; and on any principle or theory which it seems reasonable to adopt, we do not see how that phraseology can be justified in which we are told,-Dieu est si peu incompréhensible que ce qui constitue sa nature, ce sont précisément les idées, les idées dont la nature est d'être intelligibles.' It has been the fashion in the Eclectic school to lay all the subsequent materialism of France at the door of Bacon and Locke:

nay, the horrors of the great French Revolution, at the close of the last century, have been eloquently traced to the doctrines of these philosophers! Cette misérable philosophie, is the style and title by which Cousin designates the philosophy of this school. But whatever faults may attach to the thinking of the above two illustrious men, if the perversion of their views by the materialists who surrounded them is to be regarded as a blot on their escutcheon- what shall we say of the easy inference which might be drawn, to the prejudice of natural theology, from the above quotation, which occurs in the introduction to Cousin's History of Philosophy? We cordially admit the service which Cousin has done to morality, to religion, and to his country, in superseding the insensate materialism of Cabanis, Destutt de Tracy, and Volney, by a philosophical reform, in France, so much more in harmony with spiritual and religious ideas; but we are strongly inclined to differ from him in his judgment of the English school: and we are much mistaken if Cousin's philosophy, as a whole, shall be found to take any deep root among us, though we learn that it is taught in some quarters with considerable devotedness to the name of the great Eclectic leader. We mistake the intellectual character of our countrymen, if it be not ultimately found that the philosophy

BRITISH AND CONTINENTAL LIBRARIES.

ease be provided for thirty readers. The restoration of the library is now under the consideration of the trustees; and it certainly might form the nucleus of a good local library for Westminster.

These, with the British Museum and the Lambeth Palace library, constitute the entire public provision for the intellectual nurture and delectation of more than two millions of souls! How far they are adapted for that purpose, we leave our readers to determine.

Connected with the deaneries and chapters of our cathedrals, there is an ancient set of libraries commonly called cathedral libraries. Of these there are thirty-four in England and six in Ireland. Their basis is theological; to some of them additions are annually made; and attention is being given to their restoration and improvement. In several, a moderate freedom of access is conceded to the public. The number of volumes in each ranges from 4,000 to 11,000. These, if the sanction of those who preside over them could be obtained, would form excellent nuclei of provincial libraries for the ancient cities of our land.

Parochial libraries once prevailed to a considerable extent throughout this country. Evidence has been collected of the existence of 163 such libraries in England and Wales, and 16 in Scotland. They were generally designed for the use of the clergy. Their foundation was, in the first instance, due to individual benevolence; but subsequently, and principally, to the efforts of Dr. Bray and his associates,' at the beginning and in the middle of the last century. They have, in most cases, been suffered to go to dilapidation. In Beccles, Suffolk, however, the books have been rescued from neglect and danger, deposited in a room, and made the germ of a town library. This laudable example is commended to the imitation of others who possess the perishing wreck of a public parish library. A multitude of reflections and practical We have done. suggestions come thronging upon us; but, however important they may seem, we impose a rigorous restraint on ourselves, and conclude this, we trust not valueless, article without further The facts we have massed may be safely left to procomment. duce their proper practical effect upon the minds of our intelligent readers, and act as a powerful stimulus to benevolent activity on behalf of the myriads of our untaught. The exertions of the British people may do much towards supplying the deficiency we have pointed out; and what they have already accomplished clearly proves, that they need only to be apprised of their duty honestly and earnestly to set about its perform