sents himself before himself as multiplied, he is looking, as it were, only on the sparks that burst from some great fire, or the foam that crests the ocean wave. But when he passes beyond these things, and looks at Brahma alone, then he is gazing on the mighty fire of life itself; on the great ocean of being; he has passed from the dream of ignorance to the waking state of knowledge; forms, names, distinctions, are no more, and nothing remains but substance, one, absolute and indivisible. While he lives, indeed, the sage who has thus advanced, must use the dream-language of ordinary life, must perceive the deceptive impressions of these manifold illusions, and may talk of right and wrong. But at death his "soul is freed entirely from the dominion of illusion: he is disenthralled in all respects from every vestige of individuality, from every name, from every form; he is blended and lost in Brahma, as the rivers lose their names and their forms, when swallowed up in the ocean."

There can not be a stricter enunciation of Pantheism than that with which we are here presented. The unflinching assertion of the sole existence of Brahma, even to the extent of denying any reality beyond him; the distinction of the two states of dreaming and knowing: the annihilation of all difference between right and wrong: the idea of an indefinite progress, continued in transmigration even beyond the limits of this life, and ending in the eternal awful rest of Brahma ceasing from his play of power and receiving into his motionless repose, all images, and forms; all these principles make up the strictest and most distinct enunciation of Pantheism, that can possibly be conceived. Spinoza could not go beyond it. It contains every direct formula, every side principle, which ages of dreaming have developed. It runs as directly to skepticism, as any later system, and by as logical and necessary a course. The Institutes of Menu, are the Summa Doctrine of the Pantheist. In this, at least, there has been no progress.

These three systems that we have just noticed, the Pantheistic, the Dualistic, and the Materialist, were the developments in which the Oriental mind wrought, within that luminous triangle, of which China, Persia, and Egypt, form the three angles, while Chaldea and India, occupy the center. It was in India, indeed, that the most wonderful and the grandest developments of Eastern genius exhibited themselves. There, the three systems met upon the broadest battle field; there the most striking fusions and modifications occurred. While still asserting to itself the primacy of place, the solemn vision

of the Brahmin Doctors had far more of influence in moulding the whole Oriental mind, than either the dualism of the Persian, or the materialism of the Chaldean sages. The mighty conflict which the warlike Persian saw in all the universe, between Ormuzd and Ahriman; the immutable harmony which the Chaldean astronomer beheld in all material things, a harmony regulated by the laws of an inexorable fate; neither of these views, touched upon the Eastern mind with half the power of the gorgeous Hindu system. How, indeed, could any thing of spiritual conflict, or of material rest, so meet the peculiar bent of the Oriental genius,-inactive even in its activity, reared up in a life whose slumberous luxury made it almost appear a dream,-as did the vision of Brahma, representing his attributes before himself, in the endless play and changes of creation, even as his disciple and worshiper made his dreams and visions take shape and form, in the mountain mist or the floating cloud? And then-fit termination for such a day of sportive illusion, there was to come the quiet night, when all the play should end, and every deceiving shape and form be swallowed up in that eternal, moveless rest of Brahma, as the evening's changing hues and glorious colorings, seem to pass back by gradual fadings, into the setting sun.

However pervading and influential these wondrous schemes, and more especially the last, may have been in the lands. which gave them birth, it was not till after a lapse of many ages that they issued from their homes, and became active and powerful in the Greek and Roman world. When the Oriental mind did thus come forth, it found itself in opposition at once to a system with which it must unite itself, if it did not choose utterly to fall before it. This system, was the Christian Faith. The alternative of an attempted fusion was preferred to that of a submission, and the result was, the two schools of Gnosticism, the Dualistic and the Pantheistic: which schools in time united to form the Manichean Heresy. Beside this, Orientalism came in contact with the Greek philosophy, and from the union sprang the Græco-Oriental school of Alexandria. And these two systems, Gnosticism in its two-fold form, and Græco-Orientalism, are the systems that in the early centuries of Christian history, oppose the Faith. It is, moreover, to be observed, that while Orientalism thus touches on the Greek philosophy and on the Christian faith, in its form of Gnosticism it occupies the intermediate ground between the paganism of the east, and the heresies of the later ages; for Gnosticism itself can hardly be strictly called a heresy. Thus it suggests the wonderful law of connection between

the older and the later errors; between the pagan and the heretical corruptor of tradition in the one case, and of revelation in the other. It is, however, only with the Pantheistic Gnosticism, that we are now concerned, though it is necessary to observe that the dualist systems do in the main, since they make beings to be nothing more than forms or phenomena of the twofold existence, run also into essential Pantheism.

An exposition of the Gnostic scheme would of course be out of place here, and, therefore, will not be attempted, even so far as to state in extenso the system of Valentinus. Our purpose will be answered by adducing some of its principles, and noting their necessary and logical results. Just as in the old Vedanta system, so in it, there are two sets of men, the dreamers and the real sages, that proud distinction of which Pantheism never for one moment loses sight. But with the Gnostic, this idea is carried out in a way more conformable to modern schools of Pantheism, than the Indian development. The Universe in his view consisted of two parts, the spiritual and the material; and this distinction he carried also into religion. There was the letter of the law, distinguishing good and evil, right and wrong, to which the imperfect and the weak adhered. But there was beside, the perfection of the spirit, to which the sage attained, and where all distinction of good and evil disappeared. A spectre of the night of ignorance, this distinction vanished, so soon as from the heights of Gnosis, the soul beheld the daylight of the divine Pleroma. And this merging of good and evil into one, was reached in yet another mode. For since GOD was the only agent, there could really be no distinction between good and evil, right and wrong. Such a distinction would only hold in the view of men, whose finite powers paused on the external form, and looked not to the inward soul. The sage saw only GoD, and let His outward expressions of Himself be what they might, still essentially they must be good. For it must be remembered that so strictly was the sole existence of GoD enunciated, that matter, even, according as on the one hand it was luminous, or on the other aqueous and terrestrial, was held to be nothing more than a form of the divine soul smiling in its joy, or suffering in its grief. Moreover, so far as it was made to touch on social life, Gnosticism abolished property and marriage, and thus issued in the extreme of anarchy. We have already said, that we are not attempting an exposition of the whole Gnostic scheme, varied and yet one as it is, but only adducing certain prominent opinions, and their results. Having, therefore, done this, so far as our present purposes require it, we proceed to a further stage in this history of opinion.

Passing by the Spiritualist Pantheism of Averroes, and the Materialist Pantheism of other Arabian philosophers, which disclosed its practical vileness and debauchery in the secret societies of Egypt and Syria, we find about the time of the death of Averroes, that Pantheism approached the west, and early in the thirteenth century, threw its vast shadows upon the threshold of the schools of the middle ages. Here, too, it assumed a double form, answering precisely to the double development of the Arabian philosophers. In the system of Amaury de Chartres, we find the ideal Pantheism. He held, according to Gerson, that "Every thing is GOD, and GOD is every thing. The creator and the creature, are one and the same being. Ideas are at once creative and created. GoD is the end of all things, in the sense that all things must return to him, in order to constitute with him, an immutable individuality. Just as Abraham and Isaac are nothing but individualizations of human nature, so all beings are only individual forms of one sole essence." On the other hand, David de Dinant held to a material Pantheism. He taught that "GOD is the universal matter; the forms, that is of every thing not material, are but imaginary accidents." His system, indeed, is a perplexed one, but essentially, it is unquestionably a system of material Pantheism.

Towards the close of the sixteenth century, appeared Giordano Bruno, the precursor of Spinoza. The most important point which we wish to notice in relation to his system, is the fact, that he held good and evil, beauty and deformity, happiness and misery, to have not an absolute, but merely a relative difference. He appears, moreover, to have adopted the Hindoo idea of a transmigration of souls.

It was reserved, however, to the Jew, Benedict Spinoza, between the years 1663 and 1677, to revive in scientific form and full development, the doctrines of material Pantheism, and thus to make himself the grand connecting link between all ancient systems and every modern school. The raw materials of his system, had been collected in his early Rabbinical studies, and the philosophy of Descartes supplied him with its scientific form. It is worthy of remark that it should have been a Jew, who thus gathered up from the past, and handed on to the future, the elements of that philosophy, which seems destined to play in the west, the same part that Buddhism is playing in the east, and to receive into itself, as into a huge reservoir, all imaginable forms of infidelity. It is enough here to remark, without attempting any account of a system, which even Jouffroy, after years of study, declared that he did not

comprehend; that practically it results in a moral and political anarchy, and by a logical necessity issues in skepticism.

And now, having brought our readers, by this hasty review, down to the period of the renaissance of Pantheism, we do not intend to pursue its merely literary history along the line of Kant, Schelling, Hegel, and so on. All this is very obvious, and may easily be done by any persons for themselves. We desire rather to return upon our steps, in the first place to gather up some principles, and trace out some connections, and then to notice the pretensions, forms, and workings of that Pantheism, which is pushing its way every where around us, being aided and supported from quarters the most unexpected, and in truth, sometimes the most unconscious. We purpose also to notice some of the causes of its rapid progress, and shall venture on some speculations as to its probable issues.

On looking back then, we may discover, a general distinction into a Material and an Ideal School of Pantheism. While in these schools, we find among many other things, (1) a complete confusion of right and wrong; (2) a peculiar idea of an uninterrupted and indefinite progress; (3) a false spiritualism; and (4) a strange degradation of historical characters, into individualizations of humanity. Now what we wish to do here, is to indicate the points of contact, afforded by these four notions, between the Pantheistic movement, and sundry schools of writers and thinkers in our day. Our object, therefore, now, becomes a strictly practical one: and though, we doubt not, some may think our humble note of warning needless, and pass it by with the convenient comfort of laissez faire, yet we trust that others will be led to feel more strongly the dangers which are thickening around us as the century moves on.

Two of the works named in our list, seem to us to be respectively, representatives of the modern Material and Ideal Schools of Pantheism. We will not say the representatives, though, on the whole, we should consider them the most distinct ones that have appeared on this side the Atlantic. Mr. Poe, in his modestly named performance, which he desires to be judged only as a Poem "after he is dead," but which we fancy his own eyes will see committed to the sepulcher of oblivion, comes out distinctly on the materialist side. M. Constant, as translated by Mr. Shaw, loses himself rather, in the dim regions of the Ideal. The latter may stand for Amaury de Chartres, and the former for David de Dinant in the nineteenth century.

"Arcades ambo,

Et cantare pares, et respondere parati.”