the mirage of some illusive hope, the object of their searchthe evidence and proof of man's continuous life beyond the bourne of mortality-lay all around them within reach, requiring only that they should open their eyes to see, and their minds to receive, it. The problem on which they and those who preceded them in the same path have exercised their powers to so little purpose, has been solved:-not by dialectic skill-but by facts-plain, palpable facts;-by demonstrations of spirit-presence, power and intelligence;-by manifestation and communion in ways as various as were the needs of men ;-present, living, multitudinous, ubiquitous manifestations, challenging the world's attention, making successful denial impossible, and all explanation futile save the admission of their substantial reality and spiritual origin.

America existed before Columbus, but as the knowledge of it was not brought home to the consciousness of Europe, its existence was a matter of hypothesis and debate; but now that ships are constantly sailing thither and returning laden with its merchandise, who would think of resorting to the arguments urged by Columbus upon the Council of Salamanca? Geographers of the pre-Columbian epoch would be an anachronism. And now that communication is open with the spirit-world_and a constant commerce with it is carried on, what need have we of the old dry and dreary method which leads-nowhere? Why lay the foundations of your thought-castles in the air when they may rest on the firm-set earth? Why go lumbering along the miry road of metaphysics, ever and anon sticking in the mud, when the railway is at your door?

Not that I would disparage metaphysical studies; they are an aid to self-knowledge; they deal with noble themes which discipline and worthily exercise the mind, carrying it beyond the range of mere sensuous perception; but as applied to the question of the Soul and its future, all that metaphysics can do for us is to raise a presumption—a probability of the hereafter, to encourage a hope, which will be strong and fervent, or the reverse, according to individual character and temperament, and the congruity or otherwise of this belief with the general scheme of thought the mind may entertain. Combined with religious principle it may become a faith-a moral assurance; but even at the best it falls far short of that certainty which the soul demands, and which direct and immediate evidence, such as Spiritualism so abundantly furnishes, can alone fully supply.

Whatever force there may be in the argument from metaphysics for the soul's immortality is unaffected by Spiritualism, save in the way of confirmation to its conclusion. It converts what before was but probability into certitude; it supplies the

missing link in its chain of reasoning; it makes good that embarassing defect in the evidence which has perplexed so many, leading them to question or reject the belief in immortality as not adequately sustained. Let then the metaphysician marshal all his forces, and do what service he may in the cause of this great truth; I would only say in the language of an elder Spiritualist"Yet shew I you a more excellent way." That it is so is proved by the most satisfactory of all tests-that of its fruit. What a dreary history is this of the last half century of German metaphysics as shewn in the accompanying sketch! Meanwhile, during the last twenty years, Spiritualism has pursued its march of conquest till now millions own its beneficent sway, and thank God for its peaceful victories. As a means then by which to judge of the comparative value of the two methods-that of metaphysics, and that of Spiritualism, the following sketch is most instructive; especially when viewed in conjunction with the results which Spiritualism has already achieved under many discouragements and in the teeth of the most formidable opposition.

"The philosophers of Germany, and especially those of Hegel's school after the death of their master, occupied themselves chiefly with three problems, which led to their division into right, left, and centre. These problems were-the question of the personality or impersonality of God; Christology; and the immortality of the soul. Upon the question of immortality, Hegel avoided any definite expression of opinion; but if we compare the phrase in a letter to a friend who had lost a child (Werke, xvii. 633), and similar ones elsewhere, with the whole spirit of his system, which recognised in the life of the Universe only the incessant process of God's self-development, and in the lives of individuals only evanescent stages and phases of that process, we can scarcely entertain a doubt that he denied the individual prolongation of the existence of the soul. In the year 1831, Ludwig Feuerbach published anonymously his Gedanken über Tod und Unsterblichkeit, in which he deduced the cessation of human personality at death from metaphysical, psychological, and ethical grounds; and concluded by making merry over the doctrine of immortality in rude and cynical doggrel. He was soon afterwards followed by Friedrich Richter, who, in two consecutive works, pointed out that the principles of Hegel's doctrine did not tolerate any consideration of this "ambitious craving of egoism," as he denominated the hope of immortality. Strauss, in the second volume of his Glaubenslehre (pp. 6777, ff.) and Michelet struck the same note. It became clear that Hegel did not understand immortality to be a state of personal existence after death. In his notion, the mind which in this world could raise itself to communion with

*

eternal ideas by its enjoyment of beauty, its recognition of truth, and the harmony of its will with the moral law, was then and there, and no otherwise, immortalised. It was, therefore, in vain that his favourite pupil, Göschel, endeavoured to get the exact contrary out of his system. But when the question of immortality had thus been raised, men outside Hegel's school naturally joined in the discussion, and attempted to find a positive solution of the problem. Weisse, in his Philosophische Geheimlehre von der Unsterblichkeit des Menschlichen Individuums, would only promise a future existence to spirits which had been eminently good or evil. Gustav Theodor Fechner, under the name of Mises, in his Büchlein von dem Leben nach dem Tode, showed himself to be a man of strong imagination, with a decided talent for temperate and sober research. Still he launches out into the most adventurous speculations. After these came Imanuel Hermann Fichte with his work, entitled Idee der Personlichkeit. Weisse and Fechner had substituted the half-developed fancies of a brilliant imagination for exact scientific method, and had thus not only given their adversaries a theme for ridicule, but brought their followers into great perplexity. Fichte went more carefully to work: he dwelt upon the essence of personality, which, according to him, is eternally pre-formed in the Divine Mind, and possesses attributes which never attain complete development in this life. If he did not altogether succeed in dissipating a cloud of objections, he suggested many profound reflections which gave his adversaries material for earnest thought. Throughout the discussion-as it was carried on between the years 1830 and 1840-negation was stronger than affirmation. An entirely new treatment of the question was necessary to restore the equilibrium between pro and contra, and to prove at least that denial and assertion might lay claim to equal probability, and that it might be left to the faith of the individual to make his own decision.

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Passing by mere dilletante philosophers, we shall concern ourselves only with those writers who, in recent times, have endeavoured to get at a positive solution of the problem by scientific means. These are, Drossbach, Johannes Huber, Kirchmann, Ritter, and Imanuel Hermann Fichte. The dialogue, Ueber den Zusammenhang der Natur mit der Geisterwelt, published from Schelling's literary remains, cannot be taken into account-in the first place because it was written in the year 1816, and further because it is based less upon scientific reasons than upon a spirit of intuitive dogmatism, which only

* In our own country this opinion was put forth by Thomas Paine, author of The Age of Reason.-T. S.

affirms without proving. Nor can we at present include a recent work of great merit in illustrating Schelling's system, by his most distinguished pupil, Hubert Becker-Die Unsterblichkeitslehre Schelling's ein ganzen Zusammenhange ihrer Entwickelung.

"Drossbach, in his Die individuelle Unsterblichkeit vom monadisch-metaphysischen Standpunkte conceives the soul to be a monad or atom, a simple substance endued with peculiar powers. Its existence and qualities, he thinks, can no more be destroyed or changed than those of a chemical atom; and under favourable conditions it is for ever restoring these qualities to activity, and thus is always capable of renewing itself to self-consciousness. The future life he holds to be entirely analogous to the present. It will be a revivification of the same psychic monads in the same essentially unaltered world. Johannes Huber, in his Die Idee der Unsterblichkeit, 1864, first assumes the hope of immortality to be an idea essential to the mind, the natural conception of the reason concerning the nature of its destiny and the end of its development; and then he critically examines the different explanations of it, and shews that Hegel's will not stand without the admission of personal existence in a future state. After demonstrating that Hegel's ethical conception must be combined with a physical conception of future existence in order to attain to the idea of immortality or eternal life, he undertakes to refute every objection which has been made to such explanation. He takes arms against the Materialists as well as against the philosophical opponents of personal existence in a future state, and triumphs over both: but he does not think that scientific arguments by themselves suffice to prove the immortality of the soul; he believes that its proof is equally based in the moral self-development of the individual.

"Heinrich Ritter, in his Unsterblichkeit, begins by demonstrating the substantiality of the soul on this wise. From its acts of feeling and thinking, he concludes that it is phenomenon to itself, and that other things are phenomena to it. Hence it follows, as phenomenon is only possible in and by means of substance, that the idea of substantiality must be attributed to the soul. In distinction therefore to its manifestations, it is in itself a substance imperishable, spontaneous, and independent. Upon this he bases the proof of the existence of several substances which operate reciprocally upon each other, and reflect themselves in each other, but to which nothing can be attributed as essentially their own except what they do of their own force, and their own free agency. Wherever this self-manifestation attains to the state of feeling and knowledge there also free agency is found.

Hence beasts also are supposed to be free

agents, and equally with man are accredited with substantiality and immortality. These substances are subject to the law of self-preservation and progress; by self-preservation they live in the general life of the world; by progress this life reaches forth to its ordained perfection, through higher and higher conditions. Their present condition of consciousness was preceded by one of embryonic unconsciousness. They always were and always shall be. The faculty of life and self-production which lies in them spontaneously starts into activity whenever the surrounding conditions are favourable. The future state is not separated from the present by any abyss; it is continuous, and the soul will continuously require a bodily manifestation for its mutual action and re-action on other beings. Therefore, he says, no sudden transition to a state of blessedness or damnation is conceivable; there must be many intervening degrees of trial. But the only value of continued existence is as a means to good. Our future life will therefore give us more exalted aims till we reach a final end in the enjoyment of which is eternal life. He concludes by showing the necessity of conceiving God as the ultimate ground for the explanation of cosmical facts. God, he says, is simple activity. His creativeness is an eternal act, which He can never recall; and, therefore, all the substances of the world are eternal.

“T. H. Kirchman, in his book Ueber die Unsterblichkeit, argues that, as everything is contemporaneous, Time as well as Becoming is only a deceptive phenomenon. This phenomenon, therefore, he endeavours to explain, but instead of notions he gives us only analogies and illustrations. Knowledge, he says, is light. As the light of the sun illuminates first one segment of a planet and then another, so knowledge passes amidst its various substances, always existing in space, illuminating some and leaving the rest in darkness. Birth is an illumination, death an obfuscation. But as the orbit of light is circular, a substance which has once been illuminated is always in the way to be reilluminated. In other words, it may come again to consciousness; and this consciousness may even be more intense and abundant than at first, if the illumination is more powerful and permanent.

"Imanuel Hermann Fichte has of late devoted himself almost exclusively to psychological studies. In 1855, he published an Anthropology, which in 1860 reached a second edition, and in the interval he published a smaller work, entitled Zur Seelenfrage. In 1864, appeared the first part of a very comprehensive Psychology, which was followed in 1867 by the present portly volume, Die Seelenfortdauer und die Weltstellung des Menschen. Whether or not the author's literary career will stop here,