the liberals. Quarrel as they may, it can never be to the interest of either that they should be at issue. Their common objects demand that they should be agreed. It is within the power of the nonconformists of England and Scotland to reduce the liberal party in another parliament to a miserable remnant. If the men possessed of this power do not exact some wholesome terms from their liberal representatives at the next election, the fault will be their own. It is well to check evils which may not admit just now of being wholly removed. To put a complete end to a false principle is the issue which every good man would prefer; but if that should be impracticable, the next good thing may be to narrow the sphere of its application, or even to prevent its extension; and a wise man will vote for measures which may go to the first of these issues or the last, as may be found from circumstances the most feasible. We regret that the church-establishment principle is taken into the category of social questions at all; but so long as we cannot prevent its having its place among such questions, nonconformists will be compelled to conduct their opposition to it, in great part, on social grounds; the point, be it remembered,-whether the scriptures speak in favour of that principle or against it, being the point on which society, in this case, has presumed to be the judge. Hence, while from a parliament of dissenters it would be inconsistent to exact anything less than a thorough repudiation of the church-establishment principle, from a parliament of churchmen it may be consistent to accept of concession by instalments. But in the present state of parties and of affairs in this country, it will behove the nonconformist to take his stand with firmness, at least upon the last issue above mentioned, and To

REFUSE HIS VOTE TO THE MAN WHO SHALL HESITATE TO PLEDGE HIMSELF AGAINST ANY EXTENSION OF GOVERNMENT GRANTS FOR THE PURPOSES OF RELIGION. Protestant churchmen should see-and not a few of them will see- -that such ground is no more than reasonable, and many of them will concur with it; while the liberal politician who is not prepared to concede so much as the condition of obtaining the support of nonconformists, may be safely left to pursue his schemes without such aid. The temporary mischiefs that may come from such a course would soon be outweighed by its ultimate good. Hitherto, nonconformists have been disposed to confide in their liberal representatives, so as to allow their nonconformity to disappear in their liberalism: but it will be to label themselves as fools or madmen to all coming time, if they do not now provide that there shall be in future some distinct stipulation in regard to their principles; and the lowest ground which,

with this view, it will become them to take, is that which we have mentioned. Their firmness thus far, will be evidence at once of their sincerity and of their wisdom. It will show, equally, that they are not men to be trifled with, and that they are not men expecting unreasonable things. In some connexions, they have urged their distinctive principles inconsiderately and unduly; in this department, they have to begin to do them justice. We say to them, with our deepest emphasis-be sure of it, the self-will, and something worse, of certain parties, will be best curbed by their being compelled to see that they will ere long have to deal with large bodies of men of this mould. The great requisites on the part of protestant nonconformists in the present exigency of their affairs are- -ORGANIZATION, UNITY, DETERMIWith these, they have nothing to fear: without these, we are unwilling to indulge conjecture as to what may be awaiting them.

NATION.

Mr. Milnes, whose pamphlet is at the head of this article, is, in ecclesiastical matters, an admirer of the Tractarian school, and a person lamenting that the efforts of divines of that class to possess the people of England with their opinions and feelings should be found bearing so much the appearance of failure. Our author is further an apologist-or rather, a defender, of the measures of Sir Robert Peel; and would especially vindicate his hero against the charge of having betrayed the party which raised him to his present position. Those members of the House of Commons, also, who have sustained Sir Robert in his Maynooth Bill, are described as wise and patriotic men; and Mr. Milnes would comfort them in prospect of the next election, by reminding them that the quiet, unpetitioning classes of the English people are an enormous multitude,' and that in that day of trial, this multitude will probably suffice to turn the scale on the better side, and save the country from the hands of a parliament of roundheads and fanatics.' The honourable member's publication is not without some traces of political thoughtfulness, but, as a whole, it is a conventional and silky affair, and can produce little impression.

ART. VI. Nouveaux Mélanges Philosophiques, par THÉODORE JOUFFROY, Membre de l'Institut, Professeur de Philosophie à la Faculté des Lettres, précédés d'une notice et publies par Рí. DAMIRON. Paris, 1842.

THIS is a posthumous and incomplete work of the lamented Jouffroy, the disciple and successor of Cousin. Its chief article is a long and elaborate Treatise on the Organization of the Philosophical Sciences,' in which he has expanded the views which he had published in his lifetime, as a preface to his Translation of Reid.' Its interest, however, mainly depends, if we mistake not, upon an episode, in which, in language of great pathos and beauty, he describes the progress of his mind from his early views of religion to philosophy. We have never before read such affecting philosophico-religious experience. It has not yet been given to the British public; and as we propose to submit a few remarks to our readers upon the general character of that eclectic school of which he was so eminent a professor, we shall proceed to translate an extract of some length from its pages.

'At the age of twenty years, I began to devote myself to the study of philosophy. I was then in the normal school, and although philosophy was of the number of those sciences in which we were instructed, I was induced to cultivate it—not by the peculiar facilities of my position, nor by any personal predilection for any studies of the kind. Born of pious parents, in a district where the Catholic faith was still in its vigour, at the commencement of this century, I had been accustomed to consider man's future existence and the care of his soul as the great concerns of my life, and the whole course of my education had contributed to strengthen these serious dispositions. For a long time the dogmas of Christianity had fully responded to the cares and inquietudes which such dispositions awakened in me. To those questions which, in my opinion, were the only ones deserving our attention, the religion of my fathers gave replies, and in those replies I believed, and, thanks to that belief, my present existence was bright and clear, and the future seemed to unroll itself without a cloud. Content with the path I had to follow in this world-content with the point to which it must conduct me in the next, viewing life under these two phases, and death which unites them; knowing myself-knowing the designs of God concerning me, and loving him for the goodness of his designs, I rejoiced with the joy which springs from a vivid and certain faith, in a doctrine that resolves all the great questions which can interest humanity. But, at the time when I was born, it was impossible for such happiness to be lasting. The day was come

when, from the bosom of that peaceful temple, which had received me at my birth, and under the shade of which my earliest youth had flowed along, I heard the storm of doubt which, from every quarter, burst upon its walls and shook it to its base. My curiosity could not blind itself to those powerful objections-scattered like dust, in the atmosphere I breathed, by the spirit of two centuries of scepticism. Despite the alarm they gave me-perhaps, because of that alarm-these objections had forcibly seized on my understanding.

In vain my infancy and its poetic impressions-my youth and its religious memories-the majesty, the antiquity, the authority of that faith in which I had been taught,-my every recollection, my whole imagination, my whole soul, revolted at an invasion of unbelief that wounded them so deeply; my heart could not defend my reason.

The authority of Christianity once placed in doubt before its eyes, my reason felt all its old convictions tremble at their base; it was bound, in order to re-confirm them, to examine the value of their claims; and notwithstanding the bias with which it entered on that examination,it came forth sceptical. But this melancholy revolution was not wrought in the open light of my consciousness: too many scruples, -too many vivid and sacred affections, made it an awful task to avow to myself its progress. It took place silently, by an involuntary effort, in which I was not an accomplice, and for many a day I was no longer a Christian, except that, in innocence of intention, I should have shuddered at being suspected to the contrary-I should have thought the charge a calumny. But I was too sincere with myself, and I attached too much moment to religious questions, now that age was strengthening my reason, and the studious and solitary life of the university was confirming the meditative tendencies of my spirit, to allow this uncertainty as to my own opinions any longer to continue.

'I shall never forget the December evening, when the veil, which had concealed my own scepticism from myself, was rent in twain. I still hear my footsteps in that narrow and scanty chamber where, long after the hour of sleep, I was wont to pace: I still see that moon, half veiled in clouds, which at intervals illumined the cold panes. The hours of night passed away and I perceived it not. Anxiously I followed my thought as from step to step it descended to the ground of my consciousness, and, dissipating one after another the illusions which had hitherto concealed them from my view, made my errors, every moment, the more obvious.

In vain I clung to these last convictions, as a shipwrecked sailor to the ruins of his ship; in vain, in terror at the unknown waters in which I should have to float, I threw myself back for the last time upon my infancy, my family, the scenes of my youth, all that was dear and sacred to me; the pitiless current of my thought was too strong; parents, family, reminiscences, convictions, it tore me from them all; the inquiry became more obstinate and more severe, as it approached its term; it stopped not until it had attained it.

That was a frightful moment, and when, towards morning, I threw

myself exhausted upon my bed, my early life, so joyous and so rich, seemed to expire, and behind me, there opened out another, sombre and desolate when, thenceforth, I was to live alone-alone with that fatal thought which had exiled me thither, and which I was tempted bitterly to curse. The days which followed this discovery were the saddest of my life. To tell the anxieties with which they were agitated would be too long. Although my understanding was not without some pride in considering its work, my soul could not become accustomed to a state so little suited to human weakness; by some violent reactions it strove to regain the shore it had lost; it found amid the ashes of its past convictions, some scintillations which seemed at intervals to re-illume its faith.

'But these convictions, having been overturned by reason, could be re-established by reason only. These glimmerings soon expired. If, in losing faith, I had lost all anxiety concerning those questions which it had resolved for me, doubtless this violent state of mind would not have long continued; fatigue would have made me dull, and my life would have become, like that of so many others, drowsy in its scepticism. Happily, it was not so; never had I more felt the importance of these problems, than since I had lost their solution. I was sceptical, but I hated scepticism. This it was which decided the direction of my life. Unable to endure my uncertainty upon the enigma of human destiny, and having no more light from faith, in order to resolve it, there only remained to me the lights of reason. I resolved, then, to consecrate all the time that should be necessary, my life, even, if it was wanted, to this research. It is by this path I found myself led to philosophy-philosophy, which seemed to me to be identical with this research. ***

'The moment and the place when I formed this purpose could not have been more favourable to its execution. France, after the slumber of the empire, had at length aroused itself to a philosophical movement. Two men, of character and talents the most opposite-though equally rare, came forward to reanimate it: the one, by reproducing in a style admirable for its clearness and its elegance, the metaphysical doctrines of Condillac, had, so to speak, resuscitated the philosophy of the eighteenth century; the other, by attacking, in lectures distinguished by an incomparable logic, these same doctrines, took the initiative of that inevitable reaction which the genius of the nascent nineteenth century developed against that of the eighteenth. Two years of prelections had sufficed for these illustrious professors, for fixing the points of debate, and for gathering all our youth in their train; both, then relapsed into silence, and the normal school remained full of recollections of their words, and of the ardent spirit they had inspired. Among the distinguished spirits it contained, the two philosophies found their representatives, and, as in the world, the two parties arrayed themselves with greater force, enthusiasm, and vivacity. The minds distinguished for elegance and scepticism were for the older doctrines ; those which were the more ardent, naturally more revolutionary, were for the newer ones, and in the lively discussions which absorbed them,