of the Church, a political world wherein moral doctrines had come to hold an important place, and where were elevated gradually the mental interests of humanity. The Church continued to call herself the spiritual power, whereas she was no longer such alone, or at least no longer represented more than one idea of the human mind, not the mind in its totality. Thenceforth the only liberty which she defended was her own: she fell into distrust of every other social liberty. She recognised but with regret, she comprehended but imperfectly, the social duties which sprung around her for the first time. With eyes fixed upon the city of God, she disowned the city that arose on earth, and her ancient universality escaped her hands. All things expanded rapidly except her, and she remained unconscious of advancement. She thus unconsciously allowed to grow, outside of her precincts and at her expense, a novel power called the opinion of the world."-Pp. 424, 425.

It would not be possible, perhaps, to trace a closer picture of the truth, in utter ignorance of the philosophy of history. As a bare analysis of evident facts, the passage just quoted therefore yields a confutation of the author's own opinion on the confused provinces of Church and State, and at the same time a confirmation of the suggestions above adventured upon the medieval notion of theology. As transmitted through Augustine, this was a pure theocracy; not a theocracy like that of the Jews, which was material, or based on the earth, but a moral theocracy-the moral phase of the same theocracy-with its pole in the future. Upon the world of the future was therefore founded its moral system. But as society and humanity proceeded in their developments, another system of moral ends began to undermine the former; and has succeeded, in much the manner above exemplified by M. de Remusat, in shoving finally its paralytic predecessor from off the track. The passage of the Christian mind from this medieval and Romish theory-which placed the interests of heaven in antagonism with those of society-is marked progressively by all those sects denounced as "heretics" and "infidels," until the tendency attained maturity in the great Lutheran Reformation. The meaning of this vast event, then, was the recognition of a new basis for the theology, and of course morality, of the Christian system-a basis of conciliation (in place of the old repugnance) between our happiness and duties here and our spiritual destinies hereafter. And, accordingly, to vindicate this fundamental change of views, arose the equally opposite method of interpretation"private judgment." It is only then the Christianity of Protestantism that has in future to come into collision with the State. this it cannot do, for the reason just explained, that both the systems are brought to move in either the same or parallel planes. By this, of course, is meant no more than that the Protestants enjoy the glory of having moralized and civilized the old theology: we might also say philosophized it, if the expression was not deemed

But

equivocal. As to "the Church," it is henceforth destitute of any influence upon society, though it may clog the way (to resume our metaphor) among the baggage-lumber of humanity.

Now as Anselm was the organ of this theology, by his office, and by the eminent expression of its projects in his public life, so do we find no less distinctively its impress upon his writings,-in the bent of doctrines, the choice of subjects, and even in the order of chronology.

The theory being at that time, we have seen, an absolute theocracy, the system of Christianity was a deduction-a synthesis. To deduce all things from the single principle of the Godhead, or his revealed will, and then to harmonize the results in their practical application, there was also need of logic, or dialectics. Dialectics, the Holy Scriptures, and at last the divine attributes, should therefore form the successive subjects of the compositions of our saintphilosopher. Quite accordingly, one of the earliest of his treatises is entitled De Grammatico, and makes a strict and even technical application of the rules of logic. That its character is dialectical will be evinced by the mere thesis, which also gave the essay its unconsciously descriptive name: for the question is, Whether a grammarian be a substance or a quality? Here, in fact, we recognise the "asses' bridge" of the scholastic system, and the probable reason why it is that Anselm has been deemed the founder of the school. And the founder he might be called, but in the sense above explained, of applying logic to the orthodox doctrines of theology. Scotus Erigena and others had employed the art already; but it was to sap rather than support the established dogmas of the Church. With Anselm dialectics was the "servant of theology."

Accompanying the publication of this logical essay, and, like it, in dialogue, there were three others "On the Scriptures." The special topics are characteristic. They are: 1. On Free-will; 2. The Devil's Fall; 3. On Truth. Free-will was the antagonist principle to the omnipotence of the Divine will; the latter being the orthodox doctrine of Anselm. He would therefore encounter early the contradiction of this subtle adversary, which from Scotus to Roscellinushis own contemporary and his combatant-had grown quite menacing in the disguise of Nominalism. What were Anselm's opinions on the subject of free-will, M. de Remusat-not seeing its import -does not give us the analysis of; but they were as adverse to it, at least, as those of Augustine.

The doctrine taught in the dialogue "De Casu Diaboli" is in close connexion, and, in fact, a consequence. He fell, as did Adam

after, through the freedom of the will. From this alone we must infer the doctrine to have been reprobated by St. Anselm, among the most rational-meaning rigorously logical—of theologians. The tract "On Truth" is judged to have been written at a later period; and is, at all events, a natural passage from the will of God, as revealed in the Scriptures, to his abstract nature and various attributes, which are, moreover, according to Anselm, the sum and substance of all truth. Now these are just the subjects (in still strict consonance with our deduction) of the two other principal writings of Anselm, namely, the Monologium de divinitatis essentia, and the Proslogium de Dei existentia.

In like conformity with this progression the author's method, too, advances from mere technical dialectics to metaphysics. The Monologium is a species of ontological induction of the one from the many, and the permanent from the variable, the essential from the accidental, in the manner of the Platonists. Not however, of course, that Anselm could have known the works of Plato; nor was he, it is thought, even acquainted with the Greek language. Some of the doctrines he may have gathered indeed from Jerome, or from Augustine. But M. de Remusat calls in Dionysius the Areopagite-whose mystic writings, full of Platonism, had been long translated by the learned Erigena-to the end of accounting for the strange concurrence between the heathen and the Christian thinker. How utterly unphilosophical, and, so to say, one-sided is this! For unless Plato's system was an accident, there is the same amount of reason for insisting that he must have borrowed it himself; and so in turn with his original, and his again ad infinitum, as for supposing, without other evidence than the mere circumstance of a coincidence, that later writers may not think the same things independently. Had not Anselm a similar intellect and the same universe as Plato? and, we would add, a corresponding epoch of speculation? For the task of Plato was to synthetize unto a supreme term of generality the analytic anarchy of heathenism; and that of Anselm was precisely to do the same for Christianity. It was consequently even necessary that the methods should have coincided; although the results would of course differ, like the principles.

The difference of results is accordingly characteristic. Take for instance the cardinal question of the origin of evil. While Plato was enabled, by a second coëternal principle, to saddle matter with the blame of suffering and sin, Anselm was led implicitly to hold the Deity-who has made all things out of nothing-of course the author of evil, too, among the rest. He was forced, in con

sequence, to such conclusions as the following: "That God is a sublime and universal negation. That as all being proceeds from Divine Goodness, it follows that evil is not a being, and has no real existence in creation; that it is merely a negation, or the absence of good."-P. 484. But to this metaphysical quibble it was of course easy to reply, that the good principle was still responsible, in having tolerated the defect, or was imperfect, if unable to prevent it,-a dilemma of which either horn ruined alike the author's system. Then, again, it might be asked, What becomes of the "devil and all his angels," if we concede the nonentity of evil? What a comment this upon the logical coherence of the public reason in those ages which deemed Anselm an oracle of orthodoxy!

Not only this, but (with a little unconsciousness, of course) the saint does something worse than proscribing the evil principle, in anticipation of the Universalists. If we mistake not, the following passage involves the rankest pantheism,-that amalgamation of the good principle with entire nature, including evil. Speaking of the Divine nature, "It is," he says, "the essence of the being, the principle of the existence of all things. . . . Without parts, without differences, without accidents, without changes; it might be said in a certain sense to alone exist, for in respect to it the other things which appear to be, have no existence. The unchangeable Spirit is all that is, and it is this without limit, simpliciter, interminabiliter. It is the perfect and absolute existence. The rest is come from nonentity, and thither returns, if not supported by God: it does not exist by itself. In this sense the Creator alone exists; the things created do not."--Pp. 473, 474. It is plain that these dependent and merely relative existences must be conceived as an emanation from the supreme and substantial essence-must, like the qualities of bodies, be in fact identical with the supposed substrata. In short, it is Anselm's "realism," carried also into theology; and theological realism is pantheism. M. de Remusat, with whose opinions we have not often, in the foregoing survey, had the good fortune fully to concur, ascribes in this point the same tendency to the theology of Anselm. He even goes on to trace the progress of the tendency to our own times, according to his notion of the merely personal transmission of ideas. Thus Descartes's famous demonstration of the being and attributes of God is, we are told, but a revival of the argument of Anselm. And then Spinoza, it is very certain, did no more than follow faithfully, into their ultimate conclusions, the Cartesian principles. The successive views of Leibnitz, Kant, Schelling, Hegel, &c., are also next examined upon the subject. And to all who like fine criticism-intelligent, impartial, eru

dite, and wanting nothing but a better philosophy-the closing chapter will yield a treat.

The foregoing question was treated chiefly by St. Anselm in the Proslogium, which is the latest, as it is the maturest, of his works. The special topics of the Monologium were the Trinity, the Incarnation, Free-will, Original Sin, and the theory of Grace and Predestination. These questions lie all, we say, at the foundation of the revealed system of Christianity, and stood accordingly in Anselm's way, so to speak, in his progression to the Supreme Unity, which was the vision of his great intellect, because the yearning of his age. Anselm's career, then, in his life of speculation, was an exact counterpart, at least in object, to his life of action, or of endeavour. The endeavour was to make the Pope an absolute despot on the earth. To prove the Deity a despot also, of metaphysical illimitation, was the endeavour, more or less unconsciously, of all his writings.

This is, perhaps, the most curious of the many conformities which we have noted-although M. de Remusat, who states the proofs of the observation, ne s'en doute pas. It might however have, like the others, been conjectured à priori. Anselm was a man of genius; and of true genius it is the character to be a unity in conduct and conception: the definition will be complete if we add, the unity must be a universality. This universal unity of genius is homogeneous, because it is a growth from within outward. The herd of minds are formed, on the contrary, from without; they are, therefore, (to take a term from the geologists,) conglomerates; or, as Paley has well expressed it, they are mere "bundles of habits;" which means mentally-of prejudices, passions, and traditions.

In 1843, Professor HASSE, of Bonn, published the first volume of his "Anselm von Canterbury," containing the life of Anselm. Following literally the Horatian rule nonum prematur in annum, he has just issued the second volume, containing Die Lehre Anselm's, (Leipzig, 1852, pp. 663,) which is characterized by Dr. Kling, in the Studien and Kritiken, as a μvõμa έç áeí; combining a most thorough search into the sources, with a clear and sound historical knowledge and judgment, and a just and adequate appreciation of Anselm's theology. We hope, in connexion with Dr. Hasse's work, to give at some future day, a full account of Anselm's system.