NOTE.

The preceding essay bears the impress of an almost extemporaneous effusion on a subject requiring much and profound thought. The invitation to address THE POPULAR LECTORS CLUB of the city of Nashville, was received but a few evenings before its pronunciation. Meanwhile, having almost daily lectures on portions of the Christian system, I had leisure only to sketch, with much rapidity, at various intervals, the preceding remarks. True, indeed, the subject had been often on my mind, especially since the time of my writing a few essays on that sceptical and abstract something called Materialism. The facts and observations crowded together in this popular lecture are matters of grave and serious import, and not hasty or crude imaginations, occurring at the impulse of the moment. True, indeed, I should rather have given them under more favorable circumstances, a more logical and philosophical form; but this is not the most popular, nor, to the great mass, the most intelligible form. At the request of some who heard them, and of many who heard of them, I am induced to publish the identical draft which I read to the audience, with only a very few verbal alterations.

I think the subject of demons is one that fairly comes in the path of every student of the New Testament, and ought to be well understood; and as the reader will doubtless have observed, I regard it as constituting an irrefragable proof of a spiritual system, a full refutation of that phantasm called Materialism, to those who admit the authority of Jesus Christ and the twelve Apostles. To such it is more than a mere refutation of Materialism-it is a demonstration of a separate existence of the spirits of the dead-an unequivocal evidence of a spiritual systein, and of a future state of rewards and punishments. A C.

EDUCATION.

PARENTS and school-masters have the human race in their hands at a time when human nature is most susceptible of good and favorable impressions. If they are intelligent, humane, and pious, they can do more than all the ministers, priests, and lawgivers in the world. If any one would reform and bless mankind, let him give them good and intelligent parents and school-masters, and less than a tithe of all other reformers, whether called ministers, priests, lawgivers, or authors, will more than suffice all the demands of society. But we must have normal schools and colleges to make good teachers; and have persons of good sense, good education, and, above all, of good morals, to instruct and train them for the work. Three things are essential to good education: These are, instruction, example, and training-three words, in my use of them, not only representing three things quite distinct, but also of very great significance. Very many think that precept and example are enough; but training is more essential than either of them. Very many have good precepts and good examples before them; but, because of lack of training, are neither an ornament nor a blessing to society. A. C.

This number was intended for an Extra; but there being some uncertainty about our supply of paper for the current volume, we may not be able to make up our complement without counting it.

THE

MILLENNIAL HARBINGER.

NEW SERIES.

VOL. V. BETHANY, VA. NOVEMBER, 1841. No. XI.

For the Millennial Harbinger.

TRANSCENDENTALISM.

THE manifest tendency of people in this age is to multiply differences. The great variety of sects that have professed to form their existence from the Word of God, is not enough to satisfy the longings of some inquiring spirits, and we will doubtless have in a few years a division of society for every department of human thought. Those who prefer contemplations of the Infinite will discard every thing else, and be Infinitists; the adorers of the Sublime will become Sublimists; and as a fit foundation for such structures, we have already. Transcendentalists. Start not that it be a long name; for ere the sun be many years older, there will be sects with larger and more unpronounceable names than this. It may be, reader of mine, that you have never heard of people with such a name; but it is a fact, that in this free country of ours, within a few years, a people have arisen who are content to call themselves, and be called, Transcendentalists. Their doctrine, or that which peculiarly distinguishes them, has remained under a great mystery till within a few days; when one of their number, seeing that many people were anxious to know what this new doctrine is, conde. scended to stoop from his transcendent position to enlighten us concerning the whereabouts of his people; and in a late number of "The Dial," a quarterly Magazine, devoted to "Transcendentalism," he thus discourseth:

"Transcendentalism, by that name, seems to be but little understood; and the vague notions that are entertained respecting it are derived chiefly from the distorted representations of its opposers, or the ridiculous grimaces of scoffers. To many minds the word may bring sad or ludicrous associations, accordingly as it has been presented to them in the gloomy portraitures of those who profess seriously to fear its unbelieving tendencies, or in the amusing caricatures of others, who have found food for mirth in the illustrations of some of 41

VOL. V.-N. S.

its disciples, which they affected to consider fantastic and unintelligi. ble. By some it is regarded as a mere aggregation of words, having the form and giving the promise of a high, mysterious meaning; but when analyzed, being without significance-mere sound, signifying nothing. By others, again, it is supposed to place the reveries of the imagination above the deductions of reason, and to make feeling the only source ani test of truth. But though thus viewed, by its name, with suspicion, scorn, or dislike, I apprehend that it is, in reality, the philosophy of common life, and of comtnon experience. It will be found that all men, mostly, perhaps unconsciously, believe and act upon it; and that even to those who reject it, and argue against it, it is the practical philosophy of belief and conduct. Every man is a transcend. entalist; and all true faith, the motives of all just action, are transcendental.

"A brief history of this philosophy, as a scientific system, will serve to explain its distinguishing characteristic, and at the same time illustrate my leading proposition.

In the latter part of the seventeenth century the celebrated Locke published his Essay concerning the Human Understanding,' the professed purpose of which was to inquire into the origin, certainty, and extent of human knowledge, together with the grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent. In answer to this inquiry he began by denying that the mind had any ideas of its own to start with; that there are any primary impressions stamped upon the mind, which the soul receives in its very first being, and brings into the world with it' The mind he supposed to be white paper void of all characters,' and affirmed that it is furnished with ideas only from experience. Experi ence is two-fold-the experience of the senses, furnishing much the greater part of the ideas from the outward world; which ideas are, therefore, called ideas of sensation. The notice which the mind takes of its operations, with the ideas thus acquired by sensation, furnishes another set of ideas, which are called ideas of reflection. From sensation and reflection, then, according to this theory, all human knowledge is derived..

"It seems obvious at first sight, that, denying to the mind any primary principles; and reflection being, by the definition, only the notice which the mind, this blank piece of paper, takes of its own operations, reflection can add nothing to the stock of ideas furnished by sensation. It is a mere spectator; its office merely to note impressions. The operations of the mind, being confined to the sensible idea, can origi nate no new idea; can deduce nothing from the sensible idea, but what is contained in it; according to a well known and fundamental rule of logic. It cannot compare and infer, for there are no ideas in the mind with which to compare the sensible idea; and by comparing one sensible idea with another, no result can be obtained beyond them. Besides, the very act of comparing implies the abstract ideas of identity and difference; which must, therefore, have been prior to sensible experi ence. Abstract ideas are entirely beyond the province of the senses. The eye conveys to the mind the idea of a tree. Reflection can only note the operation of the mind upon this idea; that is, note the impression it makes. The tree is a tree, and that is all. Reflection can do no more with a second, a third, a thousand th. Without the prior

abstract ideas of number, identity, relation, beauty, and others, or some idea still more abstract, from which these are derived; I see not how reflection can deduce more from a thousand than from one. There is a tree, and that is all. So that, after all, these two sources of ideas are resolved into one; and sensation, the experience of the senses, is the only foundation of knowledge. Give reflection the largest power that is claimed for it-so long as original ideas, the faculty of intuitive perception, of primitive and direct consciousness, is excluded-it cannot advance beyond the outward and the visible: it cannot infer the infinite from the finite, the spiritual from the material. The infinite and spiritual are absolutely unknown and inconceivable. Or, at the best, faith is only the preponderance of probabilitics; immortality an unsubstantial longing; and God is reduced to a logical possibility. In short, mind is subordinated to matter, bound down to the fetters of earth, to the transitory and corruptible; and cannot rise, with an unfaltering wing, into the region of the infinite and imperishable.

"Adopting and seriously believing Locke's theory, Mr. Hume de duced from it, by the severest logical induction, a system of universal scepticism, and demonstrated that universal doubt, even of one's per sonal existence-nay, doubt even of the fact of doubting, is the only reasonable state of mind for a philosopher. The doctrines of Locke were also adopted in France, and led, with some modifications, to their ultimate, legitimate conclusions, the almost universal atheism which characterized the French literati of the last century, and the early part of the present. Unhappy as were these logical results of the system, it was long received as true, without much question. Men of earnest faith embraced it, and defended it, and denying the justness of its infidel conclusions, continued to believe, 'in erring logic's spite;' as Locke himself was eminently religious in defiance of his philoso phy. His faith and life were a noble living refutation of his philoso phy. This system has long been prevalent in this country, and the Essay is now found as one of the text-books of instruct on in intellec tual philosophy in our oldest American University.

"But the ideas of the spiritual, the infinite, of God, immortality, absolute truth, are in the mind. They are the most intimate facts of consciousness. They could not be communicated to the mind by the senses, nor be deduced by reflection from any materials furnished by sensible experience. They cannot be proved by syllogism, and are beyond the reach of the common logic. They are ideas which transcend the experience of the senses, which the mind cannot deduce from that experience; without which, indeed, experience would not be pos sible. Are these ideas true? Are they realities? Do they represent real existences? Are spirit, eternity, truth, God, names or substances?

The philosophy of sensation, even if we absolve it from strict logical rules, and give it the widest latitude, is absolutely unable to give us certainty upon this subject. It leaves the mind in doubt concerning the highest questions that can occupy it. In the place of an ambiguous answer, on which the soul can calmly repose, and abide events, it gives only a possible probability. The transcendental philosophy affirms their truth decisively. Not only are they true, but the evidence of their truth is higher than that of the visible world. They are truths which we cannot doubt, for they are the elements of the

soul. As they are the most momentous of truths, so their proof is higher and surer than that of any other truths, for they are direct spiritual intuitions. Belief in them is more reasonable and legitimate than belief in the objects of sensible experience, inasmuch as these transcendental truths are perceived directly by the mind, while sensible facts are perceived only through the medium of the senses, and be lief in them requires the previous certainty of the accuracy and fidelity of the material organs. The former are truths of immediate and direct consciousness; the latter, of intermediate perception. Transcendent alism, then, is 'the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or of attaining a scientific knowledge of an order of existence transcending the reach of the senses, and of which we can have no sensible experience.' The origin and appropriation of the name will be perceived from this definition. This name, as well as that of the Critical Philosophy, was given by Kant, a German philosopher, who first decisively refuted the theory of sensation, and gave a scientific demonstration of the reality and authority of the Spontaneous Reason. I know nothing of the writings of Kant; but I find his doctrine thus clearly stated by one of his English interpreters:-'Kant, instead of attempting to prove, which he considered vain, the existence of God, virtue, and immortal soul, by inferences drawn, as the conclu sion of all philosophy, from the world of sense, found these things written, as the beginning of all philosophy, in obscured, but ineffacea ble characters, within our inmost being and themselves first affording any certainty and clear meaning to that very world of sense, by which we endeavor to demonstrate them. God is-nay, God alone is; for we cannot say with like emphasis, that any thing else is. This is the absolute, primitively true, which the philosopher seeks. Endeavoring by logical argument to prove the existence of God, the Kantist might say, would be like taking out a candle to look for the sun; nay, gaze steadily into your candle-light, and the sun himself may be invisible."

This is the first intelligible and elaborate explanation of Transcendentalism that the world ever saw; and as it comes from a disciple of the new faith, and appears in a paper devoted to its interests, it cannot be charged that a false or partial explanation has been given as the ground work of these remarks. The new ism, then, sets itself up in opposition to the almost universally accepted theory of Locke; and asserts, as the grand principle of a new organization, that man possesses the ability to originate ideas beyond the powers of sense and reflection; and that man can, and does, originate ideas of God as he is, virtue, beauty, &c. without the aid of revelation or spiritual sense.Such a doctrine, to many, needs only to be stated to be refuted; and yet it clothes itself in the poetry of nature, appealing to all the kinder sensibilities of mind, by the way in which its disciples accustom themselves to live, as it were, in lofty and soul-thrilling conceptions of God and his works, and will insinuate itself into the hearts of many, concealing its Deism under the mantle of poetic enthusiasm, until our whole country will be overspread with Transcendentalists. It has a