416 CONSTITUTION OF THE INTELLECT. [CHAP. XXII. 



nexion of things in the order of deductive thought. l , have differed 

 less in the forms of theory which they have produced, than 

 through the nature of the interpretations which have been as- 

 signed to those forms.* And herein lies the real question as to 

 the influence of philosophical systems upon the disposition and 

 the life. For though it is of slight moment that men should 

 agree in tracing back all the forms and conditions of being to a 

 primal unity, it is otherwise as concerns their conceptions of 

 what that unity is, and what are the kinds of relation, beside 

 that of mere causality, which it sustains to themselves. Herein 

 too may be felt the powerlessness of mere Logic, the insufficiency 

 of the profoundest knowledge of the laws of the understanding, 

 to resolve those problems which lie nearer to our hearts, as pro- 

 gressive years strip away from our life the illusions of its golden 

 dawn. 



8. If the extremely arbitrary character of human opinion be 

 considered, it will not be expected, nor is it here maintained, that 

 the above are the only forms in which speculative men have 

 shaped their conjectural solutions of the problem of existence. 

 Under particular influences other forms of doctrine have arisen, 

 not unfrequently, however, masking those portrayed above. t 



* For instance, the learned mysticism of Gioberti, widely as it differs in its 

 spirit and its conclusions from the pantheism of Hegel (both being, perhaps, 

 equally remote from truth), resembles it in applying both to thought and 

 to being the principles of unity and duality. It is asked: "Or non e egli 

 chiaro che ogni discorso si riduce in fine in fine alle idee di Dio, del mondo, e 

 della creazione, 1'ultima delle quali e il legame delle due prime ?" And this ques- 

 tion being affirmatively answered in the formula, " 1'Ente crea le esistenze," it 

 is said of that formula, " Essa abbraccia la realta universale nella dualita del 

 necessario e del contingente, esprime il vincolo di questi due ordini, e collocan- 

 dolo nella creazion sostanziale, riduce la dualita reale a un principio unico, all 

 unita primordiale dell' Ente non astratto, complessivo, e generico, ma concrete, 

 individuate, assoluto, e creatore."-_JDe/ Bello e del Buono, pp. 30, 31. 



f Evidence in support of this statement will be found in the remarkable 

 treatise recently published under the title (the correctness of which seems doubt- 

 ful) of Origenis Philosophumena. The early corruptions of Christianity of which 

 it contains the record, though many of them, as is evident from their Ophite 

 character, derived from the very dregs of paganism, manifest certain persistent 

 forms of philosophical speculation. For the most part they either belong to the 

 dualistic scheme, or recognise three principles, primary or derived, between two 



of which the dualistic relation may be traced Orig. Phil., pp. 135, 139, 150, 



235, 253, 264. 



