16 



ON MATTER, AND 



of a future state and the immortality of the soul. In our own day we allow 

 to it a very hberal extent of bold imagery and poetic license, and with sucli 

 allowance it may be perused without mischief ; but a few verses alone •• 

 are sufficient to prove its evil bearing, if strictly and literally interpreted. 

 The following distich, for example, beautiful as it is in itself, discloses the 

 very quintescence of Spinosism : — * 



All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 

 Whose body nature is, and God the soul : 



and the general result drawn from the entire passage which is too long 

 to be quoted, is no less so : — 



In spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, 

 One truth is clear, whatever is, is right. 



J f every thing be right at present, there is no necessity for a day of correc- 

 tion or retribution hereafter ; and the chief argument afforded by nature 

 in favour of a future existence is swept away in a moment. Unite the 

 propositions contained in these two couplets, and illustrated through the 

 whole poem, and it follows that the universe is God, and God the universe ; 

 that amidst all the moral evils of life, the sufferings of virtue, and the tri- 

 umphs of vice, it is in vain to expect any degree of compensation or ad- 

 justment in a future state ; every thing being but an individual part of one 

 stupendous whole, which could not possibly exist otherwise ; and that the 

 only consolation which remains for us under the pressure of pain or calamity 

 is, that if we are not at ease, there are others that are so — that if our own 

 country is devoured by war, or desolated by pestilence, thbre are countries 

 remote from us that know nothing of such afflictions — that the general 

 good is superior to the general enil., and made to flow from it, and, con- 

 sequently, that whatever is^ is right : — 



If plagues and earthquakes break not heaven's design. 

 Why then a Borgia or a Cataline ? 



The THIRD HYPOTHESIS to which I have referred, is that of the idealists, 

 or those who maintain that there is no such thing as a material or external 

 world ; that the existence of man consists of nothing more than impres- 

 sions and ideas, or of pure incorporeal spirit, which surveys every thing 

 in the same unsubstantial manner as the visions of a dream. Some of the 

 tenets of Malbranche appear to have a tendency to this theory ; but it has 

 been chiefly developed in modern times by Bishop Berkeley and Mr. 

 Hume. Their premises are indeed somewhat different, but their conclu- 

 sion is the same ; excepting that the argument is pressed much farther by 

 the latter than was ever intended by the former, and leads to more dan- 

 gerous consequences. In Germany, Professor Kant has aflowed a part 

 of his tenets, as well as parts of various other tenets,! to enter into his 

 system, or that which he chooses to distinguish by the name of the Trans- 

 cendental Philosophy^ and which not long since bade fair to obtain an 

 universal sway over the continent, though for some years it has appeared 

 to be considerably declining in its reputation. It was my intention to 

 have traced the origin of the ideal hypothesis, and to have pointed out its 



* See the author's prolegomena to his translation of the Nature of Things, p. csxvi. 

 t Degerando, Hiotoire Comparee des Systemes de Philosoi)hie, toiB. ii. 17= 



