before one of them was called into existence. And this is now, and always has been, the insuperable obstacle to the perfect comprehension of any one science, the basis of which is in the realms of mind

or matter.

Still the desire to know rises with the consciousness of our ignorance, and even of our present inability, and we promise ourselves a day of grace in which we shall not only know in part, and prophesy in part; but shall see clearly, comprehend fully, and know as we are known. Till then we must be content to study the primer of Nature and learn the elements of things around us, as preparatory to our admission into the high school of the universe. Indeed, the greatest genius, the most gifted and learned in all human science, rises but to the portico of that school, the vestibule of that temple in which the true science of true bliss is practically taught, and rationally communicated to man.

There is one science, however, in which it is possible to make great proficiency in this life, and which, of all the sciences, is the most popular, and, withal, the least understood. It has been a favorite in all the schools of the ancients, and of the moderns; but has never been successfully taught by Grecian, Roman, Indian, or Egyptian philosophy. It is, indeed, neither more nor less than the science of happiness—than the philosophy of bliss. But some of you will immediately ask, Where shall that science be found? In what temple does she deign to dwell? By what rites are her ears to be propitiated to our prayers? And by what less ambiguous name shall she be called?'

To introduce her, without proper ceremonies, to your acquaintance, would be as impolitic on my part as it would be perplexing to my inventive powers to find for her a pleasing and familiar name. But, in the absence of such a designation, I will state the five points of which she treats.

Whether it is because we have only five senses, five fingers on each hand, or because there are five points in Calvinism, and as many in Arminianism, that this divine science has only five points, I leave it to more learned doctors and sages than your humble servant to decide. But so it is, she has five points peculiarly her own, which no other science in the universe has been ever able to develope with either cer tainty or satisfaction to any man. These five points are the origin, the nature, the relations, the obligations, and the destiny of man.

Many, indeed, of the teachers, admirers, and votaries of a science sometimes called "moral philosophy," as taught by the ancients and by the moderns, have, with a zeal and a devotion truly admirable, and worthy of a better cause, inculcated upon the youth of past and present times, the all-sufficiency of human reason, or of human philosophy, to clear up all doubts and uncertainty upon all subjects connected with man's relations and responsibilities to the universe.

That there are sciences physical, mental, and moral, truly and properly so called, I doubt not; but that the science sometimes called "moral philosophy," which professes, from the mere light of nature, to ascertain and establish-indeed, to originate and set forth the origin, nature, relations, obligations, and destiny of man-is a true science of the inductive order, founded upon facts-upon observation and experiment; and not upon assumption, plagiarism, imagination, I cannot

admit. If, then, we cannot set forth the science of happiness, nor find for it, at this time, an appropriate name; we shall attempt to expose, in part at least, the fallacy and imposition of all human science, (especially of moral philosophy, which in this particular arrogates to itself more than every other science,) in attempting to settle or develope any one of these five points with any degree of certainty, authority, or evidence, either salutary or satisfactory to any man of sense.

This is neither the time nor the place for mere definitions, metaphysical arguments, nor for abstract reasonings. A definition or two we may have occasion to offer; but we shall rely much more upon a safer and more palpable evidence in demonstrating the perfect impotency of philosophy and human reason, however cultivated, possessing only the mere light of nature to decide and enforce any one of these five cardinal points.

It will, I presume, be conceded by all persons of education and good sense, that human happiness demands the full enjoyment of all our powers and capacities, in harmony with all our relations and obligations to the creation of which we are a part, and that a knowledge of those relations and obligations is essential to the fulfilment and enjoyment of them; consequently there is a very great intimacy between the knowledge of these points and the philosophy of bliss,

It will also be conceded that the knowledge of our obligations and relations presupposes a knowledge of our origin and destiny; and, therefore, whatever system of reasoning, whatever science fails to reveal these, cannot possibly develope those. These things premised, 1 hasten to show, that while moral philosophy proposes to do all this, she has never done it in any one instance-her greatest masters and most eloquent and powerful pleaders being accepted as credible testimony in the case.

That moral philosophy assumes to teach man his obligations and relations to Creator and creatures, and to make him virtuous and happy is first to be proved. Whose testimony, then, shall we hear? That of the greatest Roman philosophers-the most learned of her scholars the most profound of her reasoners-the most eloquent of her orators-the most accomplished of her citizens-the unrivalled Cicero? He was, indeed, an honor to human nature; and, without exaggeration, in my opinion, the greatest man Pagan Rome ever produced. Many a fine encomium on philosophy may be gleaned from his numerous writings; but a few sentences will suffice to imprint his views on every mind. "Philosophy," says he, "is the culture of the mind that plucketh up vice by the roots-the medicine of the soul that healeth the minds of men. From philosophy we may draw all proper helps and assistance for leading virtuous and happy lives. The correction of all our vices and sins is to be sought for from philosophy. Oh! Philosophy!" adds he, "the guide of life-the searcher out of virtue and the expeller of vice, what would we be, nay, what would be the life of man, without thee! Thou wast the inventress of laws, the mistress of morals, the teacher of discipline! For thee we pleadfrom thee we beg assistance. One day spent according to thy precepts is preferable to an immortality spent in sin."* So spake the ⚫ See Cic. Tuscul. Disputations, lib. 2, caps. 4 and 5; lib. 3, cap. 3; lib. 4, cap. 38; lib. 5, cap. 2

gigantic Roman, standing on the shoulders of the more gigantic Greek philosophers, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, and a hundred others of minor fame.

We shall next hear the oracle of modern philosophers who filled the chair of Dugald Stewart, the greatest of metaphysicians. "Philosophy," says he-quoting the most renowned of the stoics of Roman fame, the distinguished Seneca-"Philosophy forms and fashions the soul, and gives to life its disposition and order, which points out what is our duty to do, and what is our duty to omit. It sits at the helm, and in a sea of peril directs the course of those who are wandering through the waves." "Such," says our model philosopher in American schools, Brown of Edinburg, "is the great practical object of all philosophy." "It comprehends," adds this standard author, "the nature of our spiritual being, as displayed in all the phenomena of feeling and of thought-the ties which bind us to our fellow-men and to our Creator, and the prospect of that unfading existence, of which life is but the first dawning gleam." vol. 1., ch. 14. Such, then, are the pretensions of philosophy, mental and moral, in the esteem of Christian as well as in that of Pagan sages.

I believe this to be the orthodox creed of all the popular schools in Britain and in America. Indeed, both Hartley and Paley might be quoted as going still farther in ascribing to moral philosophy an almost superior excellence in some points, even to Revelation itself. But we need not such exaggerated views. The preceding will suffice for a

text.

We shall now look for the exemplification of the fruits of this boasted and boastful philosophy in the admissions, declarations, and acts of its teachers, and in the lives and morality of its students and admirers.

The witnesses to be heard in this case are the Grecian and Roman lawgivers and philosophers. We have not time to hear them depose singly and separately; we shall therefore examine them in companies.

The Greek philosophy is all arranged in three lines; as the learned, since and before the revival of literature, have conceded. These three great lines are the Ionic, the Italic, and the Eleatic. The lonic was founded by the great Thales of the Ionian Miletus; the first natural philosopher and astronomer of Greece, who divided the year into 365 days; observed the diameter of the sun; and foretold eclipses, about the middle of the sixth century before Christ. The Italic was founded by that great lawgiver and philosopher, Pythagoras, who established a school in Italy a little after the middle of the fifth century before Christ. The Eleatic was founded by Leucippus and Parmenides, of Ela, early in the fifth century before Christ; the chiefs of which may be alluded to in the sequel. These schools are all named from the country or place in which they were originally located.

The Eleatic school was wholly atheistic, root and branch. Leucip pus first taught the doctrine of atoms, afterwards adopted by the learn ed and facetious Democritus. While Heraclitus, the great Ephesian philosopher, wept over the follies of men, Democritus laughed at them, and taught that the universe was but the fortuitous concourse of atoms. The more refined and accomplished Epicurus speculated at great length upon the same theories, somewhat modified; and each of these great names headed a sect of Atheists, who, while they agreed

in the essential doctrine, differed in minor points. The essential doctrines of all the sects of the Eleatic school were, that the world was made by the god Chance-a fortuitous concourse of atoms; that it is governed by no intelligence, ruled by no governor, and preserved by no providence. That the soul, if there be any, dies with the body; consequently there is no future life. That there is neither virtue nor vice, moral good or moral evil by nature, or any other law than that of custom and public utility. That pleasure is the chief good, and pain the greatest evil to man.

With the moral theories of this school other distinguished philosophers concurred; amongst whom Laertius ranks Theodorus, Archela us, and Aristippus; teaching that upon fit occasions-(that is, when not likely to be detected)-theft, sacrilege, and other enormities which we cannot name, might be committed; because nothing was by nature, or of itself, base; but by law and custom. I shall certainly be allowed to dismiss this school without farther hearing; without a inore formal proof that moral philosophy, in their hands, was not what our great moral philosophers, from Cicero down to Stewart and Brown of Scotch and American fame, have affirmed, viz.-"The guide of life-the standard of virtue-the path to happiness."

We shall now hear the second school-the Italic. Pythagoras himself, the great Grecian father of the Metempsichosis, and his distinguished pupil, the Locrian Timæus, have opened the mysteries of this line in their leading differential attributes. This school believed in souls, and taught their immortality too. But curious souls they were; and unenviable their immortality. "The soul of the world," said they, "is an immortal soul, and human souls are but emanations from it; to which, after some ages of transmigrations, they return and are reabsorbed." This is a miniature of the darling peculiarity of Pythagoreanism. These emanation souls were, by an insuperable necessity, to make the tour of some definite number of human bodiesclean and unclean; and on their return to the anima mundi, to lose their individuality and identity, and to be amalgamated with it. This soul of the world, moreover, was, by the god Necessity, compelled to change worlds. Hence a succession of new worlds and of new transmigrations of the soul of the world was to fill up the series of infinite ages. This was illustrated by a bottle of sea-water, well corked, tossing about in the tumults of the ocean until the cork decayed, or till the bottle dashed upon a rock. In either event its soul, or water within, mingled with the water of the ocean, and so lost its identity; yet it was as immortal as the ocean-because a part of it. If the illustration was good, the proof was better. This learned lawgiver and philosopher, blessed with a retentive memory, was able to prove his doctrine by narrating his own various and numerous transmigrations, antecedent to the name and body of Pythagoras. His delighted followers heard his curious and brilliant intrigues and singular freaks while his soul was tabernacling in other mortal tenements.

If any one can find reasons of morality or of piety, motives to virtue, or sources of joy in this school, he must excel the ingenious Ovid himself, who had to amend it in one or two points to suit the licen. tiousness of his own poetry. If not elegantly, he is correctly translated in the following lines, taken from his 15th book:

"Oh! you whom horrors of cold death affright,
Why fear you Styx, vain name! and endless night,
The dreams of poets, and feign'd miseries

of forged hell, whether last flames surprise

Or age devour your bodies: they ne'er grieve,
Nor suffer pain. Our souls forever live,

Yet evermore their ancient houses leave

To live in new, which them as guests receive."

But need we ask, How can human souls enjoy or suffer any thing with a reference to the past, having first lost every feeling of personal identity? This school, then, was as ineffectual a guide of life-as whimsical a standard of virtue-as fallacious a way of happiness, as the Eleatic.

There yet remains another school-the Ionic school, more ancient, and therefore more orthodox than either of the former two. Thales, its founder, was followed by Anaximander and Anaximenes: these were followed by Anaxagoras, the instructor of Pericles and Archelaus, the alleged master of Socrates. These all, down to Socrates, devoted themselves to physics, and not to morals; therefore they are out of our premises. Not so Socrates: of him Cicero has said, "He was the first to call philosophy from the heavens, to place it in cities, and to introduce it into private houses: that is, to teach public and private morals" He was, indeed, the first and the last of all the Grecian philosophers that wholly devoted himself to morals.

Plato and Xenophon were his immediate pupils: Aristotle and Xenocrates theirs. The Ionic school, in its theological and moral departments, was now merged in the Socratic; but that soon branched off into several sects-the Platonic, or old Academic; the Aristotelian, or Peripatetic; the Stoic, founded by Zeno; the middle Academy, by Arcesilaus; and the new Academy, by Carneades. Between these two last Academies there was no real nor permanent difference. If not in all their conclusions, they were, in all their modes of reasoning, sceptical. Their discriminating principles were, that "nothing could be known," and that "every thing was to be disputed;" consequently nothing was to be assented to, said the absolute sceptic. "No," said the Academics; "the probable, wherever you find it, must be assented to; but, till it be found, you are to doubt." And the misfortune was, they rarely or ever found the probable; and in effect the Academics and followers of Pyrrho, the absolute sceptic, were equally Atheists all their lives. Meanwhile, as said the learned Bishop of Gloucester, "they talked perpetually of their verisimile and of their probabile, amidst a situation of absolute doubt, darkness. and scepticism-like Sancho Pancha of his island on the terra firma!" Pyrrho dogmatically affirmed that "no one opinion was more probable than another," and that there were no moral qualities or distinctions. Beauty and deformity, virtue and vice, happiness and misery, had no real cause, but depended on comparison-in one word, that "all was relative.”

The lights of all Pagan philosophy are now reduced to the three sects of the Socratic school-the Platonic, the Peripatetic, and the Stoic. If we find no surer, no clearer moral lights in these three, all Grecian, all Roman philosophy is a varied and extended system of scepticism, so far as the origin, moral obligations, and destiny of man are involved.