sun.

tense national feeling. They will not fight under any other than a Teutonic banner. The attempt of Frederick of Prussia, to introduce among them a French manner and French taste, failed entirely. 'They carefully weeded from their language every French word and idiom, which the influence of that monarch had brought in, and then they became more German than ever. True, they are acquainted with the language and literature of every nation under the

But they have a strange power of digesting and assimilating this foreign nutriment, till it becomes true German flesh and blood. They naturalize the foreigners, who will entirely renounce their former manners and allegiance, but they never become naturalized into another country themselves. Yet we would express our admiration of the Germans, by 'abandoning the very peculiarity, which is the secret of their greatness! We would fain conjure with the magician's wand reversed.

But we leave what is merely a literary question for more relevant matter. Some speculations in theology, that have lately appeared in our neighborhood, indicate strongly the place of their birth. We do not allude to this subject by way of reproach, but simply to confirm the assertion respecting the tendency of writers at present to seek inspiration from a foreign source. The country where the Reformation had its birth, holds its daring spirit of speculation in religious matters. The church of England has been asleep since the times of Elizabeth, and the dignitaries of the Holy Catholic Church, since the suppression of the order of Jesuits, have exerted their prescriptive right of nodding in their stalls. But the restless activity of the countrymen of Luther, besides doing every thing for biblical learning, has broken out in new and startling views of the origin, evidences, and nature of Christianity. The controversy between the upholders of Rationalism and Supernaturalism

has driven one party to the verge of infidelity, and the other to the extremes of fanaticism and bigotry. The middle ground is broken up in the heat of dispute, and the moderate party is the smallest. And this battle is to be fought over again on our own religious soil. Whether its results are to be beneficial or injurious, whether the impulse received in point of activity and the disposition to inquire, will outweigh the evils of extravagance in opinion and of heated theological contests, is no question for us to determine. We look only to the indisputable fact, that religious discussions here have suddenly received a turn, that manifests the attention paid to the writings of foreign theologians.

The religious speculations of the Germans are closely connected with their philosophical opinions, if indeed they do not proceed entirely from this fountain. And this consideration brings us back to the main subject of inquiry, the influence of the study of German philosophy on our own speculative systems.

The history of modern metaphysics in Germany begins properly with the publications of Kant. The writings of his predecessors, Leibnitz, Wolf, and others, have nothing distinctive in their character from the speculations of other philosophers. But Kant created a nation of metaphysicians, by constructing a system in which the peculiarities of the German mind are strongly marked. The study of philosophy henceforth became a passion with his countrymen, and successive systems were propounded and discussed with a degree of publicity and effect, which there is nothing to equal in the whole history of speculation. To this cause have been usually attributed the great boldness and freedom of inquiry, which have prevailed in Germany. Perhaps the reverse of this hypothesis is the truth. Independence of spirit always existed, and created the tendency

to philosophical inquiries, because these inquiries first af. forded an open field for its manifestation. The sacred character of religious subjects infused an awe into all who approached them, and novelties were proposed at first with reverence and hesitation. Politics were forbidden ground to the subjects of kings. Physical inquiries required a ma. terial apparatus, and speculations were too soon and too easily decided by the test of experiment. But the territory of metaphysics.was boundless, and the inquirer might range at will, with no other check to his imagination than the one created by the imperfections of language, and the necessity of rendering himself intelligible to those whom no difficul. ties at first sight ever appalled.

Common phraseology broke down in the first trial. The usual resources of language failed entirely in the hands of a man like Kant, the very personification of abstract and subtile thought. He therefore created a philosophical nomenclature of his own, which, in its original or a modified form, has been adopted by subsequent writers. How far by such a proceeding he increased the lucidness of statements, that could not be couched in ordinary terms, is a matter of serious question. That words have a power of reacting upon thought, was remarked by Bacon; and this power is likely to exist even in a greater degree in newly coined terms, whose signification is not fixed by use, than in those of established authority and determinate meaning. Novelty of expression has the semblance of originality of thought. A phrase from a Latin poet may appear in the original to convey a striking and profound remark, and yet seem utterly trite and puerile in the translation. Most of the favorite quotations from Horace, when considered apart from the diction, are mere common-places.' So the techni. calities of the logician give an apparent weight to common reasoning, and the familiar argument is not recognised in

its scholastic garb. How far Kant imposed upon himself and his readers, by giving old opinions in a new dress, remains to be determined, when a competent person shall attempt to translate his doctrines into ordinary philosophical language. That, in the mist of his peculiar phraseology', he did not always perceive the true character and legitimate results of his own dogmas, is sufficiently evident. ( His avowed object in writing was to furnish an answer to the arguments of the skeptic, and yet his assertion, that space and time exist only as independent and original forms of thought, and have no objective reality, is a doctrine, that, properly carried out, leads directly to the deepest gulf of Pyrrhonism.

Before we import this novel terminology into our own language, two questions must be satisfactorily determined. Has its use in Germany materially aided the progress of speculative science? Does the greater inflexibility of the English tongue admit of any great accession to its vocabulary; for all practical purposes, might not philosophical discussions among us as well be carried on at once in the Greek, Latin, or German languages, as in a sort of bastard English, enriched by words drawn entirely from foreign sources ? The expedient that has been devised, of using words in their primitive, etymological sense, as well as in their common meaning, is, in the first place, partial and insufficient; and, secondly, is open to nearly the same objections that apply to the introduction of foreign terms. Take for instance the words inform and intuitive, which have been recently applied in this twofold fashion. Is not a knowledge of Latin as necessary to ascertain their primitive meaning, as if they were for the first time borrowed from that tongue ? This remark would not obtain with the Saxon compounds, but these are few in number, and in most cases their common signification does not vary from

that indicated by the composition. Understanding is an exception, and this word, we believe, has been pressed into the service in its etymological sense.

But we have no wish to discuss a mere question of philology. The graver matter lies behind, and concerns the alleged defects of our language considered as a medium for philosophical discussion. We do not now dispute the convenience, but the necessity of enlarging our philosophical vocabulary. In the material sciences, a discovery requires a name. Davy was obliged to invent terms for the metals, and Cavendish for the gases, which they respectively discovered. Even in moral and mental science, the assignment of a new faculty to the mind requires the creation of a peculiar and properly significant token. But speculations of this kind do not often increase the number of things, but concern the reality, modes, and relations of familiar objects of thought. As languages vary in copiousness and flexibility, they afford greater or less means of expressing these relations with conciseness and elegance. What one language gives by a word, another must express by a circumlocution. A particle in Greek may convey a distinction, which a sentence is necessary to explain in English. Moreover, the various uses of a word expose an inquirer or disputant to error, from the risk of applying them unawares in a twofold signification. If the two meanings are nearly allied, the danger is proportionally greater. Yet a mistake may be avoided by proper caution, and the liability to err would not be removed, if two distinct sounds were in use, to express the different ideas. It would hardly be diminished, for the danger lies in confounding the thoughts, and not the expressions. The necessity of increasing the number of philosophical terms is therefore a false pretence. At the utmost, the question is one for the rhetorician to decide on grounds of mere expediency. That a philosophical writer