one of his admirers, "the portrait of the man distinguished by magnanimity, or the great soul, gives us the loftiest idea of the character of Aristotle. I greatly esteem his genius, but here I have the unveiling of his heart; for I do not believe that any one could delineate so truly the quality of grandeur of soul, unless he personally possessed a large share of it. The talent of the writer, all dazzling as it is, does not now occupy my thoughts; I contemplate only the qualities and sentiments which must have belonged to the man who describes them with accuracy so perfect." The most elaborate of these separate analyses are devoted to Justice and Friendship. In the chapter on Justice, Aristotle briefly discusses the abstract virtue, but, in conformity with his nature, he penetrates to the foundations of Jurisprudence: and it is singular to notice that upwards of two thousand years ago those large principles were clearly laid down, against which Utopists of all descriptions have ever grievously sinned, and which—not in the vain words of speculation merely, but by the hard practice of existing societies—are still contravened, to the great detriment of humanity. He distinguishes, for instance, between legal or reparatory justice, and political or distributive justice, tracing thoroughly their divergencies. In front of legal justice, for instance, all men are equal. If a crime be committed, no matter by whom, it must be punished, or the wrong repaired. The formulæ of Law, in this respect, are universal, and its decrees at once impartial and imperative. With regard to political or distributive justice, the case is different. Rights of this sort must be proportioned to the men who enjoy them. The third chapter of Book V. contains Aristotle's reasonings in concisest form; and the conclusion is, that an equal distribution among unequal persons were positive inequality, and therefore injustice. True political justice opens to the various faculties of citizens, the freest play; and harmony follows inevitably, as well as political strength. Have we forgotten the effects of this maxim in the hands of the modern Author of it?—"La carriere ouverte aux talens!"—Aristotle passes to the consideration of Friendship, or rather of those affections which are the bonds of human society. The discussion occupies two chapters, inferior to none in the Ethics. He subjoins a summary or resumé of his whole doctrine concerning happiness; and with it his remarkable book closes. On its general merits no further remark is needed, for the nature of our estimate is sufficiently clear. Assuredly, when one turns from contemplation of the massive wisdom and rich stateliness of the Ethics, to the study of any modern work whatsoever on morals, no reflection arises that is flattering to our self-love. Nor. we repeat, do its most serious fundamental errors greatly impair its practical value—a singular instance of the comparative harmlessness of speculative error, if committed by one who, with pure conscience and lofty intellect, will scan the world as it is, in quest of the bonds which unite society—bonds which are the actual laws of the Sovereign Providence.
3.—We reach the culminating problem of all speculative philosophy,—the question of the Theodicy. It is more necessary than ever that the reader should now remove himself from the point of view adopted in modern times, and not be encumbered with foregone conclusions. The Being of a God, as we comprehend that sacred name, viz., not merely as the substratum of all greatness and perfection, but as an actual and beneficent moral principle, endowed with personality, and working as an ever-living Providence; the existence of such a God can be demonstrated in one way only. The acute and fearless German—the author of the Critique of the Pure Reason—has thoroughly demolished the mass of cosmogonic and other demonstrations, of which, especially since the times of Paley, we have heard so much,—demonstrations which can never lead farther than the propositions: "There is Order in the world," and "that order must have a cause." Beyond this fine a region of difficulty lies, through which this description of argument can never pierce.—In the beginning of last section we indicated the only path open to the human reason, which leads to belief in a God. The bases of such demonstration are—the personality and free-will of the human spirit, and the existence of a "categorical imperative," or an imperative law of conscience—the origin of which clearly lies beyond or out of Humanity. The necessity of a Legislator follows, Responsibility follows, and with these, Immortality, and a God who is a righteous Providence. These were the conceptions that inspired Plato, and gave him his convictions. He added other arguments indeed, but unless on the strength of these considerations he would never have ascended so near to the vision and the hopes of the Christian. We have already discerned that the Stagyrite, profound though he was, never dived so deeply among the recesses of consciousness; he was, on the contrary, mostly the Natural Historian. It is a question of great interest then—what was Aristotle's conception of God? Doubtless, he made all that could be made of the external method; those modern writers who have pretended to make more, will be found, on scrutiny, to have mistaken assertion for proof, and to have given us a dislocated jumble of what they believed beforehand, rather than true or feasible logical proofs of it. The Theodicy of this great inquirer is systematically expounded—with fitting dignity and solicitude—in the last four chapters of the last book of the Metaphysics; but he recurs to the question—uniformly in the same spirit—in his Physics and elsewhere. It is not our intention to develop the reasonings of Aristotle, but only to render their nature somewhat palpable, and to expose their results. Take the following in illustration of the character of these reasonings: Movement (by which he means material change) is eternal, for, if it were not, time would not be eternal, and we should have had simply nothingness. But if movement or change be eternal, there must exist an eternal cause of that change. Is this cause itself under the influence of motion or change? Assuredly not; for if it were, we should require a still higher cause to account for that motion or change. The first, or eternal cause of motion, must, therefore, be itself motionless and incapable of being moved.—He next shows, that this primeval cause is a Substance or Being, without beginning as without end, unchangeable, unlimited as to the sphere of its action, absolutely infinite, because of the plenitude of its Being,—all perfect in intelligence, happy through the perfection of its nature, and drawing that happiness from contemplation of its own ineffable perfection;—this Being is Aristotle's God. Neither this conception, however, nor its consequences, can be understood, unless we recall the notions regarding matter, that prevailed among the ancient schools, and Aristotle's views in particular. No doubt existed, in those times, regarding the eternity of matter: Plato held this as well as Aristotle. The question, what is matter? seldom, if ever, engaged the greatest thinkers; they recognized it as beyond reach of solution. When they spoke of matter thus abstractly, they probably meant nothing more than our metaphysicians, when using the word substance, i.e., they intended to say only that a reality, capable of becoming—capable of taking on form and change, eternally exists. The practical and really important question was this: how is matter susceptible of change; in what manner are changes impressed; or, to use their own language, in what way is motion originated? Now, this change, or motion, must result from the action of forces exterior to matter and distinct from it, or interior and inseparable from it. Plato's view was the former of these; Aristotle's, the latter: and it was the fortune of the eloquent head of the Academy, that his physical and metaphysical speculations led him to that conclusion, as to the existence of an active and providential God—directing and applying these forces, which he had already deduced far more securely from consideration of the moral personality and accountability of Man. It is not improbable, indeed, that his previous knowledge derived from this higher source, may have influenced Plato in the choice of his hypothesis; for, looking at the question impartially, the view adopted by Aristotle was as probable. If not more probable and natural, than his. Contemplate the rotting leaf, and note how it changes. Every fibre is in activity, passing into new forms. There is no sign or mark of external forces; the leaf appears instinct with the capacity to transform itself—to pass into novel forms of Being. The short account given above of the speculations In the περὶ ψυχῆς render these wider doctrines of the Stagyrite readily intelligible. The substance called matter, he says, is instinct with energies In a potential form. Every portion of matter has its entelechy. But this potential rises into energy, or becomes apparent, when it acts. The adequate cause of change, then, is, something that will originate motion in these potentials, or rouse them from inactivity. There are two distinct causes of motion—impulsion, or motive. That the prime cause of the motion or change in the universe cannot be impulsive, he had already shown,—the primal cause must be motionless. There remains, therefore, motive or desire. Without hunger, the cause of nutrition would continue inert; without the desire to understand, Intellect would never move. The primal cause, therefore—the God of Aristotle—may act as a motive, al-
