they are hut the necessary effects of matter prodigiously surprised, confounded, and hurried away by Rousseau,
diversified. It is more reasonable to admit, with Main-. Thus was the public mind in France completely eor-
a twofold God, than the God of Christianity. We rupted, and this, no doubt, greatly accelerated those
cannot know whether a God really exists, or whether dreadful events which afterwards transpired in that
there is the smallest difference hetween " t and evil, country.— Henderson's I'.uck. s. v.
or vice and virtue. Nothing can be more absurd than
to believe the soul a spiritual being. The immortality of the -oul, so far from stimulating man to the practice of virtue, is nothing hut a barbarous, desperate, fatal tenet, and contrary to all legislation. All ideas of jus- tice and injustice, of virtue and vice, of glory and in- famy, are purely arbitrary, and dependent on custom. Conscience and remorse are nothing hut the foresight of those physical penalties to which crimes expose us. The man who is above the law can commit without re- '" morse the dishonest act that may serve his purpose. The fear of God, so far from being the beginning of wisdom, should he the beginning of tolly. The com
Philosophoumena. See Hippolytus.
Philosophy i- the highest department of human speculation, the most abstract knowledge of which the human mind is capable.
Importance •■/tin Subject. — The character of the in- vestigations with which philosophy is concerned, ami still more the superabundance during the last century of what has professed itself to be philosophy, render it difficult either to define this branch of in- quiry, or to determine what may be legitimately includ- ed under the wide designation. Sir William Hamilton devoted -even lectures of his course of metaphysics to
mand to love one's parents is more the work of educa- the discussion of this single topic. The vagueness of tion than of nature. Modestv is only an invention of the ,('r'"' ""' '"stability and indistinctness of the boun- refined voluptuousness. Thelawwhich condemns mar- daries o( this department of knowledge, and the dissen- ried people to live to-other becomes barbarous and cruel sl",ls '" reSard •" all ils detail-, have led many quick on the day they cease to love ..no another." These and ingenious minds ro repudiate the study altogether, extracts from the secret correspondence and the public aud '" denv l" u a"-v val"' existence. Nevertheless it Writings of these men will suffice to shou us the nature ls llf','t'ss:'ry t(< recognise its reality, in spite of the inl- and tendency of the dreadful system they had formed, certainty of its nature, of the confusion thus produced, The philosophists were diligently employed in attempt- ;""1 "n1"' pretensions sheltered under its honorable ing to propagate their sentiments. Their -rand En- namt'- U Was a Prof9und and k,('n reply, which was - 'da was converted into an engine to serve this Baid '" nave been made ''.v Aristotle to the assailants purpose. See En< n tof.KDisTs. Voltaire proposed to ''""' abnegators of philosophy, that " whether we ought
a colony of philosophists at Cleves, who, pro tected by the king of Prussia, might publish their opin ions without dread or danger; and Frederick was dis
to philosophize or ought not to philosophize, we are com- pelled to philosophize" («rt <pi\o<ro<pnriov <pi\oao^>i)- rtov, tin «;) <pi\orro(pi)THir <piXo<ro<t>T)TEOv, iravrtac.
xviio niuivui uicau oi u.ui^ii , ami rieueiicK was ins- ' i ' t~ r» r ~r-i -
posed to take them under his protection, till he discovered $&°oo$nTiov, David. Prolegom. Phil.. wp.Schol.Aris
that their opinions were anarchical as well as impious, when he threw them off, and even wrote against them. They contrived, however, to engage the ministers of the court of France in their favor, by pretending to
have nothing in view but the enlargement of sciei
in works which spoke, indeed, respectfully of rovelat ion. while every discovery which they brought forward was meant to undermine ils very foundation. When the
i"i. p. l.i. ed. Acad. Berol.), for philosophy is required to demonstrate the inanity and nugatoriness of philoso- phy: "Ihit the mother of demonstrations is philosophy." The -aine deep sense of the irrecusable obligation is manifested by Plotinus, when, in a rare access of hu- mor, be utters the paradoxical declaration that all things, rational and irrational -animals, plants, and even minerals, air and water too alike yearn lor theo-
throne was to be attacked, and even when barefaced nli''al perfection (or the philosophical completion of
their nature. Emiead. iii, viii. 1 i : and that nature alb, it devoid of imagination and reason, has its philosophy within itself, ami achieves whatever it effects bj the-
atheism was to be promulgated, a number of hnpii and licentious pamphlets were dispersed | |,,r some time none knew bow) from a Becrel society formed at the Hotel d Holbach. at Paris, of which Voltaire was elected
1' rary and perpetual president. To conceal their
design, which was the diffusion of their infidel senti- ments,th( j called themselves Encyclopedists. SeeHoL-
llA< "■ The books, however, thai were issued Iron, this club wne calculated to impair and overturn religion,
ory, or the philosophy which it docs not itself possess. "There is reason in roasting eggs," and philosophy in
all things, if we can only get al it :
"the meanest Bower that blows can give