tured farther into the fields of speculation. Whether the former has gone on safer ground, or met with more success than his great prototype, it is not easy to decide,—indeed time has not yet decided. He has dealt more with moral and religious abstractions. Locke occupied rather the regions of pure intellect. We have before spoken of Mr. Taylor's theorizing turn, and intimated, that his strength seems to lie rather in demolishing the structures of others, than in building any symmetrical one of his own. This inference was derived from some of his earlier writings, and was confirmed by his late work. His Natural History of Enthusiasm, and his Fanaticism, were tolerably free from the theorizing propensity but although he has varied in this respect in his several productions, it is evident, that his genius inclines to hypothesis and conjecture. It is, however, splendid in no common degree, and elaborates the most imposing forms of sentiment and fancy. His hypotheses are no tame, unmeaning things, or put forth to while away an idle hour. They are full of solemn intention. Whether founded in truth or not, they are accompanied and illustrated by much that is instructive and convincing. And he imparts an interest to his speculations. Readers peruse, then pause and think,at one time absorbed in the profoundness of his thoughts, at another warmed and elevated by the astonishing creations of his imagination. Few writers soar on so strong a wing. Yet nothing is done with the appearance of labor; there is no straining after the sublime or pathetic. He has no affected tunefulness of style, studied cadences, or rounding of periods. It is the simple energy of thought,-native grandeur of intellect manifested and conveyed in a rich, manly, philosophic diction. Yet however he may theorize, he cannot write a page without bringing into view our internal consciousness,--the moral processes which distinguish us as intelligent and accountable beings. It is this power of mental, spiritual analysis which places him above most other writers.

After all, theory is not fact,-hypothesis is not truth, although it may perform the office of making a right disposition of facts as they arise, and imparting to them connection and meaning. It may deduce from them the true system of things, of which they are the development or result. The capacity for forming theories and supporting them, as our author often does, by seizing on casual or remote analogies, shows that sort of intellectual greatness which lies in strength of imagination, fertility of contrivance, and a quick perception of abstract relations. It is not the greatness of a mind which observes facts with care, which infallibly embraces correct and solid premises, and raises from them, by a process of sober investigation, a system of undisputed truths. Mr. Taylor fails at times in his prenises, as we perceive from his Model of Christian Missions, and his Essay on the Application

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of Abstract Reasoning to the Christian Doctrines. Iu some respects he is like a projectile shot forth with force, but not always in the right direction. He proceeds with the velocity of thought, exhibits wonderful strength, accumulates ingenious reasonings, and illustrates his topics with an unexhausted copiousness. But he too often goes wrong, for he begins so. We cannot admit his conclusions as a whole, though he pours on many single points the full blaze of day.

This is very much the case in the work now under consideration, and he happily proposes his views as a theory. The reader probably will not mistake the author's object, nor confound conjecture with truth. Still, as the reasonings in this volume are professedly of the analogical kind, and his positions often take a direct form, to fortify which nature, and fact, and scripture, are brought as proof or illustration, it seems to claim for itself, at times, more than a simple theory. At least, this is the effect produced, an effect which may proceed, perhaps, from the plausibility of his arguments. Whether his theory be considered accordant with fact or not, a useful and solemn purpose evidently governs the writer, and he frequently gives utterance to truths of overpowering interest. His large and far-reaching views, and vivid paintings of our moral and immortal nature, agitate the soul with deep emotion. He appears, in the present work, in the peculiar attributes which have formerly characterized him as a writer. In addition to what has already been said on this topic, it may be remarked, he has that boldness of conjecture, that originality of thought, that rich strain of philosophizing, that power of spiritual dissection, and in part, those ingenious paradoxes which distinguish, perhaps, all his other productions.

It may answer the purposes here had in view, first to sketch an outline of the Physical Theory. Its original and prominent features deserve a careful inspection. After stating what in propounding a theory is to be guarded against, viz., indulgence of imagination, on the one hand, and on the other, claiming for any hypothesis, an authority which trenches on revelation, and that the author conceives there is a path which runs clear of both errors, he supposes, if it be true that human nature in its present form, is only the rudiment of a more extended and desirable mode of existence, we almost necessarily assume, that the future being must be so involved in our earthly constitution, as to be discernible therein, and that a careful inspection both of our bodily and mental structure, with a view to the contemplated re-construction of the whole, may furnish some means of conjecturing what that future life will be. Something of this sort he endeavors to effect in the present book. In order hereto he gives us to understand, that the scriptures teach truth under some particular aspect, not

truth in the abstract,-whereas, as philosophers, we want to find the whole truth, where it can be known. The bible glances only at what relates to the constitution of the invisible world, to other orders of being, or to the future physical condition of the human family. It teaches no system of physical or even metaphysical science; yet it does not lead us astray on these subjects, in its incidental remarks, or when fairly interpreted authorize any suppositions that are contrary to fact.

Starting then from scripture, with a view to make the first steps sure, although he proposes to unfold the rudiments of the future life, by another process than that of biblical interpretation, he finds a passage that might serve as a text for the whole book. "There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body." It is body and not mere spirit; and the future change spoken of by the apostle, is a transition from one mode of corporeal existence to another, the laying down of an inferior body, and the taking up of a body which shall be "potent, illustrious, permanent." He here suggests, that there may be pure immateriality for man, in some stage of his advancement towards his ultimate condition; but the bible neither affirms nor denies such an abstraction. That which christianity requires us to believe, is the certain survivance and perpetuity of our personal consciousness embodied, and this not as dependent on animal organization. The doctrine concerning what is called the immateriality of the soul, he thinks should ever be treated as a philosophical speculation.

Freed from any abstruse question respecting matter and mind, as to its bearing on christianity, he reverts to the apostle's doctrine, which respects not spirit but body. Have the dead ceased to exist? No, because there is a spiritual body, and another vehicle of human nature. Having, according to Paul, two species of corporeity, the one animal and the other spiritual, he proposes to show wherein they agree, or what are the essential conditions of corporeity, and then wherein the latter excels the former. Body he views as a third essence,-an amalgam of matter and mind, or such a blending of them as to constitute a mean essentially unlike what could result from any construction of the one by itself. The conditions of corporeity, whether animal or spiritual, are: 1. Body is the necessary means of bringing mind into relationship with space and extension, and thus of giving it PLACE. Sheer mind is NO WHERE! He avers, that we might as well say of a pure spirit, that it is hard, heavy, or red, or that it is a cubic foot in diameter, as say that it is here or there. It is brought into alliance with the external world, and has a relation to solidity and extension, when it finds a lodgment in the body. And the author here further ventures the opinion, that what is finite, a finite mind for instance, must become subject to some actual limitations, and un

dergo some specific relations, before its faculties can be exercised. All such spirits may be only latent essences, until confined by some sort of restraint. 2. The mind's relationship with time is another consequence of corporeity. It is only in connection with matter, that mind can know any thing of time. Time is duration divided into equal parts by the equable motion of bodies through space. 3. The corporeal alliance of mind with matter, as it in fact actually exposes the mind passively to the properties of the external world, and thus makes it liable to pleasures and pains otherwise not its own, so this connection may be universally necessary for the same purposes. Apart from the body we have no reason to believe, that the mind could either enjoy or suffer in any other manner than intellectually. Moreover as embodied, the mind comes under the powerful discipline and impulse of organic pleasures and pains. 4. This connection becomes in return, the means on the part of the mind, of exerting a power over the solid masses around it. Motion is originated by a simple act or volition of embodied mind. Motion, he thinks, is, in all instances, generated by an immediate volition either of the supreme or of some created mind. 5. A further consequence of corporeity is the mind's liability to mixed emotions of the class called imaginative. The sense of fitness, of beauty, of sublimity, of terror, of harmony, and music, do not belong to mind in absolute abstraction from matter. And the author, among other remarks on this subject, puts forth a conjecture, that the correspondence of finite minds with the Infinite, needs to be attempered by an admixture of the imaginative sentiments. 6. The corporeal connection of mind and matter is now, and perhaps will be, the means of so defining our individuality in relation to others, as to bring minds under the conditions of a spiritual economy. The purposes of such a system demand what may be called a seclusion of each spirit from others, and also the means of immediate recognition. These are provided for by the nature and variety of the bodily confirmation.

In regard to the probable prerogatives of the spiritual body, as compared with animal organization, which the author deems an arduous part of his task, although no step needs to be taken without a sufficient reason, he names and dwells on a number of them. He feels, that it cannot be a hopeless labor to trace the rudiments at least of the future, amid the elements of the present life, so long as there is reason to believe, that the principle of analogy will hold good. One prerogative is a great and desirable extension of our range of our corporeal activity and enjoyment,--the increase of a power now actually exerted by the mind, and which is easily conceived of as set free from its muscular restrictions, in such a manner, as shall allow of locomotion by simple volition, as well as of the ability to put external masses in movement. He does not,

however, conceive this power to be without limitation, but to be relative to other powers, and met by a definite resistance. Another prerogative is, that the passivity of the mind, or its consciousness of some of the properties of matter, through the senses, shall in the future corporeal frame, be made to include other of those properties. He suggests, that the five senses are peculiar and restrictive means of information,-that the mind in itself could know much more than is conveyed to it by these senses, that it is designedly shielded by means of the body from too much excitement or sensation, that hereafter it may be so advantaged in its organic structure, as to be able to discern bodies and persons and their movements on the surfaces of the planets of our system,--that though our present organs of sensation show us the world in five species, hereafter we may become familiar with a hundred or a thousand. A third prerogative is, that besides knowing effects we may hereafter understand causes,—or to speak more correctly, may be able to trace forms and affinities a stage or two higher than we now can. The inner form of matter as well as the external species, may be perceptible to the spiritual body.

The points of advantage already named, which the spiritual body will have over the present animal organization, have a relation to its correspondence with the external world, but he supposes there will be others which extend to the mind itself. The modification and abatement to which the faculties of the mind and emotions of the heart are now subject, in consequence of its dependence on the animal organization will be comparatively unknown hereafter. For instance, the memory especially, which, among the intellectual faculties, is intimately affected by the original structure and pathology of the body, will be vastly enhanced, as is supposed, under the spiritual economy.

perhaps, enjoy by means of the memory in the future life, a full, permanent, and bright consciousness of all that we have ever known, felt, and performed. This is another conjectured prerogative. Moreover, the association of ideas, Mr. Taylor doubts not, will be affected in consequence of the spiritual organization. It will be under a law purely rational. The future body will not lead the mind, but will be entirely subservient to its dictates. Reason and moral sentiment will pursue their course in full vigor, and be liable to no interior disturbance. This is still another hypothetical advantage. In addition, the author supposes, that in the future spiritual body, we shall be able to carry on many mental operations together. It is a question whether any, even the most powerful minds, in the present condition of human nature, actually attend to several objects at once. They seem sometimes to do so, but this may be owing to the inconceivable rapidity with which