Belmont is the land of Harmony and Love, which they leave in the hour of struggle, and to which they come back in the hour of peace. This may be a violation of that critical canon which demands Unity of Place, but it is a rule which Shakepeare very often follows, and which it would not be difficult to justify. To sum up in a few words our results. The collision is between Antonio and Shylock, and is mediated by Portia. Its logical basis is the contradiction between the Objective as realized in the institutions of Reason and the Subjective, or the individual side of man. The former undertakes to crush the latter, through which alone it had existence, for it is posited by the Subjective; hence it becomes contradictory of itself and is negated. The Subjective, since it is not universal, is in its turn a new self-contradiction, and hence a negation of itself, which results in its subsuming itself under the Objective. So Portia asserts subjectivity only to end in subordinating herself to one of the forms of objective realitythe Family. The external movement of the drama may be divided into three parts: 1. The Union; 2. The Separation; 3. The Return. Each of these parts is determined and complemented by the others. The Union, by which is meant the bringing together of the three pairs, has produced the collision between Antonio and Shylock, which then returns and dissolves it, for this Union cannot consistently destroy the one who brought it about. Hence the second step, the Separation, results necessarily from the first. But the parties must overcome this diremption, for they are rationally united, and the collision itself must be mediated; hence the obstacles are removed, and there follows the third stage of the movement, namely, the Return. This when completed is the same as the first Union, but with the collision which was involved in it harmonized. Here the play must end; no further action is possible. Or, to take more abstract terms, we may express these three stages as Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis. That this movement is a type of the movement of Reason itself, needs not to be told to the Thinker. Every spiritual process involves the same moments, and a work of Art as the child of imaginative Reason must bear the image of the parent. BOOK NOTICES. Concord Days. By A. Bronson Alcott. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1872. There are two sides or phases to the "Practical." The practical includes what is instrumental, subsidiary—a means to an end. This, so far as man is concerned, has relation first to his bodily wants: food, clothing, and shelter-to their satisfaction and supply; secondly, the ministration toward his spiritual wants which crave culture, or the ascent above individual limitations, and the realization of the generic ideal of humanity or Mind. In other words, the practical endeavor of Man must neutralize his immediate and slavish dependence on Nature (relieve him from the sensuous importunity of hunger, heat and cold, external intrusion), and it must enable him to realize in himself as particular individual the universal, or the consciousness of his entire species-the human race. The first phase of the Practical looks to providing the means for the sustenance of the body; the body is, however, an instrument for the soul, or for the purposes of conscious being. Hence this phase looks to the creation of an instrument for an instrument-thus a double mediation. The second phase of the Practical is ministrative directly to the final end, the Consciousness of Man. Subtract consciousness, and the possibility of the practical altogether vanishes. There must be a conscious adaptation in any one or all of its phases. A complete and entire consciousness of it -a comprehension of its entire scope-may be found, however, in few people. This necessary knowledge commonly takes on a partially unconscious form, the form of conviction, or religious faith. The individual looking out upon the world of instrumentalities, the infinite complex of mediations, is unable to trace it through to the end, and therefore borrows from the SEER his insight in the form of a Divine Revelation, and by its light believes that he possesses a personality which is absolute end and beyond all subservience to mere outward uses. The Practical as regards provision for bodily wants has an incidental higher use. It is not simply for the neutralization of the physical pangs and inconvenience—the rendering of the same a nullity-that the bulk of human endeavor goes to the supply of the body. If all this were merely to still the Cerberean dog, the economy of Providence might be doubted. In stilling the clamor of the body, man is obliged to resort to social and political combination. The division of labor in Civil Society, the institution of the Family and the State,-all these are initiated to relieve man from the degrading slavery to bodily sensation. But only "initiated” for these institutions, all serve directly a spiritual end; when Spirit can provide for the body incidentally while providing in the most direct way for the Soul, then it has achieved freedom, for the External no longer sways or swerves. In these great institutions-Family, Society, and the State — mankind arrives at the necessary conditions of spiritual combination. These it would organize therefore as mere forms, were there no material need to goad it on-provided, once for all, that mankind had achieved rational insight into the means and demands of culture. But as the consciousness of the Race develops in Time, and is a historical existence and not an Absolute one, it follows that the bodily necessities with their pricking pangs are useful as initiatives,-nay, even necessary. Here the divine Providence is manifest: Nature urges herself to complete introversion, and the "breath of Life" is compelled to sustain itself by contest with the clay dwelling in which it finds itself. In satisfying the physical, the spiritual is excited to activity, and gradually gains ascendance and independence. The "mask of life" and the subjection of the Spiritual to material ends is seen to be only Maya - a mere delusion of the senses. All this servitude and slavery has been only for self-knowledge, and for the freedom of the self from the self-the realization of the Universal in the Particular. In Jordan's beautiful version of the "Sigfridsage," the spiritual lineaments of that old NorthernMythologic presentation of this greatest Fact of Existence are thus portrayed:* "Und hinunter in's Nachtreich der nichtigen Schatten Der Traum des Tropfens der sich getrennt hat Er dürfe verdammend in heillosem Dünkel Und wo du folterst da musst du fühlend Die Bosheit büssen; den Alles BIST du." The blind Samson grinds in the mill, not for others but for himself; the imprisonment in sensuous being must be broken by pain and stern renunciation. When it is done, down falls that lying torment, the Mask of Life * In Mr. Davidson's translation: "And down to the night-realm of shadowy nothings The dream of the drop that hath withdrawn it To rend asunder and yet not suffer; To doom to perdition, secure of dying; o murder and mangle and not be maimed; With damning conceit and self-assertion, To say Thou, in addressing the rest of Existence, Nor hear the answer, in agony echoed:- (die qualvolle Lüge der Larve des Lebens), and the soul looks through the interval upon the unveiled Eternal Verities. The Universal, the Absolute, God, is the root of this Ego which I call myself, and when I free myself from the glare of the senses (which cause selfishness in place of self-consciousness) I shall live and have my being in the presence of this great fact. "Before I was a Me, in God then was I God, As soon as I shall die 1 shall again be God," says Angelus Silesius. And Fichte, in a sonnet, says (in Seeley's translation): "The Eternal One Lives in my life and sees in my beholding. Clearly the veil of things rises before thee. IT IS THYSELF! What though the Mortal die? And hence there lives but God in thine endeavors, If thou wilt look through that which lives beyond this death The veil of things shall seem to thee as veil, And unveiled thou shalt look upon the Life divine." But there is a possibility of undervaluing that portion of our life which is called secular to distinguish it from the direct, conscious seeking of the Divine. As already stated, the whole realm of the Secular- the Family, Society, and the State-is also directly tributary to the divine life of Man. It is not a mere instrumentality for the purpose of silencing the beast of the body, but rather is it the propedeutics of human combination and communication wherein spiritual life becomes a reality, a fixed fact. The division of labor and exchange of productions are the apparent ends of industry, but the cunning of Spirit uses them merely as means for the circulation of ideas. The real Practical result is the addition to consciousness of new foreign material-the appropriation of points of view that were alien to it. By solving (spiritually digesting) the contradiction between its own ideas and those of the new people with whom it comes in contact, it rises to more universal and truer ideas. The contrast between this commerce and the material commerce is to be marked. In material commerce the goods are to be consumed and rendered null; in the commerce of ideas, both parties gain, and neither lose anything. By this discussion we have only sought the stand-point of the Idealist. Whether he be the mystic, the religious man, or the speculative philosopher, he regards the world as a "fleeting show," considered by itself, and the great fact of the Universe to be the Immanence of Spirit, of the Divine Person. In this he is not necessarily "impractical," but is quite likely to be intensely the contrary. Mr. Alcott, the author of "Concord Days," is widely known as one of the most uncompromising idealists in our time, or in all time. His early acceptance of the doctrine of "The Lapse" nearly as Plotinus taught it, together with his remarkable original statements of it, make him note-worthy in the history of modern thought. A brief discussion will make this apparent. MR. A. B. ALCOTT'S APERÇU, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES AND RELATIONS TO OTHER SYSTEMS. Mr. Alcott's first principle is Person-or the absolute self-reflection— that which knows itself purely. Hence it is a speculative stand-point. All stand-points are material which posit at the basis a fixed or rigid substance, a realized multiplicity, whether the same be called simply matter, force, law, form, cause, essence, ideas, or archetypes, &c., &c.; while, on the other hand, all stand-points are speculative which posit a self-moving, self-making pure act at the basis, whether they call it God, Person, or Idea, its proper names, or any of the other terms mentioned. A demonstration that Person or Idea is the Absolute Principle, and that nothing else can be, would run somewhat as follows: a. Being is either dependent or independent: if the latter, it is by itself; and if the former, it exists in another which is independent. b. Actual Being is either determined through itself or another: if the latter, it is finite, not self-contained, not a totality; if the former, it is selfcontained and infinite. c. Hence all being is self-determined and independent, or else exists in and through a self-determined and independent. d. That which is self-determined or self-made is not subordinate to Time and Space, but generates them in its own process; for if it were subordinate to Time and Space, it would be externally determined, and thus a dependent somewhat. e. This self-determined Being is what we name God, Spirit, or Idea (in the sense of person). Remarks. In this proof we have taken the reflective method: a very deficient form, because we are forced to jump from one beginning to another. We have an insight into the true stand-points at first, and then construct a bridge to get to them. The genetic or dialectic method, on the other hand, unfolds the progress of discovery as well as its grounds. The method used above is similar to the mathemathical method. It jumps across the river to get a plank to make a bridge with. Of course, itself does not need a bridge; it kindly makes one for others. But the genetic method gives the wings with which the discoverer flew across the chasm. All these strictures on the method employed here will become evident on looking at the beginning, which is gratuitously assumed without explaining why it is done. In the Geometric demonstration I draw this construction and that, but give no explanation of the why. Thus it is an external procedure when contrasted with the dialectic method. Thus one may have a speculative stand-point and not a speculative procedure. It may be without any procedure, a mere positing of the various degrees of the finite; or these degrees may have the reflective nexus exemplified. Or, finally, the dialectic may be given, and in this case the whole system is speculative. This prepares us for a view of the second stage in Mr. Alcott's Philosophy |