Truth, determining itself into different modes. The first, is the system proceeding by method. The second, is the system in its eternal unity. The third, is the system actualized in the union of its method and its totality. Artist, thus, only anticipates Philosopher. True Poet is true Prophet; for in him the speculative thought, sublimed into a rapidity hitherto swifter than consciousness, seizes the totality of its own method and fixes it in form, in which the steadfast thinker afterwards traces it in due order, and by a thought truly more divine; because he thus consciously attains the order of the infinite Reason, and provides that he shall hereafter out-poet the poet, celebrating with the higher inspiration which comprehension always brings, in numbers equal with the perfected civilization, the Spirit descending and ascending into and through mankind.

Every true thought, whether in science of Space and Time, in science of Nature, in science of Spirit, in Art, or in the framing of institutions, is a moment in the infinite scheme of speculation. What is good in the moment however, is good only by virtue of the system to which it belongs, and can be maintained, whether in the separate man or in mankind, only as the system itself is followed toward completion. When, therefore, we speak of Speculative Culture, we should mean the exercise and joy of all Truth, or Art, or Avocations, in so far as these arise in conscious thinking. Whatever is known, loved, or done in the comprehension of its truth at first hand, is an exercise of speculation. Thus, all spiritual culture is speculative; and the denial that speculation is essential to our true being, is equivalent to denying that Spirit is sovereign in the universe,—to asserting that it has an end beyond itself, and that this end is the material world.

Now let us look upon the negative side: what are the consequences of such a denial? Suppose we assume that, not Wisdom, but Matter of Fact is the principal thing; that thought is not its own end, but has a right only in virtue of the uses it can serve, the institutions it can promote? We hear a great deal about the Wisdom of the Hour, - how it consists mainly in managing affairs so as to secure an honorable competence, make home happy, and help others to do the same, some such gospel it is which has wellnigh driven from the pulpit the profound speculative doctrines of the elder Christianity: what is the necessary result of private or public conduct directed by such teaching? It has been affirmed, and is now repeated, that the end is Spiritual Death, the wasting away of all our powers, whether of knowing, or of feeling, or of will.

Let us see, first, whether this is not true in regard to the Intellect. Of knowing, there are two distinguishable stages, or modes: Sen

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suous, and supersensuous. First, we have knowledge, through our several senses, of this or that single material thing: a house, a man, a tree, a stretch of water, an expanse of sky, the shining sun. But in the second stage we decover that these, which at first appeared so simple, and each so sufficient for itself, are not only discriminable one from another, but often repeated in nature. first, the discovery that in all things going under the same name there Within this stage, there is, is an invariable something, which at first sight of the particular object we seem to recognize as known already, so that each new tree, or water-view, or human being merely repeats and varies an unvarying theme. Things are no longer merely this or that, here or there, but are embodied concepts. Next, we find that these concepts, which we cannot but think are eternal, however transitory the separate embodiments may be, are themselves the unities of other concepts, the variations of a higher theme. This is our elementary lesson in science, as distinguished from ordinary knowledge. All our developed science is nothing more than the recognition that nature is but an array of forms not isolated, but related, grouped according to necessary relation in the concepts embodied in the several forms. As we ascend from one scheme of truth to another, we at length learn that all truths constitute an infinite system, first, in their immaterial, eternal purity, and next, in their natural manifestation. From unities, through higher unities, we pass to absolute Unity; the multitude of individual existences are seen to constitute a universe, vital with one transcendent Theme. Thus what appeared to our eyes a simple body, has unveiled itself before our thinking as a wondrous complex into which have vanished the elements of the system of thought, cedure of the Thinking Person, and each single existence one stage that system, the eternal proin the infinite series of His self-determinations.

Such are the two great modes of knowing. It is evident that the second, the thinking of the system of unsensuous concepts, is identical with what has hitherto been called Speculation. To assume, then, that Speculation has no vital function in religious life, or that Matter of Fact is the sole field of action to be animated by the sentiment of worship, is to disallow the infinitude of supersensuous knowledge, and limit man to the finitude of the senses and the sensuous understanding.

Man, then, acting professedly with religious motive in outward occupations alone, in the sensuous understanding alone:- will he realize the Divine Life, or what will become of him and of any society that he may in this way establish? What will the end be to the intellect itself?

Briefly, Defeat of civilization, barbarism, intellectual savageism. For, in the last analysis, it is the limitation of knowledge to the realm of the senses, which separates the savage from the civilizing man. In the savage, brute Nature holds Spirit in abeyance ; in man civilizing, Spirit proceeds in a never ending subjugation and regeneration of Nature. The savage is an adult body, hiding an infantile soul. "The Flesh lusteth against the Spirit." Hence, the man who confounds his spiritual Vocation with his avocation, by assuming that his end is the sensuously practical, does by this confusion assume to all intents the intellectual position of the savage. If, by grace of the contagious civilization surrounding him, he be saved from the repulsive exterior of the savage, or enriched with a wider field in which his matter-of-fact understanding may plod, or confronted with a mirror of decency which frightens him from grossness and chases his unruly appetites into hiding places of craft, avarice, or hard dealing, let all this be granted; it is no product of his elected function, but exists simply in spite of that. Not only so, but his assumption is the obstruction of civilization itself. Civilization is the Divine Life uttering itself in a society, in mankind. It is religion socialized. Here the Spirit subjugates the Flesh, according to the order by which the whole Creation proceeds. All social institutions arise out of a perpetual Regeneration, out of a consciousness surely following the method of the divine Thought, and infallibly attaining its comprehension. To civilize, each human being must be veritably born anew. The thought abeyant in him, the intrinsic unity which he has with God, which he cannot dissolve by less than self-annihilation, must rise to the beginning of comprehending the immutable verities in which he lives. God, Truth, Beauty, Good, must descend into his present consciousness with such distinctness as to be his at first hand, as to brook no delay, but he shall run after them with joy. Seeing thus that these alone have valid being, he thenceforth pursues their thought, rationalizes, gains comprehension of the divine system, loves, produces accordant conduct, frames the ever developing Christendom. In the movement of God's spiritual kingdom, nothing goes by rote, but all by insight. As no being is ever born from above, through having committed the doctrines to memory, but only by direct personal discovery and seeing face to face; so the mere Practical Performer, satisfied with such wonders as he can work with his rules and routine, divides himself from the civilizing intelligence, and abstracts the working of its grace in himself and in all whom he may support or mislead in a like folly. Hence, too, the fact that the savage and barbarian tone of intellect, tamed a little for the show, but savage and

barbarian still, infests the high places of civilization itself. It rides in our chariots, flaunts in our parlors, giggles, stares and simpers in our social assemblies and on our promenades. What a pantomimist it is! No form of civilization, however refined, that it does not ape. If fashion dictates, it attends upon lectures in science, or reads at works in philosophy. As a common thing, it is to be found at the musical assemblies, is a prominent patron of poets, painters and sculptors, and even prays in our churches. When a criminal breaks loose, we can all understand that we have a savage among us. Truly, crime in civilized communities has a significance, but we are slow to read it. It is only the old story of the wolf in sheep's clothing. It ought to teach us that, by sheer force of imitation, the form of civilization may exist where its spirit does not; that he who has not learned to think, and by thought, instead of by conventions, to regulate his conduct, departs from the savage intelligence in form alone, and not in substance.

The three co-ordinate forms in which civilization symbolizes and tests its procedure, are Religion, Philosophy and Art. As civilization exists only in their co-ordination, development and comprehension, so do they become actual, objective, and for us, in the process of civilization, and not otherwise. Accordingly, it is in the conduct of mere practicalism with respect to these, that its intellectual impotence is most apparent. The man who lives in it, may no doubt conduct a business, build a locomotive according to pattern, or even manage affairs, and that too with sufficient ability; but we should hardly expect him to paint the Sistine Madonna, carve Laöcoon or build the dome of Saint Peter's; still less, to discover a new planet, or the law of gravitation. To look for Zoroasters in him, or Holy Scriptures from him, would be simple blasphemy. In presence of either Art, Philosophy or Religion, the devotees of the Practical behave as creatures of sense, and not of reason. They are either dull, hard, unsympathetic, or caught away in a flurry of volatile sensations.

Now, every work of Art is the embodiment of a theme which has a fathomable order and unity of thought. It can be known and enjoyed as Art, only in the conscious recognition of that theme. Otherwise, it titillates the senses merely. And to many, doubtless this sensuous pleasing is the only experience either in Sculpture, Painting or Music. To such, the Dying Gladiator contains nothing loftier than the anguish of a dying body. How many look upon Raphael's Transfiguration, and come away saying - How ugly he has made Christ's hands!

How few hear the struggling soul crying to God through the score of Beethoven, or can recognize it when you tell them it'is there. Poetry itself, with the plain utterance of words, is to many nothing more than rhythmic sound. Or, if its separate thoughts be clearly taken, and its fancies excite a pleasurable glow, how seldom does their unity rise into the mind of the reader - the unity by which alone they constitute a Poem, a veritable Creation, perfect image of the unity of God's creative thought.

Philosophy and Religion fare still worse. Little can it avail to affect intelligence by conning over this or that 'Valuable Treatise on Mental Science,' when speculation, which alone is equal to its own comprehension, is repudiated as unmeaning. Philosophy, is thus, simply impossible. Without it, there comes the narrow mind. And Religion is therefore supplanted by bigotry, superstition, and finally indifference- the only real infidelity. For we really have faith, and worship, exactly in proportion as we comprehend truth. Thus, the history of religion runs all the way from Fetichism up to philosophic Christianity. In the being who does not think them, all worship, and all reverence for so-called doctrines, are merely superstition. A doctrine is such, only in virtue of being found in thought and received in conviction. How, then, is faith to have way in an intellect restricted in its exercise to mere matters of fact? God, Immortality, Sin, Atonement, Regeneration, the Resurrection from the Dead - how shall these become doctrines to the soul that requires as its ground of certainty, positive sight, hearing, touch? that has attained the folly of believing the transitory to be the only reality? The evidence of the senses, and the whole method thereof, taken alone, goes counter to every one of these truths that wholly transcend All that nature says of God is-Fate; of Immortality -Death, Transition; of Sin, Atonement, Regeneration, Resurrecnot one word.

the senses.

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This dying-out of the spiritual powers is not merely a logical sequence of the principle assumed. The sequence writes itself legibly in facts. The air is full of a voluble sentimentalism over arts, knowledges, and rituals. We are gone mad with Diffusion of Intelligence. There is endless celebration of being well-informed; extensive visitation of circulating libraries, and galleries of Art; immeasurable playing upon the piano and going to concerts, with some sedulous memorizing of the great composers. But youth hastens to break away from the restraints which lead to thought, from the sober studies which contain its rudiments. It hurries to be rich, to marry and maintain an establishment. Why it does not pause to in