most earnest to maintain, that " religion must have a moral origin, so far at least that the evidence of its doctrines can not, like the truths of abstract science, be wholly independent of the will:"* that" religion is designed to improve the nature and faculties of man, and that every part of religion is to be judged by its relation to this main end." These maxims he insisted on during his whole course as a religious writer; they plainly had a deep hold on his mind, and were uttered by him, not with the lip only, as if learned from others, but as if they had indeed been drawn from "the fountain-head of genuine self-research." If he then tried a religious creed "with reference to logical and technical precision, and not in respect to its moral characteristics and tendencies," how strangely must he have deserted a principle which his own experience had established!-how unaccountably shut his eyes to the light of a "safety lamp," which his own hands had hung up for the guidance of others! Let any candid reader consult on this subject the Aids to Reflection, especially that portion in which the author maintains, that "revealed truths are to be judged of by us, as far as they are grounds of practice, or in some way connected with our moral and spiritual interests,”that "the life, the substance, the hope, the love, in one word, the faith, these are derivatives from the practical, moral and spiritual nature and being of man ;" and then ask himself whether he who wrote thus could be capable of falling into the error described above. And again let him see whether he can cite a single passage from his writings in which he appears to be trying a creed according to logical precision alone, without regard to its deeper bearings. So far from being apt to consider articles of belief exclusively in their intellectual aspect, in his departures from received orthodoxy he was chiefly influenced by moral considerations, by his sense of the discrepancy betwixt the tenet, in its ordinary form, and the teachings of conscience, his conviction that the doctrine, as commonly understood, either meant nothing or something which opposed the spiritual sense and practical reason. §

* Biog. Literaria, p. 297.

+ Aids to Reflection, I. p. 223.

See the Aids to Reflection on Spiritual Religion. Comment on Aph. IL, I. p. 215.

§ The interesting Article on Development in the Christ. Remembrancer

CXV

The mere intellectualists, who try divine things by human measures, had in my Father a life-long opponent. Why then is a charge of mere intellectualism brought against himself? Is it because he resisted the insidious sophism which splits the complex being of man; separates the moral in his nature from the rational, for January, which has just come into my hands, and in which I find a confirmation of some remarks of mine, in this Introduction, on the Romish doctrine of the Eucharist, contains the following sentences, which I take the liberty to quote for the sake of explaining more clearly my Father's mode of thought on the relation of divine truth to the mind of man: "Our ideas on mysterious subjects are necessarily superficial; they are intellectually paper-ideas; they will not stand examination; they vanish into darkness if we try to analyze them. A child, on reading in fairy tales about magical conversions and metamorphoses, has most simple definite ideas instantly of things, of which the reality is purely unintelligible. His ideas are paper ones; a philosopher may tell him that he can not have them really, because they issue, when pursued, in something self-contradictory and absurd; that he is mistaken and only thinks he has them; but the child has them, such as they are, and they are powerful ones, and mean something real at the bottom. Our ideas, in the region of religious mystery, have this childish character; the early Church had such. It held a simple, superficial, childlike idea of an absolute conversion of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood; and with this idea, as with an hieroglyphic emblem of some mysterious and awful reality, it stopped short," pp. 135-6. Our ideas on the supersensual and spiritual are without the sphere of the understanding, the forms of which are adapted to a world of sense, though it is by the mediation of the understanding alone, by its "hieroglyphic emblems," that we can take any cognizance of them or bring them into the light of consciousness: still to describe these ideas as "superficial," and as merely indicating "some mysterious and awful reality," appears to be scarcely doing them justice. There is indeed a background of mere mystery and undefined reality in all our religious beliefs; exeunt omnes in mysterium; but they have a foreground too, a substance apprehensible by faith, visible to the eye of reason and the spirit, as truly and actually as the things of sense are perceptible by our senses. A vague belief that something, referred to by the words "conversion of bread and wine into the Body and Blood," is a religious reality, can this be dignified with the name of an Idea? What can verify or attest the truth of a vague spiritual Something? What spiritual benefit can such vague belief confer upon our spirits? If religious ideas are vague and superficial, what ideas are positive and profound? Again, is it true that the ideas of children and of the early Church were of this description? I more than doubt that. A child who reads of magical metamorphoses has very definite conceptions before his mind, and so had the early Church in regard to the Eucharist. The early Fathers seem to have held, that the consecrated elements became the material body and blood of Christ; that, his body being immortal, to feed upon it immortalized our bodies, even as his

the spiritual from conscience and reason; thrusts aside the understanding from its necessary office of organizing and evolving the whole mind, and thus brings half truth and confusion into every department of thought? Did he show himself unspiritual in declaring that superstition is not, as some will have it, a bebased form of faith, but a disguised infidelity, since men become superstitious inasmuch as they are sensuous and dark, slaves by their own compulsion;" or heartless because he refused to establish faith on feeling and fancy, apart from reflection, and to adopt the slavish maxim, that forms of doctrine, which have been associated with religious ideas are to be received implicitly, -are not to be examined whether they stifle the truth or convey it rightly? No it is not from a strict and careful examination of his writings that these notions have arisen, but from a partial view of his life and its bearing upon his character. It has been thought that he led too exclusively a life of contemplation to be thoroughly well qualified for a moral preceptor, that he dwelt too much on the speculative side of philosophy to have, in fullest measure, a true philosopher's wisdom. It has been affirmed that he dealt with " thoughts untried in action, unverified by application, mere exercises of the thinking faculty revolving into itself:" that he "lived a life of thinking for thinking's sake." I can not admit that this is true. Whether or no it would have been better for Mr. Coleridge's own mind and character had he exercised a regular profession, and been less withdrawn from family cares, it is not for me to determine: but this I can affirm,

Word and Spirit gave eternal life to our souls; that by miracle the divine Body and Blood were multiplied as the loaves and fishes had been, and retained the phenomena of bread and wine. This ancient sensuous notion of the Real Presence is definite enough; and equally definite is the modern spiritual notion, that by the Body and Blood we are to understand the lifegiving power and influence of the Redeemer upon our whole being, body and soul, and that this power of eternal life is conveyed to us in an especial manner when we receive the appointed symbols in faith. The sensuous tenet has been exchanged for the spiritual doctrine because that sensuous tenet was no mere mystery but a plain absurdity,-a poor, weak, grovelling shallow conception. Yet this low conception preserved the substantial truth it was a cocoon in which the spiritual idea was contained, as in a tomb-cradle, buried, yet kept alive. The spiritual ideas contained in the doctrine of the Eucharist, and the intellectual statement of the doctrine, are of course different things; the former ought to be positive and certain,the latter intelligible and distinct.

that to represent him as having spent a life of inaction, or of thinking without reference to practical ends, is an injustice both to him and to the products of his mind. To write and to think were his chief business in life; contemplation was the calling to which his Maker called him; but to think merely for thinking's sake,-merely for the excitement and pastime of the game, is no man's calling; it is an occupation utterly unworthy of a rational and immortal being. Whether or no he deserves such a judgment let men determine by a careful survey of his writings; in connection with all those studies which are necessary in order to make them understood; let them pronounce upon his character afterwards; perhaps they will see it with different eyes, and with clearer ones when they have finished the course. I can not of course attempt here to vindicate his claim to some "gift of genuine insight," as an ethical writer; but in reference to the remarks lately cited I ask, of what sort are the thoughts dealt with in The Friend, the Aids to Reflection, the Lay Sermons, the Church and State, the Literary Remains? May it not be said that, of the thoughts they contain, one large class, that relating to politics, can not, by their nature, "issue out of acts," -out of the particular acts of an individual life,- -or be tried and applied in action by the individual who treats of them, though they tend to acts and are to have practical consequences; seeing that they relate to national movements, interests of bodies, dealings of communities; while another still larger class, which concern the moral and spiritual being of man, are capable of being tried and verified in the life of every Christian, whether he be given to outward action, or whether activities of an inward character, have been his chief occupation upon earth? To deny their author this practical knowledge and experience would be a satire on his personal character rather than a review of his philosophical mind. All the poetry, all the poetical criticism which my Father produced has a practical end; for poetry is a visible creation, the final aim of which is to benefit man by means of delight. As for his moral and religious writings, if practical wisdom is not in them, they are empty indeed, for their whole aim is practical usefulness-the regulation of action, the actions of the heart and mind with their appropriate manifestations—the furtherance of man's well-being here and hereafter. This remark, that my Father lived a life of thinking for thinking's sake is either

the severest of judgments, more severe than his worst and most prejudiced enemies ever passed on him in the heat of conflict, or it is no censure at all, but rather a commendation; inasmuch as the soul is better than the body, and mental activity nobler than corporeal.

It may interest the reader to see, in conclusion, Mr. Coleridge's own opinion of an excessive practicality, or what is commonly so called, for the term is commonly, though I believe incorrectly, applied to a mere outward activity. Thus he spoke of an excellent man, whom he deeply honored and loved, to his friend Mr. Stutfield :

"I was at first much amused with your clever account of our old and valued friend's occupations-but, after a genial laugh, I read it again and was affected by its truth, and by the judicious view you have taken. My poetical predilections have not, I trust, indisposed me to value utility, or to reverence the benevolence, which leads a man of superior talents to devote himself to the furtherance of the Useful, however coarse or homely a form it may wear, provided, I am convinced that it is, first, actually useful in itself, and secondly, comparatively so, in reference to the objects in which he would or might otherwise employ himself. . . . . It seems to me impossible but that this incessant bustle about little things, and earnestness in the removal of stupid impediments, with the irritations arising out of them, must

*Men who are given to outward action think all else idleness or worse, while men of thought can estimate their usefulness and do them honor, when they are consistent and at one with themselves. But thought is the active business of a certain part of mankind. Literary men and teachers who affect to be men of the world and unite a great deal of ordinary practicality with their peculiar vocation, are apt to become low in their aims and superficial in execution. A poet is, in my opinion, far better employed in perfecting an ode, if it be worth writing at all, or conforming a drama to the rules of art, than in directing a farm or regulating a railway or arranging a public spectacle. If his poetry is what poetry ought to be, it is worth the devotion of all his time and energies, save what are required for the charities of life, or for procuring the means of subsistence.

The article in the Quarterly, referred to above, speaks so well and powerfully of Mr. Wordsworth, that I the more regret its containing any thing calculated to strengthen misunderstandings in regard to my Father. They who best understand the Poet and Philosopher best understand the Philosophic Poet his Friend. Let them not be contrasted, but set side by side to throw light and lustre upon each other.