where I can see my mother. Let the last sensation which I feel in the body, be the impression of her lips upon my cheek, and let the last sound my departing spirit hears be the voice of my mother, whispering "Jesus" in my cold ear. Mother, shouldst thou pass to thy rest before me, I'll steal, at midnight, to the cemetery, and kneeling on thy grassy couch, I'll sing that sweet hymn I first learned from thy lips

"There is a land of pure delight,

Where saints immortal reign."

"HOPE ON, HOPE EVER."

BY MRS. EDWARD THOMAS.

An! that will she, "hope on, hope ever."-
'Tis woman's nature! what can sever
The hope that springeth fresh and green
Rath from her heart? though oft is seen
Threat'ning to blight its blossoms there,
The fierce sirocco of despair,

It can but blast with partial pow'r
The imperishable flower!

"Hope on, hope ever,"-yes, when wo
Teaches the heart, alas! to know

All is not cloudless in the sky

That love paints to the young bride's eye,
That sorrow dims its sun awhile,
And many tears succeed one smile,
Still looks she to a hand on high,

"A helping hand," those tears to dry!

"Hope on, hope ever"-oh the same
When fever, with devouring flame,
Prostrates the babe she thought in love
Had been sent to her from above.
God searcheth that sad heart, and sees
Submission to his dread decrees;
Lo! in his breast compassion waxeth,
And he the bow of death relaxeth.

"Hope on, hope ever"-when at last
Earth's "bridge of sighs" is safely past,
Then hope its primal tints resume,
Verdant in amaranthine bloom;
The hope the chasten'd Christian feels
When Heaven's Majesty reveals
To the initiated eye
The glories of eternity!

INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY.

THIS science is often classed among those which are allowed to be of the least practical use. No study or pursuit may claim to be exempted from the test of utility. I would not circumscribe the jurisdiction of the tribunal which unfolds and applies the law involved in the venerable cui bono? but rather extend it. I would submit to its examination and judgment divers customs and practices which, in the language of Lord Brougham applied to a royal duke, are "respectable by courtesy," but without any other claim to toleration. It is one of the most promising signs of the times, that the law of utility-the law of reason-is beginning to diffuse itself over the region of human affairs, so long usurped by caprice and wilfulness, and trampled down by the rabble multitude of instincts and passions.

The objections to Intellectual Philosophy, as a general study, are comprised in these two:

1. That it has no settled principles; and

2. That it is incapable of any useful application.

My estimate of this science is entirely different from the one implied in these objections. In every view-in the nobleness of its subject, the certainty of its conclusions, and the universality of its practical applications-I am disposed to concur with those who assign to the philosophy of the mind a high place among the most useful branches of knowledge. In one respect it must rank above them all. It involves the ultimate principles of all other knowledge. The laws of the intellect, as constituted by the God of Truth, form the standard of all belief, and the data of all knowledge. But to the objection of uncertainty.

For my part, I have never found, within the legitimate bounds of this branch of knowledge, the clouds and darkness which some have imagined to rest upon it. In every subject, human knowledge has its limits. Its circle is bounded on every point by mysteries. Our most certain knowledge is connected with the incomprehensible. In short, our understandings are finite. Within the space to which our faculties are limited, we shall find interminable series of certain truths, and truths of the highest moment: beyond we shall find nothing but delusion and error. Mental philosophy, just as every other science, has its field of facts; and this field is bounded on its whole frontier by the dim unknown. Beyond this frontier, Imagination may sport her shadowy forms, but Knowledge finds no object. It is admitted that we can know nothing of the mind but its operations; these are the proper, the sole objects of the philosophy of the

mind-just as the phenomena of matter are the proper objects of physical science. We know nothing, and can know nothing of matter, but the phenomena it offers to our observation, and the laws which regulate their succession. We can know nothing of mind, but the facts of thought, feeling, and will, and the laws of their succession. Modern writers on intellectual philosophy discard all attempts to search beyond this well-defined field of facts. The utility of this science will be illustrated by considering its great extent, and close connection with several studies of acknowledged importance.

Mind and its operations form a subject of no less extent than that part of the universe which falls under its knowledge. Mental philosophy follows the mind in all its operations-these are its subjects. Though limited to facts, it has a field of indefinite extent. It presents, indeed, a larger share for investigation than that portion of external nature which lies within the limits of its knowledge. Its operations are not confined to the sphere of actual existence. It forms creations of its own. It combines the elements of nature into new forms. It embodies the principles of its own being in fictitious characters.

"The beings of the mind are not of clay;
Essentially immortal, they create
And multiply in us a brighter ray,
And more beloved existence."

It is the mind thus occupied about the things of nature, and its own creations, which forms the subject of intellectual philosophy. Is there, among created things, a worthier subject of study? Is there one which it more concerns us to understand?

Another reflection presents, in a strong light, the great extent and usefulness of the philosophy of the mind. Man is the great subject of literature. What is history, but the development of humanity? The mastery of the past-the spell which calls up buried generations. What does it reveal to us? Beings who have thought, and felt, and acted like ourselves. History shows us our common nature, in an infinite variety of circumstances; and all the characters it hands down to us, are embodied illus trations of the principles which exist in our own minds. Our sympathies with the race are strengthened by the recognition of our common humanity in all its individuals. What is poetry, but a delineation of human thought and emotion? And by what principles do we judge of the truth of delineation? By referring it to the laws which regulate the succession of our thoughts and emotions. The principles of enlightened criticism are laws of the mind. Criticism is a branch of mental philosophy. The productions of the poet and writer of romance must be framed agreeably to the laws of the mind, or the performance is faulty.

ture.

Man, intellectual and moral man, is the great subject of literaIn proportion as the elements of his intellectual nature are revealed-in proportion as light is thrown upon the unfathomed depths of human emotion-we shall be supplied with the materials of a richer and a nobler literature. I am unable to discover any soundness in the theory which regards the infancy of civilisation as the period most favorable to poetry. I can never believe that the worship of the beautiful declines with advancing intelligence. I cannot appreciate the theory that imagination must lose its vigor when new and boundless materials are offered for its use. I cannot believe that the principles of human nature which form the staple of the highest poetry, were ever more deeply felt in the movements of the world than they are at present. I can find nothing in the past which justifies the conclusion, that there was ever a period when the exhibition of all that is beautiful and great in character would have been better appreciated, or met by a deeper or a wider sympathy. I think it cannot be disputed, that the best English poetry of the last half century owes much to the successful cultivation and general diffusion of mental philosophy. It is blamed by some for its metaphysical character. The censure amounts to this; that it has passed beyond the common-places which, in the view of those whose souls are fashioned in the mould of custom, circumscribe poetical propriety. A better mental philosophy, and new principles called into action, and new fountains of emotion. opened by the events of the times, have given a higher character to our literature, a character which answers to the wants of the age. And mental and moral philosophy is receiving back from our popular literature a rich harvest of materials and illustration. It would be hard to say that the philosophy of mind and morals owes less to the intuitions of genius preserved in our lighter literature, so called, than to the investigations embodied in scientific treatises. "Every poem," says Mackintosh, "every history, every oration, every picture, every statue, is an experiment on human feeling, the grand object of investigation by the moralist. Every work of genius in every department of ingenious art and polite literature, in proportion to the extent and duration of its sway over the spirits of men, is a repository of ethical facts, of which the moral philosopher cannot be deprived by his own insensibility or the iniquity of the times, without being robbed of the most precious instruments and valuable materials of his science. Moreover, letters, which are closer to human feeling than science can ever be, have another influence on the sentiment with which the sciences are viewed, and the activity with which they are pursued, on the safety with which they are preserved, and even on the mode and spirit in which they are cultivated:

they are the channels by which ethical science has a constant intercourse with general feeling. As the arts called useful maintain the popular honor of physical knowledge, so polite letters allure the mind into the neighborhood of the sciences of mind and morals."

In this view, I cannot but regard the psychological complexion of our more recent literature, as one of the truest indications of the advancement of a higher and more spiritualized philosophy.

Mental philosophy has been depreciated, because it has no tendency to promote the external prosperity of individuals and communities. This objection would be of weight, if our welfare consisted wholly, or chiefly, in external possessions, and if the perpetual absorption of all the energies of intellect and feeling in the pursuit of these possessions was the right state of a human soul.

It is most true, that the minds of men are, by the force of circumstances, by constant occupation about the objects of the senses, materialized, as it were. Our very language has the impress of materialism upon it. Habits of thought, acquired by constant attention to external objects, have been more or less carried into all our inquiries concerning the mind. There are frequent attempts to explain the operations of mind by laws collected from an entirely distinct department of nature; attempts to assimilate two classes of phenomena which have nothing in common. Hence the doctrine of philosophical necessity, as some have taken the liberty to call the theory which binds the every act of every intelligent existence, in an inexorable chain of necessary causes and effects; a theory which blots out of existence the innate activity of mind, and substitutes the passiveness of matter in its place. We must attribute to the same cause, the early and continued occupation of the mind about external objects, the extreme difficulty which most men experience in forming any distinct conception of the phenomena of mind, independent of some illustration borrowed from the material world. There is much involved in this indistinctness of all conceptions relating to the spiritual world. May I not say that it has an incalculable influence on the morals of the world? With these dim, uncertain conceptions of everything relating to the mind, as a distinct and independent existence, what practical hold can the conviction of its immortality acquire on human belief?

"Debased by sin and used to things of sense,
How shall man's spirit rise and travel hence,
Where lie the soul's pure regions ?"

Has it not faculties to converse with the spiritual and the immortal to break the bonds which tie it down to earth? Shall