personal individual want, by which the most extravagant notions of personal liberty are set up, which are even more destructive than the internal conceptions of Transcendentalism, for the reason that the experiences of Unitarianism are the most external and affectional or feminine that are ever realized by the soul, and it is therefore the most demonstrative and externally destructive. Even those who are now leaving the Protestant Church do not come into a primitive Unitarian condition, but into this more internal and fanatical phase of it: so that the strange and somewhat confusing phenomenon is now presented to us, of Protestantism, Unitarianism, and Transcendentalism joining in one common crusade against all the legitimate ideas which belong to a supernatural order of thought, and all the productive institutions which have been founded upon them; demanding the destruction of Ecclesiasticism, which is stigmatized as "the despotism of Babylon," and universal individual freedom for all the nations and races of mankind.

As a system of Belief, TranscendentaĦsm is realized by the incarnation, in conscious internal conceptions, of intuitions from the destructive laws of the Reason, which are the inversions of those ideas relating to universal causes, or to the nature of Being and of Existence, which are realized in its legitimate natural development; by internal conceptions of the destructive laws of the Sentimental Nature, which demand universal individual self-assertion and self-gratification; and by the application of these laws in producing theories of belief and of life. Its religious element was conceived and applied in realizing conceptions of God, of the Soul, and their relations, by Jacob Böhme, a German theosophist, or mystic, of the sixteenth century. Its moral element was specifically developed, a century later, by Emanuel Swedenborg, a German naturalist, who, after devoting the greater part of his life to the investigation of physical substance, in the hope of discovering in this way the nature of the Soul, became a somnambulist, or clairvoyant, as it is now called, and in this externally unconscious condition became receptive of supernatural impressions, mostly of an external character, in the form of visions; in which he supposed himself to receive immediate communications, through glorified spirits, of divine truths, which he systematized and proclaimed as "The New Christian Religion." These works of Böhme and Swedenborg constitute the Transcendental Scriptures, or Sacred Books, and are freely and variously interpreted and received by individuals through the

The

unconscious operation of the same destructive powers of the mind through which they became realized. From the extremely internal and abstract character of the religious system of Böhme, and from the fact, that, in the inversion of Truth by him, opposite conditions of being are so stated that only an apparent opposition exists between them, and these are again so confounded that it is difficult to separate them, they have been extremely difficult to investigate, and consequently slow in gaining attention. writings of Swedenborg, although, on the contrary, extremely external and practical, are so completely dogmatic and contradictory, and are so pervaded by irrationality, that they are almost as difficult to comprehend as those of Böhme, and the interpretations of them are therefore of the most extreme and diversified character; but that he is regarded by the Transcendentalists as, before all others, the great moral teacher, is shown in the following extract from Mr. Emerson's lecture on Swedenborg: "The insight of Swedenborg, the correction of popular errors, annunciation of ethical laws, take him out of comparison with any other modern writer, and entitle him to a place vacant for some ages among the lawgivers of mankind. Plato is a gownsman his garment, though purple and almost sky-woven, is an academic robe, and hinders action with its voluminous But this mystic is awful to Cæsar. Lycurgus himself would bow." As Transcendentalism does not correspond with this, but with another atmosphere, it cannot here be carried out into all its consequences; so that all the changes which it is calculated to produce in the theories of individuals, and in the condition of society, cannot here be known, except as we can anticipate the consequences of such causes. The fact of development within outwards, however, is here more striking than in the phenomena of Unitarianism, for the reason that it has a

moral

the

folds.

from

more

positive religious development, which that has not; and its religious and moral developments are therefore seen to succeed each other in the most unmistakable manner in the writings of its founders ; while its growth from below upwards may be seen in the internal and destructive character of its manifestations through the individuals who are affected by it. The peaceful, beneficent, and conservative position of Swedenborg presents a marked trast to the palpably fanatical and destructive manifestations which are now being realized in this country from the increased activity of the destructive sentimental laws, and which, if not stayed by Him who hath "measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,"

con

and saith, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed," must end in its destruction. We have now shown that the three systems of belief which have been realized through the development of the Sentimental Nature from a self-conscious, comprehensible point of view, have been developed from within outwards, and have, at the same time, obtained a growth from below upwards, according to the universal law of Succession that has here been stated; and that in each one has been realized a form destructive to Christianity.*

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE LAW OF CIRCULARITY

IN THE

HISTORY OF THE STATE,

AND THE

MANIFESTATIONS OF THE SOCIAL INSTINCT.

THE two manifesting principles in the State, which stand in the relation of internal and external, are Democracy and Aristocracy; these being, as we have already seen, Internalism and Externalism, or Universalism and Individualism, in social life: the first, the representative and exponent of Social Right; and the second, of Individual Right, which we have shown to be the right of the strongest, and to identify might and right. As we have already, in our analysis of Society, shown these principles to be antagonistic, and related as vital and destructive; and as we have also shown that Democracy is in harmony both with a vital socialistic law, and with the Church, as the vital element in Society, -it only remains for us to show that something like a true social condition, in which Democracy, as the exponent of this vital law, was a governing principle, has at some time existed; in which the individual was not considered or recognized, except as a member of the State; and in which the sacrifice of individual for the sake of the general good was not a rare but an ordinary occurrence among the people, as well as a social demand provided for by the laws. We say, it only remains for us to show that such a state has actually existed, and has been succeeded by a state of civilization, in which—instead of an all-pervading sentiment of patriotism, a desire for public instead of private good, and the recognition of social instead of individual right as the animating principle to individual activity-we find a passion for individual and family aggrandizement, and a jealous guardianship of individual rights. What, then, is the information which history communicates upon this subject?

Such a disposition and such customs as we have now described as belonging to a true social condition, we find to have existed among the Spartans, and subsequently among the Romans; and such laws we find to have been instituted, and most cordially responded to by the members of the Spartan and Roman Commonwealths, as any one may learn by referring to Plutarch, who is a reliable and recognized authority. Of the Spartans, he says, "Like bees, they acted with one impulse for the public good, and always assembled about their prince. They were inflamed with a thirst for honor, an enthusiasm bordering upon insanity, and had not a wish but for their country." It will be seen, even from this short extract, that these social results were not the production of arbitrary laws, enacted contrary to the will of the people, as some, who cannot conceive of such, or of any true social condition, have been led to suppose; but were produced from the popular heart, of which these laws were only the exponent. The vital social ideas embodied in these laws were spontaneously recognized by the masses, and not only willingly submitted to, but demanded as the most pressing want of the individual, because a vital social principle must at this time have constituted the governing affectional law of the individual in his development from within outwards. It is true, that, as the growth of the individual is from below upwards, the social principle must be manifested at the commencement of society in the rudest possible manner, although this rude manifestation is the highest social form that is possible in a natural sphere of consciousness. We are not, therefore, to expect to find in the history of these early Commonwealths the highest results of social combination, but only the most external representation of the highest social form.

The form of society in these ancient Commonwealths was Aristocratic; and this was necessary, because, as we have already shown, the aristocratic principle must furnish the form through which the democratic principle becomes manifested, and this form is therefore demanded by it: but the laws by which they were governed may be seen to be democratic in their character, because they provided for the good of the State, or of the whole people, and made the good of every individual subordinate to this, as the only means by which the greatest good of all could be obtained. The necessity for the manifestation of democracy through an aristocratic form, as well as the fact of opposition between the form and the substance, may be well illustrated by reference to