REMARKS.-How singular, in the dim twilight of a semilegendary age, to find a thought so noble-a system of ethics which propounds the great fact that in the government of the reason and the passions man's true good consists! What are Time and Space but the grand planes on which the eternal Geometer works out the infinitely varied theorems and problems of creation? Time and Space are admeasurable, and, therefore, subject to numerical laws. Number, therefore, is the prime thought in which they both culminate and find their highest utterance. This notion of Number continually necessitates the conceptions of proportion and relation; and the last term in which these two thoughts blend themselves into one all-embracing harmony is Order. Thus the thought rises upwards to the Highest; nor is its efficacy less in descending into human activity. Duty is the geometry of the soul-the practical correlation of circumstance and being. At the time, and in the then state of human society, this was no vague, semi-mystic, philosophic dream-the fountain-gush of an untrained ardent mind; it was a deep, abiding, settled, and significant conviction, actualizing itself as such in the school of Crotona. Nor is the thought even yet effete. Its gorgeous radiance gleams along the whole pathway of speculation, and is effectful at the present hour. The Pantheistic tendency of the whole Pythagoric theory is clear and palpable; yet this was not a tenet of the school. The human mind is adverse to an impersonal deity, and tends more naturally to frame some visible, or at least thinkable, form in which it may embody its idea of the Divine. No system of sheer abstract Pantheism could, in such an era of thought, be received by men. The Pythagorean Monad was not, therefore, to his mind, an abstraction in which no personality inhered; but a true living God, out of which All is, and in whom All exists; the eternal Being, out of which Existence springs, and from which Life, in its individual and personal forms, deciduates. We object to the attribution of our inferences from the opinions of the philosophic zetetics of antiquity to them, and contend that charity demands that wherever we can we should credit those great men with all that is most favourable in their speculative creed. Truth is charitable; Error alone is jealous of her dominion over human thought. To us let every creed be sacred, which has been in any degree useful in erecting those NOBLE SENTIMENT.-The Creator does not intend that the greatest part of mankind should come into the world with saddles on their backs, and bridles in their mouths, and a few ready booted and spurred to ride the rest to death.-Rembold. Philosophy. IS MAN THE CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCES? NEGATIVE ARTICLE.-III. By an analysis of the convertible terms of the proposition under discussion, the present question is virtually resolved into an inquiry respecting the operation and subsequent identity of causes as distinguished from effects. The new and equivalent formula, therefore, as now implied, may be stated thus:-Is man the creature or the creator of circumstances? Are all his important actions the causes or the effects of the events by which he is surrounded? Is he possessed of a specific, organic type of character, which, by the force of its inherent vital principle, must ever assert its peculiar identity; or is the idiosyncrasy of his mind the pure resultant of circumstances? Are his affairs guided and controlled exclusively by external things, or is he the presiding genius of his own destiny-the pilot at the helm, invested with power to steer his own course, and to choose his own track-the conqueror of froward circumstances, who constantly presses forward, with hands ever ready to turn to self-advantage every fickle wind and wave, but never allowing these, or other things, to thwart or impede his onward career? It is in this latter capacity that man is beheld in his best and truest light; and it will, therefore, be our purpose to prove that such is indeed his true and natural position, and that he is the great ruler of external events and the sole arbiter of his own fate. For "it is a poor and disgraceful thing," says Foster, "not to be able to reply, with some degree of certainty, to the simple questions, What will you be? What will you do?" Nor can it be believed but he "That made us with such large discourse, That capability and godlike reason A spectacle more pitiable than that of an intelligent and independent being, compelled to succumb to the force of circumstances, can scarcely be conceived. Indeed, in cases like this, the victim generally appears in the light of an unconcerned spectator, rather than the prime actor, of his own downfal. Events would seem to be allowed to flow over him, so submissive is he; passive he is to the last, and then gives up the ghost without a murmur or a struggle. Such is the end of a man who is said, by sym pathizing friends, to be the victim, or creature, of one species of circumstances. But in a world where life is ever a battle, destruction, for individuals of feeble mind and fickle will, is clearly inevitable. The goddess of fortune, like the god of war, must have sacrifices; and these are her victims, just as Falstaff's recruits were food for powder. In instances such as these, the man is inevitably the creature of unfortunate circumstances, precisely as, in ordinary life, simplicity is the tool of cunning, or as irresolution is the slave of the resolute. But in the great majority of cases it must be acknowledged that man is the adjudicator of his own ends. For whatever may have been the temporary effect of the causes which were brought to bear upon his early character, such impressions, if they contravened the original genius of his disposition, are now, by the force of his individual vitality, either completely expunged from the tablets of his mind, or else, if they were genial, they now prove so much intensity added to the first bent of his disposition; either of which views must lead to the same conclusion, and be confirmatory of the fact, that from first to last, the unconquerable vitality of man's soul must ever raise him superior to circumstances. By a judicious application of means, it is easy to develop the faculties of the human mind, or even somewhat to repress its objectionable features; but all this, even in the most plastic of subjects, will never change or modify the primitive character to such an extent as to make man the "creature of circumstances;" for the human mind is composed of separable and counteracting elements, which, in every individual, assume a different degree of strength and development. The functions of the mind may thus be compared to a table of arithmetical figures, the several equations from which (to continue the simile) may be said to present fair criteria of the preponderance of the leading characteristics. It therefore follows that circumstances, in order to produce any tangible effect, must adapt themselves so as to act both negatively and positively—repressing one faculty, and stimulating its antithesis. Now, who can point out an instance in which events have had a force so nicely adjusted, and an influence so intelligently discriminating, as to be available against a multiform structure like this of its own? Man is not a piece of dull inertia-a plastic negation—else_it might follow that events would rise up to enslave him. He possesses an essential and a repellent individuality. Like a strong tree, which spreads its rough limbs abroad, from whence spring the tender leaves of summer, against which alone have the winds of autumn terrors-after every tempest the parent stem is left again and again to assert its vitality-so is it with the human heart; the rough usage of adversity may strip it of its tenderest impulses, or even turn to gall its well of everlasting hope; but the deep lineaments of the primitive character will still remain in all their native dignity. In corroboration of this, let us trace the successive stages of mental growth. During infancy, it will be observed that the mind is solely occupied in acquiring knowledge of external objects. The memory only is now employed; as yet, therefore, there can be no capacity for influence. Next are awakened the imitative and constructive faculties, which evidently may either be incited or retarded from progressing for a time, but only for a time; as in either case the natural tendency or aptitude of the mind will subsequently maintain its right to rule, of which myriads of examples exist. Last of all rises into vigour the noblest part of man-his reason. Now, it is only after this last epoch in his life-history that he becomes fully susceptible of the influence of circumstances. His previous existence was one in which only the dumb aspirations of his being asserted themselves. These, it is true, may, during this time of probation, have had their currents turned another way, or, possibly, completely dammed up; but now that reason has put on her strength, all these previous petty intermeddlings are swept away, and the man stands revealed in all his original identity. At this period he becomes self-reliant in thought and independent in action. An instinct for self-examination arms him against the insinuating operations of circumstances, and he thus rises superior to their influence. Therefore, by availing himself of those events over which he has power, and by means of a judicious management of, and adaptation to, those affairs over which he has no sufficient control, he compels them all to work together for his own good; and thus, instead of being their slave and creature, they become his silent yet powerful servants, and bow to his administrative intelligence. For what are circumstances? They are the results of that weaving of events which is ever going on by man and time. Man, having many aims, has covered the world with an invisible net-work, by which to entrap the objects of his desire. Life is thus filled with cross purposes. These are the eternal barriersthe rough and rude círcumstances-against which the timid beat their wings and die. But it always has been, and ever will be, that the business of life is to pursue our calling and to attain our ends, in direct opposition to all circumstances and all obstacles of every kind. Or can it be supposed, that the power which placed man a responsible and independent being upon the earth should have committed the anomaly of neutralizing this condition, by making him the plastic dupe and impotent creature of the very circumstances of his existence? No; for such a supposition contravenes all our experience of the infinite wisdom of the Creator, and is detrimental to our belief in his administrative omnisciency. This consideration alone appears sufficient to decide the question in the negative. It will thus be seen, that we readily admit, in a certain qualified manner, the existence of a class of what is commonly called the creatures of circumstances. But an affirmative reply to the question at issue must imply that all men, or, at least, the majority of them, are in the like predicament, which we deny; and it therefore follows, that the question, considered in this new phase, has now become one of degree. Consequently, Are the majority of persons the mere slaves of circumstances? To this query the reply is undoubtedly in the negative. And in order to establish this conclusion in an emphatic manner, it will be necessary to inquire, first, whether it be not a peculiar organization, or original natural defect of constitution, which renders some men too highly susceptible of influence influence in its generic principle, and independent of its being objective or subjective? and, secondly, what is the extent or prevalence of this organic predisposition? Now, with regard to the first point, it is certain that if we acquiesce in the veto of all philosophers, poets, and men whose extended observation of the human heart entitles them to authority in the matter, it will at once be acknowledged, that this too ready facility, with which some individuals are led away by generic influence, arises usually from the presence of innate defectiveness, and not from the inherent force of circumstances and as to the second point, it will also be acknowledged that this mental defect is the characteristic of two separate classes of the community; viz., the feeble in purpose, and the plastic in nature. These classes may otherwise be designated, the slaves of impulse, and the slaves of circumstances. Now, the latter class, in point of numbers, is undoubtedly in the minority. Thus, therefore, by this further separation, we advance another step towards the final negative conclusion. : But this analysis may be carried still further into the character of the two classes above (to which the discussion is now confined and narrowed), and it will then appear still clearer that, as a rule with few exceptions, man is the prime mover of all those events which affect his mental character and terrestrial wellbeing. Since, then, man produces circumstances, he is their first cause their originator. They are consequently his creatures, not he theirs. Let this fact be granted, and who can deny it ?-and then it must follow, as the day follows night, that man and circumstances are, as far as this question is concerned, virtually identical, the man and his acts being, in this abstract bearing, one and the same thing. When, then, in ordinary life, we are said to combat with circumstances, we consequently combat, at the same time, virtually with men. We then stand in the same relation to the one as we do to the other. And hence, by extending the principle here implied, it follows, that if we are the creatures of circumstances, we are also, at the same time, |