actualities, projected back into
Nature, and considered as the internal framework of things--the skeleton
by which matter is sustained. But this new form of the old realism is by
no means the most startling of the physio-philosophic principles. We
presently read that,

"The highest mathematical idea, or the fundamental principle of all
mathematics is the zero = 0."....

"Zero is in itself nothing. Mathematics is based upon nothing, and,
_consequently_, arises out of nothing.

"Out of nothing, _therefore_, it is possible for something to arise; for
mathematics, consisting of propositions, is something, in relation to
0."

By such "consequentlys" and "therefores" it is, that men philosophise
when they "re-think the great thought of Creation." By dogmas that
pretend to be reasons, nothing is made to generate mathematics; and by
clothing mathematics with matter, we have the universe! If now we deny,
as we _do_ deny, that the highest mathematical idea is the zero;--if, on
the other hand, we assert, as we _do_ assert, that the fundamental idea
underlying all mathematics, is that of equality; the whole of Oken's
cosmogony disappears. And here, indeed, we may see illustrated, the
distinctive peculiarity of the German method of procedure in these
matters--the bastard _a priori_ method, as it may be termed. The
legitimate _a priori_ method sets out with propositions of which the
negation is inconceivable; the _a priori_ method as illegitimately
applied, sets out either with propositions of which the negation is
_not_ inconceivable, or with propositions like Oken's, of which the
_affirmation_ is inconceivable.

It is needless to proceed further with the analysis; else might we
detail the steps by which Oken arrives at the conclusions that "the
planets are coagulated colours, for they are coagulated light; that the
sphere is the expanded nothing;" that gravity is "a weighty nothing, a
heavy essence, striving towards a centre;" that "the earth is the
identical, water the indifferent, air the different; or the first the
centre, the second the radius, the last the periphery of the general
globe or of fire." To comment on them would be nearly as absurd as are
the propositions themselves. Let us pass on to another of the German
systems of knowledge--that of Hegel.

The simple fact that Hegel puts Jacob Boehme on a par with Bacon,
suffices alone to show that his standpoint is far remote from the one
usually regarded as scientific