cile difficulties,
it is hard to account for the fact that a system
which bears such a test so admirably, should nevertheless
be so incredible as it is.

Most people have heard of the "Harmonie Pre-etablie"
of Leibnitz; it is borrowed without acknowledgment
from Spinoza, and adapted to the Leibnitzian
system. "Man," says Leibnitz, "is composed of mind
and body; but what is mind and what is body, and
what is the nature of their union? Substances so
opposite in kind, it is impossible to suppose can affect
one another; mind cannot act on matter, or matter upon
mind; and the appearance of such mutual action of
them on each other is an appearance only and a delusion."
A delusion so general, however, required to be accounted
for; and Leibnitz accounted for it by supposing that God
in creating a world, composed of material and spiritual
phenomena, ordained from the beginning that these
several phenomena should proceed in parallel lines side
by side in a constantly corresponding harmony. The sense
of seeing results, it appears to us, from the formation of
a picture upon the retina. The motion of the arm or
the leg appears to result from an act of will; but in either
case we mistake coincidence for causation. Between
substances so wholly alien there can be no intercommunion;
and we only suppose that the object seen
produces the idea, and that the desire produces the
movement, because the phenomena of matter and the
phenomena of spirit are so contrived as to flow always
in the same order and sequence. This hypothesis, as
coming from Leibnitz, has been, if not accepted, at
least listened to respectfully; because while taking it
out of its proper place, he contrived to graft it upon
Christianity; and succeeded, with a sort of speculative
legerdemain, in making it appear to be in harmony with
revealed religion. Disguised as a philosophy of Predestination,
and connected with the Christian doctrine
of Retribution, it steps forward with an air of unconscious
innocence, as if interfering with nothing
which Christians generally believe. And yet, leaving
as it does no larger scope for liberty or responsibility
than when in the hands of Spinoza,* Leibnitz, in our
opinion, has only succeeded in making it infinitely more
revolting. Spinoza could not regard the bad man as
an object of Divine anger and a subject of retributory
punishment. He was not a Christian, and made no
pretension to be considered such; and it did not occur
to h