Chapter IV (1)

In the beautiful dawn Dick awoke, hardly remembering where he was, and almost frightened at the wonderful absence of many noises which had never before failed to greet his waking. Not knowing whether it were very late or very early, Dick took the safest view of the subject, and hurriedly dressed himself; then, cautiously opening his door, he looked out to see if there was any sign to guide his further movements: All was silent around him; but the hall door stood wide open, letting in a square of golden sunshine at the foot of the stairs. He went carefully and noiselessly down, and found himself, when he reached the porch, in a flood of glorious light. The flowers that hung above the porch were sparkling in it, for the dew was yet fresh on all the world; a thousand birds were carolling songs of exultation from every tree, while the cool, fragrant morning air came to him in the freshest, purest breezes that ever were known.

Even the pebbles, from which the sun had not yet kissed away a single dew-drop, were sparkling like jewels as Dick approached them on his way to the little rustic gate under the evergreen arch. He stood leaning over it a long time, looking down the cool, shadowy lane, his heart joining in the joyous morning hymn of nature, for the first time heard.

He was standing by the gate, enjoying all, when new voices reached his ears--human voices--and the children all at once came rushing from the garden at the back of the house, in a tumult of delight, surrounding him almost before they were aware of his presence, so intent were they upon their mission to the village.

"Me doing to the 'tore!" exclaimed little Trot, rubbing her hands. "Me dot a pocket."

Which double hint Dick took at once by putting pennies in the "pocket," much to her delight and the older ones' annoyance.

"For shame, Trot!" said Will, "that's as bad as asking; and you can't go to the store either; you'll get wet, the grass is all wet. 'Tan't no good for girls; you stay home."

Whereupon Trot rubbed her brown little fists in her eyes, and loudly bewailed her misery in being only a girl, showing also that she had a will of her own that by no means acknowledged this big boy as its lord and master. Dick attempted to show him that whereas Trot's dress was already a finger deep with wet from the long grass through which she had been tramping all the morning so far, it couldn't make much difference if it got a little wetter. But Will was firm, and Trot inappeasable, until, much to our hero's relief, the noise brought out Rose, who was greatly ashamed of Trot for making "such a time before the strange gentleman," and very firmly decided for Will. In some magic way she sent the boy portion unencumbered by any of the weaker sex, on their way rejoicing, found something for the girls to do, and took Trot's hand so resolutely that not a sob was ventured by that small maiden, so that there was again peace in the land.

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Then came breakfast, with a further display of clean calico, a great deal of laughing and merry talk, but in a less leisurely way than at tea, for the day's work was before not behind them. Breakfast finished, the children, our hero, Rose, and Rose's bosom friend, Clara Hays, were sent off to pick berries in the woods. Half the morning they were in getting started; for everybody spoke at once, and everybody hurried and detained everybody else. There were at least a dozen false starts. As soon as seven got to the gate, Trot and Minnie were reported missing; no sooner were Trot and Minnie secured, than some one else was out of the way. But at last they got fairly off, and went down the lane in great glee; the children swinging their pails and baskets in advance, and running back every two minutes to give some valuable information about the road or the woods or the berries, or something equally important. Rose, Clara, and Dick brought up the rear in a manner that showed they had a becoming sense of the responsibility thrown upon them as the elders of the party.

What they did all day in the woods, how many brooks they crossed, who fell in and was fished out with much laughter; how little Trot got in everybody's way, and ate the others' berries as fast as they were picked; how the children met other children on the road; how often all parties rested, and teased each other, and compared the quantity each had picked; and whether Dick, who had soon got over his awkwardness, put his berries into Clara's pail or into Rose's basket, I am not able to relate. I only know they returned at evening very noisy and very tired; and that Rose had a larger stock than any other one of the whole party; and that as she took off her broad-brimmed straw hat, and pushed back the moist curls from her face, this young lady did not go up at once to wash off the purple berry stains from her hands, and to put on the pretty blue muslin with its tiny bit of lace around the neck, but lingered to hear the children, each interrupting the other, until they were nearly all talking at once, tell Mr. and Mrs. Stoffs and Mrs. Alaine the day's adventures. Dick, too, had somewhat to relate, and glanced at Rose while he told it, although it was only what the children had told twice over already, how Mr. Dick--it had come to that with the children--didn't know a turkey from a goose, and had called things by their wrong names all day; whereat Rose laughed with the rest, and then ran up to bathe her glowing cheeks in time to help get tea.

When she came down, she found the children in the same eager excitement, following the two women from kitchen to cellar, from the closet to the table, still telling about the big snake they were sure they had seen run across the path just before them, and the rabbits, and what Minnie had said, and Will had done, and Charley had thought; to all which the listeners gave an attentive ear, laughing when there was need, and surprised at the proper moment. At tea, the day in the woods continued to furnish food for animated discussion, and neither Rose nor Dick looked as if the subject were a tiresome one.

"And how did my little Trot get along?" asked Uncle Carl; but Trot, who was tired, and cross, and impatient for her piece of cake, made no answer.

"Trot tumbled into the water," said Will; "she always tumbles in."

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Then Trot who couldn't bear to be teased, looked as if she were about to cry, but was appeased by a word or two from Rose, and Carl asked who pulled her out.

"Oh! I did," answered Will readily; "I and Mr. Dick."

"I see that Mr. Dick is very good to you," said Mrs. Stoffs, with a kind smile toward our hero, who colored and looked his delight.

"I don't think we can get along without Mr. Dick any more, can we?"

The children declared they could not, and Dick was as pleased as if he had just taken a degree; but Rose said nothing about the matter.

Well, that was a merry, merry week; there were so many things needed, and such long walks were required through the woods, and over the hills, and even down to the beach, in order to procure them, while every errand took all day to perform, that Dick learned to walk on the soft grass without stumbling; even to loiter slowly along by Rose's side, not often looking to see where he placed his feet; and the children were such good tutors that he learned the names of the birds and animals and insects that came in his way, and knew where there had been the best cherries in the spring, where there would be the best place for nutting in the fall, and when the grapes would be ripe, "If only he could be here!"

If only he could be here! But a week is only a week, and it will end, if it has a life-time in its seven days. The last day had come, and they all knew it; there had been a better dinner. "Mr. Dick's last dinner with us, you know," they had said to each other; and something more than sweet-cakes and peaches for tea, for "to-morrow Mr. Dick will not be here." But, for all their consideration, Mr. Dick hardly knew that night if he were eating sweet-cakes or bitter bread.

It was a very quiet evening that followed the last tea at Carlton. The children were more silent than usual; even Trot was not proof against the indescribable feeling that settles over a group from which one is about to take his departure. She climbed into Dick's lap, and--an uncommon thing with that restless maiden--did not offer to leave her position all those long twilight hours. When Miss Brandon rode by--as I forgot to state she did at twilight every evening--her beautiful pony, her long dress, her hat with its drooping feather, her veil fluttering in the evening breeze, her buff gauntlets, and her silver-handled riding-whip--things which had set the whole flock in commotion before--were hardly commented upon. When Mr. Irving, so tall and princely, left her side for a moment, and, coming close to the gate, called after Will, it was found Rose had forgotten the usual bouquet of flowers for the ladies, and had to beg the gentleman to wait. Rose felt very guilty; but Dick endeavored to console her by saying that, without doubt, Mr. Irving was glad to have a little more time with such a beautiful young lady as Miss Brandon; and then fell to praising Miss Mary vehemently--how beautiful she was, how gracious and pleasant to all, and yet always remembering she was a grand young lady. Rose thought it very easy to be good and pleasant when people are rich and beautiful; and then Dick tried to comfort her again, and perhaps with better success than before; for her only answer was a silent act of contrition for the envious thought that had flitted across her mind. Then, still in silence, she cut the flowers that she could hardly more than guess at in the gathering twilight. {666} Dick was silent, too; and yet there was a great deal he would like to have said, even though he little suspected that all he had so far made clear to her was that Miss Brandon was to him like an angel in a picture, or a heroine in some old romance, and that, beside her silent act of contrition, poor little Rose's heart had given one great throb, and had then made an act of resignation beside. But Dick found voice to ask for a good-by flower, which Rose gave; and it may be there were spoken then a few words of more solemn meaning, such as will come when two people, young and fresh, find their skies suddenly glowing above them, and their hearts full of grateful praise to God, who has made life so sweet. And it may be that little Rose, who said her prayers so regularly for all sinners and for all who are tempted, said a few broken, bashful words, exhorting Dick to goodness even in the midst of the "snares of the great city," and that he eagerly caught the words as they fell, promised her never to forget them, and inwardly made a quick cry for God's grace to let him die then rather than do aught to offend him who had showered such blessings upon him. It may be, too, that Rose--the simple-hearted maiden--was sure he would never break the promise, and that their good-by there was a request and a promise each to pray for the other. But if so, it was not said in long paragraphs, with flowing periods; for Rose was too conscientious to detain Mr. Irving a moment longer than needful.

But I am afraid Rose had to make another act of contrition that night; for when Will brought her the money for the flowers--the garden was her own--she would not take it, but told him to divide it among the children, himself, of course, included. Dick thought it very generous of her; but I have my own opinion about that. Too soon for all the last "good-nights" were said, and Dick knew he had spent out his last evening in Carlton for who could tell how long? Yet his dreams were not sad. If he did not actually believe he was riding on a splendid great horse, by the side of a fair damsel on a white pony, down the shadowy lane, into the broad road of the future; that he had given Carl a home for life, and a load of toys to the children, with, perhaps, an uplifting of his heart, and a readiness to bear, whatever life should bring him worthy of a faithful Christian, I think it was something "very like it."

The next morning there was a hurried breakfast, after which they all went to the little yellow station-house to see him off, and waved their hats and handkerchiefs until the train was out of sight. A little longer, and they had returned in a rambling procession home, each with some remembrance of him to tell the other, while he was in the city at work once more, but as a different Dick Heremore from the one who had said goodby, not without emotion, to his slovenly landlady.

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Chapter v.

When Christmas came around again, and made the first break in the routine of his life after his ever-memorable visit to the country, Dick, now no longer a follower at a distance of that Sunday morning crowd, but a devout and well-instructed Catholic, to whom all the glory and grandeur of the Christmas lights and flowers, the music and the bells, were no longer mysteries; after hearing the grand high mass--not the only one he had heard that day--turned down Fourteenth street, according to the custom of many years, in order that he might pass the Brandons' house, which had ever held a charm for him, since on its broad steps he had first seen the beauty and loveliness of charity. But he was not thinking just then of Miss Brandon, nor of his newsboy days, nor yet of the fast approaching hour when he should present himself at Carl Stoffs's table, in a quarter of the city very different from this, where he was to eat his piece of Christmas turkey. His thoughts, I am afraid, will seem wild ones; but he was young, it was Christmas-day, he had just come from that glorious mass, and the world seemed so small and easy to conquer to one who had heard the "glad tidings," so that he may be forgiven for dreaming, in a less prosaic and unspiritual manner than I can tell you, of a time when he would eat his Christmas dinner neither at a boarding-house nor at another man's board, but would carve his own Christmas turkey, at his own table. Of whatever he was thinking, he did not fail to notice the house, and to glance upward when he came to the stoop where he--was it really he, that rough, shaggy, ragged little newsboy, ignorant and dirty?--where he had, for the first time in his hard young life, heard a voice address him kindly; and his glance changed to a steady gaze of surprise when his eye caught a name on the door-plate that was not Brandon. He looked at the number--that was all right, but the old name was gone. He was perplexed, and walked absently backward and forward for several moments.

"Then Mr. Stoffs was right," he said, "and he" (meaning Mr. Brandon) "has had to come down a peg or two, or he would not have given up his house at this season. I wonder where they have gone now."

He remembered, at this moment, that none of the family had been at Ames & Harden's during the whole fall, and that he had not seen Miss Brandon since she and Mr. Irving had ridden down the lane for the flowers that Rose had forgotten to have ready at the usual hour. It so happened that, remembering the neglected flowers, why they had been forgotten, and how the negligence had been repaired, Dick's thoughts strayed from the graceful figure of the beautiful lady, who had seemed to him more magnificent and gentle than a vision, and turned to another figure, not tall nor stately--to another face, not grand nor graciously sweet.

But when he met Mr. and Mrs. Stoffs, almost the first words he said were,

"I went by the house on Fourteenth street to-day, and Mr. Brandon's name was off the door. I had not heard of their going away."

"It's long ago, though," said Mr. Stoffs.

"Is it any difficulty made them leave their old house?" asked Dick.

"There's been no end of difficulties," answered the German, puffing out great clouds of smoke between every sentence. "Things were bad enough last summer, and when Mrs. Brandon died--"

"Mrs. Brandon dead!" exclaimed Dick.

"Oh! I forgot that was after you left; it was quite an excitement. The horses ran away one night--those same stylish bays of which she was so proud--when she and her daughter were returning from some party, and she was dead before morning."

"And Miss Brandon?" Dick could hardly ask, his terror of the answer was so great.

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"Miss Brandon," answered Mr. Stoffs in a formal way, and puffing out greater clouds of smoke than ever, "Miss Brandon was ill for some days, and they were afraid would never get over the shock; your fine ladies are so nervous!"

"Miss Brandon is not that kind," said Dick hastily, vexed by the contemptuous tone of his friend's remark. "And I don't believe fine ladies are any more--more--fussy than others."

"I suppose you know them well enough to be a certain judge," said Carl, who seemed in a very ugly humor.

"Of course I don't know one in the world," answered Dick, with considerable animation and a deeper color in his face. "But I can't see the good of always running down people, just because they happen to be richer than ourselves."

"Hush! now," interposed Mrs. Stoffs, as her husband was about answering, "or no dinner shall you have this day. I will not let you two quarrel."

"You were going to tell me about Mr. Brandon's difficulties," suggested Dick very gently, after both he and Mr. Stoffs had assured their peacemaker that they were never in better humor toward each other. "You were going to tell me about Mr. Brandon's difficulties."

"Yes. His wife she died, and it was found he had used all her money and had lost it, as he had his own; there was a failure and everything was sold out, and so--there's an end of him."

"Did he leave New-York?"

"I don't know. Who asks what has become of a one-time rich man after the bubble has burst?"

"I think I heard he wanted some situation to start life again," said Mrs. Stoffs. "Poor man!"

Mrs. Stoffs was right. Mr. Brandon had tried to start again; but he had been a hard man in his days of prosperity, and an unfaithful man, or he would not be as he was now; and so, many who heartily pitied him and his family for their fall, and who would willingly have given them assistance out of their own pockets, did not feel justified in giving him a position that could be better filled by some man in whom they could trust. Thus among all his rich friends, not one of whom felt unkindly toward him, there was none to push him a plank with which to save himself from drowning.

Dick had learned all that his hosts could tell, and knowing well how fearfully rapid is a man's fall when once he is over the precipice of failure, his heart was heavier than it had ever been for troubles of his own. He sought to sustain his part in the conversation, feeling that a silent guest seems selfish and ungrateful, and tried to laugh as heartily at his friend's jokes as ever; but it was not without an effort, and his friends were keen and saw that he was troubled.

"I do not like it," Carl grunted in his deepest tones, that Christmas night after Dick had gone and the children were asleep; "I do not like it."

"You must not think too hardly of him," answered Mrs. Stoffs, who, with that sort of perception women obtain when they become wives, knew her husband referred to Dick's troubled manner, the anxious way in which he had asked about Miss Brandon, and his hot resenting of Carl's careless words. "You are too hard on him," said Mrs. Stoffs, not because she did not equally dislike it all, but because there would be no conversation between them if old married folks were always to agree.

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"Fine ladies, indeed!" muttered Mr. Stoffs, puffing away harder than ever. "Miss Brandon--what for should he care if Miss Brandon was hurt, more than for any other lady?"

"She is poor enough now," said Mrs. Stoffs musingly. "It would not be so strange now;" and under her breath she sighed, "Poor Rose!"

"Not that he has one thought of such a thing," Carl went on consistently; "you women always get such ideas into your heads."

Mrs. Stoffs, being an experienced wife, raised no question about the ownership of the "ideas," whatever they were, but sat looking into the fire for a long time before she spoke again, and then it was to say, "After all, I am glad we were too poor to have Rose come up for Christmas."

"If she would not be satisfied with what we had, so am I," grumbled Mr. Stoffs.

"I was not thinking of that," answered his wife mildly.

"I know Heremore's never such a fool as to be thinking of one so much above him as Miss Brandon," remarked Mr. Stoffs.

"She is not above him now that they are poor," answered his wife.

"It isn't the money that made the difference," said Carl rather impatiently, "it's the habits that money gives. That's what is the matter. Miss Brandon may not be half worthy of him, and yet he would be mad to think of her; it is misery when people marry out of their rank, misery to both."

"But if they love each other?" suggested his wife.

"That only makes the matter worse; he knows not her ways. She has a language that is not his; if they did not care, they could go their own ways, and seek their own. I think Heremore is a great fool; I do!"

"I don't believe he has a thought of such a thing," said Mrs. Stoffs; but there was a manifest question in her voice.

"If he has, he'll rue the day he thought of it first," said her husband emphatically; and there the conversation ended; but when Mrs. Stoffs wrote again to Mrs. Alaine, which she did not do for some time--for to write a letter was an event in the honest woman's life--she thought proper to give her sister a hint of that which they had observed; and Mrs. Alaine, in her turn, thought proper to convey the hint, in the form of information, to Rose, who, however, answered readily,

"Love Miss Brandon? Well, mamma, and why shouldn't he?"

"Because Miss Brandon is not in the same class of life that he is, dear."

"I am sure Mr. Heremore is better off than her father is now," urged Rose; "for he has a regular salary, and Mr. Brandon has nothing left, and nobody will give him any place."

"No doubt, my child; but it is not money that makes the difference. Miss Brandon has her ideas of life now just as she had them when she was rich; and Mr. Heremore is what he is, and would not be different if he were suddenly made a millionaire."

So Rose said no more.

While Mr. and Mrs. Stoffs were thus disturbed about him, Dick, unconscious of any cause he had given for their disquietude, was walking slowly and thoughtfully home. "Where was that little Mary with her fair hair and gentle smile this cold Christmas night?" was the question he kept putting to himself. It was a clear, bright night, with the moon shining on the pavements and the frozen earth, not at all such a night as that during which he had slept by her father's steps, and there was no fear that her fair head was shelterless; but still it was very sad to think of her, whose Christmas days had been such pleasant ones, in mourning for her mother, and perhaps in troubles such as those which men hear, but shudder to see, clouding the girlish youth that is so short, and should be so sunny.

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"With God's help I'll find them out before to-morrow night if they are in this city," said Dick to himself, and then walked on more rapidly.

And he kept his word, though not without much trouble; and within twenty-four hours he stood in front of the wretched boarding-house to which poverty and sickness had already reduced the family that, a few months before, had never dreamed of the meaning of want.

But though he had found them out and stood before their door, Dick had done and could do nothing to lessen their trouble. Mr. Brandon had not seemed more unapproachable when, a rich man, he scowled and said hard words to the ill-dressed errand-boy--than he now did to the simple clerk, though Dick himself was richer now than was the once rich merchant. Miss Brandon was, in his eyes, now no less a lady, belonging to a sphere far above him, than she had been when, in all the glory of wealth, youth, and beauty, he had seen her ride down to the Stoffs's cottage to buy flowers for her hair. It seemed to him greater presumption for him to think of approaching her now than it would have been then, so he passed and repassed her door, grieved for her trouble, but more grieved, if possible, that he, with his youth and strength, should be powerless to give her one grain of comfort. How often and often, as he had watched her--she all unconscious of him and his grateful reverence--in her days of prosperity, had he dreamed of her as like some damsel of olden romance in sore distress, and thought that never had knight rushed more joyously or more potently to the rescue than he would to hers. Now his dream had come to pass--she was a damsel in sore distress; but where was his prancing steed, his burnished armor, his ready lance? Then, as he smiled in remembrance of his boyish fancy, he suddenly thought of Mr. Irving, the gentleman--just a boy's ideal of a gallant knight--whom he had seen so often with Miss Brandon in the country. He recollected well the manly bearing of that "perfect gentleman," whom he and Rose had looked upon as a veritable Sir Launcelot; he had seen many an act of "gentle courtesy" shown in a grave, tender way, to the fair lady by whose side he always rode; and where was he now that that fair lady needed her knight as never before?

There was nothing morbid or bitter about Dick. When he asked himself that question, it was with no thought of the common judgment pronounced upon "summer friends." He recognized Mr. Irving's right to aid and comfort the family of his former host. He knew that he had wealth, position, character, and, of course, ample influence, and not for an instant doubted that he would use every means in his power to befriend Mr. Brandon, if only for the sake of that beautiful daughter whom he so evidently admired. Where, then, was Mr. Irving? If he had been here, all this could not have happened. But as Dick asked himself this, it did not occur to him that Mary thought as he thought: if Mr. Irving had been here, all this would not have happened.

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At last Dick, fully convinced that he would be guilty of no presumption in speaking his mind to Mr. Irving on this subject, cheerfully turned his steps homeward, and resolved that the first moment he had of his own should be spent in seeking Mr. Irving, and informing him of what he could not now be aware of, the downfall of the Brandons. For the fall of the Brandons, as he heard from one or two who knew, had been very great, very rapid, and, it was feared, was not yet completed. Mr. Brandon had never held his head up since his failure, but dragged around, shabbily dressed, querulous and half-sick, dejected and clearly miserable. His two sons had been given very poor situations, on very niggardly pay, by a relative in another city, who, having always been odiously cringing to Mr. Brandon when he had money, seemed to delight now in heaping humiliations upon his sons. So great a crime it was in his eyes to be better bred, better educated, and more kindly cared for than were his own rude, blustering, ignorant boys. If only Fred and Joe had been taught whence come adversity and prosperity, doubtless these humiliations would have been crowns of glory for them; but theirs had been only a vague, dreamy sort of faith, which they never suspected had any application to their real life. I dare say they were very idle, useless, self-conceited and aggravating boys; but I can't help feeling sorry for them in their troubles. Miss Brandon, Dick was told, had not recovered her strength since the accident, and however well she might have been, with all her accomplishments, could not have done more than she was now doing: giving music-lessons to a few persons residing near her new home.

But all hope of seeing Mr. Irving faded the first thing the next day; for Dick's questions brought the unwelcome information that he had left home in October for two years' travel in Europe, and Dick, of course, could not presume to write to him.

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Porter's Human Intellect. [Footnote 272]

[Footnote 272: _The Human Intellect; with an Introduction
upon Psychology and the Soul_. By Noah Porter, D.D., Clark
Professor of Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics in Yale
College. New-York: Scribner & Co. 1868. 8vo, pp. 673.]

This formidable volume is, unless we except Professor Hickok's work on _Rational Psychology_, the most considerable attempt that has been made among us to construct a philosophy of the human understanding. Professor Porter is able, patient, industrious, and learned. He knows the literature of his subject, and has no little facility and fairness in seizing and setting forth the commanding points in the views and theories of others; but, while he shows great familiarity with metaphysical and psychological questions, and some justness and delicacy as an analyzer of facts, he seems to us to lack the true philosophical instinct, and that synthetic grasp of thought which seizes facts in their principles and genetic relations, and reduces them to a dialectic whole, without which one cannot be a philosopher.

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The professor's book is a hard, book for us to read, and still harder for us to understand. Its mechanical aspect, with three or four different sizes of type on the same page, is repulsive to us, and prejudices us against it. It is not absolutely dull, but it is rather heavy, and it requires resolution to read it. It has nothing attractive or enlivening, and it deals so much with particulars and details that it is difficult for the reader to carry what he reads along in his memory. Even when we have in our minds what the author actually says, it is not easy to understand it, or determine which of several possible meanings he adopts. Not that his language, though seldom exact or precise, and disfigured occasionally by needless barbarisms, and a terminology which we hope is not yet in good usage, is not clear enough for any one accustomed to philosophical studies, nor is it that his sentences are involved and hard to be construed, or that his statements, taken as isolated statements, are not intelligible; but it is hard to determine their meaning and value from his point of view, and in relation to his system as a whole. His book is composed of particulars, of minute and not seldom commonplace observations, without any perceptible scientific reduction to the principle which generates, co-ordinates, and explains them.

It is but fair to the professor to say, in the outset, that his book belongs to a class of books which we seldom read and heartily detest. It is not a work of philosophy, or an attempt even to give us a science of things in their principles and causes, their progress and destiny, but merely a _Wissenschaftslehre_, or science of knowing. Its problem is not what is or what exists; but what is knowing, how do I know, and how do I know that I know? With all deference to the Fichteans, we venture to assert that there is and can be no science of knowing separate from the science of things, distinct from and independent of the subject knowing. We know, says all that, we know that we know, says. He who knows, knows that he knows; and if one were to doubt that knowing is knowing, we must let him doubt, for we have only knowing with which to prove that knowing is knowing.

We can by no possible anatomical dissection of the eye, or physiological description of its functions, explain the secret of external vision. We are told that we see not external objects themselves, but their pictures painted by the light on the retina, and it is only by them that we apprehend visible objects. But suppose it so, it brings us no nearer to the secret of vision. How do we see the picture? How by means of the picture apprehend the external object? Yet the man who sees knows he sees, and all that can be said is, that to elicit the visual act there must be the visible subject, the visible object, and the light which mediates between them and illuminates them both. So is it with intellectual vision. We may ascertain some of the conditions under which we know, but the knowing itself is to us an inexplicable mystery. No dissection or possible inspection of the soul can explain it, or throw the least light on it. All that can be said is, that to the fact of knowledge, whatever its degree or its region, there must be the intellective subject, the intelligible object, and the intellectual light which places them in mutual relation and illumines alike both subject and object. Having said this, we have said all that can be said. Hence works intended to construct the science of science, or knowledge, are not only useless, but worse than useless; for, dealing with abstractions which have no existence in nature, and treating them as if real, they mislead and perplex the student, and render obscure and doubtful what without them is clear and certain.

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Professor Porter is a psychologist, and places all the activity in the fact of knowledge on the side of the soul, even in the intuition of principles, without which the soul can neither exist, nor think, nor feel. His purpose in his Introduction is to establish the unity and immateriality--spirituality, he says, of the soul against the materialists--and to vindicate psychology not only as a science, but as an inductive science. With regard to the unity and immateriality of the soul, we hold with the professor, though they are not provable or demonstrable by his method; and we recognize great truth and force in his criticisms on materialism, of which we have to deplore in the scientific world, and even in popular literature, the recrudescence. That psychology is, in a secondary sense, a science, we do not deny; but we do deny that it is either "the _prima philosophia_" as the professor asserts, or an inductive science, as he endeavors to prove.

All the inductive sciences are secondary sciences, and presuppose a first science, which is strictly the science of the sciences. Induction, the professor himself maintains, has need of certain first principles, or _a priori_ assumptions, which precede and validate it. How can psychology be the _prima philosophia_, or first philosophy, when it can be constructed only by borrowing its principles from a higher or prior science? Or how can it be the first philosophy, when that would suppose that the principles which the inductive sciences demand to validate the inductive process are contained in and derived from the soul? Is the professor prepared to maintain that the soul is the first principle of all the sciences? That would imply that she is the first principle of things, of reality itself; for science is of the real, not of the unreal. But this were pure Fichteism, and would put the soul in the place of God. The professor would shrink from this. He, then, must have made the assertion that psychology is the _prima philosophia_ somewhat hastily, and without due reflection; unless indeed he distinguishes between the first principles of science and the first principles of things.

The inductive sciences are constructed by induction from the observation and analysis of facts which the soul has the appropriate organs for observing. But psychology is the science of the soul, its nature, powers or faculties, and operations; and if an inductive science, it must be constructed by induction from psychical facts observed and analyzed in the soul by the soul herself. The theory is very simple. The soul, by the external senses, observes and analyzes the facts of the external world, and constructs by induction the physical sciences; by her internal sense, called consciousness, she observes and analyzes the world within herself, and by way of induction from the facts or phenomena she observes, constructs psychology, or the science of herself. Unhappily for the psychologue, things do not go so simply. To this theory there are two grave objections: First, the soul has no internal sense by which she can observe herself, her acts or states in herself; and second, there are no purely psychical facts to be observed.

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The professor finds the soul's faculty of observing the facts of the internal world in consciousness, which he defines to be "the power by which the soul knows its own acts and states." But consciousness is not a power or faculty, but an act of knowing, and is simply the recognition of the soul by the soul herself as the subject acting. We perceive always, and all that is before us within the range of our percipient powers; but we do not always distinguish and note each object perceived, or recognize the fact that it is we who are the subject perceiving. The fact of consciousness is precisely in the simple perception being so intensified and prolonged that the soul not only apprehends the object, but recognizes itself as the subject apprehending it. It is not, as the professor maintains at great length in Part I., a presentative power; for it is always a reflex act, and demands something of memory. But the recognition by the soul in her acts as the subject acting is something very different from the soul observing and analyzing in herself her own powers and faculties.

The soul never knows herself in herself; she only recognizes herself under the relation of subject in her acts. Recognizing herself only as subject, she can never cognize herself as object, and stand, as it were, face to face with herself. She is never her own object in the act of knowing; for she is all on the side of the subject. She cannot be on one side subject, and on the other object. Only God can be his own object; and his contemplating of himself as object, theologians show us, is the Eternal Generation of the Son, or the Word. Man, St. Thomas tells us, is not intelligible in himself; for he is not _intelligens_ in himself. If the soul could know herself in herself, she could be her own object; if her own object, she would suffice for herself; then she would be real, necessary, self-existent, independent being; that is to say, the soul would be God.

We deny not that the soul can know herself as manifested in her acts, but that she can know herself in herself, and be the object of her own thought. I can not look into my own eyes, yet I can see my face as reflected in the glass. So the soul knows herself, and her powers and faculties; but only as reflected from, or mirrored in, the objects in conjunction with which she acts. Hence the powers and faculties are not learned by any observation of the soul herself, but from the object. The soul is a unit, and acts always as a unit; but, though acting always in her unity, she can act in different directions, and in relation to different objects, and it is in this fact that originates the distinction of powers and faculties. The distinction is not in the soul herself, for she is a unit, but in the object, and hence the schoolmen teach us that it is the object that determines the faculty.

It is not the soul in herself that we must study in order to ascertain the faculties, but the soul in her operations, or the objects in relation with which she acts. We know the soul has the power to know, by knowing, to will, by willing, to feel, by feeling. While, then, the soul has power to know herself so far as mirrored by the objects, she has no power to observe and analyze herself in herself, and therefore no power of direct observation and analysis of the facts from which psychology, as an inductive science, must be constructed.

But there are no such facts as is assumed to be observed and analyzed. The author speaks of objects which are purely psychical, which have no existence out of the soul herself; but there are and can be no facts, or acts, produced by the soul's own energy alone. The soul, for the best of all possible reasons, never acts alone, for she does not exist alone. {675} "Thought," says Cousin, "is a fact that is composed of three simultaneous and indissoluble elements, the subject, the object, and the form. The subject is always the soul, [_le Moi_,] the object is something not the soul, [_le non-Moi_,] and the form is always the relation of the two." The object is inseparable from the subject as an element of the thought, but it exists distinct from and independent of the soul, and when it is not thought as well as when it is; otherwise it could not be object, since the soul is all on the side of the subject. The soul acts only in conjunction with the object, because she is not sufficient for herself, and therefore cannot suffice for her own activity. The object, if passive, is as if it were not, and can afford no aid to the fact of thought. It must, therefore, be active, and then the thought will be the joint product of the two activities. It is a grave mistake, then, to suppose that the activity in thought is all on the side of the soul. The soul cannot think without the concurrent activity of that which is not the soul. There is no product possible in any order without two factors placed in relation with each other. God, from the plenitude of his being, contains both factors in his own essence; but in creatures they are distinct from and independent of each other.

We do not forget the _intellectus agens_ of St. Thomas, but it is not quite certain what he meant by it. The holy doctor does not assert it as a faculty of the soul, and represent its activity as purely psychical. Or if it be insisted that he does, he at least nowhere asserts, implies, or intimates that it is active without the concurrence of the object: for he even goes so far as to maintain that the lower acts only as put in motion by the higher, and the terrestrial by the celestial. Hence the _praemotio physica_ of the Thomists, and the necessity in conversion of praevenient grace--_gratia praeveniens_.

But even granting that there is the class of facts alleged, and that we have the power to observe and analyze them, as, in the language of Cousin, "they pass over the field of consciousness," we cannot by induction attain to their principle and causes; for induction itself, without the first principles of all science, not supplied by it, can give us only a classification, generalization, an hypothesis, or an abstract theory, void of all reality. The universal cannot be concluded, by way of induction, from particulars, any more than particulars can be concluded, by way of deduction, from the universal. Till validated in the _prima philosophia_, or referred to the first principles, without which the soul can neither act nor exist, the classifications and generalizations attained to by induction are only facts, only particulars, from which no general conclusion can be drawn. Science is knowledge indeed; but the term is generally used in English to express the reduction of facts and particulars to their principles and causes. But in all the secondary sciences the principles and causes are themselves only facts, till carried up to the first principles and causes of all the real and all the knowable. Not without reason, then, has theology been called the queen of the sciences, nor without warrant that men, who do not hold that all change is progress, maintain that the displacement, in modern times, of this queen from her throne has had a deleterious effect on science, and tended to dissipate and enfeeble the human mind itself. {676} We have no philosophers nowadays of the nerve of Plato and Aristotle, the great Christian fathers, or the mediaeval doctors, none of whom ever dreamed of separating theology and philosophy. Even the men of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had a grasp of thought, a robust vigor of mind, and a philosophic insight into the truth of things and their higher relations that you look in vain for in the philosophers of the eighteenth century and of our own. But this by the way. When things are at the worst, they sometimes mend.

Psychology, not psychologism, is a science, though not an inductive science, nor a science that can be attained to by the study of the soul and her phenomena in the bosom of consciousness. The psychologists--those, we mean, who adopt the psychological method, a method seldom adopted before the famous _cogito, ergo sum_ of Descartes--seem incapable of comprehending that only the real is cognizable, and that abstractions are not real but unreal; and therefore that the first principles of science must be real, not abstract, and the first principles of things. Thus Professor Porter appears to see no real connection between them. True, he says, (p. 64,) "Knowledge and being are correlatives. There must be being in order that there may be knowledge. There can be no knowledge which is not the knowledge of being. Subjectively viewed, to know implies certainty; objectively, it requires reality. An act of knowing in which there is no certainty in the agent, and no reality in the object, is impossible in conception and in fact." This would seem to assert that only being can be known, or that whatever is known is real being, which is going too far and falling into ontologism. Only being is intelligible _per se_; but existences which are from being and participate of being, though not intelligible in or by themselves, since they do not exist in and by themselves, may yet be really known by the light of being which creates them. We know _by_ being, as well as being itself.

But be not alarmed. The professor's being, the only object of knowledge, his reality without which there is no cognizable object, is nothing very formidable; for he tells us, in smaller type, on the same page, that "we must distinguish different kinds of objects and different kinds of reality. They may be _formed by the mind, and exist_ [only] _for the mind that forms them_, or they may exist in fact and space for all minds, and yet in each case they are equally objects. Their reality may be mental and internal, or material and external, but in each case it is equally a reality. The thought that darts into the fancy and is gone as soon, the illusion that crosses the brain of the lunatic, the vision that frightens the ghost-seer, the spectrum which the camera paints on the screen, the reddened landscape seen through a colored lens, the yellow objects which the jaundiced eye cannot avoid beholding, _each as really exists_ as does the matter of the solid earth, or the eternal forces of the cosmical system." The "eternal forces" of the cosmical system can be only God, who only is eternal. So the illusions of fancy, the hallucinations of the lunatic, and the eternal, self-existent, necessary being whom we call God, and who names himself I AM THAT AM, SUM QUI SUM, are alike being, and equally real!

The learned author tells us elsewhere that we call by the name being beings of very different kinds and sorts, owing to the poverty of our language, which supplies but one name for them. He will permit us to say that we suspect the poverty is not in the language. {677} We have in the language two words which serve us to mark the precise difference between that which is in, from, and by itself alone, and that which exists in, from, and by being. The first is _being_, the other is _existence_. Being is properly applied only to God, who is, not Supreme Being, as is often said, but the one only being, the only one that can say, I AM THAT AM, or QUI EST; and it shows how strictly language represents the real order that in no tongue can we make an assertion without the verb TO BE, that is, only by being, that is, again, only by God himself. Existence explains itself. Existences are not being, but, as the _ex_ implies, are _from_ being, that is, from him in whom is their being, as Saint Paul says, "For in him we live, and move, and are," "_vivimus, et movemur, et sumus_." Reality includes being and all that is from and by being, or simply being and existences. Nothing else is real or conceivable; for, apart from God and what he creates, or besides God and his creatures, there is nothing, and nothing is nothing, and nothing is not intelligible or cognizable.

Dr. Porter understands by reality or being only what is an object of knowledge, or of the mind in knowing, though it may have no existence out of the mind, or, as say the schoolmen, _a parte rei_. Hence, though the soul is certain that the object exists relatively to her act of knowing, she is not certain that it is something existing in nature. How, then, prove that there is anything to correspond to the mental object, idea, or conception? In his Second Part, which treats of the representative power, he tells us that the objects represented and cognized in the representation are purely psychical, and exist only in the soul and for the soul alone. These, then, do not exist in nature; they are, in the ordinary use of the term, unreal, illusory, and chimerical, as the author himself confesses. If the object of knowledge can be in any instance unreal, chimerical, illusory, or with no existence except in and for the soul itself, why may it not be so in every instance, and all our knowledge be an illusion? How prove that in any fact of knowledge there is cognition of an object that exists distinct from and independent of the subject? Here is the _pons asinorum_ of exclusive psychologists. There is no crossing the bridge from the subjective to the objective, for there is no bridge there, and subject and object must both be given simultaneously in one and the same act, or neither is given.