The North American Review (Volume 35) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: But, although we cannot regard this system as the ultimatum of intellectual philosophy, yet is the science deeply indebted to Cousin, for the new light bestowed by his genius, and the attraction with which he has clothed a subject, often unjustly and ignorantly depreciated. ' La philosophic,' says Madame de Stael, ' est la beaute de la pensee; elle atteste la dignite de 1'homme, qui peut s'occuper de 1'eternel et de 1'invisible, quoique tout ce qu il y a de grossier dan sa nature Ten eloigne.' We are not among the number of those, who regard the labors of the metaphysician,?even when unsuccessful,?as altogether wasted. The evils of a speculative and visionary mind are not those which it behoves us, in the present day, especially to guard against. The calculations of interest and the division of labor are every where chaining down men's minds to a point, and we rejoice that there are spirits of higher range abroad, though their flight be in the clouds, whose call may rouse us to a sense of the grand features and broad principles of humanity. Art. III.?Life and Times of Richard Baxter. The Life and Times of the Rev. Richard Baxter, with a Critical Examination of his Writings. By Rev. Wjljliah Okme, author of the Life of John Owen, D. D., Bihlio- theca Biblica, Sic. lu two volumes. Boston. Crocker andBrewster. 1831. It is not our intention to enter into any.extended examination of this work; the general character of Baxter being, as we may suppose, already familiar to most of our readers, We shall only advert to a few leading features in the history of this emi-: nent man, whose eventful life, and the noble principles by which it was actuated, might furnish copious subjects for reflection. Both these are exhibited by the author of the volumes before us, who has shown h...