or constructing, at one time, a
deductive Psychology, at another a deductive Physics, at a third a
deductive Ethics, at a fourth a deductive Theory of Progress, at a
fifth a deductive History of Religion, afford more than sufficient
evidence that hitherto the spirit of the Baconian philosophy has been
little understood, and still less appreciated, by our continental
neighbors; and that the efforts of the highest genius have been sadly
frustrated, in attempting the impracticable task of extracting from mere
reason that knowledge which can only be acquired in the school of
experience. This is our _second_ objection.

3. The system of Spinoza is vicious, because it applies a mere
abstraction of the human mind to account for whatever is real and
concrete in the universe. We have no sympathy with those who rail at all
abstract ideas, as if they were imaginary essences or mere illusions; we
recognize the faculty of abstraction as one of the wisest provisions of
Nature, and one of the most useful powers belonging to the mind of
man,--a power which comes into action with the first dawn of infant
intelligence, and is only matured as reason rises into manhood, till it
becomes the internal spring of all Philosophy and Science. Nor do we
hold that an abstract idea is necessarily an unreality, or a mere
negation; for, without reviving the controversy between the Nominalists
and Realists, or pronouncing any decision on the intricate questions
which that controversy involved, we may say, in general terms, that the
idea of a circle, of a square, or of a triangle, is neither unreal nor
negative, but a very positive, and, withal, intelligible thing. It is
the idea of that which is essential to the nature of each of these
figures respectively, and common to all possible figures of the same
class, whatever may be their accidental varieties, whether in point of
dimension or form. And so the idea of Being or Substance, although it be
highly abstract, is not necessarily unreal or negative; it is the idea
of _existence_, or of that which is common to everything that _is_,
abstraction being made of every diversity by which one being is
distinguished from another. Conscious that we ourselves exist, and
observing that other beings exist around us, we strike off the
peculiarities which belong to individuals, and form the general idea
which includes nothing but what is common to all, and yet contains a
positive element, which is the object of one o