the smoke and mist of a curse, the degraded element of the old earth, so that they will share in the blackest, most ghostly raiment for the soul, thereby expressing their own broken, confused and hateful state.

That the righteous will assume their body from the material of the purified earth, is in accordance with the promise by which they shall dwell on a new earth-a final fulfilment of the declaration: The meek shall inherit the earth.' For by means of the assumption of a bodily organization, can they first come to tread, permanently, on this new starry home. But as their organism, or the ideal form of their body, which has its foundation in the spiritual powers as they are developed, purified and formed in the soul, must assimilate to itself the requisite, corporeal, living material from the new earth, so then the resurrection of the flesh also must be taken into the account when we are considering this material.

But how can an incarnation of this sort be viewed as a resurrection of the dead, or as a calling them from the tomb? We answer, first, because the departed spirit has an element for the resurrection, a germ of the seed-corn derived from the old, decayed body. Secondly, as in the old earth there lies the ground or elementary plan by which it may be renovated, so there lies in the ashes of the old life of man a ground for an everlasting growth for man, changed and to be changed. In the third place, as the departed have laid aside those corporeal substances which were entirely fitted to their organization here, so they will assume from the earth what is most appropriate to them, what belongs to them, what may serve as a robe to their spirits, taking again, as it were, their bodies from their graves. Then we are to add, in the fourth place, that the new body will have an organic identity with the old, though the lower organs which were exclusively adapted to the old life will not be found. The new body will be more delicate, more spiritual, fixed to an eternal state, a new, renovated image of the first body.

Thus man's spirit assumes its organization from materials where it is. The same is also true in respect to the how, or the manner of this assumption. The inward, vital energy, the degree of life, the stage of interior development or of deterioration, the ground and the elementary conception, the rude notion and state of cultivation, everything in the inward structure is forced to express itself in the outward form, or at least it struggles towards such an expression. Still

these pictures or ideals here exist first in a process of growth, in constant change, and if they truly correspond in all the finer characteristics, still they are not entirely alike in what meets the eye. The outward appearance of man seems to be often in contrast with his inward condition, when it is not taken into the account that there are many apparent contrasts of this kind, which rest on false assumptions, as to the manner in which the spiritual ought to clothe itself in a corporeal form. A part, however, of the actual contrast depends on the circumstance, that the spiritual nature changes more rapidly than the corporeal. The former is endlessly active in its freedom; the latter, in its immovable state, is in close connection with a natural necessity. But even in the noblest forms, from which we derive our opinion of the beauty of the original element or fundamental ground, there will still appear a kind of reflex action from the inward germ -or a step backward. Now another part of the contrariety in question consists in this, that the earthy man, the ȧvno zoïxós, is created out of spirit into the relations of life; with this natural life, he exists under the influences of the external world, moral as well as physical. The proper development, or culture, of his nature, from within outward, may experience a strong retroactive influence from without, by which it will be modified. The first great action or influence of this kind consists in the manner in which the innate, original nature of man, [as formed by God], is darkened from its lustre through the hereditary, ingrafted depravity of a fallen race. Now as there is a general influence of this native depravity, so there are various special effects which it produces. Thus a child of the most beautiful kind may receive from the blood of its father a cause of sickness, which will disfigure its form. Other similar influences proceed from the manner of life, from one's destiny, from climate, from the national spirit, and from other powerful influences.. All these influences may modify and interrupt the settled arrangements of human life; they enter deeply within. In the most hidden springs of life, however, in the freedom of the spirit, they lose their predominant power, and on that part of our being can only avail in the way of excitement or misleading. Therefore man, however externally deformed, distorted and mutilated, may be again restored from his inward life outward, to the living, perfect beauty of a new man, by applying the means of restoration. In spite of all external hindrances, he may wholly triumph over his outward man by virtue of his

inward movement. Though an apostate man, he may again rise with the help of grace. He can become more than conqueror over the dark force of nature whereby his outward man rules over his inward. And so far as the spirit has not marked out a course for itself, the body does not determine for it, but is itself to be regarded as a disposable power, so that in this sense the words of St. Martin are true," The body is nothing more than a project or draught." As an imperfect plan, the body is only a copy of the nature of the inner man, but not of his moral condition. So also the corporeal form of man here below is no perfect picture of his inner.—But it will be otherwise. At the resurrection, the body will be a perfectly suitable form for the soul. The bodies of the righteous will be pervaded and completely ruled by their spirits, as their spirit is by the Spirit of God. Therefore, they are spiritual bodies, an image of God, similar in fraternal traits to the glorified body of Jesus, 1 John. According to the same law, the forms of the wicked will be hateful, within and without; they will arise to shame..

But along with the glorification, or degradation, of those who shall rise, which has its ground in their inmost being, there is, also, to be considered, as before remarked, their place of residence. The external sphere will furnish them their materials of organization. And in accordance with this, their external form will receive its modifications. The science of ethnography now shows the same thing in the every day life of man. The diminutive Esquimaux and the gigantic Patagonian, the ugly Hottentot woman and the beautiful Circassian, the awkward Mongol and the nobly formed Spaniard; these all, in their contrast, lead us, at first indeed, to the difference in the intellectual faculties of their respective nations; but this difference itself, in a certain degree, has its foundation in the thousand existing influences of climate,-as children may show at the present time, indirectly, in their forms, what their country is, and the region where they live. And in accordance with some such analogies or marks, must the new earth be inhabited by forms of human beauty, while the outer darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth will clothe, as it were, caricatures of the human form,1

1 1 have now, for the first time, after completing the above remarks, been able to read the essay itself of Fichte. I have done so with much pleasure and satisfaction. In order to correct what was my supposition of Fichte's idea, and which was founded on the above mentioned notice of him, and

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NOTES BY THE TRANSLATOR.

NOTE A, p. 229.

Respecting the author of this Commentary, Dr. L. J. Rückert, we have Previously to 1826, he appears to been able to find but very scanty notices have resided in a small village in the vicinity of Zittau, in the Saxon part of Upper Lusatia. From 1826 to 1837 or 1838, he was employed as a teacher in the flourishing gymnasium in Zittau, a town of about 8,000 inhabitants. From various allusions in his writings, we infer that he has encountered no little opposition, and even personal hardship, in consequence of the independence with which he avows his religious opinions. In the summer of 1838, we find him in Leipsic, establishing a "Magazine for the Exegeis and Theology of the New Testament." The first number is written wholly by the editor, and contains 146 pages. About ninety pages are employed on the ninth chapter of Romans, from which the author concludes that Paul teaches the doctrine of predestination. Another article is on the situation of Galatia, and the time when the epistle to the Galatians was written. The Magazine is to be entirely occupied with the exegesis of the New Testament. In the Preface, he has the following remark: "Employ all the proper means in your power to ascertain the true sense of the writer; give him nothing of thine; take from him nothing that is his. Never inquire what he ought to say; never be afraid of what he does say. It is your business to learn, not to teach. From this principle I cannot depart in the least, al

consequently, for a correction of the notice itself, I must observe, that Fichte by no means regards the resurrection of the body immediately after death, as actually realized in the organic, continued existence of the soul. He only seeks to prove physiologically the personality and individual existence of man in death. But the further question, namely, to what particularly belongs the resurrection of the body, he leaves for a religious-philosophy to discuss. The fundamental view in which he grounds immortality, is closely, though independently, connected with Goethe's doctrine of an indestructible monad. We may, undoubtedly, greet this work of an eminent philosopher as an important advance in the philosophical, fundamental proof of immortality. The conviction expressed by me in the foregoing essay, that an existence in space, a where, must be ascribed to the departed spirit of man, will be found handled in the treatise of Fichte, variously, with the greatest precision, and with a philosophical clearness. Would that he had been able to have contended successfully for the widest prevalence of this conviction over the territory of philosophy, where a belief in immortality will decay at its very roots, so long as the opposite doctrine is predominant.

though it is unpopular, and I well know what it will cost me, and what personal sacrifices I have been obliged already to make."

sentence.

Some years since, Rückert published in two volumes, " Philosophy of History, or Philosophy of History and of the Bible in relation to each other." In 1831, he brought out his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, a second edition of which has just made its appearance. The first edition is in a volume of 700 pages. We have never seen a copy of the work, nor scarcely what may be called a review of it, in the German periodicals. In the Halle Allgemeine Literatur Zeitung for Sept. 1835, it is noticed by an anonymous critic, who is apparently under the influence of prejudice and ill will. He makes a long parade of the errors into which he says Rückert has fallen, while he scarcely alludes to the excellencies of the book, though he acknowledges that there are many things which are correct and worthy of attention. We apprehend that somewhat of the reviewer's ill-nature is to be attributed to Ruckert's independence of thought, and unwillingness to fall into the style of commentary which suits so many of the gentlemen who manage the Journal at Halle. This may possibly explain some allusions which we find in the Preface to Ruckert's Commentary on the first Epistle to the Corinthians, published at Leipsic in 1836. We quote the following "In conclusion, it only remains for me to express the wish, that the portion of the public that have hitherto been favorable to me, may still remain so. The opponents, in part the authors themselves of commentaries on the epistles explained by me, who have made me feel pretty strongly their censorial importance-even to menaces-are still at liberty to exercise their office on my labors. So far as they are in the right, I will seek to profit by their remarks, whether made in a friendly or inhuman manner, so that my undertaking the sound interpretation of the great apostle-may be advanced, What objections of a personal nature they may have to propound, I shall, as hitherto, pass by in silence." In the Preface to his Commentary on the second Epistle to the Corinthians, published in 1837, he says: "That which I have accomplished I commit to the unprejudiced examination of reasonable critics. Whatever opinions or even confutations of my positions I may see, for these I shall be grateful. Some things may escape me in consequence of the location in which I find myself. When occasion offers, earlier or later, I shall seek to profit by these criticisms. On the first partthe Commentary on the first Epistle-no judgment has been expressed to my knowledge, except that the sale which it has found in the course of the first year, seems to show that the public are not unfriendly to it."

The principles on which Rückert proceeds in his expositions, are stated in the Preface to his Comment on the Romans, and are quoted in the Review of the Halle Journal, above referred to. In the first place, says Rückert, a commentary should be philological. This implies an exact knowledge of the language and its idioms; an historical knowledge of all important matters relating to the condition of the people and of the age to which the writing belongs; logic, that is, a strict prosecution of the course of thought, not merely from verse to verse, but even through the entire argument of a sec