Jesuits. I have endeavoured to pave the way for such a cource, in my preface to some letters of Locke, published some years ago. But the thing is better done by Lady Mary Shepherd in her Essays on Cause and Effect, and also her Essays on the Perception of an External Universe works which will survive the ravages of time; and be found to be the best treatises on metaphysicks which now exist, in harmony with Christianity. From the moral of this philosophy we are led on to some of the most profound and sublime meditations of which the human mind is capable. By the aid of such enquiries we are made to see through the fallacy of all the spurious arguments of the materialist, and the misnomer of his inappropriate language. On the other hand, the narrow and selfish views of the fanatic are destroyed by a philosophical enquiry of all others the most calculated to elevate the mind and widen our views of nature. To pursue these enquiries properly, knowledge of logic is necessary: and it should be our endeavour to make this as well as mathematicks an essential part of juvenile study; so as to enable the student of nature not only to wield the high functions of geometry and analysis in all their branches; but so to reason on every other subject which may be brought before him as to be able to detect any false step in argument, to draw from all the premises their legitimate conclusions, and so to work the stupendous engine of analogy in reasoning as to arrive at the greatest knowledge of the universe which is possible by means of the imperfect and passing perceptions of its parts which are revealed to our limited organs of sense, and which we are enabled to improve by means of the reflecting powers of the mind. While these studies are going on let us afford the student as much exercise and innocent recreation as possible, bringing him up nevertheless to regard the world as a passage to a higher state of enjoyment, on condition of carrying out of it a cargo of virtues. By this means he will be enabled to avoid ennui, the melancholy necessarily attendant on reflection, and the morbid fear of death: all which must be unknown to a person who has early received a thoroughly good education. Meanwhile let him be taught not to regard any passing sensation as lost, but as having some everlasting entail, superadded to the irrevocable has been of its fleeting existence; which we should endeavour to think something gained, and to rejoice therein as Horace seems to have done, by that remarkable passage, the value and import of which must often recur to the mind of the scholar, beginning Laetusque deget, cui licet in diem Dixisse: Vixi! Cras vel atra Nube polum pater occupato, Vel sole puro, non tamen irritum Quod fugiens semel Hora vexit. Different philosophers who have reflected metaphysically, have left us some metaphysical and moral aphorisms on the universe which are worth recording. A Spanish philosopher observes: L'etincella de la fede enciende la vela de la esperanza y el fuego de la divina caridad. An italian tells us: - Se il filosofo ricercherà quale sia l'origine e qual sarà la fine di tutto questo immenso universo, risolvendosi in fide, spe, et charitate dirà come In principio creavit omnia Deus, cosi, come bene dice Simonide, Ω ὦαι τέλος μὲν Ζευς έκει βαρυκτύωος Παντων ὅσα ἐστιν Principio cælum ac terras camposque liquentes Milton invokes the theological virtues in order to have a consolatory faith: O welcome cleareyed Faith, whitehanded Hope The poet Angelus exclaims: Soll ich mein leztes End und ersten Anfang finden, While the pious and philosophical Count de Maistre observes : Le monde est un systeme de choses invi sibles manifestées visiblement. - The Catholic student, after St. Paul, is contented with humility, to console himself with this reflection: Cernimus nunc per speculum in ænigmate, tunc facie ad faciem; nunc cognosco ex parte, tunc cognoscam ut cognitus sum: nunc manent fides, spes, charitas, tria hæc; major autem horum est charitas. These and many similar reflections are likely to occur to the students of philosophy, we should therefore fortify them by an early acquaintance with the lives of the wise men and saints of old as models of imitation; which is the best corrective of a wandering sceptical philosophy. In these days, although we are making progress in certain branches of science, yet we have failed of late, in the right appreciation of the moral conditions of happiness, one of the principal of which is, command of self; another is a due interchange of the various sorts of excitement; a third is a permanent object to be eventually obtained, which, by being always kept in view, should be capable, through life of maintaining equanimity. A child brought up thus to regulate his mind, would find in the promise of the Christian paradise additional reason to act on the excellent maxim: Rebus angustis, animosus atque Contrahes, vento nimium secundo, At length, when the sinews of strength decay, when the Fates are ready to snap the strings of life, and this changing scene is about to close, Faith Hope and Charity, will stretch out their white hands, and invite the faithful to new and incorruptible alliances with a higher order of the objects of sensation. Thus, through life, the child will labour for that which, at the close thereof, it hopes to attain; and instead of being melancholy as death advances, will calmly await its approach, and exclaim with Thomas a Kempis: O supernae civitatis mansio beatissima! O dies aeternitatis clarissima, quam nox non obscurat, sed summa veritas semper irradiat! LETTER XIV. Analogy of Religion and Nature. In conclusion of my observations on education, let me remark that, though they apply to persons of every religious persuasion, and are intended for the use of all, I am by no means insensible to the superiority of what is called a catholic education in particular. Without entering into any particular arguments on the respective merits of different creeds, for which task I am but ill qualified, I may say, generally that the catholic is of all others the most conservative of social institutions, as well as the best calculated to protect the interest of all classes of society: it tends also to uphold the health strength and durability of individuals as well as of states; and it appears to me so perfect as a whole, particularly that arrangement whereby the Pope is placed as it were in the centre of the church, from which all the beams of science and of virtue should emanate, like rays of light from a focus, that I should be wanting in a respect for the truth, were I to omit this opportunity of pointing it out to general notice. What are called the arguments drawn from the analogy between religion and nature in general, apply with |