If verse, like wine, improves, matur'd by age,
What length of years gives value to the page?
Say, shall the bard, who chanc'd to write, we know,
A century, nor more nor less ago,

Stand with the ancients, or the moderns, plac'd?
With these admired, or with those disgrac'd?
A century, sure, so long ago he writ,
Makes him an ancient and a classic wit.
What rank is his, an age who cannot boast,
More modern by a month or year at most?
'Midst bards of old, or those whom, later born,
The present and the future times shall scorn?
Who wants a month, a year at most, may be
Allow'd the priv'lege of antiquity.

This frank concession will my cause avail
;
By single hairs, I bare the horse's tail.
One from a hundred years you let me take,
From that another, 'till the heap I break;
Confuting him who values wit by years,
Nor living bards, because alive, reveres.

He who said that by too much disputing we lose sight of truth, was no fool. How many are there who enjoy a profound tranquillity in a firm belief of the doctrine of truth, who would be full of doubts if they were to hear the reasons on both sides of the question? And how many are there, who instead of clearing up their doubts, would involve themselves more deeply therein, if they were to hearken to the answers and replies of two subtle disputants? The former, I mean those who have no doubts, would complain of the ill offices which disputing had done them, would complain that they are much more fluctuating than before, and say to the two antagonists what Terence puts into the mouth of one of his actors: Fecistes prope; incertior sum multo quam dudum*-Thank you, gentlemen, I am more uucertain than ever." It was St Ambrose's opinion that subtle logical disputes were so much to be feared, that the grace of God should be begged by public processions * Terentius in Phormione, Act. II, Scen. III, ver. 18 & 19.

that we might not be exposed to them. I cannot in this place forbear mentioning what St Ambrose says of St Augustin (a very subtle logician), that public prayers ought to be put up to restrain, or rather extirpate, his furious fondness for disputation. It is an instrument which may be of good use against lies, but it will not stop there, for after having destroyed error it attacks truth; it is like those corrosive powders, which after having eaten the proud flesh of a wound, would prey upon the quick flesh, and eat into the very bones if they were let alone. But not to go so far off, let us be content to consider the ill effect of disputing, for the reasons that Montagne gives us. "Our disputes," says he,* "ought to be as much prohibited and punished as other verbal crimes. What vices do they not awaken and promote, being always commanded and governed by passion? We quarrel first with the arguments and then with the men; we learn only to dispute that we may contradict, and each contradicting and contradicted, the fruit of disputing is the loss and ruin of truth; therefore Plato in his commonweath, forbids the exercise of it to unskilful and disingenuous minds. What will be the consequence? One runs to the east, another as far as the west; they lose the principal and put it aside in the crowd of incidents. At the end of an hour's storming, they know not what they look for; one is high, another low, another wide; one catches at a word or a simile, another is insensible of what is said in opposition to him, so eager is he in his course, and thinks of following himself not you. One finding himself weak, fears every thing, refuses every thing, and in the beginning confounds and puzzles his subject; or in the heat of the debate stops short, and grows silent through a peevish ignorance, affecting an insolent contempt, or a foolish modesty shunning con

Montagne, Essais, livr. iii, cap. viii, pag. m. 252, 253.

tention. One, provided he strikes, cares not how much he lays himself open; another counts his words, and reckons them for arguments; another makes advantage of his voice and lungs. Here is one that concludes against himself, and another stuns you with prefaces and useless digressions; another falls into downright railing, and picks a quarrel with his adversary to free himself from the society and argument of a wit that bears hard upon him; and this last man sees nothing in reason, but incloses you with his dialectical clauses, and the formularies of his art."

It may very justly be said that the spirit and character of our Euclid and his successors, have prevailed in the Christian schools ever since the famous dialectician Abelard but what has been produced by it in favour of truth? What philosophical doctrines have the Nominalists and Realists, the Thomists and Scotists cleared? What have they done but multiply opinions, and found out the art of maintaining, pro and con, by the help of sundry barbarous terms? what one maintains the other denies, and they have all of them distinctions and subterfuges ready at hand to prevent their being put to silence. They have by turns made the most contrary opinions triumph; now this is the most natural consequence of this method of philosophizing. Mr Rohault has admirably well described it: "There is," says he, "an invincible stubbornness observed in most of those who have gone through their course of philosophy, and who probably are fallen into such a pernicious disposition of mind, only because they have not been used to convincing truths, and see that those who maintain any doctrine whatsoever in public, always triumph over those who endeavour to prove the contrary, so that with them all things pass for probabilities. They do not look upon study as a means to

* Rohault's preface to his Physics.

arrive at the discovery of any new truths, but as a witty sport in which people exercise themselves, the end of which is so to confound true with false, by means of certain subtilties, that they may equally defend one or the other, without ever appearing forced to give up by any arguments, any extravagant opinion they may maintain; and indeed this is the common success of all public actions, where often in the same pulpit, opinions perfectly contrary are alternately proposed and equally triumph, without the matter in hand being explained, or any truth being better established." I say nothing of an evil infinitely more considerable, which this disputing and dialectical spirit has produced. It has passed from the chairs of the philosophers into the schools of divinity, and has turned the most important points of the Christian morality into problems; for what doctrine of morality have not the loose casuits shaken and so obscured, that the only way to arrive at certainty, is to hearken solely to the simplicity of the scriptures, without any manner of regard to the subtle and captious reasonings of those doctors?

"The most lively and subtle wits," says father Rapin, "are not always the properest for philosophy. The imagination had better be a little heavy, than suffer itself to evaporate into too refined speculations; the plain good sense of Socrates triumphed over all the arts and all the subtlety of the Sophists. Philosophy did not become abstract till it ceased to be solid; they stuck to formalities when they had no longer any thing real to say, nor did they ever think of having recourse to subtilties, till they had no hopes of making pure reason prevail. That Protagoras, who first sought for captious arguments, assumed this subtle air only because he had a wrong turn of mind. They spoiled all, says Seneca, by refining every thing; for in order to make a vain ostentation of wit, they forsook the most essential parts of the

sciences, they began to weaken the truth of things by the artifice of words, making use of sophistry when they were at a loss for good reasons. By this new art, Nausiphanes and Parmenides overthrew every thing; so that the simplicity of reason was corrupted by the artifice of discourse, and they ridiculed truth instead of treating it with respect. This was the error of the Spaniards of the last century; they treated philosophy as they treated politics, both which by their speculative genius they carried up to inconceivable subtilties, every scholar refining upon his master; whence happened such a disorder as Seneca complains of. Disputation became all the fruit of philosophy, and they made use of it, not so much to cure the soul as to exercise the wit."

Arts. EUCLID & CHRYSIPPUs.

THEORY AND PRACTICE.

THE Protestants have a small Catechism, in which the first question is, "Wherefore has God sent us into the world?" The catechumen answers, "To know and to serve him." This, in general, is the principle of all Christians, but it is a principle only in theory, a mere speculation. If their answer were to be suited to their moral practice, most Christians would answer, that God sent them into the world to enrich themselves, and rise to good offices; for this is actually all they aim at, this is their whole care. Some, indeed, think at first on nothing more than obtaining a competent maintenance; but as soon as they get possessed of this competent estate, they immediately aim at aggrandizing themselves, and propose, by degrees, to mount to the highest dignities. This spirit governs a father, both with regard to himself and to his children, and he communicates it to them as soon as their age will permit. No one is satisfied with the condi