things in their causes. We see every day that the rules or conclusions alone are sufficient for the shop-keeper to state his account, the sailor to navigate his ship, or the carpenter to measure his timber, none of which understand the theory, that is to say the grounds and reasons either of arithmetic or geometry. Even so in moral, political and religious matters, it is manifest that the rules and opinions early imbibed at the first dawn of understanding, and without the least glimpse of science, may yet produce excellent effects, and be very useful to the world; and that, in fact, they are so, will be very visible to every one who shall observe what passeth round about him.

Bishop Butler

PHILOSOPHICAL DILETTANTISM.

Dilettantism, hypothesis, speculation, a kind of amateur search for Truth, toying and coquetting with Truth: this is the sorest sin-the root of all other imaginable sins. It consists in the heart and soul of the man never having

been open to Truth;" living in a vain show." Such a man not only utters and produces falsehoods, but is himself a falsehood. The rational moral principle, spark of the Divinity, is sunk deep in him, in quiet paralysis of lifedeath.

Carlyle.

REASON.

Many by their situations in life have not the opportunities of cultivating their rational powers. Many from the habit they have acquired of submitting their opinions to the authority of others, or from some other principle which operates more powerfully than the love of truth, suffer their judgment to be carried along to the end of their days, either by the authority of a leader, or of a party, or of the multitude, or by their own passions. Such persons, however learned, however acute, may be said to be all their days children in understanding. reason, they dispute, and perhaps write; but it is not that they may find the truth, but that

They

they may defend opinions which have descended to them by inheritance, or into which they have fallen by accident or been led by affection.

Home (Lord Kames)

TWO KINDS OF INTELLECT.

Il y a donc deux sortes d'esprit; l'une de pénétrer vivement et profondément les conséquences des principes et c'est là l'esprit de justice; l'autre de comprendre un grand nombre de principes sans les confondre, et c'est là l'esprit de géométrie. L'un est force et droiture d'esprit, l'autre est amplitude d'esprit. Or l'un peut être sans l'autre, l'esprit pouvant être fort et étroit, et pouvant être aussi ample et faible.

Pascal

RAISON AND WIT.

Raison est abeille, et l'on n'exige d'elle que son produit: son utilité lui tient lieu de beauté. Mais l'esprit n'est qu'un papillon, et un esprit sans agrément est comme un papillon sans couleurs il ne cause aucun plaisir.

Joubert.

H

COMMON SENSE, THE TRUE BASIS OF
PHILOSOPHY.

Philosophy has no root but the principles of common sense; it grows out of them, it draws its nourishment from them; severed from this root its honours wither, its sap is dried up, it dies and rots

Thomas Reid.

SERVICE DONE BY SCEPTICAL WRITERS.

I conceive the sceptical writers to be a set of men whose business it is to pick holes in the fabric of knowledge wherever it is weak and faulty; and when these places are properly repaired, the whole building becomes more firm and solid than it was formerly.

Thomas Reid.

LIVELY WIT OF LESS VALUE THAN JUST

PERCEPTION.

Ce n'est point un grand avantage d'avoir l'esprit vif, si on ne l'a juste. La perfection d'une pendule n'est pas d'aller vite, mais d'être réglée.

Vauvenargues.

MERRYMAKINGS.

Mirth and laughter, and the song, and the dance, and the feast, and the wine-cup, with all the jovial glee that circulates around the festive board, are only proper to the soul at those seasons when she is filled with extraordinary gladness, and should wait until those seasons arrive in order to be partaken of wholesomely and well but by artificial means to make an artificial excitement of the spirits is violently to change the law and order of our nature, and to force it to that to which it is not willingly inclined. Without such high calls and occasions, to make mirth and laughter is to belie nature, and misuse the ordinance of God. It is a false glare which does but show the darkness and deepen the gloom. It is to wear out and dissipate the oil of gladness, so that, when gladness cometh, we have no light of joy within our souls, and look upon it with baneful eyes. It is not a figure but a truth, that they who make those artificial merriments night after night