had been succeeded by chaos, and no basis on which a durable superstructure of duty, life, and thought could be built, seemed to be attainable. Gassendi advocated trust in facts, Descartes in thought, Arnauld in reasoned faith, Hobbes in philosophy, in reasoning founded on the facts of nature and mind. They were all agreed that a clean sweep should be made of all hitherto accepted credences, and that a thoroughly new bottom should be found on which to rest the new and true philosophy of modern life. Religious dogma, scholastic logic, traditionary morals, hereditary politics, and science subsidiary to dogma and tradition were all to be set aside, and a new authority found in the inner recesses of a searched out fundamental truth, on which all else might find standing space and a building-firm position.

To different thinkers the investigation into the great need of the time assumed different forms. In the mind of Hobbes, who saw authority dethroned by Luther, Bacon, Galileo, and Descartes, it took the form of the question, what is the source, nature, and inner essence of authority-the motive power of life and the index of duty? If the place of man in the universe as a reasonable being is to be found-and found it must be before a brave and conscientious life can be led-it must be discovered by an investigation into the first and prime element of authority, what man must regard as authoritative, and therefore of power within him as regards personal, social, political, intellectual, and religious life. Authority or power must always be a requisite of human life; without it chaos must prevail, and anarchy destroy alike man's peace of mind and the peace of nations. In science, authority is found in facts; in philosophy, in reason in morals, in conscience in politics, in sovereignty (under any determinate form, monarchy or republic); in religion, in faith (properly regulated and reasonable). This is the grand theme of Hobbes. It suits sectarists and party men to make him a bugbear, and to accuse him of being a sceptic and a special pleader for tyranny. Though we repudiate many of his opinions and much of his reasoning, we decry unrighteous judgments such as these, and claim a re-hearing on behalf of a man maligned and misunderstood, sometimes in ignorance and sometimes in malevolence the author of "The Leviathan."

"The Leviathan" was published in London in 1652, during the time of the Commonwealth, while Charles the Second was an exile at Paris, and while Hobbes was at Paris also. The expatriated Royalists who surrounded Charles, many of them zealous Churchmen and scholars of the universities, read it with the strongest repugnance, and denounced it as an apology for Cromwell. Hobbes became the object of their bitter enmity, and was even forbidden to appear in presence of the young king, though he had previously officiated as his mathematical teacher. So violent was the enmity of the Royalists, that Hobbes was actually afraid that they would assassinate him; and he called to mind the fate of Dr. Dorislaus and Mr. Ascham, as ambassadors of the English Commonwealth at

the Hague and Madrid, who had both been murdered by Royalist assassins at those capitals. Such was his apprehension, that he, the loyal tutor of Charles the Second, found himself compelled to leave Paris immediately, and to seek protection under the Commonwealth of England. It was midwinter, the snow was on the ground; he had to undertake the journey at this inclement season, though be was then sixty-four years of age, with bad roads and a tumbledown horse. On arriving in London he reported himself to the Council of State, who did not in any way molest him. Every man in England, he says, might study or write what he chose, provided he was content to live more loci. His own account of these events, his estimate of the morality of the Royalists, and his idea of the character of the councillors by whom both Charles the First and Charles the Second were guided, is eminently curious.*

* From a paper by George Grote, in the Spectator, 15th April, 1839.

HOW TO AVOID ENGLAND'S DECADENCE.-If war is to be made by money and machinery, the nation which is the largest and most covetous multitude will win. You may be as scientific as you choose; the mob that can pay more for sulphuric acid and gunpowder will at last poison its bullets, throw acid in your faces, and make an end of you; of itself also in good time, but of you first. And to the English people, the choice of its fate is very near now. It may spasmodically defend its property with iron walls a fathom thick a few years longer-a very few. No walls will defend either it or its havings against the multitude that is breeding and spreading faster than the clouds over the habitable earth. We shall be allowed to live by small pedlar's business and ironmongery-since we have chosen those for our line of life-as long as we are found useful black servants to the Americans, and are content to dig coals and sit in the cinders, and have still coals to dig-they once exhausted, or got cheaper elsewhere, we shall be abolished. But if we think more wisely, while there is yet time, and set our minds again on multiplying Englishmen, and not on cheapening English wares--if we resolve to submit to wholesome laws of labour and economy, and, setting our political squabbles aside, try how many strong creatures, friendly and faithful to each other, we can crowd into every spot of English dominion, neither poison nor iron will prevail against us; nor traffic, nor hatred; the noble nation will yet, by the grace of Heaven, rule over the ignoble, and force of heart hold its own against fire-balls.-JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D.

Philosophy.

CAN HIGH EDUCATION COUNTERACT THE EAGERNESS OF THE SENSES?

AFFIRMATIVE ARTICLE.-II.

As both writers on this topic have remarked, it is very essential that we should have a distinct understanding as to the intended meaning of the subject of discussion, as the adopted mode of expression appears to be slightly ambiguous. I take the expression, "the eagerness of the senses," to mean "the eagerness of the sensual appetites, of the animal passions, of the bodily lusts," and therefore shall consider the question, "Has high education any deterring influence in reference to the gratification of those sensual appetites which exist to a greater or less degree in every man's nature." And further, respecting the "high education" spoken of, I understand it to denote, not merely the knowledge of the classics, mathematics, &c., which is usually acquired at our colleges and universities, but a close, strenuous, devoted application to various branches of study. The man who makes himself acquainted, even in the most ordinary manner, with the subjects of education taught in our colleges may, in comparison with those whose only education has been received at one of our national schools, be said to be highly educated, but by mere compliment can it be said so; and such a man would, I think, hardly be called a highly educated man; and conceiving such definitions to convey the import of the question, we believe that high education does counteract the eager. ness of the senses.

The circumstances in which a man is placed, and the influences brought to bear upon his mind, determine to a very great extent his habits, his character, and frequently his morality. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, but such exceptions, if they prove anything, prove the rule. There have been men who have been born and bred in circumstances of great poverty, obscurity, and wickedness, who have risen pre-eminently above such an unfortunate lot, and there have also been others who, at their outset in life, have been in positions of opulence and respectability, and who have fallen, entirely in consequence of their own mode of life, to the level of the most degraded of the people. At the same time, the great majority of men are influenced by their surrounding circumstances. We find, further, that the least educated classes are generally those whose tastes, pursuits, and pleasures are most

closely allied with the gratification of the senses. Examine, for instance, the literature most eagerly read by such people, consider the amusements most extensively patronized by them, and such a conclusion must, we think, be inevitable. If, again, we look at the tastes, pursuits, and pleasures of the better educated classes of society, we shall certainly find that they are at the least of a more refined nature; and if any deduction whatever can be made from these facts, it must be that education has some effect on the minds of the people, and that the gratification of the senses or passions is not so eagerly sought after by the most highly educated of the community. These statements, I am well aware, prove but little, but that little may be useful in assisting us to form a judgment on the question before us. I would not for one moment believe that the vices of what we call the higher classes are less heinous than those of the lower, merely because they are devoid of the coarseness which characterizes the latter; nor would I believe that the wealthier classes have less inclination to gratify the sensual appetites merely because their pleasures may be said to be of a more refined nature, rather the contrary; for beneath the equivocal inuendos and the easy address of polished gallantry there often lurks more poison than in the vile jest of vulgarity. Supposing that we take the higher classes of society as a whole, and, because they have had the advantages of a so-called higher class of learning than the middle classes, consider them the highly educated class, then I am afraid that little could be said in favour of the affirmative side of this debate; comparatively speaking, there are but few highly educated men, and it would be as unfair and as untrue to designate the wealthier classes as the highly educated, as to designate the middle classes as the poorly educated. Further, the men who have made their whole life one long term of earnest study have not, as a rule, sprung from the nobility or the aristocracy.

As Lord Lytton truly observes," A very large proportion of those who in various ways have gained fame, have been the cadets of a gentleman's family, or the sons of poor clergymen, sometimes of farmers and tradesmen who have given them an education beyond their class."*

If we take history as a guide, we shall find almost innumerable cases in which men of studious habits have withdrawn themselves almost entirely from the fellowship of the world, who have had little or no sympathy with the pleasures that have engrossed the attention of those around them, whose eyes have been blind and whose ears have been deaf to the fascinations that have held in subjection their fellow-mortals. If we take into consideration the lives of the greatest poets, theologians, statesmen, and philosophers, who, since the dawn of creation, have enriched the world with their productions, we shall find them to be but to a small extent tainted with the sensual vices of mankind. We are well aware there

* Prose Works, vol. iii., p. 327.

are exceptions, and we think no one would be disposed to maintain that high education has, in every instance, counteracted the eagerness of the senses. We must, however, be careful not to confound genius with education. There are many men who have attained a very high reputation in the literary world, simply by the exercise of their genius, but such can hardly be considered highly educated men. The knowledge they have acquired has come to them, we might almost say, naturally; the mind has had but little exertion, the intellect has been developed, as it were, imperceptibly; and although there can be no doubt that such men are in a sense highly educated, they fail to come under the definition that we have adopted, and we regret to say that the characters, and, indeed, lives of many such men, are far from being irreproachable. Supposing, again, we ignore the history of the past, and notice the characters borne by most of the leading scholars of our own day— scholars in science, in philosophy, in theology, &c.,—we must, I think, be driven to the conclusion that high education has counteracted the eagerness of their senses. Or if we even regard the conduct and the deportment of those by whom we are surrounded in our daily intercourse with the world, our own friends and acquaintances, and select from amongst them those who are the most eager in the pursuit of knowledge, who are not satisfied merely with that which they have gained when they quit their school or college, but whose leisure time has been devoted to the study of one favourite branch of education or more, and if we place their lives, habits, and characters in contrast with those of men whose creed, as far at least as concerns education, may be summed up in the simple belief that when their college days are over they have had quite enough, and perhaps a little too much of it, I think we shall not long hesitate in arriving at a decision as to the side on which the gratification of the senses is the more interesting pursuit.

If we shut out from the question the consideration of the lives of men of the past and of the present, and look only at the subject on what may be termed independent grounds, it appears to us to be simply reasonable that such a result as the one we have e ideavoured to maintain will be one effect of high education on the mind of man. As the mind and the intellect are developed, the tastes and pursuits of their possessor will be changed,―nay, even his very life will receive a coinciding impress. The interest attached to the games, the toys and baubles that engrossed so large a share of his attention during the earlier stages of his life, will dwindle into insignificance and nothingness as he reaches a more mature age, simply because his mind has received fresh sources of pleasure consequent upon its training.

I have carefully perused the article of G. P. on the negative side of this debate; and, from what I can learn, the writer appears to confine his attention to the higher classes of society, and not the highly educated classes only. G. P. says, "We note, in the first place, as affording ground for believing that high education cannot