lower the standard of matriculation you lower the standard of university studies, at least during the period which must be occupied in imparting, within the university halls, that secondary or primary instruction, which would have been secured by a good standard-a university standard, of matriculation. If you make the matriculation examination of a university a true university entrance-examination, you can forthwith set the freshman at true university work. If, so to speak, you make your university matriculation in reality an infant-school matricnlation, you must only resign yourself to see your nominal university turned into an infant-school. Granted that you can make a graduate within three or four sessions out of a young fellow who has been required to get a good secondary education before you allowed him to enter your university halls, it does not at all follow that within three or four sessions you can make a graduate-at least it can be only a sham graduate-out of a lad or boy or bumpkin whom you let in before he was fit to enter a university, who does not really go to college but to school, when you allow him to go to you, and to whom, if you are to be anything, you must be a schoolmaster instead of a professor, for just as many sessions as may be necessary to supply the deficiencies your sham matriculation so culpably overlooked or so deliberately and dishonestly condoned. A university does not undertake the charge of boys or the first steps in education. It professes to continue, and in a certain sense to complete, the education of those who have already done with school, but are not yet fully prepared for the business of life and intercourse with the world. It must have the assurance, if it is conscientiously to fulfil its promise, that the students whom it takes in charge are already well grounded in the elements of the studies it professes to teach. Of course it may be considered politically expedient, in an unpopular institution, to imitate the conduct of some hardpressed commanders of beleaguered citadels, who are reported to have made a show of soldiers with sentinel scarecrows and stuffed dummies. We are not talking at present, however, about such masqueradings, but about University education.

To return to the proposed Queen's University system in Ireland, and to the documentary indications we are considering, we find in calendars and such-like, the description of a moderate course of undergraduate studies, generally presenting the usual features of undergraduate studies in universities. There is also copious reference to the interesting incidents of prizes and scholarships of various kinds and values. There are sessional examinations prescribed for the termination of

for an attribute of a particular thing, and sometimes for an attribute in general, which is an attribute of no thing in particular. When I speak of "the constitution of the Atlantic Cable," I do not speak of an attribute in general. It is then vain to urge upon me that generalities do not exist. The remark is correct, but irrelevant. As well remind me that the thirteenth book of Euclid does not exist. When I speak of "the telegraphic relation between England and America," again my theme is something particular, not a generality; but if I entitle a book, "On the Constitution of Cables," or fix upon "Relation" as a subject for a philosophical dissertation, then I use the words constitution and relation as general expressions, to which there are no general things corresponding. Nowhere is there a constitution of a cable which is not the constitution of any cable in particular; nowhere is there a relation which does not lie between two particular related terms.

When we hear of "the strength of the current of the Mississippi threatening New Orleans," we think of a perfectly definite individual "strength," no mere generality, or form of the mind; but an attribute objectively existing in the Mississippi itself. The thing thought of in such an instance is termed by some philosophers a "direct universal." I prefer the term "metaphysical universal." But observe that-according to the definition of an universal, "one apt to be in many" (unum aptum inesse multis)-a "direct" or "metaphysical" universal is not formally an universal at all; but is the material by consideration of which the mind may form within itself an "universal idea" or "general concept." For "the strength of the current of the Mississippi" is not apt to be anywhere save only in the Mississippi. A similar strength is in the Missouri and Amazon; but not numerically the same strength. Each river has its own strength, one and indivisible, which no other river can share. Whereby we may judge of the absurd position of those physicists, who, confounding motion with force, its cause, teach that the force or motion of one bodysay a stream of water-passes identically into another bodya waterwheel. As well speak of the height of Mount Blanc passing into the Matterhorn.

Sometimes the phrase "strength of current" is employed without any river being named in connection. It does not, however, follow that no particular river is thought of, because none is named. There are, I believe, inhabitants of London, all whose aquatic notions are founded on the Thames. That is their standard of comparison; every other body of water is a mirage of their civic stream. You gather this from their

رو

Cockney remarks, "the lake is three times the breadth of the river at Blackfriars, and twice as deep; its water some shades clearer"; and so forth. However, just as men know their letters without thinking of the primer in which their childhood first learnt them, so it is possible to conceive a "strength of current" apart from Thames, Orontes, or Ohio. The "strength of current," thought of then, is what is styled a "logical universal," or better, a "metaphysical universal." In so far as it is not an individual thing, but a generality-not the strength of any one certain current, but "strength," no matter of what current-it is a true universal, " apt to be in many,' and in that capacity not apt to exist anywhere out of the conceiving mind. There is no "strength of current " actually existing apart from all actually existent streams. But it must be added that "logical universals" have their foundation in actual existences-they have what the school of S. Thomas of Aquin denominate fundamemtum in re. "Strength of current" in general, itself a bare concept, is founded upon the actually existent strength of the Missouri current, and that other actually existent strength of the Amazon current: upon these and the like "direct universals," upon these metaphysical entities, which have being in rerum naturá, is founded the "reflex universal," the logical entity, which has being in thought alone. Furthermore, take notice that these logical entities have yet another foundation in fact, in the Ideas, or rather in the Idea, of the Divine Mind, the Infinite and Omnipotent Creator's Archetypical Idea of Himself, and of all the being that He can work to the likeness of Himself. I should never, indeed, have conceived "strength of current," had I not had experience of actual rivers; but, now that I have had the experience, the concept thence extracted abides objectively true in my mind, though water should flow no more; for flowing water remains an eternal possibility before God.

This lengthy digression has not been thrown away, if the reader consents henceforth to avow that, when I speak of the relation of A, an actually existent thing, to B, another actual existence, the relation in question, being a metaphysical universal," actually exists apart from my mind, and is worth study, even as a lump of rock-crystal is worth study, although the crystal is a substance, and the relation is not.

A and B, the two related things, are called the terms of the relation. When A and B are physical beings, the relation between them is predicamental; when A and B are metaphysical beings, their relation is transcendental. For the understanding of these names, it is needful to revert to one

of the earliest teachings of formal logic, how Aristotle, the inventor of that craft, sorted all things in ten large boxes; that is, he formed them into ten classes. These he called the ten Karnуopíaι, "categories," which word his Latin translators rendered prædicamenta, " predicaments." Hence the phrase, "to be in a predicament," meaning to be in one of Aristotle's boxes, especially the wrong one. The ten predicaments are, Substance, Quantity, Quality, Relation, Action, Passion, Place, Time, Attitude, Dress. There are two varieties of Relation. One variety the Aristotelian logicians regarded as coinciding with the fourth of the above predicaments; they called, therefore, that variety "predicamental" relation. The other transcends the bounds of any one predicament, and hence got the name of "transcendental" relation. The growth of philosophy has ruptured the ten boxes, and poured out their contents in a medley which awaits new arrangement. I shall not then again refer to the exploded "predicaments." Only keep this in view, that predicamental relation intercedes between physical beings, and transcendental between metaphysical ones. But when is Being physical? when metaphysical? Physical Being is complete Being, metaphysical incomplete. Physical Being can exist by itself, metaphysical cannot. A physical being is naturally a substance; no metaphysical being is a substance. Physical Being is Matter or Spirit, Metaphysical Being is a belonging of either. Physical beings are such things as this cart, this horse, this man, this angel, God; metaphysical beings are, the size of this cart, the age of this horse, the character of this man, the rank of this angel, the power of God, and so forth. In a word, a metaphysical being is a partial aspect of a physical being. physical being. The aspect is no baseless fabric of the beholder's vision; the physical being as really presents it to him as a cathedral presents a view to a photographer.

We may either mentally break up a physical being into parts, or we may regard the whole being on different sides. The former process yields the metaphysical constituents, the latter the attributes of the being. Metaphysical entities are thus divided into constituents and attributes. Of attributes, such as justice, value, candour, I have little to say. When a relation is mentioned between an attribute of one subject and the attribute of another subject, physically distinct from the former-as between the long-suffering of God and the impenitence of man; the proper terms of that relation are the two physical beings, God and man, and the relation is predicamental. If both attributes belong to the same subject,-as when we compare God's justice with His mercy,-the relation

is transcendental. But it is not a real relation, but one of thought only; for justice and mercy are identical in God, though we think of them as different. Real transcendental relations are those that intercede between the metaphysical constituents of a physical being. The terms of such relations are really opposed to one another by the fact that they are constituents of the same thing; whereas attributes of the same thing never bear a real mutual opposition. Things are made up of opposite constituents, not of opposite attributes. The diverse constituents blend into one light, whence the attributes radiate as one brightness.

66

Th edeclaration of the metaphysical constituents of every physical being is the most important truth in philosophy: the proof thereof is subtle in proportion to the importance: the discovery was a grand effort of intellect, and needs some intellectual effort to appreciate it. I can only repeat the proof as it was told to me." The first step is the assertion that everything that exists is knowable. Where scrutiny absolutely breaks down, there is absolutely nothing to scrutinize. A mystery which no mind can fathom is an unreality. Let us suppose for a moment that God is, what a preacher of Lay Sermons inculcates Him to be, "Unknowable and Unknown."* In that case, God should never be the subject of any proposition that issues from human lips. It were rashness to predicate anything of the Unknown. Yet the Preacher avoids a downright denial of God, for he admits the limitation of the human faculties. May be, then, this Being, unknowable in our regard, is known to Himself. So atheism is escaped. Suppose, however, we append to the lay text just quoted, a philosophical comment, written by an author of fashion: 66 Every opinion delivered by every man is true to that man himself. Truth absolute there is none. "That is, there is no truth for a man outside of what he knows. Comment and text together become the major and minor of a syllogism, thus: God is nothing that I don't know of: but I know nothing of Him. The conclusion follows, "by order of good consequence": Therefore God is nothing. An irrefragable conclusion, if we admit the premises.§ But,

"Lay Sermons," p. 16.

+ Not Solomon.

"According to Protagoras," and according to Mr. Grote. See Grote's "Plato," vol. ii. pp. 347-8 seq.; also Grote's "Aristotle," ii. p. 148, and his editor's "Emotions and Will," p. 265.

§ Besides the saying, "Man is the measure of all things," Protagoras had another, "Respecting the gods, I am unable to know whether they exist or do not exist." If, then, the measure of Protagoras could not take in the VOL. XX.-NO. XXXIX. [New Series.]

F