wind or storm, night or day, dawn or twilight; but there are Dryads for groves and trees; Naiads for streams and rivers; a thunder-compelling Jove or Zeus; Apollo for the sun and day; and Diana-with all her train-for the moon and night, &c., &c. In Homer-the Bible of the Hellenes -we are made acquainted with the gods of Olympus, and they are all personifications of whole classes of phenomena. None of these gods is absolute master of the others. Each is able to outwit and circumvent the other by turns. Zeus is the most powerful, but he is not omnipotent. But above and before all the gods is Fatc-ruler of them all. Her dictates none must question, but obey. In the idea of fate we have the germ of law in the external and human orders -a generalisation as fatal to Theologism as it is useful to science.

Polytheism, which so largely modified Fetichism, becomes in turn profoundly affected by the results of the labours of Greek geometers, from Archimedes downwards, who laid the basis for subsequent scientific discoveries. How far mathematical researches were carried may be judged by the fact that Hipparchus came near to making the discovery which thirteen centuries afterwards immortalised the name of Copernicus. Delambre is of opinion that he did not miss the discovery, and Comte believes with him that Hipparchus judged it untimely to make it known. The Greek mind was unprepared for it. Moreover, the discovery itself might have been fraught with serious consequences to Greek social life, so disturbed and agitated in his time. Considerations of this sort would weigh with a man like Hipparchus, who was something more even than a great geometer: he was a philosopher and a citizen. Again: to make such a discovery would have been to expose himself to the risks of martyrdom, and it is no dishonour to him, or to less eminent men, that he was indisposed to become a martyr of science. Men may do much for science, they rarely or never become martyrs of it; this glorious distinction belongs to religion, which alone has the power of generating the fervour which makes men martyrs for the cause of truth. It is moral convictions which make men ready for martyrdom, not intellectual ones. Hipparchus might fairly object to put his life or liberty in danger for such discoveries as the higher mathematics might have led him to make; discoveries which, after all, might turn out more imaginary than real.

It is to Thales of Miletus that Greek science owes its origin. The inquiry, whether water is not the cause of all things (since there is nothing organic or inorganic in which moisture is not found), was both a rational and a fruitful inquiry. Water, unlike metaphysical "principles," is a real thing. (We know now that there is nothing organic or inorganic in which moisture is not found, and that it forms seventy per cent. of the whole weight of the human body.) All such questions dealt with known factors, and the causal relations of these factors could be ascertained, verified, or rejected. Whether the soul of the universe was the cause of all things is an idle inquiry, for, if we do know what a universe is, we do not know what a soul is. The soul, if it exists, is an unverifiable fact. How greatly such speculations exercised men's minds we know, and to what disastrous results they occasionally led in freeing them altogether from the trammels of Theologism. Belief in the old divinities was shaken, and the way was prepared for the belief in one god, as the least irrational hypothesis for a philosopher to hold. This belief divided men the least. Seekers for causes must believe in one or more beings. When men give up the search for first or final causes, the belief itself will decay, and with it all theologies. There will be no gods left for men to interpret the wills of- only law and the rule of law.

In some such way as this was it that Polytheism passed into Monotheism. Polytheism was, as an explanation of the world, a more rational system than Monotheism, because many of the contradictions in the external order could be readily explained by it-the gods disagreeing and spiting themselves and each other upon man. When they did agree, which was not often, they were sublimely indifferent to man and all his belongings-his woes, sorrows, joys, and pleasures.

We see in Monotheism the last stage of Theologism, that, owing to advancing knowledge, brought about by conceptions and reflection predominating over perception, the many wills of Polytheism are reduced to one. To render this one will equal to the task of regulating all things connected with man and the world, all kinds of attributes are conceived as belonging to it-attributes which render it both anomalous and inconsistent. He is as warlike as Mars; as powerful and as moral as Zeus or Jove; as wise as Minerva, as loving as Venus, and as jealous as Juno. These

qualities he has in excess-in an infinite degree, whatever that may mean. It is easy to see that the god of Monotheism is a human being, lifted up to the transcendent stage. He is, as Matthew Arnold well says, a magnified non-natural man. We suppose it is hardly necessary to remind you that no sooner was this wonderful compound being described-defined he could not be,—than his nature and attributes gave rise to never-ending discussions about his qualities and essence. The Greek mind loved subtle distinctions, and none were too subtle or too ingenious for such a subject. The God of Monotheism, as an intellectual conception, would have been reasoned out of existence, so absurd was it, but for its social and moral uses. Henceforth it is presented, not as an object of speculation, but of love. The office of the intellect is not to criticise and question, but to believe and adore.

THIRD LECTURE.

COMTE'S HIERARCHY OF THE scienceS.

IT was by Rome's adoption of the results of Greek philosophy and science that they were made known throughout the Western world. Had Rome not had other uses for the genius of her sons, she could have elaborated both a philosophy and a science of her own, as good as those of Greece, and perhaps better adapted to the needs of the West. For sociological reasons, her task was a different one. She had to develop Military, so as to lay the basis of Social, Polytheism to mould and fashion semi-theocratic populations into one great people. We know how thoroughly she performed her task, which, although a more practical one than that of Greece, demanded talents of the highest order. The great men of Rome are no whit inferior, intellectually, to the great men of Greece; morally they were often superior to them. Cæsar, the Scipios, Hadrian, Trajan, Cicero, and Marcus Aurelius were, both in brain and heart, fit to rank with the best Greek heroes or philosophers; and had they wholly devoted their genius to science and philosophy, they would have rivalled-in fact some of them did rival-their most splendid intellectual achievements. Catholicism, which cherished many of the best traditions of Rome's policy, protected and helped science during many centuries.

It was in the bosom of the Catholic Church that the schoolmen were nourished, who afterwards, by their intellectual disquisitions on entities and quiddities and logical forms, often over subtle and refined, prepared the way for Roger Bacon, Descartes, and Francis Bacon. St. Thomas