functions is altogether materialistic in its terms. Take the will for example. The essential and primary element of the will is the spontaneous activity of the human frame, an energy of the nerve centres of the body rising and falling with the vigour and nutrition of the system, and when fully charged requiring, like the battery of the torpedo, relief by pouring itself out upon some object or other, without any stimulus from without. This given, and the law that pleasure is connected with increase and pain with decrease of vitality, feeling becomes linked with spontaneity by the law of self-conservation, and we have all that is necessary to constitute the human will in its undeveloped state. Nothing more is required to constitute the mature will, the volitional power in its full development, than a process of education through the association of pleasure and pain with various movements and the acquired power of feeling to command movement. All volition consists then in putting forth muscular power; all voluntary control is muscular; through the muscles, feeling and thought are managed and commanded. Such a theory of the will leaves no room for the idea of freedom, or moral responsibility. The will is an organic function, simply subject like any other function of the organism to the general laws of causation. Pleasure becomes its sole motive, which it must obey, and there is no system of ethics left that will fit into the theory except that of Utility. That system is uniformally adopted by sensational and experimental philosophers, and in judging of it as propounded by them it must not be valued according to the isolated merits of the one idea of utility, but be regarded in its integrity and in combination with the theories from which in reality it sprung. Mr. Mill's answer therefore to the charge of godlessness against the utilitarianism now professed by scientific men and advocated by himself, is founded on a misstatement of the question at issue, and is calculated to throw the unwary off their guard. It cannot be too often repcated that, however some phases of Utilitarianism are compatible with belief in natural and revealed religion, that particular form of it now in vogue is absolutely irreconcilable with either.

Mr. Mill, like Mr. Bain, raises his system of ethics upon a foundation of sensational psychology. Arcades ambo, et cantare parcs et respondere parati. He maintains that all our ideas (which must not be supposed to include general concepts, which are the pernicious fiction of philosophers) sprang from sensation, and are manufactured into their present form by the laws of association—these laws being those of contiguity in time and place and of resemblance of contiguity among, or resemblance between, things presented to the mind from without, from an unknown external world, originating, for anything we know, fortuitously. Though obliged to assume the objective reality of matter at least in the forms of speech we adopt, we are not therefore to suppose that we are rationally justified in asserting its existence independently of our sensations any more than the fact of our sensations and perceptions reveals to us the existence of a thinking mind. Both are alike mysterious and unknown. We talk of matter and mind, but these are convenient formulæ for the incognisable external cause to which, from a tendency of the human mind, we ascribe our sensations, and for the similarly incognisable recipient or percipient of sensations. By another tendency of the mind the different name comes to be considered the name of a different thing. But that it is in fact different, is more than any one can tell. We think of the mind as a unity, but the idea of unity arises simply from permanence. Mind is a permanent possibility of sensations, thoughts, emotions, volitions. Where is the room for freedom of the will where moral ideas are formed, like all others, out of sensations of pleasure and pain by means of associations which are determined by outward circumstances? What have we to do with any other than temporal and material happiness if we know nothing of its possibility, or with moral government other than that of society, if we are in sheer ignorance of the existence of God?

Our

We are not refuting these systems at present. only object is to show the unwary who may be captivated by the high-sounding phrases and lofty sentiment common amongst our contemporary utilitarian moralists, that the

system is intimately bound up with doctrines concerning God, and man, and the universe, which neither any faithful Catholic, nor even any Christian man, can possibly entertain. At the mention of our Saviour's name Dante represents Virgil as sad and hopeless:

Chinò la fronte e piu non disse e rimase turbato.

Not less dreary is the outlook of these philosophers upon all the great questions which lie beyond the sphere of sensation and experience. The practical result of their doctrines is the same as if they were Atheists, though not liking the just stigma attached to the profession of Atheism, they are irritated at any application of the name to themselves. They are not the less sowing amongst the rising generation dragon's teeth, which hereafter will spring up armed men working havoc and destruction with all religious institutions, sanctions, practices, beliefs; nay, with that very social order which they themselves prize so highly, but which, by raising it to undue and supreme importance, they are condemning to inevitable collapse. and fatal ruin.

T.

The Wife's Crucifix.
(From the French of Lamartine.*)

DEAR token, left me with her dying breath,
Her last farewell, and fainting faltering word,
Twice sacred relic from the hand of Death,
And image of my Lord!

How oft my tears have steep'd Thy sacred Form
Since that dark moment, now so long gone by,
My trembling hands received thee, freshly warm
With her last hallowing sigh.

The holy tapers shed a feeble light,

The Priest was murmuring requiems low and deep,
Like plaintive songs by mother breathed at night
To soothe an infant's sleep.

Of holy faith her brow retained the trace,
That beauty too divine and pure to die:
Death, as he pass'd, left stamped upon her face--
Left, too, his majesty!

The breeze that waved her floating ringlets' gloom,
At times her features veiled, at times display'd,
As we see hanging o'er a marble tomb

The cypress with its shade.

One arm was drooping from the funeral couch,
The other, gently folded on her breast,
Seemed still to clasp with fond and lingering touch
The Saviour's image blest.

Her lips once more to press the Form had sought,
But in that holy kiss her spirit passed,

As a light perfume that the flame has caught
Ere wafted by the blast.

In the account of the death of this Poet an interesting mention is made of the cross which he continually wore, and which inspired the poem.

Then silence reigned upon her features pale,
The breath in her cold bosom stirred no more,
And o'er her eyes their curtain's snowy veil
A dreamy stillness wore.

And I, while nameless terrors hushed my breath,
Dared not approach the soul's forsaken shrine.
As if the speechless dignity of death

Had rendered it divine.

The Priest read well that agonising look

"Hope and remembrance yet with thee may dwell," He said, as from her hand the cross he took, "My son, preserve them well!”

Yes, mournful heritage, thou shalt remain-
Seven times the tree that on her tomb I set
Has lost its foliage, and has bloomed again,
But thou art with me yet.

Placed on this heart, where all but woe is dead,
Thou hast defended it from many a storm,
And drop by drop my eyes their grief have shed
Upon the Holy Form.

Last confidant of spirits heavenward bound,
Come rest upon my heart and breathe to me,
The words she uttered when their feeble sound
Was only heard by thee.

In that dim hour, when the departing soul
Hid by the veil that thickens o'er her view,
Retiring 'mid the shades that deeper roll,
Scarce hears the last adieu!

When floating vaguely betwixt life and death,
Like the ripe fruit suspended from the tree,
The spirit hovers, trembling at each breath
Over eternity.

When the sad harmonies of tears and prayer
No longer on the clouded mind descend,
Press'd to the dying lips Thou still art there,
Thou true and faithful Friend!