ligible, namely, the conception of a Supreme Cause, causing but uncaused:

66

Although every single movement and existence in the world has a finite cause, and every such finite cause another finite cause back of it, yet back of this infinite series of finite causes there must be an infinite immaterial being, a first something, unmoved, all-moving, pure cnergy, absolute reason, God."

In his own age, and for many generations after, Aristotle was known as the tutor of Alexander. Sophists were not ready to accept the truth, and the multitude was unable to grasp it. The generality was pleased with the show and glitter, the ingenious reasoning and subtle fallacies of the Stoics, the Epicureans and the Neo-platonists. Moreover, at the first introduction of his works at Alexandria (150 B. C), it was sought to construe them as contrary to the Christian religion, and consequently they fell into disfavor with the fathers of the church. It was not until the eleventh century, when the struggle between Nominalists and Realists was at its height, that Aristotle was brought out in opposition to Plato in support of the Nominalists. For three centurics previous to this, however, his works had been extensively read by the Arabians, and some of them we have received from that people. At the revival of classical learning in the fifteenth century, Aristotle received his share of attention, and since that time his ideas have been more fully developed and his methods of thought more fully exemplified in the writings of Bacon, Kant, Descartes and others.

Aristotle and Alexander, sustaining as they did the relation to each other of master and pupil, are naturally associated in our minds. They stand side by side as two illustrious, if indeed, they were not the most illustrious, men of all antiquity. The one is an example of the successful general, the other, perhaps, the greatest logician and general writer that the world has ever seen; and, though not always correct, though at times discriminating badly and again discriminating where no difference could be proved, yet he was far in advance of his age,

and we can but wonder at his immense labors, the great difficulties which he all but overcame in one of the most difficult branches of science, and the nearness by which he approximated the truth. Of the warrior

Stat nominis umbra.

His works have perished with his frail Lody. But the writings of the sage live after him, and lapse of time but adds weight to their authority and enlarges the sphere of their usefulness, The name of the one may act as a charm to arouse the sleeping energies of a guilty ambition, but that of the other will ever be intimately connected with all that is elevated and refined in the human heart and mind.

QUOTATIONS.

In reading authors, when you find
Bright passages that strike your mind,
And which, perhaps, you may have reason
To think of at another season;

Be not contented with the sight,

But take them down in black and white;

Such respect is wisely shown,

To make another's sense one's own.

ΑΝΟΝ.

I.

HE great number of authors that must be read in our day by every one that makes any pretensions to polite learn

ing, fill the mind, if read aright, with noble imagery and express certain thoughts in such appositeness of language that, while we despair of equaling them in this respect, our minds, when filled with the same ideas, cannot but revert to them with delight and admiration. When this process is natural and unaccompanied with pedantry or desire of ostentation, it has the most pleasing effect both on the writer and his readers.

In the first place, to have a quotation that is not hackneyed, yet remarkable for aptness and strength of expression, occur to one naturally, is so far agreeable in that, while thinking of the same subject, even though we may have read beforehand what the distinguished writer has said, reflections will spring up such as will readily suggest what has already been expressed so ably and well. To the reader, provided he see no straining after effect, nor detect any inapplicability in the quotations themselves, encouragement is given; for, though the thoughts may be commonplace, he is induced to go on by the consideration that they will at least be useful, and is assured that they are orthodox, because supported and illustrated by the works of approved writers. This, however, is a satisfaction which the more pretending would scorn to acknowledge. Moreover, if the quotations are selected judiciously, they become means of affording us an acquaintance with celebrated authors; and, indeed, some authors, and often those the most deserving, are only known to the general public through such means.

It is a tribute which is paid to genius and the good sense of our ancestors to review their opinions even to recalling their very words; and, though I am aware that taste may be corrupted from nature, and even made repulsive to good sense by too great a subserviency to the manners and customs of a preceding age, yet while the danger is small, recalling the views of the most enlightened of past ages is, besides being a great source of pleasure, useful in that it causes us to reflect, to compare both sides of a question, and thus either confirms us in our former views, or enables us to arrive at a new and correct conclusion. Quotations fill the pages of the writer of genius with pleasing variety. Charmed by words of wisdom, we read on, looking forward to every moment when we feel sure that a new thought will be anatomized or an old one traced to its source and, by an apt quotation, irrevocably fixed. On the other hand, quotations often prove a god-send to mediocrity, to enliven the dullness and to enlighten the obscurity of its pages. In the pages of genius they are like rubies and emeralds set in frames of silver; in those of the feeble writer like

diamonds on the bosom of an Ethiopian wench, that glitter and corruscate all the more brilliantly in contrast to their surroundings.

II.

Quotations, like all genuine coin, are liable to be counterfeited; and since, unfortunately, they can be utilized in so many dif ferent ways, the evil has become very widespread. The two chief causes which give rise to this false and spurious coin are; first, a desire of appearing learned; and, second, a wish to give dignity and importance to what we know to be very commonplace. A writer of travels, for instance, is describing mountain scenery. Let us suppose that he has blundered along (or written with fluent ease, if you please) a couple of pages. He has spoken of the lonely rock, the deep gorge, the precipitons cliffs and the eagle soaring above. He has taken his readers to the top of a lofty peak that overlooked half a continent. He has dwelt with rapture on the beautiful landscape and the lovely tints of the skies. Nature and good sense are satisfied; but art and a morbid and corrupt taste bid him add more. His mind reverts to Coleridge, to Denham. He hastily runs over in mind what he remembers of Wordsworth. His mind, after fruitless search, returns dissatisfied. Now is he painfully aware that a quotation is of all things the thing necessary, and he fondly imagines that its long and pompous cadence will catch the popular ear. In this dilemma he goes to work and manufactures something like the following:

I stood upon the mountain's brow,
And looked upon the scene below;
The wild winds fiercely whistled by,
The strong-winged eagle soared on high,
And screamed defiance to the sky.
Fast-gathering clouds now rise apace,
And hide the landscape's smiling face.
All fiercely rolls the hollow thunder;
But far beneath are cleft asunder
The flying squadrons of the air;
And now 'bove all the din, more fair

By contrast, the high peaks uprise,
And seek to pierce the vaulted skies, &c.

It is only necessary to precede this sublime burst by the phrase, “As the poet says," or "We will close our description by quoting a celebrated author." Now, though no one knows the celebrated author from which it is taken, the reader is ashamed to acknowledge his own ignorance by confessing that to him the passage is not a famíliar one. In this way the reader is often deceived and the writer worried with improvisations. The sooner we get rid of this false taste for over-quotation the better. Yet this is after all the most excusable of spurious quotations, and we have not words sufficient to express our contempt and detestation for the man that will in a polemical controversy improvise, garble and pervert quotations to advance his own selfish aims. There is another kind of false quotation, which is far more easily detected than any other. This is the learned quotation. In this the writer, however trivial his subject, will intersperse his matter with remarks like these: "As Scriblerius says," "As the grammarian of Alexandria has it," "To quote from Aristotle." The words of the quotation may be foolish enough, generally are, but the writer's purpose is accomplished. Let us examine some of these quotations. Here is one which a writer on natural history made from Aristotle: "It is wonderful to observe how divinely fashioned are all the parts of this world of ours, and how the ill effects of certain dispensations are, by ways which we sometimes discover only by accident, beautifully compensated. This is seen in the case of birds and beasts. Thus the web-foot of the Goose and Duck was made to oppose the watery element, the long neck and legs of the Crane to fish for the mud-loving tadpole. The tale of the monkey, too, we see, is adapted to coiling around the branches of a tree, thus supporting its owner, for the Deity has not made a long tail to no purpose." He got along smoothly until he begun to tamper with the monkey's tail.

There is a certain class of writers as fruitful in the production of dull essays, as the soil once sown with dragon's teeth was of armed men. Their peculiar province is amplification, and they soon acquire a reputation for extensive learning.