'Thou art the source and centre of all minds, Their only point of rest, Eternal Word. From Thee departing they are lost, and rove At random, without honour, hope, or peace; From Thee is all that soothes the life of man-- His high endeavour, and his glad success, His strength to suffer, and his will to serve. But oh! Thou bounteous Giver of all good, Thou art of all Thy gifts Thyself the crown; Give what Thou canst, without Thee we are poor, And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away.'
[2] A native of Barcelona, who was made head of the French police in 1759, and retired in 1780.
[3] Vol. iii., p. 196. We borrow the translation of a living author.
[4] Details are necessarily omitted, for want of space, in this extract, as well as in the last, the loss of which weakens its force.
[6] See a curious collection of passages in the notes to M. de Champagny's chapter on Slavery. ('Les Césars,' vol. iii.)
[7] See Champagny's 'Cæsars,' vol. iii. p. 122.
[8] Thus Livy: 'Ad illa mihi pro se quisque intendat animum, quæ vita qui mores fuerint; per quos viros, quibusque artibus, domi militiæque, et partum et auctum imperium sit. Labente deinde paullatim disciplinâ, velut desidentes primo mores sequatur animo, deinde ut magis magisque lapsi sint; tum ire coeperint præcipites; donec ad hæc tempora, quibus nec vitia nostra nec remedia pati possumus perventum est;' and yet he is so far from considering this an evil peculiar to Rome, that he adds, 'Nulla unquam respublica nec major nec sanctior nec bonis exemplis ditior fuit; nec in quam civitatem tam seræ avaritia luxuriaque immigraverint, nec ubi tantus et tam diu paupertati ac parsimoniæ honos fuerit.'--(_Præfatio._)
[9] 'Roman History,' vol. ii. chap. xxvi.
[10] See Champagny, Appendix, 'Les Césars,' vol. i.
ART. II.--_Theism_--_Desiderata in the Theistic Argument._
It is a philosophical commonplace that all human questioning leads back to ultimate truths which cannot be further analysed, and of which no other explanation can be given than that _they exist_. Every explanation of the universe rests and must rest on the inexplicable. The borders of the known and the knowable are fringed with mystery, and all the data of knowledge recede into it by longer or shorter pathways. Thus, while it is the very mystery of the universe that has given rise to human knowledge, by quickening the curiosity of man, it is the same mystery which prescribes a limit to his insight, which continues to overshadow him in his researches, and to girdle him, in his latest discoveries, with its veil. In wonder all philosophy is born; in wonder it always ends: and, to adopt a well-known illustration, our human knowledge is a stream of which the source is hid, and the destination unknown, although we may surmise regarding both.