themselves by a process of natural selection. Excellent as such a system may seem, it did not lead to progress, and already the Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond, Henry VII.'s mother, had adopted the advice of Bishop Fisher, and founded divinity professorships in the two universities. Wolsey wished to extend this system and organise an entire staff of teachers for university purposes. We do not know how far he showed his intention, but such was his influence that Oxford submitted its statutes to him for revision. Wolsey's hands were too full of other work for him to undertake at once so delicate a matter; but he meant undoubtedly to reorganise the system of university education, and for this purpose prevailed on Cambridge also to entrust its statutes to his hands. Again he had prepared the way for a great undertaking, and had dexterously used his position to remove all obstacles, and prepare a field for the work of reconstruction. Again he was prevented from carrying out his designs, and his educational reform was never actually made. We can only trace his intentions in the fact that he brought to Oxford a learned Spaniard, Juan Luis Vives, to lecture on rhetoric, and we may infer that he intended to provide both universities with a staff of teachers chosen from the first scholars of Europe. Another matter gives another indication of Wolsey's desire to remove the grievances felt against the Church. If the monasteries were survivals of a time when the Church discharged the humanitarian duties of society, the ecclesiastical courts were in a like manner survivals of a time when the civil courts were not yet able to deal with many points which concerned the relations between man and man, or which regulated individual conduct. Thus marriage was a religious ceremony, and all questions which arose from the marriage contract were decided in the ecclesiastical courts. Similarly wills were recognised by the Church, as resting on the moral basis of mutual confidence, long before the State was prepared to acknowledge their validity. Besides these cases which arose from contract, the Church exercised a disciplinary supervision over its members for the good of their souls, and to avoid scandals in a Christian community. On all these points the principles of the Church had leavened the conceptions of the State, and the civil jurisdiction had in many matters overtaken the ecclesiastical. But the clerical courts stood stubbornly upon their claim to greater antiquity, and the activity of ecclesiastical lawyers found plenty of work to do. Disciplinary jurisdiction was unduly extended by a class of trained officials, and was resented by the growing independence of the rising middle class. No doubt the ecclesiastical courts needed reform, but the difficulties in the way of reforming legal procedure are always great. Wolsey faced the problem in a way which is most characteristic of his statesmanship. He strove to bring the question to maturity for solution