see if the bonne will understand you. It is you that say “_Vox populi—Vox Dei_;” but you see the people reject you. Or, suppose you succeed—what you call succeeding—your books are read; for three weeks, or even a season, you are the idol of the _salons_; your hard words are on the lips of women; then a change comes—a new actress appears at the Théâtre Français or the Opéra—her charms eclipse your theories; or a great catastrophe occurs—political liberty (it is said) is annihilated—_il faut se faire mouchard_, is the observation of scoffers. Any how, _you_ are forgotten—fifty years may be the gestation of a philosophy, not three its life—before long, before you go to your grave, your six disciples leave you for some newer master, or to set up for themselves. The poorest priest in the remote region of the _Basses Alpes_ has more power over men’s souls than human cultivation; his ill-mouthed masses move women’s souls—can you? Ye scoff at Jupiter. Yet he at least was believed in—you never have been; idol for idol, the _de_throned is better than the _un_throned. No, if you would reason—if you would teach—if you would speculate, come to us. We have our _premises_ ready; years upon years before you were born, intellects whom the best of you delight to magnify, toiled to systematise the creed of ages; years upon years after you are dead, better heads than yours will find new matter there to define, to divide, to arrange. Consider the hundred volumes of Aquinas—which of you desire a higher life than that? To deduce, to subtilise, discriminate, systematise, and decide the highest truth, and to be believed. Yet such was his luck, his enjoyment. He was what you would be. No, no—_Credite, credite_. Ours is the life of speculation—the cloister is the home for the student. Philosophy is stationary—Catholicism progressive. You call—we are heard,’ &c., &c., &c. So speaks each preacher according to his ability. And when the dust and noise of present controversies have passed away, and in the silence of the night, some grave historian writes out the tale of half-forgotten times, let him not forget to observe that skilfully as the mediæval church subdued the superstitious cravings of a painful and barbarous age—in after years she dealt more discerningly still with the feverish excitement, the feeble vanities, and the dogmatic impatience of an over-intellectual generation.