Consider how shortsighted a wisdom is manifested by these words. Is it seriously intended to summon the peasant from his plough, the old grandmother from behind the stove, and lead them into the lecture rooms of the university in order that they might there listen to lectures on phenomenalism, and positivism, and realism, and criticism, until their heads are swimming? Or else can they not hope to arrive at the truth? Do they seriously think that the truth asked for by every man, the truth in the most vital questions of mankind, is the exclusive privilege of a few college professors? And how very few. More than twenty-four hundred years have elapsed since the days of _Pythagoras_, and yet modern philosophy still stands before the first preliminary question in all knowledge, whether a man can know what the eye does not see. “Many views are at variance there.” If this be the only way for mankind to reach certain truth, then we are indeed in a pitiful plight! We esteem philosophy and its subtle questions, and we heartily wish our Catholic young men in college to obtain a more thorough philosophical training. But if, involved in theories, one will lose his insight into the world and human life to such a degree as to make of the “wisdom of the world” an isolated narrow speculation which boasts of being alone able to discover the higher truths, while withering in neurasthenic doubt—such wisdom should be left to its deserved fate, sterility. Or should it be possible to the ideal of Protestantism—and therefore also of the modern spirit—to console mankind by pointing out that the knowledge of the question which concerns us most deeply, “the knowledge of God and the knowledge of good, remains but a leading idea and problem, though we are confident of advancing nearer to its solution”? Is thus mankind to be eternally without light in the most important questions and problems? Every little plant and animal is equipped by nature with everything it needs—and man alone to be a failure? The young shoots of the tree strive to bring forth blossoms and fruit, and succeed; the bird flies off in the fall in quest of a new home, and finds it; hunger and thirst demand food and get it; only the aim of the human mind shall never be fulfilled—he alone shall ever pine without hope!—_Dicentes se esse sapientes stulti facti sunt._ What a difference between such principles and the grand thoughts of Christianity! A difference like that between peace and eternal restless doubt, like that between man’s dignity and man’s degradation, between man’s short-sightedness and the wisdom of God.