the founder of the first meteorological society, which had contributors from all over the world. This list is sufficiently glorious. Perhaps it might be noted here that these eminent men were not primarily seeking distinction or aiming at success in the sciences to which they devoted themselves. That consideration occupied only a secondary place in their thoughts and the glory they achieved was sought exclusively to enable them the more easily to reach the souls of men. But on the other hand, that motive inspired them with greater zeal in the prosecution of their work than a merely human purpose would have done. Assuredly, it would have been much more comfortable for Ricci and Schall and Verbiest and Grimaldi to be looking through telescopes in the observatories of Europe than at Canton or Pekin, where every moment they were in danger of having their heads cut off. As a matter of fact, after more than forty years of service for China's education in mathematics and astronomy, the only reward that Father Schall reaped was, as we have seen, to be dragged to court, though he was paralyzed and speechless, and to be condemned to be hacked to pieces. It is quite true that the philosophers of the Society have never evolved any independent philosophical or theological thought, in the modern acceptation of that term. That is, they have never acted like the captain of a ship who would throw his charts and compass overboard, and insist that North is South because he thinks it so. The aim of philosophy is intellectual truth and not the extravagances of a disordered imagination. Contrary to the modern superstition, Catholic philosophers are not hampered in their speculations by authority, nor are they compelled in their study of logic, metaphysics and ethics to draw proofs from revelation. Philosophy is a human not a divine science, but on the other hand, Catholic philosophy is prevented from going over the abyss by the possession of a higher knowledge than unassisted human reason could ever attain. Thus protected, it speculates with an audacity, of which those who are not so provided can have no conception. For them philosophy runs through the whole theological course, and when Holy Scripture, the pronouncements of the Church, and the utterances of the Fathers have established the truth of the particular doctrine which is under consideration, then reason enters, and elevated, ennobled, fortified and illumined, it walks secure in the highest realms of thought. Three entire years are given to the explicit study of it, in the formation of the Jesuit scholastic, and it continues to be employed throughout his four or five years of theology. Both sciences are fundamental in the Society's studies, and it has not lacked honor in either. But as philosophy is subsidiary and ancillary, it will be sufficient to set forth what is said about the Society's theologians.