shall be alike brought before the judgment-seat, and the true City of
God shall appear...The work of St. Augustine is a curious repertory of
antiquarian learning and quotations, deeply penetrated with Christian
ethics, but showing little power of reasoning, and a slender knowledge
of the Greek literature and language. He was a great genius, and a
noble character, yet hardly capable of feeling or understanding
anything external to his own theology. Of all the ancient philosophers
he is most attracted by Plato, though he is very slightly acquainted
with his writings. He is inclined to believe that the idea of creation
in the Timaeus is derived from the narrative in Genesis; and he is
strangely taken with the coincidence (?) of Plato’s saying that ‘the
philosopher is the lover of God,’ and the words of the Book of Exodus
in which God reveals himself to Moses (Exod.) He dwells at length on
miracles performed in his own day, of which the evidence is regarded by
him as irresistible. He speaks in a very interesting manner of the
beauty and utility of nature and of the human frame, which he conceives
to afford a foretaste of the heavenly state and of the resurrection of
the body. The book is not really what to most persons the title of it
would imply, and belongs to an age which has passed away. But it
contains many fine passages and thoughts which are for all time.
The short treatise de Monarchia of Dante is by far the most remarkable
of mediaeval ideals, and bears the impress of the great genius in whom
Italy and the Middle Ages are so vividly reflected. It is the vision of
an Universal Empire, which is supposed to be the natural and necessary
government of the world, having a divine authority distinct from the
Papacy, yet coextensive with it. It is not ‘the ghost of the dead Roman
Empire sitting crowned upon the grave thereof,’ but the legitimate heir
and successor of it, justified by the ancient virtues of the Romans and
the beneficence of their rule. Their right to be the governors of the
world is also confirmed by the testimony of miracles, and acknowledged
by St. Paul when he appealed to Caesar, and even more emphatically by
Christ Himself, Who could not have made atonement for the sins of men
if He had not been condemned by a divinely authorized tribunal. The
necessity for the establishment of an Universal Empire is proved partly
by a priori arguments such as the unity of God and the unity of the
family or nation; partly by perversions of Scripture and history, by
false analogies of nature, by misapplied quotations from the classics,
and by odd scraps and commonplaces of logic, showing a familiar but by
no means exact knowledge of Aristotle (of Plato there is none). But a
more convincing argument still is the miserable state of the world,
which he touchingly describes. He sees no hope of happiness or peace
for mankind until all nations of the earth are comprehended in a single
empire. The whole treatise shows how deeply the idea of the Roman