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and must produce a certificate of their success before they can be admitted to the next examination. Those who fail may make a second attempt the next term. They cannot be examined in less than one Greek and one Latin book, and some compendium of logic, and few are content with so scanty an exhibition of their attainments.

A year after this at soonest, and not later than two years, the principal examination takes place. Four examiners, appointed by the university, and sworn to the faithful discharge of their duty, publicly examine six candidates in a day. There are two periods in the year appointed for holding these examinations; and when all who present themselves at each period have been examined, the examiners proceed to distribute into three classes those with whose attainments they are satisfied. The first branch of examination is the rudiments of religion; which is managed by construing a passage in the Greek Testament, and answering such questions connected with it, as may shew the candidate's knowledge of Revelation. Questions follow in sa cred history, in the thirty-nine, articles, and the evidences of our faith. The next subject is logic, in which Aldrich's short treatise is generally employed; though certain excerpts from Aristotle's Organon are occasionally offered for the approbation of the patrons of this ancient discipline. The next point, and perhaps the most laborious of all, is rhetoric and moral philosophy, as far as they are to be derived from the ancient writers. The works of Cicero and Quinctilian on these subjects are often presented, but no distinction is to be obtained without an intimate knowledge of the celebrated treatises

of Aristotle. The accurate study of these last, which is required in this examination, where all the definitions and terms must be given in the original Greek, and the divisions and distinctions, and the whole argument shewn to be distinctly apprehended and remembered, is an exercise of the mind from which the student cannot fail to derive the most important benefit. The treatise on politics is occasionally added. The construction of at least three classical authors follows; and those who aim at distinction must present a considerable number of the highest class in both languages. The mathematical examination, at least of those who have advanced any length in such studies, is chiefly carried on on paper by the solution of problems, while other parts of the business proceed. In this manner also the candidate's knowledge of Latin composition is tried.

It is not intended that these examinations should exclude persons even of moderate attainments from academical degrees, but rather operate as an excitement to emulation, and afford an opportunity for honourable distinction. Some are indeed altogether rejected every year; but the large proportion pass unnoticed in the third and unpublished class. There are two honourable classes published both in literature and in the mathematical sciences, (or rather there may be said to be three in each, as the second has been divided into two;) and the same candidate may obtain the first place in both. The individuals of each class are arranged in alphabetical order, as any attempt to appreciate the exact merit of cach of them would be altogether impracticable. The proportion which the numbers in these classes bear to those

in the unpublished class is generally

about one-third.

It has been objected, that the examiners, who have to perform the most arduous and important office in the university, are not sufficiently recompensed for their exertions by a pension of 801. a-year but the sense we entertain of the important nature of their office, rather inclines us to think that the university have acted wisely in restricting its emoluments to such a sum as will effectually prevent it from ever becoming an object of desire in a pecuniary point of view, and thus degenerating into a sinecure. Public spirit, and the hopes of distinction, have hitherto contributed to the effectual discharge of the highly responsible duties attached to it; and there can be no reason to suppose that able successors will be wanting, who will have the advantage of profiting by the experience of those who have gone before them, and the prospect of promotion and public honour as a stimulus to their labours.

The only parts of the examination with which the examiners may not occasionally dispense, even in the lowest class of candidates, are the rudiments of religion, the classics, and logic: But no branch can be dispensed with in those who aim at an honourable publication of their names.

The university has been often reproached with their attachment to Aristotle, and especially to his system of logic, which, though perhaps the greatest effort of his genius, is now among the most useless of his labours. As we do not deny that the logic may be of some use in the cultivation of the mind, barren as it is in works, and worse than useless in the discovery of truth, we would not altogether exclude it from the schools.

All the knowledge of this science that is now required, indispensable as it still remains through repect to its past fame, does not occupy a large portion of time, and on all hands it must be admitted to be a curious, if not an useful, object of inquiry. One remark shall only be made in passing, that some of those authors who continue at this day to retail Bacon's comparison of Aristotle's dominion over the minds of men to that of his royal pupil over their bodies, seem to have overlooked the change of manners and opinions since their great master wrote; and, in their vain triumph over the shadow of scholas. tic logic, to have neglected the honour which is due to the Greek philosopher in other departments of science. At Oxford, though the ethics and rhetoric, politics and poetry, be still valued in the schools, the logic. no longer continues to pollute every source of knowledge as in the day's of Bacon, and to infect with its baleful influence, not only the philosophy of mind, but nature herself and the pure fountains of our faith. The study of the former treatises is indeed encouraged, as well for the intellectual riches they contain as for the valuable habits which an attentive investigation of their argument requires. But those to whom they are known only through the medium of an English paraphrase, (and of the best of them there is, perhaps, fortunately, no popular translation,) cannot easily conceive the benefits which a youthful mind derives from the excellent discipline of acquiring a thorough knowledge of the original. Untivalled accuracy, and precision of language and of thought, singular powers of discrimination and arrangement, just principles of taste, profound knowledge of the passions and

affections of the heart, extensive experience and patient observation of human nature in public and in private life, are a few of the excellencies, which constitute these works into a code of instruction founded on the fundamental principles of our nature. We would enlarge on this subject, but that we are not aware that our views of it have been questioned in any respectable quarter. No one, certainly, who has made the originals his study, can doubt their importance in the formation of the tender mind.

On one point, however, a difference of opinion prevails even at Oxford, on the expediency of that part of the statute which excludes the modern writers on moral philosophy from the schools. In favour of the exclusion it has been argued,* "That in a christian community ethics is much more included within the province of religion than of philosophy; that without the sanction of religion the purest system of ethics would be comparatively lifeless and unfruitful; and without ethical instruction religion itself is vapid and even dangerous.' ." It is argued, "That we should look to the pulpit for the fullest performance of this branch of education; and that it is a popular error to consider moral philosophy and metaphysics as inconsistent with the nature of a sermon." It is stated, "that the Greek philosophy is always studied with a reserve in favour of christianity; and that, while popular modern works will be read without much specific encouragement, a foreign stimulus is almost always wanted to make an ancient treatise of any depth generally studied."

But, on the other hand, it may be

replied, that if we look to the pulpit with any such unreasonable expectation, we must look in vain. The duty of a preacher is to convey religious instruction, and exhort to the practice of morality; that of a moral philosopher consists in explaining the philosophy of the human mind, in investigating the faculties and principles of our nature, and tracing the general laws of our constitution. Now the fact is indisputable, that no means of instruction in the latter are provided for the Oxford student, except what the study of the ancient writers affords; and that he quits the university with the same imperfect and erroneous notions in this most important of all the sciences, as if he had studied in the Academy or the Lyceum. Of the analysis of the faculties purely intellectual, which has been lately pursued with so much success, he is in almost total ignorance, and even his knowledge of our moral faculties, of the sources of our desires and affections, and of the first principles of moral obligation, is miserably deficient. In short, he is left to go about with a small candle, as Bacon somewhere expresses it, lighting up by turns every little corner of the mind, instead of collecting enlarged and general views of nature and of man. But it is unnecessary to enlarge on this subject so long as it is not asserted that the names of Bacon and his followers in intellectual philosophy have at any time dignified and profaned the pulpit of St Mary's; or that the University of Oxford supplies any advice, assistance, or encouragement in any other mode, public or private, in the department of moral philosophy, excepting only the examination already men.

*See an able pamphlet, entitled, "A Reply to the Calumnies of the Edinburgh, Review against Oxford."

tioned in the Offices of Cicero, and the Ethics of Aristotle. Such being the state of the fact, and, as far as the pulpit is concerned, there being no probability of any change, it is of no importance to dwell upon the im propriety of perverting the short space of time which sermons occupy to any subject not immediately connected with the practice of life, or the great articles of our faith. The more attentively it is considered, the more impracticable and dangerous will the proposal appear, to confound the doubtful speculations of the metaphysician, and the abstract discussions of the moral philosopher, with those great truths which are conveyed in the same plain and simple language to the learned and to the ignorant. On the whole, it would be affectation to conceal our conviction, that such an idea could only have originated in the most erroneous and mistaken views of the nature of this branch of education. With respect to the argument quoted above, its singularity will be at once explained upon this last principle, when our readers are informed that the same author broadly and repeatedly states his belief in the most dogmatical and unqualified terms, that the whole organum of Bacon is exclusively confined to the department of physical science!"*a position which, from such a quarter, strongly marks the slow progress of knowledge, and amply justifies the retort, that "there are some modern works for the study of which a foreign stimulus is occasionally wanted."

To some other positions of this author, to which he adheres with much pertinacity, we shall just allude, as curious historical facts. Such are his dogmas, "that it is a vulgar error to oppose the organum of Bacon to that of Aristotle;"" that the current notion is false, that Bacon invented the method of induction for arriving at those truths which Aristotle sought by means of syllogism;"— "that in the first book of the Novum Organum, the syllogistic method of reasoning isnot once mentioned among the causes that seem to have obstructed the advancement of natural science ;" and "that to propose this work as a guide for philosophical inquiries in the present age, is to mistake its nature and design." Such in the nineteenth century are the opinions of an author of very respectable talents and attainments, and who speaks the language of a person of some note in this famous university. And here let us lament with Aristotle that melancholy species of ignorance, which proceeds not from the difficulty attending the objects of our knowledge, but from the stubbornness of our own hearts, and which renders the eyes of the human soul as blind to the clearest truths, as the eyes of bats to the light of day.†

To expose the contradictions of this author with respect to Bacon's philosophy, or indeed to entertain controversies of any sort, is not very consistent with the nature of this work; but the reflection, that his errors cannot be peculiar to himself, and the magnitude of their practical

* See a Second Reply to the Edinburgh Review.

† Ίσως δε και της χαλεπότητος εσης κατα δυο τρόποις, εκ εν τοις πραγμασιν, αλλ' εν ήμιν το αίτιον αυτης. ώσπερ γαρ και τα των νυκτερίδων ομματα προς το φεγγος έχει το μεθ' ήμεραν, ούτω και της ημετερα; ψυχης ὁ νες προς τα τη φύσει φανερωτατα παντων. Metaphys. II. 1.

consequences in the system of education, which it is our object to describe, may apologize for a very few curso. ry observations.-The author having been fairly driven from his position, that the Novum Organum is confined to natural philosophy, still makes a shew of defending the other point, that it has an object totally different from the Organum of Aristotle, and that they are in no respect in opposition to each other. His error, as far as it is intelligible, seems to consist in conceiving the object of induction to be limited to making discoveries in the proper sense of the word, and in not understanding it to be equally necessary in the acquisition of knowledge previously discovered. But the process of acquiring knowledge must be admitted to be precisely the same, whether it has been previously discovered or not, unless it be contended that the nature of the knowledge it self is altered by the discovery. The truths in Locke's Essay are acquired by the reader by the same inductive mode of reasoning by which they were at first presented to the mind of that great philosopher. Nor did Bacon, when he recommended induction as the only mode of discovering truth, or Locke, when he afforded so splendid an exemplification of his doctrine, lay claim to any other praise, than that of steadily and systematically directing the attention of learned men to the same logic, by which alone the common sense of mankind in preceding ages had unconsciously provided for the wants and desires of individuals, or in any way extended the empire of human reason. Now it is perfectly obvious, that no fact, old or new, was ever added to any

man's stock of knowledge by the logic of the schools; and it is a manifest absurdity to argue that a young man's mind should be directed to the syllogistic form of reasoning to the exclusion of the method of induction, until " he learns the arts in their present form and condition." Induction is nothing else than the natural operation of the mind when all obstructions are removed; and if it were possible to exclude it altogether, the first principles of all knowledge would be wanting, and the very materials with which syllogisms are con structed. But it can never be denied, that the great object of all philosophical instruction is nothing else than to open the way for the natural developement of our faculties. Upon this ground, while the statements of Locke and Bacon remain unanswered, it may be maintained, without the fear of contradiction, that the logic of the schools cannot be applied with safety to any branch of philosophy, physical or intellectual, but is the mere science of words, and relates only to the application and arrangement of knowledge previously acquired; 66

quæ disputationes alat, sermones ornet, ad professoria munera et vitae civilis compendia adhibeatur et valeat ;" and which consequently, instead of the first and leading object, ought to form one of the last and least important parts of a system of liberal education.

The position already mentioned, that the novum organum, or new ma chine, as it has been called, for working with the understanding on all subjects, is not intended as a substitute for the old logic of Aristotle, is refuted by the very title and by every

See Mr Home Drummond's Observations suggested by the Strictures of the Review, and by the Two Replies, and an Answer to Mr Drummond in the Appendix to a Third Reply.

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