ligious doctrine, and the right performance of the duty of life among the people, could they have so long withstood the endeavour to combine all the efforts of the nation so as to further and promote the instruction and training of the whole mass of the people in the elements of knowledge?

Either the earnestness which the sects now claim, according to M. T., has not distinguished them quite so much in the past as it might, or their faith in the value of education was less than it should have been. The Government has exhausted almost every means of encouraging the sects to overtake the duty which they affirm to be theirs peculiarly; but they have left untaught districts of which they had, in one or other form, a monoply, while they have squandered vast sums in sectarian contests carried on by competing but unnecessary schools. The sectarian squabbles regarding education have kept back the training of the people for half a century; but, after having given them this length of trial, we are in earnest now, and must sweep the sects clean out of school, and have no more clerical cobwebbery retarding the intellectual and moral progress of the working-classes and the lower orders of the people.

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M. T. conjures up a world of worldliness,” and imagines that this would be a devil's delight. The passage (p. 27) is eloquent perhaps, but it is not.eloquent through its truth. M. T. refuses to take what can be gotten because he cannot get all he would like. It is an old story that "a little learning" (of the sort we do not like) "is a dangerous thing." We think a part better than none, and we believe that God has not so constructed the mind that if it be cultured it will doubt His being and despise His lawquite otherwise is it. Knowledge suggests God and godliness, ignorance is the fosterer of sensualism, immoralism, and devilish

ness.

Much as might be said on the subject, more cannot be said now. A most full and an emphatically impartial debate this surely has been. On both sides arguments of great force have been used. There has been no reticence in counter argument. The Unionists have been too restricted in their aim, but they supplied diversity in unity. On our side the arguments seem to us to have been more varied, less hackneyed, and more to the point than those of our opponents. Now it is for truth to prove its own greatness by prevailing. S. W. R.

Philosophy.

CAN HIGH EDUCATION COUNTERACT THE EAGERNESS OF THE SENSES?

AFFIRMATIVE REPLY.

"SENSE" is the term by which we express all the cravings of the body, and all the desires whose limits are the earth and the joys of the earth. 66 The things of time and sense" form a synonym for worldliness, and the expression has acquired currency in that meaning. The enjoyments of the senses, when indulged in without regard to moral consequences, degenerate into sensualism; and "the eagerness of the senses is such as to give man a general tendency thereto. A man who resigns himself to the low and lowering pursuits of sensualism, has evidently fallen far beneath the sphere and place in life which he ought to occupy.

Corporeal pleasure, having its origin in animal sensation, has a great influence over the imagination of man's heart. It might almost be said, "that the original seat of sin lies in the flesh, inasmuch as the pleasure, which gives force to the fancy, is undoubtedly the result of a bodily emotion. It is felt somewhere in the body, and perhaps without the body there would be neither pleasure nor pain"-though there would still be delight and sorrow, for these are mental states.

Sensational pleasure, though our submission of ourselves may be greatly increased in power by indulgence and in the associations connected with indulgence, is not in reality much in our own power; for we cannot help feeling pain or pleasure, as the case may be, when our bodily condition or circumstances are such as to call the mind's attention to the bodily sensations. To prevent the joy of these states from taking us captive, and so bringing us into bondage to sin and death, is very difficult, for it requires us to set our thoughts, feelings, and determinations against a tendency inherent in our nature to seek pleasure and avoid pain. To lose ourselves gradually in the indulgences of sense is remarkably easy, because it requires no more than that we should yield ourselves to the stream of sensations that hurry men down to animality.

We cannot steel the body against the changes which take place in it on the presentation of objects which have the capacity of affecting it. It is only in the directing and management of the mind, of the intellect, and the thoughts, that we can, in any effective manner, oppose the inducements and seductions of the senses. By an exertion of the mind and a direction of the currents of associa

tion in a course adverse to the sensational cravings or enjoyings, these may be coped with and be overcome. Sensational pleasure may in this way be reduced to a secondary, instead of being a primary, source of enjoyment; and the associations and emotions, affections and desires, may in this way be brought into subjection to the higher laws of holy life, and sensualism may be subdued by spirituality.

This is, as it seems to us, the plain gist of the question-Can high education counteract the eagerness of the senses ?" If G. P. would like the matter analyzed a little more it may be done, so as to bring it more plainly before the mind. (1) Can the eagerness of the senses be counteracted? and if that eagerness can be counteracted, what agent may be best employed? (2) Can high education efficaciously counteract this eagerness? A. B. C. has rightly said that this is a philosophical question, and perhaps a little obliviousness to this fact has led our opponents somewhat astray. We are making inquisition regarding a principle rather than a fact-although facts cannot be disregarded in the discussion. G. P. has perhaps most erred in this direction, and so has brought the debate into confusion.

It is confessed that the senses are endowed with an eagerness for enjoyment, that this eagerness induces a degeneracy into sensual indulgence. It is not desirable that men should so yield themselves to the merely bodily appetites and animal indulgences. But do these proclivities of sense hold the sway of fate over human life, and enforce compliance, or are they not only reprehensible, but manageable, so far as to be able to be somewhat subdued and counteracted?

We have a firm belief that they can, and we also hold the faith that education can accomplish this. Not the education of the senses, as G. P. seems to suppose, for that would not be the counteracting of them, but the education of the heart and the thoughts to interest them in higher things than those of time and sense. Education can so quicken, raise, elevate, and refine the nature that the associations of the senses may be made capable of imparting delights of a high and exquisite nature. To so educate the mind is to give it a high education—an education which ennobles sensation into thought, thought into poetry, and poetry into love and worship. This, we suppose, is the true function of education, to construct out of the sensations we feel the different sciences we can know, the various forms of poetry we can relish, and the maturer forms of aspirative praise on account of these blessings, which go to constitute worship. Had the question been debated throughout in regard to this matter, I think the result would have been a clearer view of the benefits of education, not only as a national question, but as a personal one, and would have greatly conduced to the extension of a desire for self-culture among the readers of this serial, for that is the true safeguard against sensualism and sin.-B. L. K.

NEGATIVE REPLY.

THE philosophy of life is a difficult topic to treat of; and to discuss the problems which arise out of the sensational philosophy in an adequate manner in a few pages is not within the power of many. It would appear, from the observations made by some of the writers on this subject, that we have misunderstood the whole affair. Of course, I have only to say that if they gave their interpretation to the terms, so did I, and I took the precaution of showing that it would be necessary to define the terms to be employed with some care, if we intended to have a discussion of any value. It can scarcely be laid to our charge with any fairness, that we did not carefully survey the meanings of the words employed, and endeavour to extract from them a sense which really gave them some importance and utility as a topic for debate. Nor was I mistaken in the controversial nature of the matter so suggested. It has frequently been asserted in connection with the temperance movement, for instance, that the only genuine course to be pursued for the extirpation or eradication of this vice is to educate the people. In a similar manner it has been argued, that so far as concerns the present popularity of burlesques, ballets, and things of that sort, the only way to drive them out of fashion was to heighten the education of the people, give them loftier notions, and then they would forsake ballets for gorgeous tragedy," and Sothern for Shakspere.

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We are of quite a different opinion. We think that even in the matter of burlesques and ballets, there is good reason for inferring that the high education and the high-pressure life we now lead gives a justification to the enjoyment to be derived from them, which they would not otherwise have. We drink to soothe our minds by the variety it induces in the method of feeling and of thought; not, say these apologists, for the stimulation it affords but for the change it offers. We are too highly engrossed on single points, and we require some means of unbending the spirit and opening out the floodgates of other delights, so that they may flow into the mind. We go to the burlesque to unbend our thoughts, and unbind our ideas, embondaged by the terrible cares of competitive life. We do not want to think, but to be kept from thinking-a play would be a task on our intellect and our emotions; this is relaxation, it requires no thought, and puts no strain on the comprehension. Even when the jaded intellect cannot see the so-called point of the jokes put before it, it can yet enjoy the contagion of laughter, and the community of the social affections. The ballet has the charm of enabling us to dismiss thought, to live the life-gliding moments in passiveness of mind, and so it rests and refreshes the overwrought, business-occupied brain. Billiards, cards, dice, picturegalleries, &c., have similar effects, they give us sensations instead of thoughts. "We train the eye and the ear while training the pen and the tongue."

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Those who contend that high education can counteract the eagerness of the senses, make a great mistake then, whatever "H. Scott may think of the assertion; because they take no account of the inevitable reaction of mind consequent on the tension of thought required for the attainment of high education, the natural results of the overstrain of the intellect, and the uprise of the demands of the senses for their due share in the facts and acts of life. The higher the pitch and force of the mind attained by education, the greater the delight to be found in unslipping the harness and escaping the yoke; and on this very account it has passed into a proverb that a little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men." "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," and even in ancient days it was determined, "dulce est desipere in loco." It is a proper thing to play the fool on a fitting occasion. B. L. K., in his second last paragraph, p. 15, seems to admit these, and " Georgius D. E." has very effectively disposed his arguments so as to show that high education is no guarantee for moral character, and no criterion in regard to being free from slavery to sense. High education, as has been pointed out, is too much concerned with books which suggest evil rather than good, and, as W. A. proves from facts, inclines many men to grave sensual indulgences.

It is a mistake very commonly made that education can thus eradicate or control the eagerness of the senses; and education has been proclaimed as the universal heal-all for the moral ills of humanity. But it is not so. The senses cannot be counteracted; but the grace of the Spirit of God may be so imparted that sense loses its power to charm and delight the mind. It leads the soul to the only true, real, independent method of conquering the desires of the flesh. It raises the spirit of man to the contemplation of God as the only true good, "the source of lasting joy." It so influences the soul that the emotions and affections rise out of themselves, and aspire to the perfection of a new life. The moment the eye of faith is taught to look above to a higher and nobler object than sense can show, the charm of sensual indulgence is broken, the partnership of earthliness is dissolved, the reborn soul finds in all nature a new and fresher beauty and cause of joy, an unexpected and additional charm outshines from the commonest objects. Then to think on our own pleasure destroys all possibility of delight; for the notable delight of the regenerated spirit is to love, serve, obey, and contemplate God. This change, education, however high, cannot effect; and because of this we have affirmed that high education cannot counteract the eagerness of the senses, and we feel bound still to affirm the thesis with which we began, that the love of the things of time and sense are only to be subdued within us by a due knowledge of eternity and God. G. P.