Divine intervention in human activity, and inclined to make human liberty vanish under the hand of God; these hold with the predestinarians. 3rd, Between those two tendencies was placed the general doctrine of the church, which strove to take into account all natural facts, human liberty and Divine intervention; denies that God effects all in man, that man can do all without the assistance of God, and thus establishes it. self, perhaps with more of reason than of scientific consistency, in the regions of good sense, the true country of the human mind, which always returns there, after having strayed in all directions. (Post longos errores.)

SIXTH LECTURE.

Object of the lecture-General character of the literature of the middle ages-Of the transition from pagan philosophy to Christian theologyOf the question of the nature of the soul in the Christian church-The ancient priests for the most part pronounced in favour of the system of materialism-Efforts to escape from it-Analogous march of ideas in pagan philosophy-Commencement of the system of spirituality-Saint Augustin, Nemesius, Mamertius Claudienus-Faustus, bishop of Riez— His arguments for the materiality of the soul-Mamertius Claudienus answers him-Importance of Mamertius Claudienus in Gaul-Analysis of, and quotations from his treatise on the nature of the soul-The dialogue of Evagrius between Zacheus the Christian and Apollonius the philosopher-Of the effects of the invasion of the barbarians upon the moral state of Gaul.

BETWEEN the question which occupied us in the last lecture, and that with which we shall now occupy ourselves, the difference is very great. Pelagianism was not only a question, but also an event; it gave rise to parties, interests, passions; it put in movement councils, emperors; it influenced the fate of many men. The question of the nature of the soul produced nothing of the kind; it was carried on between a few able men in a corner of the empire. In the last lecture, I had many facts to recount; at present I have to speak of books and of arguments.

We com

I pray you to mark the course of our studies. menced by examining the social state, the external and public facts; we then passed to the moral state of Gaul; we sought it first in general facts, in the entirety of society; then in a great religious debate, in a doctrine, an active powerful doctrine, which became an event; we will now study it in a simple philosophical discussion. We shall thus penetrate more and more into the interior of men's minds; we first con

sidered facts, then ideas mingled with facts, and subject to their influences; we will now consider ideas by themselves.

Before entering upon the question, permit me to say a few words upon the general character of the literary writers of this period and of the middle ages in general.

If you compare, on the one hand, ancient literature, Greek and Roman literature, and on the other hand, modern literature, especially so called, with that of the middle ages, the principal points, which, as I think, will strike you, will be the following:

In ancient literature, the form of the works, the art of their composition, and the language, are admirable; even when its materials are poor, the ideas false or confused, the workmanship is so skilful, that it cannot fail to please; manifesting in the author, a mind at once natural and refined, whose inward development far surpasses its acquired knowledge, which has an exquisite appreciation of the beautiful, and a peculiar aptitude for reproducing it.

In modern literature, since the sixteenth century for instance, the form is very often imperfect; there is frequently a deficiency at once of nature and of art, but the groundwork is in general sound; we meet with less and less of gross ignorance, of wanderings from the question, of confusion; method, common sense, in a word, artistic merit, is the prominent feature; if the mind is not always satisfied, it is at least very seldom shocked; the spectacle is not invariably a fine one, but chaos has disappeared.

The intellectual labours of the middle ages present a different aspect; as a general proposition, they are entirely deficient in artistic merit; the form is rude, fantastic; they are full of divergences, of incoherent ideas; they manifest a state of mind, crude, uncultivated, alike without interior development or acquired knowledge, and accordingly neither our reason nor our taste is satisfied. This is the reason why they have been forgotten, why Greek and Roman literature have survived, and will eternally survive the people among whom it respectively arose. Yet under this so imperfect form, amidst this so strange medley of ideas and of facts, ill understood and ill combined, the books of the middle ages are very remarkable monuments of the activity and wealth of the human mind. we meet in them with many vigorous and

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original conceptions; important questions are often sounded to their lowest depths, flashes of philosophical truth, of literary beauty, glance at every moment from the darkness; the mineral in this mine is altogether in a rough state, but the metal is plentiful, and well merits our research.

The writings of the fifth and sixth centuries, moreover have a character and an interest peculiar to themselves. It was the period at which ancient philosophy was giving way before modern theology, in which the one was becoming transformed into the other; in which certain systems became dogmas, certain schools sects. These periods of transition are of great importance, are, perhaps, in the historical point of view, the most instructive of all. It is at these periods only that we are able to view simultaneously and face to face certain facts, certain states of man and of the world, which are generally only to be seen by themselves, and separated by whole centuries; they are the only periods, therefore, in which it is easy for us to compare these facts and these states, to explain them, connect them together. The human mind is but too prone to walk in but one single path, to see things but under one partial, narrow, exclusive aspect, to place itself in prison; it is, therefore a very fortunate circumstance for it, when it is compelled, by the very nature of the spectacle placed before its eyes, to look around it in all directions, to embrace a vast horizon, to contemplate a great number of different objects, to study the great problems of the world under all their aspects, and in all their various solutions. It is more especially in the south of Gaul that this character of the fifth century manifests itself. You have seen the activity which prevailed in the religious society, and, among others, in the monasteries of Lerins and Saint-Victor, the focus of so many daring opinions. The whole of this movement of mind did not emanate from Christianity; it was in the same districts, in the Lyonnese, the Viennese, the Narbonnese, Aquitaine, that ancient civilization in its decline concentrated itself. It was here that it still exhibited most life. Spain, Italy herself, were at this period far less active than Gaul, far less rich in literature and in literary men. We must, perhaps, attribute this result to the development which had been assumed in these provinces by Greek civilization, and to the prolonged influence there of its philosophy. In all

the great towns of southern Gaul, at Marseilles, aɩ Arles, at Aix, at Vienne, at Lyons itself, the Greek language was understood and spoken. There were regular Greek exercises under Caligula, in the Athanacum, an establishment at Lyons, especially devoted to that purpose; and in the beginning of the sixth century, when Cesarius, bishop of Arles, required the faithful to sing with the clergy previous to the sermon, many of the people sang in Greek. We find among the distinguished Gauls of this period philosophers of all the Greek schools; some are mentionned as Pythagoreans, others as Platonists, others as Epicureans, others as Stoics.

The Gaulish writings of the fourth and fifth century. among others that which I am about to introduce to you, the treatise of Mamertius Claudienus, On the Nature of the Soul, quote passages from philosophers whose names ever. we do not meet with elsewhere. In short, there is every evidence that, in the philosophical as in the religious point of view, Greek and Roman as well as Christian Gaul was at this period the most animated, the most living portion of the Empire; of the western empire at all events. It is here, accordingly, that the transition from pagan philosophy to Christian theology, from the ancient world to the modern, is most strongly marked, most clearly observable.

In this movement of mind, it was not likely that the question of the nature of the soul should remain long untouched. From the first century upwards, we find it the subject of discussion amongst the doctors of the church, the majority of whom adopted the material hypothesis; passages to this effect are abundant. I will select two or three, which leave no doubt as to the prevalent opinion on the subject. Tertullian says expressly:

"The corporeality of the soul is perfectly manifest to all who read the gospel. The soul of a man is there represented suffering its punishment in hell; it is placed in the midst of the flame; it feels a tormenting agony in the tongue, and it implores, from the hand of a soul in bliss, a drop of water to cool it. There can be nothing of all this without the presence of the body. The incorporeal being is free from every description of restraint, from all pain or from all pleasure, for it is in the body alone that man is punished or rewarded.1

De Animá, 5, 7.