of that law, which did require at their hands continuance in the exercise of their high and admirable virtue. Impossible it was that ever their will should change or incline to remit any part of their duty, without some object having force to avert their conceit from God, and to draw it another way; and that they attained that high perfection of bliss, wherein now the elect angels are without possibility of falling. Of anything more than of God they could not by any means like, as long as whatsoever they knew besides God they apprehended it not in itself without dependency upon God; because so long God must needs seem infinitely better than anything which they could so apprehend. Things beneath them could not in such sort be presented unto their eyes, but that therein they must needs see always how those things did depend on God. It seemeth, therefore, that there was no other way for angels to sin, but by reflex of their understanding upon themselves; when being held with admiration of their own sublimity and honor, the memory of their subordination unto God and their dependency on him was drowned in this conceit; whereupon their adoration, love, and imitation of God could not choose but be also interrupted. The fall of angels therefore was pride. Since their fall their practices have been the clean contrary unto those before mentioned. For being dispersed, some in the air, some on the earth, some in the water, some among the minerals, dens, and caves, that are under the earth; they have by all means labored to effect a universal rebellion against the laws, and as far as in them lieth utter destruction of the works of God. These wicked spirits the heathen honored instead of gods, both generally under the name of dii inferi, "gods infernal," and particularly some in oracles, some in idols, some as household gods, some as nymphs; in a word, no foul and wicked spirit which was not one way or other honored of men as God, till such time as light appeared in the world and dissolved the works of the Devil. Thus much, therefore, may suffice for angels, the next unto whom in degree are men. IN EDUCATION AS A DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOUL N THE matter of knowledge, there is between the angels of God and the children of men this difference; angels already have full and complete knowledge in the highest degree that can be imparted unto them; men, if we view them in their spring, are at the first without understanding or knowledge at all. Nevertheless from this utter vacuity they grow by degrees, till they come at length to be even as the angels themselves are. That which agreeth to the one now, the other shall attain unto in the end; they are not so far disjoined and severed but that they come at length to meet. The soul of man being therefore at the first as a book, wherein nothing is and yet all things may be imprinted, we are to search by what steps and degrees it riseth unto perfection of knowledge. Unto that which hath been already set down concerning natural agents this we must add, that albeit therein we have comprised as well creatures living as void of life, if they be in degree of nature beneath men, nevertheless a difference we must observe between those natural agents that work altogether unwittingly, and those which have, though weak, yet some understanding what they do, as fishes, fowls, and beasts have. Beasts are in sensible capacity as ripe even as men themselves, perhaps more ripe. For as stones, though in dignity of nature inferior unto plants, yet exceed them in firmness of strength or durability of being; and plants, though beneath the excellency of creatures endued with sense, yet exceed them in the faculty of vegetation and of fertility; so beasts, though otherwise behind men, may, notwithstanding, in actions of sense and fancy go beyond them; because the endeavors of nature, when it hath a higher perfection to seek, are in lower the more remiss, not esteeming thereof so much as those things do, which have no better proposed unto them. The soul of man, therefore, being capable of a more divine perfection, hath (besides the faculties of growing unto sensible knowledge which is common unto us with beasts) a further ability, whereof in them there is no show at all, the ability of reaching higher than unto sensible things. Till we grow to some ripeness of years, the soul of man doth only store itself with conceits of things of inferior and more open quality, which afterwards do serve as instruments unto that which is greater; in the meanwhile above the reach of meaner creatures it ascendeth not. When once it comprehendeth anything above this, as the differences of time, affirmations, negations, and contradictions in speech, we then count it to have some use of natural reason. Whereunto if afterwards there might be added the right helps of true art and learning (which helps, I must plainly confess, this age of the world, carrying the name of a learned age, doth neither much know nor greatly regard), there would, undoubtedly, be almost as great difference in maturity of judgment between men therewith inured, and that which now men are, as between men that are now and innocents. Which speech if any condemn, as being over hyperbolical, let them consider but this one thing: no art is at the first finding out so perfect as industry may after make it; yet the very first man that to any purpose knew the way we speak of and followed it hath alone thereby performed more very near in all parts of natural knowledge than sithence in any one part thereof the whole world besides hath done. In the poverty of that other new devised aid, two things there are notwithstanding singular. Of marvelous quick dispatch it is, and doth show them that have it as much almost in three days as if it dwell threescore years with them. Again, because the curiosity of man's wit doth many times with peril wade further in the search of things than were convenient, the same is thereby restrained into such generalities as everywhere offering themselves are apparent unto men of the weakest conceit what need be. So as following the rules and precepts thereof, we may define it to be an art which teacheth the way of speedy discourse, and restraineth the mind of man that it may not wax otherwise. Education and instruction are the means, the one by use, the other by precept, to make our natural faculty of reason both the better and the sooner able to judge rightly between truth and error, good and evil. But at what time a man may be said to have attained so far forth the use of reason, as sufficeth to make him capable of those laws, whereby he is then bound to guide his actions, this is a great deal more easy for common sense to discern than for any man by skill and learning to determine; even as it is not in philosophers, who best know the nature both of fire and of gold, to teach what degree of the one will serve to purify the other, so well as the artisan who doth this by fire discerneth by sense when the fire hath that degree of heat which sufficeth for his purpose. "Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity," Book I., Chap. vi. Complete. JOHN HUGHES (1677-1720) OHN HUGHES, a frequent contributor to the Spectator, Tatler, and Guardian, was born in Wiltshire, England, January 29th, 1677. He wrote much both in prose and verse, and was so well thought of that he had Johnson for a biographer. In later times, however, he has been forgotten even by the makers of encyclopædias, justifying the opinions of Swift and Pope in his own day. His "Poems on Several Occasions, with Select Essays in Prose” appeared in 1735. The book is long out of print, but as a pupil of Addison and a contributor to the Spectator, Hughes cannot be overlooked by students of the literature of Queen Anne's reign. He wrote a number of plays which did not succeed, and when on February 17th, 1720, his "Siege of Damascus was being warmly applauded at Drury Lane Theatre, where it had "made a hit," he was dying. "What he wanted in genius he made up as an honest man," Pope said of him. THE WONDERFUL NATURE OF EXCELLENT MINDS -Tentanda via est, quâ me quoque possim Tollere humo, victorque virum volitare per ora. -Virg. Georg., III. 9. New ways I must attempt, my groveling name Is a remark, made, as I remember, by a celebrated French author, that no man ever pushed his capacity as far as it was able to extend. I shall not inquire whether this assertion be strictly true. It may suffice to say that men of the greatest application and acquirements can look back upon many vacant spaces, and neglected parts of time, which have slipped away from them unemployed; and there is hardly any one considering person in the world but is apt to fancy with himself, at some time or other, that if his life were to begin again he could fill it up better. The mind is most provoked to cast on itself this ingenuous reproach, when the examples of such men are presented to it as have far outshot the generality of their species in learning, arts, or any valuable improvements. One of the most extensive and improved geniuses we have had any instance of in our own nation, or in any other, was that of Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam. This great man, by an extraordinary force of nature, compass of thought, and indefatigable study, had amassed to himself such stores of knowledge as we cannot look upon without amazement. His capacity seemed to have grasped all that was revealed in books before his time; and, not satisfied with that, he began to strike out new tracks of science, too many to be traveled over by any one man in the compass of the longest life. These, therefore, he could only mark down, like imperfect coastings on maps, or supposed points of land, to be further discovered and ascertained by the industry of after ages, who should proceed upon his notices or conjectures. The excellent Mr. Boyle was the person who seems to have been designed by nature to succeed to the labors and inquiries of that extraordinary genius I have just mentioned. By innumerable experiments, he in a great measure filled up those plans and outlines of science which his predecessor had sketched out. His life was spent in the pursuit of nature through a great variety of forms and changes, and in the most rational as well as devout adoration of its Divine Author. It would be impossible to name many persons who have extended their capacities so far as these two, in the studies they pursued; but my learned readers on this occasion will naturally turn their thoughts to a third, who is yet living, and is likewise the glory of our own nation. The improvements which others had made in natural and mathematical knowledge have so vastly increased in his hands as to afford at once a wonderful instance how great the capacity is of a human soul, and inexhaustible the subject of its inquiries; so true is that remark in Holy Writ that though a wise man seek to find out the works of God from the beginning to the end, yet shall he not be able to do it." I cannot help mentioning here one character more of a different kind, indeed, from these, yet such an one as may serve to show the wonderful force of nature and of application, and is the most singular instance of an universal genius I have ever met with. The person I mean is Leonardo da Vinci, an Italian painter, |