my turn came to shake hands with moment. The next she was leaning on sight that it should upset me so? I felt a shock in the very centre of my heart. My eyes grew dim, and there rose to my lips, trembling for utterance, the first person singular of the first tense of a very hackneyed verb.. Lucky that the train glided on, as if by stealth, and, in less time than it takes to write it, Mdlle. Emma was out of the reach of a whisper. Now, mine being one of those bashful verbs, which can only be whispered, I had no choice but to drop it, and give out instead a loud and hearty "God bless you!" The sense of the narrow escape I had had was so strong upon me, that, unscathed though I came out of it, if I did, I vowed then and there that this should be my last flirtation. THE NEW MORALITY: WORSHIP OF MAJORITIES. SIR,-It is seldom that a letter appearing in a religious journal deserves to be remembered a week after its publication. The following, which I read in the Guardian of February 19th, is one of the excepted cases. The position of the writer, and its contents, give it more than a transitory importance. MR. JOWETT'S FRIENDS. To the Editor of the Guardian. SIR,-A somewhat extraordinary correspondence, introduced by a not less extraordinary notification, has lately appeared in the public prints. It seems that a number of persons, "feeling the injustice of the course recently pursued by the University of Oxford" towards Professor Jowett, have raised a subscription among themselves, amounting to no less a sum than 2,000l., and have tendered it to that gentleman (who, however, has had the good taste to decline the gift), not merely as marking their sense of the honourable and conscientious manner in which, during six years, he has fulfilled his Professorial duty," but also as making good "the arrears of salary withheld by the University" and discharging "at least some portion of the debt which has accrued to him during that period." 66 If these gentlemen, Sir, had offered the money simply as a testimony of their respect his efficiency, their conduct would have been perfectly intelligible, and no one would have been entitled to complain. But what are we to think, when, among the objects assigned, that of remedying an act of injustice committed by the University-in other words, of discharging a debt which she ought to have discharged herself-is ostentatiously put forward? I am not going to reopen the controversy respecting the endowment of the Regius Professorship of Greek. But these gentlemen surely need not be reminded (those of them, at all events, who are members of the University; and it is not easy to understand why others should have stepped out of their way to make good her deficiencies), that what they venture to call the injustice of the University was the course deliberately determined upon, after a free and full discussion, by that body whose decision is definitive in such matters. What possible end can there be of strifes, if restless spirits are thus to refuse acquiescence in the sentence of authority, unless perchance that sentence happens to be in their own favour? C. A. HEURTLEY, Margaret Professor of Divinity. Christ Church, Oxford, Feb. 17, 1862. Those who signed the memorial to Professor Jowett might anticipate many objections to the course which they took. I doubt if any one of them anticipated knew that Oxford had once, in a very formal manner, asserted the divine right of a single person, and that fellows of Magdalene and students of Christ Church found some reason to repent of that assertion not many years after it went forth. They did not know that the divine right of majorities was an article of University faith; they were not aware that "restless spirits" was the only name which a teacher of divinity could find for those who held that the decrees of a Sanhedrim or a council might be unjust. Now that they do know it, I believe the reasons which induced them to sign the memorial have become immeasurably stronger than they were before. We who are engaged in the practice of different professions in the heart of London, feel to what perils our moral code is continually exposed. Lawyers are tempted to let quirks and quibbles interfere with the plain downright maxims upon which Englishmen and Christians ought to act. Clergymen are liable to all the influences of a subtle religious casuistry. We send our sons to the University that they may learn sound principles of ethics; that they may see them illustrated in the practice of men not exposed to the friction of ordinary society, without those excuses for making principles bend to expediency which are continually urged in the world. Oxford undertakes to teach many things. She especially boasts to be a school of ethics. She asks help in teaching ethics from a great moralist of the old time, who looked upon justice as the chief of virtues, the sum of all the virtues. She promises that whatever is weak in him shall be strengthened, whatever is lacking in him shall be supplied, by the theology of the New Testament. A congregation, consisting in great part of Oxford tutors and professors, distinctly set at defiance the maxim that a labourer is worthy of his hire; that it is just to pay men for services which they have done. They could produce most plausible apologies for their doctrine; to the most refined advocate in our courts. They could produce religious reasons for what they had done, reasons that would make the fortune of any casuist. One would have regretted such a proceeding in the Common Council of London; in any municipal corporation. It would have alarmed us for our commercial integrity. But it need have given rise to no protest. That becomes necessary, when those who teach morality adopt and sanction a morality which is lower than that of clubs and common councils, and defend it by religious maxims. There might be better ways of bearing witness against this outrage upon all sound ethics, than that of offering some acknowledgment to Professor Jowett for his services. I can imagine a much worse way. An attempt might have been made to extend the rule against Professor Jowett to those who established it. The Professor of Hebrew intimatesif he does not say directly-that every one who wishes to secure a legitimate payment for the services of the Professor of Greek makes himself responsible for that Professor's theological tenets. Has he forgotten whither such a doctrine might lead? If it is true, it must apply, at least, as strongly to the Hebrew chair. I say only "at least as strongly”— most people would say that one whose business is to lecture on the Old Testament has more to do with theology than a lecturer on Eschylus or Plato. But I do not press that point. I only say, that any one who subscribes to Dr. Pusey's maxim, who admits it under any modification, must be prepared to take every possible step for interfering with his emoluments, or else must be responsible for his theology and his ethics. Most who repudiate his theology and his ethics, yet believe him to be the fittest person for a lecturer of Hebrew, and would count it a crime to do anything which would weaken him in that position. What course, then, must they take? They must protest against the decree which he and the with whatever authority it may be endorsed. They must protest for his sake. Yes! and now also still more for Professor Heurtley's sake. For, if the doctrine of his letter to the Guardian is the doctrine, which he proclaims in his chair. of Divinity, all who care that the youth of England should not have the lessons of their childhood confounded-that they should not learn to despise the men whom they have been taught to reverence are bound to lift up their voice against such a Doctor. He must begin with declaring the Protest at the Diet of Spires to be atrocious; he must go on to denounce Athanasius as the most restless of all spirits, because he dared to set himself against the world-the world meaning the majority of the East- ON VISIONS AND DREAMS. BY THE REV. JOHN CUNNINGHAM, D.D., THE age of ghosts is gone; but spectres little has been written regarding them; for it is certain that, while they are understood by the few, they are still a subject of profound wonder to the many. It is in the writings of medical men chiefly that we have narratives of spectral illusions, and they too often content themselves with stating the case without accounting for it. It is true, the explanation lies a little beyond the strict limits of their profession-in the constitution of the mind rather than of the body; but a knowledge of mental science may surely be presumed on the part of every well-educated physician. Still, we want a philosophy of spectres. Even Dr. Abercrombie, with all his marvellous powers of observation, and his devotion to the study of psychology, is extremely confused in his explanation of spectral appearances, though nothing can be better than the cases which he cites. The simple, but undoubted, explana thoughts-and nothing more. They are subjective, and not objective. They are apparitions, having no reality outside of the mind, however real-like they may appear. They are ideas, mistaken for sensations. A very slight knowledge of the facts of mind will convince us of this. Let us look at some of these facts bearing on this subject, as, at first sight, it is not very obvious how our thoughts can assume a phantom shape, and appear to move about the room, and look in our face, deceiving and alarming us. The affinity which exists between sensations and ideas is closer than is generally imagined. The only difference seems to be that in sensation the object of sense is present in ideation it is absent, but remembered. It is certain that ideas frequently masquerade before the mind as sensations and are mistaken for them. It is so in dreams. What is more they often produce the same physical results. This happens both in our sleeping and in our waking states. Van Swieten relates that, passing a spot where a dead dog was lying in a state of decomposition, the horrid stench caused him to vomit; and that, happening to pass the same place many years afterwards, sickness and vomiting were again induced by the mere recollection of what he had formerly experienced. Sir David Brewster mentions the case of a lady (and such cases are not rare) who could never hear of any one having been subjected to severe sufferings without feeling acute twinges of pain in the corresponding part of her own person. If she was told of an arm being amputated, her own arm instantly suffered. In these cases sensations seem to come from within or rather ideas become so vivid as to resemble sensations, and to produce the same physical effects. The substitution of ideas (I would prefer calling them "reminiscences," "recollections," or "memories,") for sensations is by no means uncommon. Perhaps the most extraordinary instance of this is in regard to sounds. The composer composes a tune, humming it yet his piece implies the most marvellous discrimination of different tones, and their effect upon the ear. Any one with a taste for music may, in a similar manner, sing his favourite songs; uttering not a sound, yet in his mind accurately discriminating the finest gradations of sound. How can this thing be, seeing that music essentially consists in sounds? How can we accurately discriminate between sounds where there is no sound? know music and appreciate it, when there is no music? It is possible and actual only because ideas do duty for sensations, and are perfect representations of them. They are fac-similes, though somewhat more faintly printed than their originals. Accordingly, we discriminate as nicely, between the ideas of sound as we could between sounds themselves; and enjoy a tune which is wholly ideal, almost as much as one which is poured in at our ears. Sir David Brewster-no mean authority-maintains that, in the case of spectral illusions, the spectre is painted on the retina and propagated to the mind like a true sensation, and is in everything subject to the same optical laws. He even proceeds further, and declares that the same fact "holds good "of all ideas recalled by the memory or "created by the imagination, and may "be regarded as a fundamental law in "the science of pneumatology." proof of this, he states that the spectres conjured up by the memory or the fancy "have always a 'local habitation;' that "they appear in front of the eye, and In partake in its movements exactly like "the impressions of luminous objects, "after the objects themselves are with"drawn." I am afraid the facts here adduced will not bear the conclusion which is laid upon them. It would, in truth, require very strong evidence to establish what is apparently so improbable-that we cannot think of St. Paul's without a picture of it being formed on our retina; that we cannot think of a thunder storm without our tympanum being affected. There are very strong objec with whatever authority it may be endorsed. They must protest for his sake. Yes! and now also still more for Professor Heurtley's sake. For, if the doctrine of his letter to the Guardian is the doctrine, which he proclaims in his chair of Divinity, all who care that the youth of England should not have the lessons of their childhood confounded-that they should not learn to despise the men whom they have been taught to reverence are bound to lift up their voice against such a Doctor. He must begin with declaring the Protest at the Diet of Spires to be atrocious; he must go on to denounce Athanasius as the most restless of all spirits, because he dared to set himself against the world-the world meaning the majority of the East- ON VISIONS AND DREAMS. BY THE REV. JOHN CUNNINGHAM, D.D., THE age of ghosts is gone; but spectres little has been written regarding them; for it is certain that, while they are understood by the few, they are still a subject of profound wonder to the many. It is in the writings of medical men chiefly that we have narratives of spectral illusions, and they too often content themselves with stating the case without accounting for it. It is true, the explanation lies a little beyond the strict limits of their profession-in the constitution of the mind rather than of the body; but a knowledge of mental science may surely be presumed on the part of every well-educated physician. Still, we want a philosophy of spectres. Even Dr. Abercrombie, with all his marvellous powers of observation, and his devotion to the study of psychology, is extremely confused in his explanation of spectral appearances, though nothing can be better than the cases which he cites. The simple, but undoubted, explana |