ing a glance over it, in the chapter devoted to the "Passions," we stumbled upon the following remarks. Before laying them before the reader, however, we must simply premise, that one of the great principles in the philosophy of the middle ages was to search for what was termed final causes; that is, the reason why a thing is what it is. Mere facts, considered as such, were nothing; but the cause or reason of them was everything with these scholastic searchers after truth. They carried in their mind, and shaped their movements in conformity with, the maxim in Virgil,

"Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas."

Bearing this in mind, we proceed to offer Albert's ideas of the PASSIONS:-All our passions are made to fit or dovetail into each other. There is nothing super

fluous-nothing in itself evil. Take any one of our passions from us, and what odd creatures we would become. It is the excess or improper use of passion which constitutes immorality. Let us conceive for a moment how we should exist without passion. Deprived of that gift of Heaven, there would be neither law, divinity, nor contention. We should never know the blessings and pleasures attendant on reconciliation, for we should never quarrel. The ten commandments would be a dead letter, and the Roman code unnecessary. The moral world without passion would be like the physical one without darkness and without rain-without hills and valleys-without cities and solitudes-nay, without earth and water. To be without any one thing, is to be without its opposite; because you could never perfectly

know the one without its opposite. In this world most things go by contrast. You could not know hard, if it were not for soft-you could not speak of bitter, if it were not for sweet-you could not understand deep, if it were not for shallow. Surliness is the parent of sweet'ness of disposition.* As the world is, all things are beautifully adapted to each other. Without passion, the world would fall in pieces. A man without passion, what can he be compared to ? A climate without storms --a cloudless eastern sky, all sunshine, and glow, and clearness, and sameness. Or say, rather, a stagnant pond, a dead sea of slumbering tranquillity, over which the refreshing breeze hath never blown to cool the beams of midsummer, on which the many-coloured pennons of imagination never waved. Such an individual is a burdensome companion. He neither thinks nor speaks, neither sings a song nor kicks a coward, nor enjoys a hearty, jolly laugh with an acquaintance. You are never at home with him. Some of the old Greek dramatists, if I remember right, used to make fun of a man of this stamp. This was all right; only the wit and fun would be thrown away on such a lifeless piece of clay. The great and general objection against the stoical philosophy has always been, that it attempted to denude man of his passions, to make him an unfeeling and apathetic creature, and to invest him with a vege

It is curious to notice how the human mind has moved in a circle from almost time immemorial. This is the doctrine of the German philosophers, who have recently founded their views of scientific truth on the principle of contrariety. We wonder whether Hegel ever read this passage.

F

table rather than an animal existence. Seneca was a wise man in many respects, but his system of morality, as a system, is entirely worthless.

Ægidus de Colonna flourished in 1300; and left, among other literary works, several FAMILIAR LETTERS. In one of these he informs a friend that he invariably found great pleasure in visiting the burying-places of the dead. He says: I have ever felt a peculiar interest and delight in visiting burial-grounds in our chief cities. They have invariably been productive of a tender and soothing kind of melancholy, which affected my own mind, at least, in a way not easily described. I have often sat for hours on some tombstone, musing on the past and the future; conjuring up by imagination the thousands of living beings who once rejoiced in all the vigour of health and buoyancy of spirit, but who are now mouldering beneath my feet. And how often, under such circumstances, has the conviction flashed vividly on my mind, that but a few years at the very most, and I myself, with all my cares, and projects, and hopes, must pass into this land of forgetfulness. The Parisian places of interment are always more than commonly interesting to me. What burning thoughts have rushed into my mind, when I have visited the tombs of the illustrious philosophers who have figured in the university of this city! It is one of these places I would like to dwell in for ever.

In another letter, he urges his friend not to contract the habit of reasoning or arguing on both sides of a question. He observes: As the reasoning powers of man were given him to discover truth and detect error, a

straightforward and ingenious employment of these powers is a solemn and incumbent duty upon him. I have always conceived the conduct of the Greek sophists reprehensible. They did their country great harm, by the prostitution of their rhetorical talents to party purposes. To expose error ought to be one of the religious duties of every man who has any education and ability for the task. Very false notions have been current on this subject. It has commonly a debasing effect on the understanding, to wrangle for the mere sake of victory. The love of truth should ever be uppermost in the mind of a true benefactor to mankind. The mere vanity of displaying our own talents or ingenuity is but a poor excuse for the injury which is inflicted on what is true and worthy of commendation.*

*Opera. Cal.: 1685. Vol. iii. p. 364.

FEW

A FEW WORDS ABOUT EELS.

No inhabitant of the deep has attracted more notice, from its natural character and habits, than the eel, It is associated in our minds with our earliest attempts to gain a knowledge of the "gentle art;" and there are few persons who have not some lively recollections of their fishing exploits in securing this slippery and troublesome customer. It is not at all improbable that the serpentine form of the eel may have added to the singular interest which has attached to it, particularly since the commencement of the Christian era. Its resemblance to the serpent tribe has, no doubt, tended to deepen the dramatic power and interest of many legends about this fish, which are current both on the continent and in this country.

Respecting the generation of the eel, there have been the wildest and most ridiculous notions. One ancient author supposed that eels were born of the mud; another, that they were produced from particles scraped from the bodies of large eels when they rubbed themselves against stones; that they grew out of the putrid flesh of dead animals thrown into the water; from the dews which cover the earth in spring and summer; from water, and so forth. Among modern writers, we have the same confusion of theories. There is a popular notion in many districts of the north of England, that eels are generated from horsehairs deposited in springs and rivulets. A