The present volume is in great part a reprint of articles contributed to Reviews. The principal bond of union among them is their practical character. Beyond that, there is little to connect them apart from the individuality of the author and the range of his studies. That there is a certain amount of novelty in the various suggestions here embodied, will be admitted on the most cursory perusal. The farther question of their worth is necessarily left open. The first two essays are applications o

Error regarding Mind as a whole—that Mind can be exerted without bodily expenditure . Errors with regard to the FEELINGS. I. Advice to take on cheerfulness. Authorities for this prescription. Presumptions against our ability to comply with it . Concurrence of the cheerful temperament with youth and health . With special corporeal vigour. With absence of care and anxiety . Limitation of Force applies to the mind . The only means of rescuing from dulness—to increase the supports and diminish the b

Meanings of Relativity—intellectual and emotional. All impressions greatest at first. Law of Accommodation and habit. The pleasure of rest presupposes toil. Knowledge has its charm from previous ignorance. Silence is of value, after excess of speech. Previous pain not, in all cases, necessary to pleasure. Simplicity of Style praiseworthy only under prevailing artificiality. To extol Knowledge is to reprobate Ignorance. Authority appealed to, when in our favour, repudiated when against us. Fallac

I. HISTORICAL SKETCH. First official recommendation of Competitive Examinations. Successive steps towards their adoption. First absolutely open Competition—in the India Service. Macaulay's Report on the subjects for examination and their values. Table of Subjects. Innovations of Lord Salisbury. An amended Table. II. THE SCIENCE CONSIDERED. Doubts expressed as to the expediency of the competitive system. Criticism of the present prescription for the higher Services. The Commissioners' Scheme of M

Attack on Classics by Combe, fifty years ago. Alternative proposals at the present day:— 1. The existing system Attempts at extending the Science course under this system. 2. Remitting Greek in favour of a modern language. A defective arrangement. 3. Remitting both Latin and Greek in favour of French and German. 4. Complete bifurcation of the Classical and the Modern sides. The Universities must be prepared to admit a thorough modern alternative course. Latin should not be compulsory in the mode

Metaphysics here taken as comprising Psychology, Logic, and their dependent sciences. Importance of the two fundamental departments. The great problems, such as Free-will and External Perception should be run up into systematic Psychology. Logic also requires to be followed out systematically. Slender connection of Logic and Psychology. Derivative Sciences:—Education. Aesthetics—a corner of the larger field of Human Happiness The treatment of Happiness should be dissevered from Ethics Adam Smith

The Higher Teaching in Greece. The Middle Age and Boëthius. Eve of the University. Separation of Philosophy from Theology. The Universities of Scotland founded—their history. First Period.—The Teaching Body. The Subjects taught and manner of teaching. Second Period.—The Reformation. Modified Curriculum—Andrew Melville. Attempted reforms in teaching. System of Disputation. Improvements constituting the transition to the Third Period. The Universities and the political revolutions. How far the Uni

Study more immediately supposes learning from Books. The Greeks did not found an Art of Study, but afforded examples: Demosthenes. Quintilian's "Institutes" a landmark. Bacon's Essay on Studies. Hobbes. Milton's Tractate on Education. Locke's "Conduct of the Understanding" very specific as to rules of Study. Watts's work entitled "The Improvement of the Mind". What an Art of Study should attempt. Mode of approaching it. I. First Maxim—"Select a Text-book-in-chief". Violations of the maxim: Milto

Pursuit of Truth has three departments:—order of nature, ends of practice, and the supernatural. Growth of Intolerance. How innovations became possible. In early society, religion a part of the civil government. Beginnings of toleration—dissentients from the State Church. Evils attendant on Subscription:—the practice inherently fallacious. Enforcement of creeds nugatory for the end in view. Dogmatic uniformity only a part of the religious character: element of Feeling. Recital of the general arg

Growing evil of the intolerable length of Debates. Hurried decisions might be obviated by allowing an interval previous to the vote. The oral debate reviewed.—Assumptions underlying it, fully examined. Evidence that, in Parliament, it is not the main engine of persuasion. Its real service is to supply the newspaper reports. Printing, without speaking, would serve the end in view. Proposal to print and distribute beforehand the reasons for each Motion. Illustration from decisions on Reports of Co

First imposition of Tests after the English Reformation. Dean Milman's speech in favour of total abolition of Tests. Tests in Scotland: Mr. Taylor Innes on the "Law of Creeds". Resumption of Subscription in the English Presbyterian Church. Other English Dissenting Churches. Presbyterian Church in the United States. French Protestant Church—its two divisions. Switzerland:—Canton of Valid. Independent Evangelical Church of Neuchatel. National Protestant Church of Geneva. Free Church of Geneva. Ger

On the prevailing errors on the mind, proposed to be considered in this paper, some relate to the Feelings, others to the Will. In regard to Mind as a whole, there are still to be found among us some remnants of a mistake, once universally prevalent and deeply rooted, namely, the opinion that mind is not only a different fact from body—which is true, and a vital and fundamental truth —but is to a greater or less extent independent of the body. In former times, the remark seldom occurred to any o

By Relativity is here meant the all-pervading fact of our nature that we are not impressed, made conscious, or mentally alive, without some change of state or impression. An unvarying action on any of our senses is the same as no action at all. An even temperature, such as that enjoyed by the fishes in the tropical seas, leaves the mind an entire blank as regards heat and cold. We can neither feel nor know without recognising two distinct states. Hence all knowledge is double, or is the knowledg

I. HISTORICAL SKETCH. Up to the year 1853, the appointing of Civil Servants lay wholly in the hands of patrons. In 1853, patronage was severely condemned and competitive examination officially recommended, for the first time, in a Report by Sir Stafford Northcote and Sir Charles Trevelyan; but, while the recommendation was taken up in the following year and immediately acted upon in the Indian Civil Service, it was not till very much later that it was fully adopted in the Home Service. The histo

In the present state of the controversy on classical studies, the publication of George Combe's contributions to Education is highly opportune. Combe took the lead in the attack on these studies fifty years ago, and Mr. Jolly, the editor of the volume, gives a connected view of the struggle that followed. The results were, on the whole, not very great. A small portion of natural science was introduced into the secondary schools; but as the classical teaching was kept up as before, the pupils wer

By "Metaphysical Study," or "Metaphysics," I here mean—what seems intended by the designation in its current employment at present—the circle of the mental or subjective sciences. The central department of the field is PSYCHOLOGY, and the adjunct to psychology is LOGIC, which has its foundations partly in psychology, but still more in the sciences altogether, whose procedure it gathers up and formulates. The outlying and dependent branches are: the narrower metaphysics or Ontology, Ethics, Socio

GENTLEMEN, By your flattering estimate of my services, I have been unexpectedly summoned from retirement, to assume the honours and the duties of the purple, and to occupy the most historically important office in the Universities of Europe. The present demands upon the Rectorship somewhat resemble what we are told of the Homeric chief, who, in company with his Council or Senate, the Boulè , and the Popular Assembly, or Agora , made up the political constitution of the tribe. The functions of th

Of hackneyed subjects, a foremost place may be assigned to the Art of Study. Allied to the theory and practice of Education generally, it has still a field of its own, although not very precisely marked out. It relates more to self-education than to instruction under masters; it supposes the voluntary choice of the individual rather than the constraint of an outward discipline. Consequently, the time for its application is when the pupil is emancipated from the prescription and control of the sc

Every man has an interest in arriving at truth for himself. However useful it may be to mislead other people, however sweet to look down from a height on the erring throng beneath, it is neither useful nor sweet to be ourselves at sea without a compass. We may not care to walk by the light we have, but we do not choose to exchange it for darkness. This reflection is most obvious with reference to the order of Nature. Our life depends on adapting means to ends; which supposes that we know cause a

That great institution of political liberty, the Deliberative Assembly, seems to be on the eve of breaking down. I do not speak merely of the highest assembly in the country, but of the numerous smaller bodies as well, from many of which a cry of distress may be heard. The one evil in all is the intolerable length of the debates. Business has increased, local representative bodies have a larger membership than formerly, and, notwithstanding the assistance rendered by committees, the meetings are

It may be useful here to supply a few memoranda as to the history and present practice of Subscription to Articles. In the Quarterly Review , No. 117, the following observations are made respecting the first imposition of Tests after the English Reformation:—- "Before the Reformation no subscription was required from the body of the clergy, as none was necessary. The bishops at their consecration took an oath of obedience to the King, in which, besides promising subjection in matters temporal, t