R

OGER BACON, long ago, and

after him, Francis, in their quest of truth, perceived that there were four grounds of human error. Of these the first is "the false appearances that are imposed upon us by the general nature of the mind" of man. The mind is always prone to accept the affirmative or active as proof rather than the negative; so that if you hit the mark a few times you forget the many that you missed it. You worship Neptune for the numerous pictures in his temple of those that escaped shipwreck, but you omit to ask, "Where are the pictures of those that were drowned?" And because you

are mentally equipped to seek uniformity, you ascribe to "Nature a greater equality and uniformity than is, in truth." In this refractory mind of man “the beams of things" do not "reflect according to their true incidence"; hence our fundamental superstition, fallacies which Francis Bacon calls the lols, or delusions, of the Race, or Tribe.

In matters of education the dearest delusion of our Tribe to-day is that the university should reflect the public. This is the idol of the Popular Voice. Once the university is joined to this idol, it is joined to all the idols of that Pantheon. It accepts the fallacy that our sons and daughters are equally gifted and zealous, and hence that each must profit by the higher education. This is the idol of Inevitable Grace; that is, of grace innate and irresistible by which every youth is

predestinated to intellectual life, "without any foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions or causes moving him thereunto," or anything in the tutor. No Calvinistic favour this, by which some are chosen while others are ordained to ignorance and sloth; but a favour not contemplated in the Westminster Confession, by which all are elect and all, in due season, effectually called to learning, and quickened and renewed by the Spirit of Zeal, and so enabled to answer this call and embrace the Grace offered and conveyed in it. The university is then joined to the idol of Numbers. And of these worships the shibboleth is "mediocrity": for to raise the standard of university requirement is to discriminate between candidates, and to doubt