our faith under the form of acts of worship, acts of charity, or perhaps the holding of certain dogmas.

The same holds good with that which we call faith, and which is often a feeling of confidence-not always the result of thought-in the faith of those surrounding us. Some give the name of faith to that enthusiasm which has sufficed to cause men joyfully to meet martyrdom; others apply it to the confidence with which the wise men followed the guiding of the star, when it indicated the road they should follow. Faith is only worthy of the name when it can be said to be a reasonable faith, and thus accounting for its existence. If we are not amongst the number of those who can give a reason for the faith that is in them, we must take care that credulity does not glide in before we are aware of its approach; it arises from a weakness of the mind and is compatible with a tranquillity that differs very widely from peace; and when once mistress of the situation, it increases, and occupies it. A wise Arab well said, "He who builds his house on human credulity builds on a rock."

"Abstract," this word which we can trace back to Aristotle, has an interesting history. Aristotle used it at first to characterise the creation of a work of art; the sculptor carves out of a block of marble the statue of a man or of a woman, rejecting the chips and dust which serve no purpose. Afterwards Aristotle applied this same word to an idea which an accurate thinker forms, giving it a suitable shape, and separating it from all accidental thoughts that may have surrounded it; that done, what remains is an abstract idea. Aristotle has so well explained the meaning of abstract, that if our logicians had simply spoken of concrete as that which is non-abstract, all the world would more readily have understood the meaning of the word-concrete.

We possess and employ a vast number of words, and we apparently increase them by endowing the same word

-from a want of clearness in our perceptions-with various meanings. The ancient Hindoos must have felt that an over-abundance of words is pernicious, and for this reason, no doubt, the Brahmans at a certain period of their literature, imposed on themselves the rule of expressing their thoughts in the fewest words possible. They succeeded in presenting each point of doctrine denuded of all but the barest outline of words; they are the authors of the aphorism, "A writer of the Sutras is happier in having economised a portion of a diphthong than from the birth of a son." The full force of this sentence becomes apparent when it is remembered that the Brahman who has no son to perform his funeral rites cannot hope to enter heaven. It would be difficult to express more forcibly a respect for words, and the great necessity there is for cultivating clearness of thought.

What I am about to say concerns a word to which I owe the direction of my views of life, and my resolution to undertake the study of the subjects forming my present work; this word is the name of a man.

When I was young I made the acquaintance of a very learned Jesuit Father who employed his time in researches on the ecclesiastical antiquities of the East. We once found ourselves in the company of certain persons who were surveying the most remarkable of all the scientific and philosophical works published in our day; Darwin, Pasteur, Helmholtz and Max Müller were named. When the reverend Father heard this last name, he exclaimed, with his accustomed impetuosity, "Oh! Max Müller, his works are absolutely magnificent."

Twenty years later the announcement of a new work of Max Müller reminded me of the Jesuit Father's exclamation; hitherto I had read nothing of this author's; I procured the book which had appeared recently; afterwards I read those that had preceded it. At the end

of some years I wrote to the reverend Father; the state of his health had obliged him to settle in a town in the south, and I had not seen him for some time. I thanked him for having drawn my attention to Max Müller's name. I received an immediate reply, the first lines of which I will quote. "Your thanks are unexpected. Max Müller seems to me an incomparable philosopher, but my admiration does not surpass his merit." A few weeks later the worthy Father died of consumption.

CHAPTER XIII

OBSERVATIONS AND REFLECTIONS

I HAD not decided beforehand on the number of my chapters; it seems that there will be thirteen. If these pages have readers to whom the number thirteen is distressing, I beg of them at once to dismiss this feeling by saying: "He who objects to sit down thirteen at table, acknowledges by this that he does not believe in a supreme intelligence, superior to his own, which governs the world."

Science, religion, reason, and faith, these four words form the circle in which all intellects move, now more than ever; on this all the world is agreed, but all the world does not know what the greatest thinkers have understood by these four words.

If we do not wish to deserve the title given to that collective being, "the man in the street," the best means of avoiding it is to acknowledge openly that there are many unexplained problems facing us, and that man exists in order to do his part in solving them. Humanity is not composed of individuals who have been poured forth from a horn of plenty, its destiny cannot therefore be to diffuse itself over the surface of the earth without the means of knowing why it is there.

An ancient Greek said once that the gods were ready to sell all kinds of good things to mortals but at a high price, at the cost of hard work. If then we can only acquire the promised good things by the aid of hard work, our thoughts carry us at once to science, and we

ask what can this science do, upon which we so pride ourselves in this century, to explain the motive of our existence?

PHYSICS

In proportion as physical science studies this universe, so it recognises more and more clearly that its most general phenomenon is vibration, a periodical movement, which propagates itself in waves succeeding each other at regular intervals.

We have all noticed the effect produced by drops of rain falling on water which the absence of wind leaves perfectly tranquil. Each drop forms a circle, but the causes of perturbation of an aqueous surface are infinite; the dip of an insect, the leap of a fish, all ceaselessly cause new circles, which follow each other, become wider, and finally lose themselves in each other under our eyes; the water is apparently a prey to shivering fits; this is a type of the vibrations whose percussions are felt by the whole world. We are all, body and soul, subject to the law of vibrations, each sense recognises its power by means of sensations whose various kinds are apprehended by physical science, by the calculation of the number of vibrations which, in a given time, affect differently each of our organs of sensation. Science records the number of vibrations which denote to our skin the exact degree of the external temperature, she counts the millions of vibrations which enable our eyes to see definite colours in the space of a second, and the thousands of vibrations which enable our ears to hear, in the same space of time, well defined sounds.

Thus physical science explains a general phenomenon which exerts its influence, indubitably, on all men since there have been men on earth.