sisting of nearly one hundred thousand volumes, comprehends not only the accumulated remains of ancient learning, but almost every modern work of any value or celebrity. The Bodleian, on the contrary, is completely inaccessible to the undergraduates at Oxford ; and even to those members of the University who possess the liberty of resorting to this splendid library, the value of the privilege is much diminished by the singular regulation which prohibits the removal of every book, without distinction, beyond the walls of the building."

The superiority of the Bodleian to every other library in the kingdom must be granted. If a scrupulous attention to the treasures, which it contains, induces its Curators to forbid the removal of the books, private rooms, with fires and every convenience, are provided for the use of the members of the University, who may send for any books, which they may have occasion to peruse. Undergraduates, who wish to have access to the library, are admitted, by a dispensation obtained at a trifling expense, to the free use of all the books.

The liberal rivalship between the two Universities has produced the most beneficial effects. This extends not only to the two great bodies, but to the colleges of each. Those in which the strictest discipline, and the greatest attention to literary proficiency are observed, are so crowded with applications, that in Oxford it is often necessary to secure rooms several years before admission. In this respect we are compelled to give the preference to the practice of this University. No students are admitted in any college unless they can be accommodated with rooms within its walls; but as soon as they have taken their degrees they are sent into lodgings. At Cambridge no students, properly qualified, are denied admittance on the boards and to the college lectures; but they must sleep in the town, perhaps for some years, until vacancies permit them to be indulged with rooms, which they keep sometimes as long as they please. The difference in point of moral security is striking.

We do not hesitate to assert that the present examinations for degrees in Oxford deserve the attention of the sister University. In Cambridge a student may obtain the highest honors in his degree of B. A. by Mathematics alone, with a very slender share of classical attainments. In Oxford honors are conferred on classical merit without mathematics; and a separate branch of laurel is prepared for those who distinguish themselves in mathematical pursuits. We are sensible of the advantage of mathematical learning; although we do not rest the powers of reasoning, and the niceties of discrimination, exclusively upon it; still less do we follow the celebrated BARROW

in his assertion that it will make a man honest and good. But we wish to recommend to the consideration of the heads of Cambridge, whether a proficiency in the classics should not be comprehended in the requisites for an honorable degree. In this examination, and in that for scholarships and fellowships, a viva voce construction of the classical authors should be more frequently adopted in Cambridge; and the mode of written exercises in prose and verse, in Greek, Latin, and English, should form a more considerable part of an Oxford examination. But when we consider the gradual and constant improvements in both Universities;' when we recollect that the proportion of knowledge, which formerly intitled a young man to the first rank of honors, would at present scarcely secure the second or third; when we behold the influence, which these increasing advances to literary eminence have on our public schools, and on the other Universities of the United Kingdom, and even on those of the Continent, we shall hail with confidence the hope that the rising generation will come into the world with increased qualifications to adorn it by their learning, improve it by their example, and enlighten it by their labors. Friends as we must be to the Church of England, and highly as we think of the knowledge and zeal of its present professors, we cannot but congratulate the members of that Establishment on the means of support, which its principles, its doctrines, and its practice, will derive from the improving systems of its illustrious nurseries, the UNIVERSITIES of OXFORD aud CAMBRIDGE.

VINDICIE ANTIQUE.

No. I.

TOWARDS the close of the seventeenth century, Sir William Temple justly observed, "that whoever converses much among the old books, will be something hard to please among the new." He assigned as the causes of the decay of learning in his time," the want or decay of favor in great Kings and Princes to applaud it—the employment of our nobility in arms and conquest-that of our clergy in their devotions, and controversies—of our middle ranks in the pursuits of wealth-and of the lower ranks in toil, to procure the means of subsistence.”—“The vein of ridiculing all that is serious and good, all honor and virtue, as well as learning and piety, is the itch of our age and climate, and has

We have reason to believe that the University Scholarships are on the point of being decided in Oxford by a public examination, as they are in Cambridge. In the Craven Scholarship this has been the case in the present

year.

overrun both the court and the stage, enters a house of Lords and Commons as boldly as a Coffee-house, debates of Council as well as private conversation; and I have known in my life more than one or two Ministers of State, that would rather have said a witty thing, than done a wise one; and made a company laugh, rather than the kingdom rejoice but this is enough to excuse the imperfections of learning in our age." The worthy Baronet, himself an excellent scholar, agrees in opinion with Alphonsus surnamed the wise, King of Arragon; “That among so many things as are by Men possessed, or pursued in the course of their Lives, all the rest are baubles, besides old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to converse with, and old Books to read."

At the time Sir William Temple made these observations, ancient learning was indeed fast declining: but in our times, although we still read the poets and historians of antient Greece, the very memory of their philosophy is almost forgotten; and, in some of our Universities, students are taught to ridicule what their masters do not understand, as unintelligible.

The writer of the second introductory essay to the supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica, in setting forth the excellence of modern philosophy and improvements in science, condemns the system of antient physics as worthless, and says that "Aristotle's definition of motion is highly characteristic of the vagueness and obscurity of his physical speculations. He calls motion the act of a being in power, as far as in power, words to which it is impossible that any distinct idea can ever have been annexed."-" Epicurus," he soon after adds, "defined it to be change of place, which is no doubt the simplest and best definition that can be given."-" The properties, or as they are called, the laws of motion, cannot be derived from mere definition; they must be sought for in experience and observation, and are not to be found without a diligent comparison, and scrupulous examination of facts."

of

'T'he definitions of Aristotle were for many ages admired, as models express and admirable exactness; and certain it is that no philosopher of any age has taken more pains to render his definitions clear, for he frequently subjoins illustrations to point out distinctly the meaning of the words employed, and their import in combination, and this scrupulous attention to accurate definition pervades the whole writings of Aristotle. That of motion he admits to be very difficult; for change of place, in the common acceptation of the words, he holds to be but one species of motion, which he gives as the last of

six enumerated; and accordingly he takes great pains to define it as exactly as possible: for he observes that without motion no change takes place in the universe.-He characterises the definition of time as equally difficult; and although he at first briefly calls it knoeos apiuos the measure of motion, he fully explains in the sequel the fleeting nature of time, and the extreme difficulty of forming a notion of time present, as, every instant, the past is for ever gone, and the future hath not yet arrived.

In order to form a correct estimate of the merit of the definition of motion, which to Professor Playfair appears so irrational, we must have recourse to the language in which it is given, and allow to Aristotle that to which every author is entitled, to explain his own meaning.

The definition occurs near the beginning of the third Book, de Natura, where, after stating the necessity of acquiring distinct ideas of Motion before we proceed to the study of nature, he says, Ainonμévov δὲ, καθ ̓ ἕκαστον γένος, τοῦ μὲν ἐντελεχείᾳ, τοῦ δὲ δυνάμει,---ἡ τοῦ δυνάμει ὄντος ἐντελέχεια, ᾗ τοιοῦτον, κίνησίς ἐστιν. In this definition it is necessary first to ascertain the true import of the words employed, in their usual acceptation; and then to consider the definition as illustrated by the context.

'Evreλéxela is a word said to have been invented by Aristotle, to express more accurately than any single word in the Greek language. enabled him to do, the tendency to perfection of the capacity of passive matter, and the energy of active powers.' The word is altered from the Euvreλéxea of the antient Pythagoreans, and is more expressive, because the 'Ev denotes that the tendency to perfection, or the accomplishment of an end, is actually resident in the being of which it is predicated. A block of marble may be converted into a fine statue, and the statue is then the évreλéxea of the passive marble, while the labor of the artist is the évreλéxea of his active power, an energy directed to the perfection or complete formation of a statue, the type of which already exists in his mind. But here we must observe that the antient philosophers allowed no perfection strictly so called to works of art. The happiest efforts of their artists they held to be incomplete,

It is true that Lucian in his Aixn pwvnévrwv introduces the letter ▲ as complaining that it has most unwarrantably been deprived of its ἐντελέχεια, formerly ἐνδελέXua, but there appears no reason to believe that the word was ever so spelt in fact. 'Ακούετε, φωνήεντα δικασταί, τοῦ μὲν Δ λέγοντος, ἀφείλετό μου τὴν ΕΝΔΕΛΕΧΕΙΑΝ, ἐντελέχειαν ἀξιοῦν λέγεσθαι παρὰ πάντας τοὺς νόμους.

and these artists themselves inscribing their names on their best productions always used the imperfect, denoting that they had been employed in the work, but by no means had been able to bring it to perfection. Thus the makers of musical instruments, however well they may have succeeded, do not call their work complete, but each uses the word "faciebat," thus modestly leaving the value of their performances to be determined by others. When therefore we speak of the evreλéxeia Avváμeos as applied to passive matter-the perfection of Capacity-absolute perfection is not understood-but comparative; for no work of art can possibly be altogether perfect. The ἐντελέχεια Δυνάμεις of an intelligent and active being may however reach, in a certain sense, absolute perfection; as the traveller before he sets out on his journey is possessed of the necessary power; but when he has by exertion actually completed his journey and arrived at his destination, the act is perfect, he has effected his purpose. The like may be said of the mariner whose labor, directed by skill, enables him to reach his destined haven; and every human pursuit is carried on by this active energy, or action of a being in power.

Aúvajus has many significations. It is active power, it is capacity, it is the power of governing a state, (for Demosthenes informs us that it is impossible for a prince despising truth and the sacred obligations of an oath to acquire permanent established power, dúvaμur ßeßaiàr,) and it is used to signify an army-as Lady Percy uses the equivalent word when she says

Aristotle, ever careful to define accurately the meaning of the words he employs, and their various acceptations, occupies a whole chapter in explaining the philosophical import of the word dúvajus, under the title of Δύναμις ποσαχῶς λέγεται, so that wherever it may be met with in his works it may be without difficulty understood. First, he says it is explained to be the principle of motion or change—άpxù kɩvýσeos, î μeraßons. Sometimes dúvajus implies capacity, whether of acting or suffering, but in its most general acceptation he says it is the principle of change: ὥστε ὁ κύριος ὅρος τῆς πρώτης Δυνάμεις ἂν εἴη Αρχὴ μεταβολικὴ, ἐν ἄλλῳ ἡ ἄλλο. What the last words of this sentence imply we discover from the concluding part of the definition of motion, y τοιοῦτον, κίνησίς ἐστιν, where the τοιοῦτον in the neuter gender, clearly refers to what is made the commencement of the following sentence, but which, we may infer, ought to have been continued in