468 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



roundings, and is more polished and metaphysical than it would have 

 been if its author had been born in a hut; but it is nevertheless al- 

 ways practical, and while clearly recognizing that there are inevitable 

 limitations of human power, it makes a grand claim for the possible 

 capacity of human intelligence ; it is not a system of in-door ethics 

 that fails of efficiency when taken into the open air and exposed to the 

 weather. Take, for example, what he says of religion : " To those 

 who ask, ' Where have you seen the gods ? how do you comprehend 

 that they exist? why do you worship them?' I reply, in the first 

 place, that they may be seen even with the eyes. In the second place, 

 1 have not seen my own soul, yet I honor it ; and in respect to the 

 gods, from what I constantly experience of their power, I compre- 

 hend that they exist, and I venerate them." 



Of immortality he says : " It hardly seems possible that men who 

 through pious acts have been most intimate with the Divinity, when 

 they die should be completely extinguished. But if this is so, rest 

 assured that it ought not to have been otherwise ; for, you see, in this 

 inquiry you are disputing with the Deity, who would not have al- 

 lowed anything in the order of the universe to be neglected unjustly 

 and irrationally. . . . 



"Wait for death with a cheerful mind, as being nothing else than 

 a dissolution of the elements of which every human being is com- 

 pounded. But if there is no harm to the elements themselves in each 

 continually changing into another, why should a man have any appre- 

 hension about the change and dissolution of all the elements ; for it is 

 according to Nature, and nothing is evil that is according to Nature." 

 It may, of course, be claimed that he is an altogether exceptional 

 man, and that his lofty views were unshared by his contemporaries. 

 This, however, is not a sufficient explanation. 



In a note to one of Moore's songs we are told that it was founded 

 on this anecdote in Warren's " History of Ireland : " " The people were 

 inspired with such a spirit of honor, virtue, and religion, by the great 

 example of Brien, and by his excellent administration, that as a proof 

 of it we are informed that a young lady of great beauty, adorned with 

 jewels and a costly dress, undertook a journey alone from one end of 

 the kingdom to the othei", with a wand only in her hand, on the top 

 of which was a ring of great value ; and such an impression had the 

 laws and government of this monarch made on the minds of all the 

 people that no attempt was made upon lier honor, nor was she robbed 

 of her clothes and jewels." Whether this history is true or not, there 

 is no gainsaying the fact that it existed in the popular Irish thought, 

 or it would never have found expression. It requires a delicate and 

 chaste imagination to conceive of such a legend, and the character of 

 the people to-day seems to justify us in admitting its essential proba- 

 bility. 



These writings of Antoninus may be accepted in a similar sense as 



