AUGUSTINE S DEFINITION. I3 



Christianity had revealed the folly. And 

 among the temptations which he still desires 

 to overcome is the appetite of knowledge 

 — a "vain and curious desire hiding under 

 the name of science" (lib. x. c. 35). This 

 is the desire which pretends, he says, to 

 reach the inmost secrets of nature — secrets 

 which when discovered could have no value, 

 and of which men desire and expect no- 

 thing except to know. Now, here we have 

 an exact definition of the true scientific spirit 

 — a spirit which has, indeed, in its results, 

 richly "endowed the human family with new 

 mercies," but which never has had this dov/er 

 in view as its only, or even as its chief, 

 inducement. It is not perhaps exactly relevant 

 to observe that the glorious facts of Astro- 



