II. IN OCCASIONAL LECTURES AND ESSAYS ADDRESSED TO THE LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO 1893. IN GRATEFUL NEVER-DYING REMEMBRANCE OF HIS MANY FRIENDS AND BENEFACTORS, LIVING AND DEAD, AT HOME AND ABROAD, IN GREAT BRITAIN, IRELAND, FRANCE, IN BELGIUM, GERMANY, POLAND, ITALY, AND MALTA, IN NORTH AMERICA, AND OTHER COUNTRIES, WHO, BY THEIR RESOLUTE PRAYERS AND FENANCE AND BY THEIR GENEROUS STUBBORN EFFORTS, AND BY THEIR MUNIFICENT ALMS, HAVE BROKEN FOR HIM THE STRESS OF A GREAT ANXIETY, THESE DISCOURSES, OFFERED TO OUR LADY AND ST. PHILIP ON ITS RISE, PREFACE. HE view taken of a University in these Discourses THE : universal knowledge. This implies that its object is, on the one hand, intellectual, not moral; and, on the other, that it is the diffusion and extension of knowledge rather than the advancement If its object were scientific and philosophical discovery, I do not see why a University should have students; if religious training, I do not see how it can be the seat of literature and science. Such is a University in its essence, and independently of its relation to the Church. But, practically speaking, it cannot fulfil its object duly, such as I have described it, without the Church's assistance; or, to use the theological term, the Church is necessary for its integrity. Not that its main characters are changed by this incorporation it still has the office of intellectual education; but the Church steadies it in the performance of that office. Such are the main principles of the Discourses which follow; though it would be unreasonable for me to expect that I have treated so large and important a field of thought with the fulness and precision necessary to secure me from incidental misconceptions of my m on the part of the reader It is true, there i |