Catholic who is familiar with them and has heard them explained and refuted by his professor during his academic career. Above all, as regards ecclesiastics, how can a Catholic Priest give reason for the hope that is in him if a layman submit to him an article in the Nineteenth Century or the Contemporary Review, and ask him to explain and refute the Philosophical errors it advances, if the Priest has heard of the error for the first time, and is in utter ignorance of the whole subject, or if, even though perfectly familiar with the true answer, he cannot apply this knowledge, because his training has been so limited that he knows nothing of the Philosophical language in which it is

written?

Here, in Dr. Kavanagh's own words, we have an indication of the object which he seems mainly to have in view. As he elsewhere tells us, "the real question is, what shall be the standard and the character of philosophical teaching in the Schools and Colleges of Ireland? Shall it receive the development which it has received at Rome, and which the Holy Father so strongly recommends? This is the real question at issue." Whether this object, so far as it depends upon the influence of the Royal University Examinations, is to be attained by "alternative" papers, or, in some hitherto unexplained way, by a "common" paper covering with even-handed impartiality the whole

1 Exacting critics, without incurring any serious risk of being set down as at all over-captious, might perhaps object that Dr. Kavanagh seems to lay a little too much stress upon the refutation of errors.

But we do not understand him in any way to imply that in the scientific aspect of the matter, the refutation of error is to be regarded as an object of fundamental importance in the same sense as is the establishment of truth. Philosophy would of course exist in all its integrity even if no philosophical error had ever been dreamt of, just as the Christian faith existed in all its integrity before the uprising of the first heresy. We assume, as a matter of course, that Dr. Kavanagh, in laying so much stress upon the necessity that exists for our being in a position to refute the errors of the day, means merely this, that in the teaching of philosophical truth, the method pursued should, as far as possible, be such as would present that truth in a form practically available for the assertion and maintenance of it, against all comers.

But here two important questions suggest themselves for consideration, which, however, the space at our disposal will not permit of our considering -How far is it possible thus satisfactorily to deal with the whole vast range of Catholic Philosophy within the necessarily restricted time that can be devoted to its study in an ordinary College, or even University, course? And secondly, so far as it may be found possible in any degree to attain so desirable a result, may it not involve the consequence of making it practically impossible for Catholic

field of philosophical truth and philosophical error, is, he assures us," indifferent" to him. This, then, being so, we must again express our incredulity as to there being any such "question at issue" as he supposes to exist. For it seems to us impossible to conceive that there can be found, whether in the Senate or out of it, even one Catholic, who is sufficiently educated to have read with intelligence the marvellously beautiful Encyclical of the Holy Father on this subject, and who is not thoroughly in accord with all that Dr. Kavanagh has thus set forth.

The task of the reviewer would thus have been a singularly pleasant one, if Dr. Kavanagh had not strangely mixed up with his eloquent plea for the advancement of our Philosophical studies in Ireland, and for the adoption of some practical means to bring about this important result, an elaborate defence of the questions set at the recent University Examinations in Metaphysics. On this point we must distinctly join issue with him, and on more grounds than one.

"Whether a particular paper may give an advantage to Catholic or non-Catholic students," is, he somewhat loftily tells us, a question "so insignificant that it scarcely merits reference in this important controversy!" This may be a very magnificent sentiment. But it is not practical. And we cannot even accept it as true. Does it, we may ask, or does it not, merit reference' that, as the direct result of the sadly defective system of Examination thus far persistently upheld by the University, and, as it would seem from Dr. Kavanagh's

students to enter into competition in this subject at the Royal University examinations with the students of non-Catholic colleges, those students being enabled, from their want of anything like a complete system of Philosophy, to devote all their attention and all their energies to the study of those detached sections of Philosophy of which the Royal University Programme in this subject is composed.

The more closely the question is looked into, the more clearly it will be seen that what is really wanted, and the only thing that will make the Royal University Examinations in Philosophy available, or safe, for Catholics, is a thoroughgoing reconstruction of the University Programme in this department. Does Dr. Kavanagh believe that this can be effected on Catholic lines?

We cannot but regret that he has not devoted to the elucidation of this, the most practically important aspect of the case, that large section of his pamphlet which is occupied with another matter, as to which, in justice to a previous contributor to these pages, we Lave felt called upon most strongly to express unqualified dissent from his views.

defence of it, not likely even now to be abandoned without a struggle, the following is the state of the Prize and Honours List in Philosophy at the recent Examinations in Philosophy? Here is the list transcribed in full :—

Surely every member of the University Senate must feel as strongly convinced as any outsider, that but for the overwhelming advantage afforded by the Examination Paper in question to students of the non-Catholic Philosophy, the Prize and Honours List would have shown a result very different from this.

Dr. Kavanagh writes with something like indignation of the "cry" that has been raised against the Examination Paper! Why, we may ask, should not that "cry" have been raised against it? Is it by silent acquiescence in the wrongs inflicted by the working of unjust schemes, or by the defective administration of just ones, that the Catholics of Ireland have obtained even the scanty instalment that they at present possess, out of all that is still due to them, in the matter of education, whether primary, intermediate, or university? He, no doubt, believes that the "cry" raised in the present instance against the working of the system of which he is one of the responsible administrators, is raised without solid justification. Is this a very unusual view for responsible administrators to take of the "cries" raised against injustice done by the working of a system, for the administration of which they are responsible? He seems, indeed, to

suggest that the complaints to which he thus refers were the not unnatural outcome of the disappointment felt by the students of our Catholic Colleges and by their Professors, at what he so strangely terms their "defeat" at the recent Examination. It is painful," he says, "to have been worsted in our first encounter." "Worsted!" Far from it, indeed. No interest, in truth, has been "worsted" by the setting of the now famous Examination Paper, except the interest of those, if there be any such, who would desire the maintenance of that peculiar line of examination, which has been the occasion of drawing down upon the working of the Royal University its first formal censure from the authorised guardians of the purity of the faith of the Irish people.

Let

Still more strangely, Dr. Kavanagh implies that the "cry" that has been raised against the Paper was a complaint of “undue difficulty." This really is not fair. the examiners of the University try the experiment of increasing, year after year, the "difficulty" of their Papers in every branch of the University Course. We have solid grounds enough before us to justify our confidence that they would find themselves compelled to desist in their career of progress by the storm of complaints that would assail them from the favoured non-Catholic Colleges, before even a murmur would have been raised on this score from the halls of their "unapproved" and slighted Catholic rivals. In the very instance in question here, so far

1 Dr. Kavanagh lays considerable stress on the fact that the paper in question was an Honours Paper, and that a number of students, far beyond the number who could have regarded themselves as likely to obtaia Honours, acted injudiciously in selecting it instead of the mere Puss Paper.

But it must be remembered that in the group of subjects in question here, there is, in the University Programme, no mere Pass course. Any student wishing even to “ Pass" in this group of subjects is constrained by the regulations of the Senate to select the Honours Papers.

Under the general regulations of the University, a Pass can in all cases be obtained by answering on an Honours paper. But in the case of the Examination for the B.A. Degree, Candidates selecting the Honours Paper cannot be adjudged to have "Passed" the examination, unless their answering nearly approaches the standard at which

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Honours will be awarded.”

Dr. Kavanagh announces in his Pamphlet that he has given Notice of Motion in the Senate "to exclude pass students from attempting to take a Degree in the Honours Papers." If this arrangement be adopted, it will, he considers, "prevent much of the dissatisfaction and disappointment which has been so freely expressed "

This may be. But we cannot see it, and we trust Dr. Kavanagh

is it from correct to represent the "cry that has been raised against the Paper," as a complaint on the score of "undue difficulty," that even in one of the opening paragraphs of the able analysis published in the November number of the RECORD, where the grounds of complaint are explicitly set forth, it is most distinctly stated that for those students who had been prepared on non-Catholic lines, the Paper, broadly speaking, presented no difficulty whatever, inasmuch as it contained, for such students, nothing but "familiar questions expressed in familiar phraseology," so that they had "but to resort to their memory for complete answers." Then, in the detailed analysis which followed, it was pointed out, in reference to one question, that the non-Catholic candidate had "abundant materials" at hand for "an exhaustive commentary" on the passage set for comment; of another question it was observed that the non-Catholic candidate. had" the best help" towards answering it; of another, that the non-Catholic candidate "ought to have had no difficulty in making up a satisfactory answer;" of another, that "the only difficulty" which the non-Catholic candidate can have had in answering it must have been "the embarrassment of too much riches ;" and so on, to the end. And this is now to be represented as a cry raised against the Paper as "unduly difficult!"

The issue raised, then, was obviously a very different one. And it is an issue from which, until justice has been done, it will be found impossible to draw off the attention of those who are now observing with such deep interest the effect of that so-called "cry" upon the University Senate-the issue, namely, whether the University Examiners shall or shall not be at liberty to set their questions in the future, as they have set them in the past, so as to give an advantage to the non-Catholic students of the University over their Catholic competitors. And this issue, however trifling it may appear when the question is looked at from within the Senate, is, on the contrary, of such primary importance when looked at from outside, that Dr. Kavanagh, notwithstanding his indisputable authority in University affairs,

has carefully considered the working details of the arrangement he suggests. To us, looking at the matter from an outsider's point of view, it would seem that the introduction of any such arrangement, so far as it can be regarded as possible to be introduced at all, should necessarily result in enormous inconvenience to all parties concerned.