ich in its
cumbrous artificiality exhibits an early stage in the exposition of
thought in literary form, but Dante's earnestness of purpose is apparent
in many passages of manly simplicity, and inspires life into the dry
bones of his formal scholasticism. The book is a mingling of
biographical narrative, shaped largely by the ideals of the imagination,
with expositions of philosophical doctrine, disquisitions on matters of
science, and discussion of moral truths. But one controlling purpose
runs through all, to help men to attain that knowledge which shall lead
them into the paths of righteousness.

For his theory of knowledge is, that it is the natural and innate desire
of the soul, as essential to its own perfection in its ultimate union
with God. The use of the reason, through which he partakes of the Divine
nature, is the true life of man. Its right use in the pursuit of
knowledge leads to philosophy, which is, as its name signifies, the love
of wisdom, and its end is the attainment of virtue. It is because of
imperfect knowledge that the love of man is turned to fallacious objects
of desire, and his reason is perverted. Knowledge, then, is the prime
source of good; ignorance, of evil. Through knowledge to wisdom is the
true path of the soul in this life on her return to her Maker, to know
whom is her native desire, and her perfect beatitude.

In the exposition of these truths in their various relations a multitude
of topics of interest are touched upon, and a multitude of opinions
expressed which exhibit the character of Dante's mind and the vast
extent of the acquisitions by which his studies had enriched it. The
intensity of his moral convictions and the firmness of his moral
principles are no less striking in the discourse than the nobility of
his genius and the breadth of his intellectual view. Limited and
erroneous as are many of his scientific conceptions, there is little
trace of superstition or bigotry in his opinions; and though his
speculations rest on a false conception of the universe, the revolting
dogmas of the common mediaeval theology in respect to the human and the
Divine nature find no place in them. The mingling of fancy with fact,
the unsoundness of the premises from which conclusions are drawn, the
errors in belief and in argument, do not affect the main object of his
writing, and the 'Convito' may still be read with sympathy and with
profit, as a treatise of moral doctrine by a man the loftin