y sufficient ends, though nothing beyond them were added,
and that they had ever been accounted sufficient by mankind.

Here then I take up the subject; and, having determined that the
cultivation of the intellect is an end distinct and sufficient in itself,
and that, so far as words go it is an enlargement or illumination, I
proceed to inquire what this mental breadth, or power, or light, or
philosophy consists in. A Hospital heals a broken limb or cures a fever:
what does an Institution effect, which professes the health, not of the
body, not of the soul, but of the intellect? What is this good, which in
former times, as well as our own, has been found worth the notice, the
appropriation, of the Catholic Church?

I have then to investigate, in the Discourses which follow, those
qualities and characteristics of the intellect in which its cultivation
issues or rather consists; and, with a view of assisting myself in this
undertaking, I shall recur to certain questions which have already been
touched upon. These questions are three: viz. the relation of intellectual
culture, first, to _mere_ knowledge; secondly, to _professional_
knowledge; and thirdly, to _religious_ knowledge. In other words, are
_acquirements_ and _attainments_ the scope of a University Education? or
_expertness in particular arts and pursuits_? or _moral and religious
proficiency_? or something besides these three? These questions I shall
examine in succession, with the purpose I have mentioned; and I hope to be
excused, if, in this anxious undertaking, I am led to repeat what, either
in these Discourses or elsewhere, I have already put upon paper. And
first, of _Mere Knowledge_, or Learning, and its connexion with
intellectual illumination or Philosophy.

3.

I suppose the _prima-facie_ view which the public at large would take of a
University, considering it as a place of Education, is nothing more or
less than a place for acquiring a great deal of knowledge on a great many
subjects. Memory is one of the first developed of the mental faculties; a
boy's business when he goes to school is to learn, that is, to store up
things in his memory. For some years his intellect is little more than an
instrument for taking in facts, or a receptacle for storing them: he
welcomes them as fast as they come to him; he lives on what is without; he
has his eyes ever about him; he has a lively susceptibility of
impressions; he imbibes information of every ki