e has published have grown for the most part out of the duties which lay
upon him, or out of the circumstances of the moment. Rarely has he been
master of his own studies.

The present collection of Lectures and Essays, written by him while Rector
of the Catholic University of Ireland, is certainly not an exception to
this remark. Rather, it requires the above consideration to be kept in
view, as an apology for the want of keeping which is apparent between its
separate portions, some of them being written for public delivery, others
with the privileged freedom of anonymous compositions.

However, whatever be the inconvenience which such varieties in tone and
character may involve, the author cannot affect any compunction for having
pursued the illustration of one and the same important subject-matter,
with which he had been put in charge, by such methods, graver or lighter,
so that they were lawful, as successively came to his hand.

_November, 1858._

Lecture I.

Christianity And Letters. A Lecture in the School of Philosophy and
Letters.

1.

It seems but natural, Gentlemen, now that we are opening the School of
Philosophy and Letters, or, as it was formerly called, of Arts, in this
new University, that we should direct our attention to the question, what
are the subjects generally included under that name, and what place they
hold, and how they come to hold that place, in a University, and in the
education which a University provides. This would be natural on such an
occasion, even though the Faculty of Arts held but a secondary place in
the academical system; but it seems to be even imperative on us,
considering that the studies which that Faculty embraces are almost the
direct subject-matter and the staple of the mental exercises proper to a
University.

It is indeed not a little remarkable that, in spite of the special
historical connexion of University Institutions with the Sciences of
Theology, Law, and Medicine, a University, after all, should be formally
based (as it really is), and should emphatically live in, the Faculty of
Arts; but such is the deliberate decision of those who have most deeply
and impartially considered the subject.(32) Arts existed before other
Faculties; the Masters of Arts were the ruling and directing body; the
success and popularity of the Faculties of Law and Medicine were
considered to be in no slight measure an encroachment and