relation between these two is further illustrated by the analogy of concentric circles. There are some things which rise above the order of Fate; thus those things which are firmly fixed close to the divine Simplicity stand without the moving order of Fate. That which lies farthest away from the primary Intelligence is entwined in closer meshes of Fate; and conversely, things are the more completely freed from Fate, the nearer they approach the hinge of all things. As reasoning is to the intellect, as that which becomes to that which is, as time is to eternity, as the circle is to its centre, so is Fate in all its moving succession to Providence in its motionless simplicity. It is Fate that so rigidly binds together cause and effect, that to our eyes there is sometimes an apparent confusion and misordering of things. We must remember that there does exist a method which directs and disposes all things for good. Nothing is left to wilful chance—everything is under the rule of Providence; and even those things which have fallen out of the path marked out for them, are directed into some other path by that order which embraceth all things. Αργαλέον δέμε ταῦτα θεὸν ὡς παντ ̓ ἀγορεύειν, and it is not given to man either to grasp with his intelligence or to explain in words all the intricate machinery of God's

designs. Let us be content with our knowledge that the same God who hath begotten all things doth dispose and order them for good, and that, while anxious to keep in His likeness all that He hath brought into being, He driveth all evil, and all that is unlike Him, beyond the bounds of His kingdom by means of the order of fateful necessity.

As a final conclusion, Philosophy argues that all fortune is good, since it only comes by God's good will. The approach of that which is falsely called ill-fortune should nerve the wise man to the fightthat fight against either fortune in which all you who are advancing towards virtue must engage; against ill-fortune, lest it overwhelm you, against good fortune, lest it undermine you. The middle. way between the two must be boldly seized and held.

BOOK V.

The six sections in prose and five in verse of this book are taken up with an elaborate discussion on the compatibility of man's freewill with God's foreknowledge in a universe where nothing exists without its proper cause, and where all is under the rule of a good and wise Governor.

But, asks Boethius, in all this rigid bond of cause

and effect is there no place for liberty of choice? For if God knows all things and cannot be deceived, that of necessity must come to pass which His prescience has foreseen. Thus freewill disappears and necessity takes its place. Communion with Him becomes impossible, prayer is rendered useless, for how can an earthly demand affect the course of things that have been already immutably fixed on high? Philosophy's answer opens with a definition of eternity, which, as distinguished from perpetuity, is the whole and complete possession of interminable life, and this can be attributed to God alone. Nothing that suffers the condition of time, though it neither ever began to be, nor should ever cease to be (as in Aristotle's opinion was the case with the world), nor yet though its life should stretch into an infinity of time, can rightly be called eternal. "And so if we would assign to things their proper

names, we shall say with Plato that God is eternal, pp and that the world is perpetual." God, being eternal, includes in His divine perception all things that have happened, that are happening, and that shall presently come to pass.

Just as our seeing a man walking does not lay upon him any constraint to continue or to stop walking, so this foreknowledge of God does not

necessitate the actions which it contemplates. It must be called Providence rather than Previdence, in order that no confusion may arise between the freewill of man and the divine ordering of the world.

But this very consciousness that all our thoughts and actions lie outstretched before God's all-seeing eye doth lay on man a certain necessity-a necessity so to live that nothing he can do or think may be out of tune with the divine harmony of His rule. "Wherefore the freedom of choice remains inviolate for mortal men; and those laws are not unfair which lay down rewards and punishments for wills bound by no necessity. Furthermore, there is One that looks down from on high, God, who hath foreknowledge of all things, the ever-present eternity of whose sight agrees with the future quality of our actions, assigning to the good reward, and punishment to the wicked. It is not in vain that we lay our hopes and prayers before God, for when they are right they cannot be without effect. Turn you from vice and ensue righteousness, uplift your mind to worthy hopes, in all humility direct your prayers to heaven. A strong necessity to live uprightly is laid upon you if you would not cheat yourself, since all your actions take place before the eyes of a Judge who seeth all things."

Y

So ends the Consolation of Philosophy,' not, if I have read it aright, with any abrupt termination, as many have maintained, but rather with a serene and noble epilogue, which affords a grateful, and without doubt an intentional, contrast to the restlessness and petulance for it is nothing less-that marks many passages in the earlier books. Philosophy has kept her promise and fulfilled her mission. She has raised her disciple gently and tenderly from the depths of depression and despair in which she found him to a calm and reverend trust in God. She has shown him the emptiness of earthly things and the sovereign beauty of heavenly things; and there is no indication that Boethius had it in his mind to pursue the search for comfort any farther. Nor does the fifth book betray any signs of haste or want of finish. True, it falls short of the fourth book by some two hundred lines, and of the third by close on four hundred; but, on the other hand, it comes within thirty lines of the second, and is longer than the first by near a hundred; while the comparative infrequency of the songs and lyrics with which the writer is elsewhere so willing to vary his prose, only points to a feeling in his mind that metre was not the proper vehicle for the careful synthesis and elaborate inductive development which was required