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364 They wish in some sort to efface from the ancient books whatever marks the epoch and characterizes the time. They detach fine passages of eloquence and beautiful extracts of poetry, but they are afraid, it seems, of the authors themselves; they fear lest the pupils find in them the old human spirit – the spirit of nature." There are several fallacies in this assertion. First of all the terms "select extracts" and "expurgated editions" apparently are used by M. Compayré as synonymous; but this is not correct. An expurgated edition, v. g. of the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, gives the whole work with the omission of but a few objectionable passages. Such editions are certainly not to be called select extracts from these authors. The Jesuits used to read select extracts from some authors, whose works are of such a character as to make it impossible to read them entire, as Juvenal, Tibullus, Catullus, etc. But they read the great works, the Odyssey, the Iliad, the Aeneid, some of Plato's Dialogues, the works of Cicero, etc., in expurgated editions in which only a few indecent passages were left out. These editions did not efface what characterized the time, or marked the spirit of the authors. On the contrary, it would have been directly against the principles of the Jesuits to suppress all this. For, whereas the Protestant Reformers and the Jansenists taught that man, unaided by grace, was utterly corrupt and unable to do anything good, that the seeming virtues of the pagans, of a Socrates and others, were but gilded vices, the Jesuits always maintained firmly that fallen man remained capable of performing some good works. The Jesuits were more