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 of moral purpose would have disqualified Gibbon for the one great work which he achieved. Had, in short, a superhuman being been required to fit such an intellect with the character best able to turn it to account or to fit the character with the most appropriate intellect, he could not have devised a better combination. Comte prefixes to his system of philosophy the motto from Alfred de Vigny: ''Qu'est-ce qu'une grande vie? Une pensée de la jeunesse exécutée par l'âge mûr.'' Judged by that test, Gibbon's life was of the greatest. How rare is the realisation of the maxim in any department of life need hardly be said. We have just been congratulating Mr. Herbert Spencer upon the conclusion of the labours of a lifetime devoted to a single purpose. There cannot, I think, be too hearty a recognition of the great moral qualities implied. A retrospect of the history of philosophy would show how few are the careers to be compared to it. In poetry, Dante is of course the great instance of complete achievement; Milton too may be said to have carried out in Paradise Lost the purpose of his youth; but the works even of our greatest poets are mainly a collection of short flights instead of a continuous evolution of a lifelong scheme. In