Page:Studies of a Biographer 3.djvu/62

 'Hymn to the Saints and to Marquis Hamilton' he turns to account the scholastic doctrine that every angel is itself a 'separate species.' He several times expounds in verse the theory of three souls: vegetative, sensitive, and rational; and he knows at what precise moment the soul takes in 'the poisonous tincture of original sin.' Fuller information upon all these 'tickle points of niceness' may be found in the Summa of Aquinas, where they are carefully argued out. What strike us as unaccountable conceits are simply applications of the current philosophy. His mind is obviously full of such delicate inquiries, and he applies the same method to other topics. A characteristic poem is 'The Will.' He supposes himself to be dying, and bequeaths his moral and intellectual possessions. Then he works out a problem. A gift has not the proper virtue when the receiver is not benefited either (1) because he has a superfluity of the thing, or (2) because he does not know the use of it, or (3) because it is unpleasant to him, or (4) because it is really his own already, or (5) because accidents make it useless. His mistress has exemplified all these cases in her reception of him, and he concludes logically that he will die intestate. This