Page:Twelve Years in a Monastery (1897).djvu/78

72 neglecting the problems of actual interest and importance, they fritter away the allotted time in the most contemptible controversies. The liberty of the will or the existence of God will be dismissed in a day, and a week will be zealously devoted to the question whether substance and personality are two distinct entities, or whether the qualities of a thing are physically, formally, or mentally distinct from its substance. In many seminaries a certain amount of physical science is taught in conjunction with the course of philosophy, but much jealousy is shown with regard to it. I was much attracted to the empirical sciences from the beginning, and, though not actually prevented, I was much discouraged in their pursuit; I was informed that the empirical sciences made the mind ‘mechanical’ and predisposed to materialism. F. David, though not actually my professor, guided my studies with great kindness throughout my course; although I fortunately broke loose from his influence in some directions, and found that I had subsequently to verify with care whatever I had accepted from him, I was certainly much indebted to him for the formation of habits of industry and precision.

The priest who was nominally entrusted with our philosophical training is certainly not responsible for the fatal depth to which I ultimately penetrated into it. One of the few things he had not mastered was metaphysics; he could paint and play, and was an