's saying that 'the philosopher is the lover of God,' and
the words of the Book of Exodus in which God reveals himself to Moses
(Exod.) He dwells at length on miracles performed in his own day, of
which the evidence is regarded by him as irresistible. He speaks in a
very interesting manner of the beauty and utility of nature and of the
human frame, which he conceives to afford a foretaste of the heavenly
state and of the resurrection of the body. The book is not really what
to most persons the title of it would imply, and belongs to an age which
has passed away. But it contains many fine passages and thoughts which
are for all time.

The short treatise de Monarchia of Dante is by far the most remarkable
of mediaeval ideals, and bears the impress of the great genius in whom
Italy and the Middle Ages are so vividly reflected. It is the vision of
an Universal Empire, which is supposed to be the natural and necessary
government of the world, having a divine authority distinct from the
Papacy, yet coextensive with it. It is not 'the ghost of the dead Roman
Empire sitting crowned upon the grave thereof,' but the legitimate heir
and successor of it, justified by the ancient virtues of the Romans and
the beneficence of their rule. Their right to be the governors of the
world is also confirmed by the testimony of miracles, and acknowledged
by St. Paul when he appealed to Caesar, and even more emphatically by
Christ Himself, Who could not have made atonement for the sins of men
if He had not been condemned by a divinely authorized tribunal. The
necessity for the establishment of an Universal Empire is proved partly
by a priori arguments such as the unity of God and the unity of the
family or nation; partly by perversions of Scripture and history, by
false analogies of nature, by misapplied quotations from the classics,
and by odd scraps and commonplaces of logic, showing a familiar but by
no means exact knowledge of Aristotle (of Plato there is none). But
a more convincing argument still is the miserable state of the world,
which he touchingly describes. He sees no hope of happiness or peace
for mankind until all nations of the earth are comprehended in a single
empire. The whole treatise shows how deeply the idea of the Roman Empire
was fixed in the minds of his contemporaries. Not much argument was
needed to maintain the truth of a theory which to his own contemporaries
seemed so natural and congenial. He speaks, or rather preac