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Expert Python Programming
Second Edition

Become an ace Python programmer by learning best

coding practices and advance-level concepts with
Python 3.5

Michał Jaworski
Tarek Ziadé

BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Expert Python Programming
Second Edition

Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
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Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages
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However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: September 2008

Second edition: May 2016

Production reference: 1160516

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

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35 Livery Street
Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78588-685-0

www.packtpub.com
 Credits

Authors Proofreader
Michał Jaworski Safis Editing
Tarek Ziadé
Indexer
Reviewer Rekha Nair
Facundo Batista
Graphics
Commissioning Editor Jason Monteiro
Kunal Parikh
Production Coordinator
Acquisition Editor Aparna Bhagat
Meeta Rajani
Cover Work
Technical Editor Aparna Bhagat
Pankaj Kadam

Copy Editor
Laxmi Subramanian
 About the Authors

Michał Jaworski has 7 years of experience in Python. He is also the creator of

graceful, which is a REST framework built on top of falcon. He has been in various
roles at different companies: from an ordinary full-stack developer through software
architect to VP of engineering in a fast-paced start-up company. He is currently a
lead backend engineer in TV Store team at Opera Software. He is highly experienced
in designing high-performance distributed services. He is also an active contributor
to some of the popular Python open source projects.

Tarek Ziadé is an engineering manager at Mozilla, working with a team

specialized in building web services in Python at scale for Firefox. He's contributed
to the Python packaging effort and has worked with a lot of different Python web
frameworks since Zope in the early days.

Tarek has also created Afpy, the French Python User Group, and has written two
books on Python in French. He has delivered numerous talks and tutorials in French
at international events such as Solutions Linux, PyCon, OSCON, and EuroPython.
 About the Reviewer

Facundo Batista is a specialist in the Python programming language, with more

than 15 years of experience with it. He is a core developer of the language, and a
member by merit of the Python Software Foundation. He also received the 2009
Community Service Award for organizing PyCon Argentina and the Argentinian
Python community as well as contributions to the standard library and work in
translating the Python documentation.

He delivers talks in the main Python conferences in Argentina and other countries
(The United States and Europe). In general, he has strong distributed collaborative
experience from being involved in FLOSS development and working with people
around the globe for more than 10 years.

He worked as a telecommunication engineer at Telefónica Móviles and Ericsson, and

as a Python expert at Cyclelogic (developer in chief) and Canonical (senior software
developer, his current position).

He also loves playing tennis, and is a father of two wonderful children.

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 Table of Contents
Preface xi
Chapter 1: Current Status of Python 1
Where are we now and where we are going? 2
Why and how does Python change? 2
Getting up to date with changes – PEP documents 3
Python 3 adoption at the time of writing this book 4
The main differences between Python 3 and Python 2 5
Why should I care? 5
The main syntax differences and common pitfalls 5
Syntax changes 6
Changes in the standard library 7
Changes in datatypes and collections 8
The popular tools and techniques used for maintaining cross-version
compatibility 8
Not only CPython 12
Why should I care? 13
Stackless Python 13
Jython 14
IronPython 14
PyPy 15
Modern approaches to Python development 16
Application-level isolation of Python environments 17
Why isolation? 19
Popular solutions 21
virtualenv 21
venv 23
buildout 24
Which one to choose? 24

[i]
Table of Contents

System-level environment isolation 25

Virtual development environments using Vagrant 26
Containerization versus virtualization 27
Popular productivity tools 28
Custom Python shells – IPython, bpython, ptpython, and so on 29
Setting up the PYTHONSTARTUP environment variable 30
IPython 30
bpython 30
ptpython 31
Interactive debuggers 31
Useful resources 32
Summary 33
Chapter 2: Syntax Best Practices – below the Class Level 35
Python's built-in types 36
Strings and bytes 36
Implementation details 38
String concatenation 39
Collections 40
Lists and tuples 40
Dictionaries 45
Sets 49
Beyond basic collections – the collections module 50
Advanced syntax 51
Iterators 51
The yield statement 52
Decorators 56
General syntax and possible implementations 57
Usage and useful examples 61
Context managers – the with statement 68
General syntax and possible implementations 69
Other syntax elements you may not know yet 72
The for … else … statement 73
Function annotations 73
The general syntax 74
The possible uses 74
Summary 75
Chapter 3: Syntax Best Practices – above the Class Level 77
Subclassing built-in types 78
Accessing methods from superclasses 80
Old-style classes and super in Python 2 82
Understanding Python's Method Resolution Order 83

[ ii ]
 Table of Contents

super pitfalls 87
Mixing super and explicit class calls 87
Heterogeneous arguments 89
Best practices 90
Advanced attribute access patterns 91
Descriptors 92
Real-life example – lazily evaluated attributes 95
Properties 98
Slots 101
Metaprogramming 102
Decorators – a method of metaprogramming 103
Class decorators 103
Using the __new__() method to override instance creation process 105
Metaclasses 108
The general syntax 109
New Python 3 syntax for metaclasses 112
Metaclass usage 115
Metaclass pitfalls 115
Some tips on code generation 116
exec, eval, and compile 117
Abstract Syntax Tree 118
Projects using code generation patterns 120
Summary 123
Chapter 4: Choosing Good Names 125
PEP 8 and naming best practices 125
Why and when to follow PEP 8? 126
Beyond PEP 8 – team-specific style guidelines 126
Naming styles 127
Variables 127
Constants 128
Naming and usage 129
Public and private variables 130
Functions and methods 131
The private controversy 132
Special methods 134
Arguments 134
Properties 134
Classes 135
Modules and packages 135
The naming guide 136
Using the has or is prefix for Boolean elements 136
Using plurals for variables that are collections 136
Using explicit names for dictionaries 136

[ iii ]
Table of Contents

Avoiding generic names 136

Avoiding existing names 138
Best practices for arguments 138
Building arguments by iterative design 139
Trust the arguments and your tests 139
Using *args and **kwargs magic arguments carefully 141
Class names 143
Module and package names 143
Useful tools 144
Pylint 144
pep8 and flake8 146
Summary 147
Chapter 5: Writing a Package 149
Creating a package 149
The confusing state of Python packaging tools 150
The current landscape of Python packaging thanks to PyPA 150
Tool recommendations 151
Project configuration 152
setup.py 152
setup.cfg 153
MANIFEST.in 154
Most important metadata 154
Trove classifiers 155
Common patterns 156
The custom setup command 161
Working with packages during development 161
setup.py install 162
Uninstalling packages 162
setup.py develop or pip -e 162
Namespace packages 163
Why is it useful? 163
PEP 420 – implicit namespace packages 166
Namespace packages in previous Python versions 167
Uploading a package 168
PyPI – Python Package Index 169
Uploading to PyPI – or other package index 169
.pypirc 170
Source packages versus built packages 171
sdist 171
bdist and wheels 172
Standalone executables 174
When are standalone executables useful? 175

[ iv ]
 Table of Contents

Popular tools 176

PyInstaller 177
cx_Freeze 181
py2exe and py2app 183
Security of Python code in executable packages 184
Making decompilation harder 185
Summary 186
Chapter 6: Deploying Code 187
The Twelve-Factor App 188
Deployment automation using Fabric 189
Your own package index or index mirror 195
PyPI mirroring 196
Deployment using a package 197
Common conventions and practices 207
The filesystem hierarchy 207
Isolation 207
Using process supervision tools 208
Application code should be run in user space 210
Using reverse HTTP proxies 210
Reloading processes gracefully 211
Code instrumentation and monitoring 212
Logging errors – sentry/raven 213
Monitoring system and application metrics 215
Dealing with application logs 218
Basic low-level log practices 218
Tools for log processing 220
Summary 223
Chapter 7: Python Extensions in Other Languages 225
Different language means – C or C++ 226
How do extensions in C or C++ work 226
Why you might want to use extensions 228
Improving performance in critical code sections 228
Integrating existing code written in different languages 229
Integrating third-party dynamic libraries 230
Creating custom datatypes 230
Writing extensions 230
Pure C extensions 231
A closer look at Python/C API 235
Calling and binding conventions 240
Exception handling 242
Releasing GIL 244
Reference counting 246

[v]
Table of Contents

Cython 248
Cython as a source to source compiler 248
Cython as a language 250
Challenges 253
Additional complexity 253
Debugging 254
Interfacing with dynamic libraries without extensions 255
ctypes 255
Loading libraries 255
Calling C functions using ctypes 257
Passing Python functions as C callbacks 258
CFFI 262
Summary 263
Chapter 8: Managing Code 265
Version control systems 265
Centralized systems 266
Distributed systems 268
Distributed strategies 270
Centralized or distributed? 271
Use Git if you can 271
Git flow and GitHub flow 272
Continuous development processes 276
Continuous integration 277
Testing every commit 278
Merge testing through CI 279
Matrix testing 280
Continuous delivery 280
Continuous deployment 281
Popular tools for continuous integration 282
Jenkins 282
Buildbot 286
Travis CI 288
GitLab CI 290
Choosing the right tool and common pitfalls 290
Problem 1 – too complex build strategies 291
Problem 2 – too long building time 291
Problem 3 – external job definitions 292
Problem 4 – lack of isolation 293
Summary 294
Chapter 9: Documenting Your Project 295
The seven rules of technical writing 295
Write in two steps 296
Target the readership 297

[ vi ]
 Table of Contents

Use a simple style 298

Limit the scope of information 299
Use realistic code examples 299
Use a light but sufficient approach 300
Use templates 301
A reStructuredText primer 301
Section structure 303
Lists 305
Inline markup 306
Literal block 306
Links 307
Building the documentation 308
Building the portfolio 308
Design 309
Usage 310
Operations 315
Making your own portfolio 315
Building the landscape 316
Producer's layout 317
Consumer's layout 318
Documentation building and continuous integration 322
Summary 323
Chapter 10: Test-Driven Development 325
I don't test 325
Test-driven development principles 326
Preventing software regression 328
Improving code quality 329
Providing the best developer documentation 329
Producing robust code faster 330
What kind of tests? 330
Acceptance tests 330
Unit tests 331
Functional tests 331
Integration tests 332
Load and performance testing 332
Code quality testing 333
Python standard test tools 333
unittest 333
doctest 337
I do test 339
unittest pitfalls 339
unittest alternatives 340
nose 340
py.test 344

[ vii ]
Table of Contents

Testing coverage 348

Fakes and mocks 351
Building a fake 351
Using mocks 356
Testing environment and dependency compatibility 358
Dependency matrix testing 358
Document-driven development 362
Writing a story 362
Summary 364
Chapter 11: Optimization – General Principles and Profiling
Techniques 365
The three rules of optimization 365
Make it work first 366
Work from the user's point of view 367
Keep the code readable and maintainable 367
Optimization strategy 368
Find another culprit 368
Scale the hardware 368
Writing a speed test 369
Finding bottlenecks 370
Profiling CPU usage 370
Macro-profiling 371
Micro-profiling 375
Measuring Pystones 378
Profiling memory usage 379
How Python deals with memory 379
Profiling memory 382
C code memory leaks 390
Profiling network usage 391
Summary 392
Chapter 12: Optimization – Some Powerful Techniques 393
Reducing the complexity 394
Cyclomatic complexity 396
The big O notation 396
Simplifying 399
Searching in a list 399
Using a set instead of a list 400
Using collections 401
deque 401
defaultdict 403
namedtuple 404

[ viii ]
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
Personality adds to individuality the element of intelligence, and
consequently of self-consciousness.

A person, therefore, is a substance, possessed of intelligence and

self-consciousness, forming a unit in se, and hence being distinct
from all others, having the ownership of himself, sui juris, and
being the principle of imputability for all his actions.

If these notions, on which depend the whole field of ontology,

which are the foundation of morality, of all social and political rights
of man, on which the very bliss and ultimate perfection of man rest
—if such notions are hair-breadth distinctions, we thank God that
we are endowed with intelligence enough to apprehend them; else,
were a man to-morrow to force us into slavery, on the plea that we
are only things, and not persons, we should be at a loss how to
stop him, not being able, like Channing, to apprehend our own
personality, that supreme gift which makes us feel master and
owner of ourselves and accountable for our actions.

Having premised these notions, we say the Unitarians, who grant

that the Infinite is endowed with intelligence and will, must admit
one of these three things: either the intelligence and will are
perfections or attributes, or they are faculties, or they are persons.
If they admit them to be perfections, they divide the Infinite; if
they admit them to be faculties, they fall into pantheism.

This is what we are going to prove in the following propositions.

First proposition: If intelligence and will were admitted to be mere

perfections in God, the admission would imply a division in God and
a breaking up of the Infinite.

Before we proceed to prove this proposition, we premise that in the

argument we take intelligence and will in action, and not in
potentiality; in other words, we take them as acts, and not as
faculties.
The reason is because, as we shall prove, there can be no faculties
or potentiality in the Infinite. This premised, we lay down the
undoubted ontological truth that between intelligence in act and the
conception or interior logos, the result of intelligencing, there is
and must be a real distinction. In other words, the intellect in act
and the conception of the intellect necessarily imply a duality.

The reason of this is evident. First, because between the intellect in

action and conception there is necessarily an opposition. The
intellect in act, is such, inasmuch as it is not conception, and vice
versa. Now, a real opposition implies, necessarily, a real distinction.
Again, the conception or interior logos is to the intellect in action
as the effect is to its cause, or, better, as the consequence is to its
principle.

If, therefore, there were no real distinction between the intellect

and the conception, there would be no real distinction between the
effect and its cause, the principle and its consequence. Hence,
thinking and thought are necessarily distinct. What is true of the
act of thinking and of thought is true of the will and its volition,
for the same reason. Hence it is evident that the intellect in action,
thought or the conception, the will in action and its volition, are
necessarily distinct by their very ontological nature and relation. It
follows, then, that if we admit them to be mere perfections of the
Infinite, we would imply a real distinction in the essence of the
Infinite, in other words, a duality of essence; because a perfection
in the Infinite is identical with essence, since we have said that
perfections have no real existence in re, and are only partial
conceptions of our minds, which cannot take in the Infinite at one
intellectual glance.

Intelligence in action and conception, therefore, being considered

as perfections, would be identical with the essence; and they
requiring, in force of their metaphysical nature, a real distinction,
the distinction would fall upon the essence of the Infinite. Any one
versed in ontology will perceive this truth at a glance. Hence,
Unitarians cannot say that the intelligence and the conception of
the intelligence, the will and love in the Infinite, are mere
perfections, without admitting a real distinction in the essence of
the Infinite, and thus admitting a multiplicity of Infinites, which is
absurd.

Second proposition: If Unitarians rank the intellect and thought, the

will and its volition, of the infinite among faculties, they then fall
into pantheism.

Ontology, as we have said, defines a faculty to be a force of

development by union with its object.

Its notion implies three elements:

1. A force residing dormant in a being.

2. An object.

3. A union of the force with the object, to render the development

actual.

Applying this idea to the subject in question, every one can see at
a glance that a faculty cannot be predicated of the Infinite without
falling into pantheism.

For it would be to admit in God a force of development, a capacity

of unfolding, of actualizing himself.

Now, every faculty of development necessarily begins, from the

minimum degree of actuality, to travel by progressive stages of
unfolding to an indefinite maximum of progression. Hence, in the
supposition, we should be forced to admit that God started from
the minimum of life and action, and that he travelled through
numberless stages of development, and will travel indefinitely
through higher stages in the direction of a maximum of progress
never to be attained. Now, this is almost verbatim the pantheistic
theory of Hegel.

Every one who has read Hegel will have observed that his idea of
the Infinite coincides perfectly with the above. For he starts from a
minimum of reality, the Being, Idea, which, through a necessary
interior movement, becomes matter, organism, animality,
intelligence, etc.

It would not do for Unitarians to say that the argument does not
apply to their system, since they admit a substance already existing
and perfect as to being, only endowed with faculties. For, in the
supposition, they would admit a finite, not an infinite being.

In a finite being we can conceive one already perfect in the order

of existence, with faculties or force of accidental development. But
we cannot say the same of the Infinite. The positive infinite, so to
speak, is essentially actuality itself; hence, perfection itself, all
terms which exclude and eliminate every possibility of development.
If it be not that it must be the Infinite of pantheism, a mere
abstraction and unreality.

From what we have said, we conclude:

First, that the mystery of the Trinity is essentially necessary to the

idea of God; that there can be no conception of Infinite actuality
but through the supposition of three distinct terminations of the
same essence.

Secondly, that Unitarians are absolutely powerless before

pantheism; nay, that their system is disguised pantheism; and that
by holding fast only to the unity of God, they sap the very
foundation of the reality of the Infinite.

The Infinite is essentially living. A living God is essentially

conceiving himself by intellect. A subjective conception necessarily
implies an objective conception. These two are absolutely and
necessarily opposed to each other, and hence, really distinct. Again,
a living God, who necessarily conceives himself, necessarily loves
himself through his conception. Again, subjective love necessarily
implies an objective love, and the two are essentially opposed, and
hence distinct.

Thus we have three real distinct relations in the Infinite, a

conceiver, a conception, and love.

On the one hand, these three relations cannot be either perfections

or faculties; on the other, they cannot be denied of the Infinite
without destroying the very idea of the Infinite. It follows, then,
that they should be three terminations of the same essence.

The act of intelligence in God is so actual and perfect as to be in

the very same state of personality intelligence itself. The production
of this act is also so actual and perfect as to be conception itself, a
personality distinct from the first. Love, the necessary production of
both the intelligence and the conception, is also so actual and
perfect, as to be love itself in a state of personality, three distinct
subsistences of the same one infinite essence.
 Heremore-Brandon;
Or, The Fortunes Of A Newsboy.
Chapter IV.

In the beautiful dawn Dick awoke, hardly remembering where he

was, and almost frightened at the wonderful absence of many
noises which had never before failed to greet his waking. Not
knowing whether it were very late or very early, Dick took the
safest view of the subject, and hurriedly dressed himself; then,
cautiously opening his door, he looked out to see if there was any
sign to guide his further movements: All was silent around him; but
the hall door stood wide open, letting in a square of golden
sunshine at the foot of the stairs. He went carefully and noiselessly
down, and found himself, when he reached the porch, in a flood of
glorious light. The flowers that hung above the porch were
sparkling in it, for the dew was yet fresh on all the world; a
thousand birds were carolling songs of exultation from every tree,
while the cool, fragrant morning air came to him in the freshest,
purest breezes that ever were known.

Even the pebbles, from which the sun had not yet kissed away a
single dew-drop, were sparkling like jewels as Dick approached
them on his way to the little rustic gate under the evergreen arch.
He stood leaning over it a long time, looking down the cool,
shadowy lane, his heart joining in the joyous morning hymn of
nature, for the first time heard.

He was standing by the gate, enjoying all, when new voices

reached his ears—human voices—and the children all at once came
rushing from the garden at the back of the house, in a tumult of
delight, surrounding him almost before they were aware of his
presence, so intent were they upon their mission to the village.
"Me doing to the 'tore!" exclaimed little Trot, rubbing her hands.
"Me dot a pocket."

Which double hint Dick took at once by putting pennies in the

"pocket," much to her delight and the older ones' annoyance.

"For shame, Trot!" said Will, "that's as bad as asking; and you can't
go to the store either; you'll get wet, the grass is all wet. 'Tan't no
good for girls; you stay home."

Whereupon Trot rubbed her brown little fists in her eyes, and loudly
bewailed her misery in being only a girl, showing also that she had
a will of her own that by no means acknowledged this big boy as
its lord and master. Dick attempted to show him that whereas Trot's
dress was already a finger deep with wet from the long grass
through which she had been tramping all the morning so far, it
couldn't make much difference if it got a little wetter. But Will was
firm, and Trot inappeasable, until, much to our hero's relief, the
noise brought out Rose, who was greatly ashamed of Trot for
making "such a time before the strange gentleman," and very
firmly decided for Will. In some magic way she sent the boy portion
unencumbered by any of the weaker sex, on their way rejoicing,
found something for the girls to do, and took Trot's hand so
resolutely that not a sob was ventured by that small maiden, so
that there was again peace in the land.

Then came breakfast, with a further display of clean calico, a great

deal of laughing and merry talk, but in a less leisurely way than at
tea, for the day's work was before not behind them. Breakfast
finished, the children, our hero, Rose, and Rose's bosom friend,
Clara Hays, were sent off to pick berries in the woods. Half the
morning they were in getting started; for everybody spoke at once,
and everybody hurried and detained everybody else. There were at
least a dozen false starts. As soon as seven got to the gate, Trot
and Minnie were reported missing; no sooner were Trot and Minnie
secured, than some one else was out of the way. But at last they
got fairly off, and went down the lane in great glee; the children
swinging their pails and baskets in advance, and running back
every two minutes to give some valuable information about the
road or the woods or the berries, or something equally important.
Rose, Clara, and Dick brought up the rear in a manner that showed
they had a becoming sense of the responsibility thrown upon them
as the elders of the party.

What they did all day in the woods, how many brooks they
crossed, who fell in and was fished out with much laughter; how
little Trot got in everybody's way, and ate the others' berries as fast
as they were picked; how the children met other children on the
road; how often all parties rested, and teased each other, and
compared the quantity each had picked; and whether Dick, who
had soon got over his awkwardness, put his berries into Clara's pail
or into Rose's basket, I am not able to relate. I only know they
returned at evening very noisy and very tired; and that Rose had a
larger stock than any other one of the whole party; and that as she
took off her broad-brimmed straw hat, and pushed back the moist
curls from her face, this young lady did not go up at once to wash
off the purple berry stains from her hands, and to put on the pretty
blue muslin with its tiny bit of lace around the neck, but lingered to
hear the children, each interrupting the other, until they were
nearly all talking at once, tell Mr. and Mrs. Stoffs and Mrs. Alaine
the day's adventures. Dick, too, had somewhat to relate, and
glanced at Rose while he told it, although it was only what the
children had told twice over already, how Mr. Dick—it had come to
that with the children—didn't know a turkey from a goose, and had
called things by their wrong names all day; whereat Rose laughed
with the rest, and then ran up to bathe her glowing cheeks in time
to help get tea.

When she came down, she found the children in the same eager
excitement, following the two women from kitchen to cellar, from
the closet to the table, still telling about the big snake they were
sure they had seen run across the path just before them, and the
rabbits, and what Minnie had said, and Will had done, and Charley
had thought; to all which the listeners gave an attentive ear,
laughing when there was need, and surprised at the proper
moment. At tea, the day in the woods continued to furnish food for
animated discussion, and neither Rose nor Dick looked as if the
subject were a tiresome one.

"And how did my little Trot get along?" asked Uncle Carl; but Trot,
who was tired, and cross, and impatient for her piece of cake,
made no answer.

"Trot tumbled into the water," said Will; "she always tumbles in."

Then Trot who couldn't bear to be teased, looked as if she were

about to cry, but was appeased by a word or two from Rose, and
Carl asked who pulled her out.

"Oh! I did," answered Will readily; "I and Mr. Dick."

"I see that Mr. Dick is very good to you," said Mrs. Stoffs, with a
kind smile toward our hero, who colored and looked his delight.

"I don't think we can get along without Mr. Dick any more, can
we?"

The children declared they could not, and Dick was as pleased as if
he had just taken a degree; but Rose said nothing about the
matter.

Well, that was a merry, merry week; there were so many things
needed, and such long walks were required through the woods,
and over the hills, and even down to the beach, in order to procure
them, while every errand took all day to perform, that Dick learned
to walk on the soft grass without stumbling; even to loiter slowly
along by Rose's side, not often looking to see where he placed his
feet; and the children were such good tutors that he learned the
names of the birds and animals and insects that came in his way,
and knew where there had been the best cherries in the spring,
where there would be the best place for nutting in the fall, and
when the grapes would be ripe, "If only he could be here!"

If only he could be here! But a week is only a week, and it will

end, if it has a life-time in its seven days. The last day had come,
and they all knew it; there had been a better dinner. "Mr. Dick's last
dinner with us, you know," they had said to each other; and
something more than sweet-cakes and peaches for tea, for "to-
morrow Mr. Dick will not be here." But, for all their consideration,
Mr. Dick hardly knew that night if he were eating sweet-cakes or
bitter bread.

It was a very quiet evening that followed the last tea at Carlton.
The children were more silent than usual; even Trot was not proof
against the indescribable feeling that settles over a group from
which one is about to take his departure. She climbed into Dick's
lap, and—an uncommon thing with that restless maiden—did not
offer to leave her position all those long twilight hours. When Miss
Brandon rode by—as I forgot to state she did at twilight every
evening—her beautiful pony, her long dress, her hat with its
drooping feather, her veil fluttering in the evening breeze, her buff
gauntlets, and her silver-handled riding-whip—things which had set
the whole flock in commotion before—were hardly commented
upon. When Mr. Irving, so tall and princely, left her side for a
moment, and, coming close to the gate, called after Will, it was
found Rose had forgotten the usual bouquet of flowers for the
ladies, and had to beg the gentleman to wait. Rose felt very guilty;
but Dick endeavored to console her by saying that, without doubt,
Mr. Irving was glad to have a little more time with such a beautiful
young lady as Miss Brandon; and then fell to praising Miss Mary
vehemently—how beautiful she was, how gracious and pleasant to
all, and yet always remembering she was a grand young lady. Rose
thought it very easy to be good and pleasant when people are rich
and beautiful; and then Dick tried to comfort her again, and
perhaps with better success than before; for her only answer was a
silent act of contrition for the envious thought that had flitted
across her mind. Then, still in silence, she cut the flowers that she
could hardly more than guess at in the gathering twilight. Dick was
silent, too; and yet there was a great deal he would like to have
said, even though he little suspected that all he had so far made
clear to her was that Miss Brandon was to him like an angel in a
picture, or a heroine in some old romance, and that, beside her
silent act of contrition, poor little Rose's heart had given one great
throb, and had then made an act of resignation beside. But Dick
found voice to ask for a good-by flower, which Rose gave; and it
may be there were spoken then a few words of more solemn
meaning, such as will come when two people, young and fresh,
find their skies suddenly glowing above them, and their hearts full
of grateful praise to God, who has made life so sweet. And it may
be that little Rose, who said her prayers so regularly for all sinners
and for all who are tempted, said a few broken, bashful words,
exhorting Dick to goodness even in the midst of the "snares of the
great city," and that he eagerly caught the words as they fell,
promised her never to forget them, and inwardly made a quick cry
for God's grace to let him die then rather than do aught to offend
him who had showered such blessings upon him. It may be, too,
that Rose—the simple-hearted maiden—was sure he would never
break the promise, and that their good-by there was a request and
a promise each to pray for the other. But if so, it was not said in
long paragraphs, with flowing periods; for Rose was too
conscientious to detain Mr. Irving a moment longer than needful.

But I am afraid Rose had to make another act of contrition that

night; for when Will brought her the money for the flowers—the
garden was her own—she would not take it, but told him to divide
it among the children, himself, of course, included. Dick thought it
very generous of her; but I have my own opinion about that. Too
soon for all the last "good-nights" were said, and Dick knew he had
spent out his last evening in Carlton for who could tell how long?
Yet his dreams were not sad. If he did not actually believe he was
riding on a splendid great horse, by the side of a fair damsel on a
white pony, down the shadowy lane, into the broad road of the
future; that he had given Carl a home for life, and a load of toys to
the children, with, perhaps, an uplifting of his heart, and a
readiness to bear, whatever life should bring him worthy of a
faithful Christian, I think it was something "very like it."

The next morning there was a hurried breakfast, after which they
all went to the little yellow station-house to see him off, and waved
their hats and handkerchiefs until the train was out of sight. A little
longer, and they had returned in a rambling procession home, each
with some remembrance of him to tell the other, while he was in
the city at work once more, but as a different Dick Heremore from
the one who had said goodby, not without emotion, to his slovenly
landlady.

Chapter V.

When Christmas came around again, and made the first break in
the routine of his life after his ever-memorable visit to the country,
Dick, now no longer a follower at a distance of that Sunday
morning crowd, but a devout and well-instructed Catholic, to whom
all the glory and grandeur of the Christmas lights and flowers, the
music and the bells, were no longer mysteries; after hearing the
grand high mass—not the only one he had heard that day—turned
down Fourteenth street, according to the custom of many years, in
order that he might pass the Brandons' house, which had ever held
a charm for him, since on its broad steps he had first seen the
beauty and loveliness of charity. But he was not thinking just then
of Miss Brandon, nor of his newsboy days, nor yet of the fast
approaching hour when he should present himself at Carl Stoffs's
table, in a quarter of the city very different from this, where he was
to eat his piece of Christmas turkey. His thoughts, I am afraid, will
seem wild ones; but he was young, it was Christmas-day, he had
just come from that glorious mass, and the world seemed so small
and easy to conquer to one who had heard the "glad tidings," so
that he may be forgiven for dreaming, in a less prosaic and
unspiritual manner than I can tell you, of a time when he would
eat his Christmas dinner neither at a boarding-house nor at another
man's board, but would carve his own Christmas turkey, at his own
table. Of whatever he was thinking, he did not fail to notice the
house, and to glance upward when he came to the stoop where he
—was it really he, that rough, shaggy, ragged little newsboy,
ignorant and dirty?—where he had, for the first time in his hard
young life, heard a voice address him kindly; and his glance
changed to a steady gaze of surprise when his eye caught a name
on the door-plate that was not Brandon. He looked at the number
—that was all right, but the old name was gone. He was perplexed,
and walked absently backward and forward for several moments.

"Then Mr. Stoffs was right," he said, "and he" (meaning Mr.
Brandon) "has had to come down a peg or two, or he would not
have given up his house at this season. I wonder where they have
gone now."

He remembered, at this moment, that none of the family had been

at Ames & Harden's during the whole fall, and that he had not seen
Miss Brandon since she and Mr. Irving had ridden down the lane for
the flowers that Rose had forgotten to have ready at the usual
hour. It so happened that, remembering the neglected flowers, why
they had been forgotten, and how the negligence had been
repaired, Dick's thoughts strayed from the graceful figure of the
beautiful lady, who had seemed to him more magnificent and
gentle than a vision, and turned to another figure, not tall nor
stately—to another face, not grand nor graciously sweet.

But when he met Mr. and Mrs. Stoffs, almost the first words he said
were,

"I went by the house on Fourteenth street to-day, and Mr.

Brandon's name was off the door. I had not heard of their going
away."

"It's long ago, though," said Mr. Stoffs.

"Is it any difficulty made them leave their old house?" asked Dick.

"There's been no end of difficulties," answered the German, puffing

out great clouds of smoke between every sentence. "Things were
bad enough last summer, and when Mrs. Brandon died—"

"Mrs. Brandon dead!" exclaimed Dick.

"Oh! I forgot that was after you left; it was quite an excitement.
The horses ran away one night—those same stylish bays of which
she was so proud—when she and her daughter were returning from
some party, and she was dead before morning."

"And Miss Brandon?" Dick could hardly ask, his terror of the answer
was so great.

"Miss Brandon," answered Mr. Stoffs in a formal way, and puffing

out greater clouds of smoke than ever, "Miss Brandon was ill for
some days, and they were afraid would never get over the shock;
your fine ladies are so nervous!"

"Miss Brandon is not that kind," said Dick hastily, vexed by the
contemptuous tone of his friend's remark. "And I don't believe fine
ladies are any more—more—fussy than others."

"I suppose you know them well enough to be a certain judge," said
Carl, who seemed in a very ugly humor.

"Of course I don't know one in the world," answered Dick, with
considerable animation and a deeper color in his face. "But I can't
see the good of always running down people, just because they
happen to be richer than ourselves."
"Hush! now," interposed Mrs. Stoffs, as her husband was about
answering, "or no dinner shall you have this day. I will not let you
two quarrel."

"You were going to tell me about Mr. Brandon's difficulties,"

suggested Dick very gently, after both he and Mr. Stoffs had
assured their peacemaker that they were never in better humor
toward each other. "You were going to tell me about Mr. Brandon's
difficulties."

"Yes. His wife she died, and it was found he had used all her
money and had lost it, as he had his own; there was a failure and
everything was sold out, and so—there's an end of him."

"Did he leave New-York?"

"I don't know. Who asks what has become of a one-time rich man
after the bubble has burst?"

"I think I heard he wanted some situation to start life again," said
Mrs. Stoffs. "Poor man!"

Mrs. Stoffs was right. Mr. Brandon had tried to start again; but he
had been a hard man in his days of prosperity, and an unfaithful
man, or he would not be as he was now; and so, many who
heartily pitied him and his family for their fall, and who would
willingly have given them assistance out of their own pockets, did
not feel justified in giving him a position that could be better filled
by some man in whom they could trust. Thus among all his rich
friends, not one of whom felt unkindly toward him, there was none
to push him a plank with which to save himself from drowning.

Dick had learned all that his hosts could tell, and knowing well how
fearfully rapid is a man's fall when once he is over the precipice of
failure, his heart was heavier than it had ever been for troubles of
his own. He sought to sustain his part in the conversation, feeling
that a silent guest seems selfish and ungrateful, and tried to laugh
as heartily at his friend's jokes as ever; but it was not without an
effort, and his friends were keen and saw that he was troubled.

"I do not like it," Carl grunted in his deepest tones, that Christmas
night after Dick had gone and the children were asleep; "I do not
like it."

"You must not think too hardly of him," answered Mrs. Stoffs, who,
with that sort of perception women obtain when they become
wives, knew her husband referred to Dick's troubled manner, the
anxious way in which he had asked about Miss Brandon, and his
hot resenting of Carl's careless words. "You are too hard on him,"
said Mrs. Stoffs, not because she did not equally dislike it all, but
because there would be no conversation between them if old
married folks were always to agree.

"Fine ladies, indeed!" muttered Mr. Stoffs, puffing away harder than
ever. "Miss Brandon—what for should he care if Miss Brandon was
hurt, more than for any other lady?"

"She is poor enough now," said Mrs. Stoffs musingly. "It would not
be so strange now;" and under her breath she sighed, "Poor Rose!"

"Not that he has one thought of such a thing," Carl went on

consistently; "you women always get such ideas into your heads."

Mrs. Stoffs, being an experienced wife, raised no question about

the ownership of the "ideas," whatever they were, but sat looking
into the fire for a long time before she spoke again, and then it
was to say, "After all, I am glad we were too poor to have Rose
come up for Christmas."

"If she would not be satisfied with what we had, so am I,"

grumbled Mr. Stoffs.

"I was not thinking of that," answered his wife mildly.

"I know Heremore's never such a fool as to be thinking of one so
much above him as Miss Brandon," remarked Mr. Stoffs.

"She is not above him now that they are poor," answered his wife.

"It isn't the money that made the difference," said Carl rather
impatiently, "it's the habits that money gives. That's what is the
matter. Miss Brandon may not be half worthy of him, and yet he
would be mad to think of her; it is misery when people marry out
of their rank, misery to both."

"But if they love each other?" suggested his wife.

"That only makes the matter worse; he knows not her ways. She
has a language that is not his; if they did not care, they could go
their own ways, and seek their own. I think Heremore is a great
fool; I do!"

"I don't believe he has a thought of such a thing," said Mrs. Stoffs;
but there was a manifest question in her voice.

"If he has, he'll rue the day he thought of it first," said her
husband emphatically; and there the conversation ended; but when
Mrs. Stoffs wrote again to Mrs. Alaine, which she did not do for
some time—for to write a letter was an event in the honest
woman's life—she thought proper to give her sister a hint of that
which they had observed; and Mrs. Alaine, in her turn, thought
proper to convey the hint, in the form of information, to Rose, who,
however, answered readily,

"Love Miss Brandon? Well, mamma, and why shouldn't he?"

"Because Miss Brandon is not in the same class of life that he is,
dear."

"I am sure Mr. Heremore is better off than her father is now,"
urged Rose; "for he has a regular salary, and Mr. Brandon has
nothing left, and nobody will give him any place."

"No doubt, my child; but it is not money that makes the difference.
Miss Brandon has her ideas of life now just as she had them when
she was rich; and Mr. Heremore is what he is, and would not be
different if he were suddenly made a millionaire."

So Rose said no more.

While Mr. and Mrs. Stoffs were thus disturbed about him, Dick,
unconscious of any cause he had given for their disquietude, was
walking slowly and thoughtfully home. "Where was that little Mary
with her fair hair and gentle smile this cold Christmas night?" was
the question he kept putting to himself. It was a clear, bright night,
with the moon shining on the pavements and the frozen earth, not
at all such a night as that during which he had slept by her father's
steps, and there was no fear that her fair head was shelterless; but
still it was very sad to think of her, whose Christmas days had been
such pleasant ones, in mourning for her mother, and perhaps in
troubles such as those which men hear, but shudder to see,
clouding the girlish youth that is so short, and should be so sunny.

"With God's help I'll find them out before to-morrow night if they
are in this city," said Dick to himself, and then walked on more
rapidly.

And he kept his word, though not without much trouble; and within
twenty-four hours he stood in front of the wretched boarding-house
to which poverty and sickness had already reduced the family that,
a few months before, had never dreamed of the meaning of want.

But though he had found them out and stood before their door,
Dick had done and could do nothing to lessen their trouble. Mr.
Brandon had not seemed more unapproachable when, a rich man,
he scowled and said hard words to the ill-dressed errand-boy—than
he now did to the simple clerk, though Dick himself was richer now
than was the once rich merchant. Miss Brandon was, in his eyes,
now no less a lady, belonging to a sphere far above him, than she
had been when, in all the glory of wealth, youth, and beauty, he
had seen her ride down to the Stoffs's cottage to buy flowers for
her hair. It seemed to him greater presumption for him to think of
approaching her now than it would have been then, so he passed
and repassed her door, grieved for her trouble, but more grieved, if
possible, that he, with his youth and strength, should be powerless
to give her one grain of comfort. How often and often, as he had
watched her—she all unconscious of him and his grateful reverence
—in her days of prosperity, had he dreamed of her as like some
damsel of olden romance in sore distress, and thought that never
had knight rushed more joyously or more potently to the rescue
than he would to hers. Now his dream had come to pass—she was
a damsel in sore distress; but where was his prancing steed, his
burnished armor, his ready lance? Then, as he smiled in
remembrance of his boyish fancy, he suddenly thought of Mr.
Irving, the gentleman—just a boy's ideal of a gallant knight—whom
he had seen so often with Miss Brandon in the country. He
recollected well the manly bearing of that "perfect gentleman,"
whom he and Rose had looked upon as a veritable Sir Launcelot;
he had seen many an act of "gentle courtesy" shown in a grave,
tender way, to the fair lady by whose side he always rode; and
where was he now that that fair lady needed her knight as never
before?

There was nothing morbid or bitter about Dick. When he asked

himself that question, it was with no thought of the common
judgment pronounced upon "summer friends." He recognized Mr.
Irving's right to aid and comfort the family of his former host. He
knew that he had wealth, position, character, and, of course, ample
influence, and not for an instant doubted that he would use every
means in his power to befriend Mr. Brandon, if only for the sake of
that beautiful daughter whom he so evidently admired. Where,
then, was Mr. Irving? If he had been here, all this could not have
happened. But as Dick asked himself this, it did not occur to him
that Mary thought as he thought: if Mr. Irving had been here, all
this would not have happened.

At last Dick, fully convinced that he would be guilty of no

presumption in speaking his mind to Mr. Irving on this subject,
cheerfully turned his steps homeward, and resolved that the first
moment he had of his own should be spent in seeking Mr. Irving,
and informing him of what he could not now be aware of, the
downfall of the Brandons. For the fall of the Brandons, as he heard
from one or two who knew, had been very great, very rapid, and, it
was feared, was not yet completed. Mr. Brandon had never held his
head up since his failure, but dragged around, shabbily dressed,
querulous and half-sick, dejected and clearly miserable. His two
sons had been given very poor situations, on very niggardly pay, by
a relative in another city, who, having always been odiously
cringing to Mr. Brandon when he had money, seemed to delight
now in heaping humiliations upon his sons. So great a crime it was
in his eyes to be better bred, better educated, and more kindly
cared for than were his own rude, blustering, ignorant boys. If only
Fred and Joe had been taught whence come adversity and
prosperity, doubtless these humiliations would have been crowns of
glory for them; but theirs had been only a vague, dreamy sort of
faith, which they never suspected had any application to their real
life. I dare say they were very idle, useless, self-conceited and
aggravating boys; but I can't help feeling sorry for them in their
troubles. Miss Brandon, Dick was told, had not recovered her
strength since the accident, and however well she might have
been, with all her accomplishments, could not have done more than
she was now doing: giving music-lessons to a few persons residing
near her new home.

But all hope of seeing Mr. Irving faded the first thing the next day;
for Dick's questions brought the unwelcome information that he
had left home in October for two years' travel in Europe, and Dick,
of course, could not presume to write to him.
 Porter's Human Intellect.
[Footnote 272]

[Footnote 272: The Human Intellect; with an

Introduction upon Psychology and the Soul. By
Noah Porter, D.D., Clark Professor of Moral Philosophy
and Metaphysics in Yale College. New-York: Scribner &
Co. 1868. 8vo, pp. 673.]

This formidable volume is, unless we except Professor Hickok's

work on Rational Psychology, the most considerable attempt
that has been made among us to construct a philosophy of the
human understanding. Professor Porter is able, patient, industrious,
and learned. He knows the literature of his subject, and has no
little facility and fairness in seizing and setting forth the
commanding points in the views and theories of others; but, while
he shows great familiarity with metaphysical and psychological
questions, and some justness and delicacy as an analyzer of facts,
he seems to us to lack the true philosophical instinct, and that
synthetic grasp of thought which seizes facts in their principles and
genetic relations, and reduces them to a dialectic whole, without
which one cannot be a philosopher.

The professor's book is a hard, book for us to read, and still harder
for us to understand. Its mechanical aspect, with three or four
different sizes of type on the same page, is repulsive to us, and
prejudices us against it. It is not absolutely dull, but it is rather
heavy, and it requires resolution to read it. It has nothing attractive
or enlivening, and it deals so much with particulars and details that
it is difficult for the reader to carry what he reads along in his
memory. Even when we have in our minds what the author actually
says, it is not easy to understand it, or determine which of several
possible meanings he adopts. Not that his language, though seldom
exact or precise, and disfigured occasionally by needless
barbarisms, and a terminology which we hope is not yet in good
usage, is not clear enough for any one accustomed to philosophical
studies, nor is it that his sentences are involved and hard to be
construed, or that his statements, taken as isolated statements, are
not intelligible; but it is hard to determine their meaning and value
from his point of view, and in relation to his system as a whole. His
book is composed of particulars, of minute and not seldom
commonplace observations, without any perceptible scientific
reduction to the principle which generates, co-ordinates, and
explains them.

It is but fair to the professor to say, in the outset, that his book
belongs to a class of books which we seldom read and heartily
detest. It is not a work of philosophy, or an attempt even to give
us a science of things in their principles and causes, their progress
and destiny, but merely a Wissenschaftslehre, or science of
knowing. Its problem is not what is or what exists; but what is
knowing, how do I know, and how do I know that I know? With all
deference to the Fichteans, we venture to assert that there is and
can be no science of knowing separate from the science of things,
distinct from and independent of the subject knowing. We know,
says all that, we know that we know, says. He who knows, knows
that he knows; and if one were to doubt that knowing is knowing,
we must let him doubt, for we have only knowing with which to
prove that knowing is knowing.

We can by no possible anatomical dissection of the eye, or

physiological description of its functions, explain the secret of
external vision. We are told that we see not external objects
themselves, but their pictures painted by the light on the retina,
and it is only by them that we apprehend visible objects. But
suppose it so, it brings us no nearer to the secret of vision. How do
we see the picture? How by means of the picture apprehend the
external object? Yet the man who sees knows he sees, and all that
can be said is, that to elicit the visual act there must be the visible
subject, the visible object, and the light which mediates between
them and illuminates them both. So is it with intellectual vision. We
may ascertain some of the conditions under which we know, but
the knowing itself is to us an inexplicable mystery. No dissection or
possible inspection of the soul can explain it, or throw the least
light on it. All that can be said is, that to the fact of knowledge,
whatever its degree or its region, there must be the intellective
subject, the intelligible object, and the intellectual light which
places them in mutual relation and illumines alike both subject and
object. Having said this, we have said all that can be said. Hence
works intended to construct the science of science, or knowledge,
are not only useless, but worse than useless; for, dealing with
abstractions which have no existence in nature, and treating them
as if real, they mislead and perplex the student, and render
obscure and doubtful what without them is clear and certain.
Professor Porter is a psychologist, and places all the activity in the
fact of knowledge on the side of the soul, even in the intuition of
principles, without which the soul can neither exist, nor think, nor
feel. His purpose in his Introduction is to establish the unity and
immateriality—spirituality, he says, of the soul against the
materialists—and to vindicate psychology not only as a science, but
as an inductive science. With regard to the unity and immateriality
of the soul, we hold with the professor, though they are not
provable or demonstrable by his method; and we recognize great
truth and force in his criticisms on materialism, of which we have to
deplore in the scientific world, and even in popular literature, the
recrudescence. That psychology is, in a secondary sense, a science,
we do not deny; but we do deny that it is either "the prima
philosophia" as the professor asserts, or an inductive science, as
he endeavors to prove.

All the inductive sciences are secondary sciences, and presuppose a

first science, which is strictly the science of the sciences. Induction,
the professor himself maintains, has need of certain first principles,
or a priori assumptions, which precede and validate it. How can
psychology be the prima philosophia, or first philosophy, when it
can be constructed only by borrowing its principles from a higher or
prior science? Or how can it be the first philosophy, when that
would suppose that the principles which the inductive sciences
demand to validate the inductive process are contained in and
derived from the soul? Is the professor prepared to maintain that
the soul is the first principle of all the sciences? That would imply
that she is the first principle of things, of reality itself; for science is
of the real, not of the unreal. But this were pure Fichteism, and
would put the soul in the place of God. The professor would shrink
from this. He, then, must have made the assertion that psychology
is the prima philosophia somewhat hastily, and without due
reflection; unless indeed he distinguishes between the first
principles of science and the first principles of things.
The inductive sciences are constructed by induction from the
observation and analysis of facts which the soul has the appropriate
organs for observing. But psychology is the science of the soul, its
nature, powers or faculties, and operations; and if an inductive
science, it must be constructed by induction from psychical facts
observed and analyzed in the soul by the soul herself. The theory is
very simple. The soul, by the external senses, observes and
analyzes the facts of the external world, and constructs by
induction the physical sciences; by her internal sense, called
consciousness, she observes and analyzes the world within herself,
and by way of induction from the facts or phenomena she
observes, constructs psychology, or the science of herself.
Unhappily for the psychologue, things do not go so simply. To this
theory there are two grave objections: First, the soul has no
internal sense by which she can observe herself, her acts or states
in herself; and second, there are no purely psychical facts to be
observed.

The professor finds the soul's faculty of observing the facts of the
internal world in consciousness, which he defines to be "the power
by which the soul knows its own acts and states." But
consciousness is not a power or faculty, but an act of knowing, and
is simply the recognition of the soul by the soul herself as the
subject acting. We perceive always, and all that is before us within
the range of our percipient powers; but we do not always
distinguish and note each object perceived, or recognize the fact
that it is we who are the subject perceiving. The fact of
consciousness is precisely in the simple perception being so
intensified and prolonged that the soul not only apprehends the
object, but recognizes itself as the subject apprehending it. It is
not, as the professor maintains at great length in Part I., a
presentative power; for it is always a reflex act, and demands
something of memory. But the recognition by the soul in her acts
as the subject acting is something very different from the soul
observing and analyzing in herself her own powers and faculties.
The soul never knows herself in herself; she only recognizes herself
under the relation of subject in her acts. Recognizing herself only
as subject, she can never cognize herself as object, and stand, as it
were, face to face with herself. She is never her own object in the
act of knowing; for she is all on the side of the subject. She cannot
be on one side subject, and on the other object. Only God can be
his own object; and his contemplating of himself as object,
theologians show us, is the Eternal Generation of the Son, or the
Word. Man, St. Thomas tells us, is not intelligible in himself; for he
is not intelligens in himself. If the soul could know herself in
herself, she could be her own object; if her own object, she would
suffice for herself; then she would be real, necessary, self-existent,
independent being; that is to say, the soul would be God.

We deny not that the soul can know herself as manifested in her
acts, but that she can know herself in herself, and be the object of
her own thought. I can not look into my own eyes, yet I can see
my face as reflected in the glass. So the soul knows herself, and
her powers and faculties; but only as reflected from, or mirrored in,
the objects in conjunction with which she acts. Hence the powers
and faculties are not learned by any observation of the soul herself,
but from the object. The soul is a unit, and acts always as a unit;
but, though acting always in her unity, she can act in different
directions, and in relation to different objects, and it is in this fact
that originates the distinction of powers and faculties. The
distinction is not in the soul herself, for she is a unit, but in the
object, and hence the schoolmen teach us that it is the object that
determines the faculty.

It is not the soul in herself that we must study in order to ascertain

the faculties, but the soul in her operations, or the objects in
relation with which she acts. We know the soul has the power to
know, by knowing, to will, by willing, to feel, by feeling. While,
then, the soul has power to know herself so far as mirrored by the
objects, she has no power to observe and analyze herself in herself,
and therefore no power of direct observation and analysis of the
facts from which psychology, as an inductive science, must be
constructed.

But there are no such facts as is assumed to be observed and

analyzed. The author speaks of objects which are purely psychical,
which have no existence out of the soul herself; but there are and
can be no facts, or acts, produced by the soul's own energy alone.
The soul, for the best of all possible reasons, never acts alone, for
she does not exist alone. "Thought," says Cousin, "is a fact that is
composed of three simultaneous and indissoluble elements, the
subject, the object, and the form. The subject is always the soul,
[le Moi,] the object is something not the soul, [le non-Moi,] and
the form is always the relation of the two." The object is
inseparable from the subject as an element of the thought, but it
exists distinct from and independent of the soul, and when it is not
thought as well as when it is; otherwise it could not be object,
since the soul is all on the side of the subject. The soul acts only in
conjunction with the object, because she is not sufficient for
herself, and therefore cannot suffice for her own activity. The
object, if passive, is as if it were not, and can afford no aid to the
fact of thought. It must, therefore, be active, and then the thought
will be the joint product of the two activities. It is a grave mistake,
then, to suppose that the activity in thought is all on the side of
the soul. The soul cannot think without the concurrent activity of
that which is not the soul. There is no product possible in any order
without two factors placed in relation with each other. God, from
the plenitude of his being, contains both factors in his own
essence; but in creatures they are distinct from and independent of
each other.

We do not forget the intellectus agens of St. Thomas, but it is

not quite certain what he meant by it. The holy doctor does not
assert it as a faculty of the soul, and represent its activity as purely
psychical. Or if it be insisted that he does, he at least nowhere
asserts, implies, or intimates that it is active without the
concurrence of the object: for he even goes so far as to maintain
that the lower acts only as put in motion by the higher, and the
terrestrial by the celestial. Hence the praemotio physica of the
Thomists, and the necessity in conversion of praevenient grace—
gratia praeveniens.

But even granting that there is the class of facts alleged, and that
we have the power to observe and analyze them, as, in the
language of Cousin, "they pass over the field of consciousness," we
cannot by induction attain to their principle and causes; for
induction itself, without the first principles of all science, not
supplied by it, can give us only a classification, generalization, an
hypothesis, or an abstract theory, void of all reality. The universal
cannot be concluded, by way of induction, from particulars, any
more than particulars can be concluded, by way of deduction, from
the universal. Till validated in the prima philosophia, or referred
to the first principles, without which the soul can neither act nor
exist, the classifications and generalizations attained to by induction
are only facts, only particulars, from which no general conclusion
can be drawn. Science is knowledge indeed; but the term is
generally used in English to express the reduction of facts and
particulars to their principles and causes. But in all the secondary
sciences the principles and causes are themselves only facts, till
carried up to the first principles and causes of all the real and all
the knowable. Not without reason, then, has theology been called
the queen of the sciences, nor without warrant that men, who do
not hold that all change is progress, maintain that the
displacement, in modern times, of this queen from her throne has
had a deleterious effect on science, and tended to dissipate and
enfeeble the human mind itself. We have no philosophers nowadays
of the nerve of Plato and Aristotle, the great Christian fathers, or
the mediaeval doctors, none of whom ever dreamed of separating
theology and philosophy. Even the men of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries had a grasp of thought, a robust vigor of
mind, and a philosophic insight into the truth of things and their
higher relations that you look in vain for in the philosophers of the
eighteenth century and of our own. But this by the way. When
things are at the worst, they sometimes mend.

Psychology, not psychologism, is a science, though not an inductive

science, nor a science that can be attained to by the study of the
soul and her phenomena in the bosom of consciousness. The
psychologists—those, we mean, who adopt the psychological
method, a method seldom adopted before the famous cogito,
ergo sum of Descartes—seem incapable of comprehending that
only the real is cognizable, and that abstractions are not real but
unreal; and therefore that the first principles of science must be
real, not abstract, and the first principles of things. Thus Professor
Porter appears to see no real connection between them. True, he
says, (p. 64,) "Knowledge and being are correlatives. There must
be being in order that there may be knowledge. There can be no
knowledge which is not the knowledge of being. Subjectively
viewed, to know implies certainty; objectively, it requires reality. An
act of knowing in which there is no certainty in the agent, and no
reality in the object, is impossible in conception and in fact." This
would seem to assert that only being can be known, or that
whatever is known is real being, which is going too far and falling
into ontologism. Only being is intelligible per se; but existences
which are from being and participate of being, though not
intelligible in or by themselves, since they do not exist in and by
themselves, may yet be really known by the light of being which
creates them. We know by being, as well as being itself.

But be not alarmed. The professor's being, the only object of

knowledge, his reality without which there is no cognizable object,
is nothing very formidable; for he tells us, in smaller type, on the
same page, that "we must distinguish different kinds of objects and
different kinds of reality. They may be formed by the mind, and
exist [only] for the mind that forms them, or they may exist in
fact and space for all minds, and yet in each case they are equally
objects. Their reality may be mental and internal, or material and
external, but in each case it is equally a reality. The thought that