THREE:"The municipal Government of Lige remind their fellow-citizens, and all staying within this city, that international law most strictly forbids civilians to commit hostilities against the German soldiers occupying the country.It may, perhaps, be considered natural that obsolete authorities should command the assent of a Church whose boast is to maintain the traditions of eighteen centuries intact. But the Aristotelian reaction extends to some who stand altogether aloof from Catholicism. M. Saint-Hilaire speaks in his preface of theology with dislike and suspicion; he has recently held office in a bitterly anti-clerical Government; yet his acceptance of Aristotles metaphysics is almost unreserved. The same tone is common to all official teaching278 in France; and any departure from the strict Peripatetic standard has to be apologised for as if it were a dangerous heresy. On turning to our own country, we find, indeed, a marked change since the time when, according to Mr. Matthew Arnold, Oxford tutors regarded the Ethics as absolutely infallible. The great place given to Plato in public instruction, and the rapidly increasing ascendency of evolutionary ideas, are at present enough to hold any rival authority in check; still, not only are the once neglected portions of Aristotles system beginning to attract fresh attentionwhich is an altogether commendable movementbut we also find the eminent Oxford teacher, whose work on the subject has been already referred to, expressing himself as follows:
