* A. Brierre de Boismont, De la Dualite humaine (Union Medicale). 1851.

We may affirm, without fear of being mistaken, that there is no man of genius who has not experienced this temptation. It is because there exists in every illustrious person, as a modern writer has well said, a history and a biography; his history exhibits his spiritual part - what he possesses of grandeur and power, a free nature, a life useful, and belonging to all; in his biography, he is a man like the rest of the world; he descends to infirmities, he requires repose. Amongst the most glorious names of history, the heroes and great representatives of the past, do we know one, who could stand the test of a secret chronicle, who did not sometimes tremble in the depths of his soul; who did not fall in those moments, when human nature sinks, when the most robust and the strongest faint? To write a biography only, is to deceive or to be deceived; to mutilate the masterpiece with a sure blow, and reduce it to nothing.

The hallucinations of Loyola, then, were those of his age; his sufferings gave them more intensity; but, like those of many other celebrated persons, they did not influence his reason. What places this fact beyond doubt, is the evidence of that coolness of judgment in one of such ascetic habits, that extreme talent which exhibits itself in his plans and writings. When we see that sublime intellect seating himself, at forty years of age, on the benches of the Montague College in Paris, to learn Latin, we cannot fail to admire his strength of mind and unfailing moral energy.

Is it possible to believe that the creation of that order which gave a counterpoise to Protestantism, of that secret militia which mingled in all classes, associated with all professions, at once religious and lay, and less occupied with devotional rites than with works really useful to Catholicism, should have emanated from a diseased brain? Does it not, on the contrary, prove that it originated from the very attack of the Augustine monk? History contains more than one example of this antagonism of one power against another, of a will which devotes itself to conquer another will. Amongst cases of this nature, none possess more interest than that of Joan of Arc. When evil appears on the earth under a new form, we may feel assured that good will react with still greater strength. It is then impossible for us to admit that the cell of a visionary soldier was the focus of this wonder. Such an explanation, although supported by science, appears to us contrary to the dignity of man. To transform philosophers, reformers, founders of religion, and creative spirits into so many hallucinated madmen, is to offer the most cruel insult to human nature. All who work on with strong resolution, all inventors, all creative minds may be looked upon as centres of light; the brilliant results must give birth to the most varied phenomena; but reason no less continues her operations; and what appears to depart from the normal type is but the gangue9 the reflex, the sparkle of the work of production.

* See our paper on " Ennui," (Annul. Psych.) Oct 1850.

It is not for us to examine Luther in a religious point of view; that task has been gloriously performed by others. But we cannot but recognize in him one of the most vigorous natures that ever existed. What force of will, what power of argument, how closely are all parts of his work united! With what perseverance he pursues the plan he has traced out! How he repulses the attacks of his enemies!

Always in the breach, he dies after having seen the doctrine of free discussion triumphant. And yet, the father of Reform, he whose name is still pronounced with veneration by thousands, must be ruthlessly ranked amongst madmen, since he had numerous interviews with the devil. It is in vain that the preacher Claude denies it - in vain that a modern author pretends that the devil is subtlety or the evil will, pride, or individuality; the facts are authentic, and Luther shall bear witness for himself.

Conference with the Devil in 1521. - "It once happened," said he, "that I suddenly awoke at midnight, and Satan commenced disputing with me." The conference turned entirely on the mass, which the devil reproached him with having only said for himself alone. It is but a reproduction of the arguments of Luther against that sacrament, and there is no doubt but that the Reformer, whose days and nights were employed in the accomplishment of his work, saw on this occasion his thoughts imaged; like all, who, being strongly preoccupied with a subject, perceive it distinctly before them and take it for reality, until the exclusive tension of mind ceases and they reenter the actual world. The replies of Luther to the devil are generally feeble; and it appears to M. Audin, impossible that Luther could have been awake when the devil appeared to him.

It is a curious historical fact, that it was before this vision that the sacrifice of the mass fell; and that the Protestants, in ridicule of the ceremony, have since referred our priests to the testimony of Satan.

The Sacramentarians, like Parens, bring forward this apparition to convince the Lutherans and Calvinists, that, if the devil showed himself to the Reformer in order to reveal to him the idolatry concealed in the celebration of the mass, an angel also appeared to Zuingle, to teach him the real sense of the words used in the Lord's Supper. Luther ridiculed this vision, to the great scandal of the Zuinglians, who did not deny their faith in his colloquy with Satan.

"Do you know," inquired Luther, "why the Sacramentarians, Zuingle, Bucer, and CEcolampadius, have never understood the sacred writings? Because they have not had the devil for an adversary; for we are but poor theologians if we have not the devil tied round our necks."

A writer, M. Claude, who often had the honor to dispute with Bossuet, sees nothing in this conference but a parable, a kind of myth imagined by Luther; who was fed, he says, on the writings of the monks, in which the tempter so often appears in a material form. Satan, instead of being a reality, would only personify a philosophic abstraction representing the clamor of evil passions.