the points of the Manichæan system to which its own adherents were accustomed to direct attention, and the arguments on which they specially relied for their support. The works given in the accompanying volume comprehend by no means the whole of Augustin’s writings against this heresy.  Before his ordination he wrote five anti-Manichæan books, entitled, De Libero Arbitrio, De Genesi contra Manichæos, De Moribus Ecclesiæ Catholicæ, De Moribus Manichæorum, and De Vera Religione.  These Paulinus called his anti-Manichæan Pentateuch.  After his ordination he was equally diligent, publishing a little treatise in the year 391, under the title De Utilitate Credendi,42 which was immediately fol- lowed by a small work, De Duabus Animabus.  In the following year the report of the Dispu- tatio contra Fortunatum was published; and after this, at short intervals, there appeared the books Contra Adimantum, Contra Epistolam Manichæi quam vocant Fundamenti, Contra Faustum, Disputatio contra Felicem, De Naturo Boni, and Contra Secundinum. Besides these writings, which are exclusively occupied with Manichæism, there are others in which the Manichæan doctrines are handled with more or less directness.  These are the Confessions, the 79th and 236th Letters, the Lecture on Psalm 140, Sermons 1, 2, 12, 50, 153, 182, 237, the Liber de Agone Christiano, and the De Continentia. Of these writings, Augustin himself professed a preference for the reply to the letter of Secundinus.43  It is a pleasing feature of the times, that a heretic whom he did not know even by sight should write to Augustin entreating him to abstain from writing against the Manichæans, and reconsider his position, and ally himself with those whom he had till now fancied to be in error.  His language is respectful, and illustrates the esteem in which Augustin was held by his contemporaries; though he does not scruple to insinuate that his conversion from Manichæism was due to motives not of the highest kind.  We have not given this letter and its reply, because the preference of Augustin has not been ratified by the judgment of his readers. The present volume gives a fair sample of Augustin’s controversial powers.  His nine years’ personal experience of the vanity of Manichæism made him thoroughly earnest and sympathetic in his efforts to disentangle other men from its snares, and also equipped him with the knowledge requisite for this task.  No doubt the Pelagian controversy was more congenial to his mind.  His logical acuteness and knowledge of Scripture availed him more in combating men who fought with the same weapons, than in dealing with a system which threw around its positions the mist of Gnostic speculation, or veiled its doctrine under a grotesque mythology, or based itself on a cosmogony too fantastic for a Western mind to 42 Epist. August. xxv. 43 Retract. ii. 10:  "quod, mea sententia, omnibus quœ adversus illam pestem scribere potui, facile præpono."  The reason of this preference is explained by Bindemann, Der heilige Augstinus, iii. 168. 52 Preface to the Anti-Manichæan Writings.