ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. THIRD SERIES. ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. BY VARIOUS WRITERS. EDITED BY HENRY EDWARD, ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER. THIRD SERIES . Henry S. King & Co., 65, CORNHILL, AND 12, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON. 1874. i ^ m ^* 2-3 175881 rights reserved.'] CONTENTS. I. Inaugural Address. Session 1868-9 . . . By His Grace the Archbishop of Westminster. II. The Philosophy of Christianity. By the Bev. Albany James Christie, S.J. III. On the Mystical Element in Religion, and on Ancient and Modern Spiritism . . . By the late Rev. J. D. Aylward, O.P. IV. On the Religious Condition of Germany . . By the Right Rev. Monsignor Patterson. V. Mr. Mill upon Liberty of the Press . . . By Edward Lucas. PAGE 1 36 68 111 142 VI CONTENTS. VI. Christianity in Relation to Civil Society . . By Edward Lucas. (Continued from the . Second Series. VII. On one Point in Controversy with the Agnostics. By St. George Mivart, F.R.S. VIII. A Reassuring Thought at the Ape’s En¬ croachment on our own Likeness By the Rev. F. H. Laing, D.D. IX. Darwinism Brought to Book . . . By the Rev. F. H. Laing, D.D. X. Flaws in the Philosophy of Bacon . By the Rev. John Doherty. XI. The Necessary Attitude of Catholic Laymen TOWARDS THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY By the Rev. William Humphrey, O.S.C. XII. The Constituents of the Personal . . By the Rev. William Humphrey, O.S.C. PAG? 175 203 231 257 285 315 345 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. - + - INAUGURAL ADDRESS. SESSION 1868-9. BY HIS GRACE THE ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER. F opening our proceedings of the year before last* I made certain observations on the state and tendency of religious thought in England , and on the temper and spirit in which we ought to meet it. And now, in addressing you at the outset of our eighth year, I do not know that I can do better than to take up the same subject where I left off. In the conclusion of the paper I then read were these words* —“ The Royal supremacy has perished by the law of mortality, wdiich consumes all earthly things.” I need hardly guard my words by saying that I spoke only of the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Crown. The civil and political supremacy was never contested. The power of the Crown, if less absolute in its mode of procedure, was never more supreme, and never so widely spread as now. It's indefeasible prerogatives in the order of civil Government have become more 1 / 2 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. evident and irresistible in proportion as it has disen¬ gaged itself from the monstrous pretensions of Henry the Eighth. The theory of established Churches demands an ecclesiastical supremacy in the civil power. The two come and go together, and when the ecclesiastical supremacy is declining the days of establishments are numbered. In the year before last, I pointed out the fact that the Tudor statutes have almost passed way. The greater part are actually erased from the statute-book. Those that remain are almost equally dead. The mind of the country is against them. In Ireland all the tyranny of Tudors and Stuarts failed to impose the Koyal supremacy upon a Catholic people. Penal laws could not accom¬ plish it. The Established Church has not only utterly failed to conciliate the people of Ireland to the ecclesi¬ astical supremacy of the Crown, but it has rendered the name and thing more than ever intolerable.* In Scotland the whole people rose against it. In Eng¬ land half the population has gradually rejected it. The remaining half of the people passively endure it; but in the Established Church itself a large class pro¬ fess to limit the jurisdiction of the Crown in ecclesi¬ astical matters to the temporal accessories of spiritual things, denying altogether its competence to touch any matter purely spiritual, and to reject all royal acts exceeding these limits, as abuses, or excesses of power. Now,Though this theory is manifestly not the law of the land, it is nevertheless worthy of our % * Since this was written the Established Church in Ireland has ceased to exist. INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 3 sympathy and respect. It is an additional evidence of the cancelling of the Tudor supremacy from many of the best and highest minds in the Established Church. They who hold this theory protest against all such judgments as that in the case of Mr. Gorham, and of the Essays and Reviews. . They treat them as tyrannical acts of the State, external to the Church of England. They contend that the Church of Eng¬ land is persecuted, hut not committed by such acts of the Crown. The facts are not so ; but it is a hopeful sign that the members of the Established Church have come to reject these pretensions of the Tudor supremacy. It is equivalent to an admission that the Catholics were right in refusing it from the first: that their instincts are justified by the event. I note this because it is an evidence of the direction in which the stre am is running ; and both charity and gener¬ osity require of us to forward these tendencies with all good-will, and without a word of unkindly comment. To those whose memories can reach back to the re¬ peal of the Test and Corporation Acts and to the eman¬ cipation of Catholics, it is evident that the changes we now see hurrying onwards like the race of a tide, have been long preparing. The Church of England was morally disestablished by the change in our polity which placed its destinies in the hands of a con¬ stituency and a legislature in which Dissenters from the State religion form a very powerful element. From that day the Church of England began to appeal * # to its own spiritual authority and to exert its own in¬ ternal energies. It became a voluntary body in three 4 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. distinct ways,—in the multiplication of Churches dependent on voluntary offerings, in the founding of schools without endowments, and in the multiplica¬ tion of colonial Bishoprics. Twenty years and more ago those who watched the voluntary churches formed in our colonies foresaw that the colonies would react upon the mother country, and that the unestablished churches of Canada and Australia would ensure and hasten the disestablishment of their mother Church. But no one, I think, foresaw how soon or how rapidly the question would he raised. They who can remember the political events from 1830 to 1840, will recollect how violent were the outcries against the Established Church, and the demands for the removal of the Bishops from the House of Lords. The Establishment was formidably threatened, but it was not as yet in much danger. The old political and social traditions were too strong : the power of the Establishment in Parliament was paramount. It was confident of its own strength, and defiant of its adversaries. The time of reforming abuses was come, because the time of disestablish¬ ment was not yet. As now the time of reforming abuses in the Irish Church, in part, because the time of disestablishing is come. But since 1840 irresistible currents of change have been working within the church establishment. It has been part¬ ing asunder by the repulsion of two schools, each tending to their ultimate analysis—the Anglo-Catholic and the Critical, or, to use not offensively but only for clearness’ sake, two other terms—the Romanizing INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 5 and the Rationalistic schools. These two forms of thought, and these two intellectual tendencies, are so fully launched into activity that nothing can restrain them from reaching their natural points of rest. The Church of England is incapable of controlling or of holding them together. It cannot do so by authority, for both reject it; the one as incompetent, the other as inadmissible. It cannot do so by intellectual con¬ trol, for both alike regard the Anglican reformation as intellectually incoherent. It cannot do so by spiritual suasion, for both alike regard it as unattrac¬ tive in its influences. Still less can it do so by its coercive judgments, for both alike appeal from them to their own standards of Catholicity or of Reason. This development of two counter and divergent movements has now been in operation for thirty years, and every successive decad has revealed that for the Church of England to return upon its past, or to retain its present attitude towards its own members, towards the country, towards the Catholic Church, is impossible. It is to be observed that the noted controversies on baptism and inspiration had no sooner ended with the decision of the Crown in Council, than a new class of questions was forced upon the supreme tribunal of appeal. The appeals in causes of doctrine had revealed the true pretensions of the Royal supremacy in matters of belief. This rendered the Royal supremacy intolerable at home. The appeals in matters of jurisdiction from Natal re¬ vealed the pretensions but also the incompetence of the Crown in matters of authority, and this rendered 6 ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITER A TORE. the Royal supremacy intolerable in the colonies. Some of the best and most capable minds in the colonies are demanding freedom, which means dis¬ establishment for their church, and that demand is supported at least for the colonies, and sometimes for even more, by a powerful sympathy at home. Some also of the best and most capable minds in England are prophesying that the Church of England must he dis¬ established, and are not only preparing for the event, but not obscurely invoking it as a release from the burden of a civil supremacy in matters of conscience. The Church of England has come to see that the supremacy of Kings has passed into the supremacy of Parliaments. The change in our political constitution is by itself effacing the whole theory of the Tudor supremacy. It is now resolved into the supremacy of the popular will. It was already intolerable to have an appellate jurisdiction in the Crown. It is still more intolerable to have it vested in the electoral con¬ stituency. This is powerfully and rapidly estranging men’s minds from the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Crown. While, on the one hand, those who reject it are fashioning to themselves theories, more or less near to the Catholic doctrine, on the other, writers of note are fashioning a new theory of a National Church, and of the Royal supremacy. Dean Stanley and the Pall Mall Gazette may be taken to represent this new school of pure Erastianism. Dean Stanley is tolerant, comprehensive, and patient of endless contradictions, within the communion of the National Church. If the nation he divided in religious opinion, so must, or INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 7 rather ought to be, the National Church. The Pall Mall Gazette is peremptory in erecting the popular will exercised through the Government and tribunals of the country, into the ultimate judge and disposer of the National religion. The supremacy of Csesarism is past. The supremacy of the democracy will be the next form of ecclesiastical authority. So long as there is an Establishment, this supreme control will be claimed; but the claim is in itself intolerable, and nothing can more powerfully alienate men from the idea of an Establishment. There are only the five following conclusions or theories possible:— Firstly, that the Church and the State should stand in relations of mutual recognition, amity and co-operation, under the supreme direction of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, Pontiff and King; or,— Secondly, that the Church be established and thereby subjected to the State, as in Constantinople after the schism, in England by Henry VIII,, and in Russia, Denmark, Sweden and Norway; or,— Thirdly* that the State should establish and en¬ dow all communions alike, and assume a supreme control over them all. Fourthly, that the State holding itself aloof from all contact with religion and religious communions, shall nevertheless exercise a supreme control over them all. Fifthly, that all religious communions in a country be disestablished—that is, tolerated, but not incorporated in the public laws, the State ceasing to interfere in any way with them. ESSfA VS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE . The first is the ecclesiastical supremacy for which S. Thomas and Sir Thomas More laid down their * lives. The second is the Royal supremacy of Henry VIII. The third has been proposed by many English statesmen, and is recommended now by many for Ireland. The fourth is the theory to which the rationalistic liberalism of this country is tending. The fifth is the state to which a power higher than theory—the irresistible current of events—is carry¬ ing us. They who promote it may he adversaries of the Church, but the Church will know how to use it for its own liberty and mission to the world. It may he not unreasonable to examine these several theories, because with surprise and regret I have observed that even among Catholics the true relations of the Church and the State have been so imperfectly defined, that some confound the union or concord of Church and State with what is called the Establishment of the Church. It is the more remarkable that such an illusion should have existed, because in the Syllabus of 1864, Pius the Ninth has condemned the proposition “ that it is lawful to constitute National Churches separate from the Roman Pontiff.”* This alone is enough to show that in condemning the proposition “ that the Church ought to be separate from the State and the State from the Church,” the Holy Rather had no intention to recognize in any sense as the Church the * Syllabus of Pius IX., prop. 87. INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 9 national bodies whose very existence he had con¬ demned already. In order to illustrate what is the union of Church and State which the Holy Father sanctions in the act of condemning the theory of Separation, I will take the history of the Church-in England, and I do so the more willingly, because I have lately had often to speak on the same topic; but the report of my words has in every case omitted the chief evidence on which the whole argument depends. The earliest historical document in which the Church in its corporate character is recognised by the public law of England is a canon of the Coun¬ cil of Berghamtede or Barsted in Kent, under Withred, King of Kent, in the year 697—that is, a century after St. Augustine. There are three ver¬ sions of the canon. The first is given by Sir Henry Spelman as follows : “ Let the Church be free, and enjoy its judgments, and revenues, and pensions. Let prayers be made for the King, and let men obey his laws, not by coercion of necessity, but of free will.”* The second version is given by Wilkins : “ Let the Church enjoy immunity and tri¬ butes ; and let prayer be made for the King, and let him be honoured not by coercion but of free will.”f The third, in Johnson’s Canons, runs : “ A freedom from taxes belongs to the Church; and let men pray for the King, and honour him of their own accord, without any compulsory law.”I * Councils, tom. I. p. 194. f Concilia, vol. i. p. 60. I Johnson’s Canons, vol. i. sub anno DCXCVI. IO ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. Now in all these three versions alike the Church is recognized as a body or corporation, or to use a later language as a moral person, and is so treated with by the public law of the land. Secondly, it was declared to have a liberty or an immunity of its own, which the public law respected and preserved. Thirdly, it had its judgments—that is, its tribunals, jurisdictions, and sentences. Fourthly, it had its revenues, pen¬ sions, and tributes, which were held by the Church, and recognized by the State. Lastly, in its prayers for the King it made intercession not by any royal command, hut by the instinct of Christian piety. This corporate character the Church has from its Divine Founder, with the powers of government, legislation, and judicial authority committed to it. The word “ body ” was first applied to a multitude of persons taken collectively by St. Paul. This Church is “the Body of Christ.” It is therefore a corpora¬ tion by the same metaphor. From this main and primary idea of a corporate existence, the term “ cor¬ poration ” was communicated in after ages to the integral parts of the Church, such as Bishops, Chap¬ ters, Parochial Chambers, and the like. They were called corporations, sole and aggregate, because they represent the Church, its powers, and rights. Such is the true order of this subject, and not as a pretentious critic, replying to my w r ords, would have it. After a conceited contempt of others, he tells us that the Church is not a corporation, hut only its integral parts, such as I have before cited. But the truth is that their corporate character is communicated to INAUGURAL ADDRESS. • u them by the Church in behalf of which they hold pro¬ perty, and exercise jurisdiction. The parish priest is \persona ecclesice , the representative of the Church, so also the Bishop in a higher sense; but neither would ever have received the title of “ corporation ” if the Church had not been first recognized as a body Divinely founded and incorporated. This one canon therefore is enough to show the relation of the Church to the State. It was one of legal recognition, union, amity, and protection. It was a corporation independent, self-sufficing, the sole fountain of its own jurisdiction, endowed with supernatural liberty, holding its own consecrated goods, exercising juris¬ diction, both legislative and judicial. Its immu¬ nity from civil laws arose from its sovereign rights derived from its Divine Head. This sovereignty- within its own sphere included the election of its own pastors, the judgment of its own members, its union with the visible Head of the Church on earth. In the centuries which followed, the Church be¬ came largely endowed, its Bishops became important civil personages. The laws of the land recognised its immunity and its jurisdiction. In the Saxon Councils the Church and the State met, each legis¬ lating in its own sphere, and each recognizing and accepting the other’s laws. Johnson, in his preface to the collection of Canons, says, “ that it is hard to say whether those assemblies were synods or parlia¬ ments.” In fact, they were both, but neither crossed the legislation of the other. What the Church decreed as canons, the Parliament enacted as laws. 12 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. In the administration of justice the King’s thane and the World’s thane—that is, the Bishop and the Earl —sat together. In all this the Church was recognized as an independent and, in many things, as a superior power and jurisdiction. The union of the Church and State in this sense has the sanction of the Catholic Church in all ages. The dissolution or divorce of this union is condemned by Pius the Ninth as an error. This state of the law of England continued with occasional violations down to the time of Henry VIII. This state of the law was confirmed by the un¬ broken course of legislation down to the Council of Clarendon. It had been confirmed also by the oaths of Danish, Saxon, and Norman kings. William the Conqueror swore by his royal oath to observe these liberties: so did his successors, as William Bufus, who persecuted S. Anselm : and Henry the Second, who martyred S. Thomas. It is true, nevertheless, that both the Saxon -and the Norman kings gradually usurped upon the freedom of the Church by customs,— that is, by personal and royal influences over persons in the matter of its elections, and over its possessions. The influence of the King was often too great to leave much liberty of election to the Chapters. And this, before the Conquest, was all the more likely to occur, from the close union and co-operation of the two powers. The Councils were also Parliaments, and in the County Courts the two jurisdictions ran together. It is therefore undoubtedlv true, that .M • * ' INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 13 even the Saxon kings promoted tlieir favourites to Bishoprics, and thereby violated the freedom of elec¬ tion ; and also that the royal influence drew to itself the decision of mixed questions, which be¬ longed strictly to the ecclesiastical tribunal. It is nevertheless certain, that by both the Canons of the Church, and by the laws of England, the Church possessed its immunities or liberties in elections, judgments, appeals to Rome, and in the freehold of its revenues, lands, and goods. This state of the law was confirmed by William the Conqueror on oath, and violated by him more systematically than by any of the Saxon kings. What they had been used to attempt, he claimed as customs of the Realm. They were avowedly, 'prceter legem , at variance with the law. They in effect suspended the law without rescinding it. The law required that the Church should be free ; the customs of the Crown deprived it of its freedom. Just as at this day a conge-d y elire is attended by a letter of nomina¬ tion, and the Anglican Chapters choose the man whom they are unable to reject. This is a fair sample of custom overruling law. This state of the law, then, continued down to the 24 of Henry VIII. It was vindicated by S. Anselm and by S. Thomas: it was incorporated in the first article of Magna Chart a, the words of which are almost a transcript of the canon of Berghamstede. The King says, “ First, that the English Church shall be free; and shall have her whole rights, and her liberties unhurt.” The Charter goes on to specify i4 ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. in particular the freedom of elections. I have dwelt upon this in order to make clear that no amount of precedents or historical examples of royal influences in contravention of the liberties of the Church during the Saxon, or early Norman period, affects the asser¬ tion, that those liberties were recognized and in¬ corporated in the laws of the land, and that the contrary customs were abuses and excesses of royal power, not only not warranted by law, but in direct violation of the same. It is certain, indeed, that from the time of Richard (13 and 16 Ric. II.) the Second, the statutes of Provisors and other anti-papal Acts of Parliament began to incorporate these cus¬ toms in the statutes of the Realm; and that finally the customs claimed by Henry II. were incorporated in the 24, 25, and 26 of Henry VIII. But I will not anticipate. For the present, I wish only to show that the liberties of the Church were the laws of the land, and the violations of these liberties were not by law, but against law, and had no basis but the alleged customs of kings. In order to place this beyond doubt, I might quote the contemporary lives of S. Thomas, by Edward Grim, Roger of Pontigny, John of Salisbury, Alan of Tewkesbury, William of Canterbury, Henry and Roger of Croy- land, and others, but I prefer to make shorter work of it, and to recite a few passages which are decisive. They shall be taken from the letters of S. Thomas to Pope Alexander III.; from the narrative of those who were present at the conflicts between the Arch¬ bishop and the King ; and finally, from the Retracta- INAUGURAL ADDRESS. l S tion of the Archbishop of York and of the King himself. I need not do more than remind you that the con¬ stitutions of Clarendon were drawn up by the order of Henry II., and are the mind of the King expressed in his own words. The 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 12, of those con¬ stitutions violate the liberties of the Church, in the immunity of the clergy and of its goods, the freedom of its tribunals, elections, and appeals. They made the King’s courts and the King’s appellate jurisdiction superior to the Archbishop, and final. The sum of the whole contest between Henry II. and S. Thomas, cannot be better expressed than in two lines from an old Chronicle : “ That the King be in the Pope’s stede, And amend the Archbishop’s dede.” Writing to the Pope, S. Thomas says, “ Be pleased to read over the Bill of those reprobate usages which he claims against the Church, and on account of which I am banished: and your Holiness will see clearly that before I made any stand, he had by these same usages stopped the mouths of all who would appeal to your Court; prohibited all eccle¬ siastical persons from crossing the sea till an oath had been exacted from them ; suffocated the rights of elections ; drawn all causes ecclesiastical as well civil before his own Courts, and run his dagger into every liberty of the Church.” S. Thomas here enumerates four liberties—that is, 1, of appeal; 2, of access to Rome; 3, of election; 4, of tribunals. “ I choose rather,” he adds, “ to he * S. Thom. Cant. Ed. Giles, tom. III. p. 58. 16 ESS A VS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. an outcast from the palace, to be exiled, proscribed, and to finish my life in the last wretchedness, than to seal the Church’s liberty, and to prefer the ini¬ quitous traditions of men to the law of God.” John of Salisbury, who was present at the confer¬ ence between S. Thomas and Henry II. in the presence of the King of France at Montreuil, gives the appeal of Henry II. as follows : “ My Lord King, and you, O holy men and nobles, I declare to you, I require nothing more from the Archbishop than the observ¬ ance of certain usages, which his five immediate predecessors (some of whom are saints and have performed miracles) all observed” (how false this is the conflict of S. Anselm on investitures is enough to show), “ and to which he himself has pledged him¬ self. Let him again pledge himself to those in your Lordship’s presence, without any mental reservation and subterfuge. This is the sole cause of disagree¬ ment between myself and his Lordship.”* Let it be here observed that the King does not venture to call * these usages, laws, or statutes. He knew, as all men knew, that they had no letter or particle of law for their support. They were custom in violation of express laws, as the custom of bribery or undue influence is a violation of the purity and freedom of Parliamentary election, and of the statutes made to protect it. S. Thomas writing to the Pope an account of the same conference, says, “ Certain it is that if the usages he demands obtain force, the authority of the * “ Frou-do’s Remains,” Second Part, vol. ii. p. 376. INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 17 Apostolic See in England will either vanish alto¬ gether, or be reduced to a minimum, as indeed it would have been long since, if we may trust the memory of this generation, and the writings of the past, unless Princes had been checked by the Church of Canterbury.”* In like manner the Archbishop,'writing to William of Pavia, says, “ Would that your Lordship had allowed yourself to believe from the first, what is now known by our persecutors’ own testimony; for lately, in the face of the most Christian King, the Archbishops, Bishops, Earls, Nobles, and all present, he publicly declared that the only cause of our exile and pro¬ scription was our refusal to observe the usages.” “ And because we do not absolutely pledge ourselves to usages, some of which void the authority of the Apostolic See, and extinguish the liberty of the Church, the King departed without concluding peace.”! These passages might be multiplied almost without number. I have marked eighteen or twenty equally strong and explicit, in which the claim of the King is uniformly made on the ground, not of law but of custom. To prove this by final and decisive evidence, we may take the retractations of the Arch¬ bishop of York, and of Henry II. after the martyrdom of S. Thomas. Eoger, Archbishop of York was compelled to declare, “ that he had never confirmed by writing or by oath the hereditary customs respect¬ ing which the controversy between the King and the Archbishop turned.” J The King in a public document * 11 Froude’s Remains, 5 ’ etc., p. 884. t Ibid., p. 392. X “ Vita Sti. Tbomae,” vol. ii. p. 2G8, Ed. Giles. 2 i8 ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. revoked his claim in tlie following words: “We Henry, by tiie grace of God King of England, &c., publicly and openly revoke, abdicate, renounce, and resign all those evil customs, at variance with the ancient liberties of the Church in England, sinfully intro¬ duced by us, and we altogether renounce for our¬ selves and for our heirs, all and every one of them, for which blessed Thomas, late Archbishop of Canter¬ bury, contended even unto death,” “ and we grant for us and our heirs, that the Church of Canterbury, and all other Churches in England, be free, and have all liberties inviolate as they were used before our coro¬ nation.” * I have dwelt the more fully upon this point because when of late I made these assertions I was met by contradictions from criticisms so confident but so evidently shallow, that I have thought it worth while to justify my assertions by the evidence of the Arch¬ bishop and the King. I may add that in wiser and less pretentious times, the “ Summa causae inter Regem et Thomam ” was thoroughly appreciated even by Protestants. Godwin, in his History of the Archbishops of England, says: “ The King in order to repress the licence of the prelates and clergy, and to distinguish the rights of the royal from the sacer¬ dotal power, resolved to promulgate certain customs ol the realm of England drawn up by Henry I. his grandfather, but never yet made public.”! It is therefore beyond a doubt that the conflict * “ Vita Sti. Tliomse,” vol. ii. p. 2G7. t Godwin, “ De Prassulibus Angliae,” pp. 73, 74. INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 19 of S. Thomas was precisely in behalf of the true and legitimate union of Church and State in which the independence, integrity, and liberty of the Church are preserved inviolate, in contact but in harmony with the public authority and laws of the State. “ The Jerusalem which is from above is free, which is our mother.” The Church readily unites itself to the greatest of God’s works next after itself—the natural and civil society of mankind. It elevates, directs, sanctifies, and consolidates the civil order which we call the State. It readily co-operates in all its action, in legislation, and in government; but it holds itself absolutely independent, and free in the exercise of all its prerogatives. The ultimate appeal in all things pertaining to its own office, authority, doctrines, elections, and jurisdiction, must fall within its own sphere—that is, must he to its own Head. This liberty is more vital than life itself. S. Thomas died for it, as the Roman Pontiffs have died before. Throughout the world at this moment the Catholic Church preserves and transmits the same liberties inviolate. Various and complex as are its relations to the civil powers in such countries as France, Austria, Prussia, and the like, nowhere has it ever yielded the liberty, and therefore the purity of its elections, its spiritual judgments, and appeals. Such is the Catholic Church, recognized indeed by human law, but refusing to be established : independent of all authorities, and sustaining the civil order of the world. This, then, is the union of the Church and State 20 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. which the Holy Father by the Syllabus confirms. We will now go on to show how little application this has to Established Churches. The first example of what may he .called an Established Church, would be in Constantinople, under the Arian Emperors, and finally after the completion of the Greek schism. Beveridge in his Synodicon, or Councils of the Greek Church, shows from Balsamon and Zonaras that the Emperors became masters of the Greek Church as soon as it fell from Borne. They made the Patriarchs, and deposed them; they suspended the action of the Synods ; they interpreted, modified, and annulled all canons ; they decided all cases in appeal. The Greek Church became a National Church separated from the Boman Pontiffs, and for that cause fell under the local civil power. It accepted its position and became established. How completely the Greek Church has been struck with sterility; how in¬ tensely excited by national jealousy; how estranged from the Holy See and the whole Christian world, every Catholic knows. And yet the Church in Constantinople has a hierarchy, a Priesthood, and traditions, which sustained it in some degree against the secular influences of the secular power. In England, even then, in every reign the liberties of the Church were expressly declared and confirmed by statutes of Parliament. To show the full force of this statement, I add the words and references. We have already seen the words of Magna Charta in the reign of John. (“Ecclesia Anglicana libera sit.”) INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 21 The 14 Edward III. c. 1, declares “ That Holy Church have her liberties.” The 50 Edward III. c. 1, “ That Holy Church have all her liberties.” The 1 Hie. II. c. 1, u That Holy Church shall have and enjoy all her rights, liberties, and fran¬ chises, wholly and without blemish.” The 2 Eic. II. c. 1. In the same words. The 3 Eic. II. c. 1. In the same words again. The 5 Eic. II. c. 1. The same words. The 6 Eic. II. c. 1. “ That our Holy Mother, the Church of England, have all her liberties whole and unhurt, and the same shall freely enjoy and use.” The 7 Eic. II. c. 1. As before. The 8 Eic. II. c. 1. In the same words. The 12 Eic. II. c. 1. The same; The 1 Henry IY. c. 1. “ First, that Holy Church have and enjoy all her rights, liberties, and franchises entirely, and without imblemishing.” The 2, 4, 7, 9, 13, Henry EW The 3 Henry Y. c. 1. “ First,: that Holy Church have all her liberties and franchises.” The 4 Henry IY. c. 1.- The same in fuller terms.* Here are eighteen statutes declaring as law of England the liberties for which S. Thomas died. And be it observed, that the article stands first in every statute, as the basis of civil order. It is remarkable that from the Eeformation downwards, * Gibson's Codex, vol. pp. 5, 6. 22 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. the word “Liberties” disappears. We hear only of “ Eights and privileges as by law.” The full effect and meaning of “ establishment ” is to be seen in England. We have already shown that the Church in this land possessed its liberty of elections, of discipline, of administra¬ tion, of appeals, and of personal recourse to the Holy See. During the centuries from Henry II. to Henry VIII., the Eoyal Customs and the Civil Courts steadily encroached upon the jurisdiction and rights of the Church. The 25 and 26 of Henry VIII. first completed the conversion of what before was only custom into statute law. In the preamble of the 25 of Henry VIII. it is declared that England is an Empire, and that this, spiritually and temporally, suffices respectively for all government and judg¬ ments in matters of religion or law. The Church was thereby declared to be national and self-sufficing in all matters of civil and spiritual law—that is, both in doctrine and in discipline. All jurisdiction hitherto belonging to the Pope was therefore transferred and annexed to the Crown. Whatsoever the Pope could have done in time past the King could do for the time to come. The university of Oxford has to this day the Crown as visitor, to the exclusion of the Bishop, because until then the Pope excluded the ordinary from visitation. The Crown alone has power to convene and dissolve the Synods or Convocations. Convocation cannot meet without the writ of the Crown, nor, when met, proceed to business without Eoyal licence, nor if it resolve anything, put it in INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 23 force until it obtain the King’s leave. The whole legislative power of the Church is thus suspended. In like manner, also, the judicial. From all its courts an appeal lies to the Crown, whose sentence is final. It is high treason to receive, publish, or put in use any document from Koine. * The Church goods are held by favour of the State. Down to 1839 or 1840, the Established Church held its property by tenure of corporations sole and aggregate. Since the creation of the Ecclesiastical Commission, the Established Church has been divested of its corporate character. The Church goods at this day are held by a Commission appointed by Parliament, and the corporate character of the Church is extinct. We have here the true notion of establishment. I have said that the Catholic Church, while it readily accepts the recognition and co-operation of the State, refuses establishment, because the effect of establishment is to deprive it of its most vital liberties—the liberty of electing its own Bishops, of judging its own members, of binding and loosing by excommunications and absolutions, of appealing to the Yicar of Jesus Christ. The royal customs, now the statutes of the Kealm, have reduced the Angli¬ can Church to a bondage inevitable for all national Churches, but impossible for the Catholic. Its chains are of gold, but chains they are. It would be too long to draw out the detail of this question. The Establishment is so bound that it cannot silence a clergyman who denies the grace of Baptism or the eternity of Punishment, nor depose a Bishop 24 ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. wlio rejects the greater part of the Canon of Holy Scripture. The acts of Henry VIII. have always been defended by the Anglican clergy and English lawyers, not as enacting, hut as only declaratory statutes. It is indeed true, as we have said, that the King and his courts had gradually encroached upon the ecclesiasti¬ cal jurisdiction, and that the customary excesses and abuses of power had gradually become the rule in respect of questions of a temporal kind, such as benefices and patronage. Lord Coke has endea¬ voured to show that the Crown had always an appellate jurisdiction in ecclesiastical matters. But Stilhngfleet, moved by hostility to James II., proved against Lord Coke that it had not the power it claimed. Again, it is still further certain that the Crown never possessed the supremacy which even Stillingfleet claimed. It never touched a spiritual liberty of the Church but to be defeated. The old supremacy of the Crown recognized and obeyed the supremacy of the Vicar of Christ. They were in harmony and co-operation. The new supremacy not only excluded the authority and jurisdiction of the Pontiff, but annexed it to itself. Such, I conceive, is the true outline of the Established Church—“a national body, separate from the Roman Pontiff,” claiming to be sufficient within itself for all questions of faith and discipline; protected by law, but sus¬ pended by law from all legislative, judicial, and execu¬ tive powers. To be established is to be subject to an ultimate authority, which is secular and fallible. INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 2 5 It was to resist the first entrance of this claim that S. Thomas died. He had a prophetic instinct when he declared to Alexander III. that the King’s customs, if not resisted, would have long ago extinguished the authority of the Holy See in England. Henry VIII. extinguished the authority of the Holy See at a blow, with malice aforethought, knowing that depend¬ ence on Rome is independence of all civil powers, and that separation from Rome places a national Church at the feet of Princes. Even the Patriarchal Church of Constantinople could not hold its own when separated from the Vicar of Jesus Christ. The English Church was in the power of Kings from the moment it was cut off from his protection. It was this which distinguished the new supremacy from the old, and it was for this distinction that Sir Thomas More won his martyr’s crown. No Catholic can surely confound the establishment of a national church with the union of Church and State. The union of the two powers is, as we have shown, free, independent, mutually helpful and honourable to both. The establishment of a Church is the subjection of the spiritual to the civil, and can never take place except where a Church by heresy or schism is cut off from Catholic unity. Now, as I have said, the people of the three kingdoms have already passed judgment upon the Royal supremacy. Its first and inevitable exercise was to require, by coercion and penal laws, if not an inward unity of belief, which was impossible, at least an outward uni- 26 ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. formity of public worship. The history of the world does not contain anything more sanguinary and merci¬ less than the persecutions in England and Ireland. The persecutions in Ireland are fabulous for their refined and relentless cruelty. The whole people re¬ coiled from the Royal supremacy as from an accursed thing, and suffered with joy that they might be innocent of the great offence. The Catholics and the Nonconformists of England suffered, side by side, under its tyranny and its tortures, and they suffered willingly rather than recognize in Prince or Parlia¬ ment an authority over conscience—that is, over the Church, or the religion of Jesus Christ. The Royal supremacy has alienated half the people from the established religion. In Scotland the tyrannous and insane attempt to force Episcopacy and a liturgy upon the people was supported by cruelties which have made royal authority in religion a treason against the Crown rights of Jesus Christ. It is hardly possible to- conceive antipathy deeper or more intense than the hatred with which Ireland, Scotland, and half of England regard the ecclesias¬ tical supremacy of the Crown. But the Royal supremacy and the establishment of the Church are cause and effect. And now nearly two-thirds of the population of the three kingdoms desire that both should cease to be. Time has passed over the Tudor statutes, and for the fair name of England they are being blotted out of our history. Men, at this day, are profoundly convinced that the Tudor statutes cannot, and ought not longer, to INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 2 7 exist. They see, that if at the first they were politic, they have become not only impolitic, but fatal to the unity, peace, and solidity of the Empire. Men are therefore casting about for theories and schemes to solve the difficulty, and have framed the three I have already stated. And this leads on to the other points, which I will only touch very lightly, and then conclude. Seeing that the exclusive establishment and endowment of one religious communion is hence¬ forward impossible, some are now proposing to endow all Churches alike. But will the advocates of this theory tell us how many churches there are, and how they will draw this line ? In Ireland alone, besides the Catholic Church, the Anglican and Presbyterian communions, there are a hundred dissenting sects. Are they all to be levelled up ? If not, will their members be contented ? In like manner, in England and in Scotland the sects are counted by scores. There is, moreover, a large proportion of the most powerful religious bodies of the country who reject endowment altogether. It is a law of their existence to depend on voluntary gifts. Will they likewise consent to he endowed ? They hold all interference of the State in religion to be contrary to the genius of Christianity. Will they consent to be established ? They think one estab¬ lishment intolerable : will they be passive under half-a-dozen ? But this facile talk about endowing religious bodies is very shallow. The endowments of Churches were 28 ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. never yet given by votes of Parliament. Before Par¬ liaments existed the faithful made free-will oblations of lands, houses, and money, which, accumulating from age to age, became, as they are called in the Capitu¬ laries of Charlemagne, “ patrimonia pauperum ”— that is, the inheritance whereby both the spiritual and temporal needs of the poor were anticipated and provided for. Every communion gradually endows itself. And such spontaneous self-endowment is peaceful, legitimate, and safe. It is the work of willing hearts and open hands. No man is con¬ strained to give, and no man has a right to complain of the free gift of his neighbour. But the redistribu¬ tion of endowments, when claimed as national property, must follow the will of the nation. And here the apple of gold is the beginning of discord: and of discord without end. It is not to he doubted that the silent growth of spontaneous endowment tends to consolidate our public order, and to inspire a wise and conservative temper. But to endow by legisla¬ tive enactment would be to light up popular ani¬ mosities, of which no man can foresee the issue. If such a policy were ever practicable, it is practicable no longer. The golden opportunity is past, and will never return. There is another reason why the Catho¬ lic Church in these kingdoms, strongly as it holds not the lawfulness only, but the expediency of en¬ dowments, can never encourage such a policy. The endowment of the Church is never mentioned, but in the same breath we hear of vetos and State-control. What politicians aim at is not to endow the Catholic INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 29 Church, hut to control it. They do not commiserate our poverty : they are jealous of our freedom. It is of no use, because it has no relevance, to quote the relation of the Church to the civil powers in France or Prussia.* In both, those relations are regulated by public and explicit compacts with Rome. In neither France nor Prussia has the Catholic Church been persecuted for centuries by penal laws, of which the memory and the wounds are alike fresh in the hearts of Catholics. In neither is the Government swayed by the anti-Catholic spirit which produced the Papal Aggression madness, and still perverts our whole social state. Before the Catholic Church in these realms will accept relations with the civil power, the civil power must cease to proclaim itself by any anti-Catholic title in religion. We now come to the fourth theory—namely, that the State have no religion, nor he united to any religious communion: that all religious belief and action be relegated to the private life of individuals, but that nevertheless the State retain a supreme con¬ trol over all. This is a peculiar form of Erastianism, springing from a combination of the Voltairian philosophy and the pretensions of democracy. The first and normal theory of the union of Church and State, which, from Constantine to the Reformation, has sustained the Christian world, and has its source, centre, and head, in the temporal power of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, may be expressed in the phrase “ Pontiff-King.” The two next schemes are only * I leave the text as it stands, to show the instability of States. 3 o ESS A VS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. modifications of tlie theory of establishment, and may he expressed by the term “ King-Pontiff.” The fourth is the result of the third. Sovereignty is passing rapidly to the people, and Csesarism is merging itself in democracy. The civil power is the representative of the sovereign people, and it claims to legislate for all religions, and to control at least their public acts. In Pagan Pome all the religions of the world were tolerated, side by side, when truth alone was persecuted. The same will probably be hereafter. The period of indifference may indeed he only the prelude of the period of persecution. Religions which make no proselytes can abide passively under the shelter of a creedless State. But a religion whose first law is to make disciples of all nations provokes even in its weakness the animosity of unbelievers, and in its strength the persecution of penal laws and their relentless execution. To this society seems drifting. We cannot indeed desire to see the civil power moored to a heresy or a schism by way of retarding its course to this condition, for reasons I will briefly suggest. It is lastly maintained by a powerful body in this country, that all religious communions ought to be placed on a perfect equality before the law. To do this the disestablishment and disendowment of the existing State Churches would follow by necessity; and the civil power would henceforward hold itself* neutral and passive in all matters of pure religion, so far as the public peace is not involved. I have already, I hope, shown that in disestablishing INAUGURAL ADDRESS . 3i a national church, there is no question of the union of Church and State. No Catholic will admit that the bodies to he disestablished are churches. Nor can he maintain the lawfulness of founding “ national churches separate from the Eoman Pontiff,” and if it be not lawful to found them, how is it lawful to uphold them ? The Syllabus alone is enough to restrain any Catholic from the defence of established national churches. Under cover of all these declarations, I will venture to affirm that the disconnection of all religious bodies from the State in these realms is for our public peace, and for the advantage of reli¬ gion itself. Forasmuch as the union between Church and State rests upon the providential order, whereby the highest work of the national order—that is, civil society—is united to the highest work of the supernatural order—that is, the Church—this union is ordained for the elevation, illumination, and direction of the civil or political society by the action of Divine truth and law, which is incorporated in the Church. But for this very reason the union of the State with a heresy or a schism does not elevate, illumi¬ nate, and direct it. Nay, it perverts and misdirects the powers and actions of society, and turns them against the truth and law of Cod. The union of Protestantism with the State has produced two centuries of unexampled persecution of the Catholic faith and Church; and when the State ceased to persecute, it nevertheless kept up, by exclusion, 32 ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. disfranchisement, and unequal dealing, a harassing obstruction to the truth, and cruel spiritual privations against Catholics. To deliver the civil powers from the dominion and perversion of a heresy and a schism, and to restore them to a neutral impartiality and to a natural equity towards all religious bodies, is a policy evidently wise and just. If the civil powers are not and cannot he united to the Catholic Faith and Church, at least let them no longer he united to a heresy and a schism. The pure state of nature is better than the state of obsession. As to disendowment, let us, for clear understanding, go back in a few words to first principles. Whatso¬ ever the faithful laid at the Apostles’ feet became the property of the Church, and was held by a Divine right of possession. The right of holding property in the Church is the highest exemplar of proprietorship. The Church holds by a higher and more perfect title than civil society. The Apostles, therefore, had the right either to spend or to keep that which the faithful gave. They might exhaust it before sunset, or lay it up for the morrow. The manna, by Divine command, was not to be kept till the morrow; if kept, it became corrupt. But the Church does not layup for the sake of wealth, or from want of confidence in the providence of God, but from a foreseeing care in holding and transmitting its possessions in houses and lands, for the benefit of posterity. Endowments are both lawful and beneficial. And yet the Church is ready to forego them in a moment, rather than com¬ promise a principle, or endanger an article of faith. INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 33 Again and again, the Church has been sacrilegiously spoiled, and again and again the generosity of the faithful, by the providence of God, has re-endowed it. The Church in Ireland was robbed of everything to enrich the Establishment. But the people of Ireland have endowed it once more. Its poverty with its liberty are a hundredfold more precious than endow¬ ment with fetters of gold. The Bishops in Ireland have kindly and charitably refused the endowments of the Establishment. The Catholic Church will take heed for itself, and will trust in the care of its Divine Head. But it may justly demand that the old con¬ secrated property, desecrated now, shall no longer be applied in maintaining the religious ascendency of error, and of a heresy which both wounds and insults the instincts of a Catholic people, and perpetuates the memory of conquest and confiscation. The disendowment of the Irish Establishment, for I say nothing now about the English, is demanded by bare justice. In the present temper of these kingdoms, the disendowment of the Irish Establishment is also the way of peace. There is but one policy which can tranquillize the religious agitations of Ireland—a perfect equality before the law; and that equality is impossible, so long as five millions of men are un¬ endowed, and half a million absorbs the whole en¬ dowment given by our Catholic forefathers, for the spiritual welfare of the entire population. It may, I believe, be safely affirmed that the three bodies which at this time exercise the feeblest religious influence on the masses of these kingdoms are the three 3 34 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. Established Churches. In Ireland it is self-evident. In Scotland it is not to be doubted that the religious zeal of the people is to be found, not in the Esta¬ blished Kirk, but in the Free Kirk and the Dissenters. In England the will of the masses is not with the An¬ glican Establishment, but with the Nonconformists, who number half the population, and with the Catholic Church. If these three bodies were disestablished to-morrow, the effect would be to stimulate their internal energies, and to make them exert all the powers that are in them. The religious forces of the country would be certainly multiplied, and that not in the way of controversy, but in each body or communion upon itself. The three Establishments would somewhat more adequately do their proper work, and the sum of the religious zeal and activity in the three kingdoms would be increased. If this be so, and it is hardly to be doubted, then the course of public legislation would assuredly not be less Chris¬ tian. The public opinion of the country would be more so, and the legislature must ultimately be governed by public opinion. It is not my purpose now, and time would forbid me, to trace out the effect of all this upon the Catholic Church in this country. One thing is certain. Relations with a just and equal civil % power, detached from all religious establishments, would be possible. Now they are impossible. The undoing of the Tudor statutes is a first condition to the relaxing of the attitude of anti-Catholic hostility which has rendered a peaceful and cordial co-operation of the Catholic Church with the State hitherto im- INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 35 practicable. In Ireland it would unite the pastors of the people with the civil authority, and make that civil authority a beneficent power to their flocks. In England the Catholic Church would stand to the State in relations more normal and fruitful of public good than in any age since the fatal day when the supremacy of Kings violated the liberties of con¬ science and of the Church, and laid the first germs of our persecution in the past and of our contentions at this hour. II. THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIANITY.* By the Rev. ALBANY JAMES CHRISTIE, S.J. The Alleged Manner of the Promulgation of Revelation is Credible and Probable. 1. rPHE argument which has been pursued thus far, has demonstrated the reasonableness of the exjiectation that a revelation of facts beyond the discovery of reason, should be made to man. The next question which naturally presents itself is this : How are these supernatural facts made known ? Where is the Teacher ? 2. The first answer which should be given, and which should never be lost sight of in the course of the inquiry, is, The Teacher is God. 3. God, and God alone, can be the Teacher of Revelation; for Revelation stands distinctively, in the manifestation of certain attributes or doings of God, to the knowledge of which human reason cannot reach by itself, because God has not left the proof of * The following Essay completes a subject. It is the sequel of what has already been printed in the second volume of the “Aca¬ demia Essays,” and its utility depends on its being studied with and after that preliminary matter.—A. J. C. THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIANITY. 37 them in nature: it is therefore evident that as God alone knows these attributes and doings, He only can make them known. 4. Reason might form conjectures. The same human reason which could gather from the formation and history of a leaf, the power and wisdom and goodness of God, might from the fact of the existence of sin and evil conjecture, that God who is so good would provide some means for remedying the con¬ fusion existing in the world, and that He who is so powerful could provide some remedy; but the very attribute of wisdom would give good ground to imagine that numberless schemes of redemption might be formed ; and human reason would have no means of determining which of these plans would be selected. Again, the very means selected might be unintelligible to man, unless some new Revelation were made of the nature of Almighty God, utterly beyond the discovery of human reason ; and Chris¬ tianity, in fact, teaches that the work of redemption includes in its notion, not merely the unity of the Divine Nature, but the existence of that one and indivisible Divine Nature in Three distinct Persons, each one of whom has His gracious part in the recon¬ ciliation of man with God. To understand this, therefore, the Revelation of the truth of the Trinity in Unity is necessary. 5. Facts of this kind none but God can reveal to man ; He alone has the key of the treasure-house of His own Divine Nature and Wisdom. To use the words of one of the earliest Christian writers, of one who, as 38 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. Christians believe, wrote under the direct guidance of God, What man knoweth the things of a man, but the spirit of a man that is in him ? So the things that are of God no man knoweth but the Spirit of God. 6. If, then, a Eevelation has been made, God only can have taught it; and if the Catholic faith is that Eevelation, the first answer which every Christian should have at hand to the question, Why he accepts that faith ? or Why he accepts any particular detail or doctrine of that faith? is this, Because God teaches it to me, 7. But by what means does God teach us the Eevelation ? A multitude of ways are conceivable, and Christians have their answer ready; and it shall be made clear that the account which they give of the means used by God is reasonable, and in agree¬ ment with the analogy of nature. 8. God might have made His Eevelation directly to every man who was invited to accept it. It is, however, contrary to fact that He has done so, and that He should do so would he as much contrary to the general mode by which He governs the world, as the opposite mode by which, according to Chris¬ tianity, He actually makes it, is in harmony with His usual government. 9. Of course those persons who were made the first recipients of the Eevelation, must have received it directly from God, and Christianity recognizes this fact. Neither is there anything contrary to reason in admitting that, in certain other exceptional cases, THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIANITY. 39 direct communication may have been had with God. The Prophets, who spoke under the inspiration of God; the Apostles, who, on the day of Pentecost, spoke according as the Holy Ghost gave them to speak; the Apostle of whom it was said that he was blessed, because flesh and blood had not revealed to him the truth to which he had given utterance, but the Father who is in heaven ; the other Apostle to whom the Father was pleased to reveal His Son, that he might preach Him to the Gentiles; others, special favourites of heaven, have received direct communi¬ cations from God Himself, but these are cases either of persons to whom the divine truths were made known in the first instance—and such cases must of necessity have existed,—or they are cases of persons who have been exceptionally favoured; and neither class of cases, nor both together, can make the rule. 10. That the communication of Revelation should be made directly to each individual would he con¬ trary to analogy. For let it be considered, (a) what is, in the order of things we see about us, the way in which God acts in the world, and (b) what is the way in which, in the order of things we see about us, man is taught. 11. The reply to both cases is the same. God condescends to associate with Himself His creatures; He does this in the ordinary government of the world ; He does this in the particular detail of giving man knowledge, 12. (a) As God is the only Source of all Power, it is evident that whatever force is anywhere exercised, 40 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. it must derive its power and efficacy from God. This truth, in the order of nature, is parallel to the asser¬ tion made above, that since God is the only Source of all supernatural knowledge, the teaching of any supernatural truth must in every case be ultimately referred to Him. 13. But though God is the only ultimate Source of all Power, His agency does not make itself appear in every act of power; on the contrary, He always appears to us to act through means, by using creatures as His instruments. At the beginning of all things, He must have acted directly and immediately, simply because there were no creatures which He could use as instruments. Creation must be the immediate work of God ; to call being out of non-being, and where nothing existed to produce something existent, is simply the work of Almighty, that is, of Divine Power. As in the beginning of Creation the Divine energy was needed, so it is in the preservation of the world; but ever since matter was created, and, whether simultaneously or not, cast in those count¬ less forms which constitute the wonderful fabric and details of the universe, the First Cause, who is God, has used the creatures which He made, as the occasions or second causes of the incessant changes which the universe has been undergoing. Each new rational soul is a work of creation, and therefore the parents become only the occasion of an exercise of the direct and immediate Almightiness of God; but with this exception,—as the ordinary rule,—God employs creatures, whether material or immaterial, THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIANITY. 4i things or persons, as second causes in the ordinary government of the world. Thus, parents are admitted by Him to a share in His productive power, and actually supply the material of the body of their offspring, while they are the occasion of the creation, by God, of a human soul: the s.un, the rain from heaven, the soil, are the second causes of the pro¬ duction of the tree: the rational soul and the material appliances, are the second causes of the works of art, the contrivances of machinery, of the epic poem, or the philosophic lucubration; and, as we shall see here¬ after, the creature is associated with the Creator in many a gracious work of Eedemption also, in the conversion of souls, the gift of indulgences, the government of the supernatural kingdom of God, the forgiveness of sins, etc. 14. It is a fact, that throughout the whole system of the universe, God associates His creature with Himself in carrying out His works. 15. In this, as everywhere, the perfections of God are manifested. The creature is egotistic, drawing everything to itself, narrow and contracted, but God is expansive and communicative. He is so much so, that although all strength comes from Him, He hides Himself; His action and the part He has in the effect is wholly unseen; the creature seems to do every¬ thing, and not seldom lays claim to all the credit for what is done. It is as reason might have ex¬ pected it would be. Analogy tells us that the more real a power or authority is, the less demonstrative it is; and where power is infinite and authority is su- 42 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. preme, they can afford to be altogether concealed. So concealed is God’s ordinary action in the govern¬ ment and conduct of the world, that men have built up a system of Pantheism, which absolutely denies the Personality of God, His superiority over the universe: which perverts God’s personal superintendence and energy into an all-pervading impersonal force, like gravitation or electricity,—makes Him the soul of the universe, as dependent on the material existence and organization of the world, as the life of a vegetable is upon the existence and organization of the plant. 16. In the number of creatures who are God’s instruments, and who are second causes, is Man. Man, however, differs from the rest of the visible creation in this, that he is endowed with the astonish¬ ing power of free-will, a gift which is as apparently contradictory to the Almightiness of God as the creation of something out of nothing seems con¬ tradictory to our finite notions of possibility. How¬ ever, the same Almighty Power that created out of nothing, has given man free-will, and we know that man has free-will by experience. In consequence of this privilege of free-will, it is of necessity that God should have recourse to His omniscience in order to bring about the result which He desires or permits, when He uses the instrumentality of man in bringing about the purposes of His Providence. 17. If, therefore, w T e consider God’s ordinary government of the world, it is evident that a system which exhibits God as teaching truths of Pevelation, through the instrumentality of creatures, is in perfect THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIANITY. 43 harmony with what we experience, and is even recommended by the analogy of Nature. 18. ( b ) This analogy will appear the more striking if we descend from the general government of the world to the particular provision by which God has secured, in the natural order, the education and instruction of mankind. 19. When a child is born, the nourishment of its body is entrusted by God to the care of the parents, that is, of creatures whom God associates with Him¬ self in the work of preservation. He has already associated them with Himself as far as could be in the work of creation ; He continues to use their co¬ operation. Through their instrumentality, other creatures are enlisted in promoting the growth of the child’s body, and the development of its various tissues. Food is converted into the substance of the body by the mysterious action of organic chemistry; and light and warmth and electricity all combine in the formation of the adult fabric. In like manner for the nourishment of the rational faculties of the child and their development, God associates creatures in the work with Himself, and so essential is this co-operation of the creature, that without it, the undeveloped powers of the child would not rise in the adult above the level of the brute. Man is a taught animal. Even in the acquisition of merely natural knowledge, man stands in need of teaching. He is not only, in one sense, the most self-helpful of animals, hut, in another point of view, he is the most helpless of beings. If we look to the inferior 44 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. animals,—the duckling, as soon as the egg is hatched, and though hatched by a foster-parent that shows her terror at the seeming vagaries of her offspring, will fearleasly trust the surface of the pool and find itself at home there; the child of human parents has instinct too, hut, compared with the young of irrational animals, as its capacity of future improve¬ ment by education is greater, so the limits of its powers of instinct are more contracted. The infant by instinct sucks the breast, from which it derives its sustenance, yet scarcely is it horn hut it begins to he subjected to discipline and instruction, and the facul¬ ties of its mind are painfully developed by the watchful and constant training of parents or tutors : the mathematical precision of the spider’s web, or the cell of the bee, cannot be imitated by man till he has passed through years of instruction. 20. After the child’s mind has once been trained by elders of its own species, it is obvious that the educated mind can open new paths of knowledge for itself, but even here we must be cautious not to grant too much, since in fact it is rather the teacher that is changed than the independent mind that makes pro¬ gress by itself. The visible creation becomes the teacher now, and experience, and attention, and capacity are required in order that the lessons of the new teacher may he admitted and learned, and the minds of greatest experience, and attention, and capacity make discoveries of facts and laws which are new both to their fellow-men and to themselves. 21. When progress in the discovery of these new THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIANITY. 45 truths has been made in this manner, these truths are transmitted and communicated, compendiously, to the succeeding generation, and thus the quantity of human knowledge is gradually accumulated. 22. It is worthy of remark, that each province of truth admits greater or less amplification, and that those which contain the most important truths may possibly admit less amplification than the others, from the very fact that their importance rendered it necessary that they should at the very origin of mankind be more generally known. 23. In this way it appears that man is a taught animal: men in general are taught by their elders, by their fellow-men; and even the small class of men, who may be called discoverers, cannot be regarded altogether as an exception : all receive instruction, and are taught not directly by God, but by those creatures in the midst of which they live, and which God employs as the means of communicating know¬ ledge to men. God is indeed and of course, the real Teacher, but He does not appear as such: He uses secondary agents, and to them accrues all the credit, while God hides Himself. 24. It appears therefore that when it is asserted that the knowledge of supernatural truths or of Revela¬ tion is, as the rule, learned not directly from God but mediately, such a statement is in strict harmony with the established order of nature, and analogous to it. There are sectaries who lay claim to the im¬ mediate teaching of individuals by God, but their boast, in the sense in which they make it, is duly 46 ESSA YS ON RELIGION AND LITERA LURE. scouted by mankind, and the vanity of their pretence is easily exposed: it is, moreover, as we have seen, contrary to the analogy of nature. 25. Christians who have the wit to see the reason¬ ableness of miraculous interference on the part of God in the way described in a former section, would be the last to deny the occasional immediate teaching of some individuals by God : they affirm it as a neces¬ sary part of Christian Revelation. This has been intimated above (§ 9), and need not be repeated here. It is only necessary to add, that as in the general question of miraculous interference, the miracle in the first instance is the guarantee for the Revelation, and subsequently disagreement of doctrine with the Revelation once proved is sufficient to deprive any miracles alleged in favour of the novel doctrine of a Divine character, so in the particular case of persons claiming to be taught immediately by God, the fact of their pretended revelations being contradictory to those already proved and recognized would be clear and certain proof of the untrustworthiness of the new revelations. 26. As, therefore, when God acts in this material universe, He Himself remains hidden, and makes use of creatures to carry out the designs of His will; as, in teaching man natural knowledge, He Himself again remains hidden, and makes use of creatures for the instruction of mankind, so in imparting super¬ natural knowledge, God makes use of the instrumen¬ tality of creatures, instead of teaching each separate man immediately. THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIANITY. 47 27. The first visible Teacher of Christianity was Christ. He, indeed, as Christians know, is not like other creatures, merely a creature. They know that God Himself spoke when Christ spoke ; but still our exhibition of the truth remains true, for it was the created tongue and lips of Jesus Christ which spoke the Divine revelation imparted to man. God spoke through the instrumentality of the created human nature, which He assumed. That He was really sent to announce Divine truth, and that the teaching He gave was infallible, was proved principally by His resurrection from the dead. But His resurrection was followed by His ascension, and He had to provide for the perpetuity of His teaching to the end of the world. The provision that He made was part of the message guaranteed by His resurrection, and the establishment of His Church as the provision, was as surely a part of the message guaranteed by His resurrection as the fact which He taught, that He was the Son of God. If the perverseness of man has made every effort to obscure the clear outline of His Church, so has the perverseness of man made every effort to obscure the simple truth of the Divine Personality of Himself; and the possibility of such obscuration only serves as an ad¬ ditional proof of the necessity of adhering to that clear and distinct outline. That outline is expressed by two characteristics of the Church, clearly laid down by Christ, its universality and its visible unity : its universality as distinguished from Judaism, and its visible unity by which it is able to teach, for separation 48 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. into parts putting forth different doctrines as essential to salvation, excludes the possibility of really teaching Truth at all, because Truth is not self-contradictory. “ Go, teach all nations,” declares the Catholicity of the Church: “ Upon this rock I will build iny Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” declares the visible unity of the Church, containing like the “net,” good and had, and not the “ elect ” only, till the day of judgment. 28. That the Church might be Catholic, our Lord would have it divided into dioceses, ruled by bishops, spread over the face of the earth : that it might be visibly one, He appointed one central bishop, with whom all the rest should be united. This bishop was not Christ’s successor, for successor He has none, since He Himself was, and is, and always will be, the Divine Head of the Church, including the Church Militant, the Church Patient, and the Church Trium¬ phant; but, he was Christ’s Yicar and Representative, the Visible Head of the Visible Church which is on earth, as Christ is the Head of the entire Church, Visible and Invisible. The actual person whom our Blessed Lord, while yet living, chose to be His Vicar, was singled out from the company of His immediate disciples, the twelve Apostles ; and He pronounced in His favour promises which He pronounced in favour of no other of His Apostles; and as He gave him to understand that the actual fulfilment of these promises should be continuous with all ages, and should endure to the end of the world, it follows that they were not confined to the Apostle then addressed, THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIANITY. 49 but extended to all his successors. And it is remark¬ able how precisely the same line of argument which certain schismatical Christians employ to prove the Divine institution of the Episcopate, establishes also the Divine institution of the Supremacy. Christ promised Simon Peter that he should be the Rock on which He would build His Church,—this promise He made to no other Apostle ; the other Apostles are called foundations, hut the rock is that which under¬ lies the foundation, and supports them: Christ said that while Satan had sought to sift all the Apostles like wheat, He had prayed for Peter singly, and bade him, in consequence, confirm his brethren by being their support and stay: Christ committed exclusively to Peter, at the very moment when He was with¬ drawing His own visible presence from the earth, the sole and entire charge of His whole flock, lambs and sheep, and no other Apostle had the whole flock commended to his care : to Peter and to Peter alone he promised the keys of the kingdom of heaven, or the symbol of supreme authority over His Church on earth. 29. In harmony with these promises $ while Christ appears evidently as the Yisible Head of His nascent Church before His ascension, so that Peter, when be denied his Master, was not yet raised to his peculiar privileges,—immediately after the Ascension, Peter, as a matter of course, steps into the place destined for him by his Master, and, in the Acts of the Apostles, takes the lead of his brethren, as our Blessed Lord does in the Gospels of His disciples. 4 50 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 30. And now we are prepared to listen to the answer which Christianity gives to the question, Who is the Visible Teacher of whom God, the In¬ visible Teacher, makes use, in order to instruct mankind ? 31. The Christian Faith answers, As the created lips of our Lord Jesus Christ were used to pronounce the message from God, while Jesus Christ was visibly on earth, so the created lips of St. Peter and his successors are the sure and certain organs of infallible truth, since the time of the withdrawal of Christ’s visible presence from among us. 32. The Christian Faith answers that this teach¬ ing authority in the Visible Head is accompanied by the promise that the same certainty in teaching shall exist in the Church, so that to the end of the world the power of untruth shall never pre¬ vail against her. Both promises are sure and certain, and it must he remembered that the promise made to the Church necessarily supposes her unity under her visible head, and the promise made to the head necessarily supposes its union with the body of which it is head, only, this unity being . presupposed, in the impossible case of contradic¬ toriness in teaching, between the head and the body without the head, the promise would secure infallibility to the Head-, since Christ said that He had prayed that Peter’s faith should not fail, and that he was to confirm his brethren. The impossible case might also be imagined of collision in doctrine between St. Peter and his brother Apostles ; in such THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIANITY . 5i a case, Truth would have been guaranteed on the side of him for whom Christ had prayed that his faith should not fail, and the rest of the Apostles would have been in error. As a matter of fact, the head and body are never at issue, and the Church of Christ, head and body, through her mouthpiece, speaks in¬ fallibly the sure word of God. 33. The Christian faith teaches that this preroga¬ tive is wholly independent of the personal character of its possessor. There never has existed so vene¬ rable a series of rulers as that of St. Peter’s succes¬ sors, but it is not on their personal graces that the privilege of teaching supernatural truth rests; it would be equally secure were all the calumnies accumulated against the occupants of the Holy See true, and we might even expect that the providence of God would allow some exceptions to the uniform excellence of the Pontiffs, for the very purpose of showing that the privilege granted for the behoof of the whole Church, is independent of the moral or the spiritual character of the individual. 34. As part of the same idea, the Christian faith teaches that it is only when the visible Head of the Church speaks as such, and in his official capacity, that the assistance is promised which is to guarantee his infallibility. The phrase used to express this official enunciation of doctrine is, that judgments pro¬ nounced ex cathedra are secure from error. It is plain from this that opinions extorted by force or fear from a Pontiff who had not moral courage to resist, and which therefore could never be regarded as judgments ex 52 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. cathedra , are not secured from error, and therefore that even were the calumnies invented against St. Liberius true, they would not argue fallibility in judgment pronounced by him ex cathedra , which implies at least the exclusion of force or terror, and the free, unhampered exercise of the means provided by God for arriving at a just decision. Even the infallible Apostles, before pronouncing the sentence which could be headed, “ It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us,” examined the question dili¬ gently, and listened to the arguments on both sides. Supposing, then, that the fiction had been true, that Marcellinus had been terrified into burning incense to the idols, the good sense of men would never regard such a denial of the faith as a denial of the faith ex cathedra. 35. The same consideration clears away the diffi¬ culty sometimes urged from the contest between St. Peter and St. Paul at Antioch. The instance displays the real truth in a remarkable way. It shows how inconsistently a man may act with his own decided judgment: how the behaviour of an Apostle, even the chief of the Apostles, may clash with his known and infallible decree. It requires not much sincerity to acknowledge that the sentence passed by St. Peter, with regard to eating with Gentiles, when he said, “Who was I that I could withstand God?” im¬ plies a sentence ex cathedra ; and that his actual withdrawing from them, through fear of those that were of the circumcision, was not a judgment ex cathedra , hut an act of weakness inconsistent with THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIANITY. 53 the truth he had learned from God, and known and taught to men. 36. Were it not that adversaries of the Catholic faith, even possessed of a certain reputation, urged the difficulty, it might seem unworthy of an inquiry, such as the present, to notice the argument, that the claims of the Church of Eome, to be the mother and mistress of all Churches, must be unfounded, for the reason that there are more ancient Churches than that of Eome, and that the claims of these, or one of these, would seem to be stronger than the claims of Eome. The answer is peremptory: it was to Peter the promises were given, and not to Eome. However repugnant to all antecedent probability, there is nothing absolutely impossible in the idea that Peter might have died Bishop of Samosata or Tyana, instead of suffering martyrdom as Bishop of Eome. Had this been the case, the successors of Peter, in one of these two sees, would have been the Yicars of Christ, not by virtue of the antiquity of the Church of Samosata or Tyana, but by virtue of their succession in the Apos¬ tolic See. It is the fact that St. Peter died Bishop of Eome, and the reasons why Eome should have been selected as the scene of his martyrdom are too obvious to recount; the Bishops of Eome, therefore, are the successors of St. Peter in fact, and to them as his successors are perpetuated his prerogatives; and Eome is the mistress and mother of all Churches because Peter, her first Bishop, was appointed Eock of the Church and Yicar of Christ before ever the Churches of Jerusalem or Antioch or Eome were founded. 54 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE . IV. The alleged credentials by which the mission of the Teacher of Kevelation is established are such as might have been expected by human reason. 1. In the course of our inquiry, it has been proved reasonable for man to expect that the goodness of God should have admitted him to the knowledge of truths beyond the reach of unaided reason. The existence, then, of such an enlargement of man’s knowledge, such as Christianity professes, is in accord¬ ance with reason. Since none but God could make known these truths, and since He does not do this by immediate communication to every man, we have seen the reasonableness of admitting that there should be sent a teacher, who, after proving his mission, should teach those truths, and at his death should leave an authorized teaching body which should continue his instructions to the end of the world. This teaching body is theologically called, and is popularly called, the Church. 2. Now, besides the Church, we find in fact exist¬ ing in the world a written document, which is regarded with the utmost respect by all who profess a belief in the supernatural truths taught from heaven. But there is also a broad difference between the way in which, on the one hand, those who are called Catholics, and, on the other, those who are separated from the Catholic unity, regard this written document, which is denominated The Bible, or, The Holy Scripture. 3. Catholics, that is, those who are within the unity secured by spiritual allegiance to the sue- THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIANITY. 55 cessor of St. Peter, do not hold that the “ Word of God” and “ The Bible” are equivalent expressions : those who are called Protestants identify “The Bible” and the “Word of God.” Catholics hold that the voice of the Church is the Rule of Faith; Protestants affirm that the Holy Scriptures are the Rule of Faith: Catholics hold that we must begin with the Church ; Protestants profess that we must begin with the Holy Scriptures: Catholics hold that all that the Church teaches of supernatural knowledge is certainly true, and that the Holy Scriptures may not be interpreted in a sense contradictory to her doctrine ; Protestants profess not only that the Holy Scriptures are certainly true, hut that we are able and may and ought to test the teaching of the Church by the contents of Holy Scripture : Catholics hold that men cannot gather for themselves all truth out of Holy Scripture ; Protest¬ ants profess that they can and ought: Catholics hold that the Holy Ghost is given to the Church for the interpretation of Holy Scripture; Protestants that He is given to individuals for this purpose: Catholics hold that while, in fact, the Church can never teach anything contrary to the sense of Holy Scripture, yet there is no reason why she should not have truths to teach which are not contained in it; Protestants profess that nothing which is not contained in Holy Scripture can he of necessity to be believed. 4. It needs remark that as Truth is but one, and aberration from it is manifold, there must be number¬ less varieties in the greater or less approximation of non-Catholics in their opinions to the faith of 56 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. Catholics. The contrast, therefore, which has been just instituted between the Catholic and the Pro¬ testant, while true in every point, with regard to Protestants commonly so called, who glory in the dictum, The Bible and the Bible only is the religion of Protestants, may be applied with variations to all who protest against the exclusive Catholicity of the Roman Catholic Church, and therefore to the Greek schismatic, who refuses to look for the ultimate referee in matters of faith to the Church in which St. Peter and his successors are the visible rock. 5. Throughout the contrast above given, the variety of expression, “ Catholics hold ,” and “ Protestants profess ,” indicates the fact that while Catholics are consistent, Protestants are frequently not so. Pro¬ testants insist upon their professed principles, when they are arguing against Catholics ; when they teach their co-religionist hearers, they are obliged really to act more or less on the principles held by Catholics. Were they consistent, they would be careful not to prepossess the minds of their children or scholars by teaching them the Apostles’ Creed or a Catechism. By doing this, however much in words they may refer their pupils to the authority of Holy Scripture, they practically anticipate the conclusions to be arrived at, and supply a coloured medium, which must, however unconsciously, influence their hearers’ minds in hearing or studying Holy Scripture. Hence, as a rule, the children of Anglicans grow up Anglicans; of Socinians, Socinians ; of Wesleyans, Wesleyans ; and of Baptists, Baptists ; as the children of Catholics THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIANITY. 57 grow up Catholics. This is a happy inconsistency, for had Protestant parents acted on their professed principles, and shunned teaching their children any system of religion previously to these children’s personal study of Holy Scripture, the loss of anything like Christian doctrine would have been unspeakably more rapid than it has been. 6. The way in which Catholics treat Holy Scripture is reasonable ; the way in which Protestants treat Holy Scripture is unreasonable. These two proposi¬ tions have to be discussed and established. 7. When a deputy or an ambassador presents him¬ self before the assembly or court to which he is sent, he is expected to present the credentials which declare his powers. The credentials must be recog¬ nized, or, if necessary, proved to be authentic, and then their contents will establish the extent and limitations of the powers entrusted to the deputy or ambassador in question. 8. If, now, it be true that Catholics regard the relation of Holy Scripture to the Teacher of super¬ natural truth, as that of credentials to the ambas¬ sadors of God, such a system is suited to the case and in analogy with the common practice of man¬ kind and reasonable. 9. The Teacher of supernatural Christian truth was, in the first instance, our Lord Jesus Christ; sub¬ sequently to His Ascension into heaven, it has been His Church. Both Jesus Christ Himself and His Church appeal to Holy Scripture as the credentials of their mission and of their authority. 58 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 10. Our Lord Jesus Christ presented Himself to the Jews as a teacher sent from God. He was hound, of course, to prove His mission. He did so by wonderful works, and, after His death, by the chiefest of pro of-miracles, His resurrection. But while he lived among men, He alleged, as His credentials, Holy Scripture, that is, of course, the Prophecies and Books of the Old Testament. His words to the Jews are, “ Search the Scriptures.” Those who heard Him acknowledged as authoritative the Books of the Old Testament, the Law, the Psalms, the Prophets. He said, therefore, You, who are Jews, think that you have everlasting life in the Scriptures ; examine them, search them, and you will find that ,they contain the marks of the promised Messiah; com¬ pare those marks with what you see in me, and you will find that the Holy Scriptures are my credentials. 11. This use of the Old Testament, made by our Lord Jesus Christ, was perfectly reasonable. He proclaimed Himself a delegate from heaven; He called attention to His claim by His miracles; He presented credentials which were recognized as Divine, and He appealed to the common sense of the Jews, to confess the agreement of those credentials with His own circumstances, and consequently to receive Him as the promised Christ. After His mission had thus been proved by His credentials, they who heard Him were hound to listen to Him, and to accept all that He said as true, whether the doctrines He taught were contained in those credentials or not. THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIANITY. 59 12. Christ ascended, and has left a visible Church on earth, built on a visible Rock, which is Peter; and He has left this Church for the purpose of teaching Truth and dispensing Grace*, in His name, and He has promised that the gates of hell, which must mean, in part, the powers of' untruth, shall not prevail against it. The Church of Christ follows the example of her Master. He did not say, Search the Scriptures, and make out the truth for yourself, but Search the Scriptures, and through their testimony to me, trust my words, and believe me. So says the Church, Search the Scriptures, not that men may work out truth for themselves and criticise her teaching, but Search the Scriptures, and you will learn from them my prerogatives, you will learn to trust my words and to believe me. 13. But there are two classes of people with whom the Church of Christ may have to do,—men who acknowledge the authority of Holy Scripture, and men who do not. 14. If the Church speaks to those who acknowledge the authority of Holy Scripture, her appeal is direct, as was that of Jesus Christ & to the Jews. She can dispense with urging on Protestants their incon¬ sistency in admitting the authority of Holy Scripture on insufficient grounds ; she is glad to find that Holy Scripture is, in part, at least, still respected, and she avails herself of the argument which that respect supplies. She points to the words which speak of the nature of the teacher whom God has given for the instruction of mankind; she bids her hearers 60 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. compare this description with herself, and by this comparison her authority to teach is established. Whether every doctrine she teaches be contained in Holy Scripture'or not, it matters not, any more than it mattered whether all that Jesus Christ taught was in the Old Testament or not. As soon as His autho¬ rity to teach was established, all were hound to listen; as soon as her authority to teach is established, all are in like manner bound to listen. She appeals, then, to the common sense of men, and she shows that Holy Scripture does speak of a Church,—of a Church which shall exist while the world lasts,—of a Church purchased by the Blood of God, and, there¬ fore, not to be lightly esteemed,—of a Church which shall teach,—of a Church which from first to last shall be Visible, shall be One, shall be Indefectible, shall be Infallible, shall be governed by Bishops, and shall be under Jesus Christ, as its supreme Head, and under His Vicar and Representative, as holding the keys, the symbol of supreme authority, of the Kingdom of Heaven. Such is the description of the Teaching Body, as contained in those credentials which the Church brings in her hands, and which are her inheritance, which Protestants themselves acknowledge in part, and call their Rule of Faith. And such, again, is the inconsistency of non-Catholics, that they will not act upon the express words of the Rule they pretend to embrace. 15. If the Church addresses herself to unbelievers who deny the inspiration of Holy Scripture, the case is somewhat different. It would be true to say, that THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIANITY. 6r were the Holy Gospels merely regarded as veracious histories and uninspired, the Church would still have her credentials, only it would he more accurate to say that her credentials were contained in the New Testament, than that these Holy Scriptures were her credentials. For, if the Gospels are-veracious histories, Christ rose from the dead : therefore) at least, the words spoken by Him have Divine authority; and if, again, the Gospels are veracious histories, the words represented as spoken by Christ w T ere really His: since, therefore, the constitutional texts of the New Testa¬ ment, which describe the nature and prerogatives of the Church, are, in a great measure, the words of Christ Himself, the Church might still present these words as her credentials and plead their authority. 16. But even supposing that neither Holy Scripture nor yet the words of Christ contained in Holy Scrip¬ ture, were admitted as possessing Divine authority, this would in no way show that there was anything unreasonable in the way in which the Church presents herself for the acceptance of mankind, and offers to establish her mission ; hut on the contrary, supposing that her claims were true, the way in which she offers to establish these claims recommends itself perfectly to our reason, and in consequence all antecedent objections which can be urged against it are vain; and it is this clearing away of difficulties which is of the greatest service to the cause of supernatural religion. 17. The following statement exhibits the position of the Church with regard to her credentials, and its reasonableness will recommend itself. 62 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 18. Supposing the existence of supernatural truth, it is perfectly reasonable that its announcement to mankind should he ushered in by supernatural works or miracles : it is perfectly reasonable that during the period that such miraculous works or their recent memory lasted, documents should exist or be drawn up in which the constitution of the Christian Church should he contained ; so that—while in the beginnings of Christianity the authority of the documents no less than the whole teaching was proved by miracles,— these same documents might, when handed down go later ages, confirm the authority of the Church, when miracles, at least as ordinary proofs of Christianity, had ceased. 19. What has been said clearly exposes the sophism by which Catholics are reproached with logical inac¬ curacy, as though they argued in a circle, and proved the authority of the Church by Holy Scripture, and the authority of Holy Scripture by the Church. The sophism* is the fallacy of Time. At different times the mutual relation of Holy Scripture and the Church has changed, at least with regard to controversy. Catholics, indeed, do not need to trouble themselves about the distinction, so far as they are themselves con¬ cerned, but in arguing with opponents it is necessary to bear in mind that there was a time when the Catholic Church existed without Holy Scripture, at least without the New Testament, and that at that time too she was the teacher of supernatural religion appointed by God, and had her authority established without the witness of Holy Scripture. The_resur- THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIANITY. 63 rection of her Lord and the attestation to this miracle by His first disciples and their witness to His words and promises and the witness of their immediate successors to them testimony, were enough to prove the authority and prerogatives of the Church. Her authority was then at the first proved not by Holy Scripture hut by other means. By her authority thus proved, the various hooks which make up the canon of the New Testament, as time went on, were gradually collected and approved as canonical. Had these sacred books contained not one word regarding her authority and prerogatives, her authority and prerogatives would have been the same ; and if these hooks, as they do, contain the clear announcement of her nature and prerogatives, the existence of these books is not the ground of those prerogatives. They do, indeed, re¬ flect back their light on the Church as years move on; when the freshness of her primitive history had passed away, the characteristics which were to identify the Church of later times with the Church of old are found written among their contents, and the words which at first required the Church’s authority to stamp their authenticity become afterwards a means of distinguishing the true Church from pretenders. 20. In a word, to clear away the falsely alleged argumentation in a circle, the truth may thus be stated: Catholics do not say that by the Church they prove Holy Scripture, and the Holy Scripture by the Church, but they do say, by the authority of the Church proved by miracles they prove the canon of Scrip¬ ture, and from that canon they prove, to those who 64 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. admit the canon and deny the Church, the charac¬ teristics and prerogatives of the Church. 21. The reasonableness of the Catholic doctrine on this point will appear still clearer if we set in contrast with it the unreasonableness of the non-Catholic view. 22. The non-Catholic view with regard to Holy Scripture is, that God has given to the world a written volume out of which is to be gathered the supernatural truth which He has been pleased to make known to man. One class of non-Catholics affirm this simply : others admit the necessity of the Church’s interpretation, hut pretend that in these days there is practically no possibility of the Church’s speaking, because—for the sins of her children—she is no longer actually one, and therefore cannot speak; meanwhile, they appeal to the written documents of the early Church before, as they say* she was thus unhappily divided. 23. Both of these non-Catholic views are un¬ reasonable. 24. (a) It is unreasonable to imagine that God would teach the world by a written document with¬ out the aid of a living teacher. Men might in that case say well with the Ethiopian to the Deacon Philip, when asked whether he understood what he read, How can I, unless some man show me the way? No unity of doctrine, and therefore no certain body of truth, could he the result of the private interpretations of a written document. Prepossession and prejudice would necessarily introduce into such interpretations numberless variations and contradictory opinions. THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIANITY. ' 65 Supposing, which is not the case, that the antecedent probability of such diversity of opinions, and that too on fundamental points, had been disappointed by facts,—if we saw that in fact there existed a recog¬ nized body of Christian truth in spite of the exercise of jDrivate interpretations, we might -indeed confess that the plan proposed was right, and that God, in some extraordinary way, prevented the anticipated evils. But we find that the result in fact is precisely that which reason would have anticipated,—we find that they who assume Holy Scripture as the only Rule of Faith, differ from each other in all the grades of variation between the deniers of the divinity of our Lord, and those who pretend, though falsely, to hold all Roman doctrine. Evidently, then, there has been no divine interposition to prevent the disastrous consequences of private interpretation of Holy Scrip¬ ture ; it is then reasonable to suppose that such consequences are the natural punishment of a mode of proceeding not intended by the Divine Author of revelation, but adopted counter to His will by the perverse will of men. 25. (jb) And the other Protestant view which tries to get itself called Catholic and cannot; which pro¬ fesses to hear the Church and yet denies that in these days the Church’s living voice can he heard, is no less unreasonable. Precisely the same reasons which militated in favour of the necessity of the Church’s living authority in the first four centuries, militate for it now. It is no less necessary now than then to have a living voice to determine controversies; nor 5 66 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. are the controversies nowadays of trifling moment, for we find that the very elements of Christianity can be made outside the Church—for example, in the Anglican body—open questions ; the question of the grace of Baptism and the question of the Real Pre¬ sence have both been disposed of in this way. If it was reasonable that the Bishops of the Church should assemble and define the truth in condemnation of Arianism, it is unreasonable to imagine that God would have left His Church without the means of passing sentence against Jansenism, or the impugners of the Immaculate Conception, or the deniers of Supernatural Grace, or of the Infallibility of the Yicar of Christ. 26. There are other obvious reasons which show the unreasonableness of these two non-Catholic systems, (a) If Holy Scripture is represented as self-sufficient, it is forgotten that it comes to most men, if not to all, in a different form from that in which it was originally written, and that men in general are not skilled in exegesis or in herme¬ neutics ; and ( b ) if men are satisfied with an appeal to the early Fathers, they can never have made the attempt themselves to build up a system based on the Patristic Interpretation of Holy Scripture, or they would never have proposed a method which is as pretentious and as hypocritically respectful to the Primitive Church as it is unpractical and dishonour¬ able to the one infallible Church of all ages. 27. There are of course other purposes for which the Holy Scriptures have been committed to the Church THE PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIANITY . 6 7 besides that of being her credentials. Of these, how¬ ever, it is not necessary to speak now. Only it is worth noticing that we may admire the wisdom which has associated with the Church’s credentials the documents which are the storehouses of the Church’s devotion and instruction. Credentials are always at hand, and it is most reasonable that on that account the history of the Church from the Creation of man to the coming of the Great Teacher; the sacred Biography of that Divine Teacher himself; the History of the Church in its infancy, should be contained in the volume which is always in the hands of the Church’s ministers. And not only is it reason¬ able that the material out of which is formed the body of devotion used by the universal Church should be contained in a document which is the constant com¬ panion of the Church wherever she carries the message from God to man, but it is hard not to see a proof of the Divine character of the Church in the fact that the Prophecies of the later Jews, the Psalms of David, the Songs of Anna and Moses are incorporated without change into the divine office of Christians, thus showing that as the One Church Catholic is universal as regards place, so also as regards time, she is one and the same ; beginning in the Divine Society of the Three Divine Persons who have created her, and leading or offering to lead all men in all ages, directly or indirectly, back to the mercy and love of Him whose minister she is of grace and truth to mankind. III. ON THE MYSTICAL ELEMENT IN RELI¬ GION, AND ON ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITISM. BY THE LATE REV. J. D. AYLWARD, O.P. HE mystical element is to be found in all reli- gions, true and false, from the earliest times. It seems that in tbe state of Paradise, ■which was a supernatural state before the Fall, mysticism would have been the normal condition of man’s life. It ceased to be normal when man fell from his super¬ natural dignities and privileges. For both angels and men, while they still remained faithful in their state of trial, saw the truth, the wisdom, and the justice of God immediately , and without discursive reasoning. For they enjoyed a certain beatitude, and therefore a certain vision of God, (though both imperfect) according to St. Augustine. “Tell me,” he says, (in Psalmum 70,) “ what could he want who, in the midst of such opulence and such delights, possessed likewise the very vision of God?” “Quid illi deerat in Paradiso constituto, in media opulentia, mediisque deliciis, cui magnae deliciae erant ipsa visio Dei ? ” And, in his City of God, he asks : “ Who will ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITISM. 69 dare to deny that our first parents in Paradise were in a state of blessedness (beatos fuisse) before their sin, although uncertain as to the duration of their beati¬ tude, or whether it was not even to last for ever (vel utrum aeterna esset incertos) ?” (Civ. Dei., 1. xx.,c. 12.) Huygens, a doctor of Louvain, whose language is that of other divines, says, “ Whereas man, in Para¬ dise, and before his sin, attained to a certain beati¬ tude by means of his clear and lucid knowledge of God, and his joy in this knowledge, he unhappily sank by sin to the likeness of the brutes, for an im¬ mense multitude of corporal images darkened his intellect, and the love of sensible things depraved and fettered his will.” (Theol. Gummari Huygens, de Yerho Incarnato, cap. iv., sec. 2.) Let us remark, that although fallen he still retained his original nature , though much wounded. By the just forfeiture of his privileges he was let down to a similitude with beasts with whom through his animal nature he had so much in common, the texture of whose flesh and whose sensuous organism was much like his. Phy¬ siologically like them, both before and after the fall: psychically superior to them, also before and after. St. Bernard says (Serm. 35 in Cantica): “ He dwelt in Paradise, and his time was passed in the place of delights. His lot and his companionship was with the people of the angels, and with all the multitude of the heavenly host,” (erat illi sors et societas cum plebe angelorum) —cum plebe angelorum —with the angelic populace. These, (this plebs angelorum) or as our poet Orashaw calls them, “ the 70 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. common people of the skies,” (sospetto d’erode,) were his associates and familiars. In man, earth touched upon the confines of heaven,—he was the highest of material and the lowest of spiritual intelligences. “But he changed this glory to the similitude of a grass-feeding heifer.” Still he was of a nature inde¬ finitely higher than that of the heifer, having to¬ gether with the brute’s animal instincts his own intellectual powers. Though but the wreck of a high nature, wounded and despoiled of his original gifts, he still was the highest work of the visible creation, the nearest approach to God in the material world, as being made in the image and likeness of God, that seal of resemblance which was not im¬ pressed on the inferior creation. What was due to his mere nature he had. He was dead indeed as to supernatural grace; but only wounded as to his natural powers. He re¬ mained therefore the same wonderfully-formed creature; compacted of the same elements. His was the same electric frame—a strange fasciculus of attractions and repulsions wonderfully balanced and adjusted, and permeated by the same magnetic influ¬ ence—exquisitively sensitive—though this sensitive¬ ness, as well as other attributes and endowments, would have been various in various individuals. For all, even in Paradise, would not have been equal in the endowments of mind or body, as St. Thomas teaches, (P. i. Q. 96, art. 3). We often see these differences amongst those with whom we are living. One will be heavy, dull, unexcitable ; another will he quick, ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITISM. 7 1 witty, and mercurial; another highly sensitive and sympathetic, with a frame all nerve, and a soul of fire; revealing in his natural character the makings of an ecstatic saint, or of a pythonical medium, accord¬ ing as subjection is willingly yielded either to the grace of God or to the influence of evil spirits. Per¬ haps in the ignorance and blindness which came upon man by occasion of his sin, there may have been included a penal ignorance of many things regarding the constitution of his being, the natural elements which go to its formation, the faculties of his mind and body, and the extent of their powers. All of these he might have been acquainted with when his body and his mind, with all their complex powers, were perfectly under the sway of his reason, and his reason under the sway of God. But though he might have fallen from this know¬ ledge into a 'penal ignorance, beings of an order higher than his own (whether angelic or diabolic) still pos¬ sessed it, and might have been skilled to play upon his hidden powers, and to touch the secret springs of his nature, and elicit effects the merit or demerit of which would not have been imputable to him, except inas¬ much as his will might have been deliberately con¬ sentient. And considering what God has revealed to us of the spirit of Satan, the great chief of the fallen, ever working with fearful energy, pure malice, and unre¬ mitting hate against God, having first lost heaven, but trying now for the world, and actually claiming it as his conquest, setting himself up as “the Prince 72 ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITER A TURE. of this world,” and establishing his princedom in man’s nature, we can easily see how eagerly he would begin to exercise his power and his knowledge to the seduction of man’s heart from God, and the installing of himself in God’s place. But the angels of God who had been man’s willing visitants in Paradise,—his associates and companions,—still exercised the guardian watch over him to which they were appointed, averting dangers from him (both human and demoniacal), and helping him at his needs by using their knowledge of the secrets of nature, healing him in disease, strengthening him against the temptations of devils, glad to he ambassadors to him from God, bringing divine commands and answers, and offering men’s petitions to God, and pleading their cause with Him. Man being himself, therefore, partly spiritual (though much under the influence of that which is animal within him) is still kept in constant intercourse with spirits, good and bad. And the consciousness, as likewise the effect, of this intercourse will he exhibited in his religion. If this communication be religiously and reverently maintained with the blessed angels , they exhibit themselves to him as God’s “ ministering spirits,” helping him to rise to God, and to offer a pure worship to Him. If he ivillingly communicates with the spirits of evil, he becomes idolatrous, subjecting his will (and thereby his all —his total self) to devils. And thus we trace through all history, and especially through the Holy Scriptures, two religions, one blessed by God, the other accursed; both clis- ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITISM. 73 tinguished by mystical operations, in the one case true, emanating from God, in the other false, coming from Satan. Instances are of constant recurrence in Holy Scripture, both before and after the Flood, of divine communications, rebukes, encouragements, directions,—the translation of Enoch, and afterwards of Elias, the service of the angels, visions, and divine colloquies, the supernatural operations of Moses against the magic and spiritism of Egypt, the works of Elias and Eliseus, and, in fine, a long and continuous stream of sacred mysticism, either Jewish or Christian, flowing all through the Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testament. And the stream continues its course through the whole history of the Church to our own days. On the other hand, a Satanic mysticism begins with the very beginning of our race; grows and spreads and covers the earth with idolatries—Chal- daean, Egyptian, Canaanitish, and numerous others, all so many forms of demon-worship, “ omnes dii gentium daemonia.” But as with the people of God there was public worship and private devotion, so, in this going after false gods, there was a private and domestic service, a personal consultation, carried on by means of charms, incantations, calling up the spirits of the dead, and all forms of magic, besides the more imposing rites in the public temples. This domestic demon-worship, a dark, occult, and for¬ bidden knowledge, pervaded all society, and corrupted even the people of God, notwithstanding the strong injunctions which He issued against it. “ Neither let 74 ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE . there be found amongst you any one that consulteth soothsayers, or observeth dreams and omens : neither let there be any wizard, nor charmer, nor any one that consulteth pythonic spirits, or fortune-tellers, or that seeheth the truth from the dead” (Deut. xviii. 10, 11.) I The proud Spirit of Evil seems to have supplanted God through far the greater portion of the earth. His worship, public and private, filled the world. He thus made himself in dreadful reality the “ prince of this world,” and his wish ever is to be acknow¬ ledged as such— i.e. worshipped. “ All these things will I give Thee if Thou wilt fall down and adore me.” This he said to the “ Stronger than he ” who took away his spoils. It will be very important, in pursuit of this subject, to consider the phenomena of ancient spiritism, and the means which those who practised it had recourse to; as we shall be thus helped to form our judgment upon the phenomena and causality of the spiritism of our own times. I shall use as my authorities the Platonists of Alex¬ andria—chiefly Proclus, Porphyry, and Jamblichus. The name of the latter I shall most frequently men¬ tion, and most frequently quote his words as con¬ taining the doctrine of the others ; I shall also use passim the authority of Psellus, a Greek monk of the tenth century, who had made himself well versed in these mysteries. The only form in which I possess their works is the Latin translation of Mar- silius Ficinus; I therefore quote from it. But, before I mention the phenomena which ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITISM. 75 frequently resulted, according to these ancient testi¬ monies, from consulting those spirits and subjecting oneself to their will, I will remark in reference to what we may call their ritual, how orderly, and with what care, men are exhorted to proceed in the pre¬ liminaries of the operation, and in an exact observ¬ ance of the ceremonies, lest very different effects from those which were sought for should ensue. A breach of the ancient rubric, Jamblichus informs us (p. 45, De Mysteriis) might result in the apparition of a dif¬ ferent spirit from the one we want. “ Tunc non bona quidem numina quae optantur, sed deteriora malaque nobis occurrunt.’ , And the priests are exhorted to ex¬ amine the apparitions of the spirits “ by the rule of the established course and order,” and to beware “not to deflect in the least from the sacred rite.” “ Oportet sacerdotes apparitiones spirituum regula ordinis totius examinare et cavere ne a ritu sacrorum aberretur unquam,”—“For it is unlawful and rash to change, in consequence of some incidental circumstance suddenly occurring, what has for long ages, and with much painful labour, been approved of in the celebra¬ tion of sacred things.” I think it will appear somewhat significant to the anxious observer of modern spirit-superstition, and of those manifestations of occult powers, the natural causes of which, the operators themselves tell you are completely hidden from them—for M. Deleuze himself admits that the action of this unknown agent differs from that of all known bodies, and cannot he explained by any of the properties of matter (Deleuze, 7 6 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE . L’Hermes, yoL ii., p. 176)—I think, I say, it will appear very significant that many of the phenomena described by Jamblichus, Porphyry, Proclus, and others who have written apparently experti upon these ancient Theurgies, and who formed a school for the purpose of reanimating their decrepit and waning idolatries, and of having ecstasies, visions, and other mystical wonders on their own side, as a set-off against the miracles of Christ, endeavouring thus to arrest the rapid, and to them fatal, progress of Christianity, and of the character of whose spirits and supernatural agents we can therefore have no doubt,—I say, it is very signi¬ ficant to us to know that the effects produced and the means employed by those ancient demonologists were analogous (and sometimes almost identical) with those of the practitioners of our day. Such, for instance, were those vaticinations which were generally uttered in that kind of sleep which I cannot help thinking was the magnetic trance of our modern “ sensitive.” It is evident they were familiar with a somnambulism of their own. This state might take place in sleep, or between sleeping and waking, or even in moments of wakefulness. Almost all the external senses appear to have been closed up; and an internal sense awakened which enabled the soul to perceive with wonderful vividness what was presented to it by the angel, or demon. For Porphyry held vaticinations uttered in this state to proceed from evil spirits. Jamblichus, his former pupil, and ultimately his rival, was strong in up¬ holding that they were divine. “ Vaticinium ipsum ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITISM . 77 ab arte, nec a natura, nec a naturalibus, vel anima- libus rationibus, motibusve, efficitur: neque fit ullo modo, sed ubrinque sempiternum est missnrn ad nos usque divinitus; totaque potestas prsesaga refertur ad deos.” (p. 50.) He considers the prophetic power to come from the gods ; to be derived from them to those who prophesy; and to be brought into action “ by divine operations and signs.” It enables men to have divine visions (spectacula divina) and contem¬ plations, which contemplations are themselves im¬ bued with science. We are not to look for the source and origin of this vaticinium in things which in themselves possess no prescience, but only in the gods who contain within themselves the limits of all knowledge. This prophetic faculty (potestas prae- saga) is diffused and circumfused throughout the whole world, and through all the separate natures that exist in the world. When a man, who has received this divinely-sent gift (misso divinitus praasagii dono), and when he is thrown into this state, which (whatever it may mean) let us call the magnetic sleep [the state of our‘mediums], all other things whatsoever which pertain to his mind or body are subject to him as his instruments. Voices will be heard by him conveying admonitions as to what ought to be done. Sometimes a certain spirit, having nothing in common with corporeal essences, and which cannot be touched with the hands, will diffuse itself among the things that lie around, with¬ out, however, being perceived. In some sense, never¬ theless, it will be perceived (in that kind of way, 78 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. for instance, in which a person feels conscious of the act of yielding his consent to anything), in this way it will be perceived coming in with a kind of rush; when, spreading itself around on every side, it will in a marvellous way, and without perceptible con¬ tact, do away with the passions and affections of the mind and body. Sometimes, likewise, a light will shine clear and calm, at the sight of which the soul, which before lay open to all the experiences of common life (anima patens), will close. Other senses meanwhile are wide awake, and feel the presence of the gods who show themselves within that light, and listen with undivided attention to what is addressed to them. All these things, we are told, are divine. The very dispositions of the body which sometimes precede this sleep, (gravedo qusedam capitis, vel inclinatio, et occupatio visus), are spoken of as being a fitting preparation for the reception of the gods. “Quae omnia divina sunt ad deos suscipiendos idonea.” (p. 52.) In the same chapter we are informed that the soul has two lives. The one is common to it with the body; the other is separable from the body. In our waking hours we chiefly make use of the life which we have in common with the body; except in moments of deep abstraction, when our life is as it were an act of pure thought. But in sleep our souls may unfetter themselves from the bonds of this lower life, when the superior, he it intellectual or divine, suddenly awakes within us and begins to act accord¬ ing to its own nature. Thus it obtains a prevision ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITISM. 79 of those things which it sees lying in their pre¬ existing causes. “ Futura in prsecedentibus sui rationibus ordinata prsenoscit.” (p. 54.) If, furthermore, the mind, thus set free, becomes united to the very minds of the gods, it will not only see things which appertain to this inferior world, but others also which belong to another and a higher one. The imagination also will have pure and clear images of things both earthly and divine. Being now joined to the gods, upon whom all causes depend, it will have a most ample measure of knowledge by which it can take cognizance of past and future, and of all temporal things, of their actions and passions, of the remedies for those passions, of the curing of diseases, and of the arts necessary for mankind. “ Thus in the temple of iEsculapius dreams are dreamt in which diseases are cured, and in which the whole art of healing is acquired.” (p. 55.) We are told in the next section that a man in this state has no action properly his own, but that the numen itself becomes as it were his soul. Porphyry thought there were two kinds of divine afflatus,—one which ordinarily took place in sleep ; another in wakefulness. In this latter state those who were afflati et perciti presaged future events, and yet were so truly awake as to make use of their senses, without, however, having command of their reason at the time. Jamblichus, on the contrary, held that those souls which were really in a state of clairvoy¬ ance (animos vere presagientes afflatosque) when they appeared to be asleep were not really asleep, and So ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE . when seemingly awake were not really so ; nor did they use their senses after the manner of other men, hut that they had subjected their lives absolutely (penitus) to the god who breathed the afflatus. Whether, therefore, they became a kind of vehicle to the god, or his instrument in working his operations, they laid aside their former mode of life, and either changed that which was proper to them for one which was divine, or directed all their life energies to effect¬ ing contact with the god (vel vitam suam penitus ad deum agunt). “ Therefore,” he continues, “ they do not make use of their senses, for they have no waking senses, nor do they themselves presage the future, they are not moved by any mere human impetus, nor act in a human manner, nor are cognizant of their present condition, nor give any sign of being conscious of it, nor perform any action which is properly their own, hut every act which is done in this state is a divine act.” (p. 56.) And (at page 61) we are taught that “ it is the supernatural principle which acts, not man’s natural powers, whether in predicting the future, or in effecting any works which are above the ordinary course of nature : for man’s power cannot pass over its own limits into a superior sphere—the sphere of the gods, any more than higher effects can he produced by inferior and inadequate agencies. A supernatural principle alone , therefore, is the cause in these effects.” This is what Jamblichus persistently maintains against Porphyry, who thinks that the powers of nature [ i.e ., I suppose we may venture to call them in more modern language, the magnetism ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITISM. 81 of the human frame—its nervous power—or, to use a word which Reichenbach has invented, the Odic influence,] that the powers of nature acted upon by supernatural beings (good or bad), and thrown into a mysterious and abnormal state, may he adequate to the production of such effects. But both are agreed in describing these things as part of that spirit-wor¬ ship which, with the one exception of the Jewish people and of the Church of Christ, was the esta¬ blished religion of the world. And this is the impor¬ tant thing for us to ascertain; for God has given us the character of this religion in these words, “ Omnes dii gentium daemonia.” To prove that these afflciti do not live with their common life, we are told, that “if fire is applied to them they are not burnt.” Just as we read in the accounts of operations performed nearer home of som¬ nambulists having had their eyelashes burnt off with¬ out winking, and being dead to all external sense. M, Bertrand says: “At least one-half of the somnambu¬ lists who have fallen under my personal observation were completely deprived of all sense of feeling. I have seen a practitioner in the presence of a numerous company engage each person present to take a pin and force it into the body of the somnambulist. The patient was singing, and during the successive in¬ sertion of from forty to fifty pins, which were left sticking in different parts of the body, not the slightest change of voice was perceptible.” (Du Magnetisme Animal en France.) Jamblichus, therefore, as I was saying, brings forward this identical anaesthesia as a 6 82 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. characteristic of the ancient supernatural sleep. “ If fire be applied to them, they are not burnt, for the inspiring god within them repels the fire (ignem videlicet repellente deo intus inflante) ; or, if they are burnt, they do not feel it; neither do they perceive the pain of any punctures, or violent abrasions of the skin, or any torments inflicted on them.” We see that these learned Alexandrians, so minutely versed in the old demonologies, are telling us nothing new. There is nothing in all they say with which our modern experts in these arts have not already made us very familiar. These ancient doctors tell us further how clear it is that the actions of people in this state are not human, because they can go to a distance through • • impervious ways, pass through fire untouched, and cross rivers in a wonderful manner. Hence it is evident they do not live a human or animal life which always employs those senses, and movements which are proper to it, but a divine life ; as if their soul were at rest, and the god himself were for the time in place of their soul, “ moving them as with a more excellent soul.” Whilst we read, we cannot help thinking we are engaged with the report of some modern seance. For \se learn the following. According to certain differ¬ ences in the kind of inspirations received, and in the spirits who effect these inspirations, there are diver¬ sities in the phenomena produced. Some will be agitated throughout the entire of their bodies ; some only in certain of their members ; or contrariwise they will remain j)erfectly quiescent. Some will break ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITISM. 83 forth into music, and sing well-measured and justly composed songs (cantilenas concinnas agunt). Again, “ their bodies will appear to increase in height, or in amplitude, or be carried aloft through the air. They will also utter voices either unbroken and continuous, or unequal and interrupted, by intervals of silence, now depressing the tone, now raising it.” We are familiar with the wonderful accounts which magne- tizers of our own day give of somnambulists speaking strangely about recondite things, and expressing themselves well in languages unfamiliar to them, and performing operations which they never could have accomplished in their waking hours. These are some of the things which the Roman Ritual (Tit. De exorcis- andis obsessis) points out to the exorcist as criteria by which he is to judge whether it is a real case of obsession or not, e.g ., to speak many consecutive words of an unknown language, or to understand them when spoken by others, to discover things distant or hidden, to show strength above one’s age or condition. St. Jerome mentions the instance of one man, who was a demoniac, speaking Syriac easily and rapidly,' and with perfect accent and pronuncia¬ tion, although the only languages which he knew in his natural condition were the Frankish dialect and a barbarous kind of Latin (in Vita Sti. Hilarionis). Now to the readers of these ancient theologies nothing is commoner. They are also continually recurring in modern exhibitions of clairvoyance and somnambulism. For the use of magnetized water you have the corre¬ sponding use of the water which in some ancient 84 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. oracles was the prescribed medium through which the spirit passed into the body of the priestess and pro¬ duced all the effects of clairvoyance. At Colophon the priest of Apollo drank the sacred water, and so imbibed the divine influence. The Branchidian priestesses in giving their oracular responses inhaled the vapour of the prepared water until they were replete with the god. A few years ago the operators in animal magnetism made great use of their magne¬ tized water. The Rev. T. Pyne, a magnetizer, says in his little hook (Vital Magnetism, 1849), “Waters breathed upon, or with passes made over it, may at times he sent to a distance, and will sensibly increase the activity of the force.” I am not now examining the causes which produce these effects, but only endeavouring to show that, as there is, if not an iden¬ tity, at least a striking analogy between the results of ancient idolatrous mysteries and those of our modern experimentalists, so there is also a similarity more or less remote in the modus o'perandi in both cases. Deleuze himself, who will not believe that there is anything supernatural in it, says the phenomena of animal magnetism are analogous to a vast number of those which in ancient times were generally attributed to supernatural agency. (Hist. Crit. du Magn. Animal. Pt. II. Sec. 4, c. 11.) He says that the first pre¬ liminary condition (a condition sine quel non ) is the consent of the will,—a perfect submission, at least implicit, of the patient to the operator. If he opposes any resistance to the operation, it is without effect. But this relates only to the initiatory proceeding. ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITISM. 85 Once subjected to the power of the operator, all resistance is vain. (See an article in Dub. Bev. No. X. Oct. 1838, p. 418.) We have seen above from the teaching of Alexandria how the subject became utterly and universally passive under the influence of the spirit that wrought in him—how he laid aside his natural life, and how this spiritual agency became as it were his soul—how the man yearned after possess¬ ing the god, and strove with all the intensity of his soul for utter absorption into him, submitting himself unresistingly to the dominion of that extraneous will. And this, as it seems to me, is one of the most unjusti¬ fiable and audacious things on the part both of patient and agent which we have to contemplate in these cases. All that I would strongly contend for is, that men should sincerely repudiate all wish to have communi¬ cation with any spirits except God, His Saints, and Angels, and that they should shrink with horror from giving their will to one whose relations with the unseen world are, at the least, so very doubtful, and whose power seems to be sovereign over them, as they themselves feel, and as their masters are proud to know, when once they have shown themselves willing in this worship (“ willing in the service of angels,” i.e. of demons). There seems to be, in the men who practise these arts upon others, a great lack of the true scientific temper. They seem not to be sober, reverent, dubious, like so many other great benefactors of mankind, who, whilst exploring the field of nature, 86 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. have enlarged the boundaries of that physical know¬ ledge which has served so well for the use or the ornament of life. It is not the use of those powers of nature, how¬ ever mysterious, which, though once occult, are now recognized as having just claims to their place in natural science, which makes the Christian mind reclaim and disapprove, or at least hesitate. It is the abuse of this knowledge to purposes other than the exploration and the development of physical phenomena, as such. For the wonderful results which are continually rewarding the labours of inves¬ tigators are not only interesting in themselves, but form part of our most valued treasures,, fairly appro¬ priated as a lawful prize to the uses of man. So far from this being contrary to the Divine will, it is rather in accordance with it. For “ He made all things good in their time, and delivered the world to man’s consideration,” (Eccles. iii. 11) although we are immediately told that, strive as he may, “ he cannot find out the work which God hath made from beginning to end.” (Ibid.) I cannot refrain from quoting in this connexion the words of Father Kircher (clarum et venerahile nomen) in his elaborate work upon Magnetism (Coloniae Agripp. 1643, quarto):— “I can scarcely express how much those narrow¬ minded philosophers move my bile, who, when they meet with certain effects which seem to fall out of the usual order, suddenly fly for refuge to Nature’s ‘ occult qualities,’—that asylum of their own ignor- ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITISM ,. 87 anee, of which they ought to be ashamed ; and that no further or more special cause ought to be inquired into ; that here Nature has prescribed to the human mind its limits ; that it is vain to inquire into that which she has preferred to conceal from us. This ignorance of theirs shows they have made very little progress in philosophy. It has the effect likewise of deterring high and generous minds from the praise¬ worthy purpose of investigating the truth. For my part, when I contemplate this theatre of the world, furnished so variously and almost so infinitely, I find no effect so marvellous, no productive force so hidden, but that a diligent and sagacious mind can assign some cause for it, if not certain and evident, at least probable and likely.” (De Arte Magnetica, 1. 3 ; Mundi Magnetismus, Prol. i., p. 467.) In this ela¬ borate work he shows how this subtle, inexhaustible, and interpenetrating principle pervades all nature from the highest beings to the lowest, and permeates every particle, even the smallest, of organic and inorganic matter; that it is the binding and sustain¬ ing power of the universe, embracing as in a great elemental ocean all things visible and invisible ; the source which supplies all nervous power, and all vital energy; to which it seems we are to refer the activity of our energies and faculties, our fancy, imagination, affections, all our sympathetica] and antipathetical feelings. Whatever is said by Beich- enbach of the all-pervasive, ever-active, elemental principle, which he calls by a word of his own inven¬ tion the o-dic force , deriving its name from Odin, 88 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. who, in Scandinavian mythology, represents the primary elemental power. All that is said by Heich- enbach of this Odic force, is said by Father Kircher of this great magnetic ocean. He gives two long chapters to what he calls “ magnetismus imaginati- onis, ’ ’ and three to “ magnetismus animi,’ ’ ending with a sublime epilogue which he does not hesitate to call “ magnes epilogus ”—id est , “ Deus opt. max. totius Naturae magnes.” He elsewhere calls him the Central Magnet of the Universe; and the last words of his hook are, “ Ipse enim sola et unica animae nostrae quies, centrum, magnes.” He many times mentions cases in which this knowledge of magnetism has been abused to superstitious purposes; how in particular cases (if they truly happened, as has been alleged) there would have intervened an express or implied compact with evil spirits (p. 683). He mentions in his Magnetismus Imaginationis how Avicenna (who lived so far hack as the eleventh century), and his followers and others, entertained the notion (so common with many in our days), that a man’s interior powers could work with such energy as not only to enable him to establish a great command over the body, hut even to move, change, and modify material objects, ex¬ ternal to himself, without the action of any bodily organ intervening. This, however, they confessed was not common to all, but only peculiar to certain ones who were distinguished for their strength of mind. These, they affirmed, when they vehemently willed anything, and when the subject they were operating upon was not repugnant, could effect what- ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITISM. soever they willed. But this was the more easily and efficaciously effected in proportion as those three conditions were realized and simultaneously present— viz., force and superiority of soul, the energizing of a strong imagination, and a willing subject. The marvellous effects resulting from this combination were recovery from incurable disease by the simple touch—a power to make serpents come from their hiding-places — the sudden consciousness of things absent and future, etc. All these effects they thought were produced in consequence of certain rays vibrating from the soul of the operator, and impinging upon objects however distant. This is the exact counterpart of the superstition we have to oppose at present. Well may Father Kircher call it a philosophy evoked from the lower pit. Our learned writers and divines know as much of the constitution of human nature as modern spiritual¬ ists ; hut they also know (what the others seem to ignore), that the best gifts may he fatally abused. Corruptio optimi, pessima. Let them read Gravina, Bona, or Benedict XIV., and they will soon see, and if fair acknowledge, the largeness of view, the sober¬ ness and judicial character of mind which the prelates and doctors of the Church have shown in their treat¬ ment of mystical cases, raptures, prophecies, ecsta¬ sies, and other such like operations, how nicely they balance the facts before them, how impartially and learnedly they apply those severe tests which have been wisely instituted by the Church authorities for 9 o ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITER A TURE. judging whether the case is to be referred to a natural, a diabolical, or a divine source. These gentlemen must not suppose that because magnetism is acknowledged to be a mighty power in nature, and because its reach, and the extent of its applicability, is confessed to be not yet, per¬ haps, accurately ascertained, the cause therefore is finished, and the verdict given in their favour, and that, therefore, they may still go on pushing them¬ selves into a sphere where they have no right to tread, and from which God has warned them away. The recognition of magnetism as an all-diffused element in nature, and the study of the subject by competent men, like Kircher (would that all were such !) in the hope and expectation that further knowledge of this mysterious force may perhaps lead to its being used in certain cases as the curative agent, will not justify people, who in many cases are amateurs and itinerants, in recklessly practising this dangerous empiricism, and playing their fantastic tricks against God’s prohibition, persisting in “ asking the truth from the dead”—pretending to establish an absolute supremacy of their own will over those of their helpless patients—engaging them first, for good and all, to subject themselves wholly to the master- ivill of him whom they constitute the lord of their life, being willing that he should sway their souls hither and thither like God, as if their souls were vapour, moved by his breath, and this without a word or a sign from him but by a silent act of his volition (of which he alone is conscious) made to act upon ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITISM. 9i his subject through the intervening space of many miles. So far from feeling humble, and realizing the pain¬ ful responsibility of possessing such a power, real or fancied, they make it their glory and their boast, speak of it flippantly, and use it for the most trifling purposes. If it is true, it is the most tremendous power ever given to one man over another (onus angelicis etiam humeris formidandum). They may be honourable men, and their practices may not have been followed by immoral results ; but this does not hinder the relation willingly entered upon between the helpless patient and her mystical practitioner, from being essentially immoral and unblessed by God, who alone has a right to the sovereignty of the human will. Ashburner says of people in this state : “ A man may be quite conscious, and he unable to exercise will; or the organs of the brain, influenced by a force analogous to the magnetic power, may be placed in a condition such that the individual is un¬ able to act except at the bidding of another.” (Note to his translation of Reichenbach’s Researches in Magnetism, p. 46.) This same Dr. Ashburner, in a book of his own on “ Animal Magnetism and Spiritual¬ ism,” asserts once and again this power of the mag- netizers to make their sleepers “perform acts to which they are urged by the silent power of our will” (p. 293). “Many a time,” he tells us, “have I made persons travel considerable distances when desired to do so by the force of my silent will. Many a time have I in public carriages, obliged persons I never 92 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. saw before in my life, to place their hands in mine, or to take hold of my shoulders, or my elbow, or my knee; of course, not being aware of the cause which influenced them, they have either looked uncommonly awkward, or have sometimes fallen asleep, under the powerful attractive agency of the force.” (p. 137.) A very remarkable passage occurs at p. 293, which seems to me suggestive of sad and painful thoughts touching the morality of these scenes and practices. In quoting it, I shall suppress a word or two which I should be unwilling to read. The author is speaking of a certain friend of his, endowed with an unusual amount of this power over the will. He says, “ A very remarkable instance of the exertion of this power by my friend occurred some years ago, one morning, at my house in Gros- venor Street. Ten persons were present, and Mr. Thompson (that was the name of his friend) called to know if I had any interesting phenomena for his observation. Two of the party were very sensitive and impressionable : the one a lady who had often been made to sleep by will, the other a well-known musician, a man of acknowledged genius and of great reputation, who had been three or four times made to sleep heavily and deeply by my will. Mr. Thompson looked for a minute in the direction of Mrs. H-, who was seated on one of the ten chairs placed against the wall of my dining-room. She fell asleep. Then he looked at Mr. I. B. C., who was seated on a chair in the recess of a window. The worthy gentle¬ man thought that I was mesmerizing by my will, and ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITISM. 93 exclaimed, ‘Pray do not lift me np, Mr. Ashburner. I know you must be mesmerizing me, for I feel my¬ self going into tbe air.’ Tbe next minute he was asleep. He was allowed to sleep for a few minutes. Then my friend, Mr. Thompson, willed him to become awake, while he was fixed to his chair, with the absence of all power to move himself from the position he occupied. He said it was strange he could not get up. ‘ I am positively fixed to this chair ; I cannot move myself from it.’ In another minute he said, ‘ It is very strange, there were several persons in this room, I see now but Mr. Thompson.’ Then sud¬ denly he saw Mrs. H-, who had walked in her sleep from her chair, round the chair on which Mr. Thompson sat, at the bottom of the dining-room table, to the chair occupied by Mr. I. B. C., but remaining at a distance from it, sufficient to be out of the reach of his hands, when they were stretched out towards her. Mr. Thompson then commenced a set of experiments, by playing with his will on the phrenological organs of my susceptible and sensitive man of genius. Our friend was greatly influenced. He apostrophized the sleeping lady, who stood like a statue before him.” (Here follows an effusion of passionate utterances on the part of the man of the usual amatory kind.) The author continues, “Then, as if struck by remorse, for Mr. Thompson had directed his will to organs pro¬ ductive of conscientious feelings, he said, £ 0, wretch that I am ! What would my wife say if she were here ?’ and he held his hands pressed against his 94 ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. temples in an agony of remorse. The next minute found him again impenitent. ‘ What care I for my wife?’” (Then a repetition of the same kind of precious stuff as before.) Ashburner continues : “ In vain he endeavoured to reach the lady, for he was fixed to his chair. Mr. Thompson, to show his power over the organs of this sensitive brain, caused the whole scene to he re-enacted, and then released the automaton lady from her sleep, and the man of genius from his hallucinations.” Now, supposing this to be all true, was it from God or from the devil ? To me it is simply horrible. But hear the commentary which the author makes upon it:—“ Will any men of thought venture to say that the phenomena which have now been detailed are not worthy of deep study ? Here is a man, en¬ dowed or gifted with an extraordinary power of clear will, able to influence the phrenological organs of his neighbour, so as to excite his amorous feelings, and cause him to suspend his sense of moral duty; and the next minute lead him, by exerting spiritual force on the organs of conscientiousness, to produce remorse and melancholy; and the philosophic world of science is to gape and wonder, or to deny boldly and flatly truths as sacred as any that God has ever poured out to man’s cognizance. The tale I have told is full of instruction ; it tells us that man can make his neighbour dream at his will, for the whole was a dream forced on the soul of the man of musical genius, and in his dream the victim of my wilful friend was obliged to obey the impulses which governed him.” But the responsi- ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITISM. 95 bility of this guilty dream lay both with the willing dreamers and the man who made them dream. The devil has always striven hard to get men to yield to him the dominion of their will; and our magnetizers and spiritualistic operators tell you they can do nothing unless you make your will over to them; hut if you do that, then they can do almost anything. This is so fearful that I cannot but think it one of the worst parts of these revived mysteries. And when I hear such things, I cannot but whisper to myself the little indulgenced prayer,—“ Fiat, lau- detur, atque in seternum superexaltetur, justissima, altissima, et amahilissima voluntas Dei in omnibus.” These men are just as much at their ease in re¬ counting their experience in the matter of direct communication with the spirits of the dead, the apparition of their hands, etc. “ One evening,” says Dr. Ashburner, “ in my dining-room, a hand, as pal¬ pable as my own hand, appeared a little above the table, and soon rested gently upon the thumb and four fingers on the surface of it. Several persons were seated round the table. Mr. Foster addressing me, said, the person to whom that hand belongs is a friend of yours. He calls himself Sir Astley Cooper, and wishes me to tell you, that certain spirits have the power, by the force of their will, of creating, from elements of organic matter in the atmosphere, fac¬ similes of the hands they possessed on earth. Shortly afterwards the hand melted into air.” (p. 323.) We have other apparitions of hands. He once had two friends at his dinner-table. One of them changed his 96 ESS A VS ON RELIGION AND LITER A TURE. place and forgot to take his napkin with him. “ Imme¬ diately a hand, apparently as real as the hand of any one of us, appeared, and lifted the napkin into the air gently and gracefully, and then dropped it carefully on the table.” He assures us that on this occasion one-half of the table separated from the other and sloped at an angle of about 45 degrees, without break¬ ing or disturbing the moderator lamp or the glasses and decanters. I continue in the writer’s very words : “ The servant who was waiting upon us stared, and, lifting up both arms, exclaimed, 1 La! well, I never!’ and the next minute he cried out, ‘ Do, do look at the pictures!’ which with their ten heavy frames had appeared to strive how far they could quit the wall, and endeavour to reach the dinner-table.” Now, if this is meant for fun, what poor stuff it is ! If it is true, how horrible! “ The appearance of hands was by no means an unusual phenomenon. One evening I witnessed the presence of nine hands floating over the table.” (p. 324.) You hear how they talk about it. It seems to he great amusement to them. They enjoy the gratifi¬ cation of an unworthy and irreverent curiosity in witnessing things which are to them, it seems, mere tricks and feats actually played by spirits and de¬ parted souls, indifferent as to whether they be blessed or damned—angels or demons. For we have the author himself confessing his belief that evil spirits are sometimes engaged in these operations. See a case at p. 326. And farther on he asks, “ Why should we doubt of the existence of invisible beings in the air ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITISM. 97 who are constantly engaged in works of good or evil But who is to discern between these spirits ? What tests have these gentlemen to apply for the ascertain¬ ment of their true character ? For they must con¬ fess that many of them come in most questionable shape, leaving them in dreadful doubt what, and from whence, are the gifts they bring,—inspirations from the Spirit of God, or vapours from the abode of the damned ? Yet they care for none of these things. The mere cautious and reverent mention of a possible Satanic agency makes them either turn angrily away from you, or look at you with great compassion. And yet knowing from God what we do know of the spirit Satan, and of his associate apostates—of the great¬ ness of their natural (to us supernatural) knowledge and power, which they still retain as belonging to their being, and in which they may as far transcend us, the lowest order of intellectual essences, as we transcend the lowest order of living things—of their subtlety and seductiveness (having been tempters and soul murderers from the beginning, and learning from St. Peter that they are so still, “ seeking whom they may devour”)—of their incessant efforts to pass them¬ selves off for what they are not, spirits of benevolence and beneficence, (whereas they are pure intelligent malice)—of their putting on the appearance of angels of glory and light, of which they are utterly shorn for all eternity—always working for an evil purpose, even when they exhibit a simulated goodness, and appear in the person of Christ and show themselves as God, which they have often done to Catholic saints, and pagan 7 98 ESS A VS ON RELIGION AND LITER A TURE. sages, and heretical seducers—always evil and not able to die —knowing, I say, what God has told us com cerning them, we cannot hut shrink aghast from every work on which they have put their mark. The Scrip¬ tures give consecutive testimony to their ceaseless efforts to fascinate and destroy souls. Both inspired and uninspired history tell how they filled the whole world from the beginning with ghastly idolatries, both in the way of imposing temple-worship, and more familiar and domestic worship, and how, once be¬ ginning, they never ceased, hut carried the same things on—perhaps with modifications—through all the dispensations, Patriarchal, Levitical, Christian. A man therefore must he demented to think that the devil has either ceased to be, or ceased to work. “ He worketh yet; ” and makes use of a widespread spirit of revolt, and of an insatiable craving for “ lying wonders” to bring in gradually, and with due circumspection, (and particularly by the formation and stealthy advance of a perverted public opinion) the times of the future Antichrist, whose coming will he “ according to the working of Satan, in all power, and signs, and lying wonders” (2 Thess. ii. 9) ; and whose reign will be the most trying manifestation of Satanic fascination and power. This fascination is at work now. Is it not sadden¬ ing to hear men of sense and good feeling, smitten with a weakness for this superstition (for your strong-minded sceptic is the weakest of men), under¬ take to justify it by alleging the exalted state of soul to which they are transported, and the blissful ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITISM. 99 experiences they feel, by communicating thus with the invisible world ?—the peace and serene pleasure they enjoy in being again allowed to hold intercourse with their dear departed ones, from whom they thought they had been for ever separated as to this world ? They receive answers to their questions on divine things ; and they say they get consolation in their griefs, direction in their perplexities, and many tokens of spirit-love; and they ask you, how these blessings can be ministered to them by unholy spirits ? How can Satan be the giver of such good gifts ? Do they not believe then that he transforms himself into an angel of light ? that he is cunning and crafty ? that he has ever found it his most successful policy to soothe and flatter, and to help men to the object of their selfish and earth-born, hut, as it appears to them, blameless aspirations ? From him many a time has come to nations victory, glory, temporal prosperity, and power; and to indi¬ viduals health, riches, social distinction, and domestic blessings. David saw it, but he was not staggered. “ Dex- tera eorum dextera iniquitatis; quorum filii sicut novelise plantationes in juventute sua; filise eorum compositse, circumornatse ut similitudo templi; promptuaria eorum plena eructantia ex hoc in illud; oves eorum foetosae, ahundantes in egressibus suis; boves eorum crassse ; non est ruina macerise, neque clamor in plateis eorum.” And he concludes with quoting the popular cry, “ Blessed is that people who have these things;” but for himself he subjoins, No, IOO ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITERA TURE. “ blessed is that people whose God is the Lord.” (Psalm cxliii.) Our enemy, though ever apparently variable, is ever in reality the same, whether deluding men on a large scale or small. Man is his one coveted prey, and he can abuse our natural powers, many of them deeply hidden from our own ken, to the overmaster¬ ing of too willing minds. He works then, as upon individuals, so upon multitudes, producing public manias and fanatical movements. Who can doubt of Satan being the great master-spirit of the Maho¬ metan power, as he had previously been of the various nations of the Gentiles ? Who cannot re¬ cognize his work in the march of fanaticism or revolt against authority which we so frequently witness while travelling along the path of Church History ? In the fourteenth century immense multitudes sud¬ denly, and almost at the same moment and in widely different localities, seemed to go mad. They were called the dancing maniacs. What the phy¬ sical cause of their disorder was, I cannot pretend to say; hut I can easily conceive the spirit of evil play¬ ing maliciously upon their physique, and producing not only the derangement of their minds,- hut in numberless instances the ruin of their souls. We are told by Hecker (translated and condensed in Chambers ’ Journal ),—“ The persons affected by it danced together in circles in churches and the open streets. While they danced in wild figures, they appeared mapped in internal visions, shrieking out the names of spirits whom they declared they ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITISM. IOI beheld before them, and looking towards the heavens, which they represented as open to their gifted sight.” I am borne out pretty well in thinking that evil spirits had much to do with them, for wherever they went they showed themselves a profane rout, displaying a special spite and hatred against the clergy. Hecker continues, “ They wandered in bands through the country towns and villages, taking possession, wherever they went, of the reli¬ gious houses, with a view to annoy the clergy, against whom their revilings were particularly directed. . . . Children quitted their parents, servants their masters, mechanics their workshops, and housewives their domestic duties, to partake in the disorder. . . , The fury of some was so great, that they would dash their brains out against the walls and corners of buildings, or rush headlong into rapid rivers, where they were drowned. Roaring and foaming as they were, the bystanders could only succeed in restraining them by placing benches and chairs in their way, so that, by taking high leaps, their strength might be sooner exhausted. Many, after wearying themselves out, would revive in a certain time, and join once more the frantic revel.” These scenes were witnessed in many countries at the same time, and occasionally broke out during the long space of a century and more. I myself as a good Catholic (and consequently, as my Protestant friend would say, a partizan and a bigot) believe that the origin of this is partly physical, partly Satanic— as I also believe of analogous affections and fanaticisms —of modern revivals, with their foamings and frantic 102 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. convulsions—of the Cathari of the 13th century,—of modern revolutionists, hating and blaspheming all sacred things,—a gregarious multitude led on, it would appear, by one great or many homogeneous spirits, and obedient to any mot d'ordre of their chiefs, what¬ ever it may be.—None but the devil can have been the inspirer of such blasphemies as we have lately heard in revolutionary Spain and Italy, and in the philosophic schools of France. I believe this also of the spurious mystics of the 15th century in Germany— of the wild mystical extravagances of the Munster Anabaptists and Fifth Monarchy-men—of the illumi¬ nations and inward stirrings of the early Puritans, whether of England or Scotland,—of the Jansenistic convulsionnaires —of the leaders and followers of the French Revolution—and also (for I must say it) of many of the wonders wrought by certain magnetizers and experimentalists in spiritism. Bring them to the tests of our only spiritual guide, the Church. None of them can stand the touch of that divine Lapis Lydius . And if I find myself rejecting num¬ bers of so-called mystical operations which take place in the Church, and in the persons of humble and holy members of the Church,—nay, even of saints,—be¬ cause by the Church’s criterion they are pronounced to be not divine but diabolic, what shall entitle these gentlemen to forbid me from thinking that these operations are at least of very sinister augury ? But they say we want you to regard these things (at least those that lie apart from spirit intercourse and which form another category) as natural phenomena, pro- ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITISM. 103 duced by powers lying in nature, but not yet ade¬ quately explored. Well, there is nothing to hinder you making a conscientious and reverent exploration of these secret springs and powders of nature. Do this in the temper and with the capabilities of Kircher, and no one will grudge you the purely scientific advances you may make. But what the Church cannot applaud you for, is that you mix together tw T o spheres essentially different, the super¬ natural and the natural, and pretend to produce purely spiritual effects—prophecy—the discovery of unknown things—the reading of other men’s secret thoughts— the ability to speak unknown languages, by purely natural means—the passes of your hand—the gazing of your eye—and even the unmanifested act of your own will. There is no proportion between the means employed and the effects produced. Concerning this the Bishop of Poitiers, Mgr. Pie, speaks thus to the clergy of the diocese : “ You will remark, gentle¬ men, that this new decree (one which emanated from the Congregation of the Holy Office in July, 1856,) does not condemn, any more than the preceding ones did, the use of magnetism in itself, nor its employment for medicinal purposes, when prudence and decorum are carefully observed. But it repeats what the decree of July, 1854, had already said, that ‘the application of principles and means which are simply physical to objects and effects really super¬ natural, for the purpose of explaining them physically, is but a mere deceit to be absolutely condemned, and an heretical practice.’ The decree proceeds to con- 104 ESS A VS ON RELIGION AND LIT ERA TURE. demn the pretensions which certain persons make (to the great detriment of their own souls and the prejudice of society) to having found out a means of predicting and divining , and to having arrived at the power of see¬ ing the most invisible things by what they call clear intuition .” It speaks severely “ of the vast boldness with which these persons proceed to treat of the things of religion, to evoke the dead, to receive their replies, to discover things unknown and distant, and give themselves up to other superstitions of the same kind.” But we scarcely require such solemn and judicial decisions as these, nor the application of the tests of the Church. For these exhibitions themselves suggest to the unsophisticated Christian mind thoughts, doubts, and convictions which may be fearlessly taken by men of conscience as a sure criterion whereby to judge “ whether these spirits be of God.” We have had frequent accounts (quite as authentic as the accounts of the operations them¬ selves) of the attempts to succeed being quite defeated, to the great confusion of the spirits, by some little Catholic practice being performed, or by the sudden application of some holy sign or blest object—even as of old the simple sign of the Cross was enough to break idols and dissolve spells—a very curious scene, at the same time very suggestive of the devil’s craft in endeavouring to turn the tables (as they say) on Popes and Saints (for when the spirit exhibition was not succeeding in a way that was considered desirable, it was solemnly announced to the disappointed ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITISM. 105 audience that the soul of St. Gregory VII. was the spirit that was spoiling all), therefore, I say, it is not only a curious story, hut also very suggestive. There was a meeting of what is called “The Glasgow Association of Spiritualists” held, last year, in that city. The company, which included many friends, numbered about 200.—The Chairman (Mr. J. Marshall) in his opening remarks, congratulated the members that seeds of spiritual truth were germina¬ ting, and said that he had no doubt that ere long a rich harvest would be reaped.—Mr. Harper, of Birming¬ ham, next gave an exposition of the “ elevating in¬ fluences of spiritualism.”—The Secretary (Mr. Cross) exhibited several articles said to have been produced by the agency of spirits: they included specimens of “ spirit-writing,” water-colour drawings produced in a few seconds, etc. During the evening a Mrs. Green, who had been referred to by her husband, the secretary of the Progressive Spiritual Association, as a testimony to the truth of spiritualism, was introduced. There then, says the Glasgoiv Herald , followed an extra¬ ordinary scene. When Mrs. Green was led into the room the meeting was being addressed by Mr. Harper. Immediately on that gentleman resuming his seat, Mrs. Green, who was understood to be an inspired medium, started to her feet. She was well dressed, appeared to be a woman of between forty and fifty years of age, and was evidently labouring under some strong excitement. She spoke with her eyes closed, and in a nervous, jerky manner, at times stopping for a moment, and then hurriedly resuming. For a few io 6 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. sentences her remarks were coherent enough, but she afterwards began to speak in a confused, unintelli¬ gible style, and said the spirit was trying to make her use had language. “ Oh,” she continued, “how much that spirit is trying to make me say something that would-” At this stage her husband, who was sitting beside her, appeared to press the nape of her neck with his fingers, and in a second or two, with a kind of convulsive gasp, she seemed to come out of her trance. Her husband now rose and said they had here one of the most incontestable proofs of the spirit influence. They had a woman possessed of two spirits —one an evil and the other a good spirit. The evil spirit was Pope Hildebrand. Mrs. Green, he said, held at one time a high position in the Church of Rome, and to the fact that she was now opposed to the creed of that Church, he evidently attributed the interference of the late Pontiff. While he was speak¬ ing his wife was convulsed as if with some hysterical and other nervous affection. She was forcibly held by one and sometimes two men, and for ten minutes probably she appeared to suffer the greatest physical torturing. All this time her husband kept on speaking in a strain which implied that he regarded this exhi¬ bition as a convincing proof of the reality of spirit¬ ualism, while the audience was greatly excited, and under-breath communications were made, expressive of the greatest annoyance and dislike for the whole affair. When a lull took place, the Chairman rose, and, saying that the meeting had been protracted to a later hour than was intended, appeared anxious ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITISM. i°7 to bring the proceedings to a close. The Secretary, however, rose to make one or two intimations before the meeting separated, and was about to do so when Mrs. Green again started to her feet, and, ejaculating “ The Great All-Father says stay ! ” went on to speak in a style which was quite incomprehensible to ordinary intellects. She was still speaking when several persons rose and left the meeting. Mr. Cross here expressed a hope that friends would remain to hear the intimations. This interruption brought Mrs. Green’s harangue to an abrupt close, and she resumed her seat. Mr. Cross said, that before the com¬ pany left he had to apologize for the exhibition they had seen. He felt sorry that the thing had come before them in the form it had taken ; indeed, he had not only felt annoyed during the whole proceedings, but also somewhat disgusted. There were two sides of spiritualism: there was the good and the evil, and they ought always to be able to keep out evil in¬ fluences. They had had inspirational addresses, but still he thought their friends had not been quite satisfied. This last observation elicited cries of “ Hear, hear,” and shortly afterwards the proceed¬ ings terminated. For myself, I look with alarm and uneasiness at the growing taste for these scenes and experiences dis¬ played by many otherwise worthy souls, and destined at length, I fear, to corrupt them. It is the “ willing worship of demons.” It is not impossible that it may end in real formal idolatry,—an idolatry coming in not perhaps under any of its old forms ; and yet a 10S ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. real formal idolatry. Let us not be too sure. I do not mean the worship of Mammon, for instance, with which saying we are so familiar,—I don’t mean the covetousness which is the service of idols,—I mean re¬ jecting God from our heart and from our belief, and yielding ourselves, our very wills, as a possession to another to be filled and guided by him—perhaps a soothing, sensual, intellectual and sense-flattering god—a demon. What has been, may be. We are not the wisest and most cultivated of all men that ever were. Paris and London are not equal in culture and refinement to Athens and Corinth. And although it would appear incredible that men could descend from their present standing and stoop to the absurdities of ancient idolatry, we may somewhat demur to granting this, seeing what we do see—grave and sensible men looking on eagerly and believingly, while invisible spirits are endowing with intelligence the dull and lifeless furniture of a room, making tables and heavy articles turn, and run, and skip, and make obeisances, and, though not themselves intelligent, give, when asked, intelligent replies concerning things absent, un¬ known, and future, even concerning the mysteries of heaven—ponderous sofas and pianos raised by this spirit agency many feet above the ground, floating in the atmosphere, making the circuit of the room, and gently falling into their places again—human hands floating in the air—spirit-writing—spirit-drawing— spirit recitals at the piano—whoever believes all this will believe anything, except the revelations which come to us in God’s own way. If these things are ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITISM. iog true (and I cannot deny them as matters of fact de¬ posed toby multitudes of shrewd and observant men), I can only say that a Catholic can have no doubt or difficulty in saying from whence they come. There¬ fore I say, do not let us be too sure that men sensible and clever in commerce, politics, and literature, or what you please, may not lapse into formal idolatry. When a man has driven the one true God from his soul, he will easily give place to a whole hierarchy of other gods, and “ all the gods of the Gentiles are devils.” I remember reading somewhere that the late "William Taylor, the Platonist, would sometimes place himself in the presence of one or other of his Greek statues, and by dint of contemplating it, with tranquil and concentrated attention, begin to be con¬ scious of a divine influence emanating from the god, and of being (I suppose by a sort of self-magnetizing process) placed en rapport with him. Now this I think was very wicked, or very foolish, perhaps both ; but it shows what we may come to—especially now when men and women with a calm enthusiasm in their disbelief deny the existence of God, and on public platforms offer themselves to be smitten by Him with instant-death, if there is a God, and, holding their watches in their hand, time Him to the prescribed number of minutes. And almost every large town is witness of these appalling scenes. Lecturers are even now proclaiming on large placards posted on con¬ spicuous walls in our populous towns of the North on the comparative characters of Our Lord and Tom I IO ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. Paine; and the palm of excellence is given to Paine. Now I think that, having arrived so far, we may think ourselves pretty well prepared for anything; and therefore when I see worthy but mistaken people meddling with this spiritism and evoking the dead, I cannot but feel appalled and full of anxiety and pity for them, for every step on this forbidden path, if it does not accelerate the coming of Antichrist, helps at least towards that condition of things when “ faith shall not he found on the earth.” That ingenious say¬ ing of St. Peter Chrysologus is a true one : “ Qui jocari voluerit cum diabolo, nonpoterit gaudere cum Christo” (Serm. 155,)-—He who disports himself with the devil here, shall not rejoice with Christ hereafter. IY. ON THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF GERMANY. BY THE EIGHT EEV. MONSIGNOR PATTERSON. TT is a historic fact, which Protestant historians now acknowledge as distinctly as we do, that the first and only wide spread of the Protestant idea was owing to the “ will and consentment of princes.” If this is true as a universal proposition, it is eminently and specially true of that country which was the cradle of the new ideas. In Germany, more precisely than in any other country, the limits of the Lutheran heresy were the dominions of those princes who, for reasons which history has recorded, embraced doctrines which suited their habits as men and their views as politi¬ cians. As the age was one of absolutism, the belief of their subjects was necessarily to depend on their own.* The factors in the great revolution of the sixteenth century, so far as they were merely natural, were the covetousness and ambition of princes, the pride of fanatics, and the sensuality of the clergy and of the people. That great actor in more modern revolutions, “public opinion ,” was as yet unborn; * “In nearly every country where their boasted Reformation tri¬ umphed, the result is to be mainly attributed to coercion.”—Lecky, “ Rationalism in Europe,” vol. ii., p. 49 . 112 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. the arts which manufacture and use it, and the sub¬ jects on which it exercises its power, were yet to be developed. 1. These reflections are suggested by the first necessary topic in an investigation into the religious condition of Germany at the present time— viz., the statistics of the German Empire in regard to religion; because the terms “ Protestant ” and “ Catholic ” have a meaning which depends on these antecedents. Speaking in round numbers, the Protestant inhabit¬ ants of the new Federation amount to twenty-five millions, the Catholics to fifteen millions, the Jews to nearly 500,000, to which about a million holding other religious opinions must be added to make the total of forty-one millions and a half now owning allegiance to Prussian rule and hegemony. Of the Protestant population, more than fifteen millions and a half inhabit the kingdom of Prussia and Duchy of Lauenburg, hereditary dominions of the House of Brandenburg, and the usurped kingdom of Hanover; next in number are the Protestants of the kingdom and duchies of Saxony, amounting to more than three millions ; those of Bavaria to 1,300,000, and of Wur- temburg 1,200,000, Baden nearly 500,000, and those of the Hanse Towns amounting to 430,000; whilst the unhappy newly-conquered provinces of Alsace and Lorraine add nearly 250,000 to these numbers. The other federated grand-duchies and principalities supply the remaining Protestant population of more than three millions, making the grand total of about twenty-five millions. Now, as to the number and ON THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF GERMANY. 113 proportion of Catholics. The kingdom of Prussia and duchy of Lauenburg contained hard upon eight millions in 1867; Bavaria, 3,444,000; Baden, 931,000; Wurtemberg, more than 500,000; Hesse, nearly 230,000; the Bhenish provinces, 1,300,000; which, with a residue of 139,000, thinly scattered through the remaining states, chiefly in Saxony, gave a total of 14,544,000, under the census of 1867, or say nearly fifteen millions now. From these figures it appears, that whereas in the kingdom of Prussia the propor¬ tion of Catholics to Protestants was more than fifty per cent.—that is, more than half the inhabitants were Catholics; the proportion in the new Empire sinks to less than thirty-seven per cent.—that is, less than two-fifths of the population are Catholics. 2. Having thus briefly sketched the numerical sta¬ tistics of the religious situation of the new Empire, our next point must be historic. We need not go further back, for our present purpose, than the treaty of Westphalia; for by that treaty the status of the two religious bodies of which we are speaking was deter¬ mined. As I have said, the limits of Protestantism in its cradle-land, Germany, were the frontiers of the various princes who adhered to Luther’s new doctrine. In the vicissitudes of the Thirty Years’ War, populations were conquered to, or rescued from, the new religion. The end of that period found Lutheran¬ ism confined to the original limits, from which it had not been able to advance,—nay, the tide of misbelief had been rolled back by the efforts of the great and good Emperor Ferdinand II. from great part of his 8 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 114 kingdom of Bohemia, and of the dominions of his faithful feudatory the Duke of Bavaria. In the north, Prussia, her dynasty of Brandenburg founded in apostasy and robbery by Albert the Felon, Grand Master *of the Teutonic Order, and her possessions increased by the adroit purloinings and alliances of the “ great ” Elector Frederic William, was thence¬ forth marked out as the leader among those North German states which adhered to the new creed. But whatever may have been the desires of Prussia, the provisions of the treaty of Westphalia were so* specific, their guarantees so weighty and so public, that for more than two centuries the public religious peace of Germany has remained undisturbed on their wide and worldly-wise basis. By this treaty, at length, after a century of inces¬ sant contest, and finally thirty years of bloody and exhausting war, the principles of religious equality, and of a certain religious independence, were laid down and applied to the divided remains of the shattered Holy Roman Empire. The principle laid down was that called itio in partes , and by it, and by positive enactments based on it, the equal and un¬ disturbed existence and independence of each other - before the law, was guaranteed by the Imperial tri¬ bunals, and by the Reichstag, to the Confessions of Rome, and of Augsburg, and of Geneva. The same principles were re-asserted and re-applied by the Supreme Imperial Delegation’s decree of 1803, when required by the secularization of foundations pre¬ viously held by Catholic princes or immediately de- ON THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF GERMANY. 115 pendent on tlie Empire, but now handed over by the re-adjustment of territory to Protestant princes. The cessation of the Holy Boman Empire, therefore, only affected the independence of the two Confessions as a fact— viz., that the Imperial protection and guarantees ceased to exist; but the decree of the Diet of 1803 handed over the obligation of the same protection and guarantees to the sovereign princes, who thus bound themselves to protect and maintain the Churches as they were, in equal and mutual independence. These rights were embodied in the laws of the various states, and in no code more dis¬ tinctly than in the new Charter of Prussian Consti¬ tutional Bights granted by the late king, Frederic William IV., in the year 1850. The. now celebrated fifteenth and eighteenth articles of that Charter con¬ tain the most express recognition of the liberty and independence, as well of the Catholic as of the Evan- • gelical Church, before the law. By these articles those liberties are declared not to be created by them, but to be already existing , and their imme¬ morial exercise guaranteed anew, while any modifi¬ cations introduced are in the direction of removing inabilities or restrictions. A further proof of this recognized existence and independence of the Catho¬ lic Church in Prussia and the other German states, is afforded by the Concordats and agreements entered into by them on the one part, and by the Church on the other—treaties which have taken effect, and whose consequences are part of the recognized legal status of the Church within those dominions. Whether 8 A 116 ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. we review the action of the absolute kings of Prussia, or that of the constitutional sovereigns who succeeded them, we find that it was always in accordance—a wise and a just accordance—with the laws and usages we have alluded to. Thus, on the occasion of that great crime, and perhaps greater blunder, the parti¬ tion of Poland, Frederic II. guaranteed to his new Catholic subjects the full exercise of their religious rights according to the status quo. It is a curious reminiscence at the present moment, that Frederic maintained the Society of Jesus in his states after their suppression, on the ground of the great good done by them in the work of education, and wrote to beg Pope Clement XIV., and his successor Pius VI., not to dissolve their communities in Prussia. His successor, Frederic William II., followed in his steps, and guaranteed the utmost freedom of recourse to the Holy See to his Catholic subjects both in Poland and on the Khine. By the treaty of Grodnow, after the second and third dismemberment of « , Poland, in 1793 and 1795, he binds himself to allow to his new Catholic subjects the full exercise of all their religious privileges and rights —“ as they are enjoyed by his other Catholic subjects.” Frederic William III., his successor, maintained the same policy; and at the final settlement of the Church’s state and endowments, at and after the Congress of Vienna, the conduct of this sovereign was such as to merit the thanks of the Pope, Pius VII., who, in a bull, “ De salute animarum,” 16th July, 1821, sets forth the liberality and deference shown by him in ON THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF GERMANY, n7 0 the endowment of bishoprics, chapters, and semi¬ naries, and in the provisions made for the nomina¬ tion of bishops, their canonical election, etc. The conduct of his son, the late king, a prince of singular talent, and of that kind of piety which gives its German name to what has been called “ orthodox dissent” in this country, was similar. The com¬ pletion of Cologne Cathedral was owing to his initiative; and if Frederic the Great himself built the first Catholic church erected in Berlin since the revolt of the sixteenth century, Frederic William IV. laid the first stone and gave a large sum for the completion of another, nearly in sight of his palace. The constitution given by him in 1850, provides that, u as before , the Homan Catholic Church, like the other religious communions, administers its own affairs itself, and keeps the possession of its esta¬ blishments, endowments, and foundations, whether for divine worship, education, or beneficence.” We must not omit, too, to mention, that when our Most Holy Father was driven from his States, this worthy sovereign offered him hospitality in his kingdom, and placed the palace of Brtihl at his disposition. Let us turn now from this brief sketch of the historic legal status of the Catholic Church in Prussia, to the condition which she occupies in the other states now annexed to that kingdom, or federated under the new Prusso-Germanic Empire. It is a curious fact, at first sight, that after the great religious disruption of three centuries ago had subsided, and the contending 118 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. old and new religions remained, as it were, fossilized over-against one another in a sort of legalized immo¬ bility, the Catholic Church appeared to suffer intrin¬ sically more than the Protestant communions; and again, that its vitality seemed lower in countries subject to Catholic governors than in others. Yet both of these phenomena are not unaccountable. As we have seen, State control—the making religion a branch of high policy, and the prince the arbiter of his subjects’ religious conscience—was a presiding usage, nob to say a necessary condition, at the rise of German Protestantism. This fact is significant: it indicates that the Protestant principle of private judgment is a figment—that the masses, if detached from Divine authority in matters religious, being un¬ able to judge for themselves, will fall back on others apparently more competent for the ordering of their faith—that is, in the long run they fall back on the civil governor. So long as the religious idea remains active and vigorous in a people, it seems worth the ruler’s while to use it for civil purposes; as it dies away out of the polity, the family, the individual, the State reckons less and less with it, till the rude shock of revolution and anarchy awakens the conscience, or perhaps only the intelligence of those whom God raises up and uses for the salvation of the civil order, and they hasten to reconstruct the fabric, moral and material, of religion, so far as they deem useful for their ends. This process may protract itself for very long periods, where civil governments are strong and religion is completely in their hands. Looking only ON THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF GERMANY. 119 to social results, and setting aside as altogether irrele¬ vant the good of souls, the establishment of a purely national and State religion, if skilfully constructed at the outset, and as skilfully handled afterwards, is a conservative element in a polity which tends power¬ fully to its stability and duration. Setting aside the supernatural enemies of the supernatural order, to which such a religion does not belong, there is nothing to attract the hatred of irreligious men in systems which they recognize as inferior, or (at worst) useless, departments of the public service. This I take to he the explanation of the fact that the revolution attacks most bitterly, and destroys most completely, the civil order in Catholic countries, leaving non-Catholic ones comparatively untouched, as we have all, no doubt, noticed. On the other hand, where the State has to deal with Christ’s true and therefore universal Church, the neutralization of the Church’s intrinsic and proper power is the direct consequence of the State’s use of her for civil ends. There was but little in Lutheran¬ ism, and less in Calvinism, which could take hurt by the rough handling of its nursing-fathers, the German reforming princes; where Church and State were homogeneous, “ of the earth, earthy, ” their alliance was easy, and the result a joint and common longevity. The revolt of princes, however, was a lesson not lost upon the Catholic sovereigns of that and of later times, and everywhere, sooner or later, Catholic rulers have hankered after that absolute control over religion within their realms which their Protestant fellows 120 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. had secured by apostasy. The result of these attempts to mount the chariot of the sun, and guide his fiery steeds through the crooked paths of king-craft, has invariably been one and the same—the maiming or the total destruction of the power or of the dynasty which made it. But this is beside our purpose; what is to the point is the other part of the result—the damage thus inflicted on the Church of God within those several realms: time-serving bishops, a corrupt clergy, lax theology, and laxer morals; the sacred canons turned against the authority which created them by the malice and cunning of curial officials, —such, and such like, are the invariable fruits of the unholy encroachments of Catholic Governments on the liberties of the Catholic Church. If France was the exemplar of too many of these evils in the seven¬ teenth, the Catholic states of Germany became so in the eighteenth century. In no states were they so crying as in the temporal dominions of the Catholic ecclesiastical princes—electors of the Holy Roman Empire. In discipline an arid bureaucratic system, in belief and practice the lowest and most uncatholic standards, and an abject Caesarism, in prince and people, ruled in these smaller states. Hontheim himself, the notorious Febronius, was I>ean of the Chapter, Counsellor of State, Chancellor of the Uni¬ versity, and Auxiliary Bishop of the Elector and Archbishop of Treves. In his most pestilent and mischievous work, “ De statu presenti Ecclesiae et legitima potestate Romani Pontificis,” his attack is directed to destroy belief in the divinely-ordained ON THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF GERMANY. 121 * primacy of the Roman Pontiff. Following Puffen- dorff and other legalists, he makes the governing power of the Chnrch a college, to which, and not to its head, the power of the keys is given. He ampli¬ fies the episcopal authority in order to depress that of the Pope, and makes each bishop an independent Pope in his own diocese, attributing to them the power to revise papal definitions, and to define heresy in given propositions. While he gives to the Pope the title of head and pastor of the Church—but only distributive , not collective —he is, of course, much more liberal to Caesar, giving him the power to con¬ voke general councils, and allowing the Pope an authority neither infallible nor ultimate, nor purely monarchical: and even this, not his own, hut merely by concession of general councils. All this is mainly based on the falsity of the Isidorian decretals, and on other historic alleged facts of little or no moment. It is- needless to say what cries of applause and admi¬ ration, what a string of laudations for the profundity of his erudition, and the manly vigour of his uncom¬ promising intellect, burst forth from every dingy and suspicious curial hole and corner, from Vienna to Lis¬ bon, from Paris to Naples, when Febronius appeared to summarize the maxims on which all the Catholic courts of Europe had long been acting, in their inter¬ course with the Holy See and with the Church. No less a storm than that which broke up the Holy Roman Empire itself, and at one time or another either dethroned and condemned to exile, or the bitterness of humiliating peace, every legitimate sovereign on the 122 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. continent of Europe, was required to sweep away the Febronian ideas, as they were developed towards the end of the century. But even that cataclysm has not yet quite obliterated the tradition of this spurious and degraded Catholicism; and in Bavaria, Baden, and on the Rhine it still feebly lingers. Let us trust that with the strangely allied group of last summer’s conference at Cologne, and the pages of “ Janns,” we have seen and read the last dying speech and con¬ fession of Febronianism. And now, one word on the new Protestantism of the “ Old Catholics.” From Dr. Dollinger’s point of view, his overt schism was a political blunder of the first water. He and his friends and followers could at this moment have been worrying their bishops with their Protestant teachings and sym¬ pathies, scandalizing the weak, enraging the strong, and coquetting with Bismarck and his kind, as they did during the (Ecumenical Council, if they had remained as they were—nominal Catholics, and traitors within our camp. Now their manifest smallness, and the absurdity of their Gnostic and Donatist pretensions, have condemned them to a political as well as an ecclesiastical insignificance, which makes it unnecessary here to do more than allude to them. If they have a few sympathizers among Catholics of a peculiar kind, at home and abroad, time is rapidly diminishing their number. With these slight drawbacks, the Catholicism of Germany is vigorous, thorough, and united. The keystone of the wdiole edifice—the independence and ON THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF GERMANY. 123 infallibility of the Korean Pontiff—brought into admirable relief by the heroic constancy of the Pope, and by the Vatican definition, securely supports an episcopate, every single member of which, without an exception, has united in that temperate, but manly, wise, and vigorous Manifesto of Fulda, which we have all read, and on which the whole hierarchy of England and of Belgium have generously set the seal of their just and weighty admiration. Everywhere the bishops have bestirred themselves to erect and maintain seminaries in which the pure and un¬ mitigated doctrines of the faith are taught, and the discipline of an apostolic life enforced and developed in those who are to be the clergy of their flocks— while the activity of religious orders has for more than fifty years aided the pastors of the people to build up again the temple of the Lord in the con¬ victions and lives of the faithful. Everywhere new life is manifested, the sacraments more and more frequented, the sanctuaries restored, or new ones erected, and religious art and religious literature have revived to a degree, which only those who knew Germany forty years ago, and know it now, can estimate. Much, indeed, remains to be done, but what has been done is (absolutely speaking) very great and very encouraging. The legalized inaction to which the Catholic Church was condemned for more than two centuries, in the states where she found herself in contact with Protestantism, and the curialism of small Catholic states, backed by that of Vienna, pressed her down with conditions uncon- 124 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. genial and not homogeneous with her own principles, while the rival religion found its account in both of those causes. On the other hand, the progress o± religious indifference among Protestants, and the revival of more exact and more adequate ideas of Catholicism among Catholics, are causes daily opera¬ ting against Protestantism, and in favour of Catho- licism at the present time. 3. In order to appreciate this more, let us now turn to the condition of the Protestant religion in the new Empire. Under the twenty-five millions of subjects reckoned as Protestants by the German Empire, it would be natural to expect that a large per-centage must be allowed to have no religious character, and, therefore, no ascertainable political action in religious questions; the same will always have to be said, in some degree, of any large population, whatever their creed. But, in the case of German Protestantism, there are peculiar agencies at work, which, while they undermine and destroy the religious belief and feeling in the masses as positive factors, nevertheless stimu¬ late to anti-Catholic action, both social and political. Dogmatic Protestantism has been, and is daily, becoming more a thing of the past. Some 50,000 souls in Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, and Mecklenburg, and as many more in Prussia, who refused to join the new United State Church, are now, under the name of Old Lutherans, the only real representatives of historic and dogmatic Lutheranism in Germany, or, indeed, anywhere else. The powerful solvent of rationalism, applied to ON THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF GERMANY . 125 supernatural doctrines, taken severally, and cut off from the living authority which alone can adequately propound them, has slowly, but surely, destroyed all belief in the objects of our Christian faith, including the historic existence and the Divinity of its Founder. A German equivalent to the Rev. Mr. Yoysey has lately occurred in the person of a Rev. Dr. Sydow. This minister of the Gospel taught publicly and repeatedly from his pulpit, that Christ was not God. The Government ratified the sentence of suspension which the Evangelical Consistory Court passed upon him ; and lo ! thirty-nine other preachers of the same Gospel, in Berlin and other places, at once rose up to profess their entire agreement with Dr. Sydow; and an organized movement to supply him with funds has received the support of many others, both clergy and people, throughout the Empire. At Witten, the address of sympathy sent to him was signed by 178 persons, including all the masters of the grammar and elementary schools, all the doctors and lawyers, all the railway and post-office officials, the chief manufacturers, and other principal inhabitants. It is not too much to say, that the masses of the lower and lower-middle-class Protestants have no distinct or unvarying religious belief. If proofs were wanting, they might he found in the following facts. As we all know, the Lutheran and Calvinistic Confessions are, in many essential particulars, as different as possible; and not only are they so in the theory of religious belief, hut historically, and from the very rise of the Calvinistic heresy, Luther and his fol- 126 ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. lowers denounced Calvin’s doctrines as vehemently as they did those of the Church—while Calvin was as virulent on his side against the Lutheran doctrines. If there is one doctrine which, more than another, differences historic Lutheranism from all other Pro¬ testantism, and especially from Calvinism, it is that of impanation. If, on the other hand, Calvin stamped with especial emphasis on his new religion the dis¬ tinctive mark of his peculiar genius, it is to he found in the absolute independence of his sect from State authority; or, better still, in the erection of his _ * religion into a strict Theocracy, on which civil society and executive government was to depend, and, during his lifetime, actually did depend at Geneva; and yet, when the late King of Prussia carried out the first instalment of his long-matured plan for national unity in religion, by the amalgamation of the two sects, under the name of the “ Evangelical Church,” he found no effectual opposition to his will, and neither party seemed to care a straw for the surrender of their differential doctrines on the altar of State expediency. This is patriotism after the manner of the times. One cannot but contrast it with the conduct of a sister country, where we saw but recently a whole people divided, and a new Church establishment spring—panoplied with churches, ministers, colleges, schools, manses, and endow¬ ments—into almost instantaneous being, to vin¬ dicate the principle of the Church’s independence from State control. The importance of the event lies in the revelation ON THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF GERMANY. 127 which it affords of the decay of dogmatic Christianity in the two sects. Nothing could be further from the late king’s mind than to destroy Christian belief; but the event has been both the evidence and the « further cause of this result. On the other hand, his attempt to smuggle episcopacy into* the new Church, by way of the Anglican bishopric at Jerusalem, and his Lutheran ritualistic enactments at Berlin, remain totally infructuous. The decay of dogma has neces¬ sarily issued in the decay of religious observances. I remember, more than thirty-five years ago, being amazed to see the chief church of the great city of Dresden, peopled at the chief, and, I think, only service, on Sunday, by a handful of elderly ladies; and, by all accounts, this state of things has become aggravated, rather than the reverse, since. Thus, in Hamburg and its dependencies, it appears from the statistical account of 1871, published by the minister Bitter, the number of communicants is rapidly dimi¬ nishing. The proportion of communicants in 1869 was 1,300 per 10,000, or ten and one-third per cent.; in 1871, it had declined to less than eight and seven- eighths of a communicant per cent, of Protestants. In Berlin the proportion is about the same. Civil marriages, which were as one to twenty-seven eccle¬ siastical ones in 1867, fell in the next year to one in twenty-three, and in 1869 to one in eleven. A con¬ sequence of this is the similar declension in the num¬ ber of baptisms. Out of 1,068 illegitimate children, born in 1871, only 368 received Christian baptism. On similar returns for four years, amounting to 2,889 128 ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. infants, only 1,529 were baptized. Yet, with this growing indifference and dechristianization, the Pro¬ testant communions vie with each other in hatred and abuse of the Catholic Church. The Bishop of Paderborn was actually summoned before the civil magistrate, in November last, at the instance of the Evangelical Consistory of Magdeburg, to answer questions concerning certain letters published by priests in the diocese; and the official and semi¬ official organs of the Lutheran and Evangelical Churches, daily return to the attack on Catholics, although the new penal code of Prince Bismarck and his minister of religion, Dr. Falk, plainly attacks their own liberties as well as those of the Catholic ♦ Church. Alas! neither of them, as they hang on their gibbets, has the grace to check the revilings of its fellow, and to say, “ Dost thou not fear, seeing that thou art in the same condemnation ?”* As these sects find the reed of State support on which they have leant break and pierce them, they vituperate the Church of God, instead of stoutly resisting the brutal attacks of the common enemy; and one of their papers does not blush to avow that the speech of President von Gerlach, in which he calls on his fellow-religionists to make common cause with the Catholics at this juncture, will prove fruit- * Public morality in Berlin is allowed, on all hands, to be such as might be expected where the sanction of religious belief is so en¬ feebled. In the upper classes, some years ago, it was known that one in every eighteen marriages was dissolved for causes usually disgrace¬ ful to one or both parties; and the moral and physical degradation of the masses finds no parallel in any other European city. ON THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF GERMANY. 129 less, “ because it is not salted with the only pala¬ table condiment—hatred for Rome ! ” After all, this, however lamentable, is but logical; for take away from dogmatic Protestantism its apostacy from the Church, and what remains as its differential raison d'etre ?—absolutely nothing. Like * the heretics of Constantinople, when the enemy is at the gates, and their very existence is at stake, these religionists find time and energy only to combat the Church; and her destruction is dearer to them than their own preservation. In Mrs. Shelley’s celebrated tale of “Frankenstein ” she vividly represents the horror and dismay of the over-learned German, when he at length galvanizes into life the huge ungainly creature which he has laboriously put together, and flies before the face of the misbegotten monster, who reproaches him for his soulless and unhallowed existence, till death dissolves the unnatural tie; just so, if the Frankensteins of the great religious revolt of the sixteenth century can now see the results of their creation, they must vainly try to disavow their offspring, and rejoice—were they now capable of joy —as they see the last remains of their spurious Christianity at length stifled in the embrace of the new German Empire. 4. We have now endeavoured to sketch the past position of the relations between Church and State, or, as the Prussian rulers phrase it, between State and Churches, in Germany. Let us, finally, briefly review the changes now in course of accomplish¬ ment by Prince Bismark’s Government. The avowed 9 130 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. object of this statesman is to introduce a new order into these relations by a series of enactments having for their scope the entire subjugation of the whole domain of religion to the State. The fifteenth and eighteenth articles of the Prussian Constitution guarantee, as we have seen, the autonomy of the Catholic and of the Evangelical Churches: this is no longer to be so; and therefore a scheme for modifying these articles has been introduced into the Prussian Chambers, and has passed the Upper House by a majority of 250 against 114 members; and the Lower at the two readings by larger and increasing majorities ; and whereas the above articles have hitherto been the palladium of the Churches’ autonomy, the clauses now appended state that “ nevertheless all religious societies remain subject to the laws and supervision of the State;” while to the eighteenth article, regarding the patronage of Church preferments, there is added, that “ the ^reparation , appointment , and dismissal of the clergy, must be regulated by the State, which defines the limits of the disciplinary authority of the Churches.” With unerring instinct the State lays, in these two clauses, the axe to the root of the tree: by the first it asserts its unlimited sirpremacy over all per¬ sons and in all causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil: in the second the State declares herself the judge of the limits of her own and of the Church’s disci¬ plinary authority. These first principles established, the remaining seventy-five clauses of the three Bills ON THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF GERMANY. 131 of pains and penalties, are merely complementary, or executive, details—flowing, as necessary or expe¬ dient consequences, from the principles thus laid down. Eleven clauses relate to the facility of secession from any Church—a facility which they largely increase; the remaining sixty-six, on the other hand, tend to make adhesions as difficult as possible : they relate to the training of ecclesiastics, their appointment and removal, and the regulation of ecclesiastical disciplinary authority by the erection of a royal, and final, tribunal for ecclesiastical affairs, The key of the whole position is to be handed over to the State by the opening clause on the education of the clergy. By this it is provided that every candidate for the Christian priesthood, or ministry, is to he obliged, under pain of being prohibited from becoming an ecclesiastic altogether, to complete an extensive course of studies in the public colleges. He is especially bound to pass three years at a university, during which time he is forbidden to belong to any ecclesiastical seminary; and he must obtain from the State examiners a certificate of his proficiency in philosophy, history, German literature, and the ancient classics. To complete this system of tyranny, it is provided that no denominational school of any kind can he founded, and that no new pupils are to be received into those already in existence. I confess to an utter inability to charac¬ terize this enactment. It is in the moral order what poisoning of the wells is in the material struggles between fierce barbaric tribes. If it were carried 132 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. out (which I think is impossible), it would slowly but surely eradicate Christianity from that luckless realm. A heathen emperor would fain;: have in¬ stalled the image of our Redeemer in the Pantheon among his false gods; but it remained for Bismark to devise means to tear from the living sanctuary of His people the very knowledge and resemblance of the God who bought them. May this last manifes¬ tation of antichrist, who thus would show himself in the temple of the Most High and usurp His honour, speedily be brought low and added to the long and ignominious list of those who, like Julian the Apostate, have owned the impotence of their blas¬ phemous endeavours against the Lord and against His anointed. “ Ita pereant omnes inimici Tui, Deus.” But to return : of a piece with this beginning is the law which provides that “ an ecclesiastical office can only be conferred on a German who has accom¬ plished his training according to the provisions of this law, and against whose appointment no objection shall have been raised by the Government of the State.” And here, he it remarked, that in accord¬ ance with their first principle, there is not one single syllable to limit, or even to define, the kind of objec¬ tions which the State—that is the, perhaps, infidel or Jewish minister—may legally oppose to the ap¬ pointment of Christian ecclesiastics. If, then, peradventure, (or rather per impossibile ,) a young candidate for ordination has passed unscathed through the pestilent State hotbeds of infidelity to ON THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF GERMANY. 133 which he has been statutably assigned, in the most susceptible age and conditions—if he has stood the flames in which a course of Feuerbach, of Strauss, of Hegel, or of Fichte, et icl genus omne , have, on this hypothesis, not irredeemably plunged his mind and soul; if he has not attained the precise State measure of unbelief, and still shows symptoms ot a conscience not yet adequately seared, he comes forth from his career of preparation (or rather of depra¬ vation) for the ministry, only to fall into the in¬ exorable grasp of a “ liberal ” minister of worship and education, peremptory, arbitrary, tyrannical as only true liberals know how to be. The ecclesiastical authorities are bound to mention the candidates on whom any ecclesiastical office is to he conferred to the Prefect (Ober-prasident). The same rule applies to the transference of an ecclesiastic from one office to another; and all contraventions of this law render such appointments or transferences null and void, “ Gilt als nicht geschehen”—so runs the law. Bo much for the wholesale, but yet individual, vio¬ lation of the conscience of every true Catholic (or, indeed, conscientious Christian,) aspirant to, or mem¬ ber of the ministry, which is now to be legalized in Prussia. Not to weary you with too many samples of this diabolical system of law, I will conclude with only one further specimen, and that directed against the mere existence of the Catholic Church within the German frontiers,—for, though there is in these enactments a parade of treating all Christian Churches 134 ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. on an absolute equality, it is yet obvious that, by the nature of the case, these laws apply with a far differ¬ ent and more grievous violence to the Catholic, than to any other (so-called) Church. The royal authority, though it has not always succeeded in protecting even essential doctrines, as they presume to call them, of Christianity, in the Protestant Churches, is yet an authority which they can neither doctrinally nor historically find any difficulty in regarding as a competent one in emergencies of the kind : not so with the Catholic, who sees neither in King or Kaiser the evidence of right or the guarantee of infalli¬ bility in decisions concerning faith, morals, or disci¬ pline. Yet this Caesaro-papismus is the reiterated Deus ex Machind of the Bismarkian legislation. The instance I will give is the clause,—“Ecclesiastical disciplinary authority can only be exercised by Ger¬ man ecclesiastical authorities.” The whole system of oppression and violence to Catholic consciences thus culminates in the denial of that authority which the Catholic Church alone regards as the source of all ecclesiastical discipline and jurisdiction. Since the Acts of the 25th of Henry VIII., and the 1st and 4th of Queen Elizabeth, which inaugurated and perfected the schism and heresy of the Establish¬ ment, there has been no more audacious and sweep¬ ing attack on the very being of the Catholic Church. By those Acts the State transferred, so far as statute could do it, the whole jurisdiction, ordinary and appellate, of the Pope in these realms, to the Crown. There is, however, in Bismark’s legislation, an en- ON THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF GERM A AN. 135 liancing of this monstrous act of tyranny. Henry was, after all, a king—and even kings may have con¬ sciences; hut Bismark’s laws would take from Christ’s Vicar his divine prerogatives, to hand them, not even to his king,—heretic, fanatic, perhaps hypocrite, —hut still a king;—he would hand over these sacred and inalienable rights to a cabinet of minis¬ ters-—to a chance medley of men, barely constituting a corporation; the breath of the nostrils of a popular majority; one of those entities of which Canning has said, they had neither a body to he kicked, nor a soul to be damned. 5. Let 11 s now attempt to estimate the chances of success of this violent attack on rights hitherto respected, and constitutionally guaranteed. The forces which are arrayed on the side of the Government are, indeed, most formidable. In the kingdom of Prussia there is the habit of military obedience to a king, who is esteemed to rule by right divine, by himself, and by a very large portion of the Conservative non-Catholic, and even by some of the Catholic party. And this king, moreover, a success¬ ful and conquering soldier, crowned with laurels won in fight for the common fatherland, and well gilt with the exorbitant penalty exacted from the foe. In the other federated states there are sovereigns whose chief characteristic is a keen appreciation of (to use a vulgar phrase) the side on which their bread is buttered. One only of these princes, a young and fantastic king, refuses to dance in strict time to the Prussian drums and fifes, and his opposition counts 136 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. for little, even within his own confines. Then there is the extraordinary sagacity, and the indomitable will of the German Chancellor, in whom cunning and force are combined, as we see them in the larger animals of the feline kind; one who, having climbed to power by the profession of the extremest doc¬ trines of arbitrary rule, and then judiciously sold those well-used properties at the moment when the market culminated, has now been carried by the surge of revolution to the height from which he thinks he can look down securely on the trifling struggles of the religious conscience, and quench expiring Christianity in the mud of State legality. The power of the anti- Christian liberalism of Germany must, indeed, he great, when a man like Bismark, who is in a position thoroughly to appreciate it, can esteem it worth his while to throw down the gauntlet to the whole re¬ ligious minority (absolutely so great), in order to secure the support of the revolution. The alienation of all Catholic, and of the whole believing minority of Protestants, the risk of undoing his own work in South Germany, and the rupture of the old relations with Russia,—all this he esteems not too much to pay, that he may rally to his standard the united forces of the Infidel and Jewish democracy in press and gutter. What, on the other hand, are the elements of resistance to the Chancellor’s scheme ? In the Prussian Diet one may say there is no effectual resistance to his will. The most Conservative of the two Chambers has already succumbed to his skilful ON THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF GERMANY. 137 % and unscrupulous manipulation, and twice have the known wishes of the Sovereign been overruled by the Chamber of Peers, which, flooded by a large influx of Liberal members, has now passed the new laws of which we speak. Still larger majorities have now been obtained in the Lower House and in the Imperial Reichsrath. As we have seen, the remains of dogmatic Protestantism are affording no effectual resistance in their cherished isolation from the Church, and the ordinary religious sense of the country appears to be at that low ebb, that, like the English people at the epoch of Henry’s apostasy, they are washed backwards and forwards, unheeding and unheeded, by the ruthless tide of State legality. What, then, remains ? There remains the City of God, whose foundations are upon His holy hill,—He is in the midst of her,—there remains the Rock, the stone not hewn by mortal hand, the unshaken and immovable constancy of His Yicar, never more visible than in that venerable prisoner of Christ, despoiled, mocked, deserted, crucified, (not in the body, but like Mary in the soul,) yet drawing all men to him in closer and closer unity and love; there remains the stalwart united band of German bishops who, from end to end of the Prussian king¬ dom, have protested as one man against this odious tyranny; there remains an army of thousands of priests ready to follow their bishops through fire, and exile, and imprisonment, rather than betray the sacred trust of their pastoral duty; and this great pyramid has for its base, not the uninformed preju- 138 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. dices of the many, nor their wild, untamed passions, nor their sordid interests, nor their secret and sinister designs, but their divine faith in the unchangeable promises and infallible teachings of God and His Church, their reasonable and reasoned love for Him, and for every word which proceeds from His mouth ; all the hallowing influences of His sacraments, all their most intimate experiences of His grace here, and all their most ardent hopes of His infinite rewards hereafter. In hearts like these there is no response to the intimidations of violence or the seductions of State patronage. Some forty years ago a venerable confessor of the faith, the illus¬ trious Archbishop of Cologne, Drostv von Vischering, had alone to brave the rigours of Prussian legalism on the subject of the education of the issue of mixed marriages. After four years’ imprisonment, the draw¬ bridges of Minden saw him depart, broken in health, but unbroken in spirit, to reap, during his remaining years, the reward of his constancy in the praise of the Supreme Pontiff, the love of his flock, the triumph of his just cause, and the approval of his conscience : with the Government remained the victory of having perhaps shortened the life of one old man. Such victories are the worst of defeats, and these are what remain to Prince Bismark if he attempts to enforce his new laws : for after all there remains that great factor in the affairs of men, a force unseen by the enemy who yet feels its resistless power, and has no weapon to meet it with—the force of suffering and of prayer. From the asylum of countries like our own, ON THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF GERMANY. 139 where freedom yet lingers because authority and law are not yet banished (at least in effect) from the civil order, the faithful German sons and daughters of St. Ignatius, St. Alfonsus, and St. Yincent do violence to Heaven by their endurance of exile and disfran¬ chisement in the cause of God; and no land in the wide world but sends up the prayers of the faithful that this tyranny may pass away. It requires, then, no great wisdom to see that the Cavour of Germany has overestimated his forces and grappled with a power superior to his own ; nor any prophetic vision to foretel that the seeming Colossus must fall to be broken on the Bock of Ages. Bismark’s vision, like Prospero’s, is but a baseless fabric, for it rests on no single first principle laid deep in the hearts of men, but merely on the unstable, ever-shifting passions of those whom he rules only on the condition that he obeys their worst impulses. He has made capital, no doubt, hitherto of the national aspirations for legitimate ends, but when he would consolidate his empire by sacrificing all that ennobles and perpetuates civil order to demagogues and their dupes, he lays the seed plot from which in due time he or his country will reap the inevitable result of political ruin. The apostasy of governments and politicians from the Church and her principles, has, I believe, deceived Bismark and his forerunners. They have not sufficiently noted that as governments have given up and cut themselves off from the principle of authority—which is their life—good people have sought for it more and more in its source,—which is Ho ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. the Eoman Pontiff, and those who represent him; so that whereas the tendency of the age is manifestly towards democracy, there is not much doubt that this tendency will in the long run issue in the re¬ construction of the civil order on a theocratic basis, the Pope and Hierarchy of the Church becoming once more the point of departure from which civil power, however embodied, will receive its consecra¬ tion. It may, I think, he asked without hyperbole whether in any country the Pope is more implicitly obeyed, with greater conviction, at greater cost, with more self-denying and devoted love, than precisely in that country of Italy, and in his own city of Pome, in which at this moment the Government is most bitterly hostile to himself and to all that hold of or by him. The good are beginning to find out concerning “ public opinion,” that it is a game at which two can play, and while the pressure from without has hitherto operated intensive by enhancing the quality ,—opportunity, necessity, and experience will soon come in to widen the sphere and multiply the quantity of active, energizing Catholicity in all lands.* It is my conviction that the brutal tyranny of the Prussian dictator is to contribute largely to such a result, and that his dreams of coercing all things in heaven and earth into his philosophy of a State, after the manner of the heathen—supreme * Thus, as a specimen of the awakening force of Catholic opinion in Germany, I may mention that of the Bishop of Mayence, Von Ketteler’s last pamphlet on these Prussian projected laws, 20,000 copies were sold in less than a week. ON THE RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF GERMANY . 141 over men’s souls and consciences as well as over their bodies and chattels,—will disappear as those of mightier men have done before— “ His cloud-capp’d towers, his gorgeous palaces, His solemn temples—shall dissolve, And, like an insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind.” Y. MR. MILL UPON LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. BY EDWARD LIJCAS. HV/TR. MILL, in his Essay on Liberty, puts forward pretensions on behalf of liberty of expression— in other words, Liberty of the Press and of speech— which must appear to the hulk of readers altogether extravagant. They are indeed no more than are constantly affirmed in principle by almost every non- Catholic newspaper in the country, and they are assumed to be conceded, and past controversy, in the daily conversation of most people, and in most of the literary productions of the day. Nor are they confined to this country. It is indeed possible—and I believe it is the fact—that these pretensions are asserted with deliberate malice by continental writers,, whereas here their affirmation is rather the result and logical development of the fundamental Protestant idea of the right of private judgment; the ultimate conclusion of which is not perceived. It is one of those numerous cases in which so-called principles are laid down, which a very moderate amount of reflection would show to he fallacious. It is indeed difficult to con¬ vince oneself of the bond fides of writers wTlo, when the occasion arises, have no hesitation whatever in MR. MILL UPON LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 143 denying the very principle which it is their daily occupation to affirm. Still to the crowd, even of readers, who are, for the most part, unrellective, Mr. Mill’s broad statement of the natural right to deny the existence of God, or to call in question the commonly received doctrines of morality, would no doubt he shocking in the extreme. Now, it is unquestionable that however reckless some members of certain governments may be in the use of means to attain their ends, and however unscrupulous in exalting the vulgarest atheism of modern times, no single government exists with the remotest intention of permitting in practice this principle of Mr. Mill’s. It may be said that both Mr. Mill’s politics and his philosophy are too extravagant to he argued from as a real danger which has to be encountered; that they are only held by a few extreme thinkers and speakers; and that to reply to him is somewhat a waste of time. But apart from the rapid progress towards lawlessness, both intellectual and moral, visible on all sides, and which is confirmed and extended by a hold declaration of false principles, stated in a quasi -philosophical fashion, it cannot he denied that this theory of Mr. Mill’s is only the popular abstract notion of the right of Liberty of the Press, expressed in a concrete form. Startling as is its naked deformity, the assumption of the journals means either that or nothing: not neces¬ sarily in the mind of every writer or reader; hut too frequently in both, and absolutely in the formula em¬ ployed. His words are these :— “ In order more fully to illustrate the mischief of 144 ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. denying a hearing to opinions, because we, in our own judgment, have condemned them, it will be desirable to fix down the discussion to a concrete case ; and I choose by preference the cases which are least favourable to me, in which the argument against freedom of opinion, both on the score of truth and on that of utility, is considered strongest. Let the opinions disputed be the belief in a God, and in a future state, or any of the commonly received doctrines of morality. To fight the battle on such ground gives a great advantage to an unfair antagonist, since he will he sure to say,—Are these the doctrines which you do not deem sufficiently certain to be taken under the protection of law ? Is the belief in a God one of the opinions, to feel sure of which you hold to he assuming infallibility ? But I must he permitted to observe, that it is not the feeling sure of a doctrine (be it what it may) which I call an assumption of infallibility. It is the undertaking to decide that question for others without allowing them to be heard on the contrary side. However positive one’s per¬ suasion may be, not only of the falsity, hut of the pernicious consequences—not only of the pernicious consequences, but (to adopt expressions which I altogether condemn) the immorality and impiety of an opinion ; yet, if in pursuance of that private judg¬ ment, though backed by the public judgment of this country or his contemporaries, he prevents the opinion from being heard in its defence, he assumes infalhbility. And so far from the assumption being less objection¬ able or less dangerous because the opinion is called MR. MILL UPON LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 145 immoral or impious, this is the case of all others in which it is most fatal.” The “right of private judgment” is either the in¬ herent right of man as man to hold any conceivable opinion on the fundamental, no less than on the secondary truths of religion and philosophy, or it is an unmeaning phrase. But this right once esta¬ blished, that of expressing the opinion follows. And since no one can control the thoughts of another, it would he idle to discuss the existence of a right, which should be incapable of practical application. The very fact of the discussion, then, proves that the ultimate aim is practical; for mere abstract theories seldom or never become themes of popular controversy. It may seem un¬ necessary to lay down such truisms ; but, fortunately, men in error are very inconsistent; it is not common for men born in the midst of false teaching to realize the logical conclusions to which lead the maxims of their daily lives. Before, therefore, we come to con¬ sider practically the question of freedom of expres¬ sion, it is all-important to be well grounded in the principles which regulate the intelligent exercise of thought. I say intelligent, because a vast amount of thought is the mere unreflective wandering of the intellect from subject to subject, without object, and almost without consciousness of the process. Now, considering the amount of declamation to which liberty of thought and expression have given occa¬ sion, it is truly wonderful what great confusion of ideas prevails as to the former. Let us try to dis- 10 146 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. entangle the subject, and to make it clear in what this liberty consists. Now, thought being a mental act, must be, as we said just now, independent of any physical restraint imposed by another, except in the case of violence. To claim liberty of thought, therefore, as against external control is unnecessary, since no such control can be exercised. So that if thought be subject to any control, it must he of a mental kind. Here we enter at once on a great psychological question, the relation of the will to the intel¬ lect. It is a remarkable fact, and one well worth dwelling on, that it is precisely those persons who most strenuously deny the power of the will over the intellect, and who make the intellectual act of belief a matter of blind necessity, and who there¬ fore declare that no moral responsibility attaches to the form of religious belief a man may adopt: it is these very persons who are loudest in asserting an absolute right to liberty of thought. Whereas with¬ out power of choice there can be no liberty; for liberty implies a power of choice. Without such power liberty cannot be exercised : it is a word without signification. But power of choice excludes necessity and imposes responsibility; liberty to do that which one cannot avoid not being liberty in any sense. The very idea of liberty thus supposes a faculty with directive power over the intellect, and this faculty is the will. It can he nothing else. The intellect perceives, and the will decides. The will it is which adheres to or rejects a proposition which the MR. MILL UPON LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. H7 intellect has apprehended. We need trouble ourselves no further, then, with those persons who disclaim re¬ sponsibility in matters of belief. By the very terms of their proposition they abandon liberty of thought in toto , and cannot, therefore, be its defenders. Now, we will define liberty as “ action uncon¬ trolled, except by the rights of others.” This definition is almost in Mr. Mill’s own words. He says: “ The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community against his will is to prevent harm to others.”* There is, indeed, an infinite distinction between Mr. Mill’s saying and that which I have given. But the discussion of this difference would involve an essay, or even more, and I doubt if Mr. Mill would find much fault with the one I have adopted; and, at all events, I believe it to be the true definition. It is as applicable to mental as to physical action. And since the latter could not exist without the former, from which it emanates, the true order of the subject requires that we should proceed with the consideration of it first. We will give liberty of thought its largest possible extension; and to do this in the abstract it is only necessary to set no other limit to it than the truth. To use a geographical phrase, liberty is bounded on all sides by the truth, and by that alone. But let us define truth. The word has several meanings. In the first place, it is an expression of the real condi¬ tion or state of things : as when we speak of telling * “ Liberty,” p. 10 A 148 ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. the truth about a matter. Again,* the truth is the real, actual facts of a case, whether expressed or not, whether understood by the human intellect or not: as when we speak of wondering what is the truth regarding the composition of comets or stars, for example, or of the nature and orders of the Blessed Spirits. But God created the universe; and as the relation which one part of it hears to another of being simply that which God willed at the Creation, and still wills (there is no past and future with God), it follows, that in its widest signification the truth is that which God wills ; in other words, God is truth, for God’s will is God Himself. But God being infinite, it follows that in assigning to liberty of thought no hounds except those of truth, we give to thought the most comprehensive freedom conceivable. Whoever, therefore, asserts our ignorance of God, curtails, in an all but infinite degree, our range of thought. It would not he true to call the curtail¬ ment infinite, because, after all, our minds are finite, and all we can know of the infinite is that which the finite soul can comprehend; and in regard to God most of what we know is such facts concerning His nature and His will towards us as He has chosen to reveal; hut the experience of millions of men, from the creation of the world to the present day, proves that these facts allow the mind a scope so far beyond what any human mind has ever filled, or ever will, that it is correct to call the range of thought of those who know God, and the curtailment of those who are ignorant of Him, all hut infinite. 149 MR. MILL UPON LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. In like manner with regard to human nature. In order to know what are the true relations of any two objects, we must know a great deal of the nature of both. Therefore, as said above, before we can know our own relations towards God we must be informed both as to the Divine nature, and as .to our own. But we can only know the truth ; that which is not true cannot be known. The more, therefore, we know of our own nature, and of our relations with God, the Deer is the exercise of our thoughts. And the same is true of the knowledge of physical sciences. As re¬ gards the latter, all we know is the result of investi¬ gation and experience : but as regards the former, the positive and unquestionable results of experience and observation bear no comparison with what we know by revelation; since, on the one hand, what has been revealed has been so in order that we may know God, who is infinite, and our relations towards Him ; and on the other, there is nothing more certain than this : that observations on mental phenomena are among the most doubtful of all observations. Therefore, the establishment of fundamental facts as to our own nature is of the utmost importance to freedom of thought; because they are truths beyond which we cannot go, and because they furnish us with a sure foundation for speculative inquiry; the whole object of which is to discover the truth. The greater the number of ascertained facts, the larger the body of positive truth we possess regarding our spiritual nature, the less waste of time and energy in pursuing false tracks, and consequently the more freedom, shall we have. ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 150 Any one, I presume, will admit that observations of the mind upon the subject of mind are wider than those upon matter. It must be so, because the first include considerations of the creating mind, which is infinite ; and although the number of physical facts which come within our observation is probably greater than that of spiritual facts, yet mental action includes reflection upon the mind itself while engaged upon physical inquiries—that is, while engaged upon in¬ quiries into material questions; whereas observations on these latter may be, and for the most part are, apt to be carried on with little reference to spiritual considerations. If, therefore, we possess a large body of truth as to the nature of the soul and of God, it follows that we have freedom of thought in the widest and most important field. It is true, we are ignorant wherein the substance of the soul consists, but we are no less so as to the substance of matter. All we know of the latter is derived from observation of its accidents; and thence we endeavour to discover the laws which regulate it; but as to the substance of matter we know absolutely nothing, and even our observations of its accidents are so super¬ ficial, that new discoveries are continually bringing to light some important ingredient in the compo¬ sition of the commonest objects, whose existence even was unsuspected till near the time of the dis¬ covery. So that a great deal of what is nowadays styled scientific knowledge or physical science, is not science at all in the strictest sense of the word: MR. MILL UPON LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 151 it is merely observation or experiment, conducted with great care by means of the most perfect instru¬ ments which experimentalists possess for the time being. But, as w T e have said above, we can only know the truth. Many of the most important of these so-called scientific facts we dp not know, be¬ cause they may turn out not to be true; as has lately happened in regard to the sun’s distance from the earth. Whereas, since we have a revelation of God’s will to man, declaring the duty of man to God, and since such duty must depend upon a knowledge of both the Divine and human natures, it is a fallacy to pre¬ tend that our certainty of physical science is to be compared with our knowledge of spiritual science. There is no sort of comparison between the certainty of one and the uncertainty of the other; but the human mind and body are so intimately connected, that the duty of one towards God depends upon the nature of the other; the revelation, therefore, must include certain positive knowledge as to our corporeal nature, no less than as to our spiritual. Nor is this all: man holds a definite place in creation, and his connection with the world beyond him can only be defined after certain knowledge had of both. I use knowledge here in the strictest sense; I do not speak of so-called knowledge, acquired by chemical, micro- scppic, or other analysis, but of knowledge of the moral connection, which can be had with certainty by revelation only. But if physical science (I do not include mathe¬ matical) is in the main a series of guesses, metapliy- 152 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. sics are no less so. School after school arises, and solves no single question. “I shall,” says a cele¬ brated writer of this class, “ hut leave men as they are, in doubt and dispute.” So were they in the earliest days of philosophy, and so they continue. Men are at the present moment fighting over theories two thousand two hundred years old. I believe it is capable of demonstration that outside revelation no one step forward has been made in metaphysics since the days of the great Greek schools ; indeed, I do not see how any step could be made ; for, after all, philo¬ sophy without revelation is practically mere opinion ; it is wanting in that essential characteristic of all knowledge, certainty. To talk of steps in such a pro¬ cess, as if some permanent way were made, is there¬ fore altogether a fallacy. The progress is but from winter, through spring and summer and autumn, back to winter; an ever-recurring round of changes; from life, through death, to a mere transient vitality, as in the vegetable kingdom. To claim, therefore, a liberty of thought independent of the positive knowledge which revelation has im¬ parted and still imparts, is a philosophical absurdity as patent as to demand the right to deny a pro¬ position in Euclid. Observe, I am not denying the advantage of the recluctio ad absurdum which involves the discussion of error. Nothing here is intended as in the least questioning the importance of the speculative sciences, physical or metaphysical. But let every science be remitted to its own proper place in the circle. And here, in MR. MILL UPON LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 153 order to show our appreciation of the value of scientific studies, we may remark, that there are four chief advantages in their pursuit. One, the exercise which the study affords to the mind; another, the satisfaction of curiosity; another, the practical assist¬ ance any science may give towards increasing the conveniences of life; and the last, and most import¬ ant,—not, as certain self-satisfied talkers on science, who for the time fill a space in the public mind of this country, never tire of repeating—not the render¬ ing theology more scientific—not the cherishing of what are called the noblest of man’s emotions, by worship at the altar of the Unknown and Unknow¬ able,* as in the Athenian days of St. Paul, but in the proofs they afford of the harmony of the whole scheme of creation, and thence of the perfections of the Creator. Now, as on the one hand, we decline to bow down before the usurped claims of scientific speculators, so, on the other, we shall not fall into the error of undervaluing scientific studies, because of extravagant demands made on their behalf. The men w T ho prefer these claims are useful in their parti¬ cular callings—they collect materials, they cut the stone, they prepare the timbers—but they are not architects ; frequently, indeed, they go out of their sphere, and endeavour to put together some portions of the building; but we soon discover that the wall is out of the perpendicular, and that a common day-labourer would have managed better than they. We have promised to extend the bounds of liberty * Huxley’s Essays ; Selected People’s Edition, 1871, (p. 16). 154 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. to the utmost: we shall not, then, confine the sciences within any limit other than that of truth. But there can be no liberty of error—that would be to invade the rights of truth; and liberty is, according to our definition, prohibited from such invasion. Liberty of thought, then, can only be exercised in subjection to and within the limits of truth. And there is no hardship in the most absolute refusal to allow its exercise in contravention of known truth. Suppose, for example, the Copernican system were known, beyond all posssibility of dispute, to be absolutely true in all particulars, there would be no tyranny whatever in prohibiting, under severe penalties, the teaching of any contrary theory in any school in the kingdom. I repeat, this would be so, if the system were known to be true beyond the possibility of cavil; just as there would be no tyranny in passing a law declaring it penal to deny the fifth proposition in the first book of Euclid. But Mr. Mill claims the right to pursue all sorts of speculations with¬ out control, on the ground that no knowledge is certain. That is his primary and fundamental ground, and it is the ground commonly taken. But the certainty of any theory or fact being once esta¬ blished, I suppose neither he nor any one would claim the right to deny the theory. Such assump¬ tion would be contrary to reason. Argument with one who would assert such a demand would be im¬ possible. Now, if God has revealed Himself and His will to man, what He has revealed must, as we saw in MR. MILL UPON LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 155 a former paper, be absolutely certain: it cannot be doubtful. As regards God Himself, therefore, we are bound to think of Him as He is, according to the revelation. But one way in which we can trench upon His rights is by thinking of Him other than He is. In doing so we invade His rights in various ways : one being that we refuse to believe Him. But He has a right to be believed ; therefore, in thinking of Him amiss we trench upon that right, which indeed, includes all His other rights. I say, if God has revealed Himself, this is true, and we are entitled to call upon Mr. Mill, or any one else who discusses these questions, to declare, explicitly, whether or no they deny a revelation. If they do, we know with whom we are dealing, and how to conduct our argu¬ ment ; if not, let him or them declare as explicitly their belief in a revelation, and our line of argument will be equally clear. But let there be no shrinking from an open avowal of belief or disbelief, as though the aim were to avoid obloquy, or to entrap opponents into charges for which there are the broadest hints, without, possibly, the actual specific declarations. Fortunately, there are comparatively few men who dare to deny the fact of a revelation having been made; and these men proceed in opposition to the clearest evidence of the only conceivable description. The revelation, then, being admitted, all men are bound to bring their minds and thoughts into sub¬ jection to the truths revealed, whether these concern God Himself, as He is in His own nature, or in His relations to us—that is, whether they concern God 156 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. only, or tlie laws to which He wills that we conform, in our own persons, in intercourse with the lower creation and with fellow-men, or in worship. But, it is said, these relations are so complicated, it is impossible to conceive a revelation which shall con¬ trol our thoughts in every detail. I reply, firstly, that there is no control within the bounds of truth, and secondly, that it is the complicated character of our relations which renders such a revelation rea¬ sonable. Of the complication there is no doubt; nor is it increased by the fact of the revelation; and a revelation which did not take into account and provide for such complication, would he an absurdity. Bevelation, therefore, must be as multifarious as our relations, otherwise it will be practically useless. But, as Mr. Mill truly remarks, liberty of expres¬ sion is practically inseparable from liberty of thought. Therefore, if liberty of thought were allowable in reference to the revealed law, that is, as to the terms and requirements of that law, such thought would find expression, not in individual acts only, hut in words also : and thus another law—a law at variance with the revealed law—would be promulgated and widely diffused, and the revelation made of no effect. But there can he no right to publish a law contrary to the law of God. And the whole question resolves itself into this : where is the revelation deposited ? I am not going into the question here. If people will shut their eyes to the “ city set on a hill,” that is their affair. We are speaking of freedom of thought and expression; and I maintain, 1st, that it MR. MILL UPON LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 15 7 is reasonable to expect a revelation; 2nd, that such a revelation has been made; 3rd, that the very name supposes something definite and free from doubt; 4th, that there can be no right to express any opinion which runs counter to the terms of that revelation; and, 5th, that whoever holds the deposit of that revelation is bound to prevent, as far as pos¬ sible, the promulgation of opinions contrary to it. Whence it follows that any such freedom as Mr. Mill claims, on the ground of the uncertainty of all knowledge (except mathematics), is untenable, both because the phrase “uncertainty of knowledge” is self-contradictory, and because the Divine revelation is more certain than any other set of scientific facts. I am aware Mr. Mill’s exact expression is, that “we can never be certain of the truth of any opinion.” He does not say knowledge, but opinion. But he can hardly mean to assert the uncertainty of opinion. That would be a simple truism. Mr. Mill cannot but know that uncertainty is of the essence of opinion, as certainty is of knowledge; and that the moment an opinion passes out of the region of uncertainty into that of certainty, it ceases to be opinion and becomes knowledge. Taking, therefore, the phrase along with the context, and with the whole argument raised upon it, I understand Mr. Mill to deny the possibility of acquiring positive certainty or certain knowledge on any of those questions which are involved in the theory of liberty of thought and expression. Having a revelation, we are happily saved from the 158 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. necessity of entering here into the question of ivliat truths may be known apart from revelation. It is sufficient to know that there are many truths essen¬ tial to the well-being of society which can only he learned through revelation: truths, any doubt upon which must modify the conduct of individuals, not only towards each other, hut towards the State, and of the State towards subjects and towards other states. For, although it is true that the natural reason can prove the existence of God, and of our duty to Him, His will once being known, and con¬ sequently of future rewards and punishments, yet it is a matter of experience that opposite theories on almost every conceivable question touching the welfare of man individually and socially, and based on profound metaphysical speculation, have been maintained at one epoch or another, and fre¬ quently at the same period and in the same city. So that nothing but a supreme authority, acknowledged by all, could possibly set them at rest, and determine on which side human welfare really lay. Upon one point no doubt is expressed by any side, and that is, the superiority of civilization over bar¬ barism ; and that because liberty is more perfectly at¬ tained under civilization than under barbarism, and liberty is the most priceless of mundane treasures,— Mr. Mill going even so far as to assert that despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with bar¬ barians under certain conditions, and that “ liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have MR. MILL UPON LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 159 become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion.” Wherein civilization and barbarism each consists may be and is debated; but on the abstract proposition all are agreed; and they are agreed upon this, too: that the most characteristic feature of civilization is the supremacy of law. “ In savage life there is little or no law or adminis¬ tration of justice, no systematic employment of the collective strength of society to protect individuals against injury from one another; every one trusts to his own strength or cunning, and where that fails, he is generally without resource.” * In civilized society this defect is remedied by the establishment of laws, more or less strictly enforced, to which all appeal with confidence, and on which every member of the community relies, to protect him from the tyranny and violence of individuals or parties. These laws are familiar to all in the ordi¬ nary concerns of life; and in the more difficult questions they are for the most part invoked without hesitation or fear of partiality or favour. A general belief in their wisdom, and in the fairness with which they will be administered in each case, enables the whole machinery of law and justice to work smoothly. So that law is the safeguard of freedom, because the main function of the law is the defence of rights, which the law preserves from invasion on any side. It follows that the most perfect freedom is coexistent with the most perfect laws. Law and liberty become in this * “ Dissertat.,” vol. i., p. 162. 160 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE . view more than half synonymous : although at the first blush there seems to be an antagonism in the names—that of law conveying the idea of restraint, while that of liberty conveys freedom from control. It is obvious that where law prevails, adherence to conventional, if not to abstract justice, excludes caprice, and the tyrannical power of the strong over the weak, who alone require guarantees for liberty. But the force of law depends upon the recognitions of conscience. If conscience fail to sanction a law, it is speedily abrogated. Men revolt against a law which their conscience condemns. But the conscience, having lost its primal clearness, requires external enlightenment, and this it receives only through revelation. Even were an individual conscience enlightened in so eminent a degree as to enable its possessor to maintain a perfect adherence to the natural law, yet he would have no authority over others. The false maxims which prevail in the world, and which arise in various ways—partly from the wilful stifling of conscience, and partly from ignorance—are too universal to admit such authority, of which the individual could produce no proof. The most profound thinkers, the most rigid moralists, outside revelation, have failed to create schools of wide extent or long duration. Disciples have learned their theories, and then have departed from their teaching, and no society has been formed having a growth of its own, and able to maintain itself against adverse influences and new theorists. So that no way has been made in the establishment of a law of MR. MILL UPON LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 161 universal appeal. But revelation stands on a totally different footing. Revelation embraces human nature on every side, natural and supernatural. Not only does it unfold so much of the Divine nature as is necessary for the performance of our duty to God; it gives the means of discovering that duty in all the minute details of life; it declares a law of mutual duty to others equally minute and complicated, and inseparable from duty to God, both because of the general duty of obedience to Him, and because the smallest circumstances of our natural life are mixed up and blended with, and are, indeed, part and parcel of, our supernatural life—that is, our life of pure relation with God; but revelation acts, for the most part, not in the way of exacting a blind obedience, but by way of convincing the intellect; it shows the reasonableness of the law which it enforces ; and this it can only do by teaching certain great facts in the history of our race, certain prominent facts regarding the composition and analysis of the mind and soul, and of the connection between mind and matter, from whence the intellect can draw necessary inferences, guided and checked by revelation, and so saved from infringing the rights of truth. Revelation fixes, too, the limit beyond which the understanding cannot penetrate, and from this line it demands a blind obedience, based upon the reasonable consideration of God’s just title to being believed, and of our duty to believe, whether we understand or no ; and, indeed, of such belief being the foundation of any real know¬ ledge of the matter revealed. So that conscience, 11 162 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. enlightened through the intellect, approves, and un¬ hesitatingly admits the jurisdiction of the revealed law; which, for that reason, is incomparably more free from the dangers of caprice, and more powerful than any merely human laws, both by reason of its Divine sanctions, and of the wider acceptance which it obtains, where it is once recognized. If, therefore, human laws are the safe guards of liberty, how much more is the re¬ vealed law ! If they are the signs and the means of civilization, how much more the revealed laws !—how much more effective the civilizing power of the latter ! —how much more permanent, truer, higher, more per¬ fect in every way, the civilization it produces ! But let it not be imagined that the authority of the revealed law depends in the least upon the intellectual recog¬ nition of its jurisdiction. It depends on no such thing. Its authority is derived from God, and from God alone, and submission to it is due from every man. Of course, God does not reveal a law without giving man the power of apprehending it: but how difficult soever it may he to understand certain clauses or chapters in the law, there is none in understanding the truth that the revelation must be deposited with some onq or more persons, and that he or they must have authority to interpret it; from whence it fol¬ lows, that where the law is preached no plea of ignorance or misunderstanding can be sustained, since the place of deposit must be notorious. But if no revealed law be admitted, it follows, that since restraints must necessarily be imposed, these will be placed upon the truth, and free scope only given to MR. MILL UPON LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 163 error, which cannot possibly have so wide an exten¬ sion as the truth. It may be taken, then, as esta¬ blished, that true freedom of thought is best secured by the recognition of, and submission to, a revealed law; that to deny the possibility of knowledge is to circumscribe liberty of thought; that liberty for error is the invasion of the rights of truth, which is con¬ trary to our definition of liberty; and that, if there be no right to exercise uncontrolled thought, so, a fortiori , can there be none for uncontrolled expression. But, says Mr. Mill, the public discussion even of error is a good scarcely less great than the change from error to truth, because without knowing both sides of a question, you can know neither, and, there¬ fore, liberty to give expression to error is a positive good. His words are : “The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race—posterity as well as the existing gene¬ ration ; those who dissent from the opinion still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose—what is almost as great a benefit—the clearer perception and livelier im¬ pression of truth produced by its collision with error.” Now, to rob is to take from another unjustly : to take away, to deprive. But falsity is a mere negation. It has no real existence. It is that which is not. An untrue opinion is nothing. It is a fantasy of what has no being. Therefore, to prevent the expression of a false opinion, is to rob mankind of nothing : a possession, one would say, of no great value. 11 A 164 - ASSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. If the word error, as used here by Mr. Mill, he applied to revealed truth, I maintain the dictum to be a fallacy altogether. Revealed truth depends in no way upon discussion, but upon authority. The bulk of mankind are so incapable of acting inde¬ pendently of authority, that if no legitimate authority be provided for them they will create a false one for themselves. To claim, therefore, for mankind at large independence of authority, is to demand what they do not want and cannot use. Impatience of the authority of the revealed law is, therefore, doubly unreasonable, both on the general ground of the necessity for authority and on the fact that revela¬ tion allows an inexhaustible store of questions for discussion,—physical, metaphysical, social, political. Neither is there now, nor will there ever be, any lack of such questions. All that is required is that they shall be discussed in submission to authority; for authority is the judge as to when the true limits are being passed. It is law which decides ; not the appellant nor the respondent: otherwise, the only decision would be one by force. So that submission to the authority of the law is our best guarantee for freedom. Thus far as to the abstract theory of thought and expression. §n. Let us now look at this liberty from another and more practical point of view. It is undeniable that society would be impossible without government, and government without authority, and that to be effica¬ cious authority must be unquestionable. A doubtful MR. MILL UPON LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 165 authority is no authority. Now, authority has two supports—moral and material. By moral I mean the assent of reason and conscience; and by material, either actual physical forc-e or the immediate fear of it; and there can he no doubt that the former is by far the most powerful of the two : the latter is power¬ less to undermine authority till the former has given way. But the moment the reasonableness of the claims of authority are seriously impeached, and it has to fall back upon its material proof, authority is practically well-nigh at an end. Authority, then, is founded on reason and conscience; hut on both enlightened by and based upon principles the truth of which is absolutely certain—that is, revelation. For, not excepting the very first principles of religion, there are none which may not be, and have not been, a thousand times plausibly disputed. It is revelation alone, as we said, which excludes doubt; defining, with an unyielding hand, the truth of the principles upon which authority rests, and so making authority possible. Thus Hobbes may demonstrate the im¬ morality of tyrannicide ; but he is of no authority. Either he may start from a wrong principle, or there may be some flaw in his argument; or he may fail to obtain a hearing, or to convey his meaning when heard; or he may run counter to the prejudice of the time or of the country : and it is certain that he will be to the world at large unknowm. After all, he expresses but an individual opinion. But autho¬ rity demands certainty, wdiereas all opinion is doubtful, as we saw 7 before. Again, the divine right 166 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITER A TORE. of kings on the one hand, and the social contract on the other, have been maintained, and may be defended by arguments, which the great bulk of men, and even of fairly educated men—of that middle class which is at different times the strength and the weakness of governments—could not by their own unaided reason refute. The theory on either side is capable of a sophistical defence, too subtile for the run of men to detect the fallacy of. If, therefore, authority have no better basis than such sophism, the selfishness which has invented it will certainly, in no long time, lead to oppression, and thus autho¬ rity and the general security will be jeopardized. So, again, of certain theories concerning God. If, as some have said, He takes no care for the affairs of men, there can be no duty to Him, and, therefore, none to any authority whatever; and the only govern¬ mental power would be physical force. If, as others say, He be the soul of which the visible universe is the body, so that the whole of being is a divine person, as the human body and soul are a human person, then the material world would be as divine as the spiritual, and the worship of material objects would be legitimate—except, indeed, for the absurdity of one portion of the divinity worshipping another portion ; and this absurdity is so apparent as at once to abolish the idea of superiority, and consequently of authority, and so we come by another road again to force. It may b3 said the natural reason could discover both this absurdity and the necessity for civil government; and also that every authority what- MR. MILL UPON LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 167 ever has been disputed in its turn. Each assertion is true, and shall be considered in order. But the absurd theory may be put in a very plausible way; and even if its true character were discovered, nothing would have been done towards establishing an acknowledged authority; for another absurdity might, and probably—nay, certainly—would arise in its stead. When, for instance, such a man as Plato could seriously assert, as he does in his Laws, that one of the chief causes of impiety is private worship and propitiatory prayers—because, he says, men imagine they can thus easily get pardon for crimes—what follies may not less gifted minds propound on these subjects ? So that to escape from one absurdity is to fall into another, and no way is made in the search for authority. Again: we have said the two buttresses of authority are physical force and an enlightened reason and conscience. Now, if the State mean to make use of conscience in support of its authority over the individual, it must act on one of two suppositions : either that its appeal to conscience is based on truth, or else on falsehood and pretence. Now, we cannot appeal to what we do not know; and to know the truth implies certainty. But certainty, and therefore authority, can only be had through revelation, as we have seen. More¬ over, how is the civil ruler to prove his right to the obedience of subjects, except by religion ? There never was a government yet which openly relied on force alone, nor even on force and self-interest com¬ bined—which is only force in another form. With 168 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. out the sanction of religion there is no answer to the questions, Why should not the subject at any moment demand to change places with the ruler ? and Whence springs the duty of the one to the other? If all men are created equal, as some declare, how does any one or any number acquire authority over any other individual or number of individuals ? or the few over the many ? By virtue of what pre¬ rogative is power exercised ? In barbarous states of society, personal strength and heroism chiefly confer power ; in other conditions of society, it comes by means of mental superiority or of wealth. But in neither case is it muscular strength, nor intellect, nor possessions, alone , which give the title. A right must he inherent somewhere ; and it cannot, there¬ fore, as from its first source, spring from bodily strength, which fails, nor from intellect, which be¬ comes clouded, nor from wealth, which is acquired in a thousand unjust ways, and is even more un¬ stable than the other two ; and this becomes more apparent in the succession of power; for neither strength, nor intellect, nor the assured possession of wealth can he transmitted from generation to gene¬ ration. But, says Mr. Mill, society has authority over the individual. This is too vague an expression, and altogether unpractical. Admit that authority is vested in society : well, to use its authority society must act; and it can but act through certain of its members. But which members ?—the strongest ? the richest ? the wisest ?—in either case we have not MR. MILL UPON LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 169 S' advanced a step ; you cannot prove who is strongest without trying conclusions ; nor who is wisest in any way. But it will be said, the right to confer autho¬ rity rests with the majority. What majority?—a bare one? a majority of two-thirds ? of three-fourths? of the educated ? or of all alike ? But say the right is inherent in a majority. The majority may go to infringe the rights of the minority, or what the minority deem such. Who shall decide ? The majority, no doubt; there is none else. Then justice depends on the will of the majority, that is, in other words, on the will of the strongest; and so we get back in discussion to the old Platonic question on justice, and in practice to civil war, if the minority he a large one. Thus we have no certainty, and therefore no authority. It is no doubt true that society has authority; otherwise, as we said before, it could not continue to exist. Whence comes it then ? Prom God; not from a false idea of God, or from false gods; for truth cannot spring out of falsehood, and there is no certainty but in the truth : from God, who has so constituted society as to require authority, and from whom alone, I reiterate, we know the truth; the truth concerning Himself, concerning our own nature, concerning our positive duty to Him and to each other, based on a positive revealed law. So that when disputes arise between individuals and the executive of society, they are bound to be brought for adjustment to the tribunal of the revealed law. As to the working of this tribunal we shall speak at length in a subsequent 170 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. chapter. Here suffice it to remark that the impeach¬ ment of the claims of a tribunal is no proof of their invalidity. Every sin is a practical protest against the moral law, and every crime against the civil law. That the tribunal in question has been suc¬ cessfully resisted is, then, no jprima-facie proof that its pretensions are usurped. But, as we have seen, its rights being once admitted, it becomes an in¬ definitely stronger defence than any other to the security of the rights, not only of society itself, but of every individual member of society. From what has been said it will be apparent that Divine autho¬ rity is the sole foundation of civil government; and that to allow a freedom of expression such as Mr. Mill demands—that is, liberty to call in question the very existence of authority—is deliberately to undermine not only the authority of the State, but the true liberty of every single citizen. Now, let us see, in conclusion, who they are who claim this wonderful liberty of expression, and on what subjects. And first, as to the subjects. These are—faith, morals, politics, and science, physical and metaphysical. The claimants it is not easy to esti¬ mate, but a fair approximation may be made—at least, near enough for out purpose. They consist of clergymen of one sect or another, politicians, literary men, metaphysicians, men of science, and other edu¬ cated people. And these may be divided into those who have really made a study of these subjects, and those who have not; and the students, as we will call them, may again be subdivided into those who are MR. MILL UPON LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 171 capable of forming a judgment, and those who are not. Now, Mr. Mill says, that only one man in a hundred is capable of understanding a proposition not self-evident. His words are these: “On any matter not self-evident, there are ninety-nine persons totally incapable of judging of it for one who is capable, and the capacity of the hundredth is only comparative; for the majority of the eminent men of every past generation held many opinions now known to be erroneous, and did' and approved things which no one will now justify.” But, half the population being women, and half the remainder children, it would seem that not over one in four hundred of the popu¬ lation can even hold any opinion worth hearing on almost any questions of depth; and of them a very large proportion have paid little attention to such as these; and of those who have, many entertain altogether different views. Probably, all the really scientific men in England do not number anything like a thousand. The literary class is larger, but, with certain brilliant exceptions, they are, for the most part, men of very superficial attainments. Very many clergymen of all denominations are utterly opposed to the separation of science from religion ; and of politicians the great bulk are occupied in the furtherance of their own personal ends. It would appear, therefore, that the number of persons who claim perfect freedom from restraint in their specula¬ tions, in an intelligent manner, is exceedingly small. Of course there are plenty of people who follow a cry which flatters their vanity. But their opinions are 172 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE . of no value, and they would quite readily acquiesce in other theories. They want leaders, men on whose opinions they can rely; in other words, whose opinion they shall be content to accept as authority. With them it is no question of escaping the thraldom of authority—but simply, to whose authority shall they yield submission. They are altogether illogical, for they reject authority founded on knowledge, and sub¬ mit to the authority of opinion! It is true, they dream of independence. They require something which pretends to be, and which, when stated, sounds like, a principle: not superficial enough to be fallacious at first sight, and yet not deep enough to bear a rigid examination. They are impatient of profound inves¬ tigation, and, in short, have no notion of making themselves acquainted with both sides of an argu¬ ment ; the process would be alike too tedious and too painful. So that, though many—indeed, nearly all but the lowest class in the scale of education—talk much of, and are, perhaps, ready to make great sacri¬ fices for what is called freedom of conscience, yet very few indeed can give any rational explanation of their theory. It is precisely the same in politics. The comparative advantages or disadvantages of dif¬ ferent forms of government, the pros and cons of the theory of government by majorities, the application of a rule to different conditions of society and at different epochs, can be fairly estimated by very few. And there are fewer still who know anything what¬ ever of physical science ; and fewer again of meta¬ physical. Let it be borne in mind that we are not MR. MILL UPON LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 17 3 expressing any new theory of onr own. We are hut analyzing and appreciating a remark of Mr. Mill’s, in which we agree, and showing in detail how true it is. The men, then, who clamour intelligently for unre¬ strained liberty of thought and expression, are a mere handful, by no means comparable in-numbers to those who hold and claim to interpret revealed truth; and their followers, who revolt against the authority of the latter, commit the absurdity of subjecting them¬ selves to that of another class—a small knot of men whose studies in no way fit them to judge of questions which lie outside the sphere of their observations and experiments. Their independence is, then, as we said, only a dream; it has no real existence. They are slaves to theories they have not investigated, on the authority of men whose avocations are quite remote from the study of another science, which they despise—but which alone, with the exception of mathematics, can claim the name of science in its highest and strictest sense. And moreover, as must inevitably happen with matters of opinion, no two scientific men agree together. So that if freedom of thought depends, as we have endeavoured to show, upon knowledge of the truth, these so-called scientific men and unchristian philosophers are, in reality, its worst enemies : to say nothing of the practical absur¬ dity of insisting upon man’s inherent right to believe and promulgate falsehood, because the promulgator chooses to give his false fact, or falser inference, the style and title of science. VI. CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. BY EDWARD LUCAS. (Continued from the Second Series.) HE two last of these papers, published in our second volume, have called forth two criticisms, to each of which a reply may not be altogether out of place on the present occasion. The first is to the effect that my readers are made to toil up-hill, and then not shown the view. I reply : we are not yet on the top. In ascending a mountain there are many points at which it is convenient, and pleasant too, to stop and survey from a little distance the details of the ground already passed, in order to fix in the mind the appearance and the relative positions of objects on the way ; to the end they may he recognizable when we have gained the summit. Not in vain did Cortez climb the peak in Darien; and if I can at all adequately express my thought, I shall present to my Protestant companions in the ascent, when once the height is gained, a world of which they little dream; a summer Pacific utterly unlike that CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 175 turbulent winter Atlantic upon which they are at present tossed. The second, in the Saturday Review , is this : that an undue expansion of matter makes the papers tedious. To this it may he remarked, that had the argument been addressed to such men as the writers in the Review , it might well have been compressed into half its space. But to persons not conversant with the main features of an argument, facts and deductions from those facts require elaboration, where to a learned man a hint or an allusion would suffice. Some years ago, visiting a family whose members were certainly above the average in ability and intellectual taste, the conversation turned upon Church History. It was astonishing to find the unani¬ mous opinion to be, that the subject is a dry one and not worth the trouble of mastering. Niebuhr, Arnold, and Grote, cuneiform characters and Etruscan remains, James Mill, Hallam and Heeren, Boswell and Lock¬ hart, were more than interesting. But the history of the oldest dynasty in the world, of the kingdom which has produced a greater number of celebrities than all mankind beside, was of no interest. Now, how true soever it may be that magnitude of proportion is not essential to the idea of sublimity, it is not less so, that vastness alone, by filling the eye or the imagination, will produce the effect of sublimity where it scarcely exists, while it heightens what is of itself noble and exalted. There was perhaps little of the sublime in the conquests of Attila or of Timour, so far as they themselves were concerned. 176 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE . Nevertheless the whole circumstances attending their invasions—as the rapidity of their movements, their irresistible force, the fearful carnage many times re¬ peated, the wild flight of the conquered, the gigantic pride of the leaders, the complete devastation which followed their track—fill the mind, and compel an admiration of which the leaders were unworthy. On the other hand, though the heroism of Horatius at the bridge, or of the English at Agincourt, is really as sublime as that of Leonidas at Thermopylae, or of the Greeks at Marathon, yet the presence of the mighty Persian hosts adds more sensibly in the latter cases to our appreciation of those lofty qualities which actuated the inferior numbers on all these occasions. Here the overwhelming disproportion between the opponents causes the mind to dwell upon the individual cha¬ racters of the weakest; there it is the immensity of the operations, rather than the actors, which engages the attention. But when the conflict is between two mighty powers, all hut equally matched in numbers, in valour, and in fortitude, when heroic sacrifices on both sides are made with the consent of entire nations, so that vastness of design and movement is combined with high personal conduct on a great scale, then it is that the soul dilates to its utmost expansion, and that the sublime spectacle rouses in us the hope of being one day called upon to share in such glorious deeds. Of these profane history furnishes numerous examples. But the history of the Christian organi¬ zation presents pictures of disproportion, to the natural eye at least, far greater, of personal heroism CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 177 far nobler, of numbers more countless, of operations wider in extent, of powers more mighty, of interests altogether more transcendent, than the history of Persia or Greece, of Eome or Carthage, can supply. From within a few years of the Crucifixion the history of Christianity becomes indeed the history of the world. Around the centre of Christianity, or, what comes to the same thing, around principles which the Christian authority exalts on high, rages the great “ Battle of the Standard,” surging to and fro with ever-varying success. But long before the birth of Christ, perhaps even before the creation of mankind, the contest began which Christianity was established to carry on in this its human field : and as the great parties in the war are God and Satan, it is impossible to conceive a subject of larger scope or more exalted concernment. While, therefore, there are whole classes who regard the history of Christianity as a dry study, one is com¬ pelled to use a multitude of illustrations which are more or less tedious to those of higher aims and cultivation. The Protean character of Protestantism., too, is another factor in one’s calculation; and I think the reader will find, before I have finished, that very little of what I have said before could well have been .spared. In a former paper I endeavoured to show that, soon after the rise of Christianity, the Christian law and doctrine brought not only the administrators of the Society, but every member of it, at once into conflict with the manners, the prejudices, the interests, and the mind of the other Society in the midst of which 12 178 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. Christianity sprang up; that a host of questions arose as to marriage, as to public and private worship, as to problems of the highest import, including the origin of the universe and of man, as to the natures of the soul and of God, and as to numberless modifica¬ tions of duty arising out of these questions. I showed also that the Christian teachers must have been able to reply to them with the most absolute certainty; that the answers must have been perfectly conform¬ able to the will of God; and that therefore the Society must have been holy in doctrine. I now propose to prove two points: first, that the dogmatic functions of the Society must he as absolute in modern as in ancient times; second, that the authority of the Society must be as supreme in matters of fact and discipline as of doctrine. I. The Dogmatic Functions of the Society.— It is perhaps one of the most singular phenomena in the history of the human mind, that the nineteenth century of the Christian religion should see a return to the very scepticism which appeared in the age of Alexander the Great. The difference is this: that then philosophers without pretence to religion af¬ firmed that no certain knowledge is possible, and even that this affirmation is itself uncertain, whereas now it is religious men—men professing to be Christians— who affirm the same thing ; then the impossibility was regarded as a fact to be grievously deplored, now it is hailed as the very solid base and groundwork of a system whose superstructure is the boasted tolerance of every imaginable contradiction. The very craving CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. iy 9 after some certain knowledge it was, wliich in a great measure prepared the world for the reception of the Divine revelation, without which men must have continued to the last always seeking and never arriving at a knowledge of the truth. Now men are as eager to prove, that the Divine revelation having been granted, the uncertainty is as great as ever. A revelation is admitted,—a revelation which, unless it solved beyond the reach of cavil such questions social, ethical, philosophical, and religious as I pointed out in the former paper, was no revelation at all; nothing but one more imposture—another guess added to those which already troubled the world and left the minds of men in blank hopelessness. A revelation is admitted: hut one which rejects dogma and therefore authority at this particular period in the world’s history. The formation of a Divine Society to which this revelation was en¬ trusted, for transmission to the whole race and to all time, is not denied. The functions of the Society in its early days, when it had to deal with the ab¬ surdities and abominations of paganism, are not called in question. But, by some curious process of reasoning, which one finds it quite impossible to master, the retention of those functions is ridiculed at this day, wdien there are probably as many pagans still to instruct, and abominations not less gross still to overthrow. Observe, I am not dealing with the questions of Scripture authority, and of whether or not the Bible is a code of laws which every man w r ho can read may understand. Those are not the 12 A 18o ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. points at all. The point is this : that those who read the Bible, and who cannot deny what is patent to everybody— viz. that it is subjected to the most con¬ tradictory interpretations—are content to get over the difficulty by recurring to the old notion that no certain knowledge exists : that the utmost we can arrive at is a probable opinion, if even we can get beyond a mere suspension of judgment. As if the world could have been converted by the promulgation of opinions : as if there were room for opinion on the scope and meaning of the sacrifice of Calvary; as if the folly of the cross could have been made wisdom to the Greeks without irrefragable proofs, at once both logical and reasonable, perfectly consistent and there¬ fore free from contradictions. I say nothing here of proof by miracles, in deference to Dean Hook, who disbelieves in miracles then , because he finds Pro¬ testant missionaries unable to work them now. But I say the Greeks and philosophers from all quarters whom St. Paul met and disputed with at Athens were not men to be converted to a new doctrine, involving a total change of life, by any enuncia¬ tion of opinions. Imagine St. Paul imparting to the men of Athens his own private opinion on the unity of God, the immortality of the soul, or on the origin of sin, and declaring that the doctrine he taught was the truth to him —as if the truth on those matters could be both true and false according to the person. But it was reserved for a later age, a period of wonderful progress certainly, to discover that a Bevelation, that is, a Divine declaration, admitted of contradictory CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 181 interpretations. In other words, that Christ was a propounder of riddles, and that to live according to the truth which He died to teach we must live by guess and not by rule. When I say by rule, I mean, not only according to a code of morals strictly defined, but in the practice of a strictly defined worship and religious observances, without which pure morals are impossible, and which gives to the purest morals con¬ ceivable all their supernatural value. But, it is said, the differences between the sects are on matters non-essential: and again, that the distinctions between one and another are too subtile for ordinary minds to comprehend; and again, that the doctrines in dispute being too subtile are un¬ important as bearing practically upon the lives of Christians. Now I would ask three questions in reference to these three objections. 1st. Can it be contended that the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, for instance, is more essen¬ tial than that of baptism ? Yet the resurrection of the body was one of those which came earliest under discussion, and is shown to be essential by the Scrip¬ tures themselves. And of baptism, on which four contradictory and irreconcilable theories are held at present, St. Irenaeus remarks, that a certain “ class of men had (in his day) been instigated by Satan to a denial of it, and therefore,” he adds, “ to a renuncia¬ tion of the whole Christian faith.” The first question seems to answer itself almost in the asking. But,— 2nd. If the distinctions are so subtile, why are they insisted on? Why do they give rise to sects, and 182 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. divisions and subdivisions of sects ? A Baptist, for example, asserts that in order to become valid the sacrament of baptism must have the intellectual assent of the baptized. An Independent, on the con¬ trary, admits infant baptism, where no intellectual assent can be given. Now, the denial of infant baptism is a practical denial of original sin. Is it possible the maintainers of the two doctrines do not understand to what each theory leads ? There would seem to be no very great subtilty in the distinction. It is one which an ordinary mind may easily compre¬ hend : at least an ordinary Catholic mind; of Protes¬ tant minds I will say nothing. 3rd. Are doctrines practically unimportant because they are subtile ? Is that of the Incarnation, for exam¬ ple, of no practical, application because it does not lie on the surface ?—because it is a mystery, and because men may misconceive the manner of its accomplish¬ ment ? Yet it is the foundation-stone of the Christian Religion, and a bare enumeration of heresies which have been held in relation to it would be a complete refutation of such a notion. I will mention two, and these by no means the most deep, and we shall see what a very practical bearing they must have on the Christian life. The first is the Nestorian, the second the Eutychian heresy. Now Nestorius asserted that there are in Christ two distinct persons : a Divine Person, and a purely human person; as if it should be said that there are two persons in a common man—a corporeal person, and a spiritual person : and he further maintained CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 183 that the human person alone was born of the Blessed Virgin, the Divine Person being added after birth; as if one should maintain that the soul is added to the body after birth. The effect of this theory was, on one side, to make the sacrifice of Calvary that of a mere man, and therefore inadequate to pay the' infinite debt due to God: and on the other side, to take away from the Blessed Virgin all that title to peculiar honour which flows from her being the mother of God Himself; for it is clear that if she were the mother of a man only she loses the prerogative of an honour superior to that of other women, whereas if she be the mother of God the honour due must differ, not only in degree but in kind also, from that which any other woman, such as the mother of Moses or of Elias, could claim; and upon this difference would hang a multitude of questions which are so familiar as to require no further remark. The logical end of this doctrine was to arrive in two steps at a denial of the Divinity of our Lord; and this is what Nestorius did, for he maintained that there was no real union, hut only a conjunction of natures, something analogous to the chemical distinction between a combination and a mixture, and that to ascribe birth or suffering or death to the Divine Word was to follow the Pagans. So that he cut up by the very roots the whole rationale of the Christian religion. Eutyches, on the other hand, declared that there is only one nature in Christ, so that the two natures, divine and human, existed only as such before the Incarnation; and that when this mystery took place the Divine nature 184 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. was absorbed into the human, in such a manner that Christ was not at once true God and true man. The effect of this was to make the whole history of the death and suffering of Christ a mere fable. Thus the doctrine, of the Eedemption was destroyed, and with it all Christian morality. But these subtilties have no comparison with those of certain Gnostics, whose notions from fan¬ cies most intricate led to results most immoral; for they declared that our Lord assumed nothing material into His nature, because, they said, material sub¬ stance could receive no afflatus of incorruption; and, further, they said that the consummation of all things would take place when spiritual men have attained to a perfect knowledge of God, as they themselves had done. And, again, that good works, though necessary for others, were not so for themselves, who would undoubtedly be saved, not by works, but because of their spiritual nature ; for that whereas others receive and are deprived of grace, they had it as a special possession, therefore they gave them¬ selves up to all abominations, being free to live as they pleased. It is a heresy which has been revived in another shape in modern times—Calvin’s heresy on predestination. But I mention it merely to show that even subtilties the most fantastical may be made to lead to very practical results. And my argument is, that if in ancient times an acknow¬ ledged tribunal were necessary to guard the purity and the truth of revelation against these theories, it is not less necessary now, and that the unpractical CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 185 character of the differences between the sects cannot he alleged in bar of such necessity. We hear daily repeated, but with less refinement, many of the old heresies. But, notwithstanding our boasted intellectual progress, the accuracy and nicety of our perceptions cannot for a moment bear com¬ parison with those of the old Greeks, among whom the chief heresies appeared. Nevertheless the grosser character of our intellects takes nothing from the need of a central power, to which all questions of faith must be referred for authoritative decision. They , recog¬ nizing the mystery of the world, of human life, of God, and of the relations between them all, refined away revealed truths in their attempts at explanation, and thus made a path for the unbridled license of passion. We, seizing hold of half-perceived truths, sweep away with rough hand, and with little thought, whatever thwarts their passage. We are too impatient of control to brook the interposition of obstacles, placed, as we imagine, by men whom also we have con¬ demned unheard; and the consequence is a mass of inconsistencies which the merest tyro in logic could with ease detect. Moreover the old questions still remain: as the origin of evil, predestination, nature and grace, and even the nature of God; for I have met with Parsees at least as well able to maintain their dualistic theory as any Protestant of my acquaint¬ ance to maintain his. And missionaries report dis¬ cussions with the Brahmins of India which exhibit an equal capacity in defending the singular notions of that religion. Nor is this wonderful; the doctrine 186 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. of the metempsychosis being by no means so utterly absurd as, for example, the old Greek theogonies. Then, again, the Buddhist religion, which embraces three hundred millions of people, is a remarkable caricature of Christianity, and demands its own peculiar refutation. And as to Islamism, the question of Mohammed’s claim to the title of Prophet is one which could scarcely be overthrown by men whose toleration extends so far as this, that they hesitate to ridicule, far less will they utterly condemn, even the fetish worship of Africa, lest perchance there might be some form or principle of their religion in this wretched idolatry. While therefore there remain three such religious powers in the world as Buddhism, Brahminism, and Mohammedanism, to say nothing of a hundred minor forms of idolatry, of all the revived heresies of the early ages, together with atheism in various shapes and widely spread, not only in the distant east, but even in the midst of European society ; not only after the coarse type of Tom Paine, but in the insinuating kindly discrimi¬ nating sympathetic fashion which is the characteristic of the scholarly unbelief of the present day,* it seems difficult to conceive how a reasonable man can deny that the dogmatic functions of the Society must needs be as absolute at this moment as on the very day of Pentecost. II. Fact and Discipline. —But if this be true of doctrine, it is no less so in matters of fact and discipline. It would be altogether impossible for * Pall Mall Gazette , Nov. 18, 1868. CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 187 the Christian Power to oppose successfully the three hostile Beligious Powers just named; unless it moved under some commander-in-chief, holding a supreme and unquestioned control for directing its action, not only in general but in detail. When, for example, Christianity was threatened by Islamism with an overthrow as complete as that of the Eoman Empire, it required an ever-watchful eye, a fixed determi¬ nation, persisting through centuries, an influence able to excite enthusiasm even in the apathetic, to collect and range forces, to send to the front forlorn hopes, and to cheer them on to the most desperate encounters, in order to save Europe from the fate which the divisions of heresy had prepared for the cradle of our religion, and indeed for all the south¬ ern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean. No single European state, and least of all that which lay nearest the frontier, would have stood any chance whatever against the invaders. Unity of action was wanted among governments whose temporal inter¬ ests were never identical and often opposed ; and this unity neither would nor could ever have been brought about except by the exertion of an influence which all acknowledged, and which was recognized as being used for the common good. Without this, how would it have been possible for princes to com¬ bine, whose respective territories lay far apart, separated perhaps by other unfriendly countries, through which the troops of one must pass in order to effect a junction with allies ? How otherwise could mutual rivalries be removed, jealousies soft- 188 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE . ened, quarrels held in abeyance, or apparent local immediate interests be made to yield to calls for belp from distant lands and to fears of future dangers ? I see no conceivable method ; and in point of fact, such an influence as I have described was so exerted. What bad happened during the earlier barbarian invasions was renewed and repeated on a larger scale. Then the attacks bad been directed against the state alone: now it was made for the express purpose of destroying the religion of Christ and propagating that of Mohammed. And as it is true that Christianity alone, acting through bishops, monks, and clergy, saved society from destruction at the earlier period; so is it likewise certain that, Christendom having become established during these turbulent centuries, it was the Central Christian Authority alone, acting through hermits and saints, through kings and princes, which enabled Europe to withstand the power of Islam at the later epoch. But this had not yet been accomplished, the aggressive power of the Crescent had not yet been brought to a close by the armed power of the Cross, when new fields for peaceful conquest were opened in the far off East. These remote and populous regions lie bound under the influence of systems even harder to subdue than the Mohammedan arms,—I mean the politico-social systems of India and of China; embracing nearly half the human race. Thither men must be sent to carry the light of the gospel. So long as those people remain in ignor¬ ance of the Cross, the end of-the foundation of the CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CATL SOCIETY. 189 Christian Society cannot be said, even in an imperfect sense, to be near accomplishment. The idea seems to prevail that personal aggrandisement is the object of the Christian leaders, and a vulgar esprit de corps the moving cause of activity in subordinates in undertaking these conquests. That such an idea should he entertained is wonderful and it is most untrue. Whatever of self-satisfaction may attend success, neither leaders nor rank and file have this as a final cause. Their aim is simply the salvation of souls. For this they are impelled to heroic acts of self-abnegation, and when zeal for the glory of God and love of their neighbours drives men into the strongholds of the enemy, they feel that their efforts would be vain unless they had a base, however distant, to fall hack upon, and a reliable authority to guide their operations in cases of difficulty and of doubt. It was many years after the first navi¬ gators had shown the way to China before Christian Preachers were able to obtain a- footing in that country; after incredible pains and hardships their patience, sagacity, and perseverance were rewarded with a certain success. But in China, no more than in Borne; in gospel, no more than in secular, labours will success flow uniformly on. Persecution is as natural in Canton as in Borne, perhaps even more so. The apostles and their followers, being subjects of the same state as their persecutors, were well versed in the literature, in the manners, laws, feelings, interests, and traditions of their fellow-subjects. In China, on the contrary, the evangelists were invaders ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITERA TURE. 190 from distant lands: they belonged to races whose reputation for greed and love of territorial aggrandise¬ ment had preceded them; they came unacquainted either with the people, their language, their history, their modes of thought, their customs, or their reli¬ gion. In the Koman empire no restriction was placed upon intercourse with the most distant provinces; and travelling was rendered easy by the great roads which radiated from the imperial city to the ends of the dominion. In China, on the other hand, the very presence of strangers is illegal, and transit is rendered almost impossible by suspicion, hatred, fear of compromise on the part of officials, and a thousand other motives, jealousies, and accidents. The diffi¬ culties of converting the people would therefore he far greater in the latter than in the former empire ; and when persecutions arose they would he incom¬ parably more formidable not only to the apostles hut to the natives, and even to the very existence of the entire Christian establishments: for in evil days converts are without protection, except that afforded by the devotion of friends : there are no catacombs whither to fly for shelter and whence to emerge in full strength when the storm is overpast. Tempta¬ tions to relapse into idolatry are thus at least as great as in the early ages. If, therefore in those times men fell away, they would do the same under later persecutions. And when after an interval of severity a lull and breathing-time were allowed to the Christians, and men repented of their apostacy, the old arguments for and against lenience and severity CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 191 in receiving back the lapsed would be renewed, and the old regulations in each individual case would have to be enforced. I could indeed mention many instances in the history of the Chinese missions identical in character and almost in detail with some of those alluded to in the previous paper. The necessity for an authority was therefore as acutely felt, and is as obvious in China in the seventeenth century as at Eome in the first. But these were not the only difficulties : others of a new kind sprang up among the missionaries them¬ selves. Differences of opinion arose both in India and in China : in India as to the lawfulness of certain manners and customs connected with the system of caste; and in China as to that of ceremonies in honour of the dead; and, more important than all, as to the words used to express the idea of God. Disputes in each case ran high. There was no doubt of the bona fides of the parties on both sides. But the questions were of fundamental importance, and were somewhat similar in principle to those debated in the time of the apostles touching Jewish ceremonies, the differ¬ ence being that then the practices did not involve any danger of superstition ; whereas in the East what had to be decided was the fact of the meanings of words and ceremonies: whether they were or were not open to this danger. This is not the place to go into the history of these disputes: suffice it to say that every one concerned saw and knew and owned the necessity for a high court of appeal; evidence on both sides was submitted, commissioners were ap- 192 ESSAYS ON RELIGION. AND LITERATURE. pointed to sift opposing allegations on the spot, and decisions were finally arrived at which were acknow¬ ledged to he binding, and of which reasonable men felt the justice. What were the merits of the various parties, who was right and who was wrong, who pru¬ dent and who imprudent, who submissive and who obstinate, is beside the question. What I am con¬ cerned to maintain is this : that as in ancient times questions of discipline arose which could only be settled by the Central Authority of organised Christi¬ anity, so in modern times similar cases arise. And if it happened that submission was not yielded to authority, neither is the validity of the claims of au¬ thority weakened, nor the necessity for its existence made questionable. Nothing in that case happens more than occurs in principle on the commission of every deliberate sin. A robber braves authority ; he does not impugn it. No one accuses justice itself of what is called the failure of justice; for it is not justice, hut the administration only, that fails. But though I do not here enter upon the history of those disputes, I would advise candid inquirers to do so ; and, as a preparation for the study, I venture to submit the following considerations on the degree of perfection to be expected in those in whom the supreme authority is at any time vested. We say, as the Catechism tells us, that the Christian Society must he holy in doctrine, and in the persons of whom it is composed. Now, vagueness in the employment of terms is fatal to a correct judgment on any important matter ; CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 193 and to acquire the habit of accuracy in definitions is one of the most difficult of mental tasks. Hence has arisen a false notion of the degrees and kinds of holiness which are to be looked for in the Christian Society; and men are repelled by the knowledge of facts which, be they never so lamentable, are in no w T ay proofs against, but are rather among the strongest evidences for, the Divine character. Except when applied to the attributes of God Himself, the word Holiness expresses no absolute quality. As God is absolute Justice, Truth, and Light, so is He absolute Holiness ; and as all other justice, truth, and light are relative, so is all other holiness: all are but reflections of the Divine attri¬ butes, more or less perfect according to the degrees and kinds of perfection which the different orders of created beings possess, or of which they are capable. Thus the holiness of the blessed spirits differs from that of man. Their free will having passed its proba¬ tion, and being unalterably fixed in conformity with the will of God, their every act is a consequence of such fixed determination. A man is holy only in propor¬ tion to the actual perfectness of his will; for not only his actions, but his thoughts and words are under the control of his will, as I showed in a former paper. Where the will is not directed towards obe¬ dience to the Divine will, holiness cannot be said to exist. But between the most perfect agreement possible to man and the point of imperfection at which holiness ceases, there is as finely graduated a scale as in the imperceptible shades which pass from 13 194 A ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. white to black through all the colours of the prism. The holiness of Job differs from that of Moses or ol David, and all from that of St. John the Baptist or St. John the Evangelist. Yet all are holy, and there are holy men far less perfect than they. But as agreement with the Divine will diminishes, so does the applicability of the term. In speaking of doctrine, we have defined the word to mean absolutely perfect conformity ; because the function of the Society is to teach the truth, i.e., it has to teach wdiat is really the will of God, and this can neither be doubtful nor in¬ consistent with itself; and as there can be no question of degrees in the truth, for what is not true must be false, so there can be no degrees in the holiness of the doctrines taught by the Society. I am not saying that individuals may not intermingle a certain amount of falsehood with truth ; but that a particle of false¬ hood corrupts a whole statement; that whosoever is guilty of one tittle has broken the whole law, as Adam did; and that the smallest corruption is simply incompatible with the teaching of the Christian Society. Given the Society founded by our Lord, the doctrine it teaches must be truth unmixed, and there¬ fore holy. But in speaking of the character of the Society in its outward manifestations, the word has a different sense * Every sense however in which it can be employed has an unvarying reference to God and His will. So that to use it without such reference is to make a confusion of terms, as when Tennyson speaks of the Lotus Eaters “lyingreclined” “ beneath a heaven dark and holy.” For the material CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 195 heaven is no more holy than the material earth. And if it be said that the creation, as it came from the hand of God, was holy, the meaning is simply that it was perfect in design, and in obedience to laws framed by God. But as it included intelligent beings endowed with free will, its perfect holiness, taken as a whole, would only last as long as the con¬ formity of the free will. Since the fall, then, the term as applied to portions of the natural creation is a misnomer. It is out of place except when it has in view an immediate rela¬ tion to God, and it is scarcely allowable beyond the region of free will. And since the free will of man fell from the holiness in which it was created, the word, as applied to men, is with few exceptions an imperfect expression ;—I do not say an incorrect, but an imperfect, expression. In saying this it is not to be inferred that the action of the Christian organiza¬ tion is imperfect as a whole. On the contrary, I have already proved at length that Christ, being the Head of the Society, and the will of man having fallen away, his regeneration demanded the exercise of a will superior in sanctity to his own. This was necessary not only in order to raise it to the level from which it had fallen (for so long as the human will remained free this could never be perfectly accomplished, ex¬ cept in individual cases), but also to guide the will of every member of the Christian Society, whether he held the rank of ruler or subject; and this in¬ volves no contradiction. God, having in His hands and under His control every portion of, and every 196 ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. power in, creation except free will, can so arrange as that even a perverse will shall work ont a holy and perfect design; hearing always in mind that without punishment for sin there can he no perfect justice. That there is a wide difference, then, between the senses in which the word holy is applicable to doc¬ trine and discipline is clear enough. We are not to look for that perfection in discipline which we know to exist in the doctrine of the Society. The one can be logically demonstrated; the other we can only take on faith; knowing, as we do, the fallibility of our own judgment, and our ignorance of facts and of motives, which latter are a most important element in the character of an action. But of this w T e are certain, that since God makes use of imperfect in¬ struments, the imperfection of those instruments is no proof whatever against the holiness of the work they are called on to perform, the word being understood in the sense of conformity to the Divine will. And if it be said that this definition would or might include those great nations, religions, and governments which lie outside the Society, I reply, no. Whatsoever imperfections and fa ilin gs men who are God’s instruments may have, this mark they must have to entitle them to the appellation,—that their minds and wills shall be fixed more or less perfectly upon the service of God. Perfection is not necessary, because an important part of the very work in which they are engaged is the perfecting of themselves. Perfection is only attained after the militant period is at an end. But their aim must be the service of CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 197 God. Even outside Christianity, in ancient as in more modern times, the attribution of holiness is con¬ fined to men who are supposed to have had either some peculiarly intimate relations with God, or to have been especially engaged in the work of honour¬ ing Him. It was for this the priests of the false religion were accounted holy. On the other hand, without this the most distinguished names were never so designated. Regulus, who sacrificed himself to the Roman reputation, was a patriot, but not a holy man. In this country the Druids were deemed holy: but neither Caractacus nor Boadicea. If in modern times Milton is styled ‘ divine,’ the title ap¬ plies to his subject and not to the man. And while the dignity is ascribed by his followers to the con¬ temptible Joe Smith, it is denied to Washington. Nevertheless where patriotism is subjected and made subordinate to the service of God it is no bar to the character, as in the cases of Joshua, Gideon, Judas Maccabaeus. For a man to be holy, then, the aim of his life, I repeat, must be the service of God. It was ignorance which ascribed the attribute of holiness to the foun¬ ders of false religions ; for the zeal of God must be according to knowledge. No misguided zeal gives claim to the title. How great soever that of Saul before his journey to Damascus, his holiness dates from after his conversion. But the knowledge of God being confined to the Christian Society, it follows that there can be no true holiness beyond its limits. There may, indeed, 1 9 8 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. be a certain holiness based upon a strict adherence to the natural law. As St. Paul says, “ These not having the law,” i.e ., the revealed law, “ are a law to themselves.” The difficulties however of attain¬ ing to holiness without the revelation are so great as practically almost to preclude the possibility. But though Noah was chosen by God to save the human race ; and though Abraham was the friend of God ; and though Moses saw Him on Horeb ; and though David was the man after God’s own heart; and though to Solomon was given a Divine wisdom ; and though on the Kock of Peter was built the Church of God; and though to St. John was opened a vision of God; and though God appointed St, Paul to carry the Gospel to the Gentiles ; yet no one sup¬ poses that, holy as these men were, they were with¬ out human imperfections. Yet the law which Moses gave was perfect for the appointed time; and what God spake by the mouths of David and Solomon and the prophets was every tittle of it perfect; and no less so what He spake by John and Paul and Peter. It is obvious, then, that want of perfection in the administration of the Society does not imply want of holiness in the Society itself. And this is apparent from another consideration. Truth and personal conduct belong to distinct orders. The truths of revelation can no more be affected by the character of a Christian, than those of geometry or astronomy by the depravity of a mathematician or an astrono¬ mer. All that can be said is that a vicious character in the teacher destroys confidence in his teaching ; CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 199 and that if the number of such characters were multiplied among the administrators of the Society, its efficiency, its power of convincing, would he too much diminished. For this reason, therefore, the character of the rulers must be, in a greatly prepon¬ derating proportion, such as to compel the admission of holiness. And this is all that can he required. The Christian Society, like human society at large, is “ a permanent body composed of transitory parts wherein, as “the whole is never at one time old or middle-aged or young,” so neither can the whole, by the promises of Christ, by the very nature and inten¬ tion of its constitution and foundation, ever he corrupt. The mystical tree may have and always will have its diseased, its decaying, leaves and branches. But these affect not its vitality. Imperfection, however slight, is no doubt incipient corruption. But to pre¬ serve it from corruption the Christian Society has always the Divine assistance. The problem, if that can be called a problem which is as clear as the noon¬ day sun, is to find a universal society dating from the first with such marks of holiness in its members as to surpass undeniably all other societies in this respect. One thing is certain, that no individual and no society can possibly rise above the ideal which it proposes to itself. He who aims at perfection may reach it: he who aims only at mediocrity will not reach even that. But though it be possible for the individual Christian to attain perfection, it is impos¬ sible for the Society to attain it in this world. Here it is militant, having to fight not only against the 200 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. external powers of the world, not only against re¬ bellious children in high positions, not only against the unseen powers acting on our fallen nature, hut against that fallen nature itself in the person of every one within its whole range and ambit, bearing in mind that that nature is corrupt in every particu¬ lar of its analysis, as before explained at length ; and that without the Society acting according to the revealed plan of restoration and regeneration there can he no conceivable means of throwing off that corruption. While, therefore, we are to look for a society working up to a very high ideal—an ideal of which Christ Himself is the impersonation—we have no right to expect in the administrators either an intention perfectly pure, or a conduct wholly with¬ out blame, or a judgment above criticism. So that when in the history of many ages we come across isolated and scattered instances of even grave corrup¬ tion, we must bear constantly in mind that, even if proved, these evils have at most hut an indirect hearing upon the holy character of the entire Society. But for the proof we must never forget; that sound historical criticism demands a rigid examination of evidence, often not procurable; that hostile testimony is to he received with extreme caution ; that charges repeated at second hand are to be almost entirely discarded, for while “ men’s evil actions, real or re¬ puted, live in brass, their virtues are written in water ”; that a charge is more easily made than refuted,—for this reason, that an accusation is positive, a refuta¬ tion negative, and that the former is in its nature, CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO CIVIL SOCIETY. 201 and apart from the facts of the case, far more power¬ ful than the latter; that this is especially true of general charges vaguely asserted; that the critical acumen requisite for comparing evidence, judging of probabilities, examining witnesses, is a rare gift; that evidence is to be judged by the -credibility of wit¬ nesses alone, and not according to any preconceived idea of probabilities, or by any a priori theory what¬ soever ; and finally, that the difficulties of procur¬ ing original documents, arising from their loss, or from corruption of the text, or from the place of deposit, or from the language in which they are written, are very great and often insurmountable. Whereas the Christian religion is for simple and for wise, for learned and unlearned alike; and if a very deep critical knowledge were required for finding out the truth, the great bulk of mankind would never dis¬ cover it. And this remark applies with peculiar force to the discursive readers and loose thinkers with whom this age abounds : for there is scarcely a truer proverb than this,—that a little learning is a dangerous thing. If then the reader will hear these considera¬ tions carefully in mind, he will not he led to deny the necessity for a supreme authority on matters of discipline, in the latter as in the former days ; or to doubt where that supreme authority resides, by narratives of corruption, however confidently asserted, or however scandalous, if true. He will no longer indulge in extravagant expectations of ideal perfec¬ tion ; he will avoid grouping together in one picture, and gathering into one focus, the faults and failings 202 ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. of generations; he will guard against the common error of making a particular instance stand in place of a general custom or habit; and thus he will be saved from rash judgments and from wholesale con¬ demnations, which are as uncritical as they are contrary to Christian charity. I conclude with this remark, which sums up in a few words the whole of the preceding argument. There is nothing whatever to show that a central authority has ceased to be a necessity now as much as at any former time. On the contrary, every re¬ flection tends to establish that this necessity has not only not diminished, but that it has very materially increased as time has thrown open the entire globe to the teachers of the gospel. If the Christian Society, when confined almost within the limits of one empire, could he carried on only by means of a powerful organization, united under a high court of authority, how is any other means possible now, when science has laid out as on a map the whole earth, with its empires and nations, kingdoms and peoples, great and small, to be subdued and brought under subjection to the bondage of Christ ? Up to this time, at any rate, Christianity may weep, not that there are no more, hut that there are so many, king¬ doms to conquer ; that the time is so distant when the poet’s dream may be realized in a higher sense than he contemplates; and when the federation of the world shall be united under one government, being converted into a true City of God. 203 VII. ON ONE POINT IN CONTROVERSY WITH THE AGNOSTICS. BY ST. GEORGE MIVART, F.R.S. My Loud Archbishop and Gentlemen,— Our struggle with error appears to assume more and more, as regards the cultivated classes of our fellow-country¬ men, the form of Philosophical Controversy. Those who haye at the same time promoted and gratified the present wide-spread taste for the physical (and especially for the biological) sciences, have, as all present know, made use of their scientific popu¬ larity to diffuse (far and wide) systems of thought, more or less crude, more or less erroneous, but which are distinctly metaphysical. With the illustrious exception of the gifted editor of the Dublin Beview , English Catholic laymen have as yet given little evidence of having made a fruitful study of philosophy. Our clergy are of course, in varying degrees, imbued with that traditional culture which is at once the antidote and the cure for modern metaphysical errors ; but the crying spiritual needs which on all sides surround them, sufficiently account for the 204 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. comparative paucity of their contributions to English Controversial Philosophy. There is another reason. Error being imperfect truth, can of course only be successfully combated by the presentation of that perfect truth of which it is, as it were, a detached fragment. And this presentation can only be made con¬ vincingly by persons who have thoroughly entered into the systems and appreciated the standpoints of those they combat. Yet it can hardly be expected that many of our clergy can find time not only to become masters in true philosophy, but also adepts in the various systems of metaphysical error which enjoy from time to time an ephemeral popularity. How deep, then, are the obligations of Catholics, even in this respect, to your Grace, to Fathers New¬ man, Harper, Dalgairns, Hedley, and the few others who have achieved so much in this special field! Now, however desirable, it is yet (unhappily) not to he expected, that the disciples of Mill, Herbert Spencer, Bain, Huxley, and Comte, will spontane¬ ously (or even at our bidding or entreaty) take up a serious and appreciative study of the Scholastic Philosophy. Since, then, they will not come to, and seek to understand us, it is surely most desirable that we should go to them, and try and force them to see what is the true position and what are the bearings and necessary implications of such truths as they do hold, yet hold fruitlessly, from their neglect of correlative and complementary verities. THE AGNOSTICS. 205 Happily, I have no need to argue in favour of this action, since your Grace, at the last session of the Academy, directed us to apply ourselves to combat philosophical errors. It is only in obedience to such direction that I have ventured to bring forward (in a place where many are so far better qualified to speak) the following suggestions as to one mode of meeting current meta¬ physical error. The mode is essentially old enough; and far from making any claim to novelty or originality, I must apologise to my hearers beforehand, for troubling them with so much which will be only too familiar to them. The errors I direct attention to, however, have been newly put forward in their present shape, and a main object of my paper is to stimulate other lay¬ men to combat with those defenders of the Philo¬ sophy of Nescience—our modern sophists—the Agnos¬ tics,—those who deny we have any knowledge, save of phenomena. I would suggest that before consenting to enter the arena with the Agnostics, it w 7 ould be well for us to insist strongly on three preliminary considerations, and to establish three affirmations, assent to which should be made a condition, sine qua non , of all discussion. 1. The first of these concerns absolute scepti¬ cism ; and the first affirmation is that such scep¬ ticism, with all that necessarily involves it, is to be rejected as an absolute absurdity. 206 essays on religion and literature. 2. The second consideration relates to bona fides , and economy of time in controversy; and the second affirmation is, that no proposition should be put forward for defence which cannot at least be con¬ ceived as being seriously entertained by some one. 3. The third consideration refers to language; and the third affirmation is that what is clearly and distinctly conceived by the mind can be expressed by terms practically adequate to convey such con¬ ceptions to other minds. Not, of course, that the verbum mentis is not always wider than the verbum oris , but that, as a fact, the thoughts of men are capable of being conveyed and understood by means of language. To return to the first of these three preliminary considerations :— It will, I suggest, be well, in limine , to clear away a certain hindrance which otherwise may con¬ tinually clog our footsteps. This hindrance consists in a degree of haziness which we may find to exist in the minds of our opponents concerning the necessary limits of all discussion—hiding from them the point at which all controversy becomes unmeaning—nay, logically impossible. Before discussing any fundamental questions, we should, I think, insist upon a distinct recognition of the possibility of valid discussion ; that there is such a thing as truth, and that some conclusions are true. Otherwise any conclusions we may arriye at may be vitiated by a latent doubt as to whether any con- THE AGNOSTICS. 207 elusion on any subject can under any circumstances be ever valid. With these particular opponents we may surely insist that if nothing is certain, and there is no real distinction between truth and falsehood, there can of course be no useful discussion. If a man is not certain that he is not a tree, or the rustle of its leaves, if he is not certain that there are such things as thoughts and words, that the same words can be employed twice with the same meanings, and that he is essentially the same person when he ends a sentence that he was when he began it; if he really doubts whether his opponent has any powers of understanding and expression,—no controversy is possible. If our life may be “ a dream.within a dream”—if we cannot be certain that a thing may not both “ be ” and “ not be ” at the same time in the same sense—then our opponents may be called on to admit, thinking should be deemed but an idle waste of thought, were it not impossible to affirm that anything is or is not anything, and as impossible to affirm such impossi¬ bility. Such scepticism is, as we all know, utterly absurd, and as practically impossible in thought , as is the disbelief in the reality of an external world in action. Doubt may be expressed as to the validity of all in¬ tellectual acts, but any attempt to defend the scep¬ tical position of course demonstrates an actual belief in such validity on the very part of him who would verbally deny it. 2 o8 assays on religion and literature. Apology is due for bringing forward here such trite and familiar reflexions, but I venture to reproduce them, because I am persuaded that in our contro¬ versy with the Agnostics it is absolutely necessary to insist and to dwell upon them, that their truth may be clearly brought home to them, as important con¬ sequences thence result. For if any premises logically and necessarily result in such absolute scepticism, they must then admit such premises to be thereby disproved by a process of reductio ad absurdum , since no reasoning which necessarily leads to absurdity can be allowed to be valid by those who, not being themselves absolute sceptics, are certain that utter absurdity and absolute truth are not one and the same. Having then secured the admission that “ absolute scepticism” cannot be maintained or even believed, (for to believe it is ipso facto to deny it, by assenting to the certainty of uncertainty), we may pass to a review of our second consideration and affirmation— namely, that no proposition should be defended which cannot be conceived to be really entertained. In dealing with our Agnostic adversaries we should, I think, insist on the distinction between real and verbal doubt. We may urge that there is, of course, nothing that cannot be called in question verbally. The existence of “ self” has been declared to be a a thing which may be doubted, but not the existence of “ thought.” It is just as easy, however, to say “ I doubt whether thought exists ” as to say “ I doubt whether I exist; ” but it is as impossible for any one THE AGNOSTICS. 209 to believe that “ liis existence ” is doubtful as to believe that the existence of “ thought ” is doubtful. The limits of rational discussion, then, we must admit, are facts which cannot possibly be really doubted ; truths which no one can. actually ignore. To attempt to go beyond such limits is to fall into mere puerility and verbiage. Merely verbal doubts, we should point out, are as trivial as endless. We have the right to demand that we should only be called on to consider doubts which are really and truly entertained by those who propose them, or at the least are regarded by them as perfectly real—in fact, that our time should not he taken up by answering the ingenious cavils of merely pretended sceptics. Can we believe that any one of our opponents has any real and serious doubt as to his own true and objective personal identity? Each may certainly be credited with a total absence of any such absurd dubitation, and this because no one out of Bedlam doubts really as to his own being and personal identity, however much he may amuse himself by professing to distrust the declarations of his con¬ sciousness and memory in these respects. I ques¬ tion whether any one opponent will ever seriously affirm that he is not certain that he was not last year the Emperor of Russia, or the boiler of the Great Eastern, or that he is not sure he has NOT actually been all the various people and things which have from time to time presented themselves to his imagination. 14 210 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. To revert now to tlie third preliminary considera¬ tion—that concerning language. And here, perhaps, I maybe allowed parenthetically to protest against a wide-spread abuse of terms, which is eminently misleading and pernicious. Messrs. Mill, Bain, and Herbert Spencer, agree in representing that we are only conscious of a succes¬ sion of feelings. We cannot, I think, too strongly protest against the use of the term “feeling” as the one generic name for all “ states of consciousness.” We should, I contend, so protest, because the word “ feeling ” is intimately associated with mere “ sensa¬ tion.” Thus, to assert or imply that all our “ states of consciousness” are “feelings,” tends to insinuate a belief that we have no faculty but “ sensation.” This is not the precise meaning of the above-mentioned writers, but it is a meaning likely to be given to their words by very many, and it is a dangerous perversion of terms. To say that we have a “ feeling ” that two sides of a triangle are greater than the third side is an abuse of language; it is to use the word “feeling” not only in a non-natural, but also in a misleading sense. The object of the third preliminary consideration, however, is to guard against an objection to our arguments with which Agnostics are exceedingly likely to reply to us. At the end of our controversy they may very probably turn round on us, and deny the validity of our conclusion, on the ground of the imperfection of language. THE AGNOSTICS. 2 I I To avoid this, it seems to me it may be well to point out to them, that unless they are prepared to admit that the “ verbum oris ” as used in their dis¬ cussions and investigations is practically sufficient for the purposes to which they apply it, they should abstain altogether from discussions and investigations of the sort. This is so, since unless there is a practically suffi¬ cient correspondence between the verbum oris and the verbum mentis , there can be no communication of thought, and every man is hound not to tax the time and attention of hearers or readers by argu¬ ments which he ~knoivs are necessarily futile, and by the utterance of phrases and expressions which he is aware cannot hut he empty and unmeaning—a neces¬ sarily resultless logomachy. Should any one really profess or believe that primary and all-important truths, though capable of clear conception, are utterly incapable of practically valid expression and communication, then such a person is clearly bound to silence as to such truths. If every phrase on such subjects were necessarily an absurdity, and every verbal judgment a falsehood, we should have no right whatever to claim attention for avowed inanities and deceptions. Of course it would be open to any one to employ language to show that its use in philosophy leads us inevitably to necessary contradictions, but by no such argument could any system of philosophy, Agnostic or other, be established and maintained. It could but land us in utter and hopeless scepti- 14 A 212 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. cisrn, and invalidate every philosophical argument brought forward by its promoter. The Agnostic who objects to his own refutation on the ground of the imperfection of language can he well met by an argumentum ad hominem . He has demonstrated by his declarations and his invitations to discussion, not only that he has, in his own opinion, attained to mental conceptions in such matters which seem to him to he even true as well as distinct; but also that he believes himself capable of conveying those truths to the apprehension of his fellow-men. Surely any one who invites to inquiry and discussion, is hound to have satisfied himself that such exercises can in fact he validly carried on. Having, then, laid down these three preliminary declarations, we may proceed to enter into contro¬ versy with Agnosticism. And the point, our treatment of which I propose to consider, is the denial that we possess the “highest degree of certainty as to our oivn existence .” On this point some of the leaders of the philosophy of Nescience (as my hearers are no doubt aware) have given out some noteworthy utterances. One such utterance is as follows :—* “Now, is our knowledge of anything we know or feel, more or less than a knowledge of states of con¬ sciousness ? And our whole life is made up of such states. Some of these states we refer to a cause we call ‘ self ’; others to a cause or causes which may he comprehended under the title ‘not self.’ But * Lay Sermons. Descartes. P. 359. THE AGNOSTICS. 213 neither of the existence of ‘ self/ nor of that of ‘not self,’ have we, or can we by any possibility have, any such unquestionable and immediate certainty as we have of the states of consciousness which we consider to be their effects.” They are “ hypotheti¬ cal assumptions which cannot be proved or known with the highest degree of certainty which is given by immediate consciousness.” Now here I think it may in the first place be contended that this author’s process of analysis is incomplete. We may surely deny altogether that in the pri¬ mary, direct act of consciousness we recognize the existence of the “ mental state ” one bit more than we recognize the existence of “ self.” This Agnostic fails to discriminate between the “self” as recognized deliberately by reflection, and the “self” as directly and immediately perceived in the momentary act of consciousness. The deliberately and explicitly recognized Ego is indeed perceived only by reflection, and in so far our Agnostic may be right. In allowing this, however, nothing is really con¬ ceded, for if the continuous enduring “self” is not given in the momentary act of consciousness expli¬ citly , it is none the less there implicitly. The “Ego ” of each instant is given simul¬ taneously with its “ state” and just as vividly. Our immediate direct consciousness is neither the judgment, “ a mental state exists ,” nor the judgment “ self exists but is the simple apprehension of “ self- 214 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. action” in (self plus state), and both “self” and “state” require reflexion for their explicit recognition. To say, as our Agnostic implies, that the explicit recognition of the existence of the “ state ” is prior to or more certain than the explicit recognition of the existence of the “self” is false in fact , and con¬ tradicts the distinct declarations of our own con¬ sciousness. As Liheratore * tells us, “Primo et spontaneo acta conscientice non attingitur nuda existentia cogitantis . . Quod primo et immediate a conscientia aliqua at¬ tingitur , est subjectum cogitans , prout actu cogitat sea pogitatione aliqua afficitur.” But not only does this Agnostic quoted fail to reach the true dicta of consciousness, he also fails egregi- ously in his endeavour to construct an intelligible statement of primary truth even according to his own conceptions—as will, I think, shortly appear. Far from presenting us with a more intelligible system than that traditionally taught us, he ends by presenting for our acceptance what is mere nonsense. He appears to think that, having done away with baseless philosophical dogmas, he has substituted for them an exposition of simple truths. In fact, how¬ ever, he presents us with dogmas of his own, fully as mysterious as any he conceives he has destroyed. The old system, baseless or not, threw light upon the facts of psychology, and explained them intelli¬ gibly. Our Agnostic’s dogmas, while (to say the very least) no less open to attack, fail altogether to be of * “ Institutiones Philosophic®,” vol. ii., pp. 212, 213. THE AGNOSTICS. 215 any service in interpreting or making intelligible to us the phenomena presented to us by our own in¬ tellectual activity. Another teacher of the Nescient school—Mr. John Stuart Mill—admits* the existence of the mind in the form of a “ thread of consciousness,” “ aware of itself as past and future,” and possessing a conviction of the simultaneous existence of other “ threads of consciousness,” and of numerous “ permanent possi¬ bilities of sensation.” These views are accepted and endorsed by the Agnostic I first quoted, and he appears to think that he has entrenched himself behind impregnable bulwarks, defying the assault of others still more sceptical than he is himself. I venture to think, however, that his citadel is not a bit more secure than the fortresses which he seems to believe have been captured. I contend, if we may legitimately call in question the existence of ‘ self ’ and ‘ not self 5 —to say nothing of mind, matter, and a real external world; that then, the very same weapons which are believed to have been successfully employed in demolishing the objective validity of those conceptions, may be employed with not less force to crush this last refuge of philo¬ sophical dogmatism—this assertion of “ states of consciousness.” For what is the meaning of that proposition, the truth of which the Agnostics, with one accord, pro¬ claim unquestionable—namely, “ a series of states of consciousness exists ” ? * “ Mill upon Hamilton,” p. 212. 216 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. Before examining this ‘ dogma ’ as a whole, let us consider its several parts. Our Agnostic friends are exceedingly apt quietly to slip into the terms of a proposition those very conceptions and beliefs the validity of which they deny. Let us see, then, what is the meaning of the several expressions— u a series,” u states of consciousness,” and “ exists.” 1. A “ series” means a succession of entities in time or space, but consciousness is of the 'present .* Let us be ever so persuaded of the existence of a past series of events, all that consciousness can by any possibility tell us is that we have note such persuasion, and this persuasion, for all that con¬ sciousness by itself can vouch, may he the merest delusion. But again—“ succession ” implies “ permanence.” It is a relation of which permanence is a necessary term. Things cannot succeed except by relation to i * Mr. Herbert Spencer denies that consciousness is of the actual present, and affirms that it relates to the moment just past. This will, I think, seem to contradict the experience of many when they concentrate their attention on any object present to the senses. However, if the truth of Mr. Spencer’s dictum be conceded, nothing is lost, and my argument is equally valid. This is so, because there can be no question but that consciousness, if not of the actually present moment, relates to such an immediate past as to persuade most that it is the actual present. But more than this. Mr. Spencer’s position, far from weakening my general argument as to the' conscious endurance of the Ego, strengthens it. For if each mental “ state ” is past before it is cognized, then, d fortiori, the Ego itself must persist, and have the power of certainly knowing that real objective existence ; or how could it ever recognize the various states as belonging to it, and say with perfect certainty, “ Now I am thinking ” ? THE AGNOSTICS. 21 7 something which endures. Much therefore is im¬ plied in the mere exclamation, “ a series ” ! Without the conception of and a belief in more than “ momentary states of consciousness,” this very first term of the proposition is a mere unmean¬ ing piece of gibberish. 2. “ States of consciousness.” Our opponents may surely be called upon to explain the meaning of this undecipherable hieroglyphic—for such it most surely is, if we may employ nothing but direct states of consciousness to unravel it. How can a “ state ” be conscious of itself? It certainly can never be so, since by so doing, it, ipso facto , becomes another state. We may ask Nescients what they, on their hypo¬ thesis, can mean even by the naked term, “ con¬ sciousness ;” d fortiori , by what right they assume the actual being of this abstract entity, and attribute to it an existence both capable of modification and actually modified. They must surely go outside of mere direct consciousness, they must assume tacitly the existence of the substantial “ self,” in order to be able to give any sort of intelligible meaning to this second term of the proposition. 3. “ Exists.” We may next ask them to consider this last word of their fundamental proposition. It asserts the existence of something, and necessarily implies a judgment as to that something by a mind wdiich perceives such existence. The necessity of these relations is just as certain as that of the existence predicated, whatever that may be. . 2)8 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE . Again, the word “ exists ” necessarily includes an element of “ duration ” for which we must travel beyond direct “ consciousness,” the states of which succeed each other momentarily. But if difficulties thus arise even with regard to the component members of the Agnostic’s funda¬ mental proposition, 11 a series of states of conscious¬ ness exists ,” what is the case as to that proposition as a whole ? Surely no scholastic formula was ever more open to objection. Once more we may ask, how on their principles can this proposition be ever known ? A state of con¬ sciousness is a state of consciousness and no more. We indeed may be aware (as we are) of our own past states, but such states cannot themselves be con¬ scious of them, for consciousness is of the present, or of the instant just passed, and only this through and by means of a persistent and enduring “ Ego.” The Nescients, then, are guilty of what, on their principles, is unjustifiable dogmatism in positively asserting that “ a series of states of consciousness exists.” All they can possibly be justified in individually asserting is “ thought exists,” but no jot or tittle will “ pitiless logic ” allow them to proceed beyond, without falling into the most flagrant jpetitio jprin- cijpii. Moreover, though each one may assert that “ thought exists,” he is utterly unable to affirm “ thought existed all he is warranted in saying is, “ a thought exists of past though t having existed ,” but THE AGNOSTICS. 219 no possible guarantee can be devised for the real truth of such thoughts, except upon principles the validity of which the writers referred to deny. “ Self” and “not self,” therefore, do not fall alone, but with them every train of thought and every process of reasoning ; for no one thought can guar¬ antee even the existence of a process of reasoning, still less its validity. Thus, absolute scepticism is the logical and inevit¬ able fate of all holding to Agnosticism, unless they abandon their untenable and anti-rational principles. It may, however, be replied to us by some, that certainty is not altogether denied as to the existence of “ self,” but only that the “ highest degree ” of cer¬ tainty is denied with respect to it. The Agnostic first quoted (Professor Huxley), tells us that this certainty is not of “the highest degree,” inasmuch as it is not “ given ” to us by “ immediate consciousness.” Something in direct contradiction to this‘affirma¬ tion may, however, be urged, for it may be main¬ tained that although a “ state of consciousness ” and the “ existence of self” are both known directly and with complete certainty, yet that the existence of self is known primarily , and therefore with the higher degree of certainty, inasmuch as it can be reduced to metaphysical certainty. Both are indeed directly perceived by the mind implicitly in the cognition, “ thinking self” : both are explicitly recognized only by a reflex act. Nevertheless the “self” can be known in the 220 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. order of reflection purely as an existing entity, but a “ state of consciousness ” cannot be known in that order save as appertaining to some existing mind, which in the metaphysical order is primary to it. The primary act of reflex knowledge reveals “ self ” to us, whereas the reflex recognition of “ mental states ” shows them to us as states and modifications of the yet more primarily (in the reflex order) and thoroughly known “ self.” I think, therefore, we may join issue with Pro¬ fessor Huxley, and affirm the direct contradictory to his assertions, and maintain that we know our¬ selves with the very highest degree of certainty; and that we know our several mental modifications, though we know them with complete certainty, yet with one which is subordinate and secondary in degree to our knowledge of the existence of “ self.” It is not necessary, however, for practical purposes to make even this reply. It may safely be affirmed, that if such a degree of certainty be allowed as to eliminate doubt and to rationally demand unhesita¬ ting acquiescence in thought and act, then all is conceded which we absolutely need to demand. We may call upon our opponents to remark that certainty, whatever be its validity, exists as a fact, and no conviction is more constantly and uniformly acted on, than that of each one’s own continued personal identity. As full and complete a practical acquiescence is given to the conception “ self exists” as to the con¬ ception “ states of consciousness exist,” and were THE AGNOSTICS. 221 any one to refuse this practical acquiescence, then, unable to reason, to converse, or to act, he would he shut up in his sterile and solitary direct thought. But we may ask, what is this “ certainty ” of which our opponents speak ? Is it itself a thought ? and if so, what does one thought know about another thought, and which thought of the two is it which has the knowledge ? Thoughts, as we know them, are not permanent, hut progressive. To say that “ thought exists ” is itself a figure of speech. It really means, “ something exists which is thinking.” To hnoio , is not to be knowledge, hut to acquire and possess it. To have implies two factors, not one alone. Cer¬ tainty, again, without an “I" who is certain, is as impossible as doubt without a doubter. But, as was suggested much earlier, it may perhaps here be replied to us that all our foregoing objections are only able to be advanced on account of the exigencies and imperfections of language, and that though it is impossible for the Agnostics to enunciate verbally their principles, yet that these principles are none the less true for all that, and that it is grammar and not reason which reduces them to this impasse. This reply has been already guarded against in the second preliminary consideration, but here perhaps it may be added that the “spoken word” is but the expression of the “ mental concept,” and that there is nothing which can be clearly and distinctly con¬ ceived by us which cannot be conveyed to other minds by language good and sufficient as far as it goes for the purposes to which it is applied. 222 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. Such being the case, our opponents’ reply amounts to saying that fundamental truth is that which not only cannot he expressed in words, but cannot even be conceived in thought, and therefore that every¬ thing on this subject which can be either said or thought is necessarily and inevitably false. In other words, Agnostics are thus again reduced to absolute scepticism by another road, and indeed that inevitable gulf yawns to receive them by what¬ soever path they seek to escape from their position, save and except that one road which they refuse to follow, and to follow which is to vindicate the truth and validity of human reason. Thus, I venture to think, the real scope and meaning of the philosophy of Nescience may be made plain. Denying the necessary validity and objective truth of our cognitions of “ self ” and “not self,” Agnostics may be argumentatively reduced to one present thought, and rendered incapable, logically, of attack or defence, uncertain whether reason and memory may not be baseless chimeras, their whole life a dream, or even their very consciousness the sport of a deceptive and malignant demon. Such, indeed, is the ultimate outcome of the philo¬ sophy of all those who, following the miserable example of Descartes, abandoned the high road of philosophy properly so called, for the lonely by-paths of individual eccentricity. On the other hand, let it but be granted that our spontaneous belief in our own existence is due to the THE AGNOSTICS. perception of a real objective truth, made evident to our minds by its own intrinsic light, and the silly cavils, which “ common sense ” justly despises, are at once utterly demohshed. We may, then, insist that the value of these Ag¬ nostic doubts is nil , and this for two reasons :— First , because they are not real doubts, but merely verbal ones. Secondly , because they contradict the primary and fundamental declarations of consciousness itself. Something further may, however, be urged, and the contradictions of some of the Agnostics shown to be more glaring still; for by some the existence is conceded of even “ necessary truth ” in a certain sense. The Agnostic first quoted tells us* that it admits of “ no doubt that all our linoioledge is a knowledge of states of consciousness; ” and all Agnostics would admit that to each one who thinks, while he thinks, the proposition “ thought is ” is a necessary truth. We can, however, I think, prove to them that this proposition (if it is to have any meaning) carries with it a whole world of objective truth, amply sufficient to establish the validity of all our primary cognitions. We may maintain, yet further, that it is impos¬ sible intelligently to utter even the monosyllable “ THOUGHT ” without thereby, by implication, laying the foundations of the whole of philosophy— a whole system of universal and necessary truth. For the word “ thought,” intelligently uttered, * Lay Sermons, p. 373. 224 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. must at the very least contain the conception of “ existence,” and involve a psychological judgment which, explicitly evolved, becomes the judgment, u thought is But “ judgment ” has no meaning without both a “ subject ” and an “ object”; and the first of these two words is meaningless without the conception of an “ego” and its “ states” and the term u object ’’neces¬ sarily carries with it the conception of the “ non ego.” Again, the exclamation “ thought ,” since it neces¬ sarily involves the conception of existence or “being ,” carries with it, by necessary correlation, the concep¬ tion “ not being”; and this again necessarily involves “relation” and the principle of contradiction, and therefore the idea “ truth” “ Truth” again, is meaningless unless we accept the co-existence of “ objective being ” and of “an intellect ,” together with a relation of conformity between the two. Moreover, created “ existence ” is meaningless without the conception of “ duration” and to attach any meaning to “ duration” requires, as before remarked, a more or less persistent “ ego.” But every Agnostic, however extreme, will, as has been said, admit that the real existence of a passing, actual state of consciousness is an absolute and necessary truth to that consciousness. So much so that no malevolent being, however powerful, could in this deceive. Were our existence made up of a succession of shifting deceits, yet, “ that a thought or feeling exists at the moment ive actually experience its existence ,” is THE AGNOSTICS. 225 a proposition which, by universal consent, is deemed to be beyond question. That “ thought is” is therefore allowed to be a “necessary truth.” Now, as to the word truth , we have already noted its implications. We should therefore press on our opponents all that is involved in the other word—namely, “ necessary” Surely this word can have no meaning except we intue “ causation” together with both “possibility” and “ impossibility” revealing to us a difference between “ actual being ” and merely “possible being” as also between the necessary and contingent kinds of actual being. If, then, the above proposition “ thought is” is necessarily true, it follows that a whole circle of truths is thereby and therein implied. If, on the contrary, it is asserted that these impli¬ cations, or any of them, are untrue or invalid—not objectively true—then the proposition is unmeaning, and we can not affirm that a demon could not deceive us as to the existence of a passing thought. If so, the Agnostics are wrong (for they say that to this extent there is certainty), and we are once more landed in scepticism. If they choose the other horn of the dilemma, and assert the necessary impotence of thought or of language, then—as we have seen—they thereby assert that everything which can be thought or said is inevitably false, and this again implies certainty. So that the Agnostics are inextricably enclosed in a vicious circle. 15 336 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE . But they cannot even speak interrogatively; they cannot logically say, as one actually says—“ How do you know that thought is not self-existent?”—for the use or implication of one personal pronoun ipso facto removes them from their own chosen position, and lands them in that world of objectivity and reality which they seek so insanely and so inconse- quently to disown. I now come to the last matter which, I suggest, should be pressed upon our Agnostic adversaries. It is the result and outcome of such observations and arguments as the foregoing. The result seems to me to be that Agnostics may be driven and logically compelled to accept the fol¬ lowing affirmations, under pain of absolute and utter scepticism :— 1. That our persuasion and spontaneous belief, as to the existence of a continuously enduring self, underlying the changing series of phenomena we term “ states of consciousness,” are valid, and are the results of a true perception of our own objective existence. 2. That the thinking being called at this moment self” is substantially one and identical with the agent who carried on the long series of acts and endurances called “ past life.” 3. That we have indeed a direct intuition of passing mental states, but that we have a no less clear and no less certain intuition of a mysterious, substantial unity, which reason tells us, if we can be certain of anything, is due to a peculiar faculty of THE AGNOSTICS . 227 perceiving truth. For if what is perceived as recessarily true (not merely positively unthinkable) is not truth, then there is no truth -at all for us, and we fall necessarily into “ absolute scepticism,” where all intellectual conflict becomes absolutely ridiculous. If we may rise to any affirmation whatsoever, it surely is to the affirmation of our own existence, and yet that cannot be made without accepting the trust¬ worthiness of memory, in spite of the mystery attending the acceptance of its testimony. It is vain indeed to attempt to get rid of mystery —as even Mr. Herbert Spencer himself explicitly declares. He says* there is “ a warrant higher than that which any argument can give for asserting an objective existence. Mysterious as seems the consciousness of something which is yet out of consciousness, he [the inquirer] finds that he alleges the reality of this something in virtue of the ulti¬ mate law,—he is obliged to think it. ’ ’ Dr. Ward has (as my hearers well know) in his intro¬ duction to his work on “ Nature and Grace,” and in the Dublin Revieiv , called attention to the mysterious nature and vast consequences of our trust in memory. By admitting its validity we allow to our intellect (as all present know) the faculty of perceiving ob¬ jective existence, of which the senses can give us no account, and which is removed from the field of sensible experience. We may, then, insist uncompromisingly with Agnostics, on the consequences of this admission. * Essays, vol. ii. p. 407 (Stereotyped edition). 15 A 228 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. We may ask them, if they admit the validity of such cognitions, on what ground can they deny the validity of other intellectual cognitions, which are no less an object of certainty ? If the mind has the power noiv of cognizing acts performed by it, but removed by half a century’s interval from the field of present experience,—why may it not intue the necessary properties of all con¬ ceivable triangles, though experience can give cogni¬ zance but of a minute fraction of them ? As Mr. H. Spencer says : * “ Is it, then, that the trustworthiness of memory is less open to doubt than the immediate consciousness that two quantities must be unequal if they differ from a third quantity in unequal degrees ? ” Here, then, it seems we may firmly take our stand, and assert that the intellect shows us its own ob¬ jective validity, and we may warn him who denies it to beware,—for the denial of any certainty as to his own existence follows logically and necessarily from such negation, and with it all certainty whatever, even the certainty that there is no certainty, or that the words certainty and uncertainty have any differ¬ ence of signification, or that any words have any meaning, or that “ meaning” or “being” of any kind can exist, or even he really thought. Other consequences seem to me necessarily to follow from the foregoing. If our certainty as to our own continuous past existence is valid (and we have endeavoured to show * Loc. cit., p. 411. THE AGNOSTICS. 229 our opponents at wliat a price it can alone be denied), we may be equally certain that the present existence of each of us is an objective truth to others, and our intellect carries us at once across that natural bridge which God has erected over the fathomless abyss separating ‘ 11 subjectivity” from “ objectivity ”—sepa¬ rating the world of existence outside our conscious¬ ness from the world of our conscious existence. Similarly we may here again justify our intuitions as to the properties of space and number,—that they are truths to which no possible exception can ever exist at any time or in any place, even Omnipotence itself being unable to make two right lines enclose a space or the cube of 3 to be other than 27. We may also (without doubt, I think) drive home consequences yet more important. The element of moral worth , which our intellect declares to attach to certain actions under certain conditions, may he similarly justified as universally and necessarily valid —an objective truth, not a mere subjective impression. Thus that faculty of cognizing objective truth, which is called the intellect, can, I think, be proved to Agnostics to inform us not only of the existence of a persistent self—the ego —but also of a persistent not self—the non ego ; of objective relations between objects in the order of “ truth,” and of objective relations in the order of “ morality.” All these intuitions and cognitions hang together as necessarily connected. To invalidate one is to invalidate all. To assert one is virtually to assert all. They cannot be denied without giving rise to a 230 ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITERA TURE. scepticism which destroys its very self by its own doubt as to the existence of the doubter who doubts it. To conclude :—we may, I think, safely affirm that men have absolute certainty as to their own existence, and yet that this certainty cannot he logically asserted without implying the existence of a whole sphere of objective truths, which the intellect has the wonderful and most mysterious faculty of per¬ ceiving by the very light by which those truths manifest themselves to it. These views being once accepted, men cease to be confined within a narrow sphere of mere subjective feelings, them highest intellectual efforts resulting in a mere recognition of inevitable Nescience. On the contrary, the nobility of their rational nature re¬ appears, after its eclipse through self-refuting doubts and a shallow psychological analysis. We must of course assent to the views of Agnostics so far as to admit that the intellect of man is limited; capable, in its present condition, of knowing but in part and through sensible experience. But they, if they will be hut logical, must assent to us when we affirm that the intellect has perceptions which are true and valid, that it has a power of knowing truly what comes within its range, and a faculty of per¬ ceiving both necessaiy and universal truths and the essential realities of objective existences. In short, that our faculties are those of a truly intellectual nature, though, at the same time, of a corporeal organism—in other words, the endowment of a rational animal—that is, of MAN. 231 VIII. A REASSURING THOUGHT, AT THE APE’S ENCROACHMENT ON OUR OWN LIKE¬ NESS. BY THE REV. F. H. LAING, D.D. ^PHE scope of this paper is not to prove that we are not the offspring of apes. That, I think, may be safely left in the keeping of healthy common sense; at least with those who, though not naturalists, would not renounce the dignity of their rational nature : and with those whose respect for it does not restrain them from fading before such a pretension, I am afraid that nothing would make them yield up their pet novelty, but a revolution in the same fashion that made them first embrace it, making its profession no longer the mark of a smart man, or “ advanced thinker.” Without, therefore, addressing myself directly to that product of what its own votaries call “ science,” but which some would, with more justice, caff “ irreverent ignorance”—the doctrine of our ape origin,—I shall at present, at least, take its falsity for granted. The advocates of our ape-descent might say that I was begging the question. Very likely. It is a question which, at all events, I mean to beg ; so far, that I shall not make any question about it. What 232 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. I am engaged upon doing, is rather to clear away a certain blameless perplexity, which ingennous minds, in spite of their own immovable right persuasion, might find springing up on reflection, at the striking proximity of make that our own human form has to acknowledge to the lower animal—the ape. This likeness is an acknowledged fact, which no one, I believe, has been inclined to dispute : as it would indeed be idle to do, since its truth has been always virtually accepted, in the common definition we use, in saying that man is an animal. This is what the truly alleged structural similarity really amounts to. Having, then, the animal form, we must not he surprised to learn, that when our structure is more closely examined, the truth becomes more strikingly plain. And when viewed in greater fulness of detail, it is hardly possible — notwith¬ standing our previous knowledge of the general truth—to avoid a reflexion of an inverse description to that which is expressed in the ballad,— “ Thou art so near , and yet so far." To the ape we might say, with a certain shrinking at the grim creature’s trenching so closely upon us,— “ Tliou art so far , and yet so near." When reflecting that we are after all but little removed in structure from the highest vertebrated animals, many will feel rising in their minds a sug¬ gestion, such as that which is so eagerly urged upon us by the atheistic and materialistic party, who try to drive us out of our confidence in a future state, THE APE’S ENCROACHMENT ON MAN’S LIKENESS. 233 by confounding our destiny with that of the ape. “ Why,” say they, “ should you wish to hold your¬ selves so high above your less favoured brethren the cheerful monkeys ; as if you were above them in nature ? The difference in structure is very slight. There is, in fact, less difference between that of man and the highest ape, than between the highest ape and his lower neighbour. Man only stands in the highest order of the animal kingdom. Divided as it is into orders, genera, and species, highest in it rank the Primates, including the apes as a variety. Along with them, amongst the same Primates, stands man. Let man, then, be the highest of the Primates, the highest of the aristocracy of animals ; yet he only has the dignity in company with other Primates. He is but the topmost ape. Why, then, should he claim for himself any higher sort of destiny than theirs, beyond what a small difference in the hippocampus minor justifies. That superiority of dignity is surely realized enough in all proportion by his superior faculties. He can talk, which the ape cannot—at least, not yet. He can put together ideas and improve them in number and quality, to an unlimited extent. He can also take a likeness. This the ape and his brother Primates cannot do. And surely this superiority in intellectual and conversing power is more than enough to answer to the minute structural peculiarities which distin¬ guish him, without supposing that he has another world to expect a lot in. No ! however superior in degree , he must be acknowledged as the same in hind; and therefore, if his dignity is superior, as we allow it 234 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. is, his destiny must be the same in kind. Now, the destiny of the other Primates is to die, with no other future, that we know of, but to be mingled with the dust of that same great creation, whose ever-digestive forces grind them down for service into some other requisite forms. Such, then, must be the destiny of the head Primate— Man. His enjoyment of life, like his faculties, is greater than the ape’s, and that is surely difference enough. Let him be content with this, and make the best of it. If he wants to put away death and all its causes, let him look for its attainment to the extension of science. And if this is duly cultivated, there will, in time, he no more cholera, no more typhus, small-pox, nor diphtheria. Instead of dying at forty, sixty, or eighty years, men will increase in length of years to a hundred, two hundred, and so on, without limit, until humanity becomes undying. Need we promise anything fairer than that ? In the meantime, the head Primate— man—must be content to he a Primate, i.e ., to have a destiny confined to the earth, to which his animal organization shows him to belong.” Such is the sort of argument which the ape-origin advocates trust to, for reconciling us to the giving up of a future state. Now, without feeling any apprehension that we should have to own ourselves indebted for our pro¬ duction to monkeys, from the force of this argument; there is no doubt sufficient ground in the truly alleged nearness of our structure to theirs, to make it seem for a time plausible to the mind that there should be an equal nearness to them in our general end. A THE APE’S ENCROACHMENT ON MAN’S LIKENESS. 235 simple mind, however naturally abhorrent to the de¬ grading notion of an ape-descent, when in presence for the first time of this strikingly minute difference in our own organic structure and the ape’s, may be excused for feeling a little perplexed how to realize the grand generic difference that he has -been in the habit of indulging the belief in, to his own advantage, between a mortal destiny, finishing with this world, for the owners of one structure , and an immortal life, not bounded by the present world, for the owners of the other. This is a difficulty which the ape-origin advocates would not he at all anxious to get rid of. On the contrary, they rejoice at it, as a case that puts those whom they regard as religious bigots, in a fix. In order, then, to assist the honest mind, if puzzled at reconciling our similarity of make to the perishing ape with the dearly-cherished belief of a future life, I hope it will not be thought superfluous, if I en¬ deavour to show how it is that, near as the structures are in organic character, there is no scientific or philosophical ground for apprehending any nearness in lot between the two subjects of them ; inasmuch as the organic structure and the destiny need have no such apparent proportion as we might expect to find between them. Not, indeed, that there is not a proportion really between a mortal and an immortal destiny, when seen in their right light; as I shall have occasion to remark afterwards. But, as I say now advisedly, there is none such as we might expect. For we might, in our want of insight, expect to find as 236 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITER A TORE. much structural difference evident, as we know there is difference of functional dignity. But, to our dismay, we find seemingly very much to the contrary. And it is this absence of evident proportion between the seen difference of structure and the believed difference of des¬ tiny, that I am desirous to show is perfectly reconciled. To a vastly less degree, a reconciliation—not, in¬ deed, between future life claimed for one and perishing existence allotted to the other, but between their functional difference and their structural difference— has been undertaken by Professor Huxley himself in his ‘ £ Lectures to the Working Men. ’’ But the bringing of it forward by him is only for the sake of warding off from his theory of ape-origin a foreseen difficulty, which had already been effectively urged. It had been said, and with evident good reason, to the ape- descent patrons: “ If our nearness in structure to the ape is made a basis for concluding an equal nearness to him in species , how do you account for our being so wonderfully superior to him, as nobody denies we are, in our faculties—our reasoning powers, progressive life, unlimited capability; while the ape’s faculty is limited, and its generations never improve beyond a certain mark? We have an enormous superiority in life, notwithstanding the smallness of difference in structure. Why, then, should we not admit any amount of difference to be consistent with it ? ” A reasoning which, for anything Professor Huxley has been able to reply to it, remains not the same, but even much better than before. The difficulty forced Professor Huxley to make THE APE’S ENCROACHMENT ON MANS LIKENESS. 237 an attempt at its solution : which really, if fairly urged against him, could he claimed as an admission of the whole indictment against his theory. It consists in employing, to a wretchedly insufficient extent, a true principle very lamely enforced,—that minuteness of difference in structure, is quite compatible with a wide difference in function. This little admission, which the undeniable fact of our being rational pre¬ vents him from withholding, is allowed by him, not for the sake of according to man’s nature its true dignity, but by way of bribe to soothe us into com¬ pounding with him in his felony, in first robbing us of all the immortal prospects of a rational being. The pleading, which Professor Huxley employs, is as much as to say, “ You need not be so desperately afraid of admitting your nearness of nature to the ape’s, on account of its carrying along with it the idea of a common mortal lot with theirs. For, after all, although of course the mere hope of a future state —if that is what you value—is done away with, there is plenty of margin left for you to enjoy the idea of your superiority to the ape, notwithstanding the like¬ ness of the bones, brains, and hippocampus minor. We allow you to be rational—to have the gift of speech, to be capable of improving by experience. But all this grand eminence of function above the ape’s nature, which we willingly confess, at least so far as concerns degree, is readily consistent with close similarity to them in structure. And, as an illustration, the Professor adduces, in his “ Lecture YI. to the Working Men,” the instance 238 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. of a watch; which, though fit to perform all the functions of a watch when sound, will yield no motion if you make a very slight alteration in the mechanical structure,—as for instance, as he says, “just lightly crush together the bearings of the balance-wheel, or force to a slightly different angle the teeth of the escapement of one of them.” Though the illustration may not be exactly a false one, yet it is to be rejected, as not in any way worthy to represent the real degree of difference in dignity between the two animals—man and ape* For, first, it is a comparison between two states of the same thing—a watch sound, and the same watch injured ; whereas the case of the animals is that of two different structures , each of which is sound and uninjured. The compared functions of the watch are those of going , and not going at all. The functions to be compared in the animals are those which be¬ long to the well-going condition of each of them. Without, therefore, condemning as false the illus¬ tration, and the inference it is made to justify, which is only a forced repayment of a meagre portion of what has been taken from us ; I reject it^ as being quite inadequate to exhibit the real amount of difference which the two animal structures admit of. We want an illustration, in which the things com¬ pared are as much tivo as man and ape are two ; both also up to the mark of their own type : in which, too, the functions compared are both positive; not one the mere cessation of the other. Professor Huxley has introduced his watch illustration to quiet THE APE'S ENCROACHMENT ON MAN'S LIKENESS. 239 the minds, or rather stop the months, of those who find a difficulty in reconciling such an amazing dif¬ ference of functional capacity with such a small difference in organic structure; and the only infer¬ ence he would allow us to draw, is just as much as he thinks will admit the great natural superiority he cannot help acknowledging that man has to an ape, in power of speech and progressive development of faculties. This will not suffice for us. We mean to satisfy our minds, that a difference so small in struc¬ ture as that which the skeletons present will consist with even a great deal more difference in power than between faculty of language and dumbness ; between development of faculties and limited improvement. The difference of dignity we seek to establish is no less than that between mortal and immortal , earthly and celestial; that of the child of earth and the child of God. And this will include a difference not in degree , but in order of destiny. And this generic difference is what I hope to be able to make conceivable by an illustration ; which will be at the same time pregnant with an explaining reason, addressing itself to the intellect. The illustration is one which has for its set pur¬ pose to exhibit the most valuable truth—that closest analogy, and, what is more, great similarity of structure, will consist with so ivide a difference of destiny, that its proportion shall exceed any precon¬ ceived possibility . If such a consistency of divine destiny with resembling organism can he well established, faith in eternal life need run no danger 240 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. of being overthrown by the sight of the too-closely approaching hippocampus minors. Now, this generic difference of function, cor¬ responding to what, for argument’s sake, we may call a less significant difference in organic struc¬ ture, may be seen in the accompanying diagram, which will have this great advantage, that it is familiar to all, or, even if not, requires no previous mathematical knowledge to understand. This dia¬ gram will exhibit very plainly to the intelligence how a new order of condition awaits a certain moving line , 0 S, on its arriving at a rectangular position with another line, 0 T, through an uniform grada¬ tional increase from a lesser angular incidence with the same line. This will be exemplified to the eye in the career of that interesting line called the secant or cutting line,—I suppose, from its cutting the circle. This secant, 0 S, is the line that is drawn from 0 to the tangent T N. If traced to its very birth, it may be seen first, as in embryo, coinciding with the radius O T ; not yet distinguished from it by movement upwards along the tangent. As it begins its course from no angle to a small angle, and from that to a larger, you will see it always in¬ creases in length as it scales its limiting line, the tangent, by gradual ascent. This secant, always limited by the tangent, as long as the angle remains at all acute, rising gradually from this no angle to a small angle, no sooner attains to the absolute state of a right-angle , than it passes into a new order of line, entirely free of the conditions that restrained THE APE’S ENCROACHMENT ON MAN’S LIKENESS. 241 16 242 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. the ones preceding it. For, up to this point, it was a finite line. But now, upon having widened its angular direction to 90°, it becomes parallel to the tangent , T N, and never terminates upon it. The tangent, therefore, no longer stops it. Being thus unrestrained from all its previous limiting conditions, it has nothing more to hinder its free course along its attained parallel direction, hut shoots forward without obstacle to its progress for ever. Thus the secant, first finite, as long as it hit against the tan¬ gent, having now attained its position of absolute right-angle, has suddenly become an infinite line. And this leap from finite to infinite has been made on only clearing the infinitesimal angular degree that divided it from right-angled perfection. But immediately it has cleared off the last remnant of acuteness, by a movement as gradual as that of the minute hand in a clock coming upon twelve o’clock, it passes from the order of finite to the order of infinite —between which two orders,—though there is, rigidly speaking, a proportion,—the proportion is is one which is not immediately conceivable, and is usually said not to exist. What an enormous disproportion, you might ex¬ claim, all owing to the overcoming of one little hair breadth’s worth of imperfect structure ! It does not, therefore, follow that, because the secant at 90° is di¬ vided in angular distance only of 1° from the secant of 89°, that the order to which it belongs is necessarily the same. The cleared angular distance that divides them has enabled it to reach a limit in organic THE ATE’S ENCROACHMENT ON MAN’S LIKENESS. 243 figure that sets it free of all its former limiting con¬ ditions ; and it lias a quality that can belong to none below it, however near they may approach it; promoting it to an entirely fresh order of being. Now, equal disproportion of order to order may be very safely attributable to the equally completing transition which the animal nature makes by over¬ stepping the small distance between the ape structure and that of man. This distance between them is the last remaining step in the grand journey that divides the inchoate animal life from its perfection. For the whole animal economy may be summarily symbolized as an endeavour to consummate a rise from the prone or earth-bound position of servile life to the upright-standing position of command, as the culminating point of animal structure. Now, it is this period of upright-standing perfection, that man reaches in his organic structure’s ridding itself of the last traces of proneness, that still beset it in the ape. He has arrived at the last term of what may be likened to a gradual ascent from the lowest to the highest degree, through all the various participa¬ tions of uprightness. While all other animals are either creeping, or on all fours, or partially so, and only enjoying the upright-standing position as an exceptional one, the upright is in him his normal position—in which he stands right on the heel —with the upper part of his frame resting on the pelvis. Now this upright stature completes, as it were, a period of perfection of the animal structure. Nature’s aim may be said to be to get at last a perfect animal, 16 A 244 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. in whom the great gifts of reason and speech can be fitly vested. This consummate type of animal perfection is to come forth from the in-forming power of nature through the process of evolution,—not the evolution which the materialists profess—of one thing out of another; hut the evolution of one thing after another, out of the common material for existence.* In the course of this self-evolution, she makes various efforts, which are not only essays at perfection, but are themselves necessary permanent structures, sub¬ servient to the interests of the human animal, whom she intends to bring on afterwards. They all, however, as long as they are below the limit of the intended perfection, retain some of the servile stamp of earth¬ wardness, which makes them fail from being the becoming tabernacles of free reason. But when once this last remnant of proneness has been thrown off by the animal’s structure’s assuming perfect rectitude, then nature’s intention has become satisfied. The animal nature has become perfect in type; it has arrived at its consummation. And this attained perfection is what man embodies, by getting the animal nature at length free from the impediments to absolute uprightness. He becomes the animal at its very head perfection—the king of animals ; not entirely within the animal kingdom, nor entirely sub¬ ject to it, as the rest; but with part of his nature above it, and part subject to it: with a difference from other animals, which may he likened to the difference that the water-lily, that grows in quiet pools, has to other * See “ Darwinism brought to Book,” in this volume. THE APES ENCROACHMENT ON MAN’S LIKENESS. 245 water-weeds. They live entirely under tlie water, never rising above it. But the water-lily, though subject, as the rest are, to the conditions of the water life, has yet an advantage above them, in raising itself to the surface, where it spreads its leaf broad upon the water, and its flowers open to the air. It is a water-plant, and more than an ordinary water- plant. It is a citizen of both elements—air and water. Now, in the same manner, man in his lower nature, being animal, is subject to the conditions of animal life ; but, like the water-lily, whose white flower and broad leaf spend their life in air, above the water where its stalk grows; so his spiritual part, lifting itself above the element of the mere animal life, is able to breathe the upper atmosphere of freely speculating reason. Animal as he is, he is like the others; unlike them, he is also more than an animal. His nature has reached the climax of animal per¬ fection ; where, no longer servile, it becomes par¬ taker of the superior region of the free self-governing privilege, belonging to the rational order. No wonder, then, that, as the secant has entered a new order of line, when its passage over the last angular distance to 90° has enabled it to complete the absolute figure of a right angle : so, when the animal nature has arrived at its absolute type of rational, as it does in man, by freeing itself of the last limitations of brute proneness,—that the new order of dignity which it has achieved, should open to its hope a free prospect in its future, unbounded by any of the former earth-locked conditions of brute 246 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. life. All these it leaves behind by an infinite gulf, which can never he overbridged, for all the inter¬ ceding likeness between the two separate structures of his own and the ape’s, which has been so artfully employed to confound the simple-minded out of his trust in a more elevated destiny. But this confusion could never have taken place in the mind, except through the fallacious mode of exhibiting the structural difference employed by its eager advocates. They, the dupes of their own blindness, without ever glancing at the vast order in which this difference stands as a term, bring us, as they do themselves, to a view of it with blinkers at both eyes, preventing our seeing anything more than the mere minute difference itself: as if it , and it alone, were the sole factor to be measured in estimating the increase of functional capability to he accounted for. This niggling view is as deceptive as if you were to take for your study two consecutive musical notes at the end of a protracted melody, without hearing the whole period they closed. Or, it is like pretending to understand the full import of two final words, by taking them detached from the sentence they helped to conclude. Of the same narrow decep¬ tive character is the restriction of the sight to the two terms which the gradational ascent of the animal kingdom shows last of—ape and man. This narrowing of the view has been the sole sustainer of the perplexity which these scientific pretenders have managed to raise against the separate destiny of the two creatures. The puzzle would be immediately THE APES ENCROACHMENT ON MANS LIKENESS. 247 dissolved, if we only liad our view directed fairly to the whole sweep, in which this minute difference is an interval. We should then be able to see clearly that the entire act it belongs to, is really nothing- less than a completely achieved ascent of the animal nature out of its more rudimental state into its abso¬ lute type of the upright stature ; which is completely attained on getting over this concluding interval that separates the ape from the human structure. This last step, therefore, though, in the actual dis¬ tance it traverses, not much distinguished from the last step but one ,—if properly estimated in import, is to be regarded not simply as one out of many such : it is the one in which a regular ascent is brought to its climax. To speak, therefore, of the mere quantity of structural difference, as the only matter worth considering in comparing the dignity of man and ape, is just as great a fallacy as might be concocted out of a quibbling understanding of the common axiom, —“ It is the last straw that breaks the camel’s back.” From this, a word-picker might argue, that the whole virtue of the back-breaking was here repre¬ sented as owing to the value of one straiv. But what is the meaning of the saying, when fully ex¬ pressed? Simply this: “ The last straw completes the whole weight that breaks the camel’s back.” Leave out the idea of the ivliole weight of which the last straw is the complement, and you make nonsense of the useful maxim. You would be representing the difference between the camel’s standing and its fall¬ ing to be attributed only to u one straw,”—not to the 24B ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. whole weight that it helps to make up : which would be evidently a quibble and a fallacy. Now, it is this very fallacy of suppression that gives all the venomous force to the exhibited like¬ ness which these juggling pleaders of the ape-origin play off before us. The link between man and ape they speak of as only one among many links, is really “ the last straw”—the completing link; im-' portant, not in actual amount of span, but as being the one that lands the animal nature on to its absolute station. But, in their sophistical way of representing this interval between the ape’s structure and man’s, it has no more distinctive privilege than any other one in the lower grades. Instead of being, as it is, the completing step, in which animal nature gets home to its cardinal perfection ; it has, in their view, no more right to be credited with a critical import, than one straw would have weight enough to break a camel’s back. The whole circuit of animal perfection, which the last step completes, is suppressed from view; and all that is allowed to appear is the relative measure of the bones and hippocampus minors. Making use of this fallacious presentation,—which, much to the discredit of their scientific wit, they have not shown the slightest inkling of being fallacious,— they conclude themselves, and wish us to conclude along with them, that, as the ape’s destiny is that of a mere soulless animal, so, man’s nearness to the aj>e in framework ought to make him in the equally low rank of perishing beings—with only the extra privi¬ lege of capacity for language. THE APE’S ENCROACHMENT ON MAN’S LIKENESS. 249 This, philosophy, which is the root of the Huxleian reputation, is just the same as if you were to argue against the claim of a winning racehorse thus :— “ The small and unimportant difference in merit of a neck, or a length, between the first horse and the next to him, is not sufficiently generic to constitute a generic difference in reward . His reward must be in the same order as that of the next horse, and the other below him. Now, the second horse and the others don’t win the prize, but lose it. Therefore, logically, the foremost horse must lose the prize too.” This is the Huxleian philosophy, as adapted for the guidance of the jockeys on the Epsom racecourse. Or, in the same form, by aid of the Huxleian light, one might argue against the secant 90°’s pri¬ vilege to become an infinite line, thus :— u The last degree, or minute, or second, is much too small an amount of difference to lift the secant 90° from the common condition of all the other secants below 90°. Now, all the other secants are finite in order, and therefore the secant 90° must be finite too. It would he unreasonable to ask, for this insignificant advan¬ tage, so large a share of elevation, as amounts to change from finite to infinite.” And this is the Huxleian logic, as it w T ould he, if applied to the refor¬ mation of the first chapter of trigonometry. For this reasoning would have a strict analogy to that by which Huxleians make the nearness of our structure to that of the apes a ground for confound¬ ing us in a common destiny with them. His school are never tired of thrusting what they think their 250 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. clever conclusion upon the mind ; and, unfortunately, however painfully suggestive the force of the ape’s encroaching likeness may he to inexperienced minds, not being able to meet the sophism, they are without any corrective idea for it. Folly, in its triumphant hour, with a grin of de¬ light, shakes this likeness in our faces, and cries out:—“ There, you fond believers in a higher world ! What do you say to the ape ; with whom both hones and brain, and social instincts too, show you to he identified in kind and order ? Which will you choose of the two inevitable alternatives we present to you ? To go with the ape into nothing; or to let the ape follow you into glory ? Will you make the ape equal to yourself in your supposed other-world destiny, by taking him for a fellow-Christian; or will you he content to bring yourselves down in hope, as we do, to a level with the ape, whose brother Primate you are ? ’ ’ This is the doctrine for the sake of which, and its like, we are asked by its admirers to banish religion, as an incubus, from the hearts of children, and treat the name of a Creator as an intruder. This is the mind-enlarging philosophy of those who—if we are to take their own word for it, at least—are the only proper persons to have charge of the interests of reason. These are the people that look with com¬ placent disdain upon the blind bigots who are not convinced of their scientific illumination. These form the school, who suppose themselves to be the proper guardians of education for the rising genera- THE APES ENCROACHMENT ON MAN’S LIKENESS. 251 tion. The most famous specimen of tlieir intellec¬ tual skill is, that man is deluding himself to look for a greater privilege of future life than the monkey; because the monkey himself comes short of it. If, however, it he true, as I have shown, that on a thing’s reaching a certain point, a cardinal position is suddenly obtained by it, utterly intangible to those which only approach it, however closely; we need he in no way disturbed by the cynical sophism that corresponding shortness must exist between the two destinies of man and ape, to answer to their two approximate structures, in order to meet the requirements of proportion between structure and function. The laws of proportion do not demand any such likeness of destiny. For although, as I have said already, there may be a want of sensible or imaginable 'proportion between them, it is only such as we might, in our uninformed notions, expect to find. In strict truth it need not he at all allowed, that there is any dis¬ proportion between the difference of the two des¬ tinies and the difference of the two structures. We may maintain, in virtue of analogy, that as man’s structure is to ape’s structure, so .is man’s endless destiny to ape’s limited destiny. In other words, that man’s structure is to his endless destiny as ape’s structure is to his perishing destiny. Now, the reasonableness of this may be appreciated by the aid of that which, in such cases, is after all the most luminous guide in philosophy—analogy—which is given us in our well-worn illustration of the secant; 252 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITER A 1 URE. as well as witli many mathematical figures, that could be adduced as witness. We can see that the infinite linear quantity of secant 90° is really proportional to the finite linear quantity of secant 89°: seeing that they can both be put for comparison in the same formula. Thus : co^ sq o is the expression for secant 89°,—which is finite. And yet a like form of expression for secant 90° is or which is the expression for an in¬ finite quantity. Both of these, therefore, being reducible to a common level of comparison, must have a proportion subsisting between them. This existing proportion, . or comparableness between two quantities of a dif¬ ferent order of dignity, will enable us to see how perfectly feasible it is that there should exist an equal comparableness between the two widely un¬ equal values,—that of celestial prospect open to the spirit dwelling in the human organism, and the termi¬ nating length that closes the day for that of its next vertebrate neighbour. If w r e had in use an algebraic language, in which to express the mystical truths of nature, as precise as that which w r e have for abstract quantities, we should be able to exhibit this propor¬ tion between the interminable onflow of the animal destiny and the limited length, as well as we see it, expressed for that of the terminable and the inter¬ minable lines. And that will make still more satis¬ factory to the mind the truth, that no want of pro¬ portion, or unphilosopliical gap, exists to forbid our attributing to the rational Primate, man, the privilege THE APES ENCROACHMENT ON MAN'S LIKENESS. 253 which his fellow-Primate, the ape, cannot touch—of immortal life ; which is really the term that the animal structure has been aiming at in all its pro¬ gress from the prone to the upright-standing position, —the possession of an imperishable life—the proper privilege of the consummate animal, which man has become. For, unlike all the rest, whose vertebrated organism leads up to his, he enjoys—as we need not prove, because we see—a capacity for self-knowing, world-knowing, and God-knowing. He not only knows by reflection his own nature, hut is able to master the laws of things of the lower world; and, beyond that, has the wonderful power of unfolding without limit in his own consciousness the forms of self-existent truth, which the mathematical, the metaphysical, or necessary truths exemplify. This is the glory, which the animal nature ends in, as fully ripened in man, emerging not out of , hut after , its unfinished stages in the region of brute life. Its instinct changes in him for discursive reason, its impulse for self-preservation, for prudence ; and, as the animal figure has at length fully recovered itself in him from prone to upright, so its animal acquaint¬ ance with perishable good has widened in man into a hold upon the interests of eternal being, i.e ., heaven¬ seeking wisdom. Now, the future prospect, in harmony with the nature of such an animal as this—capable as he is of feeding his faculty with the thought of eternal being—- must necessarily he itself eternal. Else he would be mocked: in having the view of a permanent good, of 254 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. which, he is not to have as permanent an enjoyment; which is not in accordance with the designs of nature. She never opens to a creature a knowledge, or even sense, of that in which it has no interest. For the knowledge of a good object is only naturally in order to the desire of it; and the desire in combination with the faculty of seeking ; and the seeking faculty in order to the possession. To give knowledge of what we have no interest to know, would he like tempting us with the sight of a feast from which we were to be excluded. If, then, nature has opened to man the vision of things which are themselves essen¬ tially abiding, it is not to end in mere impotent admiration, hut in association with the impelling desire to seek it; and that not in vain, hut with adequate powers of getting possession of it. The aspiration, which this sense of endless duration naturally excites in him for endless life, bespeaks a future and endless state of being to be naturally intended for him. Otherwise, the aspiration, which nature has planted in his free reason, would remain unsatisfied : and so his rational nature, instead of being an honour and a glory, would be a canker to his happiness; and the brutes, who have it not, would be better off. As this would be a slander on nature, we must conclude that, having a faculty requiring for his happiness abiding or unchanging truth, he is, therefore, naturally meant for a destiny as abiding as the truth his soul basks in the light of. Endless life, therefore, is the true character which awaits the completion of the animal’s nature’s ascent, THE APE'S ENCROACHMENT ON MAN'S LIKENESS. 255 which, is realized in upright-standing man: who, • reaching this grand crisis of rational dignity, free of the earthly restraint that tied the lower grades, becomes, therefore, a celestial animal, whose endless existence is no less the property of his nature than endless prolongation is the essential property of the absolute right-angled secant. This is the term attained by the animal nature on breaking away from the last shackles of earthwardness that detain him from the perfect upright. The small difference, therefore, between the two structures, which Professor Huxley, in his “ Man’s Place in Nature,” flourishes with such confidence, need not frighten us into sup¬ posing that we are thereby marked out for confusion in the ape’s perishing destiny. All it signifies is this : that in overpassing the last interval, the animal organism has at length arrived at its first intended absolute form, which has rendered it fit to be the habitation of an immortal soul. Contemplating this grand consummation, to which the final step has introduced us, we can review with great complacency the comparative details of it, which Professor Huxley, in his treatise, presses on our notice with such perspiring ardour,'—the configu¬ ration of the brain with its lobes, and its hippo¬ campus minor —the feet and the hands—the skull and the jaws. All these laboured exhibitions—useful enough for a naturalist’s study—do but teach us, with a needless parade of anatomical knowledge, less effectively than would he done by the striking ex¬ ternal characters, which the zoological gardens, or a 256 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. menagerie, present to ns, that the celestial animal man, being an animal, therefore fully partakes of the same animal structure that, amongst his more ignoble forerunners in the lower species, the apes especially exhibit. The learned-looking fuss, which some of these pretentious naturalists have raised about man’s animal nature, as if they had made some startling discovery, all comes to the old-established truth as its nett result. And this reflection may help to make us proof against the pedantic folly, in which they have been labouring so hard to shame us out of an immortal hope, by parading before us the comparison of ourselves with apes. 2 57 IX. DARWINISM BROUGHT TO BOOK. BY THE BEY. F. H. LAING, D.D. T F some of the Mends of philosophic truth, which Darwinism has outraged, had bethought them¬ selves of one requisite step in all debate—the neces¬ sitating their enemy to stand upon his own defence, so that he might he forced to display his pleading in its own shape—it would, I think, long ere this, have been disarmed of all its mischievous reputation for scientific merit: which it has derived solely from the advantage—to which so many fallacies owe their prevalence—of having been taken unsuspectingly by its easy opponents at its own valuation unchallenged. And this advantage it has obtained through the over¬ whelming clamours of its insisting friends; who are, for the most part, the people that are so well known to form an enormous proportion of modern society—a shallow multitude, strangers to mental discipline, who, lounging about the precincts of know¬ ledge, are ever ready to hail with loud cheering any¬ thing that promises the fun of insulting Divine truth. And such sort of diversion—well advertised, too, in 17 258 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. its own author’s well-known name—was presented to them by Darwinism, in its degrading theory of man’s descent from reptiles and apes. It had a had atheistic smell strong upon it. This was quite attraction enough for them. In their affinity for corrupted doctrine, they gathered round it, as carrion-birds and blow-flies round a piece of putrid meat, glorifying it as a wonderful revelation of what they choose to call “ science” : which consists with them in a nega¬ tion of those natural instincts of the human reason, which discern an intelligent force in nature. And that idea is most efficiently subverted in the theory of Darwinism. It has, on that account, naturally received from the great mob of negationists a tribute of blustering applause for scientific character ; which, noisily echoed about, has effectually served to daunt the timid souls of simple-hearted men, even though shrinking instinctively from the whole theory as a poisonous cheat. For, feeling—as unspeculative men naturally would—that they were not more skilled to take an argumentative part in the question of species than the mass of their ignorant adversaries themselves; they were, at the same time, willing to believe, in submission to their overhearing pretences, that the roots of this degrading theory lay far deeper in the doctrine of nature than they were themselves able to dive. And in their distress they sighed out, saying —“ Who will deliver us from these mighty men of science, who have brought up the knowledge of all natural history against us, to scare us out of our belief in our own specific nature ? Here is Darwin, DARWINISM BROUGHT TO BOOK. 259 come with an ascidian, a kangaroo, and an ape, to con¬ found us. Behind him stalks Pangenesis, and a host* of dreadful-looking chimeras, all threatening to sweep us away peremptorily into the list of brutes; unless we shall first fully satisfy him and his, that we are really, as we thought, an independent species of animal. We know, hy nature, that his production is only an inhuman folly. But, unversed as we poor folks are in the secrets of nature, there is no ability in us to cope with his disciples in scientific debate. We are lost men, therefore, unless some one great in science shall rise up, able to submit to our potent enemy a counter theory, whose terms shall content his exacting reason.” All this fear of well-disposed people is natural enough, hut very misplaced. It is founded upon what, I am deeply persuaded, is a most gross mistake, as to the strength of the thing they want to see put down. It does not want science to oppose it. Science, I believe, would be wasted upon it, giving it only factitiously a dignity, which it cannot derive from its own native merits. All that is needed to quell it in the mind of any terror-smitten person, is the natural mode—hy which so many bugbears have been put to flight before—of walking straight up to it, with our eyes open, to see how the whole thing is made—determined not to take any of its brag on trust. Reserve, I would say, your wish for science for worthier occasions. Keep your call for great dis¬ coveries till they are really wanted. Be content, for the present, to see what it is that has frightened you, revealed in its own shape. When you have taken M A 260 essays on religion and literature. good note of it, you will be ashamed of having cried out for help. And if it has not been disposed of in the gutter of contempt already, it is only because the make of its pretences has been allowed to remain— happily for their own credit—under the protecting darkness of that confusion in which their author— not much of a reasoner—has himself delivered them. There they have lain free to emit their own offensive scepticism around, without their own claims being ever subjected to the sifting process. This sifting work, therefore, being, as I feel, within the com¬ petence of a very moderate reasoner, I have myself ventured to attempt it. And I purpose to under¬ take it by setting forth the argumental make of the doctrine in its own naked shape—such as it would be obliged to take, if brought to book in a court of logical inquiry,—a trial which the so-called “ scien¬ tific” school hates, as a mad dog hates water. And when the arguments have been fairly weighed under this scrutiny, the doctrine they are used to sustain will appear to every man of common sense, whether naturalist or not, a most impudent imposture ; con¬ sisting in a repetition of the same ugly inferences, made from a set of assertions which no one, unless quite off his guard, would let pass without crushing at first sight. The universal make of the inferences on which the book of “ The Descent of Man ” relies, will be made more clear, by first giving one or two examples of it, taken from the book at hazard. The first I light on, is that in which Mr. Darwin DARWINISM BROUGHT TO BOOK. 261 professes to give liis philosophical account of a fact, which we are expected of course to regard as some¬ thing altogether perplexing, in a little beetle , called the Onitis Furcifer; the female of which presents a rudimental horn on its head, in the shape of a sharp edge, or rising ; and also a bony breastplate or thorax. This little crest and thorax are made the matter out of which an inference—thoroughly Darwinian—is drawn for the transformation of species ; which, if strictly represented in its own value, syllogistically, would have to take its form thus :— 1. If I, Charles Darwin, cannot assign a reason why the female of the beetle, Onitis Furcifer, should have the rudiment of a horn in her head, and a thorax; then we must he driven to infer, that the female got it from some earlier progenitor of the species Onitis Furcifer. 2. Now, it is a fact —we must suppose, of natural history—that I, Charles Darwin, cannot tell what use that horn and thorax can be to her, when the male has them not. 3. Consequently, that the female got it from some earlier progenitor of the species, is obviously to he inferred. “ The view,” he says, “ which seems the most pro¬ bable (he. unavoidable), is, that some early progenitor of the Onitis acquired, like the Lamellicorns, horns on the head, and then transferred them in a rudi¬ mental condition to the female ; by whom they have ever since been retained” (page 373), This specimen of the inferential process, which has 262 ESS A VS ON RELIGION AND LITERA TURni. frightened the friends of the faith, by its look of terrible cogency, so thoroughly represents the funda¬ mental part of Mr. Darwin’s book, that it may be worth while, for the sake of better appreciating what a tribe of admirers take for “ scientific reasoning,” to turn it round again to view, in another order. It conies to this :— 1. I don’t know, and am quite sure nobody can tell, what good her rudimental horn and thorax can be to the female beetle Onitis. 2. Therefore, there cannot he any reason, from utility, why she should have it. 3. It must consequently come from an accident. 4. Now, the only accident that I can surmise is— (i.) That the species Onitis had some other species as progenitor. (ii.) That the other progenitor must have, somehow or other, acquired the horn for some useful purpose. (iii.) That then, afterwards, somehow or other, the supposed progenitor transferred it in a rudimental state to the female, instead of to the male of the Onitis species. (iv.) And that now, somehow or other, the female still retains it, without the male’s ever getting it. When pondering over this Darwinian inference, we can better understand the fact, that his school should have shown such a persistent hate to anything like the relation that the syllogism insures between premiss and conclusion: and they certainly show their sincerity in this hatred of it, in keeping at an infinite distance from it. DARWINISM BROUGHT TO BOOK. '263 I subjoin another representative variety of reason¬ ing—so-called “ scientific”—supposed to be endorsed by Professor Huxley, and accepted by the ape-origin school in general. It consists in an attempt to prove man’s derivation from a lower animal, from his having “ the sense of smell ” ; which we are first to be kind enough to suppose is a curious anomaly, which needs his “rendering intelligible ,” as Mr. Darwin is for ever reminding us. Put into clear form, the reasoning would stand thus :— 1. If the sense of smell in man be unserviceable, then it must be inferred, that man, having no need of this sense of smell, must have inherited it from some earlier progenitor amongst the lower animals, to whom it was highly serviceable. “ No doubt,” therefore, this derivation from a lower animal is a fact. 2. For the sense of smell is unserviceable to man, even to savages, whom it does not deter from “ feeding on putrid meat, and sleeping in fetid at¬ mosphere.” Still less, then, can it be of any good to civilized man. 3. Hence it is concluded, that “no doubt” he must inherit this useless faculty from another kind of animal, lower than himself. Now, this is the sort of conclusion which I wished to describe, as being an ugly inference from asser¬ tions, which no one awake would allow to pass un¬ challenged. And, as I have taken upon myself the responsi- 264 ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITERA TURE. bility of affirming the whole structure of the Dar¬ winian theory to be of the same kind, it will be worth while to stop a little, to make a further analy¬ sis of these representative examples. I. The first notable thing is, that the reasoning takes for its basis, not a fact in natural history, but Mr. Darwin’s nescience of its reason—the mere fact of not knowing; which I call here nescience rather than ignorance. Because Mr. Darwin, although I think him incapable of making any trustworthy step in reasoning, cannot be called an ignorant man. But nescience is to be attributed to any one so far as he does not know. . And such a nescience is expressed in—“I don’t know,” and “you can’t tell what use the hornlet is to the beetle, or what use the sense of smell to man.” And as “I don’t know” is the fundamental fact taken for sustaining the con¬ clusions concerning the inheritance of these features ; these two conclusions are really based, not upon two well-ascertained facts, but upon Mr. Darwin’s and others’ nescience , professed or unprofessed. Now, it is the same personal nescience, forming the basis of the beetle and sense of smell arguments, that constitutes, as we shall see, the substance of all the fundamental suppositions which Mr. Darwin has taken to rest his brute-descent theory on. This takes for its justification nothing else than the fact of his not knowing, or pretending not to know, the use of a number of natural features ; which I count in round numbers as tivelve: such as, the reason of the wisdom-teeth in man; the hair on his head and DARWINISM BROUGHT TO BOOK. 265 body; the presence of the mammae in the male sex; his having an outward structure for his ears, a sense of smell, etc., etc. Now, please to observe attentively, that these facts of hair, wisdom-teeth, and ears, etc., which he quotes, are not themselves the ones he builds his theory on. They are only harmless ingredients, along with a much more im¬ portant ingredient of—“ I don’t know,” and “ you can’t tell the use of them.” This it is, that gives the essence to the fundamental positions of the theory; which, abridged, may be set down as follows :— 1. I, Charles Darwin, don’t know, and you can’t tell me, what is the use of the wisdom-teeth to man. 2. I don’t know, and you can’t tell me, what use hair in head and body can be to man. 3. I don’t know, etc., what good the mammce can be to the male sex. 4. I don’t know what good the incisor-teeth can be to ruminants, since they do not cut through the gums. 5. I don’t know what can be the use to man of his _power of tivitcliing the skin of the scalp,—or of the twitching organs in other parts of the body—corre¬ sponding to the power in horses, of twitching the skin of their shoulder. 6. I don’t know what good the sense of smell is to man. 7. I don’t know what good the outward structure of the human ear can be, with its folds and promi¬ nences—and also the little point in its folded rim or helix, only observable upon careful examination. 266 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. 8. I don’t know what use the vermiform appendage in the caecum can he; which may sometimes even be the occasion of death to man; nor 9. The supracondyloid foramen in the humerus ; nor 10. The rudiment of a tail , which he possesses ; nor 11. The nictitating membrane of the eye. 12. I don’t know, lastly, how it is that there should be certain structures in the reproductive system in both sexes. To these should be added the universal nescience contained in the sentiment—“I don’t know, and nobody can tell me, how it is that men and all vertebrate animals are constructed on the same general model; showing correspondence with the monkey, bat, and seal, in skeleton, muscle, nerves, blood-vessels, and internal viscera, and brain.” All these things are, as he says, “ inexplicable ”— that is, to him, and, he is sure, to every one else. In this dozen of instances of Mr. Darwin’s “ not knowing why ” (as paraded in his first chapter of thirty-three pages) is contained the substance of all that he will thank us to accept as so many well- established “ scientific facts,” unintelligible in them¬ selves, unless we are willing to use the theory he is going to build for their explanation. It, I am justified, therefore, in saying, is not built upon any well-ascertained facts of natural history, but entirely upon that measureless blank in human knowledge, which consists in not being able to see—or trying not to see—the reasons of nature’s ordinations; some of DARWINISM DROUGHT TO BOOK . 267 them, however, plain enough. This is the basis taken for the ape-origin doctrine—which is, therefore, as argued by Mr. Darwin, founded only on nescience, professed or unprofessed, real or assumed. In this regard, it shows itself a worthy fellow to the Colensoite negations; in defence of which the so- called scientific criticisms take for their foundation, not Scriptural facts, but a quantity of nescience, pro¬ fessing, with a conceited air of penetration, “ I don’t see how to reconcile this.” So that, the more one does not see, or the more ignorant one is—if he has only a corresponding amount of assurance—the more ground he has to build modern “ scientific ” theories upon; with the advantage of getting great credit with the intelligent public, for singular acumen of mind. Modern science, Biblical and historical, will have no difficulty in getting an infinite supply of material for its structures, if it will keep on working by the same plan that the school of Darwin has employed with such success,—of selecting first a large and liberal waste of pure or impure human blindness, on which to take its theoretic stand. II. The second step in the building of the Dar¬ winian structure, is that which is required to convert the great basis of nescience into a form more service¬ able for an actively destructive theory. For this purpose it has to undergo a transformation, that may make it pass no longer for nescience, hut rather for profound science. This change is effected quietly— without telling the reader anything about it, in tacitly conferring the dignity of scientific assurance upon 268 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. the confessed impotence of “ I don’t know what use there is in these things.” This more modest char¬ acter accordingly now appears on the argumentative stage in the smarter dress of “ We know there is no use in them.” Thus the absence of any useful pur¬ pose in these rudimental features—some not rudi- mental; as smelling, ears, and hair—is now assumed as something indubitable. As it enters into Mr. Darwin’s argument, it is : “ There is certainly no good in male mammae, in hair and whiskers, rudi¬ mental tail, ear structure, sense of smell, and twitching power. They are all useless things— “ absolutely useless.” The fact that “ no explana- tion has been given ” becomes soon—-just as if the wisdom of the world had been studying it a long time—“ They are utterly inexplicable ” In this state of assertion they are conveniently made to appear imposingly as twelve wonderful established anoma¬ lies—inexplicable, as Mr. Darwin is always repeating, and crying out for speedy solution. By dwelling upon this evident inexplicable state of nature’s alleged vagaries, he trusts he will have induced you to be obliging enough to feel very much perplexed at find¬ ing yourself with a head of hair, a pair of ears, wisdom-teeth, sense of smell;—and, anxious to ex¬ tricate yourself from your philosophical embarrass¬ ment, you will be accordingly in a state of mind ready to feel highly grateful for any explanation that will render these things, as he says, “ intelligible ” to you. To supply this crying want his reader will, he trusts, gladly grant him leave to bring in his solving theory : DARWINISM BROUGHT TO BOOK. 269 which, of course, is no other than the very one he has got ready in his sleeve—of what is called “ evo¬ lution ; the wonderful light of which, able to render everything “ intelligible ”—hair, ears, teeth, smell, and all—being thus made of urgent neces¬ sity, has now allowed room for itself to play its enlightening part before the admiring student of nature; and this privilege has been obtained by virtue of the change effected between the chapters, or paragraphs, of the humble “ We don’t know what use,” for the commanding “ We know there is no use ” ; calling poor nescience by the proud name of science. And this giving the credit of science to nescience is the second essential step I note in the building of the Darwinian theory of evolution. III. The third feature we have to note in the course of the theorizing, is that, after the ground has been cleared in the reader’s mind for the introduc¬ tion of the idea which is to render the sense of smell and the ears and hair “ intelligible ” ; the evolution which it professes to consist in does not seem to he much of an evolution at all. The real evolution, which one would he content to call such, would be not simply conversant about a few things—plants and animals; but if there be any truth in the simplicity of nature’s law, of the whole universe in general: to show how this beautiful world of nature, with its stars, sun, and moon, was made to rise by an all- sufficient force, through a gradual unfolding, out of the primitive unphenomenal state where its mother- 270 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. stuff was a mere inert plastic material; how form came out of formlessness; how thing came out of tliinglessness ; how life from lifelessness ; light out of darkness ; and beauty out of a dull waste. No such thing, however, is to he seen in the Darwinian evolu¬ tion : which is nothing better than a mere aimless struggle, not of all nature, but of a few specially predestined molluscs and reptiles, which become man through a series of changes; presenting, however, no more of an intelligible or proportional series than a few stones, big and little, laid by a child along the pavement in a line. These supposed changes have been effected in the organisms through the blind, yet seeing—intelligent, yet aimless, force of “ tendency”— an inherent property of their own material nature, which has actuated them to a gradual selection of serviceable properties, by which it struggles itself on through endless generations—from no life to life, from life to more life, until it has got itself at last into the form of man. The tendency of matter, therefore, is to turn into something good. At the same time, this struggling force of “ tendency ” is not without a certain blundering character, which has betrayed its real nature to Mr. Darwin. And this it shows by its over-shooting the mark sometimes : as in giving mammae to the wrong sex, wisdom-teeth where they are not w 7 anted, incisor teeth buried in the gums ; giving us the superfluous appendage of ears, and boring us rather with a sense of smell. But with these few aberrations, everything that is good is attributed to this struggling “tendency.” But it DARWINISM BROUGHT TO BOOK. 271 lias nothing of the grand idea of evolution—the un¬ folding by one intelligent motive power of the void material into the rhythmical beauty of worldly order. It is only supposed to get its end by struggling ; and this struggling to come right by straggling. If I might describe it according to the idea it presents to my own mind, I should be inclined to call it the theory of “ struggle-straggle ”—or “ straggle-struggle ” ; not certainly by so fine a name as evolution. And this misbegotten character of the idea itself is the third thing I have to remark, but by no means the chief one. IY. Before quitting it, there is something of im¬ portance to remark about this same “ tendency,” which the school are always appealing to, to help them forward in their hobbling evolution. They cannot move without it for the least step. Even when, they do not openly name it, it is always re¬ quired, to enable them to get their matter out of its previous state into the one next higher. It is “ tendency ” that makes the “gemmules” take then* due place in animal organisms, for the produc¬ tion of other organisms, according to pangenesis. It is “ tendency ” through which first “ some marine animal ” becomes an ascidian, — by which the ascidian struggles into a fish; by which the fish struggles into an amphibian and reptile; by which the amphibian struggles on into what Mr. Darwin calls “ no man can say what ” ; from “no man can say what” to a marsupial—say, a kangaroo; from kangaroo struggles into “placental mammal”—then 272 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. to the Lemuridae—on to the Simiadae and “ old-world monkey tribe ”— and lastly happens to become, as Mr. Darwin rightly calls him, the wonder and glory of the universe—“ man.” “ Tendency ” does it all. 1. First, then, “ tendency”—unseen, unknown, except by its effects—explains everything for them, and is ever present, whether called upon or not called upon. 2. This ubiquitous “tendency” is introduced to any extent; and where not introduced has always to be supposed. There is nothing it cannot do; and without it nothing can be done. It is therefore an unlimited power, and that unlimited power the only one. 3. Thirdly, this unlimited power of “tendency” is always producing more where there was less— better where there was worse—intelligence and reason where there were but ghmmerings of sense. And, barring a few mistakes it has made, such as giving man a head of hair, a pair ’of ears, wisdom- teeth, and a sense of smell, and a few other little excesses—all, however, on the good-natured side—it is ever unerringly beneficent in its operations. 4. Fourthly, this beneficent “tendency,” unin¬ telligent as it is, must always know exactly what it is about, and where it is going,—guiding itself by the anti-Baconian motive of final causes. It never misses its aim, and, though blind, is able to see its predestined way forward for countless ages ; from a jelly-fish state even up to that of reasoning man. So DARWINISM BROUGHT TO BOOK. 2 73 that this ubiquitous, beneficent, inexhaustible ten¬ dency, is really intelligent to a degree without assignable limit. Now, an intelligent, beneficent tendency, uncir¬ cumscribed by conditions, always producing good, is nothing less than what we recognize under the old name of “ The Spirit of Goclf that “ moved upon the face of the waters.” And His really is the ever-present, ever-active power that these buzzards have been obliged, against their own will, to steal from perpetually, to help them on in making one single step, first or last, in their so-called evo¬ lution. It is the same power, with this difference : that, while the Spirit of God is ever evolving the universe out of blank matter with an intelligent purpose acknowledged, and forming things by number, measure, and weight, the evolutionists’ tendency, or struggling power, is always getting at results by an aimless hit, coming to good unerringly, it knows not why or how. And thus we find, as a fourth note, that this Dar¬ winian struggle theory is obliged to lean furtively for every move it makes, without exception, from end to end, upon the very Power which it was framed with the purpose of supplanting. Y. Having now shirked acknowledging the only Power to which it is indebted for its progress, the next vice in the Darwinian struggle theory is just what one might expect from the known hatred that the Baconian school, to which it belongs, has ever borne to logical study: as being a cramping discipline 18 274 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. for the human mind. This makes it no wonder that the logical laws are superbly disregarded in the form of the Darwinian proof; which, amongst other logical vices it exhibits, whenever you catch it trying to make an inference, consists bodily of a reasoning, itself of that corrupt character to which logicians have given the name of “ paralogism ” ; a sort of procedure that marks very surely either the designed suppres¬ sion of a false premiss, or else a feeble-minded reasoning, not able to assign the steps by which it gets to its own conclusion. Probably, both cha¬ racters of fault have their weight in most paralogistic reasonings. Their vice consists in tacitly taking for granted the only thing requiring serious proof, under cover of a great fuss made about something else that needs no insisting on. And this it is, which constitutes the form, or formlessness, of the evolu¬ tionists’ grand argument; in which the thing laboured at is that which, when truly stated—as it is not by them—is always admitted; and that is the fact of there being a gradation in nature’s works of one thing after another,—though no such ugly gradation as their theory requires. The next thing—which is always left out —is the only thing that we should really crave to see established: and that is, the leading principle, that when one thing follows another, then it comes out of the other; as if after were the same as out of. So entirely is the reasoning of the evolutionists, as they call themselves, constituted of this clumsy paralogism, that its paralogistic character is worth DARWINISM BROUGHT TO BOOK. 275 while dwelling upon a little more. For which pur¬ pose the reasoning shall he given in extenso, as it would stand in syllogistic shape, without the sup¬ pression of the false principle which they secretly take for granted. Fully expressed, then, it might be represented thus :— 1. There is in nature a gradation of being,—so that one thing is found coming after another in an analogous type, or model. 2. Now, coming after another in an analogous model or type, as organic life does, is the same thing as coming out of that other; so that succession to is the same thing as procession from . 3. Therefore, in nature, all things coming, as they do, after others, in like type, come out of those to whose type they are analogous. Such is the conclusion got from the two premisses ; of which the one I have placed second in order—of after being the same as out of —is a leading principle, upon the admission of which depends the whole value of the conclusion. If it has to be accepted for truth, it ought to be first proposed plainly—then defined, proved, and illustrated. It constitutes the whole virtue or venom of the theory. And yet—be their own books my witness !—you will not find an offer at the discussion of it. It is surreptitiously assumed by them without even a mention —kept by the evolu¬ tionists out of the reach of all debate. There is not a single chapter devoted to it in Messrs. Darwin and Huxle}^. I do not recollect seeing even a sentence , nor even an intimation so much as implied, much 18 A 276 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE . less an explicit statement- of the principle, that “after” implies “out of” How far, then, from a clear definition of it, or open discussion : how still farther from a proof of the same colossal assumption ! Lest the reader should suppose that they could not he guilty of such absurd formless inferences, I will subjoin a specimen of their tacitly assuming succession to as equivalent to procession from. It is Mr. Darwin’s general reason for evolution. Fully and fairly expressed—as it is not by him—the reasoning would stand thus :— 1. It is notorious, that man is constructed on the same grand type, or model, with other mammals : has a like embryonic development; has young; is healed or wounded like them; has similar diseases and emotions; is affected equally by medicines, etc., purges and poisons, etc., etc., through any number of pages of print, the part about the “ emotions ” occu¬ pying an extra volume : enforcing, in fact, the new discovery, which these gentlemen seem so proud of having just made,—that man is an animal, and has animal manifestations. 2. Now, then, if he be thus of the same general model as the other animals — monkey, kangaroo, toad : he must have been evolved out of them. 3. Man’s evolution out of an earlier species is therefore certainly true. We remark here that proposition 1, about man’s having the animal type, which does not require any proof, being known in general to mere children, is laboriously proved, as if it were an abstruse doctrine DARWINISM BROUGHT TO BOOK. 2 77 that needed establishing ; while the leading principle, which I have put as 2, about the equivalence of likeness to descent , is not attempted at all; neither here nor anywhere else. And this is one which no one in his senses would let pass without proof. Another precious specimen of Darwinian reasoning, with its principle left out, may he seen in— Man’s descent from the brute shown from his pos¬ session of a moral sense. Fairly put in syllogism, it stands thus :— 1. If man’s moral sense is that which is proper to him as a social being—with ties of family, tribe, etc., like what we see in other animals ; then the most probable explanation of this (supposedly) strange fact, will be—- that his moral sense is a development coming out from the brute property of affection for one another. 2. Now, it is the same as that of the brutes. For this same moral sense, he says, and mental faculty, is high in some races of man, though so low in others. He has power to reflect on God,—to pur¬ sue a train of metaphysical reasoning,—to solve a problem. The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, is certainly one of degree, and not of kind. “We have seen that the senses and intuitions—the various emotions and faculties : such as love, mimicry, attention, curiosity, imitation, rea¬ son, etc.—of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even in a well-developed condition, in the lower animals,” etc., etc. 3. Consequently, it must he inferred, that his 273 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITER A TORE. virtues, being, as they are, of the same order as that of the brutes—the faithful dog and social monkey—he must have had his origin from them. It is hardly necessary to remark, that, as this rea¬ soning is Darwinian in substance, the obvious truth contained in the minor premiss, about analogy between brutes’ fidelity and man’s moral sense, is copiously illustrated, being quite superfluous; while the principle about necessary dependence of man’s moral sense upon the qualities of a brute progenitor, is taken for granted without being even named at all, much less substantiated. Calling to mind, then, what this suppressed premiss contains—that it is the one on the strength of which the whole theory has to rest, we can better estimate, the scientific merits of these naturalists, who so quietly take it into service without letting it appear, by asknig, what would be the scientific merits of a reasoner, who should depend, for his persuading success, upon his assuming tacitly, without any allu¬ sion to a doubt about it, that there was an identity between one branch of a tree coming after another branch, and coming out of that other branch; between one leaf coming after another leaf, and coming out of it; between a sea-wave on the beach coming after its preceding wave, and coming out of it; between an artist’s picture coming after the pre¬ ceding one, and coming out of it. It would be con¬ sidered the talk of an imbecile. Yet, such is actually the way of talking of the evolutionists : who, putting themselves forth as philosophers, would have us DARWINISM BROUGHT TO BOOK. 279 believe, without leave asked or notice given, that, wherever Nature presents, as she does at various passages of her works, anything like a marked grada¬ tion ; there the after comer proceeds out of its fore¬ runner. They have taken this as so obviously true, as not even to need a passing notice to substantiate it. And as this suppressed principle forms really the force of the conclusion, the reasoning process belongs properly to the vicious sort which is called “ para¬ logism”; which I have defined as a surreptitious procedure, in which the important thing requiring proof is secretly taken for granted, under cover of a fuss about something else, which, upon requisite caution in statement, might be readily admitted. Whether this fallacious process of the pleading- proceeds from knavish design, or, as I think it does in this case, from mere imbecility of mind; it renders equally untrustworthy the pretended guides, who make use of it. And yet this process is never absent in the build of their whole theory about man coming out of monkey: of which it does not constitute a minor part, or mere subsidiary point, but the whole structure, which rests entirely on that. This foolish trick constitutes the whole reasoning merit which its supporters put forward as the basis of a grand atheistic temple of truth. Think of this one fact, 0 ye believers in the monkey-evolutionist school,—that the very principle your admired leaders stand on, is one that they never let you see openly displayed; whether it is they are 280 essays on religion and literature. » too dull to know it to be required, or too cunning to bring it into debate; requiring you to swallow, "with¬ out notice, the idea—that u after ” another thing is the same in effect as “ out of ” it! Such would be the least amount of folly in the evolutionists’ reasoning, even if the least obnoxious proposition of the syllogism, about the gradational line of organic being in nature, were truly stated by them. But it is not so. They always misrepresent it. For, though I have provisionally allowed the propo¬ sition, on account of its containing a certain amount of truth, when stated in its proper breadth; the real gradation or succession in nature, as established science presents it, is a widely different thing from that which, in spite of the evolutionists’ own better knowledge, their theory forces you to assume it to be— viz., the childish conception of nature’s con¬ sisting of a long string of organisms, from worm, through kangaroo, up to man; each capping its pre¬ decessor by some little additional property, which is quite a mockery of the idea that is afforded in real naturalist classifications. What these have been already able to present to us, in systematic books and treatises concerning Nature’s plan, is something far more wonderful than the meagre conception of a single string of beings. Her gradations are rather a voluminous system; in which the one rudimental type perfected in man branches out below him, as in a tree, throughout all the three dimensions of space, into different tiers of natural life, as orders, classes, DARWINISM BROUGHT TO BOOK. 281 genera, species, and varieties,—which do not simply lead on one into another, as by a single chain, but, coming each to its own free end, spread themselves forth below or above the level of others, in an order ascending to the top of the vertical branch of being —man himself. The succession, therefore, observed amongst this world of organic being, is that of region above region, group after group—as the vegetable order succeeds to that of the mineral. And within the orders themselves, as in the mineral kingdom, what we see is not a mere single string; but a most diversified system, composed of many series; in which the only lines are those brief ones, which go on for a certain period—as of suboxides, protoxides, deutoxides, binoxides, acids, and hyper¬ acids—in which each term varies from its neighbour according to an ascending scale, in a rhythmical order, very different from that of the promiscuous assemblage which the evolutionist is obliged to be content with. And this idea of an elaborate system of being, with its departments not servilely surrendering themselves into others, but freely terminating in themselves as independent branches, gives us more room for conceiving the several degrees of varied being, than the notion, that nature is restrained to follow the track of one dimension. Yet it is this miserably crude conception of a single-threaded series of life, tracing from jelly-fish to man, which is employed by the evolutionists, even in spite of a corrective knowledge in their 282 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. own naturalist books. For, outside their theory, we find their classifications exhibiting the same branching variety I have attempted faintly to image. But when they are working at their theory, all their better knowledge seems to vanish; and we find them at once reducing all nature’s boundless wealth of being to the limits of one dimension, and that of a most awkward, broken, intermittent character, as indeed was required by them for their evolutional dream; which is, therefore, founded, even in its only likely part, on a most withered caricature of natural gradation. And when this childish con¬ ception is perpetually plied under the masked action of a false principle, that gradation after another is procession out of another, we shall be pretty well able to estimate the scientific value of the theory which consists of their joint result. This is the last point that time will now allow me to touch upon in the build of Mr. Darwin’s evolution theory, as set forth in his book on the Descent of Man, which, in brief, comes to this :—1. Founded on Nescience; 2. Impudently turned into a claim of science ; 3. It is no evolution at all, except of a few selected organisms, loosely arranged in an arbitrary line; 4. The evolving force of which is only got by a surreptitious employment of the infinite power of the Spirit of God: the borrowing from whom is made occasionally under the name of “ tendency;” 5. With this power of u tendency ” ever present in influence—but never in acknowledgment—under its right title, the theory of evolution is argumentatively DARWINISM BROUGHT TO BOOK. 283 sustained by the vicious art of paralogism: of which (1) The first premiss, which alone requires proof, is never proved at all—nor even attempted; (2) The second, which is largely attempted, would not stand in need of proof at all if it were scientifically stated. Such are the main features of the structure of the boasted Darwinian theory of the Descent of Man from apes. Briefly outlined, as it has been in this essay, the sketch may perhaps enable any one, with his wits about him, to see his way clearly enough through the pretensions of this most ridiculous book. 284 X. FLAWS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF BACON. BY THE KEY. JOHN DOHEETY. S OME of those whom I have the honour of address¬ ing will remember that a paper on the subject of the Baconian philosophy was read by Dr. Laing at a former meeting of the Academia . The points dis¬ cussed by him, with a learning and ability to which I have no pretensions, occupy much of the ground which I should have to traverse. To some of them, however, it will be necessary for me to make a brief reference, so as to render the remarks I have to make on other points better understood in connection with the general hearings of the subject. It seems to me one of the strangest of the caprices of fame—scarcely less unaccountable than that which gives to the vast regions of the western world the name of America, in honour of one who had very little to do with their discovery—that all the grand results of modern scientific research and mechanical invention should he ascribed, as to their originator and father, so to speak, to Lord Chancellor Bacon, who was indeed one of the greatest men of letters of his time, some of whose writings are justly ranked FLAWS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF BACON. 2 85 amongst the classic works of English literature, but who never had any claim to be considered an authority in matters of science, even as it stood in his own age. It is true that he had so much confidence in himself as to say, at the age of thirty, when most men begin, even in spite of themselves, to take their own measure with some approach to accuracy, that he had taken all knowledge for his province. I daresay it occurred to Lord Burleigh, to whom this vain boast was uttered, that so large a province as that was one which no man could either govern or even explore; and one cannot help calling to mind the Apostle’s words, “ If any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know*” At present there are many persons who have been reluctantly con¬ vinced that Bacon was not much of a scientific man, but who still maintain that he was a great philosopher. I do not clearly understand what is implied in this latter title, but at least I think I can show in what relation Bacon stands to modern discovery and to modern thought. His influence on the course and progress of modern discovery has been extremely over-rat'ed. Perhaps it might be going too far to say that it was absolutely inappreciable, but I think it may fairly be maintained that we should not be very far behind where we are now if Lord Bacon had never lived. Yet it is with respect to these matters that the philosophy of Bacon has all its popular authority. If, therefore, his exaggerated reputation is reduced to its proper dimensions in that respect, less weight will be attached to his authority in connection 286 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. with other subjects, upon which his influence has been disastrously great, though not so generally recognized. The “Novum Organon” is an extraordinary work ; hut it is more remarkable for what it attempted to do than for what it did. By the mere title the author put himself at once into competition with the most influential, if not the greatest, of the ancient philosophers. He undertook to make all things new. Men were not only to unlearn all the old forms of philosophic speech, hut they were even to be taught to think as they had been incapable of thinking before. I need not add anything to what Dr. Laing has said in vindication of Aristotle. I will only say that Bacon appropriated, without acknowledgment, a great deal of that philosopher’s teaching, and that it was quite consistent with his character to abuse those to whom he was most indebted. At .any rate, he did not succeed at any time in prevailing upon any considerable number of educated men to substitute his fanciful terminology for that to which they had been accustomed. It can hardly be considered a reproach to Aristotle that he spoke Greek; hut within the limits of that noble tongue words cannot be found to describe more tersely and appropriately the various processes of thought than those which he employed. And as for the much-abused schoolmen, upon whose uncouth jargon Bacon is so severe, no doubt Cicero would have thought their words “aspera et barbara” ; hut, as signs of ideas, if they erred at all it was on the side of what may he called ver¬ nacular simplicity. Their terms were very convenient FLAWS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF BACON 287 and very intelligible, and contrast favourably with such a poetical description of a mental process as the Baconian term, vindemiatio , which if any doctor, however angelic, or seraphic, or irrefragable, had ventured to utter it to his audience, they would perhaps have considered a proof that the current of his ideas was largely mingled with the juice of the grape. Though the opinion of Bacon which I have formed is based to a great extent upon the Examination of his philosophy by Joseph de Maistre—a work con¬ ceived in a spirit of severe and hostile criticism— I am able to defend it, on many points, by the authority of wutnesses whose testimony is not open to the same exception; who judge of Bacon with some leanings towards him, and who certainly are not disposed to leave anything unsaid that would tell in his favour. From their admissions I gather corroboration of much that De Maistre has main¬ tained, and I think it can be proved that they are mistaken in some questions of importance of which their view differs from his. In his well-known essay on Lord Bacon, Macaulay corrects the popular error that Bacon invented the inductive method of inquiry, and he says :— “ The inductive method has been practised ever since the beginning of the world by every human being. It is constantly practised by the most ignorant clown, by the most thoughtless schoolboy, by the very child at the breast. That method leads the clown to • the conclusion that if he sows barley he shall not 288 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. reap wheat. By that method the schoolboy learns that a cloudy day is the best for catching trout. The very infant, we imagine, is led by induction to expect milk from his mother or nurse, and none from his father.” I think it was presumptuous, even in Lord Macaulay, to pronounce thus on the action of the infant mind; but, at all events, he is clear upon the point that Bacon did not invent induction. Was he, then, the first to analyse the process ? No. That which his “ Novum Organon ” professed to undertake had been thoroughly and efficiently done many ages before; and by whom ?' By the author of the old Organon , that very Aristotle whom Bacon so much disparaged. As to the method of induction specially proposed, Macaulay says that “ the rules are quite proper, but we do not need them, because they are drawn from our constant practice.” The remark is too off-hand to be quite exact, and upon this point it will be better to interrogate a more cautious and more competent witness. According to Dr. Whewell, Bacon was at fault in two things—the object with which, as well as the method by which, his induction was pur¬ sued. He was wrong in taking for his object the essences, or, as he chose to call them, the “forms” of things, which can rarely, if ever, be discovered; and he was wrong as to his method, by imagining that of itself, and independently of the capacity of him who applied it, it must lead to successful results. All this Whewell calls “ erroneous and valueless ” ; and he says :— FLAWS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF BACON. 289 “No scientific discovery ever has been made in this way. Men have not obtained truths concerning the natural world by seeking for the natures of things, and by extracting them from phenomena by rejecting the cases in which they were not. On the contrary, they have begim by ascertaining the Iciivs of the 'phenomena , and have then gone on, not by a mechanical method which levels all intellect, but by special efforts of the brightest intellects to catch hold of the ideas by which these laws of phe¬ nomena might be interpreted and expressed in more general terms. These two steps—the finding the laws of phenomena, and finding the conception by which those laws can be expressed—are really the course of discovery, as the history of science exhibits it to us.”* You will note here that Lord Bacon laboriously devised a method which was to be the sole and infallible rule of scientific discovery; and Whewell says of it that “ no scientific discovery ever has been made in this way.” I may also remind you that the first hands in which this method failed in application were Bacon’s own. His “ Inquisition into the Nature of Heat,” given in the second book of the “ Novum Organon” as an example of the mode of interrogating Nature, “ cannot be looked upon otherwise than as a complete failure.”! Instead of being a brilliant example of legitimate induction, it is a conspicuous instance of illicit generalization. Lord MacauJay very happily exposes its defects when he shows that * “Philosophy of Discovery,” pp. 150-191. t Ibid., p. 136, 19 290 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. by a precisely similar process one may arrive at the conclusion that every man who has three names is a Jacobin. I wish, however, to do Bacon the justice of observing that he seems to have made a pretty fair guess at the probable nature of heat, though his conclusion is not reached by any legitimate process of reasoning. In that denunciation of hypothesis, in which he and some of his school have indulged, they seem often to lose sight of the distinction between a purely gratuitous hypothesis and one founded on probable grounds. The same distinction holds good in the affairs of common life between a random guess and a shrewd one. I think that Bacon made some good guesses in other cases too, but it would be hard to prove that they were anything more. In his theory of heat he seems to have anticipated Professor Tyndall, who holds that it is a “ mode of motion 55 ; differing in this opinion from Ampere, who supposed heat to consist in the vibration of an imponderable fluid; and from Laplace, who believed temperature to consist in the radiation of such a fluid. It cannot be denied, however, that Bacon's notion was very vague and unscientific; for he says of heat that it is “ an expansive, restrained motion, modified in many ways, and exerted in the smaller particles of the body.” I leave it to his interpreters to explain how a motion can be at once expansive and restrained, and how an action, which evidently affects the whole body, can be exerted only in its smaller particles. Macaulay (as I have already had occasion to remark) has corrected in some respects the popular and mis- FLAWS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF BACON. 291 taken estimate of Bacon’s philosophical merits. But he gives him a title of transcendent dignity, when he calls him “ the great apostle of experimental philo¬ sophy.” Now, in order that any man should deserve, in any conceivable manner, to have such a title con¬ ferred on him, it should be made clear either, in the first place, that he was the first to turn the minds of men, previously directed to other pursuits, to the study of experimental science; or, secondly, that no results of any consequence in that way had been attained before he took the task in hand; or, thirdly, that his contributions to physical science were so conspicuous and so valuable as to throw all competitors into the shade. On none of these grounds, I contend, has Bacon any claim to be called the apostle of experimental philosophy. I suppose I need hardly argue that he was not the first to appreciate the use of experiment—a discovery certainly as old as humanity, and so universal as to extend to the very infant, who tests by the novum organon of his mouth the qualities of all sorts of things. But, to speak of matters strictly philosophical, is it not true that Plato, though the head of a school very opposite to the Baconian, rightly apprehended the value of experiment, when he taught his dis¬ ciples to study what he called the “ realities” that might be discovered from the appearances of the heavens ? “ It was, no doubt,” says Whewell, “ the determined search for such realities as those which gave birth to the Greek astronomy , that first and critical step in the progress of science. Plato, by his 19 A 292 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. exhortations, if not by his suggestions, contributed effectually, as I conceive, to this step in science. In the same manner he requires a science of harmonics which shall be free from the defects and inaccuracies which occur in actual instruments. This belief that the universe was full of mathematical relations, and / that these were the true objects of scientific research, gave a vigour, largeness of mind, and confidence to the Greek speculators, which no more cautious view of the problem of scientific discovery could have supplied. It was well that this advanced guard in the army of discoverers was filled with indomitable courage, boundless hopes, and creative minds.”* I think a claim might fairly he put forward on behalf of the captain of “ this advanced guard in the army of discoverers ” to a title given to one who did not come after him for so many centuries. But, if we pass by Plato, what is to he said of Aristotle? Many will think that to him, more appropriately than to Plato, may he ascribed the foundation of a philosophy dis¬ tinctively named experimental; hut, at all events, it is indisputable that he both knew and taught the importance of experiments in scientific inquiry. ‘ ‘ The way of reasoning,” he says, in his Trior Analytics , “ is the same in philosophy and in any art or science: we must collect the facts (ja virdp^ovra) and the things to which the facts happen, and must have as large a supply of these as possible, and then we must examine them according to the terms of our syllo¬ gisms.”. . . “ There are particular principles in each * “Phil, of Disc,,” p. 14. FLAWS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF BACON. 293 science; and in each case the principles must be ob¬ tained from experience . Thus astronomical observa¬ tion supplies the principles of astronomical science. For the phenomena being rightly taken, the demonstra¬ tions of astronomy were discovered; and the same is the case with any other art or science. So that if the facts in each case be taken, it is our business to construct the demonstrations.”* It is unnecessary here to refer to Bacon’s special and most unjust disparagement of Aristotle, as one who discarded ex¬ perience altogether, and “ settled a system to his will,” to which he then “ twisted experience round and made her bend to his system.” Enough has been said to show that Bacon was not the apostle of experimental philosophy in the sense that he was the first to em¬ ploy or to proclaim experiment as an instrument of scientific progress^ Is it, in the second place, true that the results of scientific experiment before Bacon lived and wrote were few and insignificant ? Quite the reverse. We need not speak of the “ wisdom of the ancients,” a phrase of deeper significance than is commonly attached to it. What Moses, for instance, learnt in Egypt, who can say? It is certain that the Jews were close students of the phenomena of nature. Their astronomical computation of the year was superior to that of the Greeks and Bomans. Their wisest king was a most learned naturalist. The temple he built was a marvel of architectural skill and beauty; and his vessels found a track across the seas which * “Phil, of Disc.,” p. 19. 194 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. centuries after was one of the greatest and most fruitful of modern discoveries. I -need but name such men as Archimedes, Euclid, and Ptolemy among the Greeks, and, in an inferior degree, Cicero and Seneca among the Latins, as illustrations of my argument. But there is no doubt, and it would he idle to deny, that in the age to which Bacon belonged, as well as in that which preceded it, the physical sciences received a new impulse, and afterwards attained a development which left the wisdom of the ancients in many respects far behind. Among those best entitled to the credit of having initiated or co-operated in this movement must he named Leo¬ nardo da Yinci, who, in the fifteenth century, was conspicuous, not only for his genius as a painter, hut for his extraordinary abilities as an engineer; who was well versed in geometry, anatomy, and optics; and who made important additions to that science which we call hydrostatics, and anticipated Newton in his exact apprehension of some mechanical prin¬ ciples. The great name of Copernicus will readily occur to you as one claiming a very high place in experimental philosophy. Copernicus preceded Bacon by almost a century ; and of him Dr. Whewell says that his theory of the universe, “ established with vast labour and deep knowledge, was for the succeed¬ ing century the field of discipline and exertion of all the most active speculative minds. Men during that time proved their freedom of thought, their hopeful spirit, and their comprehensive view, by adopting, inculcating, and following out the philo- FLAWS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF BACON. 295 sopliy which this theory suggested.” * It is not amiss to remark that Nicholas Cusanus, a cardinal of the Roman Church, was beforehand with Copernicus in reviving the theory which Pythagoras and Aris¬ tarchus had of old advanced respecting the earth’s motion. England, too, could boast of a great experi¬ mental philosopher, who had arrived at man’s estate when Bacon was born, namely, William Gilbert of Colchester. One of the most original thinkers and accurate observers whom experimental philosophy has known, Gilbert may almost he called the founder of a specific science which in our days has reached such high and wonderful results. Of his “ History of Magnetism ” Whewell testifies: that it “ contains all the fundamental facts of that science, so fully stated that we have at this day little to add to them.”f Such a man Bacon was incapable of understanding, but very capable of sneering at him; though his sneer is simply a most adequate tribute to Gilbert’s fame, which needs no higher testimony than the words, “ Philosojphiam etiam e magnete elicuit .” Among the contemporaries of Bacon were Galileo, Kepler, and Tycho Brahe. They were employed, with great perseverance and success, in pursuing those experiments which he seemed to suppose no one had thought of; and his writings had no influence what¬ ever on their efforts. Sir Thomas Bodley, who had himself a great admiration for Bacon’s genius, frankly told him that he did not understand his complaints ; that the world had never seen a more zealous pursuit * “ Phil, of Disc.,” p. 108. f Ibid., p. 112. 296 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. of science than in their days; and that, at the moment when Bacon was reproaching men for having neglected experiments, nothing but experiment-making was going on over the whole globe. And Dr. Whewell is forced to own that “ Bacon was by no means the first mover or principal author of the revolution in the method of philosophizing which took place in his time, but only the writer who proclaimed, in the most impressive and comprehensive manner, the scheme, the profit, the dignity, and the prospects of the new philosophy.”* In the third place, Bacon’s actual contributions to experimental science were worth next to nothing. To many it will seem incredible, but it is strictly true, that this great philosophical reformer, as he thought himself, had very erroneous and absurd notions about most scientific matters. We have heard the false¬ hood reiterated, usque ad nauseam , which imputes to a most eminent prelate a rejection of the Coper- nican system, and concludes that he is a very ignorant man. But Bacon rejected the Copernican system, and said that it was conceived in the utter license of imagination, and that it was evidently absurd. Again, Galileo, as we know, greatly improved the telescope, of which Metius was the inventor; and, by the discoveries which this new instrument enabled him to make, may almost be said to have renewed the science of astronomy. But Bacon sneered at the telescope, and also entertained the peculiar opinion that mathematics were no help to * “ Phil, of Disc.,” p. 157. FLAWS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF BACON. 297 astronomical pursuits. But where, one surely may ask, without the telescope and without mathematics would modern astronomy he ? He sneered at the microscope also; and he objected to spectacles that they only remedied the defects of vision and taught us nothing new. He complained that arithmetical calculations were too slow, and demanded a method of performing them more expeditiously. But when told that algebra was just what he wanted, he con¬ demned it as “ mystic and Pythagorean,” and u an aberration of theory.” Of course he ridiculed the alchemists ; but he shared some of their delusions, for he thought that gold could be made artificially. If it should be said that after all he was right in con¬ jecturing that some metals could be produced by chemical methods, I do not refuse him whatever honour he deserves as having been the first to foretell an “ age of aluminium.” It was also a notion of his that copper was gold and tin silver in a green or immature stage, and if we only knew how to ripen the copper and tin, we should have 1 the more valuable metals as the result. He had no difficulty in believing that the decaying trunk of a beech-tree might produce a birch-tree, and accounted for it by supposing that though the old tree had not sap enough left to produce offshoots of its own species, it might nevertheless produce some of an inferior species. It would seem as if some of his friends amused themselves by trying how far his credulity would stretch in accepting their imaginary discoveries. As a help to longevity, he re¬ commends that gold-dust, mixed with some powdered 298 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. diamonds or pearls, should be taken the first thing in the morning in a glass of white wine. Modern Baconians, I believe, would rather have oysters than pearls for breakfast, and can make no nearer approach to the consumption of diamonds, as an article of diet, than the use of charcoal biscuits. Nothing can be less scientific or more ridiculous than his solution of some questions. “ Why,” he asks, “ does the salamander extinguish fire ? ” And he answers that it is “ because he is endowed with an extinguishing faculty, the natural effect of which is to extinguish fire.”* Again he asks, “ Why are the beasts of the earth generally bigger than birds ? ” The answer is, “because, the sojourn of beasts in the womb being longer than that of birds in the egg, they have more time to be formed.”! He is supposed to have made important additions to the science of meteorology, hut * Of this the answer in the play is hardly a parody:— u Milii demandatur A doctissimo Doctore, Quare opium facit dormire ; Et ego respondeo, Quia est in eo Virtus dormitiva, Cujus natura est sensus assoupire.” t We have only this month (January, 1872) heard something about “ Hibernicisms in Philosophy.” The distinguished witter who uses the term proves its infelicity by the very first illustration he gives. He is a Scotchman himself, and he quotes another Scotchman as an instance of “ Hibernicism.” May we not say that they are both “Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores ” ? But I refer to this merely to remark that those philosophers who “Hibernicise” (as the Duke of Argyle calls it) are in that consistently Baconian. Bacon tells us that, if we want to know the quality of a log of wood, we have only to speak at one end of it and put the ear to the other. FLAWS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF BACON 299 a close examination will show that most of his notions were borrowed from Seneca, and that those wdiicli were peculiarly his own were either unimportant or incorrect. It appears certain, however, that the most perfect idea of a pot or saucepan, of which Papin has got the credit in later times, originated wnth Bacon, and the vessel ought therefore to he called Bacon’s “ digester,” and not Papin’s. He is praised for having turned men’s thoughts to the pursuit of material good, and for having given to minds which might otherwise have been unprofit ably occupied in the consideration of man’s eternal destiny the practical direction of studying to increase the commoda vitce. It is curious that in his enumeration of the results to he expected from following the pmsuits wdiich he advised he includes “ instruments of destruction, of war, and poison”; so that he manifestly contemplated as among the commoda vitce the pow r er to inflict death on your enemies, or perhaps on those who had been too much your friends. This passage (in the Sylva Sylvarum) contains many ideas to he found in Eoger Bacon’s works, with some of which Francis Bacon was evidently familiar, though the use he made of them was rather free than discriminative. It is amplified by Macaulay into a magnificent eulogy of the new philosophy, which un¬ doubtedly has attained great and beneficial results ; but the question is, how far has Bacon contributed to them? He has himself determined his true position in a phrase which describes it more cor¬ rectly than perhaps he was altogether conscious of: 300 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. Ego buccinator tantum. Only a trumpeter. Nothing more. A trumpeter arrayed, indeed, in all the splen¬ dour of a commander-in-chief, and who certainly drew from his instrument notes of infinite variety, most melodious, most charming, but whose place was by no means in the van of the great army of investigators, and, if it must he fixed anywhere, would rather be somewhere in connection with the supply department. Unconscious irony is always the most severe, and when Macaulay tells us that “ the great apostle of experimental philosophy” was also “its martyr,” we cannot help asking our¬ selves whether so great a master of English under¬ stood his own words. “Apostle” and “martyr”! These are great titles, associated with the greatest cause to which men can devote themselves, and should not be lightly used. That Bacon was no apostle I think I have sufficiently shown: and what was his martyrdom ? To die of a cold caught while stuffing a fowl with snow! To* any one who reads with care Dr. Whewell’s work on the Philosophy of Discovery, it will be ap¬ parent that he had a hard task to maintain for Bacon any considerable part of the pre-eminent fame which he so long enjoyed. We must not forget that Bacon was one of the glories of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the late illustrious Master of Trinity could not so entirely emancipate himself from the spirit and tradi¬ tions of his college as to be capable of judging in this case with absolute impartiality. I will take as an illustration of the force of prejudice, in even so well- FLAWS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF BACON. 301 informed and fair a mind, one rather curious instance. “ There is one very prominent feature,” he says, “ in Bacon’s speculations which we must not omit to notice; it is a leading and constant object with him to apply his knowledge to use . The insight which he obtains into nature he would employ in commanding nature for the service of man. He wishes to have not only principles but works. The phrase which best describes the aim of his philosophy is his own— 1 Ascendendo ad axiomata , descendendo ad opera This, then, at last, is Bacon’s own. Here, if any¬ where, we have got the essence of the Baconian phi¬ losophy. This is the luminous idea to which we are indebted for all the useful inventions, all the com- moda vitce , from ocean telegraphs to Krupp’s cannon, which this nineteenth century enjoys. But we have read something like this before, and in these very pages. Yes, truly: it is from the Cimmerian night of the middle ages that this light breaks athwart the gloom. We go farther hack even than the thirteenth century. There we should meet Boger Bacon, a wonderful master of experimental philosophy ; hut it will he said that he was horn in the middle ages by accident, and was a monk by mistake. We pass him by, however, and travel backward yet another cen¬ tury to Bichard of St. Victor, a man not much ex¬ tolled as a philosopher, experimental or otherwise—a writer, in fact, of ascetical theology—hut who could express himself with great judgment and precision upon questions of physical science and the pheno- * “Phil, of Disc.,” pp. 142, 143. 302 ASSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. mena of nature. “ Physical science,” said Bichard of St. Victor, “ ascends from effects to causes, and descends again from causes to effects.” lt This decla¬ ration,” says Dr. Whewell, “ Francis Bacon himself might have adopted.”* Well, he did adopt it, except that he distorted it, by making his cixiomatci (as he called them) rest upon the natures or “ forms ” ot things ; and it is unfair to add that perhaps Bicliard of St. Victor did not very well understand what he was saying, when it is evident from his language that he had clear and well-considered ideas about what he was writing upon—a merit which is not always so perceptible in the works of Francis Bacon. Newton, indeed, may justly be said to have improved upon Bichard of St. Victor’s principle; for he lays down that an inquiry into the laws of phenomena must precede the investigation of their causes, and will be profit¬ able even though the causes should remain unknown. If it he alleged that the great merit of Bacon’s philosophy was not that he urged men to make ex¬ periments, hut that he impressed on them the neces¬ sity of doing this with more caution than they had used before, it may he said, in the first place, that he was preaching to those who knew their own business better than he did. Galileo, for instance, taught the same lesson, but he put it in practice with results greater than Bacon, with all his power of imagina¬ tion, could even dream of. But, in the next place, Kepler, the friend and fellow-labourer of Galileo, was not a plodding experimentist, but a daring speculator, * “ Phil, of Disc.,” p. 63 . FLAWS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF BACON. 303 a man whose brain teemed with hypotheses, and who, by that very quality, made additions to science of the most wonderful and important character; so much so that, if we are to look for the intellectual progenitor, so to speak, of Newton—the greatest name in modern science—Kepler rather than any other- was the man. “ His efforts,” says Whewell, “ to obtain the formal laws of the planetary motions resulted in some of the most important discoveries ever made in astronomy; and if his physical reasonings were for the time fruit¬ less, this arose only from the want of that discipline in mechanical ideas which the minds of mathemati¬ cians had still to undergo; for the great discoveries of Newton in the next generation showed that, in reality, the next step of the advance was in this di¬ rection.”* Again, it may he observed that it is not upon the mere enumeration or repetition of facts that sound induction is based. The mind will often, not irrationally, infer a general law from a particular in¬ stance, when that instance clearly represents a class of cases. Such generalization may be called hasty, but it is not illicit. It is the mind of the experi- mentist alone that can seize the connection between the facts ; that can bind them together as a cord binds a bundle of faggots. It was once objected to Galileo that, in a certain’ proof from induction, he had not exhausted all the particulars; to which he replied that if induction were required to pass through all the cases it would be either useless or impossible: impossible when the cases are innumer- *“Phil. of Disc.,” p. 120. 304 ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITER A TORE. able ; useless when they have each already been veri¬ fied, for the general proposition adds nothing to our knowledge then. This portion of my task has extended to a dispro¬ portionate length, or much might be added to what I have already said. I deny Lord Bacon’s claim to the philosophical paternity of the great modern discoveries in physical science. I affirm that in this department of human knowledge and inquiry there is little or nothing philosophical that is Baconian, and little or nothing Baconian that is philosophical. But it has been observed that the “ Novum Organon,” though seldom referred to by the authors of works on physics, is often quoted by metaphysical, ethical, and even theological writers. The question, therefore, naturally arises, how far the influence of Bacon has affected what are called the moral as distinguished from the physical sciences ? There are not sufficient data for calculating in what precise degree that total absence of logic, which is frequently to be remarked not only in the language of comparatively uneducated persons, but even in the addresses of public men and in the writings of those who undertake to instruct the public through the newspaper press, is referable to Bacon’s denunciation of syllogistic reasoning. Logic is taught at all our universities, but nevertheless the effects of such instruction are not very apparent in the speeches of our Members of Parliament and of others who have received a university education. Indeed, we have the testimony of the Bector of Lincoln College to show that, at Oxford at least, the students FLAWS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF PA CON. 305 are now taught to reason amiss, the deplorable conse¬ quence of which is that, as he says, they acquire “ in perfection the art of writing leading articles.” At any rate, it may be safely asserted that if Bacon had been very successful in his attempt to extinguish syllogistic reasoning altogether, matters would be worse even than they are. now. But he seems evidently open to the reproach of being the originator, or at least the renovator, of those philosophical errors on which modern materialism is based. He did not, perhajis, himself attribute the origin of knowledge exclusively to the senses ; but the drift of his system, which denied or did not sufficiently recognize the value of ideas even in matters of experiment, was undoubtedly in that direction. I need not go into the controversy as to the sincerity or insincerity with which Bacon professed Christianity. It is certain that there are many passages in his works which con¬ tain edifying sentiments eloquently and touchingly expressed; and in the early part of this century the Abbe Emery, who was a learned as well as a holy man (and, let me add, one not afraid to argue with the master of many legions), collected from Bacon’s works proofs of his religious convictions to confute those infidel philosophers who claimed him as one of them- selves. I am not at all disposed to take up the opposite view, and I think that De Maistre, who maintains it, in several instances overstates his case, and draws conclusions not fairly warranted by the premisses. But if Bacon was not deliberately or consciously anti- 20 306 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. Christian and atheistical in the principles he put for¬ ward, he certainly led others who came after him into a path where they could not hut go astray. If it will not he making too large a demand on your patience, I should like to read a passage from his work “ Be Augmentis ,” of which, of course, he also prepared an English version, for the benefit of his own countrymen, though he imagined that it was in Latin his thoughts would most safely go down to posterity. This passage contains the germs of several errors. It shows that the bent of his mind was in a wrong direction, and it also proves how very un- philosophical his notions were in comparison with those which he condemns. • “ The second part of Metaphysique is the inquiry of final causes, which I am moved to report not as omitted, but misplaced; and yet if it were but a fault in order I would not speak of it: for order is a matter of illustration, but pertaineth not to the substance of sciences. Bat this misplacing hath caused a deficience, or at least a great impro- ficience in the sciences themselves. For the handling of final causes, mixed with the rest in physical inquiries, hath intercepted the severe and diligent inquiry of all real and physical causes, and given men the occasion to stay upon these unsatisfactory and specious causes, to the great arrest and prejudice of further discovery. For this I find done not only by Plato, who ever anchoreth upon that shore, but by Aris¬ totle, Galen, and others,, which do usually likewise fall upon these flats of discoursing causes. For to- say that the hairs of the eyelids are for a quickset and fence about the sight; or that the firmness of the skins and hides of living creatures is to defend them from the extremities of heat or cold ; or that the bones are for the columns or beams where¬ upon the frames of the bodies of living creatures are built; or that the leaves of trees are for protecting of the fruit; or that the clouds are for watering of the earth; or that the solidness of the earth is for the station and mansion of living creatures, and the like, is well inquired and collected in Metaphysique ; but in Physique they are impertinent. FLAWS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF BACON 3 o 7 Nay, they are indeed but remoras and hindrances to stay and slug the ship from further sailing ; and have brought this to pass,—that the search of the physical causes hath been neglected and passed in silence. And therefore the natural philosophy of Democritus and some others (who did not suppose a mind or reason in the frame of things, but attributed the form thereof able to maintain itself, to in¬ finite essays or proofs of nature, which they term fortune) seemeth to me, as far as I can judge by the recital and fragments which remain unto us, in particularities of physical causes, more real and better in¬ quired than that of Aristotle and Plato ; whereof both intermingled final causes, the one as a part of theology, and the other as a part of logic, which were the favourite studies respectively of both those per¬ sons. Not because those final causes are not true, and worthy to be inquired, being kept within their own province ; but because their ex¬ cursions into the limits of physical causes hath bred a vastness and solitude in that track. For otherwise, keeping their precincts and borders, men are extremely deceived if they think there is an enmity or repugnancy at all between them. For the cause rendered, that the hairs about the eyelids are for the safeguard of the sight, doth not impugn the cause rendered, that pilosity is incident to orifices of moisture ; 1 Muscosi fontes, etc.’ Nor the cause rendered, that the firmness of hides is for the armour of the body against extremities of heat or cold, doth not impugn the cause rendered, that contraction of pores is incident to the outwardest parts, in regard of their adjacence to foreign or unlike bodies ; and so of the rest: both causes being true and compatible, the one declaring an intention, the other a conse¬ quence only. Neither doth this call in question, or derogate from Di¬ vine Providence, but highly confirm and exalt it. For' as in civil ac¬ tions he is the greater and deeper politician that can make other men the instruments of his will and ends, and yet never acquaint them with his purpose, so as they shall do it and yet not know what they do, than he that imparteth his meaning to those he employeth; so is the wisdom of God more admirable when Nature intendeth one thing, and Providence draweth forth another, than if He had communicated to particular creatures and motions the characters and impressions of His providence. And thus much for Metaphysique: the latter part whereof I allow as extant, but wish it confined to its proper place.” You will observe here that looking “ from Nature 20 A 308 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. up to Nature’s God ” is a philosophical heresy in Bacon’s eyes. Whenever proofs of a wise and benefi¬ cent design present themselves to the inquirer’s mind, when he recognizes them in the lashes of the eye and the texture of the skin and the structure of the bones, and when from final causes he turns with reverence and gratitude to the great First Cause, all this is a mistake. He should dismiss such impertinent intrusions, saying, with Felix the governor, “ For this time go thy way, hut at a convenient time I will send for thee,” and sedulously apply himself to such sound and satisfac¬ tory discoveries as that “ pilosity is incident to orifices of moisture”; that lashes grow round the eyes for the same reason that moss grows round a spring; though, strange to say, there is more “ pilo¬ sity” on the brows, where there is no “ orifice of moisture,” and a great deal more on the skull. Di¬ vine Providence, it is true, is ultimately permitted to be introduced, but in the extraordinary character of a diplomatic rival to Nature ; a Bismarck, as it were, outwitting a Benedetti; and drawing forth some¬ thing different from that which Nature had intended. Again, instead of Plato,, who is too fond of “ anchor¬ ing on that shore,” the proper guide to follow is De¬ mocritus, a materialist,, who did not believe in a ruling Divinity, and who attributed to chance (which means nothing), the order and government of all things. The materialistic tendency of Bacon’s principles became apparent the moment they began to be deve¬ loped by those who may be called his disciples. In FLAWS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF BACON 309 those hours of leisure which he devoted at Gorham- bury to philosophical pursuits, he sometimes permitted younger friends, of whose abilities he thought well enough, to be his companions. Of these his chief favourite was Thomas Hobbes. It cannot be denied that Hobbes was an undisguised materialist. His opinions, however, on philosophical questions did not meet with a ready acceptance, because they were published in connection with other opinions, on morals, on government, and on religion, of a most unpopular character. But after him came Locke, who, taking advantage of the turn meffs minds had now received in favour of experience as the most fruitful source of knowledge, began to propound doctrines which denied to the native activity of the mind itself its due share in the acquisition, and attri¬ buted to the senses alone, or chiefly, an office in which they have but a subordinate part. De Maistre acutely remarks that, by speaking of the origin of “ideas,” Locke and his followers escape refutation under cover of a word to which different meanings have been given ; but if they were to speak of the origin of “thoughts” it would be difficult for them to maintain their position long. Locke, however, did not assert the exclusive authority of the senses as the source of our ideas: he admitted reflection into partnership with sensation. But his more prominent followers, such as Condillac, resolved reflection into a modifi¬ cation of sensation, and got rid of the purely mental element altogether. It is hardly worth while to trace the progress of this school of opinion throughout the 3 io ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. last century, when it included the writers of the Encyclopedia and most of the infidel philosophers. It is quite to the purpose, however, to remark that those men always spoke of Bacon as their prophet and pre¬ cursor ; and Cabanis drew out a sort of pedigree, in which he traces the different stages of his own mate¬ rialism from Bacon to Hobbes and Locke, from Locke to Helvetius, from Helvetius to Condillac, from Con¬ dillac to Lancelin, and from Lancelin to Yolney. Among the latest births of this ill-omened brood have been Auguste Comte and his English disciple, John Stuart Mill * that is, if we can call him a disciple who, after listening for a while to his teacher, begins to point out that he is wrong. But that is true of all schools of mere philosophy, and is itself a proof that the scholars are wanting in that humility which is a necessary disposition for all profitable instruction. Many of you are much better acquainted than I am with the spirit and tendency of Positivism or Phenomenism ; and, with respect to Comte, I will only read one or two sentences from Whewell, which, when you connect them with the passage I have read from Bacon, will render it superfluous for me to point out in what relation* Comte stands to him :— “ M. Comte’s arrangement of the progress of science, as succes¬ sively metaphysical and positive, is contrary to history in fact and contrary to sound philosophy in principle. Nor is there any better foundation for his statement that theological views are to be found only in the rude infantine condition of human knowledge, and vanish as science advances. Even in material sciences this is not the case. We have shown in the chapter on Final Causes that physiologists havo been directed in their remarks by the conviction of a purpose in every part of the structure of animals ; and that this idea, which had its rise FLAWS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF BACON 3ii after the first observations, has gone on constantly gaining strength and clearness, so that it is now the basis of a large portion of the science. We have seen, too, in the book on the palaetiological sciences, that the researches of that class do by no means lead us to reject an origin of the series of events, nor to suppose this origin to be included in the series of natural laws. Science has not at all shown any reason for denying either the creation or the purpose of the universe.” Therefore Bacon was altogether wrong when he maintained thet “ the handling of final causes ” tended to “the great arrest and prejudice of further discovery.” That shore where Plato was ever anchor¬ ing has in fact afforded a site and foundation for a large portion of the edifice of physiological science, Mr. Mill is much more than a Baconian : he is nothing less than another Bacon, with an Organon (which I suppose is to he called Novissimum) of his own. The tunes (if I may with presumptuous levity call them so), which this newest of instruments plays, are the Method of Agreement, the Method of Difference, the Method of Residues , and the Method of Concomi¬ tant Variations. But they are really no more than our old acquaintances, “ Instantiae Ostensivae,” “In¬ st anthe Absentiae in Proximo,” “Instantiae Crucis,” and “ Instantiae Migrantes.” They are very pretty tunes, but science does not dance to them. At least that was Sir John Herschel’s opinion :— “ It has always,” he says, “ appeared to us, we must confess, that the help which the classification of instances under their different titles of prerogatives affords to inductions, however just such classification “Phil, of Disc.,” pp. 233, 234. 312 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. may be in itself, is yet more apparent than real. The force of the instance must be felt in the mind before it can be referred to its place in the system; and before it can either be referred or appreciated it must be known ; and when it is appreciated, we are ready enough to weave our web of induction, with¬ out greatly troubling ourselves whence it derives the weight we acknowledge it to have in our decisions. . ... No doubt such instances as these are highly instructive ; but the difficulty in physics is to find such, not to perceive their force when found.”* It is remarkable that Mr. Mill differs from Bacon as to the value of successive generalization, which is considered by Whewell the most meritorious feature in Bacon’s system. It will perhaps be urged that I should not call him a Baconian at all, because he sets up deduction as a rival to induction, and con¬ structs his philosophy upon a plan the opposite of Bacon’s. But Absalom was David’s son though he revolted against him. It is not necessary that I should go into a discussion of the views of the Phenomenists. They inherit from Bacon their notions of the exclu¬ sive value of experience; they exaggerate it to a length to which scarcely any one has gone before ; but as on their own principles it cannot lead to certainty, it ceases in effect to be an instrument for the discovery of scientific truth. Extremes meet. The best illustration I can offer of the absurdity of Phenomenism is derived from an incident related of a tribe of aborigines in Australia. One of them had “ Discourse,” Art. 192. FLAWS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF BACON. 3 i 3 been servant to an Englishman and had saved his life, in gratitude for which his master, when leaving Australia to return home, made him a present of his house and all that it contained. The whole tribe were brought to admire their friend’s new property. Examining everything with great ' curiosity, they came at last upon a box of lucifer matches. The use of these was explained to them, and one was lighted as a proof. Their wonder was unbounded; but suddenly arose a doubt as to whether all the little sticks in the box had the same magical quality, and this doubt was not removed until they had ignited and wasted all that the box contained. If they had been masters of that rhetorical style of expression which characterises some philosophical writings now in vogue, they would perhaps have said, with Mr. Bain, merely substituting their example for his : “ The postulate that we are in quest of must carry us across the gulf, from the experienced known, either present or remembered, to the unexperienced and unknown. These little sticks when rubbed against the box have caught fire, as far as we have gone. By what assumption do we affirm that the same will happen to the rest ? Experience does not teach us this ; experience is only what has actually been; and, after never so many repetitions of a thing, there still remains the peril of venturing upon the untrodden land of future possibility.” I may also classify as Baconians those who, like Professor Huxley, argue against what he calls “teleology,” and those who pursue such speculations 314 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. as Darwin’s; though there is no form either of deduc¬ tion or of induction upon which his conclusions can be based. There is nothing new (it has been said) except what is very old ; and the newest ideas in philosophy are borrowed from such forgotten autho¬ rities as Thales, Protagoras, and Democritus. “ Melius est,” says Bacon (in his Novum Organon ), “ Naturam sec are quam abstrahere: id quod Democriti schola fecit, quae magis penetravit in Naturam quam reliquse.” It is better to dissect than to make an abstraction of Nature. But Nature is herself an abstraction; and how are we to get her on the dissecting-table, or what scalpel are we to use ? This, then, is another “Hibernicism in philosophy.” Again, how far soever we may proceed in our dissection (and moderns can go furtherthan the school of Democritus), the results are not very great after all. % But the senti¬ ment is open to severer censure. For it is upon an atheistical philosophy, like that of Democritus, however it may have commended itself to Bacon, that the denunciation of the Apostle most heavily falls. “Dicentes enim se esse sapientes, stulti facti sunt. .... Quia quod notum est Dei manifestum est in illis : Deus enim illis manifestavit. Invisibilia enim Ipsius a creatura mundi, per ea quae facta sunt intel- lecta, conspiciuntur; sempiterna quoque Ejus virtus et divinitas ; ita ut sint inexcusabiles.” (Rom. i.) XII. THE NECESSARY ATTITUDE OF CATHOLIC LAYMEN TOWARDS THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. BY THE KEY. WILLIAM HUMPHREY, O.S.C. Y object this evening is to suggest to the Academia certain considerations as to the necessary attitude of Catholic laymen in regard to the Scholastic Philosophy. And in the first place, I must observe that, through¬ out this paper, I use the term “ Scholastic Philo¬ sophy ” in a restricted sense. I do not mean to include by it whatever scholastics have taught on matters philosophical, still less to signify by it the system of any individual scholastic of whatever emi¬ nence, whether St. Thomas in the middle ages, Suarez three centuries ago, or philosophical writers of our own day—such as Liberatore, Tongiorgi, or Kleutgen. When, for the purposes of this paper, I speak of the Scholastic Philosophy, I mean—all the philosophical doctrine which is supposed by, and all the philo¬ sophical terms which have been incorporated into, the Scholastic Theology. 316 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. I shall endeavour to show that the philosophical dicta therein contained, and thereby necessarily sup¬ posed, are not unconnected, and isolated the one from the other; hut that they together compose a consistent body of doctrine, a coherent system of philosophy; and that they are not merely imbedded in, but incor¬ porated with, the Catholic Theology. If I succeed in this I shall have thereby proved the attitude of Catholics towards the Scholastic Philosophy, thus understood, to be one of necessary acceptance ; it being presented to them not merely as philosophically true, but as invested with a yet more than metaphysical certainty. Here, doubtless, I shall be met by the objection that, by making this claim for Scholasticism I am taking it out of the sphere of philosophy and beyond the range of science; and the objection at first sight seems a valid one. It is necessary for me, therefore, to define Philosophy, and to explain what I mean by Science. Philosophy is the study of wisdom; and wisdom is the science or knowledge of things in their causes, or in their primary, radical, and ultimate ideas. This science is called Philosophy when it is acquired from natural sources, by natural means, through the natural powers, and by the light of reason: and it is so called as distinguished, on the one hand, from mere knowledge, which regards, not causes, but effects, not necessary ideas, but phenomena; and, on the other, from the Scholastic Theology, which is the science of things, not only in their causes, but in THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. 3i7 their First Cause ; and acquired, not by natural, but by supernatural means, not by tbe light of reason, but by that of revelation. Now, tbe very same objection which is made against tbe Scholastic Philosophy’s being a science equally militates against the name of Science being given to Theology itself. Science, properly so called, in its restricted and technical sense, designates conclusions of the reason from first principles, or from premises which are either evident or demonstrable. In this sense Theology is not a science ; for it is not acquired by the light of reason, and it does not depend on self-evident or demonstrable premises. It follows that, in the same sense and for the same reasons, the Scholastic Philosophy is not a science. But there are what are called “ Subalternate Sciences,” those, viz., which assume as their premises truths acquired by means of other sciences, or acquired in any way so long as they possess certainty. In this sense Theology is a science, inasmuch as its premises are truths possessing a certainty higher than the metaphysical; and, inasmuch as the conclusions of Theology are taken as premises in the Scholastic Philosophy, that philosophy is also a science. Theology is a science subaltemate to Revelation^ or Divine science ; and the Scholastic Philosophy is a science subaltemate to Theology. The objection therefore can affect only the use of the name ; it does not touch the reality which that name represents.- 3i8 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. But even as to the use of the name of u science,’’ its application to the Scholastic Philosophy is not only legitimate : I maintain that it belongs to it more specially, more appropriately, . more really, and in a higher sense than to any other knowledge save Theology alone. A name properly belongs not to that which suggests it, and to which it is first applied, hut to that which it most adequately represents. For instance, the name of “ father” more really, strictly, and properly belongs to God than to any human father. It is suggested by, and first applied to, human paternity in the concrete; hut it most adequately represents Him from whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named. In like manner^ the name of “ philosophy ” is suggested by, and first applied to, the science of things in their created second causes, as acquired by the light of reason; hut it more adequately represents the science of things in their first and necessary cause, as acquired from a source and by means which give a more than metaphysical certainty. The Scholastic Philosophy is therefore in the highest sense a science; and the effect of the ob¬ jection is only to compel us to a clearer definition of the word “ science.” In the course of my remarks this evening I shall use the word “ science ” in the sense of the know¬ ledge of Being , as such, and of the True and the Good , as both identified with the idea of Being. Ens, Verum, and Bonum— Being, as such, the True THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. 3*9 and the Good , are the three highest objects which man can contemplate; and by their contemplation he attains to his highest intellectual perfection as a rational being. Speaking to Catholics, I assume not only that Ens, Verum, and Bonum are identified as transcendental conceptions, but that they are identified in the Su¬ preme Being, inasmuch as in Him all things are one, where there does not occur opposition of substantial relations—in other words, excepting only diversity of personality. Further, it will be granted, not only by Catholics, but by all, that ens is diffusivum sui ; and that all beings, save the one supreme, unproduced, and necessarily existent Being, possess a produced, con¬ tingent, dependent existence, flowing from that one fountain and source of Being, to whom alone belongs of inalienable right the incommunicable, ineffable name, Ego sum —I AM. I also assume, as granted by most men, and cer¬ tainly by Catholics, that both the Yerum and the Bonum are diffusiva sui; not only because, according to the Catholic thesis, they are in God identified with Ens, which is of its nature diffusivum sui , neces¬ sarily ad intra, or within the sphere of the Godhead, and actually, albeit contingently, ad extra , as the dictates of reason cannot but affirm; but also from ex¬ perience testifying to their tendency towards diffusion as one of their natural properties and characteristics. A good man, for instance, naturally and, as it were, instinctively tends towards the diffusion of his good- 320 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. ness by the endeavour to make others good; and one who acquires and is in possession of a truth strives to impart it to others, and that in proportion as he realizes its absolute trueness, or in other words, in proportion as that objective truth becomes subjec¬ tively true to him. Now this manifests an a priori likelihood of a revelation of absolute truths by the Supreme Being, who not only has, but is , Goodness and Truth. He has diffused His Being by giving being, not to pre-existing subjects, which is absurd, but to subjects which become such by the very gift of existence. To such beings we should expect the Supreme Giver of being to communicate that which is identified in Him with His own Being, if they are capable of its reception; and if so, in proportion to, and in accordance with, the mode of their being. Now, is man capable of this ? and in how far ? What is the mode of man’s being ? Man not only possesses derived being, but he is a microcosm and compendium of all derived being. He unites in his individual unity the two opposite poles of being—the material and the spiritual; the material, which is incompatible with God, and the spiritual, which is the necessary mode of His existence. Man, moreover, possesses a derived life, and that life is twofold, corresponding to the two constituents of his being—body and soul, and its two modes—the material and the spiritual. He has an organic life, such as of itself need not exceed the powers and forces of matter; and a- THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. 321 spiritual life, which necessarily exceeds these, and is altogether independent of them. But spiritual life supposes the existence of two faculties—an intellect and a will, a principle of know¬ ledge and a source of action. These faculties, more¬ over, have their proper objects towards which they, of their nature, tend, and in the attainment of which they find their perfection. Now, just as in the Supreme Being, He, in the exercise of His spiritual life, as an intelligence, necessarily tends towards the contemplation of His own Being, under its aspect of the True, and—as He is a will, towards the love of that Being, under its aspect of the Good; so in a created spiritual being, in the exercise of its spiritual life, its intelligence necessarily and of its nature tends towards truth as its proper object, and its will, in the same way, towards the good. The possession therefore of the true and the good develops that spiritual being to its highest condition, and completes its spiritual perfection. Seeing then that, on the one side, we find a tendency on the part of God to diffuse His knowledge by the communication of truth; and, on the other side, a tendency on the part of man, as an intellectual being, towards the truth: we are led to expect that those two tendencies—the downward, as it were, and the upward—should meet and terminate in a revela¬ tion of absolute truth. That, as a fact, this expectation has been realized, we, of course, as Catholics believe and affirm. It is 21 322 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. a fundamental thesis of Christianity. We possess a deposit of absolute truths, a revelation of the wisdom hidden in a mystery, given in its completeness on the day of Pentecost, and ever dwelling, after the mode of an idea , in the collective intellect of the one moral person, the individual unity of the Catholic Church. I have said, dwelling after the mode of an idea; and that because this deposit of truth is a living thing, living after the manner of an idea , and fruitful with its fruitfulness. It is not a lifeless, and therefore barren collection of unconnected facts, to he handed on from father to son, from generation to generation, throughout the ages. This would not he in accordance with the laws of intellectual life ; and it would moreover result in an almost necessary corruption of the deposit of truth, as time went on. It is important to have our ideas clear as to this, and to keep it well and steadily in view, as miscon¬ ceptions in regard to it he at the root of much that has in late years been said as to divergence be¬ tween the utterance of the living voice of the Catholic Church and the narrative of tradition. There is a twofold tradition: a living and a dead. By a dead tradition I mean a statement to be handed on, as it stands, without increase or diminution from one individual to another. Such a tradition, like every dead thing, is unalterable save by way of decomposition and corruption, and to this it tends by an almost inevitable law. Eelate, for instance, a fact to a friend; he repeats it to a third person, THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. 323 and he to a fourth. Let this repetition proceed, and in proportion to the passing time, and to the number of individuals who are the vehicles of trans¬ mission, the relation will lose its original form and perfection, until at last its original author would fail to recognize it as his own. But in the case of an idea existing in one mind it is otherwise. Instead of alteration by way of disso¬ lution and corruption, it alters by way of increase of unity and completeness. The intellect contemplates it as a whole, and in its parts, in their relations the one to the other, and to the whole, as well as in its relations to other ideas, whether by way of similarity or contrast. As a living thing it increases till it has attained to its perfection. It generates other living ideas, fruitful and prolific as itself; and it possesses two properties of a living thing,—the power of assimilation , whereby it incorporates or assumes into its own unity whaL ever is homogeneous with itself; and the power of rejection and expulsion , whereby it throws off what¬ ever is heterogeneous to itself, alien or inimical to its nature. These processes of intellectual life, which belong to an idea, belong to that Deposit of absolute truths which was implanted, in its completeness, in the one collective mind of the one moral person, or individual unity, of the Catholic Church. It is a living thing, living vith an intellectual life, energizing after the manner of that life, and in accordance with its laws, generating, assimilating, 21 A 324 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. and rejecting ; and thus perfecting itself, and gaining in unity and completeness as the years pass by. The tradition, therefore, of the truth is not its oontinued relation from individual to individual, from father to son, from generation to generation, but its continued existence in one individual mind through¬ out all generations of men, and from age to age. But farther, an idea in the mind of man tends . towards utterance; and utterance is necessary in order to its communication. It must he clothed in and expressed by words. What is a word save an expressed idea ? The verbum oris is but the outward expression of the verbum mentis. They are in reality identified, and the one cannot he in conflict with or in contradiction to the other. It follows, therefore, that the living voice of the moral person of the Catholic Church, giving, as it does, but outward expression to the idea living and vitally energizing within the mind of that person, cannot save represent it; and that there can he no collision . or divergence between the two. Much of what I have said applies to the processes of intellectual life in every individual rational being ; but the whole of what I have said applies to that morally individual rational being, the Mystical Body, the Catholic Church, by reason of the perpetual assistance of the ever indwelling Spirit of Truth, who, in-forming that body after the manner of a soul, bestows on it at once indefectibility of existence, and infallibility of thought and utterance, of reasoning, conclusion, and definition. This information or in- THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. 325 dwelling of the Spirit of Truth, as it pertains to the whole body as well as to its head, so does it bestow on the whole body, as well as on its head, infallibility of thought and utterance ; and this is what theologians call the passive infallibility of the entire Catholic Church, as a whole; but to the Head it belongs, as the organ of utterance, to formulate thought, and to express ideas in adequate language, and to reject, deny, and condemn all ideas, language, and formulas discordant with and in opposition to its own. In order to the fulfilment of this necessary function of the intellectual life of the church, there exists the active infallibility of the Homan Pontiff: and this infallibility is not confined within the limits of theology, but extends to all matters, philosophical included, which have any ontological connection with the Deposit of faith. And now let us fix our thoughts on the collective intellect of the moral person of the Mystical Body, at the moment when the will of that person, expressed by its Head, desires to formulate a Divinely-revealed idea, to clothe it in words whereby it may be conveyed to, and understood by men. What words is it to choose? Will it invent new words, or will it appropriate, and make its own, words already in existence and use ? And, if so, will it take them as they stand, in that sense which they already bear, or stamp them with a new sense, restricted or extended, as the case may be ? In the first place, it certainly will not invent new words; new* that is* if not as a whole, at least as to 326 E SS A VS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. their component parts ; for such words would be un¬ intelligible, and their use in vain. It will proceed not by way of invention , but by way of discipline , which engrafts new ideas on ideas already conceived, or informs with a specific meaning words already existing. Now at the period when first the Church required to express in words which no man might mistake, to formulate the verbum mentis , which in her was also the Verbum Bevelatum , there lay before her the accumulated stores of the formulated wisdom of ages. There was in it much that was true, for it contained the conclusions of reason from first prin¬ ciples, and premises ascertainable by the powers of nature. Doubtless there was in it also much of error ; but she had in herself faculties of discrimination and selection, of assimilation of the good and true, of rejection of the false and evil. And now I must redeem my promise, and endeavour to show that the philosophical doctrines which are included in, or supposed by, and the philosophical terms which have been adopted, and not only imbedded in, but incorporated with the Catholic theology, are not isolated the one from the other, and uncon¬ nected ; but that they together compose a consistent body of doctrine, and a coherent system of philosophy. It will be impossible, within the limits of the time at my disposal, to enumerate, much less to analyse them all; to indicate and glance at a few of the leading, fundamental, and primary ones will suffice. To begin with Substance . Catholics cannot but THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. 327 assent to and affirm the scholastic definition of sub¬ stance as—a being which does not require another being as its subject of inhesion ; that is, which can exist standing alone and by itself, in contradistinc¬ tion to accident , which naturally requires another being as its subject of inhesion, and cannot naturally exist standing alone and by itself. Hence sub¬ stance is called in the most proper sense an Ens ; accident is so called in a less proper sense; although really an Ens , it is strictly an Ens entis. Again, a Catholic must hold the objective reality of both substance and accident, that the conception of substance is not a mere fiction of the mind, hut expresses a real physical thing—nay, is the basis, foundation, and fulcrum of all reality. And further, that, although accidents ralways con- naturally exist in substances, as their subjects of inhesion,—from which they never connaturally exist apart, standing alone and by themselves—they are yet really distinct from substance, and there is philosophically no reason why supernaturally they should not he supported in existence without a subject of inhesion—that there is no repugnance in this abnormal condition, that it is only preternatural and not contrary to nature. This doctrine is necessarily included in the dogma of Transubstantiation. The truth of the theological dogma implies the truth of the philosophical doctrine, and the certainty of faith gives measure to the certainty of knowledge. Take, again, the scholastic definition of form and 328 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. t matter. Matter is an indifferent reality, which requires determination. This determination it receives by the accession of form , which bestows upon it esse tale and species. Now, apart from the fact that those two words, and that as representing two scholastic philosophical ideas, have been incorporated into the terminology of the Church in her doctrine on the sacraments; their truth is besides identified with her teaching as to the very nature of man. She teaches that the intellective soul is united to the human body as its substantial form—that is, as that whereby it is determinated and constituted in its species as a human individual, which has henceforth one being and one operation. Previous to the infu¬ sion of the intellective soul there was not a human body , hut a mere massa corjporea ; and that soul, although spiritual, and so independent of matter for its existence, was yet an incomplete substance, dependent on its union as a form with its connatural matter for its completeness and perfection. Now this philosophical truth is of faith, for by a decree of the General Council of Yienne, directed against the errors * of Oliva, who had adopted and renewed the errors of Averroes, it was defined that the substance of the rational or intellective soul is truly jper se and essentialiter the form of the human body. The same doctrine was reiterated by the General Council of the Lateran, held under Leo X.; and finally the reigning Pontiff has not only confirmed THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. - 329 this, but has also in his condemnation of the errors of Gunther and his followers, by apostolic letters addressed to the Archbishop of Cologne, taught that, according to the Catholic faith, the soul is not only truly and per se , hut also immediately the form of the body. Thirdly, we find incorporated into the Catholic theology the scholastic philosophical terms, nature , hypostasis , and person , and that in their strict philo : sophical sense, as understood in the schools. Nature is the essence or substance, regarded as it is the principle of operation. Hypostasis is an individual subsistence, or—a substance which is singular and not manifold; entire, and not a part; whole in it¬ self, and not existing after the manner of a part; and, moreover, incommunicable, and not participated, like a common nature, by several distinct subjects. If the nature of an hypostasis is rational or intellectual, it is then, to distinguish it from irrational hypostases, called a person. The ultimate differentia between a nature, on the one hand, and an hypostasis or person, on the other, consists in this,—that the nature is com¬ municable, and the hypostasis or personality is in¬ communicable. A father communicates of his nature to his son ; he does not communicate his personality. This is all included in and incorporated into the Catholic Theology of the Blessed Trinity; which more¬ over supplies to philosophy a truth, which it therefore holds as of more than metaphysical certainty, viz., that the will follows the nature and not the person. This is indubitable for while in God there are three 330 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. Persons, there is but one will, as there is but one nature, so also in Jesus Christ there are two wills, there being two natures, although but one person. From this also follows the philosophical truth that the personality is not identified with the conscious¬ ness. In the triune God there is one consciousness ; in the God-man, the Incarnate Word, there are two. It would be tedious to traverse the whole sphere of the Scholastic Philosophy, in order to show its necessary truth, supposing the truth of the Catholic Theology. Nor is it necessary. Ex pede Herculem. What we have shown as to those three great subjects, substance and accident, matter and form, nature and person, implies so much more, included therein, onto- logically connected therewith, or necessarily flowing therefrom, that, given what we have asserted with regard to them, it cannot he denied that the Scholastic Philosophy is necessarily true, as resting on founda¬ tions for which we have a more than metaphysical certainty—the certainty of Divine faith. For instance, the truth of the Catholic Theology implies the truth of the Scholastic Philosophy in its doctrine as to such points as the nature of a cause, and the difference between a cause and a principle, between a cause and a condition sine qua non , and between a cause and a self-sufficient reason of existence. So again as to the ideas of generation, paternity, and filiation,—as to what constitutes these, and what distinguishes generation from procession; as to the idea of priority in its threefold aspect of pri- THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY.- 33i ority of time, priority of nature, and priority of origin, and the non-repugnance and non-interference of pri¬ ority of origin with co-eternity. Further, as to the ideas of eternity and immensity, and the correlative ideas of time and space ; as to the ideas of creation, or the effec- tion of being out of nothing, and the absolute distinc¬ tion between the created and the uncreated, the univer¬ sal and the infinite ; as to universals themselves, their abstract existence in the mind, and their concrete existence in the object; as to the properties of matter and spirit, and the distinction between the merely simple and that which is spiritual as well as simple, or between the merely sensitive soul and that soul which is intellective as well as sensitive—in a word, between the brute soul and the soul of man; as to the idea of extension, and its necessity in order to the existence of a real body; along with the possibility of extension in actu primo , and its restriction ab actu secundo, and the sufficiency of this aptitudinal and exactive exten¬ sion to constitute a real, true, and substantial bodily presence : and so on. Such are hut a few philosophical truths which lie on the surface, and occur to the mind currente calamo , out of the number of those which are, not only im¬ bedded in, hut incorporated with the Catholic Theo¬ logy, and the absolute truth of which is vouched for by such incorporation. They suffice, however, from their variety, as well as from their connection one with another and inter¬ dependence one upon another, to show that they are parts of a coherent, consistent, and homogeneous 332 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. system, for the truth of which, as a whole, their truth affords, if not a sufficient guarantee and ade¬ quate proof, at least the maximum of a priori pro¬ bability. We are thus in face of a system of philosophy which we defend, not now as it comes to us on authority, or again simply because it is venerable in its associ¬ ations, but on this ground solely and precisely,—that it is true, and that the evidence of its truth is to us, as Catholics, overwhelming and irrefragable. Behind us in the past, and around us in the present, lie other philosophical systems, whose name is legion ; and, if my thesis has commended itself to you, you will agree with me that those systems are valuable only in so far as they coincide with the Scholastic, —that wherein they differ from it they are in so far erroneous and pernicious, and that wherein they avowedly contradict it they are false and anti- Christian.- And yet it cannot be denied that those systems possess attractions, hold a place in and exercise power over many minds. Now to what are we to attribute this influence, and how is it to be counteracted ? It is due, in the first place, to the fragments of truth which they* like all other erroneous systems, un¬ doubtedly contain. Mutilated, distorted, truncated, and isolated, it is true, as well as alloyed with error, but yet as existing, retaining in themselves, and imparting to all with which they are connected, somewhat of the nature and necessary force and attractiveness of the truth.- THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. 333 Their influence is due, secondly, to the reputation of their authors, and to the number and names of their adherents, as well as to the form and manner in which they are propounded, the felicity of diction, the lu¬ cidity of explanation, the beauty of illustration, and the numberless graces of language which have been lavishly employed to cover their nakedness and con¬ ceal their defects. There is again the force and vehemence wherewith theories have been enunciated, as if they were first principles; and opinions, which could pretend to, at the most, but a balance of probability, have had claimed for them and accorded to them the preroga¬ tive of certitude. Advertising is the order of the day, and an article obtains thereby credit and acceptance, apart from its intrinsic value. So also a loud-yoiced utterance will obtain a hearing for, and secure assent to a theory which on its merits it could not obtain. But there is a deeper reason for the prevalence and power of the modern philosophical systems. They pander to a weakness in fallen man. True, as we have said, the proper object of the in¬ tellect—that to which it by its nature tends, and in the possession of which it finds its perfection—is the true ; as, in the same way, the proper object of the will is the good; and yet it is equally true that by reason of the loss of integrity of nature, and the consequent predominance of concupiscence, man is more proxi- mately, more easily, and more powerfully affected by the things of sense, than by the intellectual. The 334 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. things of sense lie nearer to liim, and press more closely upon him, and he is led to look at intellectual truths through the medium of phenomena, instead of studying phenomena by the light of intellectual truths. Instead of embracing, possessing, and rejoicing in those truths, after having satisfied himself of the reality and solidity of the foundations upon which they rest, he begins not by testing their own claims to certitude, but by arraigning them before a tribunal at which he is judge, and the phenomena of which he has knowledge, either from experience or from hear¬ say, are the witnesses. If their testimony supports those truths, he so far accepts them, or at least ac¬ quits them of falsehood; if, on the contrary, the testimony of the phenomena is apparently against them, he at once condemns them, and as unworthy of a further hearing on the merits. It is precisely the same habit of mind and mental process, which has led men to judge dogma by the evidence of history, instead of reading, interpreting, and understanding history by the light of dogma. Historical facts and scientific phenomena are in the same category—numerically incomplete, and indi¬ vidually inadequate. They are true, and valuable within their own sphere ; outside that sphere they are useless and mischievous. Intellectual truths, on the other hand, whether dogmatic or philosophical, are complete in themselves, and adequate to explain the facts and phenomena which they underlie. Some one has said that every man is born into the THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY 1 335 world either an Aristotelian or a Baconian : that is to say, with a mental bias towards either the deductive or the inductive system; with a natural preference for analysis, on the one hand, or for synthesis on the other. But the comparative merits of the two must never be forgotten. It must not be lost sight of that the one is complete, so far as it goes ; and that the other is, on the face of it, incomplete, and only valuable when the deductive is unattainable. It may give probability when certainty cannot be had, and supply a hypothesis when a demonstration is impos¬ sible. But, be it remembered that, while if one knows a cause in all its amplitude one knows also the effects which proceed from it; yet even were an induction so complete as to supply all the effects (and supply all the actual effects—to say nothing of the possible—it cannot) one would not even then have an adequate knowledge of the cause, without a previous knowledge of the ontological nexus between the two. Again, the modern phenomenal philosophies pan¬ der to and foster that spirit of intellectual insub¬ ordination and independence to which there is a tendency in fallen man. The existence of this spirit in no way militates against what I have said as to the native tendency of the intellect towards the true,—for this abnormal ten¬ dency in the intellect has not its root in the intellect. It springs from the will. It is not a natural, it is a moral defect. It does not pertain to the nature as such, and so cannot be charged on the Author of that nature. It depends on the individual will, or can in 336 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. some way be traced to a defect in an individual will, for which that individual is responsible, and of which he is the cause. This practice of private judgment—the legitimate outcome of that moral impatience of control—is the principle of Protestantism carried into the region of Philosophy. Religious and philosophical Protestants alike deny the existence of an organic living body of objective truths, and believe in a congeries of axioms, excogitated, formulated, defined, and promul¬ gated by themselves. The one Protestantism is produced by the action of the individual mind upon historical facts ; the other by the action of the indivi¬ dual mind upon observed phenomena. Now, how are we to meet and oppose these false philosophies, as they are proposed to us from outside the Church; and how are we to counteract their influence on individuals within ? I answer unhesitatingly, by promoting among ourselves, and those around us, the study of the Scholastic Philosophy. It is not by an irregular, guerilla warfare that we may hope to conquer, but by strengthening and con¬ solidating our own forces, and taking up our own position. It is not simply by contradicting or contending against this or that individual and isolated philoso¬ phical error, that we shall effect our purpose. Even were we to succeed, it would be but the success of a skirmish. Such an encounter would be but an affair of outposts, and the real conflict would remain behind THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. 337 In other words, it would be but curing a symptom, instead of cutting at the root of the disease. What seems to be wanted is not polemical warfare, but tbetical exposition ; and by this we should not only oppose a steady front to the adversary, but also protect ourselves. The study of true Philosophy is at once the greatest safeguard against the myriad forms of philosophical error which surround us and clamour in the air, and which, entering by the hearing of the ear, cannot fail to perturb the imagination, if not to darken the understanding; and it is also the best—nay, the necessary and only adequate training for a cultivated contemplation of the truths of Revelation; for what is Theology hut the Philosophy of Revelation, as the result of the application to Revelation of the methods and principles of Philosophy ? Our real weakness is, not the insufficiency of our philosophy, but its decadence, as a study, among our¬ selves. There are some who regard it as a thing of the past, as an antiquated and dead system, and not as a living embodiment of intellectual energy. From this point of view, their neglect of it is not to be wondered at. Others regard it as a necessity for priests and semi¬ narists, but unnecessary, uninteresting, and perhaps useless as regards laymen. To others, again, it is an object of pious dread. Mindful of the condemnation in the Syllabus of the proposition that the methods and principles of the ancient doctors of the schools are inadequate to the 22 338 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. necessities of our times, and inconsistent with the progress of science, their piety will not permit them to say anything to its prejudice. And yet so much have they been in the habit of hearing it constantly and persistently abused and despised, that there has been begotten in their minds a lurking shadow of a doubt lest after all there should be some ground for the calumny. It is the same habit of mind which induces a chronic panic—an intellectual nervousness lest the narrative of Moses and the conclusions of geology or anthropology should come into collision, to the damage of the former. We have contended for the study of the Scholastic Philosophy, not on account of its venerable associa¬ tions, but simply because it is true. This is the only ground on which we value and care to defend it. But having done this, we may plead its associations and antecedents as an additional and secondary motive. The Scholastic Philosophy, as to its substance, is not merely coeval with Christianity; it has its origin from the greatest of the ancient philosophies—the Socratic. Socrates restored the philosophies of Thales and Pythagoras when they had degenerated into sophism ; and his philosophy divided itself into two streams—the Platonic and the Aristotelian. Both have furnished matter for the Christian Philosophy ; but of the two Aristotle predominates. In the earlier centuries, and in the East, Plato had a preference ; but the ex- THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. 339 perience of ages, the requirements of Christian terminology and theological method, and the fact that to the restless, energetic Western mind it was given rather than to dhe dreamy, comtemplative East, to develope and formulate the doctrinal ideas common to both, led to the study and adoption of the Aristo¬ telian philosophy as the ground-work of the Chris¬ tian. The Aristotelian, or peripatetic philosophy, is as it were the matter to which revealed principles of Divine truth gave the form. It was the massa corporea, in itself of the earth earthy, into which Christianity infused a living soul. St. Thomas quotes the Apostle and the Philosopher almost in the same breath; and his fusion of Aristotle and St. Paul resulted in the Summa. Not that the Church adopted exclusively, or in its entirety, the Aristotelian philosophy; hut she ab¬ sorbed what was in it of the good and true into her own system. She is the true eclectic. In virtue of her twofold power, as a living body, of assimilation and rejection, she separates the good from the evil, and the true from the false. And what she finds of the good and true she appropriates and incorporates. In this way she has preserved the much that was good and true and noble and majestic and grand in the ancient paganism. She set up her altars in the ancient Basilicas ; the classical architecture predomi¬ nates in her capital; and models from classic art find niches in her greatest shrine. She has surmounted 22 a 340 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE . the obelisk with the cross, and so signified her victory over false worships in their foulest form. She counts her days by ferias; and divides her months according to the kalends, nones, and ides. Her High Priest has the name of Pontiff, and Deo Optimo Maximo is the dedication of her temples. The classical metres have a place in her Breviary; and the classical literature is not only treasured in her libraries, but has formed for ages the mental training of her more cultured children. But in no way has she more allied herself with, or rather, in no way has she adopted more from Paganism than in the use she has made of its philosophy. She has given to it a new principle of life, and with her it will live for ever. Intrinsically so valuable, extrinsically so vener¬ able, is not the Scholastic Philosophy a noble subject ? —and shall we not come short, as men of education, as cultivated rational beings, if we neglect its study ? In conclusion, I would venture to express a hope that among the members of the Academia some one may he found with talent, learning, and leisure sufficient to compile a manual in English of elemen¬ tary philosophy, somewhat after the model of the text-hooks of Liheratore and Tongiorgi. I say, in English ; for although the English is a language but ill adapted for philosophical purposes, and although Latin is the languageinwhich philosophy is fitly taught in our seminaries, and although the higher and deeper philosophy will naturally and most profitably be studied in that language,—the lingua communis , the universal language, and the language THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. 341 of the learned; yet inasmuch as the erroneous philo¬ sophies are set before Englishmen in the vernacular, and inasmuch as many men would read an English manual who would be deterred, by their unfamiliarity with the language, from wading through a Latin text¬ book, and inasmuch also as it is necessary to excite an appetite for this study before they can be brought to give themselves up to it, I submit that, for the present necessity, and for these amongst other reasons, a manual in English of Christian Philosophy is a thing to be desired, and which would be profitable to very many. It may be objected, that a little learning is a dangerous thing, and all the more dangerous when the subject is a science, and that the higher the science, the more dangerous a smattering of it is. I fully admit the force of the objection, but distin¬ guish;—the remedy must follow the nature of the disease ; and this elementary study is not only not intended to stop there and suffice, but it is also in¬ tended not merely as an introduction to and foundation for a farther and deeper study of philosophy, but as a remedy for the evil which is presently being done by the dissemination of erroneous philosophical princi¬ ples. These are put forward superficially, not merely in ex'professo works, but in magazine articles, reviews, and newspapers, and gain a hearing, if not an ac¬ ceptance, for this amongst other reasons,—because they are set forth in that manner which so entirely suits the tendency and temper of the day. And what is opposed, on the side of the truth, to counteract this ? 342 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. Only that which is ill adapted for the purpose, and fails, not from any fault or defect in the hooks them¬ selves, hut because men cannot he got to read them. Such an elementary book in the vernacular would be read, or would, at any rate, stand a better chance of being read, and so we should meet the adversary on equal terms. Even if this remedy is imperfect, it is a remedy, and it is at least better than none. In such a work, however, I would earnestly depre¬ cate the use of terms which are not scholastic. Philosophical works in English, which introduce a new and untried terminology, may be well meant, but are positively mischievous. They are intended by their authors to remove difficulties, to soften prejudice, and to explain and popularize the truth, and present it in an attractive form ; but, supposing them to achieve the intended success—to be read, and studied, and agreed with—what do they convert men to ? Not to the Scholastic Philosophy ! The terminology of that philosophy has a tradition of centuries, in virtue of which every technical word is intelligible in its own and in its adequate sense. One knows precisely what it means, and what it does not mean; what it in¬ cludes and supposes, and what it does not contain or imply. It is the definite expression of a distinct idea, the ripe fruit of ages, and the elaboration of many minds. Whereas a new word to express the same idea, even although in itself faultless and unobjectionable— nay, even although in itself apparently more valuable than the old one—yet lacks that tradition which alone can give it at once a settled sense, and a wide if not THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. 343 an universal intelligibility. A new word, whatever its merits, would require manipulation in the schools, to he tested by objections, developed by argument, and digested by contemplation and study, before it could acquire its own proper, fixed, and indisputable adequate meaning. In such a work, therefore, I would submit that the technical terms should be invariably retained, either simply anglicizing the Latin word—which is in most cases possible—or, when that is found altogether im¬ possible, retaining the term as it stands. To do other¬ wise would be, I believe, to poison the wells, and to produce inextricable confusion. Such a work as the one I have suggested would not only be found of service to the private student, but would also be adapted for the use of the higher classes in our secular schools and colleges. Attention has lately been called to the promotion of the higher studies in those schools. Doubtless the law of supply and demand will operate here as else¬ where ; but so far as one can learn, it would appear that at present the supply, even although not all that could be desired, is yet in advance and in excess of the demand. Parents remove their sons from school at a too early age, for the most part, just when their previous training has fitted them to begin to enter on the study of Philosophy. It depends thus upon them in no small degree to determine whether the instruction of their children is to be merely utilitarian, or whether it is to be really—education. 344 ASSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. The study of history gives men a knowledge of past events, their relations and their effects. Poetry adds elegance to thought, and gives an appreciation of beauty of conception, and of fitness of expression, as well as grace of language. But can a man he called “ educated,” who is untrained in logic, the science of the laws of thought and reasoning; unacquainted with psychology, the science of the soul, its faculties and operations; and ignorant of metaphysics, the science of being, and of goodness and truth as identi¬ fied therewith? Those three, for the most part, con¬ stitute Philosophy, and they perfect man, as man, as he is a rational being. 345 XII. THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE PERSONAL. BY THE REV. WILLIAM HUMPHREY, O.S.C. WTTHEN, in May of last year, I had the honour to address the Academia, I ventured some obser¬ vations on the necessary attitude of Catholics—and not only of Catholic ecclesiastics, but also of Catholic laymen—towards the Scholastic Philosophy. My remarks to-day are in extension of the same subject; hut with special direction towards one par¬ ticular point. I prefaced what I had then to say with the statement that throughout my paper I used the term “ Scholas¬ tic Philosophy ” in a restricted sense; not meaning to include by it whatever Scholastics have taught on matters philosophical; and still less to signify by it the system of any individual Scholastic, of whatever eminence. I understood the term to cover all the philosophical doctrine wdiich is supposed by, and all the philosophical terms which have been incorporated into, the Scholastic Theology. With regard to the philosophical data thus accumulated, I endeavoured to show that they were not unconnected, and isolated 346 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITER A TORE. the one from the other, hut that they together com¬ posed a consistent body of doctrine, a coherent sys¬ tem of philosophy, a homogeneous whole; or, in other words, that they were not merely imbedded in, but incorporated with, the Catholic Theology. My point was to prove that besides the philosophical ideas and terms found in the defined doctrines of the Church,—and of the truth and value of which there can be but one sentiment amongst Catholics,—there lie structurally outside these, but structurally also connected with them, many other philosophical ideas, for the truth and value of which we have, by reason of that organic connection, if not a sufficient guaran¬ tee and adequate proof, at least the maximum of a priori probability. In other words, we not only have for the truth of parts of the Scholastic Philosophy a certainty which exceeds the metaphysical,—the certainty of Divine faith,—hut we have also for the remaining parts, which together with these form the homogeneous whole of that Philosophy, a degree of certainty, or, at least, of probability, which the evidence for no other philosophical system can supply. I was, I confess, somewhat taken by surprise when the accomplished writer to whom we owe the brilliant volumes on “ The Formation of Christendom,” after expressing substantial agreement with the statements and conclusions of my paper, requested to have it definitely stated to him, “ What, after all, was the ‘ Scholastic Philosophy’ ? ” He asked to be referred to any one book in which he would find it contained. THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE PERSONAL. 347 I replied by asking in what one book we should find the Catholic Theology contained, neither more nor less ? There is no such one book to which one could point, and say, “ That book contains the Catholic Theology, neither more nor less.” No! that is the Catholic Theology as to which Catholic theologi¬ cal miters of name and authority are agreed; that wherein they differ is matter not of theological doc¬ trine, but of theological opinion. In like manner, the Scholastic Philosophy is that as to which Scho¬ lastic philosophical writers are agreed; while that wherein they differ is matter not of philosophical doctrine, but of philosophical opinion. The matter of agreement in both cases forms a homogeneous whole, a scientific organism, a struc¬ tural body without difficulty to be identified and recognized; and that I mean when I speak of the Scholastic Philosophy. I have been unable, during the year that has passed, to see the insufficiency of my answer, and so to remodel my thesis ; and I now refer to the matter, more in deference to the position of the objector than to, as it seems to me, the force of the objection. Besides the objection to which I have referred, made after the reading of my paper of last year, I had, in that paper, to anticipate an objection that the Scholastic Philosophy contains much which takes it outside the sphere of philosophy and beyond the range of' science. I admitted that this is true if we use those terms, “ philosophy” and “ science,” in their restricted sense ; but I submitted that they 348 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. I are not only capable of another and legitimate sense, but that that other is a higher and a truer sense. We found it necessary to define philosophy, and to explain what we mean by science. Philosophy is the study of wisdom; and wisdom is the science or knowledge of things in their causes, or in their primary, radical, and ultimate ideas. This science is called philosophy, when it is acquired from natural sources, by natural means, through the powers of nature, and by the light of reason ; and it is so called, as distinguished, on the one hand, from mere knowledge (cognitio), which regards, not causes, but effects,—not ideas, but phenomena; and, on the other, from the Scholastic Theology, which is the science of things not only in their causes, but in their First Cause, and acquired, not by natural, but by supernatural means,—not by the light of reason, but by that of revelation. We found, then, that the very same objection which is made against the Scholastic Philosophy’s being called a science, equally militates against the name of science being given to theology itself. ♦ Science, properly so called, in its restricted and technical sense, designates conclusions of the reason from first principles, or from premises which are either evident or demonstrable. In this sense, theology is not a science ; for it is not acquired by the light of reason, and it does not de¬ pend on self-evident or demonstrable premises. In the same sense, and for the same reasons, the Scholastic Philosophy is not a science. THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE PERSONAL. 349 But there are also what are called “ subalternate sciences ”—those, viz., which assume as their pre¬ mises, truths acquired by means of other sciences ; or acquired in any way whatsoever, so long as we have certainty for the fact that they are truths. In this sense theology is a science ; inasmuch as its premises are truths with regard to which we have a certainty higher than the metaphysical; and moreover, inasmuch as the conclusions of theology are taken along with first principles, and the self- evident and the demonstrable, as premises in the Scholastic Philosophy—that Philosophy is also a science. Theology is a science, subalternate to Kevelation or Divine science; and the Scholastic Philosophy is a science, subalternate to Theology. The objection, then, can affect only the use of the name; and it does not touch the reality which that name repre¬ sents. Moreover, even as to the use of the name of “ science,” its application to the Scholastic Philo¬ sophy is not only legitimate, but it belongs to it more specially, more appropriately, more really, and in a higher sense, than to any other knowledge, save theology alone. A name properly belongs, not to that which suggests it, and to which it is first applied, but to that which it most adequately repre¬ sents ; and therefore the name of “science” belongs, in the highest sense, save one alone, to the Scholastic Philosophy. And this brings us to the special subject of the 35o ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. present paper, which particularly regards one point of the Scholastic Philosophy,—the “ Constituents of the Personal”; although it is also, as I have said, an extension of the general subject. Keeping in view, then, the principle that philo¬ sophy is, of its very nature, the handmaid of theology, and that not only must philosophy be always subor¬ dinate to theology, hut that it may also, for its own purposes, borrow from theology truths a knowledge of which it could not acquire by its own methods ; and that such truths, so borrowed, form part of its subject- matter as much as do first principles or evident or demonstrable truths of the natural order; for other¬ wise philosophy would cease to he the science of wisdom, would cease to value truth for its own sake, and would sacrifice, for a mere technicality, a wider range and a greater accuracy and a higher certainty in the attainment of truth : keeping in view these principles, we see that just as in philosophy the premises which are of the greatest value are those which possess metaphysical, or the highest degree of natural certainty, so also the premises which have a yet higher degree than the highest of natural certainties—the metaphysical—must he still more valuable. Now, if we consider that all being is derived from its uncreated Source—the necessary, self-existent, self-sufficing Existence, the uncaused First Cause, the Being par excellence , who not only is a Se , but from whom all things aee— we see that all modifications, all metaphysical grades and perfections of being, and THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE PERSONAL. 35i all the names which represent them, must be also derived from Him. Our ideas of them may be conceived as the result of our observation of them as they exist in the created concrete ; and the created manifestation may be the first object to which we apply the name ; but that name, as well as the archetypal idea which it repre¬ sents, is to be found primarily and in its fulness in God. Hence, in constituting our notion of a person, and in determining the habitude and relation of a person to substance and nature, we must—at least, if our notion is not to be restricted to some persons, instead of applying to all persons, and if it is not to be restricted to only the connatural mode of the ex¬ istence of creatures, instead of extending to possible supernatural modes of their existence as well; or, in other words, if our notion of a person is to be not par¬ tial but absolute and universal, so as to include within it the ideas of uncreated as well as of created, of Divine as well as of human and angelic persons, in a word, of all persons whatsoever ; and if our notion of nature , with regard to which we determine the relation of person, is to be not partial, applying only to the con¬ natural mode of the existence of a created nature, but absolute and universal, extending also to its pos¬ sible supernatural modes;—if this is to be so, we must borrow our premises from theology and the fountains of the Faith, and not confine ourselves within the limits of the evident and the demonstrable, known or made known to us by the natural light of unaided human reason. ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. And surely this is not only legitimate—nay, it is not only the truer, but the only really philosophical method for us, from our point of view as Catholics, to adopt. It is, of course, impossible to a non-Catho¬ lic,—not because he must, by any of his principles, deny the lawfulness or the philosophical necessity of our method—once given our position, and assuming our point of view,—but because he has no knowledge of the source whence we derive our most valuable premises. Had this knowledge been theirs, we feel certain that the great philosophers of antiquity, that Aristotle and Plato, would have availed themselves of it philoso¬ phically as well as theologically. Given that there are Divine as well as human persons, can that be con¬ sidered an adequate conception or definition of a person which applies only to the human, and not- also to the Divine ? Given also that God, as He is the Source of all being, is likewise the Source of all modifications of being, of all modes of its sub¬ sistence, of all grades of its perfection,—given this, does it not follow that the archetype of the personal is to be found in the Creator, and only the adumbration in the creature; and therefore that our notion of the Personal must, if it is to he adequate, embrace the Constituents of the Personal as they appear in both ; and further that, if it is to he accu¬ rate, our observation of those constituents derived from the creature must be compared with and cor¬ rected by our notion derived from the Creator’s revelation of Himself ? THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE PERSONAL. 353 The definition of “ a person ” commonly given in the schools is that of Boethius; and it is, Individua substantia rationalis naturae—“ An individual sub¬ stance of a rational nature.” This definition, rightly understood, is accurate and adequate. The question, then, is, In what sense is it rightly understood ? And in endeavouring to answer this question, it will be convenient to confine our atten¬ tion at first to the genus of the definition—“ individua substantia” ; there being no question, so far as we are concerned, as to the differentia,—“ rationalis naturae.” In other words, in considering the Constituents of the Personal, it will be convenient to restrict ourselves to the constituents of the hypostatic ; the only differ¬ ence between the two being that a person is neces¬ sarily “ rationalis naturae,” while an hypostasis is not necessarily so. The one term is wider than the other: every person is an hypostasis; not every hypostasis is a person. By the word hypostasis all mean—a being which is in itself, and not in another, or of another. There are two orders of being, and two only,— the real and the ideal. The ideal depends from, and is the offspring of the mind which conceives it; the real exists independently and apart from all consideration of the mind. An hypostasis is a being of the real and not of the ideal order. It is a real entity, and not a mere figment of the mind. Again, all real beings belong to one or other of two classes : they are either substances or accidents; 23 354 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. substance and accident being an exhaustive distri¬ bution, or complete division of real being. Now, all agree that an hypostasis is not an acci¬ dent ; for the definition of an accident is—a being which not only inheres in another being, but which also connaturally, although not necessarily, requires another being in which it may inhere. That is to say, an accident supposes a substance as its subject of inhesion; and it requires such a subject of in¬ hesion in order to its connatural mode of existence ; although at the same time there is nothing philo¬ sophically repugnant in an accident’s existing apart from any subject of inhesion. Such separate exist¬ ence is merely not its connatural mode. But it does not follow that by such separate existence, apart from any subject of inhesion, an accident thereby becomes a substance ; for, although restrained from actual inhesion, it retains its connatural inhesive- ness. Substance, on the contrary—the other term of this exhaustive distribution or complete division of real being—is distinguished from accident by being, and is therefore defined as being—a real being, which is per se, and requires no other being in which to inhere. Its being per se does not of course deny its depend¬ ence for existence from another Being,—to wit, the Creator and Cause of all being ; it denies merely its need of any other created real being as its subject of inhesion. Instead of requiring this, it is itself the subject of inhesion to all real beings which are not substances, and which, to distinguish them from THE CONSTITUENTS OF I HE PERSONAL. 355 substances, are called accidents. In this sense sub¬ stance is said to be, in a manner, more really a being than accident is. Scholastic philosophers speak of accidents as entia entis , when comparing them with substance ; to which, by reason of its independence, they specially appropriate the term ens. This metaphysical imperfection of being which belongs to accidents necessitates their exclusion from our conception of God. God is the sum of meta¬ physical perfection, and so in God there are not, and cannot be conceived to be, any accidents. The word “ substance” etymologically supposes accidents—“id quod substat accidentibus”; but this is a mere description, and not a definition; and a descrip¬ tion, moreover, taken from the creature, and the con-natural modes of that creature’s existence. The idea of substance expressed in its definition applies to God in the highest sense. The “id quod per se stat,” in regard of Him affirms His independence of any cause for existence; and not merely, as with regard to the creature, independence of any subject for inhesion. The only constituent of our notion of substance which does not apply to Him is the suppo¬ sition of accident. Although He is in all things, by essence, by presence, and by power ; although in Him all things live and move and are, yet He is not their subject of inhesion. This it is impossible to conceive, since even the Divine essence is not the subject of inhesion to the Divine perfections. They do not inhere in,—they are identified with, and are that essence. 23 a 356 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE . This necessary denial of accidents in God confirms what otherwise also we know,—that an hypostasis is a substance, and not an accident. Substance forms the genus of its definition. Further, every substance is either singular or universal. This, again, is an exhaustive distribution, or complete division. Every substance, therefore, which is not the one must necessarily he the other. Singular. substance is sometimes called by philo¬ sophers “ prima substantia”—or ‘‘first substance,” to distinguish it from universal substance, which they therefore call “secunda substantia”—or “second sub¬ stance.” The ancient philosophers took the word essence , or ovcna, in its most universal sense to signify the intrinsic idea, or, as they said, the quiddity of anything whatsoever, which either is, or can he— whether substance or accident. .But since, as we have seen, substances are more properly called beings than accidents, as being entia per se , while accidents are entia entis; hence the word essence or ovaia came to he used chiefly to signify substance, and this substance was divided into first and second by the following process. Take, for instance, species and genera —two universals which, as universals, neither exist, nor can exist, apart from consideration of the mind and a concrete subject. Such universals were called “ second substances,” because in the most proper sense they really have not being. We do not for a moment deny them to he beings, and real beings. We are not Nominalists, who suppose uni¬ versals to exist merely in name. Neither are we THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE PERSONAL. 357 Conceptualists, who suppose them to be merely the offspring of the mind. But still less are we Realists of the school of the Platonists, who supposed the real objective existence of universals apart from any concrete subject. We affirm their real existence in the mind and in the object, and in each after its mode; denying only their existence apart from that concrete object of the mind which is their subject. But this denial, which is- that of the Scholastic Philosophy, justifies our saying that such universals are less properly substances, as being less properly beings, than singular substances, and accounts for the name bestowed upon them of “ second sub¬ stances,” in contradistinction from determinate sin¬ gular substances, such as the' individuals contained under those species and genera, which individuals, in the most proper sense, are r and so are called “primae substantiae.” Now, universal substance cannot, from its very idea, he an hypostasis; but, on the contrary, con¬ tains under it hypostases, Signified in the concrete, it is predicated of many who are hypostases, as man is predicated of Peter and John. Signified in the abstract, it is conceived as being in, or as possibly being in that concrete; as, for instance, humanity in man, either actual or possible. The word man , “homo,” therefore, taken by itself and without any prefix or addition to determinate it,—such as this man , “ hie homo,”—expresses a concrete universal; the word humanity expresses an abstract universal. Now, it is clear that neither an abstract nor a 358 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. concrete universal can be an hypostasis, and there¬ fore it follows that an hypostasis mnst be a singular; the distribution of substance into universal and singular being exhaustive, and the division complete. This supplies, then, the second member of our definition, or its first differentia. With regard to the genus, we found an hypostasis to be a substance; we add our first differentia, and say that an hypostasis is—a singular substance. But further, there is a variety of difference among the modes of the existence of singular substances. A singular substance may either be part of an entire substance, whether as an integral part,—pertaining to the integrity or completeness of the whole, as are the several members of a body, whose existence as such is required in order to the integrity or completeness of the entire organism as one structural whole ; or it may be part of an entire substance, as an essential constituent,—as are the human body and the human soul, which are alike essential constituents and necessary component parts of a human being, as such ; or again, a singular substance may be itself an entire substance, a complete substantial whole. Now, a part, so long as it retains the idea of a part, is not an hypostasis, but is either in an hypos¬ tasis, or of an hypostasis. A part is, of its very idea and nature, something imperfect standing by itself, which requires to be perfected by another, and which has its perfection through union with that other, and in the whole which is the result of the union of the several parts. A part is not per se , but is in THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE PERSONAL. 359 another, and belongs to another, to wit, to that whole of which it forms a part. It does not, as does a perfect thing, possess others which are in it, but it is itself possessed by the perfect whole. Finally, the part is not that which acts—the principium quod; it can, at the most, be that whereby, or through which the Whole, of which it is a part, acts—briefly, the principium quo. Aristotle, for instance, speaking of the soul as an essential constituent, and so as a part of the human whole which we call liic homo , “ this man,” affirms that it is more correct to say, ‘ ‘ This man thinks or learns by his soul,” than to say, u The soul thinks or learns.” If this be true of the soul, that it is not an hypostasis, equally,—nay, a fortiori! —it is true of the body; and it is true of both, by reason of this, that neither of these two is in itself a whole, but each is a part which has its perfection by union with the other, and existence in the hie homo ,—that perfect whole, which is the result of such union. By an hypostasis we understand something which is perfect as a substance, so as that it should be by itself and in itself, and neither in another nor of another, which should possess all things which are in it, and should not itself be possessed by any other thing ; and which should finally be the principium quod—id quod agit , that which acts. And so we arrive at the third member* and second differentia of our definition—entire. The genus was substance; the first differentia was singular; the second we find to be entire: and so, summing up the 360 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. results of our inquiry at its present stage, we say that an hypostasis is an entire , singular substance . With this definition of an hypostasis, we might rest satisfied, if there were no other save created hypostases, and if there were no other modes of subsistence possible- to created natures save those which are connatural to them. But inasmuch as we know, with a certainty higher than the metaphysical, that there are uncreated hypostases as well as created hypostases, and that those uncreated hypos¬ tases w T ho create are the archetypes of the created hypostases which they create, therefore any defini¬ tion which does not apply to uncreated as well as to created hypostases, and which does not include all hypostases, is an inadequate definition, and scienti¬ fically imperfect. It is a mere empirical description, and not a scientific definition. Science contemplates effects in the full light of their cause ; empiricism, groping in the twilight, feels after the cause by means of the effects. Not that we mean to despise abstractive know¬ ledge, for it is by means of abstractive knowledge that the . knowledge- of God—Deum esse, et esse Remuneratorem—“that He is, and that He is a Re¬ warder,” as a moral Being—covers the earth,, as the waters cover the sea. By this abstractive knowledge, the knowledge of the one true God is possible to all men, to all who share that light of reason which is common unto men. Man gazes over the vast uni¬ verse of his fellow-creatures, or inspects himself, and studies the nature of his own being. Looking around THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE PERSONAL. 361 liim, or within himself, he sees that he and all things visible are equally effects. His reason tells him that every effect must have its cause ; and that that cause is either itself an effect, or is itself uncaused. Thus he is led by the light of reason to know with cer¬ tainty that there must be one First Cause—the prin¬ ciple of being to all things that ate ; that this First Cause is Himself uncaused, that He is not even to Himself a cause, but only the sufficient reason of His own uncaused existence. Were He even to Himself a cause, He would be at the same time an effect; and to the knowledge that this cannot be, the light of nature suffices to guide the reason which makes man to the image and likeness of his Maker. The same process of the reason tells him who possesses it, as he discerns the universally contingent nature of the creature, that there must be one Necessary Being, and that this Being is the unmoved and unmovable Prime Mover of the ever-moving universe of crea¬ tures. Thus man knows that God is. He knows this, as he is man. If he denies this, he sins against his nature. He stultifies and degrades himself. % “ Dixit insipiens , non est Deus.” So universal and so bright is the light of nature that he cannot ration¬ ally deny the existence of Him who made him. Deny Him he may, “ sed in corde suo ,” shutting his eyes to the light of nature, and closing his ears to the evidence of reason. Moreover, as he thus knows Deum esse—that God is ; so may he also in a manner know quid sit Deus —ivhat God is.. He discerns perfections in himself, 362 ESS A YS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. and among the creatures who surround him. Side by side with those perfections he sees also imperfec¬ tions ; and even in the greatest of the perfections themselves, his reason discloses to him the meta¬ physical imperfection of the finite. The same reason tells him at once to exclude from his con¬ ception of his Maker all the imperfections which attach to the creature, and to include within it every perfection which any creature possesses ; and lastly, this exclusion of the imperfect, including the meta¬ physically imperfect, or the finite, necessitates the affirmation of the infinite in the perfections of God. Such is the method whereby man acquires his abstractive knowledge of his Maker; and this know¬ ledge would be his chiefest treasure, had God given him no better and more perfect gift. But, supposing God’s gift of a revelation of Him¬ self—of a knowledge of the, inner processes of the Divine life, which it is as impossible for man by the exercise of reason and the light of nature to dis¬ cover, as it is impossible for him, by the use of the same means, to discern the inmost secrets of his neighbour’s soul;—supposing this knowledge of the “profunda Dei,” of the “ deep things of God,” of the “sapientia abscondita”—the “hidden wisdom”—the “ wisdom hidden in a mystery from ages and genera¬ tions—supposing this, I say, are we to take no ad¬ vantage in our philosophical studies of this greatest of the gifts of God? Are we to walk on still in dark¬ ness, our eyes fixed upon the ground, or at most turned within ourselyes—our gaze limited by the THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE PERSONAL. 363 horizon of the earth, or by the bounds of our own narrow consciousness—are we not then, and only then, true philosophers, when we receive and treasure, and utilize for the purposes of our philosophical science, the truth, from what source soever we derive it? And let it not he supposed that we are thus ceasing to be philosophers, and becoming theologians instead, —that our philosophy is hut theology under another form, or perhaps only under another name. It is not so. All we do is to complete that knowledge which we have by the light of nature, by that further and more perfect knowledge which the revelation of God supplies. As is the inductive to the deductive— inadequate and subordinate—so is our abstractive knowledge to our revealed science. Theology is the queen of sciences, and philosophy is her handmaid. But theology crowns her handmaid, and imparts to her of her royalty. Philosophy does not, by sitting at the feet of theology, outstep her sphere, and intrude into a province which is not her own. What she does is to increase herself in her own proper per¬ fection, in the truth and fulness of her conceptions, and in the adequate accuracy of her definitions. Hence it is that w r e have said that, had we no other than the light of reason, we might rest satisfied with our definition of an hypostasis,—as an entire, singular, substance ; but as we know from the Divine revelation that the Divine Essence is an entire, sin¬ gular substance, and yet that that Essence as such is not an hypostasis ; and as we know, moreover, from 364 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. the same source that the Sacred Humanity of the In¬ carnate Word is an entire, singular substance, and yet that that Humanity is not an hypostasis,—it follows that this definition of hypostasis is partial, inadequate, and incomplete. It does not include all hypostases ; it applies to only the derived, and not also to the un¬ derived, whence they are derived; it contents itself with the shadow, and ignores the archetype. And further, even with regard to created natures, it extends only to the connatural, and leaves out of view the possible modes of their subsistence. Two more members, therefore, are required to com¬ plete our definition of an hypostasis ; and the first is this,—it must be in itself a whole, not subsisting in, not possessed by another. This third differentia seems at first sight super¬ fluous and redundant, as already sufficiently covered by, or included in the second. It would be so, were the connatural mode of the subsistence of a created nature in a created hypostasis the only possible one. But knowing, as we know, that there is a created nature subsisting without any created hypostasis, and possessed by an uncreated and Divine hypostasis; and yet that that created nature, so subsisting and possessed, is not a part, forming along with another part one entire sub¬ stance ; but that that with which it is united was before that union an entire substance, perfect and complete in itself—self-sufficing to its own perfection, and requiring no union with another,—we cannot call the Sacred Humanity a part , for the affirmation THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE PERSONAL. 365 of one part is really the affirmation of the other: we cannot conceive a part, as such, without supposing the existence of another part, as such—both imper¬ fect with the imperfection of parts, tending towards union in order to their perfection, and finding that perfection by existence in the whole. Were, then, the Sacred Humanity a part, the Divine nature would be equally a part; and this our reason tells us we can¬ not say; for to affirm of anything that it is a part, is to affirm, in so far, its imperfection. All that we can say is, that the Sacred Humanity is a quasi-'part —that it exists after the manner of a part, subsisting in and possessed by the Divine Person of the Eternal Word. This existence after the manner of a part suffices to deny its hypostatic character, and to show that it is not an hypostasis, but is in and of an hypostasis— which hypostasis is—a whole in itself. There remains but one other constituent of the personal or hypostatic, and that is—its incommuni¬ cability. And this note gives the difference between hypostasis and nature. The nature is common to many subjects, hypostatically distinct the one from the other. The nature may be communicated and de¬ rived from one subject to another—from the father to the son—but the personality cannot be communicated, cannot be derived, cannot be shared. Among human persons, then* human nature, al¬ though specifically one, is numerically as manifold as the persons who share it; but the Divine Nature of the Divine Persons is not specifically but numerically one. It is not a nature of the same species, but 366 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE . numerically the self-same nature which is in the Father, which is also in the Son, and which is also in the Holy Ghost. That nature is communicated from the Father to the Son, and from Father and Son together, as from one principle, to the Holy Ghost. But the personality of the Father is not communicated, for it is not communicable ; and it is by this incommunicahility of the hypostatic that the three Divine Persons are constituted in their ineffable distinction—the one from the other. Without this latter note, therefore, our definition would be partial and incomplete ; it is required in order that our conception of the personal should he absolute, universal, and adequate. Such is, briefly, the sense in which the definition of an hypostasis, according to Boethius, suffices,— Individua substantia —an individual substance. The definition is correct if the word individual be taken in the strict sense. That is called an individual, which is one and undivided in itself, and therefore also divided off and distinguished from all others— indivisum in se et divisum ab omnibus aliis. In the widest sense, individual maybe predicated even of an accident, hut the term more strictly belongs to a sub¬ stance ; an accident being, of its nature, individuated only in another. Individual substance , again, is a term which may bear three senses. (1) The wide sense, in which the individual is opposed only to the univer¬ sal; and in this sense, an individual substance signifies the same as a singular substance. (2) Again, indivi¬ dual may he opposed both to the communication and THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE PERSONAE. 367 multiplication which there is of universals in singu¬ lars, and to the communication which there is of a part towards the whole. So taken, an individual substance is the same as a singular and entire substance. (3.) And in the most strict sense, individual may be predicated in opposition to that which, though singular and entire, and perfect as to nature, is yet really common to several distinct subjects, or is communicated, not indeed as a part, but after the manner of a part, to another being which is perfect and a whole in itself. In this, the strictest sense, an individual substance is the same as a substance which in itself is whole and incommunicable. Add to these constituents of the hypostatic the further constituent of the rational or intelligent , and you have the conception and definition of the personal. And the personal has dignities of its own, which do not belong to the merely hypostatic as such. 1. A person, or rational hypostasis, alone is con¬ scious to itself of its own hypostatic existence, its own unity, and its distinction from all others, since it alone can reflect upon itself, and say to itself, Ego. 2. A person alone can, by its own instrinsic forces and faculties, freely determine itself to its own acts. As St. Thomas says, “It has dominion over its own acts; it is not driven, but acts per se , and therefore it has the name of person." 3. Persons, or rational hypostases, alone are and can be ends to which other hypostases are ordained as means. The good of irrational hypostases is not 368 ESSAYS ON RELIGION AND LITERATURE. for themselves, nor is it properly a good to them, but it is for the good of rational hypostases. They are useful ;—they do not use, but are used by the rational hypostasis for its personal good. 4. Finally, irrational hypostases can suffer no injury, for they have no rights. Persons alone are the subjects of right, and therefore to persons alone can ivrong be done. These observations on “ The Constituents of the Personal” are mere gleanings from a wide field, but- they serve to show the fertility of the soil and the attractive beauty of the land. The subject itself is of great importance, hut the reason which moved me to choose it was not so much its own importance or interest, as its usefulness in extension of the general subject,—the value of the Scholastic Philosophy. The value of that Philosophy may be gauged by the destructiveness of the philosophies which are opposed to it. Their destructive effects extend into the region of Revelation. If so, why should not our constructive Philosophy derive what it may from the same region? For instance, the Giintherians define a person to be a substance conscious of itself ; and they assume this actual consciousness of self as the form of the person, or, as the formal personality by which any substance is constituted a person. Now, not only would this deprive infants and the insane of their rights as persons; but he who holds this can believe rightly neither the doctrine of the Trinity nor that THE CONSTITUENTS OE THE PERSONAL. 369 of the Incarnation. There is hut one consciousness in God, and therefore there should he hut one person. There are two consciousnesses in our Divine Lord, and therefore there ought to be two persons. If, then, our conception of the Trinity and of the Incarnation is infallibly right, the Giintherian doc¬ trine of the Constituents of the Personal must be as infallibly wrong. Again, in determining the strictly philosophical question, “ Whether the will follows the nature or the person?” why should we have scruple, as philosophers, in borrowing from theology—if the end of our study is attainment of the truth ? Theology tells us that the will follows the nature, and not the person, for otherwise there must be three wills in God, as there are three persons ; or, if there be but one will, there can be hut one person. So, likewise, in the Incarnate Word, there must he two persons, as there are two wills ; or, if there be hut one person, there can be but one will. The Scholastic Philosophy has the humility of a handmaid of the Lord, and does not disdain to borrow from the treasures of her queen. FINIS. 24 375831 3 9031 BOSTON COLLEGE 01288352 6 DOES MOT CIRCULATE BKm ■ M 9-3- BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. Books may be kept for two weeks and may be renewed for the same period, unless reserved. 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