{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_10139/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_10139","id":"gutenberg_10139","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10139","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Catholic Church"],"text":"THE FAITH OF THE MILLIONS\n\nA SELECTION OF PAST ESSAYS\n\nSECOND SERIES\n\nBY\n\nGEORGE TYRRELL, S.J.\n\n1901\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\"AND SEEING THE MULTITUDES HE WAS MOVED WITH\nCOMPASSION ON THEM, FOR THEY WERE HARASSED AND\nSCATTERED AS SHEEP HAVING NO SHEPHERD.\"\n(Matthew ix. 36.)\n\n\n\n\n\n  _Nil Obstat:_\n     J. GERARD, S.J.\n         CENS. THEOL. DEPUTATUS.\n\n  _Imprimatur:_\n     HERBERTUS CARD. VAUGHAN,\n         ARCHIEP. WESTMON.\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n   XIII.--Juliana of Norwich\n    XIV.--Poet and Mystic\n     XV.--Two Estimates of Catholic Life\n    XVI.--A Life of De Lamennais\n   XVII.--Lippo, the Man and the Artist\n  XVIII.--Through Art to Faith\n    XIX.--Tracts for the Million\n     XX.--An Apostle of Naturalism\n    XXL.--\"The Making of Religion\"\n   XXII.--Adaptability as a Proof of Religion\n  XXIII.--Idealism in Straits\n\n\n\nXIII.\n\n\nJULIANA OF NORWICH.\n\n\"One of the most remarkable books of the middle ages,\" writes Father\nDalgairns, [1] \"is the hitherto almost unknown work, titled, _Sixteen\nRevelations of Divine Love made to a Devout Servant of God, called\nMother Juliana, an Anchoress of Norwich_\" How \"one of the most\nremarkable books\" should be \"hitherto almost unknown,\" may be explained\npartly by the fact to which the same writer draws attention, namely,\nthat Mother Juliana lived and wrote at the time when a certain mystical\nmovement was about to bifurcate and pursue its course of development,\none branch within the Church on Catholic lines, the other outside the\nChurch along lines whose actual issue was Wycliffism and other kindred\nforms of heterodoxy, and whose logical outcome was pantheism. Hence,\nbetween the language of these pseudo-mystics and that of the recluse of\nNorwich, \"there is sometimes a coincidence ... which might deceive the\nunwary.\" It is almost necessarily a feature of every heresy to begin by\nusing the language of orthodoxy in a strained and non-natural sense, and\nonly gradually to develop a distinctive terminology of its own; but, as\noften as not, certain ambiguous expressions, formerly taken in an\northodox sense, are abandoned by the faithful on account of their\nambiguity and are then appropriated to the expression of heterodoxy, so\nthat eventually by force of usage the heretical meaning comes to be the\nprincipal and natural meaning, and any other interpretation to seem\nviolent and non-natural. \"The few coincidences,\" continues Father\nDalgairns, \"between Mother Juliana and Wycliffe are among the many\nproofs that the same speculative view often means different things in\ndifferent systems. Both St. Augustine, Calvin, and Mahomet, believe in\npredestination, yet an Augustinian is something utterly different from a\nScotch Cameronian or a Mahometan.... The idea which runs through the\nwhole of Mother Juliana is the very contradictory of Wycliffe's\nPantheistic Necessitarianism.\" Yet on account of the mere similarity of\nexpression we can well understand how in the course of time some of\nMother Juliana's utterances came to be more ill-sounding to faithful\nears in proportion as they came to be more exclusively appropriated by\nthe unorthodox. It is hard to be as vigilant when danger is remote as\nwhen it is near at hand; and until heresy has actually wrested them to\nits purpose it is morally impossible that the words of ecclesiastical\nand religious writers should be so delicately balanced as to avoid all\nambiguities and inaccuracies. Still less have we a right to look for\nsuch exactitude in the words of an anchoress who, if not wholly\nuneducated in our sense of the word, yet on her own confession \"could no\nletter,\" i.e., as we should say, was no scholar, and certainly made no\npretence to any skill in technical theology. But however much some of\nher expressions may jar with the later developments of Catholic\ntheology, it must be remembered, as has been said, that they were\ncurrent coin in her day, common to orthodox and unorthodox; and that\nthough their restoration is by no means desirable, yet they are still\nsusceptive of a \"benignant\" interpretation. \"I pray Almighty God,\" says\nMother Juliana in concluding, \"that this book come not but into the\nhands of those that will be His faithful lovers, and that will submit\nthem to the faith of Holy Church.\" [2] And indeed such can receive no\npossible harm from its perusal, beyond a little temporary perplexity to\nbe dispelled by inquiry; and this only in the case of those who are\nsufficiently instructed and reflective to perceive the discord in\nquestion. The rest are well used in their reading to take what is\nfamiliar and to leave what is strange, so that they will find in her\npages much to ponder, and but a little to pass over.\n\nIt is, however, not only to these occasional obscurities and ambiguities\nthat we are to ascribe the comparative oblivion into which so remarkable\na book has fallen; but also to the fact that its noteworthiness is\nperhaps more evident and relative to us than to our forefathers. It\ncannot but startle us to find doubts that we hastily look upon as\npeculiarly \"modern,\" set forth in their full strength and wrestled with\nand overthrown by an unlettered recluse of the fourteenth century. In\nsome sense they are the doubts of all time, with perhaps just that\npeculiar complexion which they assume in the light of Christianity. Yet,\nowing to the modern spread of education, or rather to the indiscriminate\ndivulgation of ideas, these problems are now the possession of the man\nin the street, whereas in former days they were exclusively the property\nof minds capable--not indeed of answering the unanswerable, but at least\nof knowing their own limitations and of seeing why such problems must\nalways exist as long as man is man. Dark as the age of Mother Juliana\nwas as regards the light of positive knowledge and information; yet the\nlight of wisdom burned at least as clearly and steadily then as now; and\nit is by that light alone that the shades of unbelief can be dispelled.\nOf course, wisdom without knowledge must starve or prey on its own\nvitals, and this was the intellectual danger of the middle ages; but\nknowledge without wisdom is so much food undigested and indigestible,\nand this is the evil of our own day, when to be passably well-informed\nso taxes our time and energy as to leave us no leisure for assimilating\nthe knowledge with which we have stuffed ourselves.\n\nWe must not, however, think of Mother Juliana as shut up within four\nwalls of a cell, evolving all her ideas straight from her own inner\nconsciousness without any reference to experience. Such a barren\ncontemplation, tending to mental paralysis, belongs to Oriental\npessimism, whose aim is the extinction of life, mental and physical, and\nreabsorption into that void whence, it is said, misfortune has brought\nus forth to troublous consciousness. The Christian contemplative knows\nno ascent to God but by the ladder of creatures; he goes to the book of\nNature and of human life, and to the book of Revelation, and turns and\nponders their pages, line by line and word by word, and so feeds and\nfills the otherwise thin and shadowy conception of God in his own soul,\nand ever pours new oil upon the flame of Divine love. Father Daigairns\nwrites: \"Juliana is a recluse very different from the creatures of the\nimagination of writers on comparative morals. So far from being cut off\nfrom sympathy with her kind, her mind is tenderly and delicately alive\nto every change in the spiritual atmosphere of England.... The four\nwalls of her narrow home seem to be rent and torn asunder, and not only\nEngland but Christendom appears before her view;\" and he is at pains to\nshow how both anchorites and anchoresses were much-sought after by all\nin trouble, temporal or spiritual, and how abundant were their\nopportunities of becoming acquainted with human life and its burdens,\nand of more than compensating, through the confidences of others,\nwhatever defect their minds might suffer through lack of personal\nexperience. Even still, how many a priest or nun whose experience had\nelse been narrowed to the petty domestic interests of a small family,\nis, in virtue of his or her vocation, put in touch with a far larger\nworld, or with a far more important aspect of the world, than many who\nmingle with its every-day trivialities, and is thus made a partaker in\nsome sense of the deeper life and experience of society and of the\nUniversal Church! The anchoress \"did a great deal more than pray. The\nvery dangers against which the author of her rule [3] warns her, are a\nproof that she had many visitors. He warns her against becoming a\n'babbling' or 'gossiping' anchoress, a variety evidently well-known; a\nrecluse whose cell was the depository of all the news from the\nneighbourhood at a time when newspapers did not exist.\" Such abuses\nthrow light upon the legitimate use of the anchoress's position in the\nmedi\u00e6val community.\n\nAnd so, though Mother Juliana \"could no letter,\" though she knew next to\nnothing of the rather worthless physical science of those times, and\nhardly more of philosophy or technical theology, yet she knew no little\nof that busy, sad, and sinful human life going on round her, not only at\nNorwich, but in England, and even in Europe; and rich with this\nknowledge, to which all other lore is subordinate and for whose sake\nalone it is valuable, she betook herself to prayer and meditation, and\nbrought all this experience into relation with God, and drew from it an\never clearer understanding of Him and of His dealings with the souls\nthat His Love has created and redeemed.\n\nIt is not then so wonderful that this wise and holy woman should have\nfaced the problems presented by the apparent discord between the truths\nof faith and the facts of human life--a discord which is felt in every\nage by the observant and thoughtful, but which in our age is a\ncommonplace on the lips of even the most superficial. But an age takes\nits tone from the many who are the children of the past, rather than\nfrom the few who are the parents of the future. Mother Juliana's book\ncould hardly have been in any sense \"popular\" until these days of ours,\nin which the particular disease of mind to which it ministers has become\nepidemic.\n\nIf then these suggestions to some extent furnish an explanation of the\noblivion into which the revelations of Mother Juliana have fallen, they\nalso justify the following attempt to draw attention to them once more,\nand to give some sort of analysis of their contents; more especially as\nwe have reason to believe that they are about to be re-edited by a\ncompetent scholar and made accessible to the general public, which they\nhave not been since the comparative extinction of Richardson's edition\nof 1877. Little is known of Mother Juliana's history outside what is\nimplied in her revelations; nor is it our purpose at present to go aside\nin search of biographical details that will be of interest only after\ntheir subject has become interesting. Suffice it here to say that she\nwas thirty at the time of her revelations, which she tells us was in\n1373. Hence she was born in 1343, and is said to have been a\ncentenarian, in which case she must have died about 1443. She probably\nbelonged to the Benedictine nuns at Carrow, near Norwich, and being\ncalled to a still stricter life, retired to a hermitage close by the\nChurch of St. Julian at Norwich. The details she gives about her own\nsick-room exclude the idea of that stricter \"reclusion\" which is\npopularly spoken of as \"walling-up\"--not of course in the mythical\nsense.\n\nWith these brief indications sufficient to satisfy the craving of our\nimagination for particulars of time and place, let us turn to her own\naccount of the circumstances of her visions, as well as of their nature.\nShe tells us that in her life previous to 1373, she had, at some time or\nother, demanded three favours from God; first, a sensible appreciation\nof Christ's Passion in such sort as to share the grace of Mary Magdalene\nand others who were eye-witnesses thereof: \"therefore I desired a bodily\nsight wherein I might have more knowledge of the bodily pain of our\nSaviour.\" And the motive of this desire was that she might \"afterwards\nbecause of that showing have the more true mind of the Passion of\nChrist.\" Her aim was a deeper practical intelligence, and not the\ngratification of mere emotional curiosity.\n\nThis grace she plainly recognizes as extraordinary; for she says: \"Other\nsight or showing of God asked I none, till when the soul was departed\nfrom the body.\" Her second request was likewise for an extraordinary\ngrace; namely, for a bodily sickness which she and others might believe\nto be mortal; in which she should receive the last sacraments, and\nexperience all the bodily pains, and all the spiritual temptations\nincident to the separation of soul and body. And the motive of this\nrequest was that she might be \"purged by the mercy of God, and\nafterwards live more to the worship of God because of that sickness.\" In\nother words, she desired the grace of what we might call a\n\"trial-death,\" that so she might better meet the real death when it\ncame. Further, she adds, \"this sickness I desired in my youth, that I\nmight have it when I was thirty years old.\" And \"these two desires were\nwith a condition\" (namely, if God should so will), \"for methought this\nwas not the common use of prayer.\" But the third request she proffers\nboldly \"without any condition,\" since it was necessarily God's desire to\ngrant it and to be sued for it; namely, the grace of a three-fold wound:\nthe wound of true sorrow for sin; the wound of \"kind compassion\" with\nChrist's sufferings; and the wound of \"wilful belonging to God,\" that\nis, of self-devotion.\n\nShe is careful to tell us that while she ever continued to urge the\nunconditional third request, the two first passed completely out of her\nhead in the course of years, until she was reminded of them by their\nsimultaneous and remarkable fulfilment. \"For when I was thirty years old\nand a half, God sent me a bodily sickness in which I lay three days and\nthree nights; and on the fourth night I took all my rites of Holy\nChurch, and weened not to have lived till day. And after this I lay two\ndays and two nights, and on the third night I weened oftentimes to have\npassed, and so weened they that were with me.... And I understood in my\nreason, and by the feeling of my pains that I should die, and I assented\nfully with all the will of my heart, to be at God's will. Thus I endured\ntill day, and by then, was my body dead to all feeling from the midst\ndown.\" She is then raised up in a sitting position for greater ease, and\nher curate is sent for, as the end is supposed to be near. On arrival,\nhe finds her speechless and with her eyes fixed upwards towards heaven,\n\"where I trusted to come by the mercy of God.\" He places the crucifix\nbefore her, and bids her bend her eyes upon it. \"I assented to set my\neyes in the face of the crucifix if I could; and so I did; for methought\nI could endure longer to look straight in front of me than right up\"--a\ntouch that shows the previous upturning of the eyes to have been\nvoluntary and not cataleptic. At this moment we seem to pass into the\nregion of the abnormal: \"After this my sight began to fail; it waxed as\ndark about me in the chamber as if it had been night, save in the image\nof the cross, wherein I beheld a common light, and I wist not how. And\nall that was beside the cross was ugly and fearful to me, as it had been\nmuch occupied with fiends.\" Then the upper part of her body becomes\ninsensible, and the only pain left is that of weakness and\nbreathlessness. Suddenly she is totally eased and apparently quite\ncured, which, however, she regards as a momentary miraculous relief, but\nnot as a deliverance from death. In this breathing space it suddenly\noccurs to her to beg for the second of those three wounds which were the\nmatter of her unconditional third request; namely, for a deepened sense\nand sympathetic understanding of Christ's Passion. \"But in this I never\ndesired any bodily sight, or any manner of showing from God; but such\ncompassion as I thought that a kind soul might have with our Lord\nJesus.\" In a word, the remembrance of her two conditional and\nextraordinary requests of bygone years was not in her mind at the time.\n\"And in this, suddenly I saw the red blood trickling down from under the\ngarland;\"--and so she passes from objective to subjective vision;[4] and\nthe first fifteen revelations follow, as she tells us later, one after\nanother in unbroken succession, lasting in all some few hours.\n\n\"I had no grief or no dis-ease,\" she tells us later, \"as long as the\nfifteen showings lasted in showing. And at the end all was close, and I\nsaw no more; and soon I felt that I should live longer.\" Presently all\nher pains, bodily and spiritual, return in full force; and the\nconsolation of the visions seems to her as an idle dream and delusion;\nand she answers to the inquiries of a Religious at her bedside, that she\nhad been raving: \"And he laughed loud and drolly. And I said: 'The cross\nthat stood before my face, methought it bled fast.'\" At which the other\nlooked so serious and awed that she became ashamed of her own\nincredulity. \"I believed Him truly for the time that I saw Him. And so\nit was then my will and my meaning to do, ever without end--but, as a\nfool, I let it pass out of my mind. And lo! how wretched I was,\" &c.\nThen she falls asleep and has a terrifying dream of the Evil One, of\nwhich she says: \"This ugly showing was made sleeping and so was none\nother,\" whence it seems that her self-consciousness was unimpaired in\nthe other visions; that is, she was aware at the time that they were\nvisions, and did not confound them with reality as dreams are\nconfounded. Then follows the sixteenth and last revelation; ending with\nthe words: \"Wit well it was no raving thou sawest to-day: but take it,\nand believe it, and keep thee therein, and comfort thee therewith and\ntrust thereto, and thou shalt not be overcome.\" Then during the rest of\nthe same night till about Prime next morning she is tempted against\nfaith and trust by the Evil One, of whose nearness she is conscious; but\ncomes out victorious after a sustained struggle. She understands from\nour Lord, that the series of showings is now closed; \"which blessed\nshowing the faith keepeth, ... for He left with me neither sign nor\ntoken whereby I might know it.\" Yet for her personally the obligation\nnot to doubt is as of faith: \"Thus am I bound to keep it in my faith;\nfor on the same day that it was showed, what time the sight was passed,\nas a wretch I forsook it and openly said that I raved.\"\n\nFifteen years later she gets an inward response as to the general gist\nand unifying purport of the sixteen revelations. \"Wit it well; love was\nHis meaning. Who showed it thee? Love. Wherefore showed He it thee? For\nlove.\"\n\nHaving thus sketched the circumstances of the revelations, we may now\naddress ourselves to their character and substance.\n\nThere is nothing to favour and everything to disfavour the notion that\nMother Juliana was an habitual visionary, or was the recipient of any\nother visions, than those which she beheld in her thirty-first year; and\nof these, she tells us herself, the whole sixteen took place within a\nfew hours. \"Now have I told you of fifteen showings, ... of which\nfifteen showings, the first began early in the morning about the hour of\nfour, ... each following the other till it was noon of the day or past,\n... and after this the Good Lord showed me the sixteenth revelation on\nthe night following.\" Speaking of them all as one, she tells us: \"And\nfrom the time it was showed I desired oftentimes to wit what was in our\nLord's meaning; and fifteen years after and more I was answered in\nghostly understanding, saying thus: 'What! wouldst thou wit thy Lord's\nmeaning in this thing? Wit it well: Love was His meaning.'\" But this\n\"ghostly understanding\" can hardly be pressed into implying another\nrevelation of the evidently supernormal type.\n\nWe rather insist on this point, as indicating the habitual healthiness\nof Mother Juliana's soul--a quality which is also abundantly witnessed\nby the unity and coherence of the doctrine of her revelations, which\nbespeaks a mind well-knit together, and at harmony with itself. The\nhysterical mind is one in which large tracts of consciousness seem to\nget detached from the main body, and to take the control of the subject\nfor the time being, giving rise to the phenomena rather foolishly called\ndouble or multiple \"personality.\" This is a disease proper to the\npassive-minded, to those who give way to a \"drifting\" tendency, and\nhabitually suffer their whole interests to be absorbed by the strongest\nsensation or emotion that presents itself. Such minds are generally\nchaotic and unorganized, as is revealed in the rambling, involved,\ninterminably parenthetical and digressive character of their\nconversation. But when, as with Mother Juliana, we find unity and\ncoherence, we may infer that there has been a life-long habit of active\nmental control, such as excludes the supposition of an hysterical\ntemperament.\n\nPerhaps the similarity of the phenomena which attend both on\nextraordinary psychic weakness and passivity, and on extraordinary\nenergy and activity may excuse a confusion common enough, and which we\nhave dwelt on elsewhere. But obviously as far as the natural\nconsequences of a given psychic state are concerned, it is indifferent\nhow that state is brought about. Thus, that extreme concentration of the\nattention, that perfect abstraction from outward things, which in\nhysterical persons is the effect of weakness and passive-mindedness--of\nthe inability to resist and shake off the spell of passions and\nemotions; is in others the effect of active self-control, of voluntary\nconcentration, of a complete mastery over passions and emotions. Yet\nthough the causes of the abnormal state are different, its effects may\nwell be the same.\n\nIn thus maintaining the healthiness and vigour of Mother Juliana's mind,\nwe may seem to be implicitly treating her revelation, not as coming from\na Divine source, but simply as an expression of her own habitual line of\nthought--as a sort of pouring forth of the contents of her subconscious\nmemory. Our direct intention, however, is to show how very unlikely it\nis antecedently that one so clear-headed and intelligent should be the\nvictim of the common and obvious illusions of the hysterical visionary.\nFor her book contains not only the matter of her revelations, but also\nthe history of all the circumstances connected with them, as well as a\ncertain amount of personal comment upon them, professedly the fruit of\nher normal mind; and best of all, a good deal of analytical reflection\nupon the phenomena which betrays a native psychological insight not\ninferior to that of St. Teresa. From these sources we could gather the\ngeneral sobriety and penetration of her judgment, without assuming the\nactual teaching of the revelations to be merely the unconscious\nself-projection of her own mind. But in so much as many of these\nrevelations were professedly Divine answers to her own questions, and\nsince the answer must ever be adapted not merely to the question\nconsidered in the abstract, but as it springs from its context in the\nquestioner's mind; we are not wrong, on this score alone, in arguing\nfrom the character of the revelation to the character of the mind to\nwhich it was addressed. Fallible men may often speak and write above or\nbeside the intelligence of their hearers and readers; but not so He who\nreads the heart He has made. Now these revelations were not addressed to\nthe Church through Mother Juliana; but, as she says, were addressed to\nherself and were primarily for herself, though most that was said had\nreference to the human soul in general. They were adapted therefore to\nthe character and individuality of her mind; and are an index of its\nthoughts and workings. For her they were a matter of faith; but, as she\ntells us, she had no token or outward proof wherewith to convince others\nof their reality. Those who feel disposed, as we ourselves do, to place\nmuch confidence in the word of one so perfectly sane and genuinely holy,\nmay draw profit from the message addressed to her need; but never can it\nbe for them a matter of faith as in a Divine message addressed directly\nor indirectly to themselves. So far as these revelations are a clear and\nnoble expression of truths already contained implicitly in our faith and\nreason, which it brings into more explicit consciousness and vitalizes\nwith a new power of stimulus, they may be profitable to us all; but they\nmust be received with due criticism and discernment as themselves\nsubject to a higher rule of truth--namely, the teaching of the Universal\nChurch.\n\nBut to determine, with respect to these and kindred revelations, how far\nthey may be regarded as an expression of the recipient's own mind and\nlatent consciousness, will need a digression which the general interest\nof the question must excuse.\n\nThere is a tendency in the modern philosophy of religion (for example,\nin Mr. Balfour's _Foundations of Belief_) to rationalize inspired\nrevelation and to explain it as altogether kindred to the apparently\nmagical intuitions of natural genius in non-religious matters; as the\nresult, in other words, of a rending asunder of the veil that divides\nwhat is called \"super-liminal\" from \"subliminal\" consciousness; to find\nin prophecy and secret insight the effect of a flash of unconscious\ninference from a mass of data buried in the inscrutable darkness of our\nforgotten self. Together with this, there is also a levelling-up\nphilosophy, a sort of modernized ontologism, which would attribute all\nnatural intuition to a more immediate self-revelation on God's part than\nseems quite compatible with orthodoxy.\n\nBut neither of these philosophies satisfy what is vulgarly understood by\n\"revelation,\" and therefore both use the word in a somewhat strained\nsense. For certainly the first sense of the term implies a consciousness\non the part of the recipient of being spoken to, of being related\nthrough such speech to another personality, whereas the flashes and\nintuitions of natural genius, however they may resemble and be called\n\"inspirations\" because of their exceeding the known resources of the\nthinker's own mind, yet they are consciously autochthonous; they are\nfelt to spring from the mind's own soil; not to break the soul's\nsolitude with the sense of an alien presence. Such interior\nilluminations, though doubtless in a secondary sense derived from the\n\"True Light which enlightens every man coming into this world,\"\ncertainly do not fulfil the traditional notion of revelation as\nunderstood, not only in the Christian Church, but also in all ethnic\nreligions. For common to antiquity is the notion of some kind of\npossession or seizure, some usurpation of the soul's faculties by an\nexternal personality, divine or diabolic, for its own service and as its\ninstrument of expression--a phenomenon, in fact, quite analogous, if not\nthe same in species, with that of hypnotic control and suggestion, where\nthe thought and will of the subject is simply passive under the thought\nand will of the agent.\n\nSaints and contemplatives are wont--not without justification--to speak\nof their lights in prayer, and of the ordinary intuitions of their mind,\nunder the influence of grace, as Divine utterances in a secondary sense;\nto say, \"God said to me,\" or \"seemed to say to me,\" or \"God showed me,\"\nand so on. But to confound these products of their own mind with\nrevelation is the error only of the uninstructed or the wilfully\nself-deluded. Therefore, as commonly understood, \"revelation\" implies\nthe conscious control of the mind by another mind; just as its usual\ncorrelative, \"inspiration,\" implies the conscious control of the will by\nanother will.\n\nThere can be no doubt whatever but that Mother Juliana of Norwich\nconsidered her revelations to be of this latter description, and not to\nhave been merely different in degree from those flashes of spiritual\ninsight with which she was familiar in her daily contemplations and\nprayers. How far, then, her own mind may have supplied the material from\nwhich the tissues were woven, or lent the colours with which the\npictures were painted, or supplied the music to which the words were\nset, is what we must now try to determine.\n\n\nII.\n\nTaking the terms \"revelation\" and \"inspiration\" in the unsophisticated\nsense which they have borne not only in the Judaeo-Christian tradition,\nbut in almost all the great ethnic religions as well, we may inquire\ninto the different sorts and degrees of the control exercised by the\npresumably supernatural agents over the recipient of such influence. For\nclearness' sake we may first distinguish between the control of the\ncognitive, the volitional, and the executive faculties. For our present\ninquiry we may leave aside those cases where the control of the\nexecutive faculties, normally subject to the will and directed by the\nmind, seem to be wrested from that control by a foreign agent possessed\nof intelligence and volition, as, for example, in such a case as is\nnarrated of the false prophet Balaam, or of those who at the Pentecostal\noutpouring spoke correctly in languages unintelligible to themselves, or\nof the possessed who were constrained in spite of themselves to confess\nChrist. In these and similar cases, not only is the action involuntary\nor even counter to the will, but it manifests such intelligent purpose\nas seemingly marks it to be the effect of an alien will and\nintelligence. Of this kind of control exercised by the agent over the\nouter actions of the patient, it may be doubted if it be ever effected\nexcept through the mediation of a suggestion addressed to the mind, in\nsuch sort that though not free, the resulting action is not wholly\ninvoluntary. Be this as it may, our concern at present is simply with\ncontrol exercised over the will and the understanding.\n\nWith regard to the will, it is a commonplace of mystical theology that\nGod, who gave it its natural and essential bent towards the good of\nreason, i.e., towards righteousness and the Divine will; who created\nit not merely as an irresistible tendency towards the happiness and\nself-realization of the rational subject, but as a resistible tendency\ntowards its _true_, happiness and _true_ self-realization--that this\nsame God can directly modify the will without the natural mediation of\nsome suggested thought. We ourselves, by the laborious cultivation of\nvirtue, gradually modify the response of our will to certain\nsuggestions, making it more sensitive to right impulses, more obtuse to\nevil impulses. According to mystic theology, it is the prerogative of\nGod to dispense with this natural method of education, and, without\nviolating that liberty of choice (which no inclination can prejudice),\nto incline the rational appetite this way or that; not only in reference\nto some suggested object, but also without reference to any distinct\nobject whatsoever, so that the soul should be abruptly filled with joy\nor sadness, with fear or hope, with desire or aversion, and yet be at a\nloss to determine the object of these spiritual passions. St. Ignatius\nLoyola, in his \"Rules for Discerning Spirits,\" borrowed no doubt from\nthe current mystical theology of his day, makes this absence of any\nsuggested object a criterion of \"consolation\" coming from God alone--a\ncriterion always difficult to apply owing to the lightning subtlety of\nthoughts that flash across the soul and are forgotten even while their\nemotional reverberation yet remains. Where there was a preceding thought\nto account for the emotion, he held that the \"consolation\" might be the\nwork of spirits (good or evil) who could not influence the will\ndirectly, but only indirectly through the mind; or else it might be the\nwork of the mind itself, whose thoughts often seem to us abrupt through\nmere failure of self-observation.\n\nNormally what is known as an \"actual grace\" involves both an\nillustration of the mind, and an enkindling of the will; but though\nsupernatural, such graces are not held to be miraculous or\npreternatural, or to break the usual psychological laws of cause and\neffect; like the ordinary answers to prayer, they are from God's\nordinary providence in that supernatural order which permeates but does\nnot of itself interfere with the natural. But over and above what,\nrelatively to our observation, we call the \"ordinary\" course, there is\nthe extraordinary, whose interference with it is apparent, though of\ncourse not absolute or real--since nothing can be out of harmony with\nthe first and highest law, which is God Himself. And to the category of\nthe extraordinary must be assigned such inspirations and direct\nwill-movements as we here speak of. [5]\n\nYet not altogether; for in the natural order, too, we have the\nphenomenon of instinct to consider--both spiritual and animal. Giving\nheredity all the credit we can for storing up accumulated experience in\nthe nervous system of each species, there remains a host of fundamental\nanimal instincts which that law is quite inadequate to explain; those,\nfor example, which govern the multiplication of the species and secure\nthe conditions under which alone heredity can work. Such cannot be at\nonce the effect and the essential condition of heredity; and yet they\nare, of all instincts, the most complex and mysterious. Indeed, it seems\nmore scientific to ascribe other instincts to the same known and\nindubitable, if mysterious, cause, than to seek explanation in causes\nless known and more hypothetical. In the case of many instincts, it\nwould seem that the craving for the object precedes the distinct\ncognition of it; that the object is only ascertained when, after various\ntentative gropings, it is stumbled upon, almost, it might seem, by\nchance. And this seems true, also, of some of our fundamental spiritual\ninstincts; for example, that craving of the mind for an unified\nexperience, which is at the root of all mental activity, and whose\nobject is ever approached yet never attained; or, again, there is the\nsocial and political instinct, which has not yet formed a distinct and\nsatisfying conception of what it would be at. Or nearer still to our\ntheme, is the natural religious instinct which seeks interpretations and\nexplanatory hypotheses in the various man-made religions of the race,\nand which finds itself satisfied and transcended by the Christian\nrevelation.\n\nIn these and like instances, we find will-movements not caused by the\nsubjects' own cognitions and perceptions, but contrariwise, giving birth\nto cognitions, setting the mind to work to interpret the said movements,\nand to seek out their satisfying objects.\n\nThis is quite analogous to certain phenomena of the order of grace. St.\nIgnatius almost invariably speaks, not, as we should, of thoughts that\ngive rise to will-states of \"consolation\" or \"desolation,\" but\nconversely, of these will-states giving rise to congruous thoughts.\nIndeed, nothing is more familiar to us than the way in which the mind is\nmagnetized by even our physical states of elation or depression, to\nselect the more cheerful or the gloomier aspects of life, according as\nwe are under one influence or the other; and in practice, we recognize\nthe effect of people's humours on their opinions and decisions, and\nwould neither sue mercy nor ask a favour of a man in a temper. In short,\nit is hardly too much to say, that our thoughts are more dependent on\nour feelings than our feelings on our thoughts. This, then, is one\npossible method of supernatural guidance which we shall call \"blind\ninspiration\"--for though the feeling or impulse is from God, the\ninterpretation is from the subject's own mind. It is curious how St.\nIgnatius applies this method to the determining of the Divine will in\ncertain cases--as it were, by the inductive principle of \"concomitant\nvariation.\" A suggestion that always comes and grows with a state of\n\"consolation,\" and whose negative is in like manner associated with\n\"desolation,\" is presumably the right interpretation of the blind\nimpulse. [6] And perhaps this is one of the commonest subjective\nassurances of faith, namely, that our faith grows and declines with what\nwe know intuitively to be our better moods; that when lax we are\nsceptical, and believing when conscientious.\n\nAnother species of will-guidance recognized by saints, is not so much by\nway of a vague feeling seeking interpretation, as by way of a sort of\nenforced decision with regard to some naturally suggested course of\nconduct. And this, perhaps, is what is more technically understood by an\ninspiration; as, for example, when the question of writing or not\nwriting something publicly useful, say, the records of the Kings of\nIsrael, rises in the mind, and it is decided for and in the subject, but\nnot by him. Of course this \"inspiration\" is a common but not essential\naccompaniment of \"revelation\" or \"mind-control,\"--in those cases,\nnamely, where the communicated information is for the good of others;\nas, also, where it is for the guidance of the practical conduct of the\nrecipient. Such \"inspiration\" at times seems to be no more than a strong\ninclination compatible with liberty; at other times it amounts to such a\n\"fixing\" of the practical judgment as would ordinarily result from a\ndetermination of the power of choice--if that were not a contradiction.\nBetter to say, it is a taking of the matter out of the jurisdiction of\nchoice, by the creation of an _id\u00e9e fixe_ [7] in the subject's mind.\n\nTurning now to \"revelation\" in the stricter sense of a preternatural\nenlightenment of the mind, it might conceivably be either by way of a\nreal accretion of knowledge--an addition to the contents of the mind--or\nelse by way of manipulating contents already there, as we ourselves do\nby reminiscence, by rumination, comparison, analysis, inference. Thus we\ncan conceive the mind being consciously controlled in these operations,\nas it were, by a foreign will; being reminded of this or that; being\nshown new consequences, applications, and relations of truths already\npossessed.\n\nWhen, however, there is a preternatural addition to the sum total of the\nmind's knowledge, we can conceive the communication to be effected\nthrough the outer senses, as by visions seen (real or symbolic), or\nwords heard; or through the imagination--pictorial, symbolic, or verbal;\nvisual or auditory; or, finally, in the very reason and intelligence\nitself, whose ideas are embodied in these images and signs, and to whose\napprehension they are all subservient.\n\nNow from all this tedious division and sub-division it may perhaps be\nclear in how many different senses the words of such a professed\nrevelation as Mother Juliana has left on record can be regarded as\npreternatural utterances; or rather, in how many different ways she\nherself may have considered them such, and wished them so to be\nconsidered. Indeed, as we shall see, she has done a good deal more to\ndetermine this, in regard to the various parts of her record, than most\nhave done, and it is for that reason that we have taken the opportunity\nto open up the general question. Such a record might then be, either\nwholly or in part:\n\n  (a) The work of religious \"inspiration\" or genius, in the sense\n  in which rationalists use the word, levelling the idea down to the same\n  plane as that of artistic inspiration.\n\n  (b) Or else it might be \"inspired\" as mystic philosophy or\n  ontologism uses the expression, when it ascribes all natural insight to\n  a more or less directly divine enlightenment.\n\n  (c) Or, taking the word more strictly as implying the influence\n  of a distinct personal agency over the soul of the writer, it might be\n  that the record simply expresses an attempted interpretation, an\n  imaginary embodiment, of some blind preternatural stirring of the\n  writer's affections--analogous to the romances and dreams created in the\n  imagination at the first awakening of the amatory affections.\n\n  (d) Or, the matter being in no way from preternatural sources,\n  the strong and perhaps irresistible impulse to record and publish it,\n  might be preternatural.\n\n  (e) Or (in addition to or apart from such an impulse), it might\n  be a record of certain truths already contained implicitly in the\n  writer's mind, but brought to remembrance or into clear recognition, not\n  by the ordinary free activity of reason, but, as it were, by an alien\n  will controlling the mind.\n\n  (f) Or, if really new truths or facts are communicated to the mind\n  from without, this may be effected in various ways: (i) By the way of\n  verbal \"inspiration,\" as when the very words are received apparently\n  through the outer senses; or else put together in the imagination.\n  (ii) Or, the matter is presented pictorially (be it fact or symbol)\n  to the outer senses or to the imagination; and then described or\n  \"word-painted\" according to the writer's own ability. (iii) Or, the\n  truth is brought home directly to the intelligence; and gets all its\n  imaginative and verbal clothing from the recipient.\n\nMany other hypotheses are conceivable, but most will be reducible to one\nor other of these. We may perhaps add that, when the revelation is given\nfor the sake of others, this purpose might be frustrated, were not a\nsubstantial fidelity of expression and utterance also secured. This\nwould involve, at least, that negative kind of guidance of the tongue or\npen, known technically as \"assistance.\"\n\nMother Juliana gives us some clue in regard to her own revelations where\nshe says: [8] \"All this blessed showing of our Lord God was showed in\nthree parts; that is to say, by bodily sight; and by words formed in my\nunderstanding; and by ghostly sight. For the bodily sight, I have said\nas I saw, as truly as I can\" (that is, the appearances were, she\nbelieved, from God, but the description of them was her own). \"And for\nthe words I have said them right as our Lord showed them to me\" (for\nhere nothing was her own, but bare fidelity of utterance). \"And for the\nghostly sight I have said some deal, but I may never full tell it\" (that\nis to say, no language or imagery of her own can ever adequately express\nthe spiritual truths revealed to her higher reason). As a rule she makes\nit quite clear throughout, which of these three kinds of showing is\nbeing described. We have an example of bodily vision when she saw \"the\nred blood trickling down from under the garland,\" and in all else that\nseemed to happen to the crucifix on which her open eyes were set. And of\nall this she says: \"I conceived truly and mightily that it was Himself\nthat showed it me, without any mean between us;\" that is, she took it as\na sort of pictorial language uttered directly by Christ, even as if He\nhad addressed her in speech; she took it not merely as _having_ a\nmeaning, but as designed and uttered to _convey_ a meaning--for to speak\nis more than to let one's mind appear. Or again, it is by bodily vision\nshe sees a little hasel-nut in her hand, symbolic of the \"naughting of\nall that is made.\" Of words formed in her imagination she tells us, for\nexample, \"Then He (i.e., Christ as seen on the crucifix) without voice\nand opening of lips formed in my soul these words: _Herewith is the\nfiend overcome_.\" Of \"ghostly sight,\" or spiritual intuition, we have an\ninstance when she says: \"In the same time that I saw (i.e., visually)\nthis sight of the Head bleeding, our good Lord showed a ghostly sight of\nHis homely loving. I saw that He is to us everything that is comfortable\nto our help; He is our clothing, that for love wrappeth us,\" &c.--where,\nin her own words and imagery, she is describing a divine-given insight\ninto the relation of God and the soul. Or again, when she is shown our\nBlessed Lady, it is no pictorial or bodily presentment, \"but the virtues\nof her blissful soul, her truth, her wisdom, her charity.\" \"And Jesus\n... showed me a _ghostly_ sight of her, right as I had seen her before,\nlittle and simple and pleasing to Him above all creatures.\"\n\nJust as in the setting forth of these spiritual apprehensions, the words\nand imagery are usually her own, so in the description of bodily vision\nshe uses her own language and comparisons. For example, the following\nrealism: \"The great drops of blood fell down from under the garland like\npellets, seeming as it had come out of the veins; and in coming out they\nwere brown red, for the Blood was full thick, and in spreading abroad\nthey were bright red.... The plenteousness is like to drops of water\nthat fall off the eavings after a great shower of rain.... And for\nroundness they were like to the scales of herrings in the spreading of\nthe forehead,\" &c. These similes, she tells us, \"came to my mind in the\ntime.\" In other instances, the comparisons and illustrations of what she\nsaw with her eyes or with her understanding, were suggested to her; so\nthat she received the expression, as well as the matter expressed, from\nwithout.\n\nBut besides the records of the sights, words, and ideas revealed to her,\nwe have many things already known to her and understood, yet \"brought to\nher mind,\" as it were, preternaturally. Also, various paraphrases and\nelaborate exegeses of the words spoken to her; a great abundance of\nadded commentary upon what she saw inwardly or outwardly. Now and then\nit is a little difficult to decide whether she is speaking for herself,\nor as the exponent of what she has received; but, on the whole, she\ngives us abundant indications. Perhaps the following passage will\nillustrate fairly the diverse elements of which the record is woven:\n\nWith good cheer our Lord looked into His side and beheld with joy\n[_bodily vision_]: and with His sweet looking He led forth the\nunderstanding of His creature, by the same wound, into His side within\n[_her imagination is led by gesture from one thought to another_]. [9]\nAnd then He showed a fair and delectable place, and large enough for all\nmankind that should be saved, and rest in peace and love [_a conception\nof the understanding conveyed through the symbol of the open wound in\nthe Heart_]. And therewith He brought to my mind His dear worthy Blood\nand the precious water which He let pour out for love [_a thought\nalready contained in the mind, but brought to remembrance by Christ_].\nAnd with His sweet rejoicing Pie showed His blessed Heart cloven in two\n[_bodily or imaginative vision_], and with His rejoicing He showed to my\nunderstanding, in part, the Blissful Godhead as far forth as He would at\nthat time strengthen the poor soul for to understand [_an enlightening\nof the reason to the partial apprehension of a spiritual mystery_]. And\nwith this our Good Lord said full blissfully: \"Lo! how I love thee!\"\n[_words formed in the imagination or for the outer hearing_], as if He\nhad said: \"My darling, behold, and see thy Lord,\" &c. [_her own\nparaphrase and interpretation of the said words_].\n\nRarely, however, are the different modes so entangled as here, and for\nthe most part we have little difficulty in discerning the precise origin\nto which she wishes her utterances to be attributed--a fact that makes\nher book an unusually interesting study in the theory of inspiration.\n\nThus, in provisionally answering the problem proposed at the beginning\nof this article, as to how far Mother Juliana supplied from her own mind\nthe canvas and the colours for this portrayal of Divine love, and as to\nhow far therefore it may be regarded as a product of and a key to her\ninner self, we are inclined to say that, a comparison of her own style\nof thought and sentiment and expression as exhibited in her paraphrases\nand expositions of the things revealed to her, with the substance and\nsetting of the said revelations, points to the conclusion that God spoke\nto her soul in its own language and habitual forms of thought; and that\nif the \"content\" of the revelation was partly new, yet it was harmonious\nwith the previous \"content\" of her mind, being, as it were, a congruous\ndevelopment of the same--not violently thrust into the soul, but set\ndown softly in the appointed place already hollowed for it and, so to\nsay, clamouring for it as for its natural fulfilment. This, of course,\nis not a point for detailed and rigorous proof, but represents an\nimpression that gathers strength the oftener we read and re-read Mother\nJuliana's \"showings.\"\n\n_Jan. Mar._ 1900.\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Prefatory Essay to Walter Hilton's _Scale of Perfection._]\n\n[Footnote 2: The Protestant editor of the Leicester edition (of 1845),\nnot understanding that an appreciation of difficulties, far from being\nincompatible with faith, is a condition of the higher and more\nintelligent faith, would fain credit Mother Juliana with a secret\ndisaffection towards the Church's authority. How far he is justif may be\ngathered from such passages as these: \"In this way was I taught by the\ngrace of God that I should steadfastly hold me fast in the faith, as I\nhad before understood.\" \"It was not my meaning to take proof of anything\nthat belongeth to our faith, for I believed truly that Hell and\nPurgatory is for the same end that Holy Church teacheth.\" \"And I was\nstrengthened and learned generally to keep me in the faith in every\npoint ... that I might continue therein to my life's end.\" \"God showed\nfull great pleasaunce that He hath in all men and women, that mightily\nand wisely take the preaching and teaching of Holy Church; for it is His\nHoly Church; He is the ground; He is the substance; He is the teaching;\nHe is the teacher,\" &c.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Ancren Riwle_.]\n\n[Footnote 4: It is clear from many little touches and allusions that\nthroughout the \"showings\" Mother Juliana considers herself to be gazing,\nnot on a vision of Calvary, but on the illuminated crucifix hung before\nher by her attendants, in which crucifix these appearances of bleeding,\nsuffering, movement, and speech take place. All else is shrouded in\ndarkness. Yet she never loses the consciousness that she is in her bed\nand surrounded by others. Notice, for instance: \"After this, I saw with\nbodily sight in the face _of the crucifix that hung before me_,\" &c.\n\"The cross that stood before my face, methought it bled fast.\" \"This\n[bleeding] was so plenteous, to my sight, that methought if it had been\nso in nature and substance\" (i.e., in reality and not merely in\nappearance), \"it should have made the bed all a-blood, and have passed\nover all about.\" \"For this sight I laughed mightily, and made them to\nlaugh that were about me.\" Evidently she is quite awake, is well\nconscious of her state and surroundings, and distinguishes appearance\nfrom reality, shadow from substance. There is no dream-like illusion in\nall this. Appearances presented to the outer senses are commonly spoken\nof as \"hallucinations;\" but it seems to me that this word were better\nreserved for those cases where appearance is mistaken for reality; and\nwhere consequently there is illusion and deception. Mother Juliana is\naware that the crucifix is not really bleeding, as it seems to do, and\nshe explicitly distinguishes such a vision from her later illusory\ndream-presentment of the Evil One. This dream while it lasted was, like\nall dreams, confounded with reality; whereas the other phenomena, even\nif made of \"dream-stuff,\" were rated at their true value. Hence it seems\nto me that if such things have any outward independent reality, to see\nthem is no more an hallucination than to see a rainbow. Even if they are\nprojected from the beholder's brain, there is no hallucination if they\nare known for such; but only when they are confounded with reality, as\nit were, in a waking-dream. As we are here using the word, an experience\nis \"real\" which fits in with, and does not contradict the totality of\nour experiences; which does not falsify our calculation or betray our\nexpectancy. If I look at a fly through a magnifying medium of whose\npresence I am unconscious, its size is apparent, or illusory, and not\nreal; for being unaware of the unusual condition of my vision, I shall\nbe thrown out in my calculations, and the harmony of my experiences will\nbe upset by seeming contradictions. If, however, I am aware of the\nmedium and its nature, then I am not deceived, and what I see is\n\"reality,\" since it is as natural and real for the fly to look larger\nthrough the optician's lense, as to look smaller through the optic\nlense. I cannot call one aspect more \"real\" than the other, for both are\nequally right and true under the given conditions. For these reasons I\nshould object to consider Mother Juliana's \"bodily showings\" as\nhallucinations, so far as the term seems to imply illusion.]\n\n[Footnote 5: For those therefore who make an act of faith in the\nabsolute universality and supremacy of the laws of physics and\nchemistry, and find in them the last reason of all things, these\nphenomena are interesting only as studies in the mechanics of illusion.]\n\n[Footnote 6: It was largely by this method, supplemented no doubt by\nthat of reasoned discussion, that St. Ignatius guided himself in\ndetermining points connected with the constitution of his Order,\naccording to the journal he has left us of his \"experiences,\" which is\nsimply a record of \"consolations\" and \"desolations.\"]\n\n[Footnote 7: i.e., A kin\u00e6sthetic idea, as it is called, an idea of\nsomething to be done in the given conditions.]\n\n[Footnote 8: P. 272 in Richardson's Edit., from which I usually quote as\nbeing the readiest available.]\n\n[Footnote 9: On another occasion, by looking down to the right of His\nCross, He brought to her mind, \"where our Lady stood in the time of His\nPassion and said: 'Wilt Thou see her?'\" leading her by gesture from the\nseen to the not seen.]\n\n\n\nXIV.\n\n\nPOET AND MYSTIC.\n\nA biographer who has any other end in view, however secondary and\nincidental, than faithfully to reproduce in the mind of his readers his\nown apprehension of the personality of his subject, will be so far\nbiassed in his task of selection; and, without any conscious deviation\nfrom truth, will give that undue prominence to certain features and\naspects which in extreme cases may result in caricature. A Catholic\nbiographer of Coventry Patmore would have been tempted to gratify the\nwish of a recent critic of Mr. Champneys' very efficient work, [1] and\nto devote ten times as much space as has been given to the account of\nhis conversion, and a good deal, no doubt, to the discussion and\ncorrection of his eccentric views in certain ecclesiastical matters;\nthus giving us the history of an illustrious convert, and not that of a\npoet and seer whose conversion, however intimately connected with his\npoetical and intellectual life, was but an incident thereof. On the\nother hand, one less intelligently sympathetic with the more spiritual\nside of Catholicism than Mr. Champneys, would have lacked the principal\nkey to the interpretation of Patmore's highest aims and ideals, towards\nwhich the whole growth and movement of his mind was ever tending, and by\nwhich its successive stages of evolution are to be explained. Again,\nwith all possible respect for the feelings of the living, the biographer\nhas wisely suppressed nothing needed to bring out truthfully the\nruggednesses and irregularities that characterize the strong and\nsomewhat one-sided development of genius as contrasted with the regular\nfeatures and insipid perfectness of things wrought on a small scale. If\nidealizing means the filing-away of jagged edges--and surely it does\nnot--Mr. Champneys has left us to do our own idealizing. The faults that\nmarred Purcell's _Life of Manning_ are here avoided, and yet truth is no\nwhit the sufferer in consequence.\n\nIn speaking of Patmore as a thinker and a poet, we do not mean to\ndissociate these two functions in his case, but only to classify him\n(according to his own category) with those \"masculine\" poets whose power\nlies in a beautiful utterance of the truth, rather than in a truthful\nutterance of the beautiful.\n\nWe propose, however, to occupy ourselves with the matter rather than the\nmode of Patmore's utterance; with that truth which he conceived himself\nto have apprehended in a newer and clearer light than others before him;\nand this, because he does not stand alone, but is the representative and\nexponent of a certain school of ascetic thought whose tendency is\ndiametrically contrary to that pseudo-mysticism which we have dealt with\nelsewhere, and have ascribed to a confusion of neo-platonic and\nChristian principles. This counter-tendency misses the Catholic mean in\nother respects and owes its faultiness, as we shall see, to some very\nanalogous fallacies. If in our chapter on \"The True and the False\nMysticism,\" it was needful to show that the principles of Christian\nmonasticism and contemplative life, far from in any way necessarily\nretarding, rather favour and demand the highest natural development of\nheart and mind; it is no less needful to assign to this thought its true\nlimits, and to show that the noblest expansion of our natural faculties\ndoes not conflict with or exclude the principles of monasticism. I think\nit is R.H. Hutton who remarks that it is not \"easy to give us a firm\ngrasp of any great class of truths without loosening our grasp on some\nother class of truths perhaps nobler and more vital;\" and undoubtedly\nPatmore and his school in emphasizing the fallacies of neo-platonic\nasceticism are in danger of precipitating us into fallacies every whit\nas uncatholic. It is therefore as professedly formulating the principles\nof a certain school that we are interested in the doctrine of which\nPatmore constitutes himself the apostle.\n\n  Lights are constantly breaking in upon me [he\n  writes] and convincing me more and more that the\n  singular luck has fallen to me of having to write, for\n  the first time that any one even attempted to do so\n  with any fulness, on simply the greatest and most\n  exquisite subject that ever poet touched since the\n  beginning of the world.\n\n  The more I consider the subject of the marriage of\n  the Blessed Virgin, the more clearly I see that it is the\n  _one_ absolutely lovely and perfect subject for poetry.\n  Perfect humanity, verging upon, but never entering the\n  breathless region of the Divinity, is the real subject of\n  _all_ true love-poetry; but in all love-poetry hitherto, an\n  \"ideal\" and not a reality has been the subject, more\n  or less.\n\nTaking the \"Angel of the House\" as representing the earlier, and the\n\"Odes\" the later stage of the development which this theme received\nunder his hands, it seems as though he passes from the idealization and\napotheosis of married love to the conception of it as being in its\nhighest form, not merely the richest symbol, but even the most\nefficacious sacrament of the mystical union between God and the soul. He\nis well aware--though not fully at first--that these conceptions were\nfamiliar to St. Bernard and many a Catholic mystic; it was for the\npoetic apprehension and expression of them that he claimed originality;\nor, at least, for their unification and systematic development. \"That\nhis apprehensions were based generally--almost exclusively, on the\nfundamental idea of nuptial love must,\" as Mr. Champneys says, \"be\nadmitted.\" This was the governing category of his mind; the mould into\nwhich all dualities naturally fell; it was to his philosophy what love\nand hate, light and dark, form and matter, motion and atoms, have been\nto others.\n\n  It was, at all events, the predominance of this conception\n  which bound together his whole life's work,\n  rendering coherent and individualizing all which he\n  thought, wrote, or uttered, and those who study\n  Patmore without this key are little likely to understand\n  him.\n\nAnd it is the persistent and not always sufficiently restrained use of\nthis category that made much of his writing just a trifle shocking to\nsensitive minds.\n\nThese latter will have \"closed his works far too promptly to discover\nthat far from gainsaying the Catholic instinct which prefers virginity\nto marriage\" (not a strictly accurate statement) he makes virginity a\ncondition of the idealized marriage-relation, and finds its realization\nin her who was at once matron and virgin. Following the fragmentary\nhints to be found here and there in patristic and mystical theology, he\nassumes that virgin-spousals and virgin-birth were to have been the law\nin that Paradise from which man lapsed back into natural conditions\nthrough sin; that in the case of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph the\nparadisaic law was but resumed in this respect. Accordingly, he writes\nof Adam and Eve in \"The Contract,\"\n\n            Thus the first Eve\n  With much enamoured Adam did enact\n  Their mutual free contract\n  Of virgin spousals, blissful beyond flight\n  Of modern thought, with great intention staunch,\n  Though unobliged until that binding pact.\n\nTo their infidelity to this contract he ascribes the subsequent\ndegradation of human love through sensuality; and all the sin and\nselfishness thence deriving to our fallen race:\n\n      Whom nothing succour can\n  Until a heaven-caress'd and happier Eve\n    Be joined with some glad Saint\n  In like espousals, blessed upon Earth,\n    And she her fruit forth bring;\n\n  No numb chill-hearted shaken-witted thing,\n    'Plaining his little span.\n  But of proud virgin joy the appropriate birth,\n    The Son of God and Man.\n\nThe rationalistic objection to this suppression of what seems to be of\nthe essence or integrity of matrimony is obvious enough, and yet finds\nmany a retort even in the realm of nature, where the passage to a higher\ngrade of life so often means the stultifying of functions proper to the\nlower. As to the pre-eminence of that state in which the spiritual\nexcellencies of marriage and virginity are combined, Catholic teaching\nis quite clear and decided; in this, as in other points, Patmore's\nuntaught intuitions, and instincts--his _mens naturaliter\ncatholica_--had led him, whither the esoteric teaching of the Church had\nled only the more appreciatively sympathetic of her disciples, from time\nto time, as it were, up into that mountain of which St. Ambrose says:\n\"See, how He goes up with the Apostles and comes down to the crowds. For\nhow could the crowds see Christ save in a lowly spot? They do not follow\nHim to the heights, nor rise to sublimities\"--a notion altogether\ncongenial to Patmore's aristocratic bias in religion as in everything\nelse. Undoubtedly it was this mystical aspect of Catholic doctrine that\nappealed to his whole personality, offering as it did an authoritative\napproval, and suggesting an infinite realization, of those dreams that\nwere so sacred to him. As far as the logic of the affections goes, it\nwas for the sake of this that he held to all the rest; for indeed the\ndeeper Catholic truths are so internetted that he who seizes one, drags\nall the rest along with it under pain of self-contradiction.\n\nNo one knew better than Patmore the infinite insufficiency of the\nhighest created symbols to equal the eternal realities which it is their\nwhole purpose to set forth; he fully realized that as the lowliest\nbeginnings of created love seem to mock, rather than to foreshadow, the\nhigher forms of which they are but the failure and botched essay, so the\nvery highest conceivable, taken as more than a metaphor, were an\nirreverent parody of the Divine love for the human soul. It is not the\n_same_ relationship on an indefinitely extended scale, but only a\nsomewhat _similar_ relationship, the limits of whose similarity are\nhidden in mystery. But when a man is so thoroughly in love with his\nmetaphor as Patmore was, he is tempted at times to press it in every\ndetail, and to forget that it is \"but one acre in the infinite field of\nspiritual suggestion;\" that, less full and perfect metaphors of the same\nreality, may supply some of its defects and correct some of its\nredundancies. We should do unwisely to think of the Kingdom of Heaven\nonly as a kingdom, and not also as a marriage-feast, a net, a treasure,\na mustard-seed, a field, and so forth, since each figure supplies some\nelement lost in the others, and all together are nearer to the truth\nthan any one: and so, although the married love of Mary and Joseph is\none of the fullest revealed images of God's relation to the soul, we\nshould narrow the range of our spiritual vision, were we to neglect\nthose supplementary glimpses at the mystery afforded by other figures\nand shadowings.\n\nAnd this leads us to the consideration of a difficulty connected with\nanother point of Patmore's doctrine of divine love. He held that the\nidealized marriage relationship was not merely the symbol, but the most\neffectual sacrament and instrument of that love; \"yet the world,\" he\ncomplains, \"goes on talking, writing, and preaching as if there were\nsome essential contrariety between the two,\" the disproof of which \"was\nthe inspiring idea at the heart of my long poem (the 'Angel').\" Now,\nalthough in asserting that the most absorbing and exclusive form of\nhuman affection is not only compatible with, but even instrumental to\nthe highest kind of sanctity and divine love, Patmore claimed to be at\none, at least in principle, with some of the deeper utterances of the\nSaints and Fathers of the Christian Church; it cannot be denied that the\nassertion is _prima facie_ opposed to the common tradition of Catholic\nasceticism; and to the apparent _raison d'\u00eatre_ of every sort of\nmonastic institution.\n\nIt must be confessed that, in regard to the reconciliation of the claims\nof intense human affection with those of intense sanctity, there have\nbeen among all religious teachers two distinct conceptions struggling\nfor birth, often in one and the same mind, either of which taken as\nadequate must exclude the other. It would not be hard to quote the\nutterances of saints and ascetics for either view; or to convict\nindividual authorities of seeming self-contradiction in the matter. The\nreason of this is apparently that neither view is or can be adequate;\nthat one is weak where the other is strong; that they are both imperfect\nanalogies of a relationship that is unique and _sui generis_--the\nrelationship between God and the soul. Hence neither hits the centre of\ntruth, but glances aside, one at the right hand, the other at the left.\nBriefly, it is a question of the precise sense in which God is \"a\njealous God\" and demands to be loved alone. The first and easier mode of\nconception is that which is implied in the commoner language of saints\nand ascetics--language perhaps consciously symbolic and defective in its\nfirst usage, but which has been inevitably literalised and hardened when\ntaken upon the lips of the multitude. God is necessarily spoken of and\nimagined in terms of the creature, and when the analogical character of\nsuch expression slips from consciousness, as it does almost instantly,\nHe is spoken of, and therefore thought of, as the First of Creatures\ncompeting with the rest for the love of man's heart. He is placed\nalongside of them in our imagination, not behind them or in them. Hence\ncomes the inference that whatever love they win from us in their own\nright, by reason of their inherent goodness, is taken from Him. Even\nthough He be loved better than all of them put together, yet He is not\nloved perfectly till He be loved alone. Their function is to raise and\ndisappoint our desire time after time, till we be starved back to Him as\nto the sole-satisfying--everything else having proved _vanitas\nvanitatum_. Then indeed we go back to them, not for their own sakes, but\nfor His; not attracted by our love of them, but impelled by our love of\nHim.\n\nThis mode of imagining the truth, so as to explain the divine jealousy\nimplied in the precept of loving God exclusively and supremely, is, for\nall its patent limitations, the most generally serviceable. Treated as a\nstrict equation of thought to fact, and pushed accordingly to its utmost\nlogical consequences, it becomes a source of danger; but in fact it is\nnot and will not be so treated by the majority of good Christians who\nserve God faithfully but without enthusiasm; whose devotion is mainly\nrational and but slightly affective; who do not conceive themselves\ncalled to the way of the saints, or to offer God that all-absorbing\naffection which would necessitate the weakening or severing of natural\nties. In the event, however, of such a call to perfect love, the logical\nand practical outcome of this mode of imagining the relation of God to\ncreatures is a steady subtraction of the natural love bestowed upon\nfriends and relations, that the energy thus economized may be\ntransferred to God. This concentration may indeed be justified on other\nand independent grounds; but the implied supposition that, the highest\nsanctity is incompatible with any pure and well-ordered natural\naffection, however intense, is certainly ill-sounding, and hardly\nreconcilable with the divinest examples and precepts.\n\nThe limitations of this simpler and more practical mode of imagining the\nmatter are to some extent supplemented by that other mode for which\nPatmore found so much authority in St. Bernard, St. Francis, St. Teresa,\nand many another, and which he perhaps too readily regarded as\nexhaustively satisfactory.\n\nIn this conception, God is placed, not alongside of creatures, but\nbehind them, as the light which shines through a crystal and lends it\nwhatever it has of lustre. In recognizing whatever true brilliancy or\nbeauty creatures possess as due to His inbiding presence, the love which\nthey excite in us passes on to Him, through them. As He is the primary\nAgent and Mover in all our action and movement, the primary Lover in all\nour pure and well-ordered love; and we, but instruments of His action,\nmovement, and love; so, in whatever we love rightly and divinely for its\ntrue merit and divinity, it is He who is ultimately loved. Thus in all\npure and well-ordered affection it is, ultimately, God who loves and God\nwho is loved; it is God returning to Himself, the One to the One.\nAccording to this imagery, God is viewed as the First Efficient and the\nultimate Final Cause in a circular chain of causes and effects of which\nHe is at once the first link and the last--a conception which, in so far\nas it brings God inside the system of nature as part thereof, is, like\nthe last, only analogously true, and may not be pressed too far in its\nconsequences.\n\nIn this view, to love God supremely and exclusively means practically,\nto love only the best things in the best way, recognizing God both in\nthe affection and in its object. God is not loved apart from creatures,\nor beside them; but through them and in them. Hence if only the\naffection be of the right kind as to mode and object, the more the\nbetter; nor can there be any question of crowding other affections into\na corner in order to make more room for the love of God in our hearts.\nThe love of Him is the \"form,\" the principle of order and harmony; our\nnatural affections are the \"matter,\" harmonized and set in order; it is\nthe soul, they are the body, of that one Divine Love whose adequate\nobject is God in, and not apart from, His creatures.\n\nIt would not perhaps be hard to reconcile this view with some utterances\nin the Gospel of seemingly opposite import; or to find it often implied\nin the words and actions of Catholic Saints; but to square it with the\ngeneral ascetic traditions of the faithful at large is exceedingly\ndifficult. Patmore would no doubt have allowed the expediency of\ncelibacy in the case of men and women devoted to the direct ministry of\ngood works, spiritual and corporal: a devotion incompatible with\ndomestic cares; he could and did allow the superiority of voluntary\nvirginity and absolute chastity over the contrary state of lawful use;\nbut he could hardly have justified--hardly not have condemned those who\nleave father, friend, or spouse, not merely externally in order to be\nfree for good works, but internally in order that their hearts may be\nfree for the contemplation and love of God viewed apart from creatures\nand not merely in them. He might perhaps say that, as we cannot go to\nGod through all creatures, but only through some (since we are not each\nin contact with all), we must select according to our circumstances\nthose which will give the greatest expansion and elevation to our\nnatural affections; and that for some, the home is wisely sacrificed for\nthe community or the church. Yet this hardly consists with the\npre-eminence he gives to married love as the nearest symbol and\nsacrament of divine.\n\nBoth these modes of imagining the truth, whatever their inconveniences,\nare helpful as imperfect formulations of Catholic instinct; both\nmischievous, if viewed as adequate and close-fitting explanations.\nPatmore was characteristically enthusiastic for his own aspect of the\ntruth; and characteristically impatient of the other. Thus, of \u00e0 Kempis\nhe says:\n\nThere is much that is quite unfit for, and untrue of, people who live in\nthe ordinary relations of life. I don't think I like the book quite so\nmuch as I did. There is a hot-house, egotistical air about much of its\npiety. Other persons are, ordinarily, the appointed means of learning\nthe love of God; and to stifle human affections must be very often to\nrender the love of God impossible.\n\nIn other words, the further he pushed the one conception the further he\ndiverged from \u00e0 Kempis, whose asceticism was built almost purely on the\nother.\n\nMost probably a reconciliation of these two conceptions will be found in\na clear recognition of the two modes in which God is apprehended and\nconsequently loved by the human mind and heart; the one concrete and\nexperimental, accessible to the simplest and least cultured, and of\nnecessity for all; the other, abstract in a sense--a knowledge through\nthe ideas and representations of the mind, demanding a certain degree of\nintelligence and studious contemplation, and therefore not necessary, at\nleast in any high degree, for all. The difference is like that between\nthe knowledge of salt as tasted in solution and the knowledge of it as\nseen apart in its crystallized state; or between the knowledge and love\nof a musical composer as known in his compositions, and as known in\nhimself, from his compositions. The latter needs a not universal power\nof inference which the most sympathetic musical expert may entirely\nlack.\n\nOf these two approaches to Divine love and union, the former is\ncertainly compatible with, and conducive to, the unlimited fulness of\nevery well-ordered natural affection; but the latter--a life of more\nconscious, reflex, and actual attention to God--undoubtedly does require\na certain abstraction and concentration of our limited spiritual\nenergies, and can only be trodden at the cost of a certain inward\nseclusion of which outward seclusion is normally a condition.\nInstinctively, Catholic tradition has regarded it as a vocation\napart--as, like the life of continence, a call to something more than\nhuman, and demanding a sacrifice or atrophy of functions proper to\nanother grade of spirituality. Even what is called a \"life of thought\"\nmakes a similar demand to a great extent; it involves a narrowing of\nother interests; a departure from the conditions of ordinary practical\nlife. The \"contemplative life\" is inclusively all this and more; it is a\nsort of anticipation of the future life of vision. Still, though for a\nfew it may be the surest or the only approach to sanctity, yet there is\nno degree of Divine love that may not be reached by the commoner and\nnormal path; there have been saints outside the cloister as well as\ninside. One could hardly offend the first principles of the Gospel more\ngrievously than by making intelligence, culture, and contemplative\ncapacity conditions of a nearer approach to Christ.\n\nIt seems to us then that Patmore failed to get at the root of the\nneglected truth after which he was groping, and thereby fell into a\none-sidedness just as real as that against which his chief work was a\nrevolt and protest.\n\nAs a convert, Patmore is most uninteresting to the controversialist. His\nmind was altogether concrete, affirmative, and synthetic, with a\nprofound distrust of abstract and analytical reasoning. As we have said,\nChristianity and, later, Catholicism appealed profoundly to his\nintellectual imagination in virtue of some of their deeper tenets, for\nwhose sake he took over all the rest _per modum unius_.\n\nThe idea [of the Incarnation] no sooner flashed upon me as a possible\nreality than it became, what it has ever since remained, ... the only\nreality worth seriously caring for; a reality so clearly seen and\npossessed that the most irrefragable logic of disproof has always\naffected me as something trifling and irrelevant.\n\nAgain: \"Christianity is not an 'historical religion,' but a revelation\nwhich is renewed in every receiver of it.\" \"My heart loves that of whose\nexistence my intellect allows the probability, and my will puts the seal\nto the blessed compact which produces faith\"--an ingenious application\nof his favourite category.\n\nOf the efforts of Manning and de Vere to proselytize him, he says:\n\nTheir position seemed to me to be so logically perfect that I was long\nrepelled by its perfection. I felt, half unconsciously, that a living\nthing ought not to be so spick and span in its external evidence for\nitself, and that what I wanted for conviction was not the sight of a\nfaultless intellectual superficies, but the touch and pressure of a\nmoral solid.\n\nWhatever some may think or have thought of his theology, none who knew\nhim could have any doubt as to the robust and uncompromising character\nof his faith. It was because he felt so sure of his footing that he\nallowed himself a liberty of movement perplexing to those whose position\nwas one of more delicate balance. He had a ruthlessness in tossing aside\nwhat might be called \"non-essentials,\" that was dictated not so much by\nan under-estimate of their due importance, as by an impatience with\nthose who over-estimated them, confounding the vessel with its contained\ntreasure.\n\nWhen he says: \"I believe in Christianity as it will be ten thousand\nyears hence,\" it would be a grave misinterpretation to suppose that he\nimplied any lack of belief in the Christianity of to-day. It is but\nanother assertion of his claim to be in sympathy with the esoteric\nrather than the exoteric teaching of the present; to be on the mount\nwith the few and not on the plain with the many. For as the glacier\nformed on the mountain slips slowly down to the plain, so, he held, the\nesoteric teaching of to-day will be the popular teaching of future ages.\nHowever little we may relish this distinction between \"aristocratic\" and\nvulgar belief; however strongly we may hold that best knowledge of\nGod--that, namely, which is experimental and tactual rather than\nintellectual or imaginative--is equally accessible to all; yet just so\nfar as there is question of the intellectual and imaginative forms in\nwhich the faith is apprehended, the distinction does and must exist, not\nonly in religion but in every department of belief, as long as there are\ndifferent levels of culture in the same body of believers. It is, after\nall, a much more superficial difference than it sounds--a difference of\nlanguage and symbolism for the same realities. Where language fits\nclose, as it does to things measurable by our senses, divergency makes\nthe difference between truth and error; but where it is question of the\nsubstitution of one analogy or symbol for another, the more elegant is\nnot necessarily the more truthful; nor when we consider the infinite\ninadequacy of even the noblest conceivable finite symbolism to bring God\ndown to our level, need we pride ourselves much for being on a mountain\nwhose height is perceptible from the plain but imperceptible from the\nheavens.\n\nHence to say that the distinction between esoteric and exoteric teaching\nmeans that the Church has two creeds, one for the simple, another for\nthe educated, is a thoughtless criticism which overlooks the necessarily\nsymbolic nature of all language concerning the \"eternities,\" and\nconfounds a different mode of expression with a difference of the facts\nand realities expressed.\n\nMatthew Arnold, too, believed in the Catholicism of the future; but in\nhow different a sense! What he hoped for was, roughly speaking, the\npreservation of the ancient and beautiful husk after the kernel had been\nwithered up and discarded; what Patmore looked forward to was the\nexpansion of the kernel bursting one involucre after another, and ever\nclamouring for fairer and more adequate covering. With one, the language\nof religion was all too wide; with the other, all too narrow, for its\nreal signification. Arnold belongs to the first, Patmore to the last of\nthose three stages of religious thought of which Mr. Champneys writes:\n\nThe first is represented by those whose creed is so simple as to afford\nlittle or no ground for contention; the second by such as in their\nsearch for greater precision enlarge the domain of dogma, but fail to\npass beyond its mere technical aspect; the third consists of those who\nrise from the technical to the spiritual, and without repudiating or\ndisparaging dogma, use it mainly as a guide and support to thought which\ntranscends mere definition.\n\n\n_Dec._ 1900.\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n\n[Footnote 1: _Coventry Patmore_. By Basil Champneys. Geo. Bell and Sons,\n1900.]\n\n\n\nXV.\n\n\nTWO ESTIMATES OF CATHOLIC LIFE.\n\nDealing as both do so largely with the inner life of English Catholic\nsociety, it is hardly possible to avoid comparing and contrasting _One\nPoor Scruple_ [1] with _Helbeck of Bannisdale_,--one the work of a\nCatholic who knows the matter she is handling, almost experimentally;\nthe other the work of a gifted outsider whose singular talent, careful\nobservation, and studious endeavour to be fair-minded, fail to save her\naltogether from that unreality and _\u00e0 priori_ extravagance which\nexperience alone can correct. To the non-Catholic, Mrs. Humphrey Ward's\nbook will appear a marvel of insight and acute analysis; for it will fit\nin with, and explain his outside observation of those Catholics with\nwhom he has actually come in contact, far better than the preposterous\nnotions that were in vogue fifty years ago. It represents them not as\nmonstrously wicked and childishly idolatrous; but as narrow,\nextravagant, out-of-date, albeit, well-meaning folk--more pitiable than\ndangerous.\n\nFormerly when they lived secret and unknown, anything might safely be\nasserted about them; nothing was too wild or improbable. In those days\n\"Father Clement\" was the issue of a superhuman effort at charity and\nfairness; and the author almost seemed to think an apology was needed\nfor such temerarious liberalism. But when Catholics began to breathe a\nlittle more freely and to creep out of their burrows somewhat less\nnervously; when, in fact, they were seen to be, at least in outward\nsemblance, much as other men; some regard had to be paid to statements\nthat could be checked by observation; and the Papist's disappointing\nordinariness had to be attributed to dissimulation or to be otherwise\ninterpreted into accord with the preposterous principles by which their\nlives were thought to be governed.\n\nMrs. Humphrey Ward represents the furthest advance of this reform. She\nat least has spared no pains to acquaint herself with facts, to gather\ninformation, to verify statements. She is never guilty of the grotesque\nblunders that other high-class novelists fall into about Catholic\nbeliefs, practices, and habits, simply because they are dealing with\nwhat is to their readers a _terra incognita,_ and can, therefore, afford\nto be loose and inaccurate. An artistic conscientiousness which values\ntruth and honesty in every detail, saves her from this too common snare.\nBut it does not and cannot save her in the work of selection, synthesis,\nand interpretation of instances, which has to be guided, not by\nobjective facts, but by subjective opinions and impressions. History\nwritten in a purely positivist spirit, _ad narrandum_, and in no sense\n_ad docendum_, is a chimerical notion by which Renan beguiled himself\ninto thinking that his _Vie de Jesus_ was a bundle of facts and nothing\nmore. And Mrs. Humphrey Ward is no less beguiled, if she is unaware that\nin threading together, classifying and explaining the results of her\nconscientious observation and inquiry, she is governed by an _a priori_\nconception of Catholicism hardly different from that which inspired the\nauthor of \"Father Clement.\" Hence, to us Catholics, though her evident\ndesire to be critical and impartial is gratifying, yet her failure is\nnone the less conspicuous. Dr. Johnson once observed, that what might be\nwonderful dancing for a dog would be a very poor performance for a\nChristian; and so, to us, \"Helbeck\" as a presentment of Catholic life is\nwonderful as coming from an outsider, and, perhaps, especially from Mrs.\nHumphrey Ward, but in itself it is grotesque enough--not through any\nculpable infidelity to facts, but through lack of the visual power, the\nguiding idea, whereby to read them aright.\n\nIn _One Poor Scruple_, Mrs. Wilfrid Ward brings to bear upon a somewhat\nsimilar task, an equal fidelity of observation supplemented by a\nfirst-hand, far wider, and more intimate experience of Catholics and\ntheir ways, and, above all, by that key which a share in their faith and\nbeliefs alone furnishes to the right understanding of their conduct.\nHere too, no doubt, a contrary bias is to be suspected, nor is a purely,\n\"positive\" treatment of the subject conceivable or desirable. The view\nof an insider is as partial as the view of an outsider, though less\nviciously so; nor can we get at truth by the simple expedient of fitting\nthe two together. The best witness is the rare individual who to an\ninside and experimental knowledge, adds the faculty of going outside and\ntaking an objective and disinterested view. In truth this needs an\namount of intellectual self-denial seldom realized to any great degree;\nbut we venture to say that Mrs. Wilfrid Ward proves herself very worthy\nof confidence in this respect. There is certainly no artistic idealizing\nof Catholics, such as we are accustomed to in books written for the\nedification of the faithful. There is the same almost merciless realism\nwhich we find in \"Helbeck\" in dealing with certain trivialities and\nnarrownesses of piety--defects common to all whom circumstances confine\nto a little world, but more incongruous and conspicuous as contrasted\nwith the dignity of Catholic ideals. Without conscious departure from\ntruth, Mrs. Humphrey Ward is evidently influenced in her selection and\nmanipulation of facts by the impression of Catholicism she already\npossesses and wants to illustrate and convey; but Mrs. Wilfrid Ward has,\nwe think, risen above this weakness very notably, and should accordingly\nmerit greater attention.\n\nIt may well be that this judicial impartiality may meet with its usual\nreward of pleasing neither side altogether. Some will complain that she\nbrings no idealizing love to her subject, and does little to bring out\nthe greatness and glory of her religion. Yet this would be a hasty and\nill-judging criticism; for our faith is no less to be commended for the\nrestraint it exercises over the multitude of ordinary men and women,\nthan for the effect it produces in souls of a naturally heroic type.\nThat it should bring a certain largeness into the smallest life, that it\nshould impart a strange stability to a naturally unstable and frivolous\ncharacter; that it should check the worldly-minded with a sense of the\nsuperior claims of the other world--all this impresses us, if not with\nthe sublimity or mystic beauty, at least with the solid reality and\npenetrating power of the Catholic faith.\n\nThe most loyal and deep-seated love needs not to shut its eyes to all\ndefects and limitations, but can face them unchilled; and similarly\nthere is often more faith and reverence and quiet enthusiasm in this\nseemingly cold and critical attitude towards the cause or party we love,\nthan in the extravagant idealism that depends for its maintenance on an\nignoring of things as they are.\n\nNothing perhaps is more unintelligible to the Protestant critic of\nCatholicism, nothing more needs to be brought out prominently, than the\nfirm hold our religion can exercise over souls that are naturally\nirreligious.\n\nThis very phrase \"naturally irreligious\" will fall with a shock on\nsensitive Protestant ears; yet we use it advisedly. While all men are\ncapable of faith and of substantial fidelity to the law of God, it is\nundeniable that but few are by natural inclination \"religious\" in the\ncommon acceptation of the term. As there is a poetic or mystical\ntemperament, so also there is a religious temperament--not quite so\nrare, but still something exceptional.\n\nWe find it so in all ages, ancient and modern; in all religions,\nChristian and non-Christian--nay, even amid agnostics and unbelievers we\noften detect the now aimless, unused faculty. But most men have,\nnaturally, no ardent spiritual sympathy with holiness, or mysticism, or\nheroism; their interests are elsewhere; and even where there are latent\ncapacities of that kind, they are not usually developed until life's\nseverest lessons have been learnt. Thus the young, who have just left\nthe negative faith and innocence of the nursery behind them and stand\ninexperienced on the threshold of life, are not normally religious;\nwhereas we naturally expect those who have passed through the ordeal,\nand been disillusioned, to begin to think about their souls, since there\nis nothing else left to think about.\n\nNow, the Catholic religion clearly recognizes these facts of human\nnature, and accommodates herself to them. However frankly it may be\nacknowledged that a religious temperament--a certain complexus of\nmental, moral, and even physical dispositions--is a condition favourable\nto heroic sanctity, it must be emphatically denied that to be\n\"religious,\" in the Protestant sense of the word, is requisite for\nsalvation. And this denial the Church enforces by her recognition of the\n\"religious state\" [2] as an extraordinary vocation. The purpose of\n\"orders\" and \"congregations\" is to provide a suitable environment for\npeople of a religious temperament whose circumstances permit them to\nattend to its development in a more exclusive and, as it were,\nprofessional way. Not, indeed, that all religious-minded persons do, or\nought to, enter into that external state of life; nor that all who so\nenter are by temperament and sympathy fitted for it, but that the\ninstitution points to the Church's recognition of what is technically\ncalled the \"way of perfection\" as something exceptional and\nsuper-normal.\n\nBut the Church has a wider vocation than to provide hot-houses for the\nforcing of these rare exotics, whom the rough climate of a worldly life\nwould either stunt or kill. Her first thought is for the multitudes of\naverage humanity, who are not, and cannot be, in intelligent sympathy\nwith many of the commands she lays upon them. They are but as children\nin religious matters--however cultivated they may chance to be in other\nconcerns. From such souls God requires faith, and obedience to the\ncommandments--a due, which, in certain rare crises, may mean heroism and\nmartyrdom; but He does not expect of them that refinement of sanctity,\nthat sustained attention to divine things, which depends so largely on\none's natural cast of mind and disposition; and may even be found where\nthe martyr's temper is altogether wanting. We recognize that there is\ncertain serviceable, fustian, every-day piety, where, together with a\ngreat deal of spiritual coarseness, insensibility to venial sin and\nimperfection, there exists a firm faith that would go cheerfully to the\nstake rather than deny God, or offend Him in any grave point that might\nbe considered a _casus belli_. And on the other hand a certain nicety of\nethical discernment and delicacy of devotion, an anxiety about points of\nperfection, is a guarantee rather of the quality of one's piety than of\nits depth or strength. The saint is usually one whose piety excels both\nin quality and strength; the martyr is often enough a man of many\nimperfections and sins, veiling an unsuspected, deep-reaching faith. The\nday of persecution has ever been a day of revelation in this respect--a\nday when the seemingly perfect have been scattered like chaff before the\nwind, while the once thoughtless and careless have stood stubborn before\nthe blast.\n\nProtestantism of the Calvinistic or Puritan type shows little\nconsciousness of the distinction we are insisting upon. It is disposed\nto draw a hard-and-fast line between the \"converted\" and the reprobate.\nThose who are not religious-minded, or who do not take a serious turn,\nare scarcely recognized as \"saved\" although they may not be convicted of\nany very flagrant or definite breach of the divine law. Their morality\nor their \"good works\" go for little if they do not experience that sense\nof goodness, or of being saved, which is called faith. Much stress is\nlaid on \"feeling good\" and little value allowed to what we might call an\nunsympathetic and grudging keeping of God's law--however much more it\nmay cost, from the very fact that it is in some way unsympathetic, and\nagainst the grain. The service of fear and reverence, which Catholicism\nregards as the basis and back-bone of love, is held to be abject and\nunworthy--almost sinful.\n\nHence it befalls that no place is found in the Protestant heaven for the\ngreat majority of ordinary people who do not feel a bit good or\nreligious, who rather dislike going to church and keeping the\ncommandments, and yet who keep them all the same, because they believe\nin God and fear His judgments and honour His law, and even love Him in\nthe solid, undemonstrative way in which a naughty and troublesome child\nloves its parents.\n\nThat such a character as Madge Riversdale's should cover a small, firm\ncore of faith and fear under a cortex of worldliness and frivolity; that\nreligion should have such a hold on one so entirely irreligious by\nnature, is something quite inconceivable to a mind like, let us say,\nMrs. Humphrey Ward's; and yet absolutely intelligible to the ordinary\nCatholic.\n\nThe Church to us, is not what it is to the Protestant--a sort of pasture\nland in which we are at liberty to browse if we are piously disposed. It\nis not merely a convenient environment for the development of the\nreligious faculty. She stands to us in the relation of shepherd, with a\nmore than parental authority to feed and train our souls through infancy\nto maturity; that is, from the time when we do not know or like what is\ngood for us, to the time when we begin to appreciate and spontaneously\nfollow her directions. Just then as a child, however naturally\nrecalcitrant and ill-disposed, retains a certain fundamental goodness\nand root of recovery so long as it acknowledges and obeys the authority\nof its father and mother; so the ordinary unreligious Catholic, who has\nbeen brought up to believe in the divine authority of the Church, finds\ntherein all the protection that obedience offers to those who are\nincapable of self-government. \"In Madge's eyes the woman who married an\ninnocent divorcee was no more than his mistress.\" Had Madge been a pious\nProtestant she naturally might have examined the question of divorce on\nits own merits; she might have weighed the pros and cons of the problem;\nshe might have consulted God in prayer, and have listened to this\nclergyman on one side; and to that, on the other: but eventually she\nwould have been thrown upon herself; she would have had no one whose\ndecision she was bound to obey. But wild and lawless as she is, yet\nbeing a Catholic there is one voice on earth which she fears to\ndisbelieve or disobey. Looked at even from a human standpoint, the\nconsensus of a world-wide, ancient, organized society like the Roman\nChurch cannot but exert a powerful pressure on the minds of its\nindividual members. It would need no ordinary rebellion of the will for\na thoughtless girl to shake her mind so free of that influence as to\nlive happily in the state of revolt. But where in addition to this the\nChurch is viewed as speaking in the name of God, and as so representing\nHim on earth that her ban or blessing is inseparable from His, it is\nobvious that such a belief in her claims will give her a power for good\nover the unreligious majority analogous to that possessed by a parent\nover an untrained child--a power, that is, of discipline and external\nmotive which serves to supplement or supply for the present defect of\ninternal motive.\n\nThus it is that the Church reckons among her obedient children thousands\nof very imperfect and non-religious people for whom Protestantism can\nfind no place among the elect.\n\nAgain, the solid faith of men with so little intellectual or emotional\ninterest in religion as Squire Riversdale or Marmaduke Lemarchant is\nsomething very puzzling to the Protestant critic who, for the reasons\njust insisted on, can have nothing corresponding to it in his own\nexperience. It is a psychological state of which his own religious\nsystem takes no account. Where there is no intermediating Church, the\nsoul is either in direct and mystical union with God or else wholly\nestranged and indifferent. A man is either serious and religious-minded,\nor he is nothing. Like an untutored child, if he is not naturally good,\nthere is no one to make him so. But when the Church is acknowledged as\nour tutor under God, as empowered by Him to lead us to Him; a middle\ncondition is found of those who are not naturally disposed to religion,\nand yet who are submissive to that divine authority whose office it is\nto shape their souls to better sympathies. Riversdale is a far truer\ntype of the Catholic country squire of the old school than the somewhat\nmorbid and impossible Helbeck of Bannisdale. With her preconceived\nnotions, Mrs. Humphrey Ward could not imagine any alternative between\n'religious' and 'irreligious' in the Puritan sense. If Helbeck was to be\na good Catholic at all he must of necessity be fanatically devoted to\nthe propagation of the faith and offer his fortune and energies to the\nservice of an unscrupulous clergy only too ready to play upon his\ncredulous enthusiasm. His is represented as being naturally a religious\nand mystical soul, but blighted and narrowed through the influence of\nCatholicism. We are made to feel that the only thing the matter with him\nis his creed--\"all those stifling notions of sin, penance, absolution,\ndirection, as they were conventionalized in Catholic practice and\nchattered about by stupid and mindless people.\"\n\nOn the other hand, in Squire Riversdale and Marmaduke Lemarchant there\nis by nature nothing but healthy humanity, no mystic or religious strain\nwhatever; they are not semi-ecclesiastics like Helbeck; and yet we feel\nthat their prosaic lives are governed, restrained, and rectified by a\ndeep-rooted faith in the authority of the Catholic Church. \"The\nqualities most obvious are not those of the mystic, but of the manly\nout-of-door sportsman who may seem to be nothing more than a bluff\nEnglishman who rides to the hounds and does his ordinary duties. Yet one\nof these red-coated cavaliers would, I have not the least doubt, if\noccasion called for it, show himself capable of the very highest\nheroism. Men of action, I should say, and not of reflection--a race of\nfew words but of brave deeds.\"\n\nIt was just men of this unromantic type, men of solid but unostentatious\nfaith, given wholly to the business of this life save for one sovereign\nsecret reserve, who in time of persecution stood fast \"ready any day to\nbe martyred for the faith and to regard it as the performance of a\nsimple duty and nothing to boast of.\" And if there is in the type a\ncertain narrowness of sympathy and lack of intelligent interest which\noffends us, we may ask whether, with our human limitations, narrowness\nis not to some extent the price we pay for strength; whether where\ndecision of judgment and energy of action is demanded, as in times of\npersecution, width of view and multiplicity of sympathies may not be a\nsource of weakness. Contrast, for example, the character of Mark Fieldes\nwith that of Marmaduke Lemarchant, and it will be clear that the\nstrength and straightness of the latter is closely associated with the\nabsence of that versatility of intellect and affection which make the\nformer a more interesting but far less lovable and estimable\npersonality. To see all sides and issues of a question, is a\nspeculative, but not always a practical advantage; to have many\ndiversified tastes and affections helps to enlarge our sympathies, but\nnot to concentrate our energies.\n\nOf course great minds and strong hearts can afford to be comprehensive\nwithout loss of depth and intensity; but our present interest is with\nordinary mortals and average powers. A man who has all his life\nunreflectingly adopted the traditional principle that death is\npreferable to dishonour, that a lie is essentially dishonourable, will\nbe far more likely to die for the truth, than one who has philosophized\nmuch about honour and veracity, and whose resolution is enfeebled by the\nconsciousness of the weak and flimsy support which theory lends to these\nhealthy and universally received maxims. And similarly those who have\nreceived the faith by tradition, who for years have assumed it in their\ndaily conduct as a matter of course, in whom therefore it has become an\ningrained psychological habit, who hold it, in what might be condemned\nas a narrow, unintellectual fashion, are just the very people who will\nfight and die for it, when its more cultivated and reflective professors\nwaver, temporize, and fall away. Taking human nature as it is, who can\ndoubt but that this is the way in which the majority are intended to\nhold their religious, moral, philosophical, and political convictions;\nthat reflex thought is, must, and ought to be confined to a small\nminority whose function is slowly to shape and correct that great body\nof public doctrine by which the beliefs of the multitude are ruled? We\ndo not mean to say that such prosaic \"narrowness\" as we speak of, is\nessential to strength; but only that a habit of theoretical speculation\nand a continual cultivation of delicate sensibility is a source of\nenervation which needs some compensating corrective. This corrective is\nfound in the exalted idealism which characterizes the great saints and\nreformers, such as Augustine, or Francis, or Teresa, or Ignatius--souls\nat once mystical and energetically practical to the highest degree. It\nis something of this temper which is parodied in Alan Helbeck. But the\nChurch's mission is not merely to those rare souls whose sympathy with\nher own mind and will is intelligent and spontaneous; but at least as\nmuch to the multitudes who have to be guided more or less blindly by\nobedience to tradition and authority, or else let wander as sheep having\nno shepherd. These considerations explain why _One Poor Scruple_ seems\nto us so far truer a presentment of Catholic life than _Helbeck of\nBannisdale_--the difference lying in the incommunicable advantage which\nan insider possesses over an outsider in understanding the spirit and\nprinciples by which the members of any social body are governed. Of all\nreligions, Catholicism which represents the accumulated results of two\nthousand years' worldwide experience of human nature applied to the\nprinciples of the Gospel, is least likely to be comprehended by an\noutsider, however observant and fair-minded.\n\nTo those for whom the lawfulness of re-marriage for an innocent divorcee\nis, like the rest of their religious beliefs, a matter of opinion, the\nscruple of a character like Madge Riversdale is unthinkable and\nincredible. Such women do not trouble their heads about theological\npoints; still less, make heroic sacrifices for their private and\npeculiar convictions. But those for whom the Church is a definite\nconcrete reality--almost a person--governing and teaching with divine\nauthority, will easily understand the firm grip she can and does exert\non those who have no other internal principle of restraint; who would\nshake themselves free if they dared. Let those who despise the results\nof such a constraint be consistent and abolish all parental and tutorial\ncontrol; all educative government of whatsoever description; nay, the\nimperious restraint of conscience itself, which is often obeyed but\ngrudgingly.\n\nWhile some features of this portrait of Catholic life are common to all\nits phases, others are peculiar to the aspect it presents in England,\nwhere Catholics being a small and weak minority are, so to say,\nself-conscious in their faith--continually aware that they are not as\nthe rest of men; disposed therefore to be apologetic or aggressive or\ndefensive. Again, the circumstance of their long exclusion from the\nsocial and intellectual life of their country is accountable for other\nundesirable peculiarities which Mrs. Wilfrid Ward sees no reason to\nspare.\n\nWe have not, however, attempted anything like a literary estimate of\nthis interesting, altogether readable work, but have only endeavoured to\ndraw attention to an important point, which, whether intentionally or\nunintentionally, it illustrates very admirably.\n\n_May_, 1899.\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n\n[Footnote 1: _One Poor Scruple._ By Mrs. Wilfrid Ward. London: Longmans,\n1899.]\n\n[Footnote 2: We do not mean to imply that there is any close\netymological relation between these two uses of the term.]\n\n\n\nXVI.\n\n\nA LIFE OF DE LAMENNAIS.\n\nThe appearance of a work by the Hon. W. Gibson on _The Abb\u00e9 de\nLamennais, and the Catholic Liberal Movement in France_, invites us to a\nnew attempt to grapple with a problem which has so far met with no\nsatisfactory solution, and probably never will. Up to a certain point we\nseem to follow more or less intelligently the working of the restless\nsoul of De Lamennais; but at the last and great crisis of his life we\nfind all our calculations at fault; \"we try to understand him; we wish\nthat penetrating into the inmost recesses of his wounded soul, we could\nforce it to yield up its secret, and once more sympathize with him,\nperhaps console him; but we cannot. He is an enigma, as impenetrable as\nthe rocks on his native shore.\"\n\nFrom whatever point of view the story of his life is regarded, it\npresents itself as a tragedy. The believing Catholic sees there the ruin\nof a vocation to such a work as only a few souls in the history of the\nChurch are called to accomplish--a ruin desperate and deplorable in\nproportion to the force of the talents and energies diverted from the\nright path. The non-Catholic or unbeliever cannot fail to be moved by\ncontemplating the fruitless struggles of a mind so keen, a heart so\nenthusiastic in the cause of light and liberty--struggles ending in\nfailure, perplexity, confusion, and misery. But while we allow a large\nelement of mystery in his character which will never be eliminated, yet\nas we return time after time to gaze upon the picture of his life, as a\nwhole, and in its details, the seemingly discordant items begin quietly\nto drop into their places one after another, and to exhibit unnoticed\nconnections; and the idea of his distinctive personality begins to shape\nitself into a coherent unity.\n\nIt is not our purpose here to summarize Mr. Gibson's admirable work, or\nto give even an outline of so well-known a history; but rather to\nattempt some brief criticism of the man himself, and incidentally of his\nviews.\n\nTemperament and early education are among the principal determinants of\ncharacter; and certainly when we contrast F\u00e9li with his brother Jean,\nwho presumably received the same home-training, we see how largely he\nwas the creature of temperament. Jean was by nature the \"good boy,\"\ntractable and docile; F\u00e9li, the unmanageable, the lawless, the violent.\nWhile Jean was dutifully learning his lessons to order, F\u00e9li, the\nobstreperous, imprisoned in the library, was feeding his tender mind\nwith Diderot, Montaigne, Pascal, Voltaire, Rousseau, and similar diet,\nand at twelve exhibited such infidel tendencies as made it prudent to\ndefer his first Communion for some ten years.\n\nFrom first to last, whether we consider his childish waywardness and\noutbreaks of violent passion, which persevered in a less childish form\nthrough manhood; or the fits of intense depression and melancholy,\nalternating with spells of high nerve-tension and feverish excitement;\nor the restlessness and impatient energy which showed themselves always\nand everywhere, and at times drove him like a wild man into the woods,\n\"seeking rest and finding none;\" or the prophetic, not to say, the\nfanatical strain which breaks out in so much of his writing, especially\nin the _Paroles d'un Croyant_,--in all alike there is evident that\npredominance of the imaginative and emotional elements which, combined\nwith intellectual gifts, constitute genius as commonly understood. For\nsuch a character the training which would suffice for half a dozen good\nlittle Jeans would be wholly inadequate. So much fire and feeling ill\nsubmits to the yoke of self-restraint in matters moral or intellectual.\nThe mind is apt to be fascinated by the brilliant pictures of the\nimagination and to become a slave to the tyranny of a fixed idea; while\nthe strength of passionate desire paralyzes the power of free\ndeliberation. It is precisely this self-restraint, the fruit of a\ncareful education given and responded to, that we miss in De Lammenais\nboth in his moral character and in his mind. Peace and tranquillity of\nsoul are essential to successful thinking, more especially in\nphilosophy; and in proportion as a brilliant imagination is a help, it\nis also a danger if let run riot. At times, wearied out with himself, he\nseems to have felt the need of retreat and quiet; but he was almost as\nconstitutionally incapable of keeping still, as certain modern statesmen\nin their retirement from public life. We smile when we hear him in the\nviolent first fervour of his conversion, talking about becoming a\nTrappist, and, later, a Jesuit. He knew himself better when he shrank so\nlong and persistently from the yoke of priesthood, and when, having\nyielded against his truer instincts to the indiscreet zeal of pious\nfriends, he experienced an agony of repugnance at his first Mass. With\ndifferent antecedents he might have profited by the yoke, but as things\nstood it could but gall him.\n\nIn spite of Mr. Gibson's contention to the contrary, it can hardly be\nmaintained that De Lamennais was well educated in the strict sense of\nthe expression. The evidence he adduces points to a marvellous diversity\nof interests, and even to close and careful reading. But on the whole he\nwas self-taught, and a self-taught man is never educated. Without\nintercourse with other living minds, education is impossible. This is\nindeed hoisting De Lammenais with his own petard. For, according to\n\"Traditionalism,\" the mind is paralyzed by isolation, and can be duly\ndeveloped only in society. An overweening self-confidence and slight\nregard for the labours of other thinkers usually characterizes\nself-taught genius. This it was that led him to cut all connection with\nthe philosophy of the past, and to attempt to build up, single-handed, a\nnew system to supplant that which had been the fruit of the collective\nmind-labour of centuries. \"I shall work out,\" he writes calmly to the\nAbb\u00e9 Brute, \"a new system for the defence of Christianity against\ninfidels and heretics, a very simple system, in which the proofs will be\nso rigorous that unless one is prepared to give up the right of saying\n_I am_, it will be necessary to say _Credo_ to the very end.\" Only a man\nwith a very slight and superficial acquaintance with the endeavours of\nprevious apologists, and the extreme difficulty of the problem, could\nspeak with such portentous self-confidence. And the result bears out\nthis remark. For grand and imposing as is the structure of the _Essai\nsur l'Indiff\u00e9rence,_ it rests on fallacies so patent that none but a man\nof no philosophical training could have failed to perceive them. Here it\nis that the self-taught man comes to grief and often misses the mere\ntruisms of traditional teaching.\n\nDoubtless ecclesiastical philosophy and theology was then more than ever\npainfully fossilized, and altogether lifeless and out of sympathy with\nthe spirit of the age. It needed to be quickened, adapted and applied to\nmodern exigencies. The undue intrusion of metaphysics into the domain of\npositive knowledge needed checking; the value of _consensus communis_ as\na criterion required to be insisted on, defended, and exactly defined.\nWith characteristic impetuosity, De Lamennais, like Comte, must bundle\nmetaphysics out of doors altogether as a merely provisional but illusory\nsynthesis, necessary for the human intellect in its adolescence, but to\nbe discarded in its maturity; and thereupon he proceeds to erect his\nsystem of Traditionalism mid-air, quite unconscious that in clearing\naway metaphysics he has deprived the structure of its only possible\nfoundation. But this is the man all over. Because there is a truth in\nTraditionalism, therefore, it is the whole and only truth; because\nmetaphysics alone can do little, it is therefore unnecessary and\nworthless. Had he spent but a fraction of the time and trouble he gave\nto the elaboration of his own system, in a liberal and critical study of\nthat which he desired to supersede, his genius might have accomplished a\nwork for the Church which is still halting badly on its way to\nperfection. One feels something like anger in contemplating such\nhot-headed zeal standing continually in its own light, and frustrating\nwith perverse ingenuity the very end which it was most desirous to\nrealize. For no one can deny that from his first conversion to his\nunhappy death De Lamennais was dominated by the highest and noblest and\nmost unselfish motives; that he was a man of absolute sincerity of\npurpose.\n\nHis earliest enthusiasm was for the defence and exaltation of the\nCatholic Faith, for the liberation of the Church from the bonds of\nnationalism and Erastianism. Even those who repudiate altogether the\nextreme Ultramontanism of De Maistre and De Lamennais must allow their\nconception to be one of the boldest and grandest which has inspired the\nmind of man. He realized more vividly than many that the cause of the\nChurch and of society, of Catholicism and humanity, were one and the\nsame. It was the very intensity and depth of his convictions that made\nhim so importunate in pressing them on others, so intolerant of delay,\nso infuriated by opposition. For indeed nothing is more common than to\nfind a thousand selfishnesses co-existing and interfering with a\ndominant unselfishness, lessening or totally destroying its fruitfulness\nfor good. A man who is unselfish enough to devote his fortune to charity\nwill not necessarily be free from faults which may more than undo the\ngood he proposes.\n\nThe same hastiness of thought which moved him to a wholesale,\nindiscriminate condemnation of metaphysics, led him to conclude that\nbecause hitherto no happy adjustment of the relations between Church and\nState had been devised, there could be no remedy save in their total\nseverance. Doubtless such a severance would be better, if Gallicanism\nwere the only alternative; or if the Church's liberty and efficiency\nwere to be seriously curtailed. A superficial glance might fancy a\nfundamental discrepancy in this matter, as well as in the questions of\ntoleration, and of the freedom of the press, between the official\nteaching of Gregory XVI. and Pius IX., and that of Leo XIII. But a\ncloser inspection shows no alteration of principle, and only a\nrecognition of altered circumstances, either necessitating a connivance\nat inevitable evils, or totally changing the aspect of the question. But\nDe Lamennais should have learnt from his own teaching that liberty does\nnot mean the independence of isolation, but the full enjoyment of all\nthe means necessary for perfect self-development; that it does not mean\nthe weakness of dissociation, but the strength of a perfectly organized\nassociation for mutual help and protection. And this holds good, not for\nindividuals alone, but for societies, and for Church and State. Aiming\nat one common end, the perfection of humanity, they cannot but gain by\nassociation and lose by dissociation. Each is weaker even, in its own\nsphere, apart from the other. It is an unreal abstraction that splits\nman into two beings--a body and a soul; that draws a clean,\nhard-and-fast line between his temporal and eternal welfare; that\ncommits the former interest to one society, the latter to another,\nabsolutely distinct and unconnected. But all this holds true only in the\nhypothesis of a nation of Christians or Theists.\n\nWhen a large fraction of the community has ceased to believe in\nChristianity and the Church, the demands of justice and reason are\ndifferent. It may well be allowed that, to determine the exact relation\nof the Catholic Church and Christian State, and the law of their\norganization into one complex society, is a problem for whose perfect\nsolution we must wait the further development of the ideas of\necclesiastical and civil society. But to wait for growth of subjective\ntruth was just what De Lamennais could not do. He saw that past\nsolutions of the problem had been unsuccessful; that in most cases the\nChurch was eventually drawn into bondage under the State as its creature\nand instrument in the cause of tyranny and oppression; that it was\ninsensibly permeated with the local and national spirit, differentiated\nfrom Catholic Christendom, and severed from the full influence of its\nhead, the Vicar of Christ. The independence of the Church he rightly\njudged to be the great safeguard of the people against the tyranny of\ntheir temporal rulers. In the face of that world-wide spiritual society,\nwhose voice was at once the voice of humanity and the voice of God, he\nfelt that \"iniquity would stop its mouth,\" and injustice be put to\nshame. Yet all this seemed to him impossible so long as the Church\ndepended on the State for temporalities, and because he could devise no\nform of association that would be guarantee against all abuses, he\ntherefore insisted on total, severance, not merely as expedient for the\npresent pressure, but as a divine and eternal principle.\n\nWhen, therefore, it seemed to him that Gregory XVI. had condemned\nUltramontanism, it was, to De Lamennais, as though he had condemned the\ncause of the Church and of humanity, and thrown the weight of his\nauthority into that of Gallicanism. Here again we see how his mental\nintensity and impatience reduced him to the dilemma which found solution\nin his apostasy. Holding as he did to the Papal infallibility in a form\nfar more extreme than that subsequently approved by the Vatican Council,\nhe was bound in consistency to accept the Pope's decision as infallible\nin respect to its expediency and in all its detail. Thus it seemed to\nhim that the ideal for which he had lived was shattered by a\nself-inflicted blow. The infallible voice of humanity had declared\nagainst the cause of humanity. He found himself compelled, in virtue of\nhis principles, to choose between two alternatives. Either the cause of\nhumanity, as he conceived it, was not the cause of God; or else the Pope\nwas not the Vicar of Christ and the divinely-appointed guardian of that\ncause. But of the two denials the former was now to him the least\ntolerable. \"Catholicism,\" he said, \"was my life, because it was that of\nhumanity.\" _Sacramenta, propter homines_; the Church was made for man,\nand not man for the Church. Given the dilemma, who shall blame his\nchoice? But the dilemma was purely subjective and imaginary. Though\ntruths are never irreconcilable, the exaggerations of truth may well\nbe so.\n\nHad he possessed that intellectual patience in perplexity, without which\nnot only faith, but true science, is impossible, he would have been\ndriven not to apostasy, but to a careful re-sifting of his views,\nissuing, perhaps, in a reconciliation of apparently adverse positions,\nor at all events in a confession of subjective, uncertainty and\nconfusion. Faith, in the wider sense of the word, would have bid him to\nbelieve, without seeing, what we have lived to see under Leo XIII.\n\nThis seems to be the intellectual aspect of his defection, though of\ncourse there were many accelerating causes at work. Perhaps if Gregory\nXVI. had met his appeal with a few words of simple explanation and\nadvice, instead of with that mysterious reticence which is falsely\nsupposed to be the soul of diplomacy, the issue might have been as happy\nas it was miserable. De Lamennais himself, in his _Affaires de Rome_,\nmakes the same remark in so many words. Again, the illiberal and\nungenerous persecution of his triumphant adversaries, who endeavoured to\ngoad him into some open act of rebellion in order to bring him under\nstill heavier condemnation, can scarcely have failed to embitter and\nharden a soul naturally disposed to pessimism and melancholy. Nor can we\nomit from the influences at work upon him, that dramatic instinct which\nmakes a mediocre and colourless attitude impossible for those who are\nstrongly under its influence. Perhaps no nation is more governed by it\nthan the French, with their partiality for _tableaux_ and _sensation_;\nand in De Lamennais its presence was most marked, as the pages of his\n_Paroles_ will witness. In the _Too Late_ with which he received the\novertures of Pius IX.; in the studied sensationalism of his funeral\narrangements, and in many other minute points, we are made sensible that\nif his life culminated in a tragedy, the tragic aspect of it was not\naltogether displeasing to him. Still it would be a grievous slur on so\ngreat a character to suppose that such a weakness could have had any\nconsiderable part in his steady and deliberate refusal to see a priest\nat the last. This is sufficiently accounted for by the fact that he\nbelieved he could not be absolved without accepting the condemnation of\nhis own views, and so abandoning the cause of humanity. While under the\nspell of his imaginary dilemma, he was constrained to follow the rule\nfor a perplexed conscience, and to choose what seemed to him the less of\ntwo evils.\n\nAfter his ideal had been destroyed, and the Church could no longer be\nfor him the Saviour of the Nations, he threw himself without reserve\ninto the cause of humanity and liberty. But his aims were now almost\nentirely destructive and revolutionary. His enthusiasm was rather a\nhatred of the things that were, than an ardent zeal for the things that\nought to be; and the bitter elements in his character become more and\nmore accentuated as he finds himself gradually thrust aside and\nforgotten--cast off by the Church, ignored by the revolution. Even his\nfriends, with one or two exceptions, dropped off one by one; some\nfleeing like rats from a sinking ship, others perplexed at his obstinacy\nor offended by his violence; others removed by death or distance; and we\nsee him in his old age poor and lonely, and intensely unhappy.\n\nWhen dangerously ill in 1827, he exclaimed, on being told that it was a\nfine night, \"For my peace, God grant that it may be my last.\" The prayer\nwas not heard, for, as he felt on his recovery, God had a great work for\nhim to do. How that work was done we have just seen. F\u00e9li de Lamennais,\nwho would have been buried as a Christian in 1827, was buried as an\ninfidel in 1854.\n\nIt is vain to contend that he was not a man of prayer. That he had a\nkeen discernment in spiritual things is evident from his _Commentary on\nthe Imitation_ and his other spiritual writings, as well as from the\ntestimony of his young disciples at La Ch\u00eanaie, to whom he was not\nmerely a brilliant teacher, a most affectionate friend and father, but\nalso a trusted guide in the things of God. Yet this would be little had\nwe not also assurance of his personal and private devoutness.\n\nAll this would make his unfortunate ending a stumbling-block to those\nwho cannot acquiesce in the fact that in every soul tares and wheat in\nvarious proportions grow side by side, and that which growth is to be\nvictorious is not possible to predict with certainty; who deem it\nimpossible that one who ends ill could ever have lived well; or that one\nwho loses his faith, or any other virtue, could ever at any time have\nreally possessed it. There is indeed some kind of double personality in\nus all which is perhaps more observable in strongly-marked characters\nlike De Lamennais, where, so to say, the bifurcating lines are produced\nfurther. Proud men have occasional moods of genuine humility; and\nhabitual bitterness is allayed by intervals of sweetness; and\nconversely, there are ugly streaks in the fairest marble.\n\nAnd as to the fate of that restless soul, who shall dare to speak\ndogmatically? We cling gladly to the story of the tear that stole down\nhis face in death, and would fain see in it some confirmation of the\nview according to which the soul receives in that crucial hour a final\nchoice based on the collective experience of its mortal life. We would\nhope that as there is a baptism of blood or of charity, so there may\nperhaps be some uncovenanted absolution for one who so earnestly loved\nmankind at large, and especially the poor and the oppressed; who in his\nold age and misery was found by their sick-bed; who willed to be with\nthem in his death and burial. And yet we feel something of that\nagonizing uncertainty which forced from the aged Abbe Jean the bitter\ncry, \"F\u00e9li, F\u00e9li, my brother!\"\n\n_Jan._ 1897.\n\n\n\nXVII.\n\n\nLIPPO, THE MAN AND THE ARTIST.\n\n\"What pains me most,\" writes the late Sir Joseph Crowe in the\n_Nineteenth Century_ for October, 1896, \"is to think that the art of Fra\nFilippo, the loose fish, and seducer of holy women, looks almost as\npure, and is often quite as lovely as that of Fra Giovanni Angelico of\nFiesole.\" And indeed, if the fact be admitted, it cannot but be a shock\nto all those high-minded thinkers who have committed themselves\nunreservedly to the view that personal sanctity and elevation of\ncharacter in the artist is an essential condition for the production of\nany great work of art, and especially of religious art. As regards the\nfact, we need not concern ourselves very long. If Rio and others,\npresumably biassed by the same theory, are inclined to see Lippi's moral\ndepravity betrayed in every stroke of his brush, yet the more general\nand truer verdict accords him a place among the great masters of his\nage, albeit beneath Angelico and some others. Beyond all doubt it must\nbe allowed that even in point of spirituality and heavenliness of\nexpression, he stands high above numbers of artists of pure life and\nblameless reputation; and this fact leaves us face to face with the\nproblem already suggested as to the precise connection between high\nmorality and high art--if any.\n\nPlainly a good man need not be a good artist. Must a good artist be a\ngood man? I suppose from a vague feeling in certain minds that it ought\nto be so, there rises a belief that it must be so, and that it is so;\nand from this belief a disposition to see that it is so, and to read\nfacts accordingly. Prominent among the advocates of this view is Mr.\nRuskin in his treatment of the relation of morality to art. He holds\n\"that the basis of art is moral; that art cannot be merely pleasant or\nunpleasant, but must be lawful or unlawful, that every legitimate\nartistic enjoyment is due to the perception of moral propriety, that\nevery artistic excellence is a moral virtue, every artistic fault is a\nmoral vice; that noble art can spring only from noble feeling, that the\nwhole system of the beautiful is a system of moral emotions, moral\nselections, and moral appreciation; and that the aim and end of art is\nthe expression of man's obedience to God's will, and of his recognition\nof God's goodness.\" [1]\n\nBut a man who can characterize a vulgar pattern as immoral, plainly uses\nthe term \"morality\" in some transcendental, non-natural sense, and\ntherefore cannot be regarded as an exponent of the precise theory\nreferred to. Still, as this larger idea of morality includes the lesser\nand more restricted, we may consider Mr. Ruskin and his disciples among\nthose to whom the case of Lippo Lippi and many another presents a\ndistinct difficulty. \"Many another,\" for the principle ought to extend\nto every branch of fine art; and we should be prepared to maintain that\nthere never has been, or could have been, a truly great musician, or\nsculptor, or poet, who was not also a truly good man. In a way the\nposition is defensible enough; for one can, in every contrary instance,\npatch up the artist's character or else pick holes in his work. Who is\nto settle what is a truly great work or a truly good man. But a position\nmay be quite defensible, yet obviously untrue. Again, if by great art we\nmean that which is subordinated to some great and good purpose, we are\ncharacterizing it by a goodness which is extrinsic to it, and is not the\ngoodness of art itself, as such. If the end of fine art is to teach,\nthen its goodness must be estimated by the matter and manner of its\nteaching, and a \"moral pocket-handkerchief\" must take precedence of many\na Turner. Yet it would even then remain questionable whether a good and\ngreat moral teacher is necessarily a good man. In truth, a good man is\none who obeys his conscience, and whose conscience guides him right. If,\nin defect of the latter condition, we allow that a man is good or\nwell-meaning, it is because we suppose that his conscience is erroneous\ninculpably, and that he is faithful to right order as far as he\nunderstands it. But one who sees right and wills wrong is in no sense\ngood, but altogether bad. Allowing that for the solution of some\ndelicate moral problems a certain height of tone and keenness of insight\ninseparable from habitual conscientiousness is necessary, yet mere\nintellectual acumen, in the absence of any notably biassing influence,\nsuffices to give us as great a teacher as Aristotle, who, if exonerated\nfrom graver charges, offers no example of astonishing elevation of heart\nat all proportioned to the profundity of his genius. We do not deny that\nin the case of free assent to beliefs fraught with grave practical\nconsequences, the moral condition of the subject has much to do with the\njudgments of the intellect. But first principles and their logical\nissues belong to the domain of necessary truth; while in other matters a\nteacher may accept current maxims and sentiments with which he has no\npersonal sympathy, and weave from all these a whole system of excellent\nand orthodox moral teaching. And if one may be a good moralist and a bad\nman, why _\u00e0 fortiori_ may one not be a good artist and a bad man? If\nvice does not necessarily dim the eye to ethical beauty, why should it\nblind it to aesthetic beauty? In order to get at a solution we must fix\nsomewhat more definitely the notion of fine art and its scope.\n\nI think it is in a child's book called _The Back of the North Wind_,\nthat a poet is somewhat happily and simply defined as a person who is\nglad about something and wants to make other people glad about it too.\nYet mature reflection shows two flaws in this definition. First of all,\nthe theme of poetry, or any other fine art, need not always be gladsome,\nbut can appeal to some other strong emotion, provided it be high and\nnoble. The tragedian is one who is thrilled with awe and sorrow, and\nstrives to excite a like thrill in others. Again, though the craving for\nsympathy hardly ever fails to follow close on the experience of deep\nfeeling; and though, as we shall presently see, fine art is but an\nextension of language whose chief end is intercommunion of ideas, yet\nthis altruist end of fine art is not of its essence, but of its\nsuperabundance and overflow. Expression for expression's sake is a\nnecessity of man's spiritual nature, in solitude no less than in\nsociety. To speak, to give utterance to the truth that he sees, and to\nthe strong emotions that stir within his heart, is that highest\nenergizing in which man finds his natural perfection and his rest. His\nsoul is burdened and in labour until it has brought forth and expressed\nto its complete satisfaction the word conceived within it. Nor is it\nonly within the mind that he so utters himself in secret self-communing;\nfor he is not a disembodied intelligence, but one clothed with body and\nsenses and imagination. His medium of expression is not merely the\nspiritual substance of the mind, but his whole complex being. Nor has he\nuttered his \"word\" to his full satisfaction till it has passed from his\nintellect into his imagination, and thence to his lips, his voice, his\nfeatures, his gesture. And when the mind is more vigorous and the\npassion for utterance more intense, he will not be at rest while there\nis any other medium in which he can embody his conception, be it stone,\nor metal, or line, or colour, or sound, or measure, or imagery, which\nunder his skilled hand can be made to shadow out his hidden thought and\nemotion. We cannot hold with Max M\u00fcller and others, who make thought\ndependent and consequent on language.\n\nFor it is evident, on a moment's introspection, that thought makes\nlanguage for itself to live in, just as a snail makes its own shell or a\nsoul makes its own body. Who has not felt the anguish of not being able\nto find a word to hit off his thought exactly?--which surely means that\nthe thought was already there unclothed, awaiting its embodiment. As the\nsoul disembodied is not man, so thought not clothed in language is not\nperfect human thought. Its essence is saved, but not its substantial, or\nat least its desirable, completeness. A man thinks more fully, more\nhumanly, who thinks not with his mind alone, but with his imagination,\nhis voice, his tongue, his pen, his pencil. If, therefore, solitary\ncontemplative thought is a legitimate end in itself; if it is that\n_ludus_, or play of the soul, which is the highest occupation of man, a\nshare in the same honour must be allowed to its accompanying embodiment;\nto the music which delights no ear but the performer's; to poetry, to\npainting, to sculpture done for the joy of doing, and without reference\nto the good of others communicating in that joy. And if the Divine\nArtist, whose lavish hand fills everything with goodness; who pours out\nthe treasures of His love and wisdom in every corner of our universe; of\nwhose greatness man knows not an appreciable fraction; who \"does all\nthings well\" for the very love of doing and of doing well; who utters\nHimself for the sake of uttering, not only in His eternal, co-equal,\nall-expressive Word, but also in the broken, stammering accents of a\nmyriad finite words or manifestations--if this Divine Artist teaches us\nanything, it is that man, singly or collectively, is divinest when he\nfinds rest and joy in utterance for its own sake, in \"telling the glory\nof God and showing forth His handiwork,\" or, as Catholic doctrine puts\nit, in praise; for praise is the utterance of love, and love is joy in\nthe truth.\n\nAs most of the useful arts perfect man's executive faculties, and thus\nare said to improve upon, while in a certain sense they imitate nature;\nso the fine arts extend and exalt man's faculty of expression, or\nself-utterance, regarded not precisely as useful and _propter aliud_;\nbut as pleasurable and _propter se_. Even the most uncultivated savage\nfinds pleasure in some discordant utterance of his subjective frame of\nmind; and it is really hard to find any tribe so degraded as to show no\nrudiment of fine art, no sign of reflex pleasure in expression, and of\ninventiveness in extending the resources nature has provided us with for\nthat end.\n\nThe artist as such aims at self-expression for its own sake. It is a\nnecessity of his nature, an outpouring of pent-up feeling, as much as is\nthe song of the lark. Of course we are speaking of the true creative\nartist, and not of the laborious copyist. If he subordinates his work as\na means to some further end; if his aim is morality or immorality, truth\nor error, pleasure or pain; if it is anything else than the embodiment\nor utterance of his own soul, so far he is acting riot as an artist, but\nas a minister of morality, or truth, or pleasure, or their contraries.\nIf we keep this idea steadily in view, we can see how much truth, or how\nlittle, is contained in the various theories of fine art which have been\nadvanced from the earliest times. We can see how truly art is a [Greek:\nmimaesis] an imitating of realities; not that art-objects are, as Plato\nsupposes, faint and defective representations, vicegerent species of the\nexternal world, whose beauty is but the transfer and dim reflection of\nthe beauty of nature. Were it so, then the mirror, or the camera, were\nthe best of all artists. As expression, fine art is the imitation of the\nsoul within; of outward realities as received into the mind and heart of\nthe artist, in their ideal and emotional setting. The artist gives word\nor expression to what he sees; but what he sees is within him. His work\nis self-expression. We can from this infer where to look for a solution\nof the controversy between idealism and realism. We can also see how,\nowing to the essential disproportion between the material and sensible\nmedia of expression which art uses, and the immaterial and spiritual\nrealities it would body forth, its utterances must always be symbolic,\nnever literal. We can see how needlessly they embarrass themselves who\ndeny the name of fine art to any work whose theme is not beautiful, or\nwhich is not morally didactic. Finally, we can see that if fine art be\nbut an extension of language, there can be no immediate connection\nbetween art as art, and general moral character; no more reason for\nsupposing that skilful and beautiful self-utterance is incompatible with\nimmorality, than that its absence is incompatible with sanctity.\n\nYet, as a matter of fact, and rightly, we judge of art not merely as\nart, or as expression; but we look to that which is expressed, to the\ninner soul which is revealed to us, to the \"matter\" as well as to the\n\"form.\" And it maybe questioned whether our estimate of a work is not\nrather determined in most cases by this non-artistic consideration.\nObviously it is possible in our estimate of a landscape, to be drawn\naway from the artistic to the real beauty; from its merits as a \"word,\"\nor expression, to the merits of the thing signified. And still more\nnaturally is our admiration drawn from the artist's self-utterance, to\nthe self which he endeavours to utter, and we are brought into sympathy\nwith his thought and feeling. Much of the fascination exercised over us\nby art, which precisely as art is rude and imperfect in many ways, is to\nbe ascribed to this source. Though here we must remember that the soul\nis often more truly and artistically betrayed by the simple lispings of\nchildhood than by the ornate and finished eloquence of a rhetorician.\n\nIt is in regard to the matter expressed, rather than to the mode of\nexpression, that we have a right to look for a difference between such\nmen as Lippo Lippi and Fra Angelico. According to a man's inner tone and\ntemperament and character, will be the impression produced upon him by\nthe objects of his contemplation. These will determine him largely in\nthe choice of his themes, and in the aspect under which he will treat\nthem. Obviously in many cases there are noble themes of art for whose\nappreciation no particular delicacy of moral or religious taste is\nrequired. There is no reason why such a subject as the Laocoon should\nmake a different impression on a saint and on a profligate. It appeals\nto the tragic sense, which may be as highly developed in one as in the\nother. But if the Annunciation be the theme, we can well understand how\ndifferently it will impress a man of lively and cultured faith, a\ncontemplative and mystic, with an appreciative and effective love of\nreverence and purity; and another whose faith is a formula, whose life\nis impure, frivolous, worldly. Why then is there not a more distinctly\nmarked inferiority in the religious art of Lippi to that of Angelico?\nWhy does it look \"almost as pure,\" and \"often quite as lovely\"? Two very\nclear reasons offer themselves in reply. First of all, the art of such a\nman as Angelico falls far more hopelessly short of his ideal. Most of\nthe beauties which such a soul would find in the contemplation of Mary,\nor of Gabriel, are spiritual, moral, non-\u00e6sthetic, and can embody\nthemselves in form and feature only most imperfectly. Given equal skill\nin expression, equal command of words, one man can say all that he\nfeels, and more, while another is tortured with a sense of much more to\nbe uttered, were it not unutterable. Perhaps it is in some hint of this\nhidden wealth of unuttered meaning that skilled eyes find in Angelico\nwhat they can never find in Lippi. A second reason might be found in the\nexternal influence exerted on the artist by society, its requirements,\nfashions, and conventions. It is plain that Lippi, left to himself,\nwould never have chosen religious themes as such: it is equally plain,\nthat having chosen them, he would naturally try to emulate and eclipse\nwhat was most admired in the great works of his predecessors and\ncontemporaries. It would need little more than a familiar acquaintance\nwith the great models, together with the artist's discriminating\nobservance, for a man of Lippi's talent to catch those lines and shades\nof form and feature which hint at, rather than express, the inward\npurity, the reverence, the gentleness, with which he himself was so\nlittle in sympathy.\n\nNo doubt, were two such men equally skilled in all the arts of\nexpression, in language, in verse, in song and music, in sculpture and\npainting, and acting, their general treatment of religious themes would\nbe more glaringly different; but within the comparatively narrow limits\nof painting, we cannot reasonably expect more than we actually find.\n\nThe saint, as such, and the artist, as such, are occupied with different\nfacets of the world; the former with its moral, the latter with its\n\u00e6sthetic beauty. Even were the artist formally to recognize that all the\nbeauty in nature is but the created utterance of the Divine thought and\nlove, and that the real, though unknown, term of his abstraction is not\nthe impersonal symbol, but the person symbolized; yet it is not enough\nfor sanctity or morality to be attracted to God viewed simply as the\narchetype of \u00e6sthetic beauty. On the other hand, one may be drawn,\nthrough the love of moral beauty in creatures, of justice, and mercy,\nand liberality, and truthfulness, to the love of God as their archetype,\nand yet be perfectly obtuse to \u00e6sthetic beauty; and thus again we see\nthat high \u00e6stheticism is compatible with low morality, and conversely.\nDoubtless when produced to infinity, all perfections are seen to\nconverge and unite in God, but short of this, they retain their\ndistinctness and opposition. At the same time, it cannot for a moment be\ndenied that keenness of moral, and of \u00e6sthetic perception, act and react\nupon one another. He gains much morally whose eyes are opened to the\ninnumerable traces of the Divine beauty with which he is surrounded, and\nthere are \u00e6sthetic joys which are necessarily unknown to a soul which is\nselfish and gross--still more to a soul from which the glories of\nrevealed religion are hidden, either through unbelief or sluggish\nindifference. Yet, on the whole, it may be said that sanctity is\nbenefited by art more than art is by sanctity, especially where we deal\nwith so limited a medium of expression as painting. And so it seems to\nus that, after all, there is nothing to surprise or pain us in the fact\nthat \"the art of a Fra Filippo, the loose fish, looks almost as pure,\nand is often quite as lovely as that of Fra Giovanni Angelico of\nFiesoli.\"\n\n_Dec._ 1896.\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Vernon Lee, _Belcaro_.]\n\n\n\nXVIII.\n\n\nTHROUGH ART TO FAITH.\n\nThere are few books more difficult to estimate than those in which M.\nHuysman sets forth the story of a conversion generally supposed to bear\nno very distant resemblance to his own. It would be easy to find\nexcellent reasons for a somewhat sweeping condemnation of his work, and\nothers as excellent for a most cordial approval; and, indeed, we find\ncritics more than usually at variance with one another in its regard. To\nbe judged justly, these books must be judged slowly. The source of\nperplexity is to be found in the fact that the author, who has recently\npassed from negation to Catholicism, carries with him the language, the\nmodes of thought, the taste and temper of the literary school of which\nhe was, and, in so many of his sympathies, is still a pupil, a school\nwhich regards M. Zola as one of its leading lights. _En Route_, and its\nsequels, portray in the colours of realism, in the language of\ndecadence, the conversion of a realist, nay, of a decadent, to mysticism\nand faith. \"The voice indeed is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are\nthe hands of Esau,\" and according as the critic centres his attention\ntoo exclusively on one or the other, such will his judgment be.\n\nThat his works have commanded attention, and awakened keen interest\namong members of the most varying and opposite schools of thought, is an\nundeniable fact which at all events proves them to be worth careful\nconsideration.\n\nThe story of a soul's passage from darkness to light, of its wanderings,\nvacillations, doubts, and temptations, must necessarily exercise a\nstrong fascination over all minds of a reflective cast: \"The development\nof a soul!\" says Browning, \"little else is worth study. I always thought\nso; you, with many known and unknown to me, think so; others may one day\nthink so.\" [1] It is from this attraction of soul to soul that the\n_Pilgrim's Progress_, together with many kindred works, derives its\nspell; and indeed it is to this that all that is best and greatest in\nart owes its power and immortal interest. Here, however, is one reason\nwhy _The Cathedral_ [2] can never be so attractive as _En Route_,\nministering as it does but little to that deepest and most insatiable\ncuriosity concerning the soul and its sorrows. It portrays but little\nperceptible movement, little in the way of violent revulsion and\nconflict; the spiritual growth which it registers is mostly underground,\na strengthening and spreading of the roots. It deals with a period of\nquiet healing and convalescence after a severe surgical operation; with\nthe \"illuminative\" stage of conversion--for there is scarcely any doubt\nthat the three volumes correspond to the \"purgative,\" \"illuminative,\"\nand \"unitive\" ways respectively.\n\nBetween pulling down and building up--both sensational processes,\nespecially the former--there intervenes a sober time of planning and\nsurveying, a quiet taking of information before entering on a new\ncampaign of action. When the affections have been painfully and\nviolently uprooted from earth, then first is the mind sufficiently free\nfrom the bias of passion and base attachments to be instructed and\nilluminated with profit in the things concerning its peace, and to be\nprepared for the replanting of the affections in the soil of Heaven. The\narid desert, with its seemingly aimless wanderings, intervenes between\nthe exodus from Egypt and the entrance into the Land of Promise.\n\nDealing with this stage of the process of conversion, _The Cathedral_ is\ncomparatively monotonous and barren of spiritual incident. What removes\nit still further from all chances of anything like popularity in this\ncountry is the extent to which it is occupied with matters of purely\narch\u00e6ological and artistic interest, and more especially with the\nmystical symbolism of the middle ages as chronicled in every detail of\nthe great Cathedral of Chartres. Little as may be the enthusiasm for\nsuch lore in France, it is far less in England, where the people have\nfor three centuries been out of all touch with the Catholic Church, and\ntherefore with whatever modicum of medi\u00e6valism she still preserves as\npart of her heritage from the past. Architecturally we appreciate our\ndismantled cathedrals to some extent, but their symbolism is far less\nunderstood than even the language and theology of the schools, while the\nstudy of it meets as much sympathy as would the study of heraldry in a\nmodern democracy. Yet we may say that the bulk of the book consists of\nan inventory of every symbolic detail in architecture, in sculpture, in\npainting, in glass-colouring, to be found at Chartres; to which is added\na careful elaboration of the symbolism of beasts, flowers, colours,\nperfumes, all very dreary reading for the uninitiated, and to be\ncriticized only by the expert.\n\nLittle scope as the plan of the book offers for any variety or display\nof character, being mainly occupied with erudite monologue, put\nsometimes into the mouth of Durtal, sometimes into that of the Abb\u00e9\nPlomb, yet the personalities of these two, as well as those of G\u00e9versin,\nMadame Bavoil, and Madame Mesurat, stand out very vividly, and make us\nwish for that fuller acquaintance with them which a little more movement\nand incident would have afforded.\n\nBut what will give most offence, and tend to alienate a certain amount\nof intelligent and valuable sympathy, is the violence, and even the\ncoarseness, with which the author, or at least his hero, handles, not\nonly the opinions, but the very persons of those from whom he differs;\nthe intemperance of his invective, the narrow intolerance and absolute\nself-confidence with which he sits in judgment on men and things.\n\nAs a matter of fact, this is rather a defect of style and expression\nthan of the inner sentiment. It is part and parcel of the realist temper\nto blurt out the thought in all the clothing or nakedness with which it\nfirst surges up into consciousness, before it has been submitted to the\ncensorship of reason; in a word, to do its thinking aloud, or on paper;\nto give utterance not to the tempered and mature judgment--the last\nresult of refinement and correction, but to display the whole process\nand working by which it was reached. As it is part of M. Zola's art to\nlinger lovingly over each little horror of some slaughter-house scene,\nuntil the whole lives for us again as in a cinematograph, so M. Huysman,\nengaged in the portrayal of a spiritual conflict, spares us no link in\nthe chain of causes by which the final result is produced; he bares the\nbrain, and exposes its workings with all the scientific calmness of the\nvivisector.\n\nWhether we like or dislike this realism, we must allow for it in forming\nour judgment on these volumes, nor must we treat as final and approved\nopinions what are often the mere spontaneous suggestions and first\nthoughts of the mind, the oscillations through which it settles down to\nrest. Over and over again we shall find that Durtal subsequently raises\nthe very objection to his own view that was on our lips at the first\nreading of it.\n\nBut even making such allowance, it none the less remains a matter of\nregret that one who, with perhaps some justice, considers that in point\nof art-appreciation \"the Catholic public is still a hundred feet beneath\nthe profane public,\" and chides them for \"their incurable lack of\nartistic sense,\" who speaks of \"the frightful appetite for the hideous\nwhich disgraces the Church of our day,\" who himself in many ways, in a\nhundred passages of sublime thought, of tender piety, of lyrical poesy,\nhas proved beyond all cavil his delicacy of sentiment, his exquisite\nniceness in matters of taste, his reverence for what is chaste and\nbeautiful, should at times be so deplorably unfaithful to his better\ninstincts, so forgetful of the close and inseparable alliance between\nrestraint and elegance. What can be weaker or uglier, more unbecoming an\nartist, more becoming a fish-wife, than his description of Lochner's\npicture of the Virgin: \"The neck of a heifer, and flesh like cream or\nhasty-pudding, that quivers when it is touched;\" or of the picture of\nSt. Ursula's companions, by the same hand: \"Their squab noses poking out\nof bladders of lard that did duty for their faces;\" not to speak of the\ncharacterization of a \"Sacred Heart\" too revolting to reproduce? Surely\nwhen, after having reviled M. Tissot almost personally, he describes his\nworks as painted with \"muck, wine-sauce, and mud,\" it is difficult not\nto answer with a _tu quoque_ as far as this word-painting is\nconcerned--difficult not to see here some morbid and \"frightful appetite\nfor the hideous\" struggling with the healthy appetite for better things.\n\nHowever lame and ridiculous an artist's utterance may be, yet there is a\ncertain reverence sometimes due to what he is endeavouring to say, and\neven to his desire to say it. We do not think it very witty or tasteful\nor charitable to laugh at a man because he stammers; still less do we\noverwhelm him with the coarsest abuse. One may well shudder at most\npresentments of the Sacred Heart, but even apart from all consideration\nfor the artist, a certain reverence for the idea there travestied and\nunintentionally dishonoured, should forbid our insulting what after all\nis so nearly related to that idea, and in the eyes of the untaught very\nclosely identified with it.\n\nBut an occasional trespass of this kind, however offensive, is not\nenough to detract materially from the value of so much that is\nmeritorious; nor again will that outspoken treatment of delicate topics\n(less observable in _The Cathedral_ than in _En Route_), which makes the\nbook undesirable for many classes of readers, prevent its due\nappreciation on the part of others--unless we are going to put the\nSacred Scriptures on the Index. In this vexed question, M. Huysman takes\nwhat seems the more robust and healthy view, but he appears to be quite\nunaware how many difficulties it involves; and consequently lashes out\nwith his usual intemperance against the contrary tradition, which is\nundeniably well represented. It is not as though the advocates of the\n\"flight\" policy in regard to temptations against this particular virtue\nwere ignorant of the general principle which undoubtedly holds as\nregards all other temptations, and bids us turn and face the dog that\nbarks at our heels. This counsel is as old as the world. But from the\nearliest time a special exception has been made to it in the one case of\nimpurity by those who have professedly spoken in the light of experience\nrather than of _\u00e0 priori_ inference. Both views are encompassed with\ndifficulty, nor does any compromise suggest itself.\n\nWhat seems to us one of the most interesting points raised by the story\nof Durtal's spiritual re-birth and development is the precise relation\nbetween the Catholic religion and fine art.\n\nGod has not chosen to save men by logic; so neither has He chosen to\nsave them by fine art. If the \"election\" of the Apostolic Church counted\nbut few scribes or philosophers among its members--and those few\nadmitted almost on sufferance--we may also be sure that the followers of\nthe Galilean fishermen were not as a body distinguished by a fastidious\ncriticism in matters of fine art. In after ages, when the Church\nasserted herself and moulded a civilization more or less in accordance\nwith her own exigencies and ideals, it is notorious how she made\nphilosophy and art her own, and subjected them to her service; but\nwhether in so doing she in any way departed from the principles of\nApostolic times is what interests us to understand.\n\nThere is certainty no more unpardonable fallacy than that of \"Bible\nChristians,\" who assume that the Church in the Apostolic age had reached\nits full expansion and expression, and therefore in respect of polity,\nliturgy, doctrinal statement and discipline must be regarded as an\nimmutable type for all ages and countries; from which all departure is\nnecessarily a corruption. They take the flexible sapling and compare it\nwith aged knotty oak, and shake their heads over the lamentable\nunlikeness: \"That this should be the natural outgrowth of that! _O\ntempora, O mores!_\"\n\nLike every organism, in its beginning, the Church was soft-bodied and\nformless in all these respects; but she had within her the power of\nfashioning to herself a framework suited to her needs, of assuming\nconsistency and definite shape in due time. The old bottles would not\nserve to hold the new wine, but this did not mean that new bottles were\nnot to be sought. Because the philosophy, the art, the polity of the age\nin which she was born were already enlisted in the service of other\nideas and inextricably associated with error in the minds of men, it was\nneedful for her at first to dissociate herself absolutely from the use\nof instruments otherwise adaptable in many respects to her own ends, and\nto wait till she was strong enough to alter them and use them without\nfear of scandal and misinterpretation.\n\nThe Church is many-tongued; but though she can deliver her message in\nany language, yet she is not for that reason independent of language in\ngeneral. There is no way to the human ear and heart but through language\nof some kind or another. It is not her mission to teach languages, but\nto use the languages she finds to hand for the expression of the truths,\nthe facts, the concrete realities to which her dogmas point. This does\nnot deny that one language may not be more flexible, more graphic than\nany other, more apt to express the facts of Heaven as well as those of\nearth. It only denies that any one is absolutely and exclusively the\nbest.\n\nIt is no very great violence to include rhetoric, music, painting,\nsculpture, architecture, ritual, and every form of decorative art in the\ncategory of language and to bring them under the same general laws,\nsince even philosophy may to a large extent be treated in the same way.\nChrist has not commissioned His Church to teach science or philosophy,\nnor has He given her an infallible _magisterium_ in matters of fine art.\nShe uses what she finds in use and endeavours with the imperfect\nimplements, the limited colours, the coarse materials at her disposal to\nmake the picture of Christ and His truth stand out as faithful to\nreality as possible; and--to press the illustration somewhat crudely--as\nwhat is rightly black, in a study in black and white, may be quite\nwrongly black in polychrome; so what the Church approves according to\none convention, she may condemn according to another. May we not apply\nto her what Durtal says of our Lady: \"She seems to have come under the\nsemblance of every race known to the middle ages; black as an African,\ntawny as a Mongolian;\"--\"she unveils herself to the children of the soil\n... these beings with their rough-hewn feelings, their shapeless ideas,\nhardly able to express themselves\"? The more we study the visions and\napparitions with which saints have been favoured and the revelations\nwhich have been vouchsafed to them, the more evident is it that they are\nspoken to in their own language, appealed to through their own imagery.\nIndeed, were it not so, how could they understand? Our Lady is the\nall-beautiful for every nation, but the type of human beauty is not the\nsame for all. The Madonna of the Ethiopian might be a rather terrifying\napparition in France or Italy.\n\nThere is no art too rough or primitive, or even too vulgar, for the\nChurch to disdain, if it offers the only medium of conveying her truth\nto certain minds. Though custom has made it classical, her liturgical\nlanguage, whether Latin or Greek, when first assumed, was that of the\nmob--about as elegant as we consider the dialects of the peasantry. She\ndid not use plain-chaunt for any of those reasons which antiquarians and\necclesiologists urge in its favour now-a-days, but because it was the\nonly music then in vogue. Even to-day the breeziest popular melodies in\nthe East are suggestive of the _Oratio Jeremi\u00e6_. Her vestments (even\nGothic vestments!) were once simply the \"Sunday best\" of the fashion of\nthose days. If to-day these things have a different value and\nexcellence, it is in obedience to the law by which what is \"romantic\" in\none age becomes \"classical\" in the next, or what is at first useful and\ncommonplace becomes at last ceremonial and symbolic; and by which the\ncommon tongue of the vulgar comes by mere process of time to be archaic\nand stately. To \"create\" ancient custom and ritual on a sudden, or to\nresuscitate abruptly that which has lapsed into oblivion, is, to say the\nleast, a very Western idea, akin to the pedantry of trying to restore\nChaucer's English to common use. _Nascitur non fit_, is the law in all\nsuch matters.\n\nWhile we assert the Church's independence of any one in particular of\nthese means of self-expression, her indifference to style and mode of\nspeech so long as substantial fidelity is secured, we must not deny that\nsome of them are, of their own nature, more apt to her purpose than\nothers and allow a fuller revelation of her sense; and that in\nproportion as her influence is strong in the world she tends to modify\nhuman thought and language, to leaven philosophy and fine art, so as to\nform by a process of selection and refusal, and in some measure even to\ncreate, an ever richer and more flexible medium of utterance.\n\nIn this sense we can with some caution speak of \"Catholic art\" in music,\narchitecture, and painting, so far, that is, as we can determine the\nextent and nature of the Church's action, and therefore the tendency of\nher influence in the way of stimulus and restraint with regard to\nsubject and treatment. We do not unjustly discern an author's style as a\npersonal element distinct from the language and phraseology of which no\nitem is his own. The manner in which he uses that language, his\nselections and refusals make, in union with the borrowed elements, a\ntongue that may be called his, in an exclusive sense. The Church, too,\nhas her style, which, though difficult to discern amid her use of a\nPentecostal variety of languages, is no doubt always the same--at least\nin tendency.\n\nSalvation-Army worship is certainly not of the Church's style, but I do\nnot think, were there no absolute irreverence and scandal to be feared,\nthat she would hesitate to use such a language, were it the only one\nunderstood by such a people. St. Francis Xavier's \"catechisms\" were\noften hardly less uncouth. Still, her whole tendency would be towards\nrestraint, order, and exterior reverence. Again, the stoical coldness\nand formalism of a liturgical worship, centered round no soul-stirring\nmystery of Divine love where there can be feeling so strong as to need\nthe restraint of liturgy and ritual, has still less of the Church's\nstyle about it. For she is human, not merely in her reason and\nself-restraint, but in the fulness of her passion and enthusiasm; and\nrestraint is only beautiful and needful where there is something to\nrestrain.\n\nWe are now in a position to consider the surface objection that will\npresent itself to many a reader concerning Durtal's conversion. \"He has\nbeen converted,\" it will be said, \"by a fallacy. He has identified the\nCatholic religion with the cause of plain-chaunt and Gothic\narchitecture, and of all that is, or that he considers to be, best in\nart. He has laid hold not of Catholicism, but of its merest accessories,\nwhich it might shake off any day, and him along with them. Indeed, he\nscarcely makes any pretence at being in sympathy with the Catholicism of\nto-day, which he regards as almost entirely philistine and degenerate,\nif we except La Trappe and Solesmes and a few other corners where the\nold observances linger on. 'It was so ugly, so painfully adorned with\nimages, that only by shutting his eyes could Durtal endure to remain in\nNotre Dame de la Br\u00e8che.' Yes, but what sort of convert is this who is\nso insensible to substantials, so morbidly sensitive about mere\naccidentals? We come to the Church for the true faith and the\nsacraments, not for 'sensations.' In fine, Durtal has not observed the\nroute prescribed by the apologetics for reaching the door of the\nsheep-fold, but has climbed over in his own way, like a thief and a\nrobber; he has not (as a recent critic says of him) _tomb\u00e9 entre les\nbras maternals de l'Eglise selon toutes les r\u00e9gles_.\"\n\nWithout for a moment denying one of the legitimate claims of scientific\napologetic, we may at once dismiss the idea that it pretends to\nrepresent a process through which the mind of the convert to\nChristianity either does or ought necessarily to pass. Its sole purport\nis to show that if it is not always possible to synthetize Christianity\nwith the current philosophy, science, and history of the day, at least\nno want of harmony can be positively demonstrated. As secular beliefs\nand opinions are continually shifting, so too apologetic needs continual\nadjustment: and as that of a century back is useless to us now, so will\nours be in many ways inadequate a century hence. It is fitting for the\nChurch at large that she should in each age and country have a suitable\napologetic, taking cognizance of the latest developments of profane\nknowledge. It is needful for her public honour in the eyes of the world\nthat she should not seem to be in contradiction with truth, but that\neither the apparent truth should be proved questionable, or else that\nher own teaching should be shown to be compatible with it. But in no\nsense is such apologetic always a necessity for the individual, still\nless a safe or adequate basis for a solid conversion, which in that case\nwould be shaken by every new difficulty unthought of before.\n\nOur subjective faith in the Church must be like the faith of the\ndisciples of Christ, an entirely personal relation; an act of implicit\ntrust based on no lean argument or chain of reasoning, but on the\nirresistible spell, the overmastering impression created upon us by a\ncharacter manifested in life, action, speech, even in manner; as\nimpossible to state in its entirety and as impossible to doubt as are\nour reasons for loving or loathing, for trusting or fearing.\n\nNo doubt we hear of men of intellect and learning \"reading\" or\n\"reasoning\" themselves into the Church; but others as able have read and\nreasoned along the same line, and yet have not come; for in truth,\nreason at the most can set free a force of attraction created by motives\nother than reason.\n\nWhat this attraction is in each case is impossible to specify\naccurately--\"Ask me and I know not,\" one might say, \"do not ask me and I\nknow.\" Each soul is hooked with its own bait, called by its own name,\ndrawn in its own way; and as the attractiveness of Christ is virtually\ninfinite in its multiformity, so is that of His Church, nor is there a\nmore unpardonable narrowness than that of insisting that others shall be\ndrawn in the same way as we ourselves, or not at all.\n\nLet it also be noticed that a very prolonged and minute intimacy is not\nalways necessary in order that we should feel the spell of personality.\nMuch depends on our own gifts of sympathy, insight and apprehension, on\nthe simplicity and strength of the personality in question, on the\nnature of the incidents by which it is disclosed to us. We know one man\nin a moment, another only after years of intimacy, while others in\nregard to the same individuals might experience the converse. We must\nnot then suppose that because in one case the impression is the result\nof slowly-accumulated observations, and in another the work of an\ninstant, it is less trustworthy in the latter instance than in the\nformer. It may be, or it may not be. St. Augustine needed years to feel\nthe spell that one word, nay, one glance from Christ cast upon St.\nPeter. Nor again is it always in some striking and notable crisis that a\ncharacter reveals itself abruptly, but often in the merest nuance--a\nmanner, an intonation, something quite unintentional, unpremeditated. We\nknow well, if we know ourselves at all, how irresistible is the\nimpression created on us at times by such trifles, and yet how more than\nreasonable it often is.\n\nWho shall say, then, that to an eye and heart attuned to quick sympathy,\nany indication is too small to betray the inward spirit and character of\nthe Catholic Church, or to magnetize a soul and render it restless,\nuntil it obeys her attraction and rests in union with her?\n\nTo a sensitively artistic temperament such as Durtal's, the indications\nof the Church's \"style,\" revealed in her influence upon art, in her\ncreations, in her selections and refusals, would be eloquent of her\nwhole character and ethos; it would be to him what the very tone of\nChrist's voice was to the Baptist, or what His glance was to Peter, or\nwhat His silence was to Pilate. We have known too many instances of\ndeep-seated and entire conviction, based on seemingly as little or less,\nto wish for one moment to indulge in any foolish rationalizing or to\nquestion the possibility or probability of God's drawing souls to\nHimself by such methods.\n\nWe must, however, remember that it is not merely by the Church's\nmedi\u00e6val art that Durtal is attracted, but still more by that mysticism\nwhich created it, and by which it was served and fostered in return.\nMysticism must necessarily excite the sympathy of one who is in devout\npursuit of the highest and most spiritual forms of \u00e6sthetic beauty.\nWhatever be the long-sought and never-to-be-forgotten definition of the\nBeautiful, of this much at least a mere process of induction will assure\nus, that men count things beautiful in the measure that they are\nreleased from the grossness, formlessness, and heaviness of matter, and\nby their delicacy, shapeliness, and unearthliness, betray the influence\nof that principle which is everywhere in conflict with matter and is\ncalled spirit. Man at his best is most at home, where at his worst he is\nleast at home, namely, in the world of those super-realities which are\ntouched and felt by the soul, but refuse to be pictured or spoken in the\nlanguage of the five senses. A hard, \"common-sense,\" labour-and-wages\nreligion, such as is consonant with the utilitarianism of a commercial\ncivilization, could never appeal to a temperament like Durtal's.\n\nDoubtless Catholic Christianity admits of being apprehended under the\nnarrower and grosser aspect, which however inadequate and unworthy, is\nnot absolutely false. The Jews were suffered to believe not merely that\nGod rewards the just and punishes the wicked--which is eternally\ntrue--but that He does so in this life, which is true only with\nqualification; and that He rewards them with temporal prosperity and\nadversity--which is hardly true at all. Catholic truth, in itself the\nsame, can only be received according to the recipient's capacity and\nsensitiveness. What one age or country is alive to, another may be dead\nto; nor can we pretend that here all is progress and no regress, unless\nwe are prepared to say that in no respect have we anything to learn from\nthe past. The Ignatian meditation on the \"Kingdom of Christ\" evoked\nheroic response in an age impregnated with the sentiments of chivalry,\nbut to-day it needs to be adapted to a great extent, and some have\nvainly hoped to gather grapes from a thistle by substituting a parable\ndrawn from some soul-stirring commercial enterprise--a colossal\nspeculation in cheese.\n\nWhatever signs there may be of a reaction, yet the whole temper and\nspirit of our age is unfavourable to that mysticism which is the very\nchoicest flower of the Catholic religion. The blame is not with the\nseed, but with the soil. Even where least of all we should look for such\nindifference, among those who have built up the sepulchres and shrines\nof the great masters of mysticism, we sometimes observe a profound\ndistrust for what is esteemed an unpractical, unhealthy kind of piety,\nwhile every preference is given to what is definite and tangible in the\nway of little methods and industries, multitudinous practices, lucrative\nprayers, in a word, to what a critic already quoted describes as _les\npetitesses des cerveaux \u00e9troits et les anguleuses routines_. [3]\n\nIt is one of the narrownesses of Durtal himself to ascribe all this to\nthe wilful perversity of a person or persons unknown, and not to see in\nit the inevitable result of the vulgarizing tendency of modern life upon\nthe masses. Things being as they are, surely it is better that the\nChurch should do the little she can than do nothing at all. The\n\"meditative mind\" is incompatible with the rush and worry of a busy\nlife, especially where educational methods substitute information for\nreflection, and so kill the habit, and eventually the faculty, of\nthought in so many cases. But if the higher prayer is impossible, the\nlower is possible and profitable. Again, if the liturgical sense has in\na great measure become extinct among the faithful owing to the\nunavoidable disuse of the public celebration of the Church's worship, it\nis well that they should be allowed devotions accommodated to their\nlimited capacity. As the Church would never dream of expecting a keen\nsympathy with her higher dogmas, her mystical piety, her artistic\nsymbolism, her transcendent liturgy, on the part of a newly-converted\ntribe of savages, so neither is she impatient with the civilized\nPhilistine, but is willing to speak to him in a language all his own,\nhoping indeed to tune his tongue one day to something less uncouth. None\ncan sympathize more cordially than the writer does with Durtal in his\nhorror of unauthorized devotions, of insufferable vernacular litanies,\nof nerveless and sickly hymns, of interminable \"acts of consecration\"\nvoid of a single definite idea, more especially when these things are\nbrought into the very sanctuary itself, with stole and cope and every\napparent endeavour to fix the responsibility on the Universal Church.\nBut if the Church is willing to go in rags to save those who are in\nrags, she is only using her invariable economy. We know well the sort of\nrobe that befits her dignity, and no doubt it is this contrast that\nmakes the trial of her present humiliation more difficult for us to\nbear.\n\nWe do not for a moment allow that the difference between bad taste and\ngood is merely relative, or that a language or art which is externally\nvulgar can ever be the adequate and appropriate expression of the\nCatholic religion, whose tendency when unimpeded is ever to refine and\npurify. But it is perhaps another narrowness to suppose that a reform\ncan only be effected by a return to the past, to medi\u00e6val symbolism and\nmusic and architecture. No effort of the kind has ever met with more\nthan seeming success. What is consciously imitated from the past is not\nthe same as that natural growth which it imitates, and which was as\ncongenial to those days as it is uncongenial to ours. It is all the\ndifference between the Mass ceremonial in a Ritualist church and in a\nCatholic church--the historical sense is violated in one case and\nsatisfied in the other.\n\nWhat is once really dead can never revive in the same form--at best we\nget a cast from the dead face. No doubt the old music and the old\nsymbolism always will have a beauty of antiquity that can never belong\nto the new; but it was not this beauty--the beauty of death, of autumn\nleaves, that made them once popular, but the beauty of fresh green life\nand flexibility. The effort to make antiquity popular is almost a\ncontradiction in terms. What we may hope for at most is an improvement\nin the \u00e6sthetic tastes of the Catholic public which comes from freer and\nhealthier surroundings, from saner ideas and wider opportunities of\neducation and liberal culture. When they begin to speak a richer\nlanguage, the Church will take that language and find in it a fuller\nexpression of her mind than she can in the present _patois_; she will be\nable again to say to them in other words, as yet unknown, what she said\nto the middle ages in Gregorian chaunt and Gothic cathedral. She, who in\nvirtue of her Pentecostal gift of tongues, speaks in sundry times and\ndivers manners, may in due season find words as eloquent of her heart\nand mind as those which she spoke to Durtal in the aisles of Chartres\nand in the cadences of Solesmes.\n\n_July_, 1898.\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Introduction to Sordello.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _The Cathedral_. By M.T.K. Huysman. Translated by\nClare Bell.]\n\n[Footnote 3: R. P. Pacher, S.J., _De Dante \u00e0 Verlaine_.]\n\n\n\nXIX.\n\n\nTRACTS FOR THE MILLION.\n\nThe paradoxes of one generation are the common-places of the next; what\nthe savants of to-day whisper in the ear, the Hyde Park orators of\nto-morrow will bawl from their platforms. Moreover, it is just when its\nlimits begin to be felt by the critical, when its pretended\nall-sufficingness can no longer be maintained, that a theory or\nhypothesis begins to be popular with the uncritical and to work its\nirrevocable ill-effects on the general mind. In this, as in many other\nmatters, the lower orders adopt the abandoned fashions of their betters,\nthough with less of the well-bred taste which sometimes in the latter\nmakes even absurdity graceful. In this way it has come to pass that at\nthe very moment in which a reaction against the irreligious or\nanti-religious philosophy of a couple of generations ago is making\nitself felt in the study, the spreading pestilence of negation and\nunbelief has gained and continues to gain possession of the street. Some\nfifty years ago religion and even Christianity, seemed to the sanguine\neyes of Catholics so firmly rooted in England that the recovery of the\ncountry to their faith depended almost entirely on the settlement of the\nAnglo-Roman controversy; to which controversy they accordingly devoted,\nand, in virtue of the still unexhausted impetus of that effort, do still\ndevote their energies, almost exclusively. But together with a dawning\nconsciousness that times and conditions have considerably changed, there\nis growing up in certain quarters a feeling that we too shall have to\nmake some modifications in order to adapt ourselves to the altered\ncircumstances. It is becoming increasingly evident that even could the\nsaid Anglo-Roman controversy be settled by some argument so irresistibly\nevident as to leave no _locus standi_ to the opponents of the Petrine\nclaims, yet the number of those Anglicans who admit the historical,\ncritical, philosophical, and theological assumptions upon which the\ncontroversy is based and which are presumed as common ground, is so\nsmall and dwindling that, were they all gained to the Church, we should\nbe still a \"feeble folk\" in the face of that tidal wave of unbelief\nwhose gathering force bids fair to sweep everything before it. Also the\nlingering impression left from \"Tractarian\" days as to the intellectual\npre-eminence of the Catholicizing party in the Anglican Church, which\npre-eminence might make amends for their numerical insignificance, is\ngradually giving way to the recognition of the sobering fact that at\npresent that party in no exclusive sense represents the cultivated\nintellect of the country. It is no disrespect to that party to say that\nwhile scholarship and intelligence are therein well represented by\nscattered individuals, yet it is cumbered, like most religious movements\nafter they have streamed some distance from their source, with a\nmajority of those whose adhesion has little or no pretence to an\nintellectual basis; and whose occasional accession to the Catholic\nChurch is almost entirely their own gain.\n\nTo give the last decisive push to those who are already toppling over\nthe border-line that divides England from Rome, to reap and gather-in\nthe harvest already ripe for the sickle, is a useful, a necessary, and a\ncharitable work; one that calls for a certain kind of patient skill not\nto be underestimated; but there is a wider and perhaps more fruitful\nfield whose soil is as yet scarcely broken. It may even be asserted with\nonly seeming paradox that the best religious intelligence of the country\nis to be found in the camp of negation rather than in that of\naffirmation; among Broad Churchmen, Nonconformists, Unitarians, and\nPositivists, rather than among those who seek rest in the unstable\nposition of a modified Catholicism. The very instability and difficulty\nof that position elicits much ingenuity from its theological defenders,\nthough it also divides their counsels not a little; nor do we quarrel\nwith them for affirming instead of denying, but for not affirming\nenough. But this attempt at compromise, this midway abortion of the\nnatural growth of an idea, even were it justifiable as sometimes happens\nwhen legitimate issues are obscured through failure of evidence, repels\nthe great multitude of religious thinkers who are not otherwise\nsufficiently drawn towards Catholicism to care to examine these claims.\nTo say that there is no logical alternative between Rome and Agnosticism\nis a sufficiently shallow though popular sophism. At most it means that\nfrom certain given premisses one or other of those conclusions must\nfollow syllogistically--a statement that would be more interesting were\nthe said premisses indisputable and admitted by all the world. Still it\nmay be allowed that a criticism of these premisses, which is a third\nalternative, opens up to religious thought a number of roads, all of\nwhich lead away from, rather than towards the extreme Anglican position,\nand hence that the more searching religious intelligence of the country\nis as adverse to that position--and for the same reasons--as it is to\nour own. And by the \"religious intelligence\" I mean all that\nintelligence that is interested in the religious problem; be that\ninterest hostile or friendly; be it, in its issue, negative or\nconstructive. For it must not be forgotten that the enemies of a truth\nare as interested in it as its friends; or that the friendliest\ninterest, the strongest \"wish to believe,\" may at times issue in\nreluctant negation. So far then as the great mass of religious\nintelligence in this country is not \"Anglo-Catholic\" in its sympathies;\nand so far as it is chiefly on the \"Anglo-Catholic\" section that we make\nany perceptible impression, the conversion of England, for what depends\non our own efforts, does not seem to be as imminent a contingency as it\nwould appear to be in the eyes of those foreign critics for whom Lord\nHalifax is the type of every English Churchman and the English Church\nco-extensive with the nation--save for a small irreclaimable residue of\nLiberals and Freemasons.\n\nThose who, influenced by such considerations, would have us extend our\nefforts from the narrowing circle of Anglo-Catholicism to the\never-widening circle of doubt and negation, are not always clear about\nthe practically important distinction to be drawn between the active\nleaders of doubt, and those who are passively led; the more or less\nindependent few, and the more or less dependent many; between the man of\nthe study and the man of the street--a distinction analogous to that\nbetween the _Ecclesia docens_ and _Ecclesia discens_, and which\npermeates every well-established school of belief, whether historical,\nethical, political, or religious.\n\nDealing first with the latter, that is, with those who are led; we are\nbecoming more explicitly conscious of the fact that in all departments\nof knowledge and opinion the beliefs of the many are not determined by\nreasoning from premisses, but by the authority of reputed specialists in\nthe particular matter, or else by the force of the general consent of\nthose with whom they dwell. There may be other non-rational causes of\nbelief, but these are the principal and more universal. And when we say\nthey are non-rational causes, we do not mean that they are\nnon-reasonable or unreasonable. They provide such a generally\ntrustworthy, though occasionally fallible, method of getting at truth,\nas is sufficient and possible for the practical needs of life--social,\nmoral, and religious. There is an inborn instinct to think as the crowd\ndoes and to be swayed by the confident voice of authority. If at times\nit fail of its end, as do other instincts, yet it is so trustworthy in\nthe main that to resist it in ordinary conditions is always imprudent.\nThat our eyes sometimes deceive us would not justify us in always\ndistrusting their evidence. If a child is deceived through instinctively\ntrusting the word of its parents, the blame of its error rests with\nthem, not with it. And so, whatever error the many are led into by\nobeying the instinct of submission to authority or to general consent,\nis their misfortune, not their fault. Of course there are higher\ncriteria by which the general consent and the opinion of experts can be\ncriticized and modified; but such criticism is not obligatory on the\nmany who have neither leisure nor competence for the task. For here, as\nelsewhere, a certain diversity of gifts results in a natural division of\nlabour in human society; those who have, giving to those who have not;\nsome ministering spiritual, others temporal benefits to their\nneighbours. Not that a man can save another's soul for him any more than\nhe can eat his dinner for him, but he can minister to him better food or\nworse.\n\nThe Mussulman child, then, may be bound, during his intellectual\nminority, to accept the religious teaching of its parents, just as is\nthe Christian child. That one, in obeying this natural but fallible\nrule, is led into error, the other into, truth, only verifies the\nprinciple that right faith is a gift of God,--a grace, a bit of good\nfortune. None of those who are not professedly teachers of religion and\nexperts, can be morally bound to a criticism above their competence, or\nto more than an obedience to those ordinary causes of assent to whose\ninfluence they are subjected by their circumstances. The ideal of a\nCatholic religion is to provide, by means of a divinely guided body of\nauthorities and experts, an universal, international, inter-racial\nconsensus regarding truths that are as obscure as they are vital to\nindividual and social happiness; and thus to afford a means of sure and\neasy guidance to those uncritical multitudes whose necessary\npreoccupations forbid their engaging in theology and controversy. This\nideal was sufficiently realized for practical purposes in the \"ages of\nfaith,\" when the whole public opinion of Europe, then believed to be\ncoterminous with civilization, was Catholic; when dissent needed as much\nindependence of character, as in so many places, profession does now.\nAnd surely it is a narrow-hearted criticism to prefer the primitive\nconditions in which none but those strong enough to face persecution\ncould reap the benefits of Christianity. The weak and dependent are ever\nthe majority, and if Christianity had been intended to pass them by or\nsift them out, \"its province were not large,\" nor could it claim to be\nthe religion of humanity. The Christian leaven was never meant to be\nkept apart, but to be hidden and lost in that unleavened mass which it\nseeks slowly to transform into its own nature. The majority, in respect\nto religion and civilization, are like unwilling school-boys who need to\nbe coerced for their own benefit, to be kept to their work till they\nlearn (if they ever do) to like it, and to need no more coercion. The\nsupport that Catholic surroundings give to numbers, who else were too\nweak to stand alone, cannot be overvalued, although it may weaken a few\nwho else had exerted themselves more strenuously, or may foster\nhypocrisy in secret unbelievers who would like to, but dare not\nwithstand public opinion.\n\nNow it is the gradual decay of this support--of this non-rational yet\nmost reasonable cause of belief, that is rendering the religious\ncondition of the man in the street so increasingly unsatisfactory. Not\nonly is there no longer an agreement of experts, and a consequent\nconsensus of nations, touching the broad and fundamental truths of\nChristianity, but what is far more to the point, the knowledge of this\nBabylonian confusion has become a commonplace with the multitudes. No\ndoubt there are yet some shaded patches where the dew still struggles\nwith the desiccating sun--old-world sanctuaries of Catholicism whose\ndwellers hardly realize the existence of unbelief or heresy, or who give\nat best a lazy, notional assent to the fact. But there are few regions\nin so-called Christendom where the least educated are not now quite\naware that Christianity is but one of many religions in a much larger\nworld than their forefathers were aware of; that the intellect of\nmodern, unlike that of medi\u00e6val Europe, is largely hostile to its\nclaims; that its defenders are infinitely at variance with one another;\nthat there is no longer any social disgrace connected with a\nnon-profession of Christianity; in a word, that the public opinion of\nthe modern world has ceased to be Christian, and that the once\nall-dominating religion which blocked out the serious consideration of\nany other claimant, bids fair to be speedily reduced to its primitive\nhelplessness and insignificance. The disintegrating effect of such\nknowledge on the faith of the masses must be, and manifestly is, simply\nenormous. Not that there is any rival consensus and authority to take\nthe place of dethroned Catholicism. Even scepticism is too little\norganized and embodied, too chaotic in its infinite variety of\ncontradictory positions, to create an influential consensus of any\npositive kind against faith. Its effect, as far as the unthinking masses\nare concerned, is simply to destroy the chief extrinsic support of their\nfaith and to throw them back on the less regular, less reliable causes\nof belief. If in addition it teaches them a few catchwords of\nfree-thought, a few smart blasphemies and syllogistic impertinences,\nthis is of less consequence than at first sight appears, since these are\nattempted after-justifications, and no real causes of their unbelief.\nFor they love the parade of formal reason, as they love big words or\ntechnical terms, or a smattering of French or Latin, with all the\ndelight of a child in the mysterious and unfamiliar; but their pretence\nto be ruled by it is mere affectation, and the tenacity with which they\ncling to their arguments is rather the tenacity of blind faith in a\ndogma, than of clear insight into principles.\n\nAnd this brings us to the problem which gave birth to the present essay.\n\nThe growing infection of the uneducated or slightly educated masses of\nthe Catholic laity with the virus of prevalent unbelief is arousing the\nattention of a few of our clergy to the need of coping with what is to\nthem a new kind of difficulty. Amongst other kindred suggestions, is\nthat of providing tracts for the million dealing not as heretofore with\nthe Protestant, but with the infidel controversy. While the danger was\nmore limited and remote it was felt that, more harm than good would come\nof giving prominence in the popular mind to the fact and existence of so\nmuch unbelief; that in many minds doubts unfelt before would be\nawakened; that difficulties lay on the surface and were the progeny of\nshallow-mindedness, whereas the solutions lay deeper down than the\nvulgar mind could reasonably be expected to go; that on the whole it was\nbetter that the few should suffer, than that the many should be\ndisturbed. The docile and obedient could be kept away from contagion, or\nif infected, could be easily cured by an act of blind confidence in the\nChurch; while the disobedient would go their own way in any case. Hence\nthe idea of entering into controversy with those incompetent to deal\nwith such matters was wisely set aside. But now that the prevalence and\ngrowth of unbelief is as evident as the sun at noon--now that it is no\nlonger only the recalcitrant and irreligious, but even the religious and\ndocile-minded who are disturbed by the fact, it seems to some that, a\npolicy of silence and inactivity may be far more fruitful in evil than\nin good, that reverent reserve must be laid aside and the pearls of\ntruth cast into the trough of popular controversy.\n\nBut to this course an almost insuperable objection presents itself at\nfirst seeming. Seeing that, the true cause of doubt and unbelief in the\nuncritical, is to be sought for proximately in the decay of a popular\nconsensus in favour of belief, and ultimately in the disagreements and\nnegations of those who lead and form public opinion, and in no wise in\nthe reasons which they allege when they attempt a criticism that is\nbeyond them; what will it profit to deal with the apparent cause if we\ncannot strike at the real cause? In practical matters, the reasons men\ngive for their conduct, to themselves as well as to others, are often\nuntrue, never exhaustive. Hence to refute their reasons will not alter\ntheir intentions. To dispel the sophisms assigned by the uneducated as\nthe basis of their unbelief, is not really to strike at the root of the\nmatter at all. Besides which, the work is endless; for if they are\nreleased from one snare they will be as easily re-entangled in the next;\nand indeed what can such controversy do but foster in them the false\nnotion that, belief in possession may be dispossessed by every passing\ndifficulty, and that their faith is to be dependent on an intellectual\ncompleteness of which they are for ever incapable. Indeed the\nunavoidable amount of controversy of all kinds, dinned into the ears of\nthe faithful in a country like this, favours a fallacy of\nintellectualism very prejudicial to the repose of a living faith founded\non concrete reasons, more or less experimental.\n\nAs far as the many are concerned, much the same difficulty attends the\npreservation of their faith in these days, as attended its creation in\nthe beginnings of Christianity, before the little flock had grown into a\nkingdom, when the intellect and power of the world was arrayed against\nit, when it had neither the force of a world-wide consensus nor the\nvoice of public authority in its favour. In those days it was not by the\n\"persuasive words of human wisdom\" that the crowds were gained over to\nChrist, but by a certain _ostensio virtutis_, by an experimental and not\nmerely by a rational proof of the Gospel--a proof which, if it admitted\nof any kind of formulation, did not compel them in virtue of the\nlogicality of its form. Further, when the conditions and helps needed by\nthe Church in her infancy, gave way to those belonging to her\nestablished strength, it was by her ascendency over the strong, the\nwealthy, and the learned, that she secured for the crowd,--for the weak\nand the poor and the ignorant,--the most necessary support of a\nChristianized, international public opinion, and thereby extended the\nbenefit of her educative influence to those millions whom disinclination\nor weakness would otherwise have deterred from the profession and\npractice of the faith.\n\nIf the Church of to-day is to retain her hold of the crowd in modernized\nor modernizing countries, it must either be by renewing her ascendency\nover those who form and modify public opinion, who even in the purest\ndemocracy are ever the few and not the many; or else by a reversion to\nthe methods of primitive times, by some palpable argument that speaks as\nclearly to the simplest as to the subtlest, if only the heart be right.\nAn outburst of miracle-working and prophecy is hardly to be looked for;\nwhile the argument from the tree's fruits, or from the moral miracle, is\nat present weakened by the extent to which non-Christians put in\npractice the morality they have learnt from Christ. Other non-rational\ncauses of belief draw individuals, but they do not draw crowds.\n\nIf we cannot see very clearly what is to supply for the support once\ngiven to the faith of the millions by public opinion, still their\nincapacity for dealing with the question on rational grounds will not\njustify us altogether in silence. For in the first place it is an\nincapacity of which they are not aware, or which at least they are very\nunwilling to admit. A candidate at the hustings would run a poor chance\nof a hearing who, instead of seeming to appeal to the reason of the mob\nshould, in the truthfulness of his soul, try to convince them of their\nutter incompetence to judge the simplest political point. Again, though\nunable to decide between cause and cause, yet the rudest can often see\nthat there is much to be said on both sides--though what, he does not\nunderstand; and if this fact weakens his confidence in the right, it\nalso weakens it in the wrong; whereas had the right been silent, the\nwrong, in his judgment, would thereby have been proved victorious. This\nwill justify us at times in talking over the heads of our readers and\nhearers, and in not sparing sonorous polysyllables, abstruse\ntechnicalities, or even the pompous parade of syllogistic arguments with\nall their unsightly joints sticking out for public admiration. Some\nhands may be too delicate for this coarse work; but there will always be\nthose to whom it is easy and congenial; and its utility is too evident\nto allow a mere question of taste to stand in the way.\n\nMoreover, it must be remembered that while many of the class referred to\nare glad to be free from the pressure of a Christianized public opinion,\nand are only too willing to grasp at any semblance of a reason for\nunbelief; others, more religiously disposed, are really troubled by\nthese popular, anti-Christian difficulties, the more so as they are\noften infected with the fallacy, fostered by ceaseless controversy,\nwhich makes one's faith dependent on the formal reason one can give for\nit.\n\nThough this is not so, yet moral truthfulness forbids us to assent to\nwhat we, however falsely, believe to be untrue. Hence while the virtue\nof faith remains untouched, its exercise with regard to particular\npoints may be inculpably suspended through ignorance, stupidity,\nmisinformation, and other causes.\n\nIn the interest of these well-disposed but easily puzzled believers of\nthe ill-instructed and uncritical sort, a series of anti-agnostic tracts\nfor the million would really seem to be called for. Yet never has the\npresent writer felt more abjectly crushed with a sense of incompetence\nthan when posed by the difficulties of a \"hagnostic\" greengrocer, or of\na dressmaker fresh from the perusal of \"Erbert\" Spencer. Face to face\nwith chaos, one knows not where to begin the work of building up an\norderly mind; nor will the self-taught genius brook a hint of possible\nignorance, or endure the discussion of dull presuppositions, without\nmuch pawing of the ground and champing on the bit: \"What I want,\" he\nsays, \"is a plain answer to a plain question.\" And when you explain to\nhim that for an answer he must go back very far and become a little\nchild again, and must unravel his mind to the very beginning like an\nill-knit stocking, he looks at once incredulous and triumphant as who\nshould say: \"There, I told you so!\" Yet the same critical incompetence\nthat makes these simple folk quite obtuse to the true and adequate\nsolution of their problems (I am speaking of cases where such solutions\nare possible), makes them perfectly ready to accept any sort of\ncounter-sophistry or paralogism. A most excellent and genuine \"convert\"\nof that class told me that he had stood out for years against the\nworship of the Blessed Virgin, till one day it had occurred to him that,\nas a cause equals or exceeds its effect, so the Mother must equal the\nSon. Another, equally genuine, professed to have been conquered by the\nreflection that he had all his life been saying: \"I believe in the Holy\nCatholic Church,\" and he could not see the use of believing in it if he\ndidn't belong to it. If their faith in Catholicism or in any other\nreligion depended on their logic, men of this widespread class were in a\nsorry plight. Like many of their betters, these two men probably\nimagined the assigned reasons to be the entire cause of their\nconversion, making no account of the many reasonable though non-logical\nmotives by which the change was really brought about. Hence to have\nabruptly and incautiously corrected them, would perhaps but have been to\nreduce them to confusion and perplexity, and to \"destroy with one's\nlogic those for whom Christ died.\"\n\nThat we do not sufficiently realize the dialectical incompetence of the\nuneducated is partly to be explained by the fact that they often get\nbits of reasoning by rote, much as young boys learn their Euclid; and\nthat they frequently seem to understand principles because they apply\nthem in the right cases, just as we often quote a proverb appropriately\nwithout the slightest idea of its origin or meaning beyond that it is\nthe right thing to say in a certain connection. As we ascend in the\nscale of education, there is more and more of this reasoning by rote, so\nthat critical incompetence is more easily concealed and may lurk\nunsuspected even in the pulpit and the professorial chair, where logic\nalone seems paramount. The \"hagnostic\" greengrocer, in all the\nself-confidence of his ignorance, is but the lower extreme of a class\nthat runs up much higher in the social scale and spreads out much wider\nin every direction.\n\nBut when we have realized more adequately how hopelessly incompetent the\nmultitude must necessarily be in the problems of specialists, we shall\nalso see that it is only by inadequate and even sophistical reasoning\nthat most of their intellectual difficulties can be allayed; that the\nfull truth (and the half-truth is mostly a lie) would be Greek to them.\nIf, then, _Tracts for the Million_ seem a necessity, they also seem an\nimpossibility; for what self-respecting man will sit down to weave that\ntissue of sophistry, special-pleading, violence, and vulgarity, which\nalone will serve the practical purpose with those to whom trenchency is\neverything and subtlety nothing? Even though the means involve a\nviolation of taste rather than of morals, yet can they be justified by\nthe goodness of the end? Fortunately, however, the difficulty is met by\na particular application of God's universal method in the education of\nmankind. In every grade of enlightenment there are found some who are\nsufficiently in advance of the rest to be able to help them, and not so\nfar in advance as practically to speak a different language. What is a\ndazzling light for those just emerging from darkness, is darkness for\nthose in a yet stronger light. A statement may be so much less false\nthan another, as to be relatively true; so much less true than a third,\nas to be relatively false. For a mind wholly unprepared, the full truth\nis often a light that blinds and darkness; whereas the tempered\nhalf-truth prepares the way for a fuller disclosure in due time, even as\nthe law and the prophets prepared the way for the Gospel and Christ, or\nas the enigmas of faith school us to bear that light which now no man\ncan gaze on and live. Thus, though we may never use a lie in the\ninterest of truth, or bring men from error by arguments we know to be\nsophistical, yet we have the warrant of Divine example, both in the\nnatural and supernatural education of mankind, for the passive\npermission of error in the interest of truth, as also of evil in the\ninterest of good. Since then there will ever be found those who in all\ngood faith and sincerity can adapt themselves to the popular need and\nsupply each level of intelligence with the medicine most suited to its\ndigestion, all we ask is that a variety of standards in controversial\nwritings be freely recognized; that each who feels called to such\nefforts should put forth his very best with a view to helping those\nminds which are likest his own; that none should deliberately condescend\nto the use of what from his point of view would be sophistries and\nvulgarities, remembering at the same time that the superiority of his\nown taste and judgment is more relative than absolute, and that in the\neyes of those who come after, he himself may be but a Philistine.\n\nWe conclude then that all that can be done in the way of _Tracts for the\nMillion_ should be done; that seed of every kind should be scattered to\nthe four winds, hoping that each may find some congenial soil.\n\nBut even when all that can be done in this way to save the masses from\nthe contagion of unbelief has been done, we shall be as far as ever from\nhaving found a substitute for the support which formerly was lent to\ntheir faith by a Christianized public opinion. Can we hope for anything\nmore than thus to retard the leakage? The answer to this would take us\nto the second of our proposed considerations, namely, our attitude\ntowards those who form and modify that public opinion by which the\nmasses are influenced for good or for evil. But it is an answer which\nfor the present must be deferred. [1]\n\n_Nov._ 1900.\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n\n[Footnote 1: The Introduction to the First Series of these essays\nattempts to deal with this further question.]\n\n\n\nXX.\n\n\nAN APOSTLE OF NATURALISM.\n\n\n  \"A man that could look no way but downwards, with a\n  muck-rake in his hand\" and \"did neither look up nor regard,\n  but raked to himself the straws, the small sticks, and the dust\n  of the floor.... Then said Christiana, 'Oh, deliver me\n  from this muck-rake.'\"--Bunyan.\n\n\nNaturalism includes various schools which agree in the first principle\nthat nothing is true but what can be justified by those axiomatic truths\nwhich every-day experience forces upon our acceptance, not indeed as\nself-evident, but as inevitable, unless we are to be incapacitated for\npractical life. It is essentially the philosophy of the unphilosophical,\nthat is, of those who believe what they are accustomed to believe, and\nbecause they are so accustomed; who are incapable of distinguishing\nbetween the subjective necessity imposed by habits and the objective\nnecessity founded in the nature of things. It is no new philosophy, but\nas old as the first dawn of philosophic thought, for it is the form\ntowards which the materialistic mind naturally gravitates. Given a\npopulation sufficiently educated to philosophize in any fashion, and of\nnecessity the bent of the majority will be in the direction of some form\nof Naturalism. Hence we find that the \"Agnosticism\" of Professor Huxley\nis eminently suited to the capacity and taste of the semi-educated\nmajorities in our large centres of civilization. Still it must not be\nsupposed that the majority really philosophizes at all even to this\nextent. The pressure of life renders it morally impossible. But they\nlike to think that they do so. The whole temper of mind, begotten and\nmatured by the rationalistic school, is self-sufficient: every man his\nown prophet, priest, and king; every man his own philosopher. Hence, he\nwho poses as a teacher of the people will not be tolerated. The theorist\nmust come forward with an affectation of modesty, as into the presence\nof competent critics; he must only expose his wares, win for himself a\nhearing, and then humbly wait for the _placet_ of the sovereign people.\nBut plainly this is merely a conventional homage to a theory that no\nserious mind really believes in. We know well enough, that the opinions\nand beliefs of the multitude are formed almost entirely by tradition,\nimitation, interest, by in fact any influence rather than that of pure\nreason. Taught they are, and taught they must be, however they repudiate\nit. But the most successful teachers and leaders are those who contrive\nto wound their sense of intellectual self-sufficiency least, and to\noffer them the strong food of dogmatic assertion sugared over and\nsparkling with the show of wit and reason.\n\nPhilosophy for the million may be studied profitably in one of its\npopular exponents whose works have gained wide currency among the class\nreferred to. Mr. S. Laing is a very fair type of the average\nmind-leader, owing his great success to his singular appreciation of the\nkind of treatment needed to secure a favourable hearing. We do not\npretend to review Mr. Laing's writings for their own sake, but simply as\ngood specimens of a class which is historically rather than\nphilosophically interesting.\n\nWe have before us three of his most popular books: _Modern Science and\nModern Thought_ (nineteenth thousand), _Problems of the Future_\n(thirteenth thousand), _Human Origins_ (twelfth thousand), to which we\nshall refer as M.S., P.F., H.O., in this essay; taking the\nresponsibility of all italics on ourselves, unless otherwise notified.\n\nMr. Laing is not regretfully forced into materialism by some mental\nconfusion or obscurity, but he revels in it, and invites all to taste\nand see how gracious a philosophy it is. There is an ill-concealed\nlevity and coarseness in his handling of religious subjects which\nbreaks,\n\n  At seasons, through the gilded pale,\n\nand which warns us from casting reasons before those who would but\ntrample them under foot. It is rather for the sake of those who read\nsuch literature, imprudently perhaps, but with no sympathy, and yet find\ntheir imagination perplexed and puzzled with a swarm of minute\nsophistries and difficulties, collectively bewildering, though\ncontemptible singly, that we think it well to form some estimate of the\nphilosophical value of such works.\n\nNothing in our study of Mr. Laing surprised us more than to discover [1]\nthat he had lived for more than the Scriptural span of three-score and\nten years, a life of varied fortunes and many experiences. It seems to\nus incredible that any man of even average thoughtfulness could, after\nso many years, find life without God, without immortality, without\ndefinite meaning or assignable goal, \"worth living,\" and that \"to be\nborn in a civilized country in the nineteenth century is a boon for\nwhich a man can never be sufficiently thankful.\" [2] [Thankful to whom?\none might ask parenthetically.] In other words, he is a bland optimist,\nand has nothing but vials of contempt to pour upon the pessimists, from\nEcclesiastes down to Carlyle. Pessimism, we are told confidentially, is\nnot an outcome of just reasoning on the miserable residue of hope which\nmaterialism leaves to us, but of the indisposition \"of those digestive\norgans upon which the sensation of health and well-being so mainly\ndepends.\" \"It is among such men, with cultivated intellects, sensitive\nnerves, and bad digestion, that we find the prophets and disciples of\npessimism.\" [3] The inference is, that men of uncultivated intellects,\ncoarse nerves, and ostrich livers will coincide with Mr. Laing in his\nsanguine view of the ruins of religion. The sorrowing dyspeptic asks in\ndespair: \"Son of man, thinkest thou that these dry bones will live\nagain?\" \"I'm cock-sure of it,\" answers Mr. Laing, and the ground of his\nassurance is the healthiness of his liver.\n\nCarlyle, who in other matters is, according to Mr. Laing, a great\ngenius, a more than prophet of the new religion, on this point suddenly\ncollapses into \"a dreadful croaker,\" styling his own age \"barren,\nbrainless, soulless, faithless.\" [4] But the reason is, of course, that\n\"he suffered from chronic dyspepsia\" and was unable \"to eat his three\nsquare meals a day.\" A very consistent explanation for an avowed\nmaterialist, but slightly destructive to the value of his own\nconclusions, being a two-edged sword. Indeed he almost allows as much.\n\"For such dyspeptic patients there is an excuse. Pessimism is probably\nas inevitably their creed, as optimism is for the more fortunate mortals\nwho enjoy the _mens sana in corpore sano_.\" [5] However, there are some\npessimists for whom indigestion can plead no excuse, [6] but for whose\nintellectual perversity some other cosmic influence must be sought\n\"behind the veil, behind the veil,\"--to borrow Mr. Laing's favourite\nline from his favourite poem. These are not only \"social swells,\nwould-be superior persons and orthodox theologians, but even a man of\nlight and learning like Mr. F. Harrison.\" \"Religion, they say, is\nbecoming extinct.... Without a lively faith in such a personal,\never-present deity who listens to our prayers, ... there can be, they\nsay, no religion; and they hold, and I think rightly hold, that the only\nsupport for such a religion is to be found in the assumed inspiration of\nthe Bible and the Divinity of Christ.\" \"Destroy these and they think the\nworld will become vulgar and materialized, losing not only the surest\nsanction of morals, but ... the spiritual aspiration and tendencies,\" &c.\n[7] \"To these gloomy forebodings I venture to return a positive and\ncategorical denial ... Scepticism has been the great sweetener of modern\nlife.\" [8] How he justifies his denial by maintaining that morality can\nhold its own when reduced to a physical science; that the \"result of\nadvancing civilization\" and of the materialistic psychology is \"a\nclearer recognition of the intrinsic sacredness and dignity of every\nhuman soul;\" [9] that Christianity without dogma, without miracles [or,\nas he calls it, \"Christian agnosticism\"], shall retain the essential\nspirit, the pure morality, the consoling beliefs, and as far as possible\neven the venerable form and sacred associations of the old faith, may\nappear later. At present we are concerned directly with pointing out how\nMr. Laing's optimism at once marks him off from those men who, whether\nbelieving or misbelieving or unbelieving, have thought deeply and felt\ndeeply, who have seen clearly that materialism leaves nothing for man's\nsoul but the husks of swine; who have therefore boldly faced the\ninevitable alternative between spiritualistic philosophy and hope, and\nmaterialism with its pessimistic corollary. That a man may be a\nmaterialist or atheist and enjoy life thoroughly, who does not know? but\nthen it is just at the expense of his manhood, because he lives without\nthought, reflection, or aspiration, _i.e.,_ materialistically. Mr. Laing\nno doubt, as he confesses, has lived pleasantly enough. He has found in\nwhat he calls science an endless source of diversion, he betrays himself\neverywhere as a man of intense intellectual curiosity in every\ndirection, and yet withal so little concerned with the roots of things,\nso easily satisfied with a little plausible coherence in a theory, as\nnot to have found truth an apparently stern or exacting mistress, not to\nhave felt the anguish of any deep mental conflict. His intellectual\nlabours have been pleasurable because easy, and, in his own eyes,\neminently fruitful and satisfactory. He has adopted an established\ncause, thrown himself into it heart and soul; others indeed had gone\nbefore him and laboured, and he has entered into their labours. Indeed,\nhe is frank in disclaiming all originality of discovery or theory; [10]\nhe has not risked the disappointment and anxiety of improving on the\nEvolution Gospel, but he has collected and sorted and arranged and\npublished the evidence obtained by others. This has always furnished him\nwith an interest in life; [11] but whether it be a rational interest or\nnot depends entirely on the usefulness or hurtfulness of his work. He\nadmits, however, that though life for him has been worth living, \"some\nmay find it otherwise from no fault of their own, more by their own\nfate.\" [12] But all can lead fairly happy lives by following his\nlarge-type platitudinous maxim, \"Fear nothing, make the best of\neverything.\" [13] In other words, the large majority, who are not and\nnever can be so easily and pleasantly circumstanced as Mr. Laing, are\ntold calmly to make the best of it and to rejoice in the thought that\ntheir misery is a necessary factor in the evolution of their happier\nposterity. This is the new gospel: _Pauperes evangelizantur_--\"Good\nnews for the poor.\" [14] \"Progress and not happiness\" is the end we are\ntold to make for, over and over again; but, progress towards what, is\nnever explained, nor is any basis for this duty assigned. Indeed, duty\nmeans nothing for Mr. Laing but an inherited instinct, which if we\nchoose to disobey or if we happen not to possess, who shall blame us or\ntalk to us of \"oughts\"?\n\nAnd now to consider more closely the grounds of Mr. Laing's very\ncheerful view of a world in which, for all we know, there is no soul, no\nGod, and certainly no faith. Since of the two former we know and can\nknow nothing, we must build our happiness, our morality, our \"religion,\"\non a basis whereof they form no part. He believes that morality will be\nable to hold its own distinct, not only from all belief in revelation,\nin a personal God, and in a spiritual soul, but in spite of a philosophy\nwhich by tracing the origin of moral judgments to mere physical laws of\nhereditary transmission of experienced utilities, robs them of all\nauthority other than prudential, and convicts them of being illusory so\nfar as they seem to be of higher than human origin.\n\nHerein, as usual, he treads in the steps of Professor Huxley, \"the\ngreatest living master of English prose\" (though why his mastery of\nprose should add to his weight as a philosopher, we fail to see). \"Such\nideas _evidently_ come from education, and are not the results either of\ninherited instinct [15] or of supernatural gift.... Given a being with\nman's brain, man's hands, and erect stature, _it is easy to see_ how ...\nrules of conduct ... must have been formed and fixed by successive\ngenerations, according to the Darwinian laws.\" [16]\n\nHe tells us: \"We may read the Athanasian Creed less, but we practise\nChristian charity more in the present than in any former age.\" [17]\n\"Faith has diminished, charity increased.\" [18]\n\nOf moral principles, he says: \"Why do we say that ... they carry\nconviction with them and prove themselves?... Still, there they are, and\nbeing what they are ... it requires no train of reasoning or laboured\nreflection to make us _feel_ that 'right is right,' and that it is\n_better_ for ourselves and others to act on such precepts ... rather\nthan to reverse these rules and obey the selfish promptings of animal\nnature.\" [19] \"It is _clearly_ our highest wisdom to follow right, not\nfrom selfish calculation, ... but because 'right is right.' ... For\npractical purposes it is comparatively unimportant how this standard got\nthere ... as an absolute imperative rule.\" [20] As to the apprehended\nill effect of agnosticism on morals, he says: \"The foundations of\nmorals [21] are fortunately built on solid rock and not on shifting sand.\nIt may truly be said in a great many cases that, as individuals and\nnations become more sceptical, they become more moral.\" [22] \"_If there\nis one thing more certain than another_ in the history of evolution, it\nis that morals have been evolved by the same laws as regulate the\ndevelopment of species.\" [23]\n\nThese citations embody Mr. Laing's opinions on this point, and show very\nclearly his utter incapacity for elementary philosophic thought. Here,\nas elsewhere, as soon as he leaves the bare record of facts and embarks\nin any kind of speculation, he shows himself helpless; however, he tries\nto fortify his own courage and that of his readers, with \"it is clear,\"\n\"it is evident,\" \"it is certain.\"\n\nTo say that \"right is right,\" sounds very oracular; but it either means\nthat \"right\" is an ultimate spring of action, inexplicable on\nevolutionist principles, or that right is the will of the strongest, or\nan illusory inherited foreboding of pain, or a calculation of future\npleasure and pain, or something which, in no sense, is a true account of\nwhat men _do_ mean by right. To say that moral principles \"carry\nconviction with them, and prove themselves\" _(i.e._, are self-evident),\nunless, as we suspect, it is mere verbiage conveying nothing particular\nto Mr. Laing's brain, is to deny that right has reference to the\nconsequences of action as bearing on human progress and evolution, which\nis to deny the very theory he wishes to uphold. No intuitionist could\nhave spoken more strongly. Then we are assured that we \"feel\" rightness,\nor that \"right is right\"--apparently as a simple irresoluble quality of\ncertain actions--and with same breath, that \"it is _better_ for\nourselves and others to act on these rules,\" where he jumps off to\nutilitarianism again; and then we are forbidden to \"obey the selfish\nimpulses of our animal nature\"--a strange prohibition for one who sees\nin us nothing but animal nature, who denies us any free power to\nwithstand its impulses. Then it is \"clearly our highest wisdom to follow\nright\"--an appeal to prudential motives--\"not from any selfish\ncalculations\"--a repudiation of prudential motives--\"but because 'right\nis right'\"--an appeal to a blind unreasoning instinct, and a prohibition\nto question its authority. We are told that for practical purposes it\nmatters little whence this absolute imperative rule originates. Was\nthere ever a more unpractical and short-sighted assertion! Convince men\nthat the dictates of conscience are those of fear or selfishness, that\nthey are all mere animal instincts, that they are anything less than\ndivine, and who will care for Mr. Laing's appeal to blind faith in the\n\"rightness of right\"?\n\nAs long as Christian tradition lives on, as it will for years among the\nmasses, the effects of materialist ethics will not be felt; but as these\nnew theories filter down from the few to the many, they will inevitably\nproduce their logical consequences in practical matters. No one with\nopen eyes can fail to see how the leaven is spreading already. Still the\nmajority act and speak to a great extent under the influence of the old\nbelief, which they have repudiated, in the freedom of man's will and the\nDivine origin of right. It is quite plain that Mr. Laing has either\nnever had patience to think the matter out, or has found it beyond his\ncompass. Having thus established morality on a foundation independent of\nreligion and of everything else, making \"right\" rest on \"right,\" he\nassumes the prophetic robe, and on the strength of his seventy years of\nexperience and philosophy poses as a _Cato Major_ for the edification of\nthe semi-scientific millions of young persons to whom he addresses his\nvolumes. We have a whole chapter on Practical Life, [24] on\nself-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, full of portentous\nplatitudes and ancient saws; St. Paul's doctrine of charity, and all\nthat is best in the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, is liberated\nfrom its degrading association with the belief in a God who rewards and\npunishes.[25] We are \"to act strenuously in that direction which, after\n_conscientious_ inquiry, seems the best, ... and trust to what religious\nmen call Providence, and scientific men Evolution, for the result,\" and\nall this simply on the bold assertion of this sage whose sole aim is \"to\nleave the world a little better rather than a little worse for my\nindividual unit of existence.\" [26]\n\nAnd here we may inquire parenthetically as to the motive which urges Mr.\nLaing to throw himself into the labours of the apostolate and to become\nsuch an active propagandist of agnosticism. We are told[27] that the\nenlightened should be \"liberal and tolerant towards traditional opinions\nand traditional practices, and trust with cheerful faith to evolution to\nbring about _gradually_ changes of form,\" &c.; that the influence of the\nclergy is \"on the whole exerted for good,\" and it is frankly\nacknowledged that Christianity has been a potent factor in the evolution\nof modern civilization. It has, however, nearly run its course, and the\nold order must give place to the new, _i.e._, to agnosticism. But even\nallowing, what we dare say Mr. Laing would not ask, that the speculative\nside of the new religion is fully defined and worked out, and ready to\ndisplace the old dogmatic creeds, yet its practical aspect is so vague\nthat he writes: \"I think the time is come when the intellectual victory\nof agnosticism is so far assured, that it behoves thinking men to _begin\nto consider_ what practical results are likely to follow from it.\" [28]\nIn the face of this confession we find Mr. Laing industriously\naddressing himself to \"those who lack time and opportunity for\nstudying,\" [29] to the \"minds of my younger readers, and of the working\nclasses who are striving after culture,\" [30] \"to what may be called the\nsemi-scientific readers, ... who have already acquired some elementary\nideas about science,\" \"to the millions;\" [31] and endeavouring by all\nmeans in his power to destroy the last vestige of their faith in that\nreligion which alone provides for them a definite code of morality\nstrengthened by apparent sanctions of the highest order, and venerable\nat least by its antiquity and universality. [32] And while he is thus\nbusily pulling down the old scaffolding, he is calmly _beginning_ to\nconsider the practical results. This is his method of \"leaving the world\na little better than he found it.\" He professes to understand and\nappreciate \"In Memoriam.\" Has he ever reflected on the lines: \"O thou\nthat after toil and storm,\" [33] when the practical conclusion is--\n\n  Leave thou thy sister, when she prays,\n    Her early Heaven, her happy views;\n    Nor thou with shadowed hint infuse\n  A life that leads melodious days.\n  Her faith through form is pure as thine,\n    Her hands are quicker unto good;\n    O sacred be the flesh and blood,\n  To which she links a truth divine.\n\nOn his own principles he is convicted of being a lover of mischief. No,\none is sorely tempted to think that these men are well aware that the\nmoral sense which sound philosophy and Christian faith have developed,\nis still strong in the minds and deeper conscience of the\nEnglish-speaking races, and that were they to present materialism in all\nits loathsome nudity to the public gaze, they would be hissed off the\nstage. And so they dress it up in the clothes of the old religion just\nfor the present, with many a quiet wink between themselves at the\nexpense of the \"semi-scientific\" reader.\n\nWe have already adverted to Mr. Laing's utter incapacity for anything\nlike philosophy, except so far as that term can be applied to a power of\nraking together, selecting, and piling up into \"a popular shape\" the\nscraps of information which favour the view whose correctness he was\nconvinced of ere he began. A few further remarks may justify this\nsomewhat severe estimate. After stating that in the solution of life and\nsoul problems, science stops short at germs and nucleated cells, he\nproceeds with the usual tirade against metaphysics: \"Take Descartes'\nfundamental axiom: _Cogito ergo sum_.... Is it really an axiom?... If\nthe fact that I am conscious of thinking proves the fact that I exist,\nis the converse true that whatever does not think does not exist?...\nDoes a child only begin to exist when it begins to think? If _Cogito\nergo sum_ is an institution to which we can trust, why is not _Non\ncogito ergo non sum?_\" [34] Here is a man posing before the gaping\nmillions as a philosopher and a severe logician, who thinks that the\nproposition, \"every cow is a quadruped,\" is disproved by the evident\nfalsehood of, \"what is not a cow is not a quadruped,\" which he calls\n\"the converse.\" He sums up magnificently by saying: \"These are questions\nto which no metaphysical system that I have ever seen, can return the\nsemblance of an answer;\" giving the impression of a life devoted to a\ndeep and exhaustive study of all schools of philosophy. Mr. Laing here\nsurely is addressing his \"younger readers.\"\n\nHe tells us elsewhere [35] that, \"when analyzed by science, spiritualism\nleads straight to materialism;\" free-will \"can be annihilated by the\nsimple mechanical expedient of looking at a black wafer stuck on a white\nwall;\" that if \"Smith falls into a trance and believes himself to be\nJones, he really is Jones, and Smith has become a stranger to him while\nthe trance lasts.... I often ask myself the question, If he died during\none of these trances, which would he be, Smith or Jones? and I confess\nit takes some one wiser than I am to answer it.\" Without pretending to\nbe wiser than Mr. Laing, we hope it will not be too presumptuous for us\nto suggest that if Smith dies in a trance _believing_ himself to be\nJones, he is under a delusion, and that he really is Smith. Else it\nwould be very awkward for poor Jones, who in nowise believes himself to\nbe Smith. Mr. Laing would have to break it gently to Jones, that, \"in\nfact, my dear sir, Smith borrowed your personality, and unfortunately\ndied before returning it; and as to whether you are yourself or Smith,\nas to whether you are alive or dead, 'I confess it takes some one wiser\nthan I am to decide.'\" That a man's own name, own surroundings, own\nantecedents, are all objects of his thought, and distinguished from the\n_self, ego,_ or _subject_ which contemplates them, has never suggested\nitself to Mr. Laing. That though Smith may mistake every one of these,\nyet the term \"I\" necessarily and invariably means the same for him, the\none central, constant unity to which every _non-ego_ is opposed. And\nthis from a man who elsewhere claims an easy familiarity with Kant.\n\"Again what can be said of love and hate if under given circumstances\nthey can be transformed into one another by a magnet?\" What indeed? And\nhow is it that the gold-fish make no difference in the weight of the\nglobe of water?\n\nHis conclusion to these inquiries is: \"When Shakespeare said, 'We are\nsuch stuff as dreams are made of,' he enumerates what has become a\nscientific fact. The 'stuff' is in all cases the same--vibratory motions\nof nerve particles.\" [36] Thus knowledge, self-consciousness,\nfree-choice, is as much a function of matter as fermentation, or\ncrystallisation--a mode of motion, not dissimilar from heat, perhaps\ntransformable therewith.\n\nRecapitulating this farrago of nonsense on p. 188, he adds a new\ndifficulty which ought to make him pause in his wild career. \"What is\nthe value of the evidence of the senses if a suggestion can make us see\nthe hat, but not the man who wears it; or dance half the night with an\nimaginary partner? Am I 'I myself, I,' or am I a barrel-organ playing\n'God save the Queen,' if the stops are set in the normal fashion, but\nthe 'Marseillaise' if some cunning hand has altered them without my\nknowledge? These are questions which I cannot answer.\" He cannot answer\na question on which the value of his whole system of physical philosophy\ndepends; uncertain about his own identity, about the evidence of his\nsenses, he would make the latter the sole rule and measure of certitude,\nand deny to man any higher faculty by which alone he can justify his\ntrust in his cognitive faculties. Another instance of his absolute\nignorance of common philosophic terminology is when he asserts that\naccording to theology we know the dogmas of religion by \"intuition.\" [37]\n\nThis doctrine rests on Cardinal Newman's celebrated theory of the\n\"Illative Sense.\" Surely a moment's reflection on the meaning of words,\nnot to speak of a slight acquaintance with the book referred to, would\nhave saved him from confounding two notions so sharply distinguished as\n\"intuition\" and \"inference.\" Again, \"There can be no doubt there are men\noften of great piety and excellence who have, or fancy they have, a sort\nof sixth sense, or, as Cardinal Newman calls it, an 'illative sense,' by\nwhich they see by intuition ... things unprovable or disprovable by\nordinary reason.\" [38] Can a man who makes such reckless travesties of a\nview which he manifestly has never studied, be credited with\nintellectual honesty?\n\nDoubtless, the semi-scientific millions will be much impressed by the\nwideness of Mr. Laing's reading and his profound grasp of all that he\nhas read, when they are told casually that \"space and time are, ... to\nuse the phraseology of Kant, 'imperative categories;'\" [39] but perhaps\nto other readers it may convey nothing more than that he has heard a dim\nsomething somewhere about Kant, about the categories, about space and\ntime being schemata of sense, and about the _categorical imperative._\nIt is only one instance of the unscrupulous recklessness which shows\nitself everywhere. Akin to this is his absolute misapprehension of the\nChristian religion which he labours to refute. He never for a moment\nquestions his perfect understanding of it, and of all it has got to say\nfor itself. Brought up apparently among Protestants, who hold to a\nverbal inspiration [40] and literal interpretation of the Scriptures,\nwho have no traditional or authoritative interpretation of it, he\nconcludes at once that his own crude, boyish conception of Christianity\nis the genuine one, and that every deviation therefrom is a \"climbing\ndown,\" or a minimizing. He has no suspicion that the wider views of\ninterpretation are as old as Christianity itself, and have always\nco-existed with the narrower.\n\nHe regards the Christian idea of God as essentially anthropomorphic.\nIndeed, whether in good faith or for the sake of effect, he brings\nforward the old difficulties which have been answered _ad nauseam_ with\nan air of freshness, as though unearthed for the first time, and\ntherefore as setting religion in new and unheard-of straits. So, at all\nevents, it will seem to the millions of his young readers and to the\nworking classes.\n\nLet us follow him in some of his destructive criticism, or rather\ndenunciations, in order to observe his mode of procedure. \"The\ndiscoveries of science ... make it impossible for _sincere_ men to\nretain the faith,\" &c., [41] therefore all who differ from Mr. Laing are\ninsincere. \"It is _absolutely certain_ that portions of the Bible are\nnot true; and those, important portions.\" [42] This is based on two\npremisses which are therefore absolutely certain, (i) Mr. Laing's\nconclusions about the antiquity of man--of which more anon; (43) his\nbaldly literal interpretation of the Bible as delivered to him in his\nearly \"infancy. On p. 253, we have the ancient difficulty from the New\nTestament prophecy of the proximate end of the world, without the\nfaintest indication that it was felt 1800 years ago, and has been dealt\nwith over and over again. Papias [44] is lionized [45] in order to upset\nthe antiquity of the four Gospels--which upsetting, however, depends on\na dogmatic interpretation of an ambiguous phrase, and the absence of\npositive testimony. Here again there is no evidence that Mr. Laing has\nread any elementary text-book on the authenticity of the Gospels. He is\n\"perfectly clear\" as to the fourth Gospel being a forgery; again for\nreasons which he alone has discovered. [46] Paul is the first inventor\nof Christian dogma, without any doubt or hesitation. But the undoubted\nresults of modern science ... shatter to pieces the whole fabric. _It is\nas certain as that_ 2 + 2 = 4 that the world was not created in the\nmanner described in Genesis.\"\n\nAs regards harmonistic difficulties of the Old and New Testaments, he\nassumes the same confident tone of bold assertion without feeling any\nobligation to notice the solutions that have been suggested. It makes\nfor his purpose to represent the orthodox as suddenly struck dumb and\nconfounded by these amazing discoveries of his. He sees discrepancies\neverywhere in the Gospel narrative, e.g.: [47]\n\n  \"Judas' death is _differently_ described.\" \"Herod is introduced by\n  Luke and not mentioned by the others.\" \"Jesus carried His own Cross in\n  one account, while Simon of Cyrene bore it in another. Jesus gave no\n  answer to Pilate, says Matthew; He explains that His Kingdom was not\n  of the world, says John. Mary His Mother sat _(sic)_ at the foot of\n  the Cross, according to St. John; it was not His Mother, but Mary the\n  mother of Salome _(sic)_ 'who beheld Him from afar,' according to Mark\n  and Matthew. There was a guard set to watch the tomb, says Matthew;\n  there is no mention of one by the others.\"\n\nAt first we thought Mr. Laing must have meant _differences_ and not\ndiscrepancies; but the following paragraph forbade so lenient an\ninterpretation. \"The only other mention of Mary by St. John, who\ndescribes her as sitting _(sic)_ by the foot of the Cross, is\napocryphal, being directly contradicted by the very precise statement [48]\nin the three other Gospels, that the Mary who was present on that\noccasion was a different woman, the mother of Salome.\" Even his youngest\nreaders ought to open their eyes at this. Similarly he thinks the\nomission of the Lord's Prayer by St. Mark tells strongly against its\nauthenticity. [49]\n\n\nII.\n\nWe must now say something about the great facts of evolutionary\nphilosophy which have shattered dogmatic Christianity to pieces, and\nhave made it impossible for any sincere man to remain a Christian. To\nsay that Mr. Laing is absolutely certain of the all-sufficiency of\nevolutionism to explain everything that is knowable to the human mind,\nthat he does not hint for a moment that this philosophy is found by the\n\"bell-wethers\" of science to be every day less satisfactory as a\ncomplete _rationale_ of the physical cosmos; is really to understate the\ncase for sheer lack of words to express the intensity of his conviction.\nHis fundamental fact is that, however theologians may shuffle out of the\nfirst chapter of Genesis by converting days into periods, when we come\nto the story of the Noachean Deluge, we are confronted with such a\nglaring absurdity that we must at once allow that the Bible is full of\nmyths. For history and science show that man existed probably two\nhundred thousand years ago, at all events not less than twenty thousand;\nalso that five thousand B.C., a highly organized civilization existed in\nEgypt, whose monuments of that date give evidence to the full\ndevelopment of racial and linguistic differences as now existing among\nmen; that this plants the common stem from which these have branched\noff, in an indefinitely remote pre-historic period; that to suppose that\nthe present races and tongues are all derived from one man (Noe), who\nlived only two thousand B.C., is a monstrous impossibility; still more\nso, to believe that the countless thousands of species of animals which\npopulate the world were collected from the four quarters of the globe,\nwere housed and fed in the Ark, landed on Mount Ararat, and thence\nspread themselves out over the world again regardless of interjacent\nseas. Hence the Bible story of human origins is a mere myth; man has not\nfallen, but has risen by slow evolution from some ancestor common to him\nand apes, at a remote period, long sons prior even to the miocene\nperiod, which shows man to have been then as obstinately differentiated\nfrom the apes as ever. Therefore \"all did not die in Adam,\" and seeing\nthis is the foundation of the dogmatic Christianity invented by Paul,\nthe whole thing collapses like a house of cards. [45]\n\nAnd indeed, given that the Bible means what Mr. Laing says it means, and\nthat science has proved what he says it has proved, that the two results\nare incompatible, few would care to deny. As regards the latter\ncondition, let us see some of his reasonings. We are told that \"modern\nscience shows that uninterrupted historical records, confirmed by\ncontemporary monuments, carry history back at least one thousand years\nbefore the supposed creation of man ... and show then no trace of a\ncommencement, but populous cities, celebrated temples, great engineering\nworks, and a high state of the arts and of civilization already\nexisting.\" [46] Strange to say, Mr. Laing developes a sudden reverence\nfor the testimony of _priests_ at the outset of his historical\ninquiries, and finds that history begins with \"priestly organizations;\"\n[47] that the royal records are \"made and preserved by special castes of\npriestly colleges and learned scribes, and that they are to a great\nextent precise in date and accurate in fact.\" Of course this does not\ninclude Christian priests, but the priests of barbarous cults of many\nthousand years ago, who, as well as their royal masters, are at once\ncredited with all the delicacy of the accurate criticism which we boast\nof in these days--how vainly, God knows. We are told one moment that\nHerodotus \"was credulous, and not very critical in distinguishing\nbetween fact and fable,\" that his \"sources of information were often not\nmuch better than vague popular traditions, or the tales told by guides;\"\n[48] and yet we are to lay great stress on his assertion that the\nEgyptian priests told him \"that during the long succession of ages of\nthe three hundred and forty-five high priests of Heliopolis, whose\nstatues they showed him in the Temple of the Sun, there had been no\nchange in the length of human life or the course of nature.\" [49] A\nvaluable piece of evidence _if_ Herodotus reports rightly, and _if_ the\npriest was not like the average guide, and _if_ the statues answered to\nreal existences, and _if_ each of the three hundred and forty-five high\npriests made a truthful assertion of the above to his successor for the\nbenefit of posterity.\n\nManetho's History is, however, the chief source of our information as to\nthe antiquity of Egyptian civilization. He was commissioned to compile\nthis History by Ptolemy Philadelphus, \"from the most authentic temple\nrecords and other sources of information,\" [50] whose infallibility is\ntaken for granted. He was \"eminently qualified for such a task, being,\"\nas Mr. Laing will vouch, [51] \"a learned and judicious man, and a priest\nof Sebbenytus, one of the oldest and most famous temples.\" Let us by all\nmeans read Manetho's History; but where is it? It is \"unfortunately\nlost, ... but fragments of it have been preserved in the works of\nJosephus, Eusebius, Julius Africanus, and Syncellus.... With the curious\nwant of critical faculty of almost all the Christian Fathers\" [52] (so\ndifferent from the learned, judicious, upright priests of the sun),\n\"these extracts, though professing to be quotations from the same book,\ncontain many inconsistencies and in several instances they have been\nobviously tampered with, especially by Eusebius, in order to bring their\nchronology more in accordance with that of the Old Testament, ... but\nthere can be _no doubt_ that his original work assigned an antiquity to\nMenes of over 5500 B.C.\" [53] \"On the whole, we have to fall back on\nManetho as the only authority for anything like precise dates and\nconnected history.\"\n\nManetho, however, needed confirmation against the aspersions of the\northodox, who thought he might be deficient in critical delicacy, and\nprone to exaggerate as even later historians had done. Their casuistic\nminds also suggested that his list comprised Kings who had ruled\ndifferent provinces simultaneously. But this \"effugium\" was cut off by\nthe witness of contemporary monuments and manuscripts. \"This has now\nbeen done to such an extent that it may be fairly said that Manetho is\nconfirmed, and it is fully established, as a fact acquired by science,\nthat nearly all his Kings and dynasties are proved by monuments to have\nexisted, and that, successively.\" [54]\n\nWhat is needed for the validity of this argument is a concurrence, which\ncould not possibly be fortuitous, between the clear and undoubted\ntestimony of Manetho and of the monuments. But first of all, what sort\nof probability is there left of our possessing anything approximately\nlike the results of Manetho: and if we had them, of their historical\naccuracy? Secondly, is it at all credible that so fragmentary and\nfortuitous a record as survives in monuments (allowing again their very\ndubious historical worth) should just happen to coincide with the\nsurviving fragments of our patch-work Manetho, king for king and dynasty\nfor dynasty, as Mr. Laing would have us believe? On the contrary,\nnothing would throw more suspicion on the interpretation of these\nmonuments than the assertion of such an improbable coincidence. What,\nthen, is the force of this argument from Egyptology? _If_ the records\nfrom which Manetho compiled were historically accurate; _if_ he was\nperfectly competent to understand them; _if_ he was scrupulously honest\nand critical; _if_ from the tampered-with fragments in the Christian\nFathers we can arrive at a reliable and accurate knowledge of his\nresults; and _if_ the Bible in the original text--whatever that may\nbe--undoubtedly asserts that man was not created till 4000 B.C., then\naccording to certain Egyptologists (Boeck), Menes reigned fifteen\nhundred years previously, and according to others (Wilkinson), one\nthousand years subsequently. Similarly as to the argument from\ncoincidence: _if_, as before, we possess Manetho's genuine list intact,\nand _if_ we have the clear testimony of the monuments giving a precisely\nsimilar record, this coincidence, apart from all independent value to be\ngiven to Manetho or to the monuments, is an effect demanding a cause,\nfor which the most probable is the objective truth from which both these\nveracious records have been copied. But the monuments are not written in\nplain English, and need a key; and we must be first assured that\nManetho's list has not been used for this purpose. We are told; for\nexample, [55] that the name \"Snefura,\" deciphered on a tablet found at\nthe copper-mines of Wady Magerah, is the name of a King of the third\ndynasty, who reigned about 4000 B.C. Now _if_ there were no doubt about\nthe reading of this name on the tablet, and _if_ his date and dynasty\nwere as plainly there recorded, and _if_ all this tallies exactly with\nequally precise particulars in Manetho's list, it would indeed be a\nremarkable coincidence and would imply some common source, whether\nrecord or fact. But if having credited Manetho with the record of such a\nname and date, one tortures a hieroglyph into a faintly similar name,\nand concludes at once that the same name must be the same person, and\nthat therefore this is the oldest record in the world, the confirmation\nis not so striking. That it is so in this instance we do not affirm; but\nwe should need the assertion of a man of more intellectual sobriety than\nMr. Laing to make it worth the trouble of investigating.\n\nPassing over the confirmation which he draws from the \"known rate of the\ndeposit of Nile mud of about three inches a century,\" which would give a\nmild antiquity of twenty-six thousand years to pottery fished up from\nborings in the mud, since he admits that \"borings are not _very_\nconclusive,\" we may notice how he deals with evidence from Chaldea on\nmuch the same principles. Here, again, the source had been till lately\nonly \"fragments quoted by later writers from the lost work of Berosus.\nBerosus was a _learned priest_ of Babylon, who ... wrote in Greek a\nhistory of the country from the most ancient times, compiled from the\nannals preserved in the temples and from the oldest traditions.\" [56]\nStill this \"learned priest,\" though antecedently as competent a critic\nas Manetho, is so portentously mythical in his accounts, that \"no\nhistorical value can be attached to them,\" which must be regretted,\nsince he pushes history back a quarter of a million years prior to the\nDeluge, and the Deluge itself to about half a million years ago. Here,\ntherefore, we are thrown solely upon the independent value of the\nmonumental evidence, and must drop the argument from coincidence. This\nevidence, we are told, \"is not so conclusive as in the case of Egypt,\nwhere the lists of Manetho, &c.... The date of Sargon I. [57] (3800 B.C.)\nrests mainly on the authority of Nabonidus, who lived more than three\nthousand years later, and may have been mistaken.\" \"The probability of\nsuch a remote date is enhanced _by the certainty_ that a high\ncivilization existed in Egypt as long ago as 5000 B.C.\" If the evidence\nfor the antiquity of Chaldee civilization is \"less conclusive\" than that\nfor Egyptian, and rests on it for an argument _\u00e0 pari_, it cannot be\nsaid in any way to strengthen Mr. Laing's position.\n\nThese strictures are directed chiefly to showing Mr. Laing's incapacity\nfor anything like coherent reasoning in historical matters. Subsequently\nhe uses these most lame and impotent conclusions as demonstrated\ncertainties, without the faintest qualification, and builds up on them\nhis refutation of dogmatic Christianity.\n\nHowever, it is only in his more recent work on _Human Origins_ that he\nthus comes forward as an historian, in preparation for which he seems to\nhave devoted himself to the study of cuneiform and hieroglyphs and\nmastered the subject thoroughly and exhaustively, before bursting forth\nfrom behind the clouds to flood the world with new-born light.\n\nIt is deep down in the bowels of the earth, at the bottom of a\ngeological well, that he has found not only truth but, also man--among\nthe monsters,\n\n        Dragons of the prime\n  Who tare each other in their slime,\n\nand has hauled him up for our inspection. Mr. Laing is before all else\nan evolutionist, with an unshaken belief in spontaneous generation. He\nis quite confident that force and atoms will explain everything. He\nseems to mean force, pure and simple, without any intelligent direction;\natoms, ultimate, homogeneous, undifferentiated. No doubt, if the\nsubsequent evolution depends on the _kind_ and _direction_ of force, or\non the _nature_ of the atoms; then there is a remoter question for\nphysics to determine; but if, as he implies, force and atoms are simple\nand ultimate, then evolution is as fortuitous as a sand-storm, or more\nso. All prior to force and atoms is \"behind the veil.\" \"The material\nuniverse is composed of ether, matter, and energy.\" [58] Ether is a\nbillion times more elastic than air, \"almost infinitely rare,\" [59] its\noscillations must be at least seven hundred billions per second, \"it\nexerts no gravitating or retarding force;\" in short, Mr. Laing has to\nconfess some uncertainty about his original dogma as to the triple\nconstituents of the universe, and say \"that it may be _almost doubted_\nwhether such an ether has any real material existence, and is anything\nmore than a sort of mathematical [why 'mathematical'?] entity.\" [60] \"It\nis clear that matter really does consist of minute particles which do\nnot touch,\" and even these we must conceive of as \"corks as it were\nfloating in an ocean of ether, causing waves in it by their own proper\nmovement,\" [61]--an explanation which loses some of its helpfulness when\nwe remember that the ethereal ocean is only a mathematical entity. \"A\ncubic centimetre contains 21,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules,\"\n\"the number of impacts received by each molecule of air during one\nsecond will be 4,700 millions. The distance traversed between each\nimpact averages 95/1000000 of a millimetre,\" and so on with lines of\nciphers to overawe the gaping millions with Mr. Laing's minute certainty\nas to the ultimate constitution of matter. [62]\n\nAs to _how_ atoms came into existence, he can only reply, \"Behind the\nveil, behind the veil;\" for it is at this point at last that he becomes\nagnostic.[63] The notion of creation is rejected (after Spencer) as\ninconceivable, because unimaginable, as though the origination of every\nchange in the phenomenal world were not just as unimaginable; we see\nmovement _in process_, and we see its results, but its inception is\nunimaginable, and its efficient cause still more so.\n\nThe evolution of man is practically taken for granted, the only question\nbeing the _when_.\n\nWe have the old argument from embryonic transformism brought forward\nwithout any hint that later investigation tends to show differentiation\nfurther and further back, prior to segmentation and, according to some,\nin the very protoplasm itself. Nothing could be more inaccurate than to\nsay \"every human being passes through the stage of fish and reptile\nbefore arriving at that of a mammal and finally of man.\" [64] All that\ncan be truly said is that the embryonic man is at certain stages not\nsuperficially distinguishable from the embryonic fish--quite a different\nthing, and no more significant than that the adult man possesses organs\nand functions in common with other species of the animal genus.\n\nMr. Laing's own conclusions from skulls and human remains which he takes\nto be those of tertiary man, show man to be as obstinately unlike the\n\"dryopithecus\" as ever, in fact, the reputedly oldest skulls [65] are a\ndecided improvement on the Carnstadt and Neanderthal type. Even then man\nseems to have been the same flint-chipping, tool-making, speaking animal\nas now. So convinced is he of this essential and ineradicable difference\nin his heart, that seeing traces of design in palaeolithic flint flakes,\nand so forth, he has \"not the remotest doubt as to their being the work\nof human hands,\"--\"as impossible to doubt as it would be if we had found\nclasp-knives and carpenters adzes.\" [66] Perhaps Professor Boyd-Dawkins,\nwho credits the \"dryopithecus\" with these productions, is a more\nconsistent evolutionist; but at present Mr. Laing is defending a thesis\nas to _man's_ antiquity. Yet he has just said that these flint\ninstruments are \"_only one step_ in advance of the rude, natural stone\nwhich an _intelligent_ orang or chimpanzee might pick up to crack a\ncocoa-nut with.\" Truly a very significant step, though it be only one.\nHow hard this is to reconcile with what Mr. Laing ascribes to dogs and\nants elsewhere, or with what he says on page 173, \"These higher apes\nremain creatures of very considerable intelligence.... There is a\nchimpanzee now in the Zoological Gardens ... which can do _all but_\nspeak\" [either it speaks, or it does not. It is precisely a case of the\n\"only one step\" quoted above. Here if anywhere a \"miss is as good as a\nmile\"], \"which understands almost every word the keeper says to it, and\nwhen told to sing will purse out its lips and try to utter connected\nnotes.\" [How on earth do we know what it is trying to do?] \"In their\nnative state they (apes) form societies and obey a chief.\" [The old\nfallacy of metaphors adverted to in relation to ants and dogs.] Yet \"no\nanimal has ever learned to speak,\" \"no chimpanzee or gorilla has ever\nbeen known to fashion any implement.\" [67] Their nearest approach to\ninvention is in the building of huts or nests, in which they \"are very\ninferior to most species of birds, to say nothing of insects.\" On the\nother hand, \"as regards tool-making, no human race is known which has\nnot shown some faculty in this direction.\" [68] \"The difference is a very\nfundamental one,\" and \"may be summed up in the words 'arrested\ndevelopment.'\" Words, indeed! but what do they mean? They mean that\nthese animals have not developed the faculties of speech and\ntool-making, which would have been most useful to them in the struggle\nfor existence, the reason being _that they did not_; and this reason is\nexalted into a cause or law of \"arrested development.\" Who or what\narrested it? The advantage of the term is that it implies that they were\non the point of developing, that they could \"all but speak,\" were\n\"trying to utter connected notes,\" were \"but one step\" behind flint\naxes, when some cosmic power said, \"Hitherto shalt thou come and no\nfurther.\"\n\nIf the dog had organs of speech or an instrument like the hand by which\nto place himself in closer relation to the outer world, he would\ndoubtless be on a footing of mental equality with man, according to Mr.\nLaing. [69] The elephant's trunk accounts for his superior sagacity, and\nthe horse suffers by his hoof-enclosed forefoot. [70] \"Given a being\nwith man's brain, man's hand, and erect stature, _it is easy to see_ how\nintelligence _must_ have been gradually evolved.\" [71] Now honestly it\nseems to us that many animals are as well provided as man is with a\nvariety of flexible organs of communication with the outward world (for\nexample, the antennae of insects, the prehensile tails of some monkeys,\nwhose hands are as lithe as man's and articulated bone for bone and\njoint for joint). But letting this pass, we thought evolutionists\nallowed that structure is determined by function, rather than the\nconverse; and so the confession that \"it is not so easy to see how this\ndifference of the structure arose,\" [72] surprises us, coming from Mr.\nLaing; though why this difference should exist at all, on evolution\nprinciples, is a far greater difficulty. Yet he confesses that \"the\ndifference in structure between the lowest existing race of man and the\nhighest existing ape, [73] is too great to admit of one being possibly\nthe direct descendant of the other.\" The ape, then, is not a man whose\ndevelopment is arrested. \"The negro in some respects makes a slight\napproximation, ... still he is essentially a man, and separated by a wide\ngulf from the chimpanzee or gorilla. Even the idiot is ... an arrested\nman and, not an ape.\" [74]\n\nNearly all these (higher intellectual and moral) faculties appear in a\nrudimentary state in animals.... Still there is this wide distinction\nthat even in the highest animals these faculties remain rudimentary and\nseem incapable of progress, while even in the lowest races of man they\nhave reached a much higher level [75] and seem capable of almost\nunlimited development. [76] Why does he not seek out the reason of this,\nor is he satisfied with the _words_ \"arrested development\"? If I find a\nchild who can repeat a poem of Tennyson's, am I to be puzzled because it\ncannot originate one as good, or go on even to something better? Am I to\nascribe to it a rudimentary but arrested poetic faculty? Surely the same\npoem proceeding from the lips of the poet and of the child he has\ntaught, are essentially different effects, though outwardly the same. If\nthere were a true living germ, it would most certainly develope. If the\nsavage developes through contact with the civilized man after centuries\nof degradation, why have not domesticated dogs, who are, according to\nLaing, their intellectual and moral equals, developed long ago?\n\nHowever, as \"evolution has become the axiom of science and is admitted\nby every one who has the slightest pretensions to be considered a\ncompetent authority,\" [77] it is preposterous to suppose man an\nexception, whatever be the difficulties. [78] And so Mr. Laing, assuming\naxiomatically that man and the ape have a common ancestor, is interested\nto make the differences between them deeply marked, and that, as far\nback as he can, for thereby \"Human Origins\" are pushed back by hundreds\nof thousands of years. If miocene man is as distinct from the ape as\nrecent man, the inference is that we are then as far from the source as\never. Hence it is to geology he looks for the strongest basis of his\nposition. One thought till lately that geology was a tentative science,\nhardly credited with the name of science, but Mr. Laing wisely and\nboldly classes it among the \"exact sciences,\" whose subject-matter is\n\"flint instruments, incised bones, and a few rare specimens of human\nskulls and skeletons, the meaning of which has to be deciphered by\nskilled experts.\" [79] \"The conclusions of geology,\" up to the Silurian\nperiod, \"are approximate facts, not theories.\" [80]\n\nIf he means that the only legitimate data of geologists are facts of\nobservation, classified and recorded, well and good; but to deny that\nthey deal largely in hypotheses, and use them constantly as the\npremisses for inferences which are equally hypothetical, is palpably\nabsurd. First of all we are to \"assume the principle of uniformity\"\nwhich Lyell is said to have established on an unassailable basis and to\nhave made the fundamental axiom of geological science. He \"has shown\nconclusively that while causes identical with ... existing causes will,\n_if given sufficient time_, account for all the facts hitherto observed,\nthere is not a single fact which _proves_ the occurrence of a totally\ndifferent order of causes.\" [81] This, however, is (1) limited to the\nperiod of geology which gives record of organic life, and not to the\nearlier astronomical period; nor (2) does it exclude changes in\ntemperature, climate, distribution of seas and lands; nor (3) does it\n\"_affirm positively_ that there may not have been in past ages\nexplosions more violent than that of Krakatoa; lava-streams more\nextensive than that of Skaptar-Jokul, and earthquakes more powerful than\nthat which uplifted five or six hundred miles of the Pacific coast of\nSouth America six or seven feet.\" [82] Now, seeing that all these\ncataclysms have occurred within the brief limits of most recent time,\ncompared with which the period of pretended uniformity is almost an\neternity, what sort of presumption or probability is there that such\noccurrences should have been confined to historical times; and is not\nthe presumption all the other way? Again, it is largely on the\nsupposition of this antecedently unlikely uniformity, that Mr. Laing\nargues to the antiquity of life on earth; whereas Lyell's conclusion\nwarrants nothing of the kind, being simply: that present causes, \"_given\nsufficient time_,\" would produce the observed effects. [83]\n\nOur tests of geologic time are denudation and deposition. We are told\n\"the present rate of denudation of a continent is known with\n_considerable accuracy_ from careful measurements of the quantity of\nsolid matter carried down by rivers.\" [84] Now it is a considerable tax\non our faith in science to believe that the _d\u00e9bris_ of the Mississippi\ncan be so accurately gauged as to give anything like approximate value\nto the result of one foot of continental denudation in 6,000 years. We\ncannot of course suppose this to be the result of 6,000 years registered\nobservations, but an inference from the observations of some\ncomparatively insignificant period; and we have also to suppose that the\nvery few rivers which have been observed form a sufficient basis for a\nconclusion as to all rivers. In fact, a more feebly supported\ngeneralization from more insufficient data it is hard to conceive. To\nspeak of it as \"an _approximation_ based on our knowledge of the time in\nwhich similar results on a smaller scale have been produced by existing\nnatural laws within the historical period,\" [85] is a very inadequate\nqualification, especially when we have just been told that \"here, at any\nrate, we are on comparatively certain ground, ... these are measurable\nfacts which have been ascertained by competent observers.\" [86]\n\nAssuming this rate of denudation as certain, and also the estimate of\nthe known sedimentary strata as 177,000 feet in depth, we are to\nconclude that the formation took 56,000,000 years. A mountain mass which\nought to answer to certain fault 15,000 high, and therefore is presumed\nto have vanished by denudation, points to a term of 90,000,000 years as\nrequired for the process. [87]\n\n\"Reasoning from these _facts_, assuming the rate of change in the forms\nof life to have been the same formerly, Lyell concludes that geological\nphenomena postulate 200,000,000 years at least,\" [88] \"to account for\nthe undoubted facts of geology since life began.\" [89] On the other\nhand, mathematical astronomy, [90] on theories which Mr. Laing complains\nof as wanting the solidity of geological calculations (yet which do not\ninvolve more, but fewer assumptions), cannot allow the sun a past\nexistence of more than 15,000,000 years. [91] \"It is evident that there\nmust be some fundamental error on one side or the other,\" [92] \"for the\nlaws of nature are uniform, and there cannot be one code for\nastronomers, and one for geologists.\" But while modestly relegating this\nslight divergency among the \"bell-wethers of science\" (bell-wethers, I\npresume, because the crowd follow them like sheep), to the \"problems of\nthe future,\" Mr. Laing is quite confident that we should \"distrust these\nmathematical calculations,\" and rely on conclusions based on\n_ascertained facts_ and undoubted deductions from them, rather than on\nabstract and doubtful theories, \"which would so reduce geological time\nas to negative the idea of uniformity of law and evolution, and\nintroduce once more the chaos of catastrophes and supernatural\ninterferences.\"[93] As regards the ice-age, Mr. Laing is professedly\ninterested in putting it as far back as possible, since \"a short date\nfor that period shortens that for which we have positive proof of the\nexistence of man, and ... a very short date ... brings us back to the\nold theories of repeated and recent acts of supernatural interference.\"\n[94] Strange, that in the same page he should refer to Sir J. Dawson as\nan \"extreme instance\" of one who approaches the question with\n\"theological prepossessions;\" and of course in complete ignorance of Mr.\nLaing's indubitable conclusions about the antiquity of Egyptian\ncivilization. Unfortunately, even the best scientists have not that\nperfect freedom from bias, which gives Mr. Laing such a towering\nadvantage over them all. \"An authority like Prestwich,\" who \"cannot be\naccused of theological bias,\" influenced, however, by a servile\nastronomical bias, \"reduces to 20,000 years a period to which Lyell and\nmodern geologists assign a duration of more than 200,000 years;\" [95]\nwhich \"shows in what a state of uncertainty we are as to this vitally\nimportant problem;\" for this time assigned by Prestwich \"would be\nclearly insufficient to allow for the development of Egyptian\ncivilization, as it existed 5,000 years ago, from savage and semi-animal\nancestors; as is _proved_ to be the case with the horse, stag, elephant,\nape,\" and so on. [96] Now Prestwich, we are told elsewhere, is \"the\nfirst living authority on the tertiary and quaternary strata.\" [97] If,\nthen, astronomical prepossession can reduce 200,000 to 20,000 years, the\nsin of theology, which reduces 20,000 to 7,000 is comparatively venial.\nPrestwich's two objections are (1) the data of astronomy, and (2) \"the\ndifficulty of conceiving that man could have existed for 80,000 or\n100,000 years without change and without progress.\" The former is \"only\none degree less mischievous than the theological prepossession.\"\nHowever, Prestwich has some \"facts\" as well as prepossessions, such as\n\"the rapid advance of the glaciers of Greenland,\"[98] which does not\naccord with the generalization from the Swiss glaciers;[99] and the\nquicker erosion of river valleys, due to a greater rainfall; facts\nwhich, however, are met by \"a _minute description_ of the successive\nchanges by which in post-glacial time the Mersey valley and estuary were\nbrought into their present condition, with an estimate of the time they\nmay have required;\" which is \"in round numbers 60,000 years,\" as opposed\nto Prestwich's 10,000 or 8,000. [100] The 200,000 years for the ice-age\ndepends chiefly on Croll's theory of secular variation of the earth's\norbitular eccentricity; but we are told it is open to the \"objection\nthat it requires us to assume a periodical succession of glacial epochs\"\nof which two or three \"must have occurred during each of the great\ngeological epochs. [101] This is opposed to geological evidence.\" \"'Not\nproven' is the verdict which most geologists would return.\" \"The\nconfidence with which Croll's theory was first received has been a good\ndeal shaken.\" \"We have to fall back, therefore, on the geological\nevidence of deposition and denudation ... in any attempt to decide\nbetween the 200,000 years of Lyell and the 20,000 years of\nPrestwich.\" [102]\n\nAs to his arguments based on ancient human remains, their value depends\nfirst on the accuracy of his geological conclusions, and then on\npreclusion of all possibility of the conveyance of the remains from\nupper strata to lower; on the certainty, moreover, of traces of design\nin many of the would-be miocene or tertiary flint instruments (which\nPrestwich is doubtful about).[103] He takes care not to tell us that the\nCarstadt skull which gives name to a race, is a very doubtfully genuine\nrelic of one hundred and thirty years old, whose history is most\ndubious. His evidence for the absence of the slightest approximation to\nthe simian type even in the oldest relics is cheering to the theologian,\nthough it loses its value when we know it is in the interests of his\nforegone conclusions as to the unspeakable antiquity of man. The Nampe\nimage, the oldest relic yet discovered, \"revolutionizes our conception\nof this early palaeolithic age,\" being a \"more artistic and better\nrepresentation of the human form than the little idols of many\ncomparatively modern and civilized people,\" very like those in Mexico,\n\"believed to be not much older than the date of the Spanish\nconquest\"--\"and in truth, I believe, contemporaneous.\" [104]\n\nAs to his treatment of the Bible, it evinces everywhere the crudest\nanthropomorphic method of interpretation such as we should expect to\nfind in a child or very ignorant person. In truth, Mr. Laing is in a\nperfectly childish state of mind both as regards the Christian religion\nand as regards philosophy, sciences, and all the subjects he dabbles\nwith.\n\nFor our own part we have at most a general idea as to what exactly the\nChurch does teach or may teach with regard to the interpretation of the\nScripture. That she has so far acquiesced in the larger interpretation\nof Genesiacal cosmogony, that now the literal six-day theory would be\nvery unsafe, forbids us to judge any present interpretation of other\nparts by the number, noise, or notoriety of its adherents. The\nuniversality of the Deluge is by no means the only tolerable\ninterpretation now; though the doctrine of a partial deluge would have\nbeen most unsafe a century ago. All this does not mean giving up the\ninspiration of the record, but determining gradually what is meant by\ninspiration and the record. What could be less important to Christian\ndogma than the date of the Deluge or of Adam's creation? If it were\nproved that the original text _in this point_ had been hopelessly\ncorrupted, as the discrepancies between the LXX. numbers and the Hebrew\nhint to be true to some extent, it would not touch the guaranteed\nintegrity of Christian dogma. If Christ is the \"son\" of David, and\nZach\u00e6us is \"son\" of Abraham, what period may not an apparent single\ngeneration stand for, especially in regard to the earlier Patriarchs? As\nfar as the prophetic import of the Deluge is concerned, a very small\nlocal affair might be mystically large with foreshadowings, as we see\nwith regard to the enacted prophecies of the later prophets. For the\nrest, we are quite weary of Mr. Laing, and are content to have shown\nthat everywhere he is the same biassed, inconsequent, untrustworthy\nwriter. His only power is a certain superficial clearness of diction and\nbrilliancy of style, and this is brought to bear on a mass of\ninformation drawn confessedly from the labours of others, and selected\nin the interest of a foregone conclusion, without a single attempt at a\nfair presentment of the other side.\n\nHere, then, we have a very fair specimen of the pseudo-philosophy which\nis so admirably adapted to captivate the half-informed, wholly unformed\nminds of the undiscriminating multitudes who have been taught little or\nnothing well except to believe in their right, duty, and ability to\njudge for themselves in matters for which a life-time of specialization\nwere barely sufficient. A congeries of dogmatic assertions and negations\nraked together from the chief writers of a decadent school, discredited\ntwenty years ago by all men of thought, Christian or otherwise; a show\nof logical order and reasoning which evades our grasp the instant we try\nto lay critical hands on it; a profuse expression of disinterested\ndevotion to abstract truth, an occasional bow to conventional morality,\na racy, irreverent style, an elaborate display of miscellaneous\ninformation; good paper, large type, cheap wood-cuts, and the work is\ndone.\n\n_Oct. Nov._ 1895.\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: M.S. 319.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Ibid. 319.]\n\n[Footnote 3: M.S. 229, 230.]\n\n[Footnote 4: P.F. 279.]\n\n[Footnote 5: P.F. 280]\n\n[Footnote 6: Ibid.]\n\n[Footnote 7: P.F. 281, 282.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Ibid.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Ibid. 210.]\n\n[Footnote: 10 M.S. Preface]\n\n[Footnote 11: \"These subjects ... have been to me the solace of a long\nlife, the delight of _many quiet days_, and the soother of many troubled\nones ... a source of enjoyment.\n\n \"'The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,\n   The guardian of my heart, and soul\n   Of all my moral being.'\" (H.O. 3.)]\n\n[Footnote: 12 M.S. 319.]\n\n[Footnote: 13 Ibid. 320.]\n\n[Footnote: 14 Cf. Ibid. 104, 282.]\n\n[Footnote 15: This expression seems inconsistent with his here and\nelsewhere explicit maintenance of the hereditary transmission of\ngathered moral experiences. He means here to exclude innate ideas of\nmorality as explained by Kant and by other intuitionists.]\n\n[Footnote 16: M.S. 180.]\n\n[Footnote 17: M.S. 285.]\n\n[Footnote 18: M.S. 216.]\n\n[Footnote 19: M.S. 294.]\n\n[Footnote 20: M.S. 298, 299.]\n\n[Footnote 21: P.F. 297. \"The truth is that morals are built on a far\nsurer foundation than that of creeds, which are here to-day and gone\nto-morrow. They are built on the solid rock of experiences, and of the\n'survival of the fittest,' which in the long evolution of the human race\nfrom primeval savages, have by 'natural selection' and 'heredity' become\nalmost instinctive.\" (How careless is this terminology. In the previous\npage he denies morality to be a matter of hereditary instinct.)]\n\n[Footnote 22: P.F. 206.]\n\n[Footnote 23: Ibid. 207.]\n\n[Footnote 24: P.P. 204.]\n\n[Footnote 25: M.S. Preface.]\n\n[Footnote 26: H.O. 3.]\n\n[Footnote 27: P.P. 3.]\n\n[Footnote 28: \"The simple undoubting faith which for ages has been the\nsupport and consolation of a large portion of mankind, especially of the\nweak, the humble, the unlearned, who form an immense majority, cannot\ndisappear without a painful wrench, and leaving for a time a great blank\nbehind.\" (M.S. 284.)]\n\n[Footnote 29: xxxiii.]\n\n[Footnote 30: M.S. 261.]\n\n[Footnote 31: P.F. 176.]\n\n[Footnote 32: P. 177.]\n\n[Footnote 33: P.F. 192.]\n\n[Footnote 34: P. 245.]\n\n[Footnote 35: P.F. 222.]\n\n[Footnote 36: Thus he assumes Mr. Spurgeon's definition of inspiration\nas the basis of operations (See H.O. 189), and says, \"It is perfectly\nobvious that for those who accept these confessions of faith ... all the\ndiscoveries of modern science, from Galileo and Newton down to Lyall and\nDarwin, are simple delusions.\"]\n\n[Footnote 37: M.S. 215.]\n\n[Footnote 38: Ibid. 251.]\n\n[Footnote 39: \"The _simplest straightforward evidence_ of the _earliest_\nChristian writer who gives any account of their origin, viz., Papias.\"\n(P.F. 236.) \"What does Papias say? Practically this: that he preferred\noral tradition to written documents.... This is a _perfectly clear_ and\n_intelligible_ statement made apparently in good faith without any\ndogmatic or other prepossession.... It has always seemed to me that all\ntheories ... were comparatively worthless which did not take into\naccount _the fundamental fact_ of this statement of Papias.\" (238.) \"The\n_clear_ and _explicit_ statement of Papias.\" (250.)]\n\n[Footnote 40: PP. 258--260.]\n\n[Footnote 41: P. 262.]\n\n[Footnote 42: P.F. 266.]\n\n[Footnote 43: With regard to this \"very precise statement,\" it is\nnoticeable that Matthew speaks of \"Mary the mother of James and Joses;\"\nMark, of \"Mary the mother of James the less and of Joseph and Salome,\"\nbut not \"of Salome.\" If Mr. Laing's precise mind had looked for a moment\nat the text he was criticizing he would have seen that Salome is a\ncommon name in the nominative case. St. Luke does not give the names of\nthe women at all. These points are trifling in themselves, but important\nas evidencing Mr. Laing's standard of intellectual conscientiousness.]\n\n[Footnote 44: P.F. 235]\n\n[Footnote 45: M.S. 332 ff.]\n\n[Footnote 46: H.O. 2.]\n\n[Footnote 47: H.O. 8.]\n\n[Footnote 48: H.O. II]\n\n[Footnote 49: H.O. 9 and 199.]\n\n[Footnote 50: H.O. 10.]\n\n[Footnote 51: This seems, later, to be an inference, not an assertion.\n\"Manetho was a learned priest of a celebrated temple, who _must have\nhad_ access to all the temples and royal records and other literature of\nEgypt, and who _must have been_ also conversant with foreign literature\nto have been selected as the best man to write a complete history of his\nnative country.\" (H.O. 22.)]\n\n[Footnote 52: He seems to think that Josephus was a Christian, and\nSyncellus a \"Father.\" We might mention that from the fragments of\nAfricanus' _Pentabiblion Chronicon_, preserved in Eusebius, the author\nplaces the Creation at 5499 B.C., which is certainly hardly compatible\nwith his giving such fragments of Manetho as would place Menes one year\nbefore that date. If we know nothing of Manetho's results except through\nthese \"orthodox\" sources, it is inconceivable that Mr. Laing's version\nof them should have any historical basis whatever. It comes in fine to\nthis, that because their report of Manetho does not give Mr. Laing what\nhe wants, they have been tampered with.]\n\n[Footnote 53: H.O. 11.]\n\n[Footnote 54: H.O. 22.]\n\n[Footnote 55: H.O. 17.]\n\n[Footnote 56: H.O. 42.]\n\n[Footnote 57: \"There can be no doubt, moreover, that this Sargon I. is a\nperfectly historical personage. _A statue of him has been found at\nAgade.\"_ (H.O. 55.)]\n\n[Footnote 58: M.S. 50.]\n\n[Footnote 59: Ibid.]\n\n[Footnote 60: P.F. 28.]\n\n[Footnote 61: M.S. 61.]\n\n[Footnote 62: \"Matter is made of molecules; molecules are made of atoms;\natoms are little magnets which link themselves together and form all the\ncomplex creations of an ordered cosmos [an ordered order] by virtue of\nthe attractive and repulsive forces which are the result of polarity.\"\n(P.F, 223.)]\n\n[Footnote 63: We suppose he has a right to call himself _agnostic_ as\nbeing a disciple of Professor Huxley, who, we believe, started or\nrevived the term in our own times. Of course he is also a dogmatic\nmaterialist, and by no means an \"agnostic\" in the wider sense of general\nscepticism.]\n\n[Footnote 64: M.S. 171.]\n\n[Footnote 65: \"Not only have no missing links been discovered, but the\noldest known human skulls and skeletons, which date from the glacial\nperiod and are probably at least one hundred thousand years old, show no\nvery decided approximation towards any such pre-human type. On the\ncontrary,\" &c. (M.S. 181.) He replies (H.O. 373) that \"five hundred\nthousand years prior to these men of Spy and Neanderthal, the human race\nhas existed in higher physical perfection, nearer to the existing type\nof modern man,\" (Cf. P.F. 158.)]\n\n[Footnote 66: M.S. 112, 114.]\n\n[Footnote 67: P.F. 154.]\n\n[Footnote 68: P.F. 154.]\n\n[Footnote 69: M.S. 175.]\n\n[Footnote 70: The horse \"may be taken as the typical instance of descent\nby progressive specialization. What is a horse? It is essentially an\nanimal specialized for ... the rapid progression of a bulky body over\nplains or deserts\" [a definition which applies equally to the camel,\n&c.]. It commenced existence as a \"pentadactyle plantigrade bunodont.\"\nFor some indefined reason \"the first step was to walking on the toes\ninstead of on the flat of the foot, ... which became general in most\nlines of their descendants. For galloping on hard ground _it is evident_\nthat one strong and long toe, protected by a solid hoof, was more\nserviceable than four short and weak toes.\" [But why should it gallop\nmore than other animals; or why on the _hard_ ground in the deserts and\nplains; or would not _four_ strong and long toes have been better than\none?] \"The coalescence of the toes is the fundamental fact in the\nprogress ... by which the primitive bunodont was converted into the\nmodern horse.\" But we thought evolution was a change from the\nhomogeneous, incoherent to the heterogeneous and coherent: surely the\nchange from five toes to one must have been a misfortune on the whole,\nif the flexibility of the human hand accounts for man's intellect. The\nadvantages of a convenient gallop over occasional oases of hard ground\nin the desert would hardly balance that of being able to climb trees.\n(P.F. 143.)]\n\n[Footnote 71: Cf. P.F. 151.]\n\n[Footnote 72: M.S. 180.]\n\n[Footnote 73: \"A wide gap which has never been bridged over.\" (Huxley,\nP.F. 150.)]\n\n[Footnote 74: But cf. M.S. 181. \"Attempt after attempt has been made to\nfind some fundamental characters in the human brain, on which to base a\ngeneric distinction between man and the brute creation.\" (P.F. 149.)]\n\n[Footnote 75: Cf. \"It is probable, therefore, that this (drill-friction)\nwas the original mode of obtaining fire, but if so it must have required\na good deal of intelligence and observation, for the discovery is by no\nmeans an obvious one.\" (M.S. 204.)]\n\n[Footnote 76: P.F. 153.]\n\n[Footnote 77: P.F. 135.]\n\n[Footnote 78: \"The inference, therefore, to be drawn alike from the\nphysical development of the individual man and from the origin and\ngrowth\" [as though he had explained their origin] \"of all the faculties\nwhich specially distinguish him from the brute creation, ... all point to\nthe conclusion that he is the product of evolution.\" (M.S. 210.) \"Man\n... whose higher faculties of intelligence and morality are _so clearly_\n... the products of evolution and education.\" (M.S. 182.)]\n\n[Footnote 79: H.O. 260.]\n\n[Footnote 80: M.S. 48.]\n\n[Footnote 81: P.F. 17.]\n\n[Footnote 82: P.F. 17, 18. \"The conclusion is therefore certain that the\nland at this particular spot must have sunk twenty feet, and again risen\nas much so as to bring the floor of the temple to its present position,\n&c. Similar proofs may be multiplied to any extent.... In fact the more\nwe study geology the more we are impressed with the fact that the normal\nstates of the earth is and always has been one of incessant changes.\"\n(M.S. 35--9.)]\n\n[Footnote 83: i.e., Lyell says: Present causes could give these effects,\ngiven the time. Laing says: Therefore, since they have given these\neffects, we must suppose the time.]\n\n[Footnote 84: P.F. 18]\n\n[Footnote 85: P.F. 74.]\n\n[Footnote 86: Ibid.]\n\n[Footnote 87: P.F. 20.]\n\n[Footnote 88: M.S. 34, 41.]\n\n[Footnote 89: P.F. 6.]\n\n[Footnote 90: P.F. 23.]\n\n[Footnote 91: M.S. 46.]\n\n[Footnote 92: P.F. 24.]\n\n[Footnote 93: P.F. 32.]\n\n[Footnote 94: P.F. 66.]\n\n[Footnote 95: \"Thus giving to pal\u00e6olithic man no greater antiquity than\nperhaps about 20,000 to 30,000 years, while, should he be restricted to\nthe so-called post-glacial period, the antiquity need not go back\nfurther than from 10,000 to 15,000 years before the time of neolithic\nman.\" (57.)]\n\n[Footnote 96: P.F. 67.]\n\n[Footnote 97: M.S. 109.]\n\n[Footnote 98: Prestwich evinces the same recalcitrance according to the\n_Nineteenth Century_, December 4, 1894, p. 961, being one of the\ngeologists of high standing \"who have lately come to believe in some\nsudden and extensive submergence of continental dimensions in very\nrecent times.\"]\n\n[Footnote 99: 74.]\n\n[Footnote 100: P.F. 84.]\n\n[Footnote 101: P.F. 69, 70.]\n\n[Footnote 102: P.F. 70.]\n\n[Footnote 103: H.O. 364.]\n\n[Footnote 104: H.O. 388.]\n\n\n\nXXI.\n\n\n\"THE MAKING OF RELIGION.\"\n\nSome twelve years since we read Mr. Tylor's well-known and able work on\n_Primitive Culture_, and were much impressed with the evident\nfair-mindedness and courageous impartiality which distinguished the\nauthor so notably from the Clodds, the Allens, the Laings, and other\npopularizers of the uncertain results of evolution-philosophy. For this\nvery reason we made a careful analysis of the whole work, and more\nparticularly of his \"animistic\" hypothesis, and laid it aside, waiting,\naccording to our wont, for further light bearing upon a difficulty\nwherewith we felt ourselves then incompetent to deal. This further light\nhas been to some extent supplied to us by Mr. Andrew Lang's _Making of\nReligion_, which deals mainly with that theory of animism which is\npropounded by Mr. Tylor, and unhesitatingly accepted, dogmatically\npreached, and universally assumed, by the crowd of sciolists who follow\nlike jackals in the lion's wake. Without denying the value of our\nconceptions of God and of the human soul, Mr. Tylor believes that these\nconceptions, however true in themselves, originated on the part of\nprimitive man in fallacious reasoning from the data of dreams and of\nlike states of illusory vision. He assumes, perhaps with some truth,\nthat the distinction between dream and reality is more faintly marked in\nthe less developed mind; in the child than in the adult, in the savage\nthan in the civilized man. Hence a belief arises in a filmy phantasmal\nself that wanders abroad in sleep and leaves the body untenanted, and\nmeets and converses with other phantasmal selves. Nor is it hard to see\nhow death, being viewed as a permanent sleep, should be ascribed to the\nfinal abandonment of the body by its \"dream-stuff\" occupant. Whether as\ndreaded or loved or both, this ever-gathering crowd of disembodied\nspirits wins for itself a certain _cultus_ of praise and propitiation,\nand reverence, and is humoured with food-offerings and similar\nsacrifices. Nor is it long before the form of an earthly polity is\ntransferred to that unearthly city of the dead, till for one reason or\nanother some jealous ghost gains a monarchic supremacy over his\nbrethren, and thus polytheism gives place to monotheism. It need not be\nthat this supreme deity is always conceived as a defunct ancestor, once\nembodied, but no longer in the body. Rather it would seem that the\nprimitive savage, having once arrived at the conception of a ghost,\npasses by generalization to that of incorporeal beings unborn and\nundying, of spirits whose presence and power is revealed in stocks and\nstones, or in idols shaped humanwise--spirits who preside over trees,\nrivers, and elements, over species and classes and departments of\nNature, over tribes and peoples and nations; until, as before, the\nstruggle for existence or some other cause gives supremacy to some one\ngod fittest to survive either through being more conceivable, or more\npowerful, or in some other way more popular than the rest of the\npantheon.\n\nAgain, it is assumed that the gods of primitive man are non-ethical,\nthat they do not \"make for righteousness;\" that they are at most jealous\npowers to be feared and propitiated. When the savage speaks of a god as\ngood, he only means \"favourable to me,\" \"on my side;\" he does not mean\n\"good to me if I am good.\" God is conceived first as power and force;\nthen as non-moral wisdom, or cunning, and only in the very latest\ndevelopments as holy and just and loving.\n\nStarting with the assumptions of evolutionists, the theory is plausible\nenough. Nor is it inconceivable that God, without using error and evil\ndirectly as a means to truth and good, should passively permit error for\nthe sake of the truth that He foresees will come out of it. Astrology\nwas not incipient astronomy; nor was alchemy primitive chemistry; the\nend and aim in each case was wholly different. Yet the pseudo-science\ngave birth to the true; as false premisses often lead by bad logic to\nsound conclusions. Totemism, \"a perfectly crazy and degrading belief,\"\nsays Mr. Lang, \"rendered possible--nay, inevitable--the union of hostile\ngroups into large and relatively peaceful tribal societies.... We should\nnever have educated the world thus; and we do not see why it should have\nbeen thus done. But we are very anthropomorphic, and totally ignorant of\nthe conditions of the problem.\" In like manner it might have been, that\nGod willed to let men wander through the slums and backways of animism\ninto the open road of theism.\n\nBut our concern is not with what might have been, but with what was.\n\nMr. Lang contends, first, that belief in spirits and in a circumambient\nspiritual world, more probably originated in certain real or imaginary\nexperiences of supernormal phenomena, than in a fallacious explanation\nof dreams; then, that belief in a supreme god is most probably not\nderived from or dependent upon belief in ghosts.\n\nConsistently with the whole trend of his thought in his recent work\nconnected with psychical research, in _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, in\n_Cock-Lane and Common-Sense_, Mr. Lang begins by entering a protest\nagainst the attitude observed towards the subject by contemporary\nscience, especially by anthropology, which, as having been so lately \"in\nthe same condemnation,\" might be expected to show itself superior to\nthat injustice which it had itself so much reason to complain of. Yet\nanthropology, abandoning the first principles of modern science, still\nrefuses to listen to the facts alleged by psychical research, and\njustifies its refusal on Hume's oft-exploded fallacy, namely, on an _\u00e0\npriori_ conviction of their impossibility and therefore of their\nnon-occurrence.\n\nHowever wide the range of experience upon which physical generalizations\nare based, it can never be so wide as on this score alone to prove the\ninherent possibility of exceptions; more especially when we consider the\nconfinement of the human race to what is relatively a momentary\nexistence on a whirling particle of dust in a sandstorm. There may\nindeed be abundant evidence of a certain impetus or tendency enduring\nfrom a comparatively distant and indefinite past and making for an\nequally indefinite future; but there is not, cannot be evidence against\nthe possibility of interference from other laws whose paths, at points\nunknown and incalculable, intersect those followed by the (to us)\nordinary course of events.\n\nAnd in this wholesome agnosticism we are confirmed when we see that\nwhile some animals are deprived of certain senses which we possess, and\nall of them of the gift of reason, others are apparently endowed with\nsenses unknown to us, and are taught by seeming instincts which surpass\nwhat reason could effect; whence we may infer that the likelihood of our\nbeing _en rapport_ with the greater part of the _possible_ phenomena\namidst which we live, or of our possessing all possible senses or the\nbest of those possible, is infinitely small. What a magician a man with\neyes would be among a race of sightless men; or a man with ears among a\ndeaf population! How studiously would the scientists explain the effects\nof sight as produced by subtilty of hearing; and those of hearing as due\nto abnormal sensitiveness in some other respect!\n\nBut though there be no _\u00e0 priori_ impossibility in deviations from the\nbeaten track, yet there is a certain _\u00e0 priori_ improbability which may\nseem to justify those who refuse to go into alleged instances of the\nsupernormal. There is a story against Thomas Aquinas, that on being\ninvited by a frisky brother-monk to come and see a cow flying, or some\nsuch marvel, he gravely came and saw not, but expressed himself far more\nastounded at the miracle that a religious man should say \"the thing\nwhich was not.\" This is certainly a glorious antithesis to Hume's\nposition. Whether we take it to illustrate the Saint's extreme lack of\nhumour, or a subtler depth of humour veiled under stolidity, or his\nrigorous veracity, or his guileless confidence in the veracity of\nothers, we certainly cannot approve it as an example of the attitude we\nought to observe with regard to every newly recounted marvel. Truly\nthere might be more liberality, more enlightenment, more imagination in\nsuch a ready credulity, than in the wall-eyed, ear-stopping scepticism\nof popular science; but the mere inner possibility of a recounted marvel\ndoes not oblige us to search into the matter unless the evidence offered\nbear some reasonable proportion to the burden it has to support. That\nthis is the case as regards crystal-gazing, telepathy, possession, and\nkindred manifestation, is what Mr. Lang contends; nor would he have any\nquarrel with the anthropologists were they not fully impressed with the\nimportance of similar or even weaker cumulative evidence for conclusions\nwhich happen to be in harmony with their preconceived hypotheses. Where\nsuch evidence exists it must be faced, and at least its existence must\nbe explained.\n\nTrue criticism should either account for the seeming breach of\nuniformity, by reducing it to law; or else should show how the assertion\nif false ever gained credence; but in no case is it scientific to put\naside, on an _\u00e0 priori_ assumption, evidence that is offered from all\nsides in great abundance. Psychic research is daily applying to that\ntangled mass of world-wide evidence ancient and modern for the existence\nof an X-region of experience, those same critical and historical\nprinciples which created modern science. Men who, as often as not, have\nno religion or no superstition themselves, see that both religion and\nsuperstition are universal phenomena, and cannot be neglected by those\nwho would study humanity historically and scientifically. Even if there\nbe nothing in hallucinations, apparitions, scrying, second-sight,\npoltergeists, and the rest, there is a great deal in the fact that\nbelief in these things is as wide and as old as the world; it is a fact\nto be explained. \"Each man,\" says Meister, \"commonly defends himself as\nlong as possible from casting out the idols which he worships in his\nsoul; from acknowledging a master-error, and admitting any truth that\nbrings him to despair;\" and indeed a system as complete and compact as\nthat of Mr. Spencer or Mr. Tylor is apt to become an intellectual idol\nforbidding under pain of infidelity all inquiries that might cause it to\ntotter on its throne, or which might unravel in an instant what has been\nwoven by years of hard and honest thought. Few of us are in a position\nto cast stones on this score; still, recognizing the weakness more\nclearly in others than in ourselves, we are justified in reckoning with\nit, and in discounting for the unwillingness of men of science to listen\nto facts inconsistent with long-cherished theories, and for their\ntendency to accumulate and magnify evidence on the other side. \"If the\nfacts not fitting their theories are little observed by authorities so\npopular as Mr. Huxley and Mr. Spencer; if _instantiae contradictoriae_\nare ignored by them, or left vague; if these things are done in the\ngreen tree, we may easily imagine what shall be done in the dry. But we\nneed not war with hasty _vulgarisateurs_ and headlong theorists.\"\n\nWe cannot for a moment question the sincerity of purpose and honesty of\nintention of many of the leaders of modern scientific enlightenment,\nwhatever we may think of the said crowd of _vulgarisateurs_--those\ncamp-followers who bring disgrace on every respectable cause. But beside\nwilful bias and unfairness, there is unconscious bias from which none of\nus are free, but from which we need to be delivered by mutual criticism;\nfor, however much a man can see of himself, he can never get behind his\nown back. Of such unwitting dishonesty men of thought are abundantly\nguilty, when deeming themselves to be governed only by reason, they are\nin fact slaves to some intellectual fashion of the day. Not one of them\nin a thousand would dare to appear in public with the clothes of last\ncentury, or to face the laughter of a crowd of his compeers. Hence a\ncertain indocility and rigidness of mind which they only escape who live\nout of the fashion or have strength to lead it or to live above it.\nSimple, whether from greatness or littleness, they escape the narrowing\ninfluence inseparable from being identified, even in their own mind,\nwith a school or coterie; and can afford to say things as they see them.\n\nContemporary fashion says at present that there are to be no miracles,\nnothing supernormal; whatever cannot be reduced in any way to known laws\nand causes can be flatly denied, for the supposition of unknown causes\nand laws is rank heresy. Until more recent years, it was not permitted\nto listen to or show any disposition to investigate the narratives of\nphenomena which have since been \"explained\" and reduced to such\nlegalized causes as hysteria or hypnotism, and even (of late) to\nthought-transference. But since this happy reconciliation has been\neffected, such stories are allowed to be believed on ordinary evidence,\nalthough the accounts of other \"unclassed\" supernormal marvels coming\nfrom the same lips with the same attestation are still brushed aside as\ntraveller's tales, or as the puerilities of hagiography--not worth a\nthought. One would think that some kind of apology or reparation were\ndue to ecclesiastical tradition, which was credited with wholesale lying\nso long as its recorded wonders were classed among impossibilities by\nthe intellectual fashion-mongers, but it seems we have only partly\nescaped the reproach of knavery to incur that of wholesale folly for not\nhaving seen that these apparent miracles were but forms of hysteria or\nhypnotism.\n\nYet what is hysteria and what does it really explain? [1] Surely the\netymology throws no light on the subject! Is it then merely a name for\nthe unknown cause of phenomena every whit as strange as those which were\nheld incredible till their like had been actually witnessed and forced\nupon the unwilling eyes of science beyond all possibility of denial? Is\nit that science blindly refused even to weigh the evidence for abnormal\nfacts till the same or similar had become matters of personal\nobservation? Is it that every reported breach of her assumed\nuniformities is incredible, because impossible, until the possibility\nhas been proved by some fact which is then named, erected into a class,\na cause, a law, and used to explain away similar facts formerly denied,\nand is thus taken into that bundle of generalizations called the \"laws\nof nature\"? The ancients assumed all heavenly motion to be circular of\nnecessity, and where facts gave against them, they patched the matter up\nwith an epicycle or two. Are not hysteria, hypnotism, and\nthought-transference of the nature of epicycles? It is now confessed\nthat the mind can so affect and dominate the body as to produce blisters\nand wounds by mere force of suggestion and expectancy; that a like\n\"faith\" can cure, not only such ailments as are clearly connected with\nthe nerves, but others where such connection is not yet traceable. And\nthis is supposed to tell in some way against like marvels reported by\nhagiology, as though they were explained by being observed and named.\nYet what did that supposed marvellousness consist in, except in a\nseeming revelation of the power and superiority of mind over matter, and\nof things unseen over things seen and palpable; and in proving that\nthere were more wonders in heaven and earth than were dreamt of by a\ncrude and self-satisfied materialism? They were taken as evidence of a\ncircumambient X-region where the laws of mechanics were set at defiance\nand where the fetters of time and place were loosened or cast aside.\nSuch an X-region being supposed by every supernatural religion and\ndenied by most of those who deny religion, and on the same grounds, its\nestablishment by any kind of experiment is rightly considered in some\nsort to make for religion. Indeed, it is just on this account that the\nevidence for it is so opposed by those who are pre-occupied by the\nanti-religious bias of contemporary science. But unless hysterical\neffects can be shown to be ultimately due, not to mind, but to matter\nacting on matter, according to methods approved by materialism, hysteria\nremains a word-cause and no more, like the meat-cooking quality of the\nroasting-jack.\n\nHypnotism is a kindred cause in every way. It means sleep-ism; yet\nmanifestly it deals with characteristics which are utterly unlike those\nof sleep; and it is precisely these that need to be explained away in\nconformity with received laws, unless we are to find in these phenomena\nevidence of such modes of being and operation as every kind of religion\npostulates. \"Possession\" is of course a fable; the superabundant\nworld-wide, world-old evidence for the phenomenon was thrust aside\nwithout a glance, till hypnotic experiments brought to light what is\ncalled \"alternating personality.\" As though this name had explained\neverything in accordance with materialism, forthwith it was permitted to\nbelieve the aforesaid evidence, provided one laughed loudly enough at\nthe theory of \"possession.\" It is allowed that the hypnotic patient may\nin some sense be said to be \"possessed\" by the hypnotiser for the time\nbeing; nay, even a certain chronic possession of this kind is\nobservable. But an invisible hypnotiser and possession by a disembodied\nspirit is still out of fashion, notwithstanding all Mrs. Piper's efforts\nand Dr. Hodgson's audacious declaration of his not very willing belief\nthat those who speak through her \"are veritably the personalities they\nclaim to be, and that they have survived the change we call death.\"\n\nThought-transference, however, promises to be a potent and popular\nsolvent of psychic problems. Thought-transference was a supremely\nludicrous supposition till comparatively recently; nor could there be\nany credible testimony for what was known antecedently to be quite\nimpossible. But some way or other, facts which demanded a name were\nforced upon the direct observation of science, and so Mr. F. Podmore has\nwritten a book in which, assuming thought-transference to be a\nscientifically recognized possibility, he proceeds to reduce many of the\nmarvels collected by the S.P.R. to that simple and obvious cause, and to\nreject the residue on the sound old principle that what is known to be\nimpossible cannot be true. Hallucinations, solitary and collective, and\nother perplexing instances are tortured into cases of thought-transfer\nwith an ingenuity which we should smile at in a mediaeval scholastic\nexplaining the universe by the four elements and the four temperaments.\nBut is not thought-transference itself lamentably unscientific? No;\nbecause we see that unconnected magnets affect one another\nsympathetically; and the brain being a sort of magnet may well affect\ndistant brains. Thought is a kind of electricity, and electricity, if\nnot exactly a fluid, yet may some day be liquefied and bottled. At all\nevents, science has seen something very remotely analogous to\nthought-transference and every whit as unintelligible and antecedently\nincredible till observed; and therefore it is permissible to listen to\nthe evidence for it, and forced thereto, to accept the fact.\n\nBut have we really disposed of ghosts if we prove the appearance to be\ncaused by a subjective modification of the perceiver's sensorium and not\nby a modification of the external medium--the air or the ether? Since it\nis a question of a spiritual substance independent of spatial dimensions\nand relations, said to be present only so far and where its effects and\nmanifestations are present, what does it matter whether it reports\nitself by an effect outside or inside the percipient--whether it be a\n\"vision sensible to feeling, as to sight,\" or but \"a false creation\nproceeding from a heat-oppressed brain\"? Is not this very distinction of\noutside and inside in the matter of perceptions open to no slight\nambiguity? The savage, familiar with the electric sparks caused by the\nfriction of deer-skins, ascribes the _aurora borealis_ to the friction\nof a jostling herd of celestial deer. \"Nonsense,\" says science, after\ncenturies of false hypotheses, \"it is nothing more nor less than\nelectricity.\" This is very much the way she is dealing with the\nsupernormal at present; brushing aside as wholly nonsensical, beliefs\nthat envelope a core of useful fact in a wrapping of crude explanation,\nand then receiving the same facts as new discoveries, because she has\nfitted them into an involucre more to her own liking, though perhaps but\nlittle less crude. \"Not deer-skin,\" says science, \"but amber; not\nmiracle, but faith-cure; not prophetic insight, but thought-transference;\nnot apparition, but hallucination.\" And so with the rest.\n\nConsidering then the bias of the dominant scientific school, which makes\nit refuse even to examine the carefully gathered evidence of the S.P.R.;\nwe need not wonder if the reports of travellers concerning the existence\nof like phenomena among savages and barbarians all over the world are\ndismissed with a certain _\u00e0 priori_ superciliousness. Yet surely, on\nevolutionist principles, the only possible clue to the mode in which\nbelief in spirits and in God may have originated with \"primitive man,\"\nis the mode in which those beliefs are actually now sustained, and, so\nto say, \"proved\" by the most primitive specimens of existing humanity;\nby, for example, those bushmen of Australia whose facial angle and\ncerebral capacity is supposed to leave no room for much difference\nbetween their mind and that of the higher anthropoids. Doubtless it is\nhard to get anything like scientific evidence out of people so\nuncultivated, whose language and modes of conception are so alien to our\nown. Individual travellers, moreover, have been the victims of their own\ncredulity, stupidity, self-conceit, and prejudice. \"But the best\ntestimony of the truth of the reports as to the actual belief in the\nfacts, is the undesigned coincidence of the evidence from all quarters.\nWhen the stories brought by travellers, ancient and modern, learned and\nunlearned, pious or sceptical, agree in the main, we have all the\ncertainty that anthropology can offer.\"\n\nFrom this ever-growing mass of evidence, it would appear that the\nuniversal belief among savages in a spirit-world is mainly strengthened\nand sustained, not by the phenomena of dreaming but by what Mr. Spencer\nwould call \"alleged\" supernormal manifestations, such as those of\nclairvoyance, crystal-gazing, apparitions, miracles, prophecies,\npossession, and the like. For belief in such marvels exists beyond\ndoubt, and furnishes a very obvious and logical basis for the further\nbelief in the invisible causes of these visible effects; nor should we\nhave recourse to an hypothetical and more indirect explanation of belief\nin a spirit-world when an actual and direct explanation is at hand. If\nwe see the branch growing out of the tree, we need not inquire what\ntrunk it sprang from, unless we have strong evidence that it is only a\ngraft. All investigation tends to show that savages believe in spirits\nand in the spirit-world because they witness, or firmly believe they\nwitness, supernormal phenomena.\n\nBesides this, it must be allowed that together with the _normal_\nphenomena of dreaming, there are abnormal dreams which even to\ncultivated minds seem at times as supernormal as second-sight or\nprophecy. But it is not on supernormal, but on normal dreams that\nanimists base their explanation. We need not deny that dreams and\ndelirium may have given palpable shape to the conception of a ghost, and\nmay also have helped forward the notion of a spirit by furnishing\nsomething intermediary between the grossness of our waking\nsense-experiences, and the altogether elusive and difficult thought of\nunembodied will and intelligence independent of space and time.\n\nIn the main then it seems more plausible to maintain that the idea of\nunembodied or disembodied spirits was shaped by that instinctive law of\nour mind which makes us argue from the nature of effects to the nature\nof the agency. The first impulse would be to ascribe every intelligent\neffect to some human agency, but other circumstances would subsequently\nincline the savage reluctantly to divest the agent of one or more of the\nlimitations of humanity, and to clothe him with preter-human attributes.\nNearly all the supernormal phenomena believed in by primitive man--so\nfar as we can judge of him from contemporary savagery--would suggest the\nagency of an invisible man; clairvoyance, and other manifestations of\npreternatural knowledge, would suggest independence of the senses in the\nacquisition of knowledge; every kind of \"miracle\" would bespeak an\nextension of power over physical nature beyond human wont; while all\nthese together would point to that freedom from the trammels of space\nand time, which is of the very essence of immaterial or spiritual\nsubsistence. Thus, by a gradual process of dehumanization, the mind\nwould be instinctively led from the notion of a man magnified in all\nexcellences and refined from all limitations, to the conception of\nspirit. But coexistently with this progress of the reason, the\nimagination would ever strain to clothe the thought in bodily form as\nfar as possible, and would cling to the notions suggested by dreams and\nwaking hallucinations, while language, after its wont, would speak of\nthe spirit as the _umbra_, the _imago_, the shadow, the breath, the\nattenuated replica of the body. Thus we find among all men, savage and\ncivilized, a certain unsteadiness in their notion of spirit, whether\ncreated or divine--a continual tendency to corruption and\nanthropomorphism, due to the conflict between reason and imagination,\nresulting so often in the domination of the latter.\n\nFor this view of the subject it is not necessary that we should admit\nthe preternatural character of the phenomena which form the\nsubject-matter of psychical research, but only that we should\nacknowledge the hardly disputable fact that belief in such marvels is\nuniversal and persistent among savages--a fact which science is bound by\nits own principles to explain, and not to ignore. Whether, as Mr. Lang\nseems inclined to think, among much illusion, chicanery, and ignorance,\nthere may not be truth enough to make the inference of an X-world\nlegitimate, whether the said universality, persistence, and\nrecrudescence of this seeming credulity can be accounted for in any\nother satisfactory way, is a further consideration. If in some dim\nfashion the Northern Indians anticipated modern science in their\nexplanation of the _aurora borealis_, connecting it with familiar\nelectric manifestations, may it not be, asks Mr. Lang, that in their\ninference from supernormal facts which experimental science refuses to\nhear of or to examine, they have again been sagaciously beforehand?\nDoubtless their explanation is crude and inadequate in both cases; but\nis it much more so than that offered by supposing electricity to be a\nfluid subject to currents; or by assigning many inexplicable psychic\nphenomena to \"hysteria\"--a mere word-cause?\n\nThe supposition is somewhat favoured if we give ear to that crowd of\nwitnesses whose combined evidence, duly discounted and tested, makes it\nclear that even among those who ought to have been civilized out of all\nbelief in aught behind the veil, the very same superstitions break out,\nor creep in, time after time, with new names perhaps, new clothes, new\nfaces, but in substance identical with those held by what we esteem the\nmost benighted races.\n\nFurther, it is evident that savages pay attention--over-attention, no\ndoubt--to these supernormal phenomena, being free from hostile\nphilosophic bias in the matter, and bent the other way; and that in\nconsequence they have everywhere observed, classified, and systematized\nthem in their own rude, simple way, and have thus forestalled what the\nS.P.R., in the teeth of science, is now endeavouring to do\nscientifically. With us, moreover, it is mere chance that reveals a\n\"medium,\" or hypnotic subject here and there: but with savages they are\nsought out diligently, and all who have any latent aptitude that way are\ndetected and utilized; and thus the field of their experience is\nconsiderably widened.\n\nBut besides all this, it seems more than plausible to suppose that among\nprimitive and undeveloped races such preternatural phenomena either\noccur, or seem to occur, much more frequently and extensively; and that\napparently supernormal faculties are more often developed.\n\nNor can this be explained solely on the score of their readier credulity\nand their lack of criticism; for there is good evidence to show that the\ndevelopment of the rational and self-directive faculties is at the\nsacrifice of those instinctive and intuitional modes of operation which\ndo duty for them while man is yet in a state of pupilage. Memory, for\nexample, is fresher and more assimilative in childhood, but deteriorates\nvery often as the higher faculties come into use; and indeed we cannot\nfail to see how the introduction of printing, writing, and mnemonic arts\nand artifices of all kinds, has lowered the average power of civilized\nmemory, and made the ordinary feats of more primitive times seem to us\nmagical and incredible. We also notice the high development of hearing,\nsight, and other forms of perception among savages who live by their\nfive senses rather than by their wits. When we descend to the\nanimal-world we are confronted by cognitive faculties whose effects we\nsee, but of whose precise nature we can form no conjecture whatever.\nThat which guides the migratory birds in their wanderings, and simulates\npolity in the bee-hive and ant-hill, is not reason, but is something for\npractical purposes far better than reason. Putting a number of these and\nof similar considerations together seems to suggest that development in\nthe direction of self-instruction (which is reason) and self-management\nand independence, is loss as well as gain.\n\nWhat we gain is no doubt our own in a truer sense than that we had when\nwe hung upon Nature's breast, and were guided passively by instincts and\nintuitions to purposes that reason can never reach to.\n\nBy far the most wonderful and seemingly intelligent work of the soul is\nthat by which it builds up, nourishes, repairs, developes, and finally\nreproduces the body it dwells in. Yet in all this it is almost as\npassive and unconscious as a vegetable. The effect is (as far as our\ncomprehension of it goes) altogether preternatural and inexplicable; yet\nit is far less _our_ effect than what we do by reason and by taking\nthought. What we pay for in dignity we lose in efficiency. While Nature\ncarries us in her arms we move swiftly enough, but when she sets us on\nour feet to learn independence and self-rule, we cut a sorry figure. In\nour helplessness she does all for us as though we were yet part of her;\nbut in the measure that we are weaned and begin to fend for ourselves as\nresponsible agents, we are deprived of the aids and easements befitting\nthe childhood of our race.\n\nIf this be true, if man in his primitive state possessed intuitive\npowers which have sunk into abeyance, either through the diversion of\npsychic energy to the development of other powers, or through desuetude,\nor as the instincts of the new-born babe are lost when their brief\npurpose is fulfilled; if the occasional recrudescence of these powers\namong civilized peoples is really a survival of an earlier state; then\nindeed we can understand that the evidence, or apparent evidence, for\nthe existence of an X-region, or spirit-world, may have been\nimmeasurably more abundant in the infancy of the human race, than it is\nnow even among contemporary savages.\n\nPut it how we will, it cannot be denied that belief in divination, in\ndiabolic possession, and in magic, has largely contributed to belief in\nspirits; and that to ignore this contribution by throwing the whole\nburden on ordinary dreams is unscientific. During sleep Mr. Tylor\nhimself is as much a prey to delusion as the most primitive savage; but\nthe criteria by which on waking we condemn _most_ of our dreams as\nillusions, seem really as accessible and obvious to the child or savage\nas to the philosopher; though the former through carelessness or poverty\nof language will perhaps say: \"I saw,\" instead of: \"I dreamt I saw.\"\nChildren will speak as it were historically of even their day-dreams\nand imaginings, not from any untruthfulness or wish to deceive, but from\nthat romancing tendency rightly reprehended in their elders, who should\nbe alive to the conventional value of language. But the first and most\nnatural use of speech is simply to express and embody the thought that\nis in us, not to assert, or affirm, or to instruct others. The child's\nromancing is not intended as assertion, although so taken by prosaic\nadults. It is from the same instinct which lies at the back of his\neternal monologue, of the \"Let's pretend\" by which he is for the moment\ntransformed into a soldier, or a steam-engine, or a horse. Eye-reading\nwithout articulation is impossible for the beginner, and thought that is\nnot talked and acted is impossible for the child. Yet deeply as the\nchild is wrapped up in his dreams, there is nothing more certain than\nthat he is as clear as any adult as to the difference between romance\nand fact; and so it is no doubt with the savage, who can hardly be\ndenied to have at least as much reason as an average child.\n\nCloser study of the savage points to the conclusion that the civilized\nman falls into the same error in his regard as many adults do with\nrespect to children, whom they fail hopelessly to interpret through lack\nof imagination, and to whom they are but tedious and ridiculous when\nthey would fain be instructive and amusing; forgetting that the\ndifference between the two stages of life is rather in the size of the\ntoys played with, than in the way they are regarded. So too we are apt\nto look on foreign, and still more on savage language, symbolism, ways,\nand customs, as indicative of a far more radical difference and greater\ninferiority of mental constitution and ethical instincts than really\nexists. Mr. Kidd, in his book on Social Evolution, has contended with\nsome plausibility that the brain-power of the Bushman and of the Cockney\nis much on a par at starting, and that the subsequent divergence is due\nchiefly to education and moral training; and certainly much of the\nevidence brought forward in Mr. Lang's volume seems to look that way. If\nthe aboriginal Australian has a faith in the immortality of the soul and\nin a supreme God, the rewarder of righteousness, if he summarizes the\nlaws of God under the precept of unselfishness; if in all this he is but\na type of the universal savage, surely it were well if some of the\nmissionary zeal which is devoted to supplying the heathen with Bibles\nwhich they cannot understand, were turned to the work of bringing our\nown godless millions up to their religious level.\n\nBut this takes us to the second and still more interesting part of _The\nMaking of Religion_, which we shall have to discuss in the next section.\nAt present we only wish to insist that it is a mistake to assume that\nbecause savages and children are, when compared with ourselves, so\nlittle, therefore their thoughts and ideas can be understood with little\ndifficulty. Contrariwise, as the apparent difference in life and\nlanguage is greater, the deeper and more patient investigation will it\nneed to detect that radical sameness of mental and moral constitution\nwhich binds men together far more than diversity of education and\nenvironment can ever separate them. It is, therefore, exceedingly\nunlikely that either the child or the savage should, by failing to\ndistinguish between dream and reality, introduce into his whole life\nthat incoherence which is just the distinguishing characteristic of\ndreaming and lunacy. And, as a fact, do we really find the savage as\ndepressed, on waking, by a dreamt-of calamity as by a real one; or as\nelated after a visionary scalping of foes as after a real victory? Does\nhe on waking look for the said scalps among his collection of trophies,\nand is he perplexed and incensed at not finding them? Even if, like\nourselves, he has occasionally a very vivid and coherent dream\nreconcilable with his waking circumstances, will he not judge of it by\nthe vast majority of his dreams which are palpable illusions, and not by\nthe few exceptional cases? If at times we ourselves doubt whether we\nwitnessed something or dreamt it, yet we do so not because the seeming\nfact is one which makes for the existence of another world of a\ndifferent order to this, but for the very contrary reason. If the savage\nonly dreamt of the dead, he might find in this an evidence of their\nsurvival, but he dreams far more often of the living, and that, with\ncircumstances which make the illusion manifest on waking. Seeing the awe\nand terror which all men have of the supernatural region, we ought, on\nthe animistic hypothesis, to find among savages a great reluctance to go\nto bed--\"to sleep! Perchance to dream--aye, there's the rub!\" But we do\nnot. Finally, just as the Chinese, who are supposed to mistake epilepsy\nfor possession, have, unfortunately for the supposition, got two\ndistinct words for the two phenomena, so it will doubtless be found that\nthere is no savage who has not some word to express illusion; or whose\nlanguage does not prove that he knows dreams are but dreams. We may well\ndoubt if even animals on waking are affected by their dreams as by\nrealities, or if a dog ever bit a man for a kick received in a dream. In\nshort the dream-theory of souls is plausible only in the gross, but\nmelts away under closer examination bit by bit.\n\nWhether the S.P.R. will ever succeed in bottling a ghost, and in\nsubmitting it to the tests necessary to convince science, matters\nlittle. The real fruit of its labours will be to \"convince men of sin,\"\nto convict science of being unscientific, and criticism of being\nuncritical--of being biassed by fashion to the extent of refusing to\nexamine evidence which must be either admitted or explained away.\nScepticism and credulity alike are hostile both to science and religion,\nand it is the common interest of these latter to secure a full\nrecognition, on the one side of the principle of faith, that with God\nall things are possible; and on the other, of the principle of science\nwhich is: to prove all things, and hold fast that which is good.\nCredulity tends to make the actual co-extensive with the possible; while\nscepticism would limit the possible to the known actual. The true mind\nwould be one in which faith and criticism were so tempered as to secure\nwidth without slovenliness, and exactitude without narrowness.\n\nII.\n\nHow, apart from the imperfect lingering tradition of some primitive\nrevelation, the belief in a surviving soul originates with contemporary\nsavages, or might have originated among still ruder past races, is a\nquestion of some interest, not only for its own sake, but for the sake\nof whatever little light it may throw upon the more vital question as to\nthe value of that belief. Had the doctrine of souls no other origin than\na false inference from the ordinary phenomena of sleeping and dreaming;\nwere it in no sense an instinctive belief, suggested perhaps and\nconfirmed by supernormal facts, it would still have interest for the\nanthropologist as one of those almost necessary and universal errors\nthrough which the human mind struggles to the truth, such as the errors\nof astrology or alchemy; but it would in no way contribute to the\nargument for immortality _ex consensu hominum_--an argument of much\navail when it is a case of man's instinctive judgments and primary\nintuitions, which are God-given, but of ever less value in proportion as\nthere is a question of deductions, inferences, and self-formed\njudgments. Even if we discard the dream-theory altogether, we get no\nsupport from the consensus of savages as to the soul's survival, unless\nwe have reason to think that the facts on which their inference rests\nare truly, and not only apparently, supernormal, and are, moreover, such\nas leave no other inference possible.\n\nWe know only too well that there are universal fallacies as well as\nuniversal truths of the human mind. For the practical necessities of\nlife the imagination stands to man in good stead, but as the inadequate\ninstrument of speculative thought its fertile deceitfulness is betrayed\nin his very earliest attempts at philosophy; nor are his subsequent\nefforts directed to anything else than the endeavour to correct and\nallow for its refractions and distortions, to transcend its narrow\nlimitations, to force it to express, meanly and clumsily, truths which\notherwise it would entirely obscure and deny. There might well be facts,\nnay, there are undoubtedly facts, which to the untutored mind\nnecessarily and always seem altogether supernormal, but which science\nrightly explains to be, however unusual, yet natural, and in no way\noutside the ordinary laws. So far as the marvels of sorcerers and\nmedicine-men are the work of chicanery, they will lack that persistence\nand ubiquity which justifies the investigation of other marvels for\nwhose universality some basis must be sought in the uniform nature of\nthings. Cheats will not always and everywhere hit on the same plan, nor\nwill the independent testimony of false witnesses be found agreeing.\n\nBut if besides facts and appearances that science can really explain\naway, there be a residue which takes us into a region wherein science as\nyet has set no foot, then we may indeed be on our way to a confirmation\nof the usually accepted arguments for immortality by which the\npositivist may be met upon his own ground. In truth, metaphysical,\nmoral, and religious arguments, however much they may avail with\nindividuals who are subjectively disposed to receive them, cannot in\nthese days influence the crowd of men who need some sort of violence\noffered to their intellect if they are to accept truths against which\nthey are biassed. The temper of the majority is positivist; it will\nbelieve what it can see, touch, and handle, and no more. If then the\nnatural truth of the independent existence of spirits can be inade\nexperimentally evident--and _\u00e0 priori_, why should it not?--men may not\nlike it, but they will have either to accept it, or to deny all that\nthey accept on like evidence. Such unwilling concession would of itself\nmake little for personal religion in the individual; but its widespread\nacceptance could not fail to counteract the ethics of materialism, and\nso prepare the way for perhaps a fuller return to religion on the part\nof the many.\n\nIt is the belief, and perhaps the hope, of not a few men of light and\nlearning that a comparison of the results of the S.P.R. investigations\nwith those of anthropology touching the beliefs and superstitions of\nsavages and ruder races, may point to an order of facts which, with\nreference to the admissions of existing science, are rightly called\nsupernormal, and yet which are in another sense strictly normal, namely,\nwith reference to that science of experimental psychology which, amid\nthe usual storm of ridicule and jealousy, is slowly struggling into\nexistence--ridicule from all devout slaves of the intellectual fashion\nof the times; jealousy from the neighbour sciences of mental physiology\nand neurology, which it declares bankrupt in the face of\nnewly-discovered liabilities.\n\nSo far this gathered evidence seems, in the eyes of some of its\ninterpreters, to point to a close connection, if not of being, at least\nof influence, between soul and soul, such as binds each atom of matter\nto every other; a connection which increases as we descend from the\nabove-ground level of full consciousness, through ever lower strata of\nsubconsciousness, to those hidden depths of unconscious operation from\nwhich the most unintelligibly intelligent effects of the soul\nproceed--as though, in the darkness, it were taught by God, and guided\nblindfold by the hand of its Maker. In other words, the individuation of\nsouls is conceived to be somewhat like that of the separate branches of\nthe same tree which, traced downwards, run into a common root, from\nwhence they are differenced by every hour of their growth, yet not\ndisconnected, as though each several consciousness sprang from some\nunconscious psychic basis common to all, wherein, like forgotten\nmemories, the experiences of all are buried, at a depth far beyond the\nreach of all normal powers of reminiscence, yet through which terminus\nof converging souls thoughts can, in our intenser moments, pass from\nmind to mind,--reverberated as it were from the base, and thence caught\nby the one consciousness altogether resonant to that particular\nvibration. How far such an interpretation may favour pantheism, or\nimperil personality, or involve a doctrine of \"pre-existence,\" or of\ninnate ideas, is not for us here to discuss. If we are to judge it\nfairly, it must be simply as a provisional working-hypothesis\nexplanatory of certain observations, and apart from all other\npsychological theories with which it may seem in conflict. Truth will in\nthe end adjust itself with truth, but nothing is to be hoped from forced\nand premature adjustments.\n\nMr. Lang's second and principal contention is that even if we allow the\nanimistic account of the belief in spirits, in no sense can we admit\nthat process by which belief in God is supposed to be a later\ndevelopment of the belief in spirits, as though inequality among spirits\nhad given rise to aristocracy, and aristocracy to monarchy.\n\nBy God here we understand: \"a primal eternal Being, author of all\nthings, the father and the friend of man, the invisible omniscient\nguardian of morality,\" a definition which, while it fixes the high-water\nmark of monotheism, yet only states with formidable distinctness what,\naccording to Mr. Lang, is found confusedly in the apprehension of the\nrudest savages. There are two senses in which we can understand an\nevolution of this idea of God; first, as Mr. Tylor understands it, in\nthe sense of a development by accretion from a simple germ, from the\nidea of a phantasm nowise a god, to that of a spirit still lacking\ndivinity, thence to that of a Supreme Spirit in whom first the essential\ndefinition of God is somewhat fulfilled. Secondly, it can be understood\nstrictly as a mere unfolding of the contents of a confused apprehension;\nso that there is an advance only in point of coherence and distinctness.\nThus understood, the entire religious history of the race, as also of\nthe individual, viewed from its mental side, consists in an evolution of\nthe idea of God and culminates in a face-to-face seeing of God.\n\nFrom the evidence amassed, or perhaps rather, sampled, by Mr. Lang it\nwould seem that, what we account the lowest races are in possession of a\nconfused idea of God, whencesoever derived, which is in substantial\nagreement with the reflex conception contained in the above definition;\nand that there is no existing series of intellectual stages whereby this\ncan be seen, as it were, in the act of growing out of previous simpler\nideas. Evolution in the direction of greater clearness and distinctness\nis to be observed, as well as a downward process of obscuration and\nconfusion: but for a substantial development of the idea of God from an\nidea of \"not God\" there is no proof forthcoming so far.\n\nOn the animistic hypothesis we should be prepared to find the notion of\nGod, as above stated, to be of very late development and accepted only\nby races fairly advanced in culture. We should, _\u00e0 priori_, deem it\nimpossible to discover more among the lower savages than a rude religion\nof ghost-worship, without any consciousness of a moral Supreme Being,\nthe father and friend of man. Whatever might seem to suggest the\ncontrary, would be explainable by some infiltration of more civilized\nbeliefs.\n\nArmed with this hypothesis the eye is quick \"to see that it brings with\nit the power of seeing,\" and to impose its own forms and schemata on the\nphenomena offered to its observation. The \"animist\" ill-acquainted with\nthe savage's language and modes of thought; excluded from those inner\n\"mysteries\" which figure in nearly every savage religion; confounding\nthe symbolism, the popular mythology, and also the corruptions,\ndistortions, and abuses which are the parasites of all religion, with\nthe religion itself, can easily come away with the impression that there\nis nothing but ghost-worship, priestcraft, and superstition, no\nconception whatever of a personal \"Power that makes for Righteousness.\"\nIf Protestants have almost as crude an idea of the religion of their\nCatholic fellow-Christians with whom they live side by side, and\nconverse in the same language, if they are so absolutely dominated by\ntheir own form of religious thought, as to be as helpless as idiots in\nthe presence of any other, can we expect that the ordinary British\ntraveller, \"brandishing his Bible and his bath,\" strong in the smug\nconviction of his mental, moral, and religious preeminence, will be a\nvery sympathetic, conscientious, and reliable interpreter of the\nreligion of the Zulu or the Andamanese?\n\nThe fact is that without a preliminary hypothesis he would see nothing\nat all except dire confusion. But an assumption such as that of\n\"animism,\" has the selective power of a magnet, drawing to itself all\ncongruous facts and little filings of probability, until it so bristles\nover with evidence that a hedge-hog is easier to handle.\n\nBut before discussing the relation of this assumption to existing facts\nand so bringing it to an _\u00e0 posteriori_ test, let us examine its _\u00e0\npriori_ supports.\n\nFirst of all, as Mr. Lang points out, it takes for granted that the\nsavage can have no idea of the Creator until he conceive Him as a\nspirit. \"God is a spirit,\" has been dinned into our ears from childhood;\nand hence we conclude that he who has no notion of a spirit can have no\nnotion of God; and that the idea of God is of later growth than that of\na ghost. In truth, he who ascribes to God a body does not know _all_\nabout Him; but which of us knows _all_ about God? The point is, not\nwhether the savage can know the metaphysics of divinity, but whether he\ncan conceive a primal eternal moral being, author of all things, man's\nfather and judge--a conception which abstracts entirely from the\nquestion of matter and spirit. We ourselves, like the savage,\nnecessarily speak of God and imagine Him humanwise,--although our\ninstructed reason, at times, corrects the error of our fancy,--and\nperhaps only \"at times,\"--only when we leave the ground of spontaneous\nthought, to walk on metaphysical stilts--nor while that childish image\nremains uncorrected and we neither affirm nor deny to Him a body, can\nour notion be called false, however obscure it be and inadequate. If the\nsavage has no notion of spirit, yet he may have, and often seems to have\na very true, though of course infinitely imperfect, notion of God; nay,\nperhaps a truer notion than those who affirm, without any sense of using\nanalogy, that God is a spirit. For if His spirituality is insisted on,\nit is rather to exclude from Him the grossness and limitation of matter,\nand to ascribe to Him a transcendental degree of whatever perfection our\nnotion of spirit may involve, than to classify Him, or to predicate of\nHim that finite nature which we call a spirit. God is neither a spirit\nnor a body; but rather like Ndengei of the Fijians: \"an impersonation of\nthe abstract idea of eternal existence;\" one who is to be \"regarded as a\ndeathless _Being_, no question of 'spirit' being raised;\" so that the\nfirst intuition of the unsophisticated mind is found to be in more\nsubstantial agreement with the last results of reflex philosophical\nthought, than those early philosophizings which halt between the\naffirmation and denial of bodily attributes, unable to prescind from the\ndifficulty and unable to solve it. The history of the Jews, nay, the\nhistory of our own mind proves to demonstration that the thought of God\nis a far easier thought and a far earlier, than that of a spirit. Our\nmind, oar heart, our conscience, affirm the former instinctively, while\nthe latter does continual violence to our imagination, except so far as\nspirit is misconceived to be an attenuated phantasmal body. Not only,\ntherefore, does the savage imagine God and speak of Him humanwise, as we\nall do; but if he does not actually believe Him to be material, he at\nleast will be slow in mastering the thought of His spirituality.\n\nAnother assumption underlying the animistic hypothesis, and also\nborrowed from Christian teaching, is that the savage regards the soul or\nghost as the liberated and consummated man, and that therefore he will\nplace God rather in the category of disembodied than of embodied men.\nYet not only the Greek and Roman, but even the Jew, looked on the shade\nof the departed as a mere fraction of humanity, as a miserable residue\nof man, helpless and hopeless, and withal disposed to be mischievous and\nexacting, and therefore needing to be humoured in various ways. Nay,\neven Christianity with its dogma of the bodily resurrection, denies that\nPlatonic doctrine which views the body as the prison rather than as the\ncomplement and consort of the soul; although it holds the soul to be of\nan altogether higher, because spiritual, order. But to the primitive\nsavage, who everywhere regards death as non-natural, as accidental and\nviolent, the surviving spirit, however uncertain-tempered and\nincalculable in its movements, however much to be feared and\npropitiated, does not command reverence as a being of a superior order.\nAt best it is: \"Alas! poor ghost!\" Better a live dog than a dead lion;\nbetter the meanest slave that draws breath, than the monarch of Orcus.\nSurely it is not in the region of shadows that the savage will look for\nthe great \"all-father;\" but in the world of solid, tangible realities.\n\nAgain, it is assumed that progress in one point is progress in all; that\nbecause we surpass all other races and generations in physical science\nand useful arts, we surpass them in every other way; and that they must\nbe far behind us in ethical and religious conceptions, as they are in\ninventions and the production of comforts. To find our own theism and\nmorality among savages is therefore impossible; for as the crooked stick\nis unto the steam-plough, so is the god of the savage unto the God of\nGreat Britain. Yet when we consider how closely religious and ethical\nprinciples are intertwined, and how glaringly untrue it is to say that\nindustrial civilization makes for morality,--for purity or self-denial,\nor justice, or truth, or honour: how manifestly it is accompanied with a\ndeterioration of the higher perceptions and tastes, we must surely pause\nbefore taking it for granted that the course of true religion has been\nrunning smoothly parallel to that of commerce.\n\nIn a thoughtful essay, entitled _The Disenchantment of France_, Mr. F.W.\nMyers points out the goal towards which \"progress\" is leading us,\nthrough the destruction of those four \"illusions\" which formerly gave\nlife all its value and dignity,--namely, belief in religion; devotion to\nthe State--whether to the prince or to the people; belief in the\neternity and spirituality of human love; belief in man's freedom and\nimperishable personal unity. \"I cannot avoid the conclusion,\" he says,\n\"that we are bound to be prepared for the worst. Yet by the worst I do\nnot mean any catastrophe of despair, any cosmic suicide, any world-wide\nunchaining of the brute that lies pent in man. I mean merely the\npeaceful, progressive, orderly triumph of _l'homme sensuel moyen_; the\ngradual adaptation of hopes and occupations to a purely terrestrial\nstandard; the calculated pleasures of the cynic who is resolved to be a\ndupe no more.\"\n\nIn other words, if we accept this very temperate and reluctant\nconclusion, we must confess that the one-sided progress, with whose\nall-sufficiency we are so thoroughly satisfied, is making straight for\nthe extermination, not only of religion, but of morality in any received\nsense of the term.\n\nBut when Mr. Lang, who has no hypothesis of his own as to the origin of\nbelief in God, brings the animistic theory to an _\u00e0 posteriori_ test, he\nfinds it encumbered with still greater difficulties; for nothing is as,\n_\u00e0 priori_, it ought to be.\n\nWhile Mr. Tylor asserts \"that no savage tribe of monotheists has ever\nbeen known,\" but that all ascribe the attributes of deity to other\nbeings than the Almighty Creator, it appears in fact that many of the\nrudest savages \"are as monotheistic as some Christians. They have a\nSupreme Being, and the 'distinctive attributes of deity' are not by them\nassigned to other beings further than as Christianity assigns them to\nangels, saints, the devil,\" &c. Catholics at least will readily\nunderstand how hastily and unjustly the charge of polytheism is made by\nthe protestantized mind against any religion which believes in a\nHeavenly Court as well as in a Heavenly Monarch. \"Of the existence of a\nbelief in a Supreme Being\" amongst the lowest savages, \"there is as good\nevidence as we possess for any fact in the ethnographic region. It is\ncertain that savages, when first approached by curious travellers and\nmissionaries, have again and again recognized our God in theirs.\"\n\nIf, therefore, belief in God grew out of belief in ghosts, it must have\nbeen in some stage of culture lower than any of which we have experience\nso far; and at some period which belongs to the region of hypothesis and\nconjecture. There are no known tribes where ghosts are worshipped and\nGod is not known, or where the supposed process of development can be\nwatched in action. Nor is it only that links are missing, but one of the\nvery terms to be connected, namely, a godless race, is conjectural.\nStill more unfortunate is it for the animists that evidence points to\nthe fact that advance in civilization often means the decay of\nmonotheism, and that the ruder races are the purer in their religious\nand ethical conceptions. Once more, all facts are against the theory\nthat tribes transfer their earthly polity to the heavenly city; for\nmonotheism is found where monarchy is unknown. \"God cannot be a\nreflection from human kings where there are no kings; nor a president\nelected out of a polytheistic society of gods, where there is as yet no\npolytheism; nor an ideal first ancestor where men do not worship their\nancestors.\" To the substantiating of these facts Mr. Lang then applies\nhimself, and shows us how among the Australians, Red Indians, Figians,\nAndamanese, Dinkas, Yao, Zulus, and all known savages there lives the\nconception of a Supreme Being (not necessarily spirit) who is variously\nstyled Father, Master, Our Father, The Ancient One in the skyland, The\nGreat Father. He shows us, moreover, that this deity is the God of\nconscience, a power making for goodness, a guardian and enforcer of the\ninterests of justice and truth and purity; good to the good, and froward\nwith the froward.\n\nBut surely, it will be said, all this is too paradoxical, too violently\nin conflict with what is notorious concerning the religion and morality\nof savages.\n\nThe reason of this seeming contradiction is, however, not altogether\ndifficult. It is to be found partly in the fact that religion, like\nmorality, being counter to those laws which govern the physical world\nand the animal man,--to the law of egoism and competition and struggle\nfor existence; to the law that \"might is right,\"--tends from the very\nnature of the case towards decay and disintegration. The movement of\nmaterial progress is in some sense a downhill movement. No doubt it\nevokes much seeming virtue, such as is necessary to secure the end; but\nthe motive force is one with regard to which man is passive rather than\nactive, a slave rather than a master, as a miser is in respect to that\npassion which stimulates him to struggle for gain. Religion and morality\nare uphill work, needing continual strain and attention if the motive\nforce is to be maintained at all. Huxley, in one of his later\nutterances, allowed this with regard to morality; and it is not less but\nmore true with regard to faith in the value of unseen realities. Even if\nbelief in a moral God be as natural to man as are the promptings of\nconscience, it ought not to surprise us that it should be as universally\nstifled, neglected, seemingly denied, as conscience is. It is not\nusually in old age and after years of conflict with the world that\nconscience is most sensitive and faithful to light, but rather in early\nchildhood. And similarly the sense of God and of His will is apparently\nmore strong and lively in the childhood of races than after it has been\nstifled by the struggle for wealth and pre-eminence--\n\n  When yet I had not walked above\n  A mile or two from my first love:\n  But felt through all this fleshly dress\n  Bright shoots of everlastingness. [2]\n\nDegradation may almost be considered a law of religion and morality\nwhich needs some kind of violent counteraction, some continual\nintervention and providence, if it is to be kept in check. After all,\nthis is only a dressing-up of the old platitude that a holy life means\ncontinual warfare and straining of the spirit against the flesh, of the\nmoral order against the physical order, of altruism or the true egoism\nagainst selfishness or the false egoism. Of course an ideal civilization\nwould help and not hinder religion; but the chances against civilization\nbeing ideal are so large as to make it historically true that, advance\nin civilization does not always mean advance in religion and morality,\nand often means decay.\n\nFar from animism being the root of theism, more often it is rather the\nivy that grows up about it, hides it and chokes it. Just because the\ndemands of religion and morality are so burdensome to men, they will\never seek short-cuts to salvation; and the intercession of presumably\ncorruptible courtiers will be secured to win the favour, or avert the\ndispleasure, of the rigorously incorruptible and inexorable King, who is\n\"no respecter of persons.\" Except among Jews and Christians, the Supreme\nBeing is nowhere worshipped with sacrifice--that service of\nfood-offering being reserved for subordinate deities susceptible to\ngentle bribery. The great God of conscience is naturally the least\npopular object of cultus; though, were the animists right, He should be\nthe most popular, seeing He would be the latest development demanded and\ncreated by the popular mind. But contrariwise, He tends to recede more\nand more into the background, behind the ever-multiplying crowd of\npatron-spirits, guardians, family-gods; till, as in Greece and Rome, He\nis almost entirely obscured, \"an unknown God ignorantly worshipped\"--the\nEnd, as usual, being forgotten and buried in the means. All this process\nof degradation will be hastened by the corruption of priests whose\navarice or ambition, as Mr. Lang says, will tempt them to exploit the\nlucrative elements in religion at the expense of the ethical; to\nwhittle-away the decrees of God and conscience to suit the wealthy and\neasy-going; to substitute purchasable sacrifice, for obedience; and the\nfat of rams, for charity. We need only look to the history of Israel and\nof the Christian Church to see all these tendencies continually at work,\nand only held in check by innumerable interventions of Divine\nProvidence, and of that Spirit which is always striving with man.\n\nScant, however, as may be the amount of direct worship accorded to the\nSupreme God, compared with that received by subordinate spiritual\npowers, yet it is _sui generis_, and of an infinitely higher order. The\nfamiliar distinction of _latria_ and _dulia_ seems to obtain everywhere;\nas also that between _Elohim_ and _Javeh_, that is, between supernal\nbeings in general, and the Supreme Being who is also supernal. Yet so\nexcessive in quantity is the secondary cultus compared with the primary,\nthat an outsider may well be pardoned for thinking that there is nothing\nbeyond what meets the eye on every side. As has been said, the Supreme\nBeing alone is usually considered above the weakness of caring for\nsacrifice, or for external worship in \"temples made with hands.\" His\nname is commonly tabooed, only to be whispered in those mysteries of\ninitiation which are met with so universally. Outside these mysteries He\nmay only be spoken of in parables and myths, grotesque, irreverent,\ndesigned to conceal rather than to reveal. But rarely is there an image\nor an altar to this unknown God.\n\nIt is easy for those who recognize no other religion among savages\nbehind the popular observances and cults which are so much to the front,\nto believe that early religion is non-ethical. For indeed, for the most\npart, all this secondary cultus is directed to the mitigation of the\nmoral code and the substitution of exterior for interior sacrifice. It\nis the result of an endeavour to compound with conscience; and to hide\naway sins from the all-seeing eye. Again it is chiefly in the secrecy of\nthe mysteries that the higher ethical doctrine is propounded--a doctrine\nusually covering all the substantials of the decalogue; and in some\ncases, approaching the Christian summary of the same under the one\nheading of love and unselfishness. As for the corrupt lives of savages,\nif it proves their religion to be non-ethical, what should we have to\nthink of Christianity? We cry out in horror against cannibalism as the\n_ne plus ultra_ of wickedness., but except so far as it involves murder,\nit is hard to find in it more than a violation of our own convention,\nwhile a mystical mind might find more to say for it than for cremation.\nCertainly it is not so bad as slander and backbiting. Human sacrifice\noffered to the Lord of life and death at His own behest, is something\nthat did not seem wicked and inconceivable to Abraham. Head-hunting is\nnot a pretty game; nor is scalping and mutilation the most generous\ntreatment of a fallen foe; yet war has seen worse things done by those\nwho professed an ethical religion.\n\nBut, chief among the causes why savage religion has been so\nmisrepresented, is the almost universal co-existence of a popularized\nform of religion addressed to the imagination, with that which speaks to\nthe understanding alone. As has already been said, man's imagination is\nat war with his intelligence when supersensible realities, such as God\nand the soul, are in question. Without figures we cannot think; yet the\ntimeless and spaceless world can ill be figured after the likeness of\nthings limited by time and space. This mental law is the secret of the\ninvariable association of mythology with religion. Setting aside the\nproblem as to how the truths of natural religion (_sc._ that there is a\nGod the rewarder of them that seek Him) are first brought home to man,\nit is certain that if he does not receive them embedded in history or\nparable, in spoken or enacted symbolism, he will soon fix and record\nthem in some such language for himself. Christ recognized the necessity\nof speaking to the multitude in parables, not attempting to precise or\ndefine the indefinable; but contenting Himself with: \"The Kingdom of\nHeaven is _like_,\" &c. \"I am content,\" says Sir Thomas Browne, \"to\nunderstand a mystery without a rigid definition, in an easie and\nPlatonick description,\" and it is only through such easie and Platonick\ndescriptions that spiritual truth can slowly be filtered into the\npopular mind. Still when we consider how prone all metaphors are to be\npressed inexactly, either too far, or else not far enough, how abundant\na source they are of misapprehension, owing to the curiosity that will\nnot be content to have the gold in the ore, but must needs vainly strive\nto refine it out, we can well understand how mythology tends to corrupt\nand debase religion if it be not continually watched and weeded; and\nhow, being, from the nature of the case, ever to the front, ever on\nmen's lips and mingling with their lives, it should seem to the outsider\nto be not the imperfect garment of religion, but a substitute for it.\nYet in some sense these mythologies are a safeguard of reverence in that\nthey provide a theme for humour and profanity and rough handling, which\nis thus expended, not on the sacred realities themselves, but on their\nshadows and images. Among certain savages God's personal name is too\nholy to be breathed but in mysteries; yet His mythological substitute is\nrepresented to be as grotesque, freakish, and immoral as the Zeus of the\npopulace. We can hardly enter into such a frame of mind, though possibly\nthe irreverences and buffooneries of some of the miracle-plays of the\nmiddle ages are similarly to be explained as the rebound from the strain\nincident to a continual sense of the nearness of the supernatural; and\nperhaps the _Messer Domeniddio_ of the Florentines stood rather for a\nmental effigy that might be played with, than for the reasoned\nconception of the dread Deity. If we possessed a minutely elaborated\nhistory of the Good Shepherd and His adventures, or of the Prodigal's\nfather, or of the Good Samaritan, interspersed with all manner of\nludicrous and profane incidents, and losing sight of the original\npurport of the figure, we should have something like a mythology. Were\nit not stereotyped as part of an inspired record, the mere romancing\ntendency of the imagination would easily have added continually to the\noriginal parable, wholly forgetful of its spiritual significance.\n\nIt is part of the very economy of the Incarnation to meet this weakness,\nto provide for this want of the human mind; to satisfy the imagination\nas well as the intelligence. Here Divine truth has received a Divine\nembodiment, has been set forth in the language of deeds, in a real and\nnot in a fictitious history. Sacrifice and sacrament, and every kind of\nnatural religious symbolism, has been appropriated and consecrated to\nthe service of truth and to the fullest utterance of God that such weak\naccents will stretch to. Here the channel of communication between\nHeaven and earth is not of man's creation but of God's; or at least is\nof God's composition. This is the great difference between the ethnic\nreligions and a religion that professes to be revealed--that is, spoken\nby God and put into language by Him. The latter is, so to say, cased in\nan incorruptible body, its very expression being chosen and sealed for\never with Divine approval, and rescued from the fluent and unstable\ncondition of religions whose clothes are the works of men's hands. Here\nit is that Catholic Christianity stands out as altogether catholic and\nhuman, adapted as it is to the world-wide cravings of the religious\ninstinct; satisfying the imagination and the emotions, no less than the\nintellect and the will; and yet saving us from the perils of the\nmyth-making tendency of our mind.\n\nThe same thought is pressed upon us when we view the collective evidence\nas to the universal demand for a mediatorial system--for intercessors,\nand patrons, for a heavenly court surrounding the Heavenly Monarch; a\ndemand often created by and tending to a degradation of purer religion,\nyet most surely embodying and expressing a spiritual instinct which is\nonly fully explained and satisfied by the Catholic doctrine of the\ncommunion of saints and souls in one great society, labouring for a\nconjoint salvation and beatitude. We Catholics know well enough that the\ndegraded and superstitious will pervert saint-worship as they pervert\nother good things to their own hurt and to God's dishonour, but we also\nknow that of itself the doctrine of the Heavenly Court is altogether in\nthe interests of the very highest and purest religion. In all this\nmatter, needless to say, Mr. Lang is not with us; but the affinities of\nCatholicism with universal religion, which he marks to our prejudice,\nare really in some sort proof of our contention that the Church is the\ndivinely conceived fulfilment of all man's natural religious instincts,\nproviding harmless and healthy outlets for humours otherwise dangerous\nand morbid; never forgetful of man's double nature and its claims,\nneither wearying him with an impossible intellectualism--a religion of\npure philosophy--not suffering him to be the prey of mere imagination\nand sentiment, but tempering the divine and human, the thought and the\nword, so as to bring all his faculties under the yoke of Christ.\n\nMr. Lang's concern is with the universality of belief in God the\nRewarder, not with its origin nor even its value; though he seems at\ntimes to imply that the solution may be found in a primitive revelation\nof some sort. For ourselves, accordant as such a notion would be with\npopular Christian tradition, we do not think that the adduced evidence\nneeds that hypothesis; but is explained sufficiently by \"the hypothesis\nof St. Paul,\" which, as Mr. Lang admits, \"seem not the most\nunsatisfactory.\" The mere verbal tradition of a primitive \"deposit\" not\ncommitted to any authorized guardians would, to say the least, be a\nhazardous and conjectural way of accounting for the facts; nor is there\nany evidence offered to show that such religious beliefs are held, as\nthe Catholic religion is, on the authority of antiquity, interpreted by\na living voice. The substance of this elementary religion--the existence\nof God the Rewarder of them that seek Him--is naturally suggested to the\nsimple-minded by the data of unspoilt conscience, confirmed and\nsupplemented by the spectacle of Nature. That the truth would be\nborne-in on a solitary and isolated soul we need not maintain; for in\nsolitude and isolation man is not man, and neither reason nor language\ncan develop aright. Further we may allow that as Nature or God provides\nfor society, and therefore for individuals, by an equal distribution of\ngifts and talents, giving some to be politicians, others poets, others\nphilosophers, others inventors, so He gives to some what might be called\nnatural religious genius or talent or spiritual insight, for the benefit\nof the community. Thus whatever be true of the individual savage, we\ncannot well suppose that any tribe or people, taken collectively, should\nfail to draw the fundamental truths of religion from the data of\nconscience and nature. In this sense no doubt they would become\ntraditional--the common property of all--so that the innate facility of\neach individual mind in regard to them would be stimulated and\nsupplemented by suggestion from without.\n\nHow far God can be said actually to \"speak\" to the soul through\nconscience or through Nature so as to make faith, in the strict sense of\nreliance on the word of another, possible, is for theologians to\ndiscuss. If besides expressing these truths in creation or in\nconscience, He also expresses in some way His intention to reveal them\nto the particular soul, we have all that is requisite. In what way, or\ninnumerable ways He makes His voice heard in every human heart day by\nday, and causes general truths to be brought near and recognized and\nreceived as a particular message, each can answer best for himself.\n\nBut undoubtedly the results of comparative religion are, so far, almost\nentirely favourable to the doctrine of God's all-saving will; and in\nmany other points confirmatory of received beliefs. Even where, for\nexample, in the question of the origin and meaning of sacrifice, they\nseem to necessitate a modification of the somewhat elaborate _\u00e0 priori_\ndefinition, popular in some modern schools (though not in them all), yet\nthat modification is altogether favourable to the sounder conception of\nthe Eucharistic Sacrifice as a food-offering complementary to the\nSacrifice of the Cross. Above all it is in bringing out the unity of\ntype between natural ethnic religions, and that revealed Catholic\nreligion which is their correction and fulfilment, that the studies of\nMr. Lang and Mr. Jevons are of such service. The militant Protestant\ndelights to dwell on the analogies between Romanism and Paganism; we too\nmay dwell on them with delight, as evidence of that substantial unity of\nthe human mind which underlies all surface diversities of mode and\nlanguage, and binds together, as children of one family, all who believe\nin God the Rewarder of them that seek Him, who is no respecter of\npersons. What man in his darkness and sinfulness has feebly been trying\nto utter in every nation from the beginning, that God has formulated and\nwritten down for him in the great Catholic religion of the Word made\nFlesh--\n\n  Which he may read that binds the sheaf\n    Or builds the house, or digs the grave,\n    And those wild eyes that watch the wave\n  In roarings round the coral reef.\n\nTrue, even could it be established beyond all doubt that belief in the\none God were universal among rude and uncultivated races, this would not\nadd any new proof to the truth of religion, unless it could be shown\nthat it was really an instinctive, inwritten judgment, and not one of\nthose many natural fallacies into which all men fall until they are\neducated out of them. Still, for those who do not need conviction on\nthis point, it is no slight consolation to be assured that simplicity\nand savagery do not shut men out from the truths best worth knowing;\nthat even where the earthen vessel is most corrupted, the heavenly\ntreasure is not altogether lost; that it is only those who deliberately\ngo in search of obscurities who need stumble. It was not the crowds of\npagandom that St. Paul censured, but the philosophers. God made man's\nfeet for the earth, and not for the tight-rope. Whatever be the truth\nabout Idealism, man is by nature a Realist; and similarly he is by\nnature a theist, until he has studiously learnt to balance himself in\nthe non-natural pose.\n\nWill a man be excused for deliberately dashing his foot against a stone\nbecause forsooth he has persuaded himself with Zeno, that there is no\nsuch thing as motion; or with Berkeley, that the externality of the\nworld is a delusion; or will he be pardoned in his unbelief because he\ncould not justify by philosophy the truth which conscience and nature\nare dinning into his ears: that there is a God the Rewarder of them that\nseek Him?\n\n_Sept. Oct._ 1898.\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n\n[Footnote 1: \"A hysterical fit indicates a lamentable instability of the\nnervous system. But it is by no means certain _\u00e0 priori_ that every\nsymptom of that instability, without exception, will be of a\ndegenerative kind. The nerve-storm, with its unwonted agitations, may\npossibly lay bare some deep-lying capacity in us which could scarcely\notherwise have come to light. Recent experiments on both sensation and\nmemory in certain abnormal states have added plausibility to this view,\nand justify us in holding that in spite of its frequent association with\nhysteria, ecstasy is not necessarily in itself a morbid symptom.\"\n(F.W.H. Myers, _Tennyson as a Prophet_.)]\n\n[Footnote 2: _The Retreat_. By Henry Vaughan.]\n\n\n\nXXII.\n\n\nADAPTABILITY AS A PROOF OF RELIGION.\n\nMuch as we may think of the abstract and objective value of the treatise\n_De vera religione_, which forms the usual introduction to those _cursus\ntheologici_ whose multiplication of late has been so remarkable, it can\nhardly be denied that its cogency is much diminished for the large\nnumber of those thinkers who repudiate the philosophical presuppositions\nupon which that treatise rests. As long as negation halted before that\nminimum of religious truth which is in some way accessible to\nreason,--before belief in God and in immortality; as long as the\nprinciples and methods of proof by which \"natural theology\" reached its\nconclusion were admitted even by those who denied those conclusions, an\napologetic such as we are speaking of had an undoubted practical\nvalue--not indeed as sufficing to bring conviction to the unwilling or\nill-disposed, not as a cause of faith, but as removing an obstacle which\nexisted in the supposed incompatibility of revealed truth with these\nsame rational principles and processes.\n\nApart from this preparation of the intellect, to which perhaps the name\n\"apologetic\" should be more strictly reserved, a prior and more\nimportant need was the disposing of the will and affections to the\nacceptance of the truth. For, in a very real sense, love is the root of\nfaith; and the wish that a thing should be true, not only stimulates the\nmind to inquire and investigate, but also creates a fear of\nself-deception and a spirit of incredulity which is the fruitful parent\nof intellectual difficulties.\n\nSuch an appeal to the affections is really outside the province of\ntheological science and belongs rather to the rhetorician, the poet, or\nthe prophet. Yet it was a work at all times needful for the extension\nand maintenance of the faith, in even a greater degree than the more\ndispensable preparation of the intellect. For the great multitude of men\nwho are innocent of any really independent thought, who professedly or\nunconsciously take all their beliefs from some individual or society,\nthere is really no need of scientific apologetic--the sole need being to\nwin or maintain their confidence, their loyalty, their reverence, in\nregard to some teacher or leader, to Christ or the Church.\n\nIt was only towards the close of last century when scepticism was\nbeginning to reach the very root from which the Christian apologetic\nsprang, and the former philosophic methods had themselves fallen in\ndisrepute, that the necessity of accommodating the remedy to the disease\nbegan to be recognized here and there, and of framing an argument that\nwould appeal to the perverse and erratic mind of the day, rather than to\nan abstract and perfectly normal mind, which, if it existed, would \"need\nno repentance.\" That a given medicine is the best, avails nothing if it\nbe not also one which the patient is willing to take. If a man has\nclosed his teeth against everything that savours of scholasticism, we\nmust either abandon him or else see if there be any among the methods he\nwill submit to, which may in any wise serve our purpose. And, indeed,\namong the jangle of philosophies there is surely in all something that\nis a common heritage of the human mind, a unity which a little skill can\ndetect lurking under that diversity of form which unfortunately it is\nthe delight of most men to emphasize. To suppose that Christianity is\npledged to more than this common substratum which none deny, except\nthrough verbal confusion, that there is no road to faith but through\nwhat is peculiar to scholasticism, or that my first step in converting a\nman to Christ must be to convert him to Aristotle, is about as\nintelligent as to suppose that because the Church has adopted Latin as\nher official language she means to discredit every other.\n\nIt was then with a view of meeting the exigencies of the world as it is,\nnot as it might or ought to have been, that such a work as the _G\u00e9nie du\nChristianisme_ strove to find an apologetic in what previously had been\nregarded as outside the domain of theology and more properly the concern\nof the preacher. The beauty, the solace, the adaptation to our higher\nneeds of Christian teaching had been one thing; its truth, quite\nanother. By dilating eloquently on the first, men might be won to the\nlove of such an ideal, to wish that it might be true; and then disposed\nto profit by the distinct and independent labours of the apologist whose\ntheme was, not the utility or beauty of the Catholic religion, but\nsolely its truth.\n\nBut now that the \"scholastic\" [1] apologetic was in disgrace with all\nbut those who stood least in need of it, some more acceptable method had\nto be sought out, and amongst many others there was that of\nChateaubriand, which strove to find an argument for the intellect in the\nvery appeal which Christianity made to the will and affections. Because\na religion is fair and much to be desired, because, if true, it would\ngive unity and meaning to man's higher cravings, and turn human life\nfrom a senseless chaos into an intelligible whole, therefore, and for\nthis reason, it _is_ true.\n\nIt is hardly wonderful that such a method should incur the charge of\nsentimentalism. \"It would be so nice to believe it, therefore it must be\ntrue,\" sounds like a shameless abandonment of reasonableness. The fact\nthat a belief is \"consoling,\" quite independently of its truth or\nfalsehood, creates a bias towards its acceptance. That it is pleasant to\nbelieve oneself very clever and competent will incline one to that\nbelief until something important depends, not on our thinking ourselves\nso, but on our being so. Before an examination, the wish to succeed will\nmake me sceptical about my prospects, much as I should like to think\nthem the brightest; afterwards, when self-deception can only console and\ncan do no harm, I shall be credulous of any flattery that is offered me.\nIn one case, my interest depends upon the facts, and therefore the wish\nto believe makes me critical and even sceptical; in the other, on my\nbelief concerning the facts, and the wish to believe, makes me\nuncritical and credulous.\n\nIt was seemingly a bold and hazardous venture to justify this same\ncredulity, and to affirm that an argument could be drawn from the wish\nto believe in just those cases where its influence would seem most\nsuspicious; yet this was practically what the new apologetic amounted\nto. It was an argument from the utility of beliefs to their truth; from\nthe fact that certain subjective convictions produced good results, to\nthe correspondence of such convictions with objective reality. The\nadvantages to the individual and to society of a firm belief in God the\nrighteous Judge, in the sanction of eternal reward and penalty, in the\neventual adjustment of all inequalities, in the reversible character of\nsin through repentance, in the divine authority of conscience, of\nChristianity, of the Catholic Church, are to a great extent independent\nof the truth of those beliefs. No amount of hypnotic suggestion will\nenable a man to subsist upon cinders, under the belief that they are a\nvery nutritious diet; for the effect depends upon their actual nature,\nand not wholly upon his belief concerning their nature; but the salutary\nfear of Hell or hope of Heaven, depends not on the existence of either\nstate, but on our belief in its existence. The fact that the denial of\nthese and many similar beliefs would bring chaos into our spiritual and\nmoral life, that it would extinguish hopes which often alone make life\nbearable, that it would issue for society at large in such a grey,\nmeaningless, uninspired existence as Mr. F. W. Myers prognosticates in\nhis admirable essay on \"The Disillusionment of France,\" [2] all this and\nmuch more makes it our interest, if not our duty, to cling to such\nconvictions at all costs. \"If these things are not true, it might be\nsaid, then life is chaos; and if life be chaos, what does truth matter?\nWhy may not such useful illusions and self-deceptions be fostered? If we\nare dreaming, let our dreams be the pleasantest possible!\"\n\nNor can it be urged that though some part of our interest thus depends\non the beliefs, rather than on their being true, yet the consequences of\nself-deception are so momentous, as to create a spirit of criticism to\nbalance or over-balance the said bias of credulity. For though the\nconsequences of denial are disastrous if the beliefs are true, yet if\nthey are false, the ill-consequences of belief are almost insignificant.\nIt is sometimes said too hastily that if religion be an illusion, then\nreligious people lose both this life and the next; and it is assumed\nthat an unrestrained devotion to pleasure would secure a happiness which\nfaith requires us to forego. But unless we take a gross, and really\nunthinkable view of the homogeneity of all happiness, and reduce its\ndifferences to degree and quantity, the shallowness of the preceding\nobjection will be apparent. It is only through restraint that the higher\nkinds of temporal happiness are reached, and as confusions are cleared\naway in process of discussion, it becomes patent that such restraint\nfinds its motive directly or indirectly in religion. When the religious\ninfluence with which irreligious society is saturated, has exhausted\nitself, and idealism is no more, the unrestrained egoistic pursuit of\nenjoyment must tend to its steady diminution in quantity, and its\ndepreciation in kind. The sorrow and pain entailed by fidelity to the\nChristian ideal is, on the whole, immeasurably less in the vast majority\nof cases than that attendant on the struggles of unqualified\nselfishness, while the capacities for the higher happiness are steadily\nraised and largely satisfied by hope and even by some degree of present\nfruition. Even vice would be in many ways sauceless and insipid in the\nabsence of faith. Who does not remember the old cynic's testimony (in\nthe \"New Republic\") to the piquancy lent by Christianity to many a sin,\notherwise pointless. If the moralist distinguishes between actions that\nare evil because they are forbidden, and those that are forbidden\nbecause they are evil, the libertine has a counter-distinction between\nthose that are forbidden because they are pleasant, and those that are\npleasant because they are forbidden. St. Paul himself is explicit enough\nas to this effect of the law.\n\nLook at it how we will, even were religion unfounded our life would on\nthe whole gain in fulness far more than it would lose, by our believing\nin religion. Hence some of our more thoughtful agnostics, however unable\nthemselves to find support in what they deem an illusion, are quite\nwilling to acknowledge the part religion has played in the past in the\nevolution of rational life, and to look upon it as a necessary factor in\nthe earlier stages of that process whose place is to be taken hereafter\nby some as yet undefined substitute. If indeed Nature thus works by\nillusions and justifies the lying means by the benevolent end, it is\nhard to believe in a moral government of the universe, or to hope that\nan \"absolute morality\"--righteousness for its own sake--will be the\noutcome of such disreputable methods. But till the illusion of \"absolute\nmorality\" is strong enough to take care of itself, and has passed from\nthe professors to the populace, it is plainly for the interest and\nhappiness of individuals and of society to hold fast to religion.\n\nUndoubtedly then the advantages resulting from a belief in religion,\nwhether valid or illusory, are such as to incline not only the higher\nand more unselfish minds, but even those which are more prudential and\nself-regarding, to wish to hold that belief--to be unwilling to hear\narguments against it. But among the former class will be found many\nintellectually conscientious and even scrupulous persons, whom the\nrecognition of this inevitable bias will drive to an extreme of caution.\nNot so much because the facts believed-in are of such intense moment,\nbut rather because the belief itself, whether true or false, is so\nconsoling and helpful, that there seems to them a danger of\nself-deception just proportioned to their wish to believe.\n\nIt were then no small rest and relief to such, could it be shown that\nwhat they deem a reason for doubt, is really a reason for belief; that\nthe welcome which all that is best in them gives to a belief, affords\nsome sort of philosophical justification thereof.\n\nThis particular argument had undoubtedly a more favourable hearing in\nthe age of Chateaubriand, when unbelief stopped short at the threshold\nof what was called \"Natural Religion,\" and the apologist's task was\nconfined to the establishment of revelation. \"It is now pretty generally\nadmitted,\" says the author of _Contemporary Evolution_, \"with regard to\nChristianity and theism that the arguments really telling against the\nfirst, are in their logical consequences fatal also to the second, and\nthat a _Deus Unus, Remunerator_ once admitted, an antecedent probability\nfor a revelation must be conceded.\"\n\nGiven an intelligent and benevolent author of the universe, it is not\nperhaps very difficult to show that any further religious belief\napproximates to the truth in the measure that it satisfies the more\nhighly developed rational needs of mankind. It is not seriously denied\nany longer that religion is an instinct with man, however it may be\nlacking in some individuals or dormant in others. We have savages at\nboth ends of the scale of civilization, but man is none the less a\npolitical creature; nor does the existence of idiots and deaf mutes and\ncriminals at all affect the fact that he is a reasoning and speaking and\nethical animal. As soon as he wakes to consciousness, he feels that he\nis part of a whole, one of a multitude; and that as he is related to his\nfellow-parts--equals or inferiors--so also is he related to the Whole\nwhich is above him and greater than all put together. Religion, taken\nsubjectively, in its loosest sense, is a man's mental and moral attitude\nin regard to real or imaginary superhuman beings--a definition which\nincludes pantheism, polytheism, monotheism; moral, non-moral, and\nimmoral religions; which prescinds from materialist or spiritualist\nconceptions of the universe. And by a religion in the objective sense,\nso far as true or false can be predicated of it, we mean a body of\nbeliefs intended to regulate and correct man's subjective religion. It\nis to such systems and their parts that we think the above test of\n\"adaptability\" maybe applied as we have stated it.\n\nWe must of course assume that our distinction of higher from lower\nstates of rational development is valid; that we can really attach some\nabsolute meaning to the terms \"progress\" and \"decline;\" that there is\nsome vaguely conceived standard of human excellence which such terms\nrefer to. Else we are flung into the very whirlpool of scepticism.\nMeasured back from infinity it may be infinitesimal, but measured\nforward from zero, the difference of mental and, partly, of moral\nculture between ourselves and the aborigines of Australia is\nconsiderable, and is really to our advantage. Now if a given religion or\nreligious belief suggests itself more readily, or when suggested\ncommends itself more cordially in the measure that men's spiritual needs\nare more highly developed; if, furthermore, it tends to make men still\nbetter and to raise their desires still higher so as to prepare the way\nfor a yet fuller conception of religious truth, it may be said to be\nadapted to human needs; and it is from such adaptability that we argue\nits approach to the truth. We say \"its approach,\" for all our ideas of\nthe Whole, of the superhuman, of those beings with which religion deals,\nare necessarily analogous and imperfect. What is admitted by all with\nregard to the strict mysteries of the Christian faith is in a great\nmeasure to be extended to the central or fundamental ideas of all\nreligion. They are at best woefully inadequate, and if the unity between\nthe parts of an idea be organic and not merely mechanical, they must be\nregarded as containing false mingled with true.[3] Still some analogies\nare less imperfect, less mingled with fallacy than others, and there is\nroom for indefinite approximation towards an unattainable exactitude.\nFor example, assuming theism, as we do in the argument under\nconsideration, it is evident that man conceives the superhuman object of\nhis fear and worship more truly as personal than as impersonal; as\nspiritual than as embodied; as one or few than as many; as infinite than\nas finite; as creator than as maker; as moral than as non-moral or\nimmoral; as both transcendent and immanent than as either alone. If then\nit appears that as man's intelligence and morality develop in due\nproportion, he advances from a material polytheistic immoral conception\nof the All, to a spiritual and moral monotheism, it may be claimed that\nthe latter is a less inadequate conception. And similarly with regard to\nother dependent religious beliefs which usually radiate from the central\nnotion. It will be seen that we do not argue from the self-determined\nwishes or desires of any individual or class of individuals to their\npossible fulfilment,--to the existence in Nature of some supply\nanswering to that demand; we do not argue that because many men or all\nmen desire to fly, flying must for that reason alone be possible. We\nspeak of the needs of man's nature, not of this individual's nature; of\nneeds consequent on what man is made, and not on what he has made\nhimself; of those wants and exigencies which if unsatisfied or\ninsatiable must leave his nature not merely negatively imperfect and\nfinite, but positively defective and as inexplicable as a lock without a\nkey--not necessarily, of needs felt at all times by every man, but of\nthose which manifest themselves naturally and regularly at certain\nstages of moral and social development; just as the bodily appetites\nassert themselves under certain conditions not always given.\n\nNow there is one form in which this argument from adaptability is\nsomewhat too hastily applied and which it is well to guard against. Were\nwe to find a key accommodated to the wards of a most complicated lock,\nwe should be justified in concluding, with a certainty proportioned to\nthe complexity of the lock, that both originated with one and the same\nmind; and so, it is urged, if a religion, say Christianity, answers to\nthe needs of human nature, we may conclude that it is from the Author of\nhuman nature with a certainty increasing as it is seen to answer to the\nhigher and more complex developments of the soul.\n\nNow if, like the key in our illustration, the religion in question were\nsomething given _in rerum natura_ independent of human origination in\nany form, this argument would be practically irresistible. That besides\nthose beliefs which lead man on to an ever fuller understanding of his\nbetter self, and stimulate and direct his moral progress, Christianity\nimposes others more principal, of which man as yet has no exigency, and\nwhich hint at some future order of existence that new faculties will\ndisclose--all this, in no wise makes the argument inapplicable. The\nwhole system of beliefs is accepted for the sake, and on the credit, of\nthat part which so admirably unlocks the soul to her own gaze. \"Now are\nwe the sons of God, but it doth not yet appear what we shall be;\" if\nbesides satisfying our present ideal of religion, Christianity hints at\nand prepares us for such a transition as that from merely organic to\nsensitive life, or from this, to rational life, it rather adds to than\ndetracts from the force of the argument.\n\nYet all this supposes that Christianity is something found by man\noutside himself, with whose origination he had nothing to do; but, if\nthis be established, its supernatural origin, and therefore, supposing\ntheism, its truth, is already proved, and can only receive confirmation\nfrom the argument of adaptability. If the Book of Mormon really came\ndown from Heaven, my conviction that polygamy is not for the best, would\nseem a feeble objection against its claims. That the Judaeo-Christian\nreligion is supernatural and is from without, not only with respect to\nthe individual but to the race; that it is an external, God-given rule,\nawakening, explaining, developing man's natural religious instinct,\ncorrecting his own clumsy interpretations thereof, is just what gives it\nits claim to pre-eminence over all, even the most highly conceived,\nman-made interpretations of the same instinct.\n\nYet though claiming to be a God-made interpretation, it is confessedly\nthrough human agency, through the human mind and lips of the prophets\nand of Christ that this revelation has come to us. Moreover, it\ninvolves, though it transcends, all those religious beliefs of which\nhuman nature seems exigent and which are, absolutely speaking,\nattainable by what might be called the \"natural inspiration\" of\nreligious genius. Viewing the whole revelation in itself, its\nadaptability is evident only in respect to that part which might have\noriginated with those minds through which it was delivered to us. If the\nbeliefs proposed seem to have anticipated moral and intellectual needs\nnot felt in the prophet's own age or society, this might be paralleled\nfrom the inspiration of genius in other departments, and could not of\nitself be regarded as establishing the _ab extra_ character of the\nrevelation.\n\nPlainly, then, so far as a religion claims to be from outside, its\nadaptability to our religious and moral instincts may confirm but cannot\nestablish its Divine origin, which, given theism, is equivalent to its\ntruth. For to show that it is from outside, is to show that it is from\nGod.\n\nIt is only therefore with regard to man-made interpretations of our\nspiritual instincts, to the natural inspirations of religious genius, to\nthe intuitions and even the reasoned inferences of the conscientious and\nclean-hearted, that the argument from adaptability can have any\nindependent value. It is now no longer as one who argues from a\ncomparison of lock and key to their common authorship; but rather we\nhave a self-conscious lock, pining to be opened, and from a more or less\nimperfect self-knowledge dreaming of some sort of key and arguing that\nin the measure that its dream is based on true self-knowledge there must\nbe a reality corresponding to it--a valid argument enough, supposing the\nlocksmith to act on the usual lines and not to be indulging in a freak.\n\nSuch, in substance, is the argument from adaptability founded on the\nassumption of theism and applied to the criticism or establishment of\nfurther religious beliefs. It is indeed somewhat stronger when we\nremember that the self-consciousness, with which we fictitiously endowed\nthe lock, plays chief part in the very design and structure of man; that\nhis self-knowledge, his moral and religious instincts, his desire and\npower of interpreting them, are all from the Author of his nature.\n\nOf this difference Tennyson takes note in applying the argument from\nadaptability to the immortality of the soul:\n\n  Thou wilt not leave us in the dust;\n  Thou madest man, he knows not why;\n  He thinks he was not made to die,\n  And Thou hast made him, Thou art just.\n\nBut so far as the argument presupposes theism it cannot be made to\nsupport or even confirm theism. If, then, we want to make the argument\nabsolutely universal with regard to religious beliefs--theism included\nand not presupposed--and so to make it available for apologetic purposes\nin regard to those whose doubt is more deep-seated, we must inquire\nwhether any basis can be found for it in non-theistic philosophy;\nwhether, prescinding from Divine governance and from an intelligent\npurpose running through nature, the adaptability of a belief to the\nhigher needs of mankind can be considered in any way to prove its truth.\nSo far we have only shown that such a conclusion results from a clearer\ninsight into the theistic conception. Can we show that it springs,\nco-ordinately with theism, from some conception prior to both?\n\n\nII.\n\nIf what is usually understood by \"theism\" be once granted as a\nfoundation, it is easy to raise thereon a superstructure of further\nreligious beliefs by means of the argument drawn from their adaptability\nto the higher needs of mankind. However individuals may fail, yet it\nmust be allowed that on the whole the human mind progresses, or tends to\nprogress, from a less to a more perfect self-knowledge, to a fuller\nunderstanding of its own origin, its end and destiny, and of the kind of\nlife by which that end is to be reached,--that is, if once we admit that\nman is a self-interpreting creature, and the work of an intelligent\nCreator. So far however as the Christian creed exceeds man's natural\nexigencies and aspirations, it plainly cannot be subjected to this\ncriterion; and so far as it includes (while it transcends) the highest\nform of \"natural religion,\" the argument from adaptability holds of it\nonly if we suppose Christianity to be a natural product of the human\nmind, thus destroying its claim to be from without and from above. But\nif from other reasons we know Christianity to be a God-made and not a\nman-made religion, then, though its divinity and truth is already\nproved, yet it is in some sort confirmed and verified by its\nadaptability to the demands of our higher nature. In a word, this\nparticular argument holds strictly only for man's own guesses at\nreligious truth,--for \"natural\" religions; but for Christianity, only so\nfar as we deny it to be supernatural as to its content and mode of\norigination.\n\nBut so far as this argument presupposes theism, it cannot be made to\nsupport or even confirm theism; if then we wish to make it available for\napologetic purposes in regard to those whose doubt is more deep-seated,\nwe must now inquire whether, prescinding from divine governance and from\nfinality in nature, the adaptability of a belief (say, in God, or in\nfuture retribution) to the needs of mankind, can be considered in any\nway as a proof of its truth; whether that argument can find any deeper\nmental basis than theism; whether it can be rested on anything which in\nthe order of our thought is prior to theism so as to support or at least\nto confirm theism itself.\n\nOur present endeavour is to show that though this argument rests more\neasily and securely on theism, yet it need not rest upon it; but\nsprings, co-ordinately with theism, from _any_ conception of the world\nthat saves us from mental and moral chaos. Hence it confirms theism and\nis confirmed by theism; but each is strictly independent of the other\nand rests on a conception prior to both; they diverge from one and the\nsame root and then intertwine and support one another.\n\nBy prescinding from theism I do not mean to exclude or deny it; for it\nis, as I have just said, bound up with the same conception from which\nthe \"argument from adaptability\" is drawn. I only mean that I do not\nneed to build upon it as on a prior conception; that I can put it aside.\nIndeed, of these two off-shoots, theism is less near to the common root,\nas will appear later.\n\nOur limited mind cannot take in at once all the consequences or\npresuppositions of a thought; for this would be to know everything; but\nas with our outward eye we take in the circle of the horizon bit by bit,\nso with our mind when we turn to one aspect of an idea we lose sight of\nanother. Hence in studying some complex organism or mechanism I may be\nclear about the bearing of any part on its immediately neighbouring\nparts, and yet may have no present notion of the whole; or may prescind\nentirely from the question of its origin or its purpose. Thus our\nthoughts are always unfinished and frayed round the edges, and we do not\nknow how much they involve and drag along with them. We can think of the\nmechanism, and the organism, and the design, without thinking of the\nmechanist, or the organizer, or the designer; and so in all cases where\ntwo ideas are connected without being actually correlative. What is\ncommonly called a philosophical proof consists simply in showing us the\nimplications of some part of the general conception of things that we\nalready hold. It is to force us either to loosen our hold on that part\nor else to admit all that it entails by way of consequences or\npresuppositions; and so to bring our thoughts into consistency one way\nor the other. But until something sets our mind in motion it can rest\nvery comfortably in partial conceptions, without following them out to\ntheir results.\n\nNow as we can understand a mechanism to the extent of seeing the bearing\nof part upon part, and even of all the parts upon the work it does,\nwithout going on to think about the designer or his design; and without\nexplicitly considering it as designed; so we can and do think of the\nworld and recognize order in it, and see the bearing of part upon part\nwithout going back to God or forward to God's purposes. Indeed, so far\nas we use the argument from design to prove the existence of God, it\nmeans that we first apprehend this order and regular sequence of events,\nand then, as a second and distinct step, put it down to design. For\nalthough God is the prior cause of design and of all creation, yet\ndesign and creation is the prior cause of our knowing God, The\nconception of a rational and moral world leads us to the conception of a\nrational and moral origin, i.e., to theism. Further, it is plain that\nthis same order and regularity is recognized by many who refuse to see\ndesign in it, and who invent other hypotheses to account for it; and of\none of these hypotheses we shall presently speak at length.\n\nNow, if I take any single organism and study it carefully, simply as a\nbiologist or physiologist, I shall recognize in it certain regularities\nof structure and function and development, upon which I can found\nvarious arguments and predictions. I can argue from its general\ncharacteristics, to the nature of its environment and habits and modes\nof life; or from its earlier stages, to what it will be when more fully\ndeveloped; and these arguments will be quite unaffected by any theory I\nmay hold as to the origin of these changes, and as to the causes of\nthese adaptations. The order and regularity on which my predictions are\nbased is an admitted fact. Theism or materialism are only theories by\nwhich that fact is explained. Now, for mind in the abstract, theism is\nreally as much a presupposition of that fact, as the predicted truth is\na consequence of it. Both are logically connected with it, and yet\nneither is derived from it through the other.\n\nIf, however, we cannot thus observe and calculate on certain\nregularities and tendencies in the world as we know it, then, not only\nis the appearance of design and finality an illusion, not only is that\nparticular argument for theism cut away, but with it goes all scientific\ncertainty, all that stands between us and the most hopeless mental and\nmoral scepticism.\n\nIt is not our immediate concern to prove the value of the \"argument from\nadaptability,\" but simply to show that it is logically (though not\nreally) unaffected by the question of theism and finality and design. As\nlong as we admit those same effects and consequences of which design is\none explanation, but of which others are _prima facie_ conceivable; as\nlong as we hold that the world works on the whole as though it were\ndesigned; that the present anticipates and prepares for the future; that\nthe future and absent can be predicted from the present, so long do we\nhold all upon which the \"argument of adaptability\" is strictly based.\nAnd indeed, as has been said, if once it be admitted that the general\nprogressive tendency on the part of living things is towards a greater\nharmony and correspondence with surrounding reality, then that argument\nis a more immediate inference from the existence of an orderly world,\nthan is theism.\n\nThough both are strictly independent deductions from the same principle\n(i.e., from an orderly world), yet theism and the argument from\nadaptability when once deduced, confirm one another. For it is not hard\nto show that theism is better adapted to man's higher needs, than\natheism or polytheism or pantheism; while if theism be once granted,\nthen, as we said in the last section, the argument from adaptability is\nmuch more easily established.\n\nThere have been at various times several philosophies or attempted\nexplanations of the world, which have either denied or prescinded from\ntheism and finality. These two conceptions may be considered as one; for\nby finality we mean the intelligent direction of means towards a\npreconceived end; and therefore to admit a pervading finality, is to\nimply a theistic origin and government of the universe.\n\nPerhaps, the best and most finished attempt to explain the world\nindependently of finality is the philosophy of Evolution, so widely\npopularized in our own day; and since it is in the region of organic\nexistence, that finalism looks for its chief basis, it is especially by\nDarwinistic Evolution that its force is supposed to be destroyed.\n\nAny form of \"monism\" gets rid of finality more easily than does any form\nof dualism; and again, any form of materialism, more easily than\nidealism; and therefore as monistic and materialistic (at least in some\nsense of the term), popular Evolutionism is the best plea for\nnon-finalist philosophy. We propose therefore briefly to examine this\nphilosophy, so far as it claims to be such, and to see whether it in any\nway touches the validity of the argument from adaptability.\n\nEvolution may be considered both as an empirical fact and as an\naetiological theory or philosophy. Considered as a fact, it is the\nstatement of observed processes, and belongs to positive science like\nthe observed courses of the planets, or any other observed regularities\nand uniformities. Science professes to have found everywhere as far as\nits experience has extended--in astronomy, geology, physiology, biology,\npsychology, ethics, sociology--a uniform process of change from the\nsimple to the complex, from the indefinite and unstable to the stable\nand definite; and with this statement, so far as it can be verified, the\npositivist should rest content, seeking no theory, and drawing no\ngeneralization. But, the mind cannot hold together such collected facts\nwithout some binding theory, nor even observe a single fact without some\npreconception to give meaning to its suggested outlines: for what we\nreally get from our senses bears but a slight ratio to what we fill in\nwith our mind. Hence, answering to this supposed, but far from proven,\nuniversality of Evolution as a fact,[4] we have a certain philosophy of\nEvolution which takes us out of the sphere of facts into that of\nhypotheses and generalizations, and tries to give meaning and unity to\nthe positive information that physical science has collected and\nclassified; to finish, as it were, the suggested curves; to fill up the\nlacunae of observation; to extend to the whole world what is known of\nthe part; and perhaps to erect into a cause what is only an orderly\nstatement of facts. Undoubtedly it is this last fallacy that makes it\nmore easy for evolutionists to dispense with or ignore finality. Law in\nits first sense is an expression of effectual human will. Call Evolution\na law and the popular mind will soon vaguely conceive it as a rule or\nuniformity resulting from some kind of unconscious will-power at the\nback of everything; and this Will-Power stops the gap created in our\nthought by the exclusion of theism and finality. This confusion is\nfurthered still more by not distinguishing between the cause of a fact\nand the cause of our knowledge of the fact. If I act in willing\nconformity with the civil law, I also act in obedience to it, in some\nway coerced by its authority and its sanctions. The law is really a\ncause of my action; because it represents the fixed will and effectual\npower of the ruler. But when this conception and name is transferred by\nanalogy to physical uniformities of action, an event which conforms to\nthe observed law or regularity of sequence, is not really caused by the\nlaw unless we suppose that law to be representative of something\nequivalent to a fixed will from which it originates. Yet we say loosely,\nsuch an event happens _in consequence of_ the law of attraction; meaning\nonly, _in conformity with_ the law, so as to verify the law, to follow\nfrom it logically. Thus again the law comes to be mistaken for an\neffectual power of some kind, whereas it is merely a sort of regularity\nthat might result either from an intelligent will or from something\nequivalent. But in thus adroitly slipping-in the conception of a\ngoverning force or tendency, or even in openly asserting it, with\nSchopenhauer or Hartmann, and in explaining the graduated resemblances\nof species by the origin of one from the other, and in extending this\nmode of Evolution in all directions from the known to the unknown so as\nto make it pervade the universe, we at once cease to be faithful\npositivists and, becoming philosophers, must submit to philosophic\ncriticism, since these problems cannot be settled merely by an appeal to\nfacts. Thus when Professor Mivart speaks of Evolution as \"the continuous\nprogress of the material universe by the unfolding of latent\npotentialities in harmony with a preordained end,\" the latent\npotentialities, the preordained end, the procession of one species from\nanother, the extension of this law to every difference of time and\nplace--all are matters of hypothesis or intuition; but by no means of\nexterior observation.\n\nThe most that observation gives us is the very imperfect suggestion of\nthe track that such a movement would have left behind it, not unlike the\nscraps that boys litter along the road in a paper-chase. Similarly, if\nin the case of organic Evolution we deny all latent potentialities and\npreordained ends and throw the whole burden on accidental variations and\nnatural selection; if we regard the whole process as no more intelligent\nor designed than that by which water seeks and finds its own level; yet\nas in the case of water we must perforce introduce \"a gravitating\ntendency,\" so in the case of living organisms a \"persisting\" or\n\"struggling tendency,\" as an hypothesis to give unity to our facts or to\naccount for their uniformity. But these tendencies are as little matter\nof observation as the aforesaid latent potentialities or preordained\nends. In fine, Evolution, whatever form it take, gets rid of theism and\nfinality only by slipping into their place some tendency or indefinable\npower which it considers adequate to account for the facts to be\nexplained.\n\nLet us now see if there be room in this philosophy for our argument from\nadaptability, and whether it will allow us to infer that because belief\nin theism and in future retribution are beliefs postulated by our higher\nmoral aspirations, therefore they answer to reality more or less\napproximately; whether, in short, under certain conditions (specified in\nour last essay) the wish to believe may be a valid reason for believing.\n\nNow Evolution as a philosophy or explanatory hypothesis owes its\npopularity to its apparent simplicity. Wrapped in its wordy envelope,\nthe notion as formulated by Spencer needs no subtilty of apprehension,\nbut only a dictionary. Nor is the Darwinian theory of Natural Selection\nmore difficult.\n\nOther things equal, the simpler hypothesis is to be preferred to the\nless simple where no proof can be had of either. But none the less, the\nsimpler may be false and the other true. Cheapness is no proof of\ngoodness. We are naturally impatient of troublesome and complex\ntheories; but what we gain in the simplicity of an hypothesis, we\ncommonly lose in the difficulty of getting the facts to square with it.\nIt is a simple theory that circular motion is the most perfect, and that\nthe planets being the most perfect bodies must move with the most\nperfect motion; but so many epicycles must be introduced to explain\napparent exceptions that the modern astronomical hypothesis, however\nmore complex in statement, is on the whole welcomed as a simplification.\nSo we are disposed to think it is with regard to the popular form of\nEvolutionism. Its simplicity in statement is more than cancelled by its\ndifficulty in application; and at last we are driven to conceive it in a\nform which at once deprives it of its title to popularity. So far as it\nis simple it is fallacious and proves incoherent on closer inspection,\nwhen we try to translate its terms into clear and distinct ideas; but\nwhen we get it into intelligible form it is no simpler than the theistic\nhypothesis which it wants to displace, except inasmuch as it prescinds\nfrom the question of origin and last end. But in this, its only\nintelligible form, it leaves the argument from adaptability intact, and\neven requires theism as its rational complement.\n\nThis is what we must now endeavour to show. We cannot illustrate our\ncontention better than from the popular simplification of Ethics\nintroduced by Bentham. Taking pleasure as a simple and ultimate notion\nhe affirms that our conduct is always determined by a balance of\npleasure on one side or the other. The problem of practical ethics is to\nconstruct a calculus of pleasures, a sort of ready-reckoner whereby men\nmay be able to invest in the most profitable course of action. \"When we\nhave a hedonistic calculus with its senior wranglers,\" says Mr. Bain,\n\"we shall begin to know whether society admits of being properly\nreconstructed.\" [5] It is assumed that pleasures differ only in quantity,\ni.e., in intensity, extent, and duration, just as warmth does, which may\nbe of high or low temperature; diffused over a greater or less extent of\nbody; and that, for a shorter or a longer time. On this assumption\npleasure is every bit as mathematically measurable as is warmth, the\nwhole difficulty being due to its subjective and therefore inaccessible\nnature. Simple in statement, this theory proves in application\ninfinitely complex, and indeed on closer inspection breaks up into a\nmere verbal fallacy--as Dr. Martineau, amongst others, has shown in his\n_Types of Ethical Theory_. For \"pleasure,\" though one simple word, has\nan endless variety of meanings, not indeed wholly disconnected, but\nbound together only by a certain kind of analogy. The eye, the ear, the\npalate, the mind, the heart, have each their proper pleasure; which is\nnothing else than the resultant of their perfect operation in response\nto the stimulus of some all-satisfying object--a fact which may be\nexpressed differently by different philosophies, but with substantial\nidentity of meaning. But not till we find some common measure for sound\nand colour and flavour and thought and affection, will it be possible to\ncompare in any hedonistic scales the pleasures they produce. Yet colour\nis to the eye what music is to the ear; and therefore the one word\npleasure is used not unreasonably of both.\n\nQuite similar seems to us the fallacy to which Evolution owes its\nseeming simplicity and its popularity. The word \"existence\" or \"life\"\n(which is the existence of organic beings, about which we are chiefly\nconcerned), is taken as having one homogeneous meaning, like \"heat\" or\n\"warmth;\" the only difference being quantitative--a difference of\nintensity, of breadth, of duration; not a difference of kind such as\nwould destroy all common measure. Life is something which we predicate\nof the most diversely organized beings, and therefore would seem to be\nsomething the same in all, which they secure in a diversity of ways.\n\nThus Darwin defines the general good or welfare which should be the aim\nof our conduct as \"the rearing of the greatest number of individuals in\nfull health and vigour with all their faculties perfect;\" upon which Mr.\nSidgwick remarks[6] with justice: \"Such a reduction of the notion of\n'well-being' to 'being' (actual and potential) would be a most important\ncontribution from the doctrine of Evolution to ethical science. But it\nat least conflicts in a very startling manner with those ordinary\nnotions of progress and development\" in which \"it is always implied that\ncertain forms of life are qualitatively superior to others,\nindependently of the number of individuals, present or future, in which\neach form is realized.... And if we confine ourselves to human beings,\nto whom alone the practical side of the doctrine applies, is it not too\nparadoxical to assert that 'rising in the scale of existence' means no\nmore than 'developing the capacity to exist'? A greater degree of\nfertility would thus become an excellence outweighing the finest moral\nand intellectual endowments; and some semi-barbarous races must be held\nto have attained the end of human existence more than some of the\npioneers and patterns of civilization.\" Nor is it only in the region of\nethics but in every region that this false simplification is fertile in\nparadoxes; and yet if it be disowned, the charm to which Evolution owes\nits popularity is gone.\n\nIt would be indeed a short cut to knowledge if we might believe life to\nbe, as this theory imagines it, a simple, self-diffusing force with an\nirrepressible tendency to spread itself in all directions, like fire in\na prairie. True we should not have altogether got rid of innate\ntendencies, but we should have reduced them to one, namely, to the\nstruggling, or persisting, or self-asserting tendency; a simplification\nlike that offered by the matter-and-force theory of Buchner.\n\nThis flame of life once kindled (we are told) endeavours to subdue all\nthings to itself, and all that we find in the way of variety of organic\nstructure and function has been shaped and determined by its\nstruggle--much as a river channels a way for its waters in virtue of its\nown onward force, checked and determined by the nature of the obstacles\nit has to encounter. Every organism is related to life as the\ncandlestick to the candle; it is simply a device for supporting and\nspreading as much life as is possible with the surrounding conditions.\nOften, when conditions are favourable, the simplest contrivance will be\nmore effectual, more life-producing than the most complex in less\nfavourable conditions. Where food is not present the animal that can\nmove about in search of it will survive, and the stationary animal\nperish; and likewise those that can escape their foes will live down\nthose rooted in one spot. And if to motion we add perception and\nintelligence, and associative instincts and the rest, we increase the\nappliances for dealing with difficulties; and therewith the means of\nsurvival when such difficulties exist. Still, in the hypothesis we are\ndealing with, all these contrivances--movement, consciousness,\nintelligence, will, society--are distinct from life and ministerial to\nit; they are instruments by which it is preserved, increased, and\nmultiplied--like those contrivances by which heat or electricity is\ngenerated, sustained, and transmitted; with this difference, that no one\nhas designed these life-machines, but they are simply the result of\nlife's innate tendency to struggle and spread. A great deal of the form\nand movement of the inorganic world is due simply to the stress of\ngravitation and not to design, and so we are asked to believe that the\nhuman and every other organism has been shaped and quickened by the\naction of as blind a power; that it is in some sense a casual result.\n\nNow if seeing and hearing and thinking do not constitute life, but are\nonly chance discoveries helpful to life; if we do not live in order to\neat and to see and to think, but only think, see, and eat in order to\nlive, we ask ourselves, what then is this life which is none of these\nthings and to which they are all subordinate? And when once we begin\nsubtracting those functions which minister to life and which life has\nselected for its own service, we find there is absolutely nothing left\nto serve. Taking the very earliest forms, if we subtract movement,\nnutrition, growth, generation, we find there is nothing over called\n\"life\" distinct from these. This is the first and fundamental\nincoherence of the theory; life has simply no meaning apart from those\nfunctions which we speak of as ministering to life; unless we mean by\nlife the mere cohering together of the bodily organism--an end more\neffectually secured without any such complex apparatus, by a stone or by\nan elementary atom.\n\nIf existence in that sense, be the force or principle whose persistence\nand self-assertion is the cause of all evolution, it is impossible to\nconceive how primordial atoms, which are assumed to be indestructible\nand constant in quantity, should trouble themselves to struggle at all;\nsince the amount of that kind of existence can neither be lessened nor\nincreased. And as motion is also assumed to be a constant quantity, it\nis plain that what struggles to be and to multiply, must be some special\ncollocation and grouping of atoms with some correspondingly particular\ndetermination of motion, called \"life;\" but what \"life\" is, apart from\nthe means it is supposed to have selected for itself, does not appear.\n\nAnother difficulty attendant on this false simplification is the\ncomplete subversion of that scale of dignity or excellence upon which we\nrange the various kinds of living creatures, putting ourselves at the\ntop--not merely in obedience to a pardonable vanity, but, as has\nhitherto been supposed, in obedience to a trustworthy intuition which,\nwithout attempting to apply a common measure to things incommensurable,\njudges life to be higher than death; consciousness than unconsciousness;\nmind than mere sensation; and in general, what includes and surpasses,\nthan what is included and surpassed. We see that the organic world\npresupposes the ministry of the inorganic; and the animal world, that of\nthe plant world; and that the human world depends on the ministry of all\nthree; and our whole conception of this world as \"cosmos\" is simply the\nfilling in of this hierarchic framework. Yet this old structure falls to\npieces under the new simplification. If \"life\" (as vaguely conceived) be\nthe first beginning and the last end (or rather result) of the whole\nprocess of evolution, if it be the _summum bonum_, then the \"highest\"\ncreature means, the most life-producing.\n\nNow if we put \"money\" instead of \"life,\" and begin to classify men by\nthis standard, we see how it inverts the old-world ideas of social\nhierarchy. True it is, the man of letters or of high artistic gifts\ncan produce a certain amount of money, but has little chance against\nthe inventor of a new soap or a patent pill. Honesty at once becomes\nthe worst policy, and a thousand other maxims have to be reformed. Yet\nthis is a trifling _boule-versement_ compared with that which would\nhave to be introduced into our scientific classification were\n\"life-productivity\" (in the vague) taken as the criterion of excellence.\n\nFor we cannot any longer determine the rank of an animal by its organic\ncomplexity, since, _ceteris paribus_, this is a defect rather than\notherwise.\n\nTo secure life more simply is better than to secure the same amount by\nmeans of complex apparatus. Of course when the favouring conditions are\naltered, then any apparatus that makes life still possible is an\nadvantage; but till that crisis arises it is only an encumbrance. When\nlife can be secured only at the cost of greater labour and exertion and\ncunning, it is well to be capable of these things, but surely those\nanimals are more to be envied that have no need of these things. It is\nonly on the hypothesis of an unkindly environment that complexity of\norganization is an excellence.\n\nFurthermore, although these accidental variations allow certain\ncreatures to survive in crises of difficulty, yet they also make the\nconditions of their survival more complicated and hard to secure. All\nthat differentiates man from an amoeba has enabled him to get safe\nthrough certain straits where the lower forms of life were left behind\nto perish; but it has also made it impossible for him to live in the\nsimpler conditions he has escaped from; like a parvenu whose luxurious\nhabits have gradually created a number of new necessities for him, which\nmake a return to his original poverty and hardships quite impracticable.\nIf the development of lungs has allowed animals to come out of the water\ninto the air, it has also prevented their going back again. Furthermore,\na considerable amount of vital energy is consumed in the production,\nsupport, and repair of all this supplementary, life-preserving\napparatus; just as, much of the national wealth for whose protection\nthey exist is absorbed by a standing army and other military\npreparations. And in fact of two countries otherwise equal in wealth,\nthat is surely the better off which has no need of being thus armed up\nto the teeth. Thus man's superior organization may be compared to the\novercoat and umbrella with which one sets out on a threatening morning;\nvery desirable should it rain, but a great nuisance should it clear up.\n\nIt seems, then, that the highest organism is that which produces or\nsecures the greatest quantity of life in the simplest manner, and at the\ncost of the least complexity of structure and function; while the lowest\nis that which yields the least quantity at the greatest cost; and\nbetween these two extremes organisms will be ranked by the ratio of\ntheir complexity to their life-productivity--life being measured\nmathematically (as something homogeneous) by its vigour, by its\nduration, and by the amount of matter animated, whether in the\nindividual or in its progeny. It is obvious how, at this rate, our\nzoological hierarchy is turned topsy-turvy; and how difficult it will be\nto show that man is a better life-machine than, say, a mud-turtle with\nits centuries of vital existence.\n\nIt would be a monstrous allegation to say that any evolutionist would\ndefend these conclusions in all their crudity; but is only by thus\npushing implied principles to their results, that their incoherence can\nbe made plain. Once more, if this simple uniform thing called life be\nthe sole cause, determining organic Evolution and selecting accidental\nvariations, just in so far as they favour its own maintenance and\nmultiplication, then every organ, appliance, and faculty by which man\ndiffers from the simplest bioplast, is merely a life-preserving\ncontrivance. To speak human-wise, Nature in that case has but one\nend--animal life; and chooses every means solely with a view to that\nend. She does not care about pain or pleasure, or consciousness, or\nknowledge, or truth, or morality, or society, or science, or religion,\nfor their own sakes; she cares for life only, and for these so far\nas--like horns and teeth and claws--they are conducive to life.\nEvolution therefore is governed by a blind non-moral principle--as blind\nand ruthless as gravitation. This being so, the mind is for the sake of\nthe body, and not conversely. Evolution is not making for truth and\nrighteousness as for greater or even as for co-ordinate ends; but simply\nfor life, to which sometimes truth and righteousness, but just as often\nillusion and selfishness, are means. There is nothing therefore in this\nprocess of Nature to make us trust that our mind really makes for truth\nas such, or that it has any essential tendency to greater correspondence\nwith reality, beyond what subserves to fuller animal existence. The fact\nthat a certain belief makes animal life possible is no proof of its\ntruth, but only of its expediency. The extent to which many pleasures\ndepend on illusion is proverbial; and pleasure is almost the note of\nvital vigour, according to this philosophy.\n\nPlainly, our argument from the adaptability of a belief to man's higher\nmoral needs, vanishes into thin air as soon as the key to the order of\nnature is thus sought in a blind non-moral tendency, and when that which\nis lowest is put at the top, and everything above it made to minister to\nit.\n\nBut then it is not only this particular argument that perishes, but all\npossibility of arguing at all, all faith in our mental faculties, except\nso far as they minister to the finding of food and the propagation of\nlife. Thus the very attempt to prove such a system of Evolution is a\ncontradiction, since it cuts away all basis of proof. On this I need not\ndwell longer, since it has been worked out so fully and clearly by\nothers. We get rid of the argument from adaptability, by a conception of\nthe order of Nature that reduces us to mental and moral chaos.\n\nIn its semblance of simplicity this form of Evolution-philosophy shows\nitself kin to those other old-world attempts to dispense with a\ngoverning mind, and to educe the existing cosmos from the blind strife\nof primordial atoms. It has indeed a more plausible basis, seeing how\nmany things, too quickly attributed to design in a theological age, can\nreally be explained by the struggle for existence. But in trying to make\nan occasional and partial cause universal and ultimate, it has\nundertaken the impossible task of bringing the greater out of the less;\nwhich really means bringing their difference out of nothing--and this is\ncreation with the First Cause left out; that is, spontaneous creation.\nIt is from first to last an \"aggregation\" theory, and has to face the\ninsupportable burdens which such a theory brings with it. Haunted by a\nfalse analogy drawn from the political organism whose members are\nintelligent and self-directive, and who put themselves under an\nintelligent government to be marshalled and directed to one common\nend--haunted by this anthropomorphic conception, it tries to explain how\nindependent and indestructible units, void of all intelligence, come\ntogether into polities with no assignable government; and how these\ngroups or polities, which are nothing separate from the sum of their\ncomponents, are aggregated to one another in like manner; until at last\nwe come to the highest organism, which again is only the sum of its\nultimate atoms, and its activity the sum of their activities--the whole\ndistinction between highest and lowest organism being such as exists\nbetween a society of two and a highly complex civilized state. And all\nthis political life is the spontaneous work of unintelligent units; that\nis to say, we have results exceeding the highest ever attained by human\nintelligence, long before intelligence or sentience has yet been\nevolved.\n\nNobody will care to support \"Pangenesis\" as a theory of generation. To\nsuppose that there is a mysterious power which breaks a little fraction\noff each of the bioplasts of which we are asserted to be the sum; that\nhaving collected these fractions it arranges them all in the right order\nwithin the compass of a single germ, and from that germ reproduces the\nparent organism, is an hypothesis compared with which the creation of\nthe world in its entirety six thousand years ago, including the fossils\nand remains of aeonian civilizations, is lucid and intelligible. This is\nno hyperbole. For if once we allow creation at all, the creation of the\nworld at any stage of Evolution is just as conceivable as the creation\nof primordial atoms. If any living thing were now created (e.g., a\ngrain of corn or a full ear) it would bear in itself the apparent\nevidence of having _grown_ to its present state _ab ovo_; or the _ovum_\nitself would seem to ground a similar false inference of having come\nfrom a parent. Strange as such an idea may be, it is easy and pellucid\ncompared with the hypothesis of Pangenesis--still more when we remember\nthat this complex germ, which is a lion or a horse in small--itself the\nelaboration of aeons of Evolution--can replicate itself with ease and\nrapidity, reproducing in adjacent pabulum a \"cosmos\" which differs in\ndegree, not in kind, from that described in the story of the Six Days.\nYet the more we look into it, the more clear is it that Pangenesis (and\nnot Polarigenesis or Perigenesis) is the inevitable outcome of the\naggregation-theory of life.\n\nAnd therefore to return to our former assertion, whatever we seem to\ngain in simplicity of statement by this form of the Evolution theory, we\npay for dearly when we come to its application; nay more, as soon as we\nattempt to translate the words into clear and distinct ideas, we are\nleft with nothing coherent that the mind can get hold of; and it is only\nat this price that we can cut away the basis of the \"argument from\nadaptability,\" and with it the basis of all reason and morality. We must\ntherefore go on to examine if there be any alternative form of the same\nphilosophy more bearable.\n\nI have forborne all criticism of the supposed _facts_ on which Evolution\nis based; as others have dealt frequently with their various weaknesses.\nNor do I think it necessary to deal with the extravagant subordinate\nhypotheses by aid of which facts are forced under the main hypothesis,\ne.g., those which explain how the horse grew out of the hipparion. The\ncrudest finalists have been everywhere out-stripped by Evolutionists in\ndextrous application of the argument _a posse ad esse_.\n\n\nIII.\n\nAssuming still that the facts collected and arranged by experimental\nscience in favour of the hypothesis are such as to demand some kind of\nEvolution-philosophy; assuming that the very imperfect serial\nclassification of living things according to their degree of organic\ndefiniteness, coherence, and heterogeneity not merely represents a\nvariety which has always coexisted since life was possible on this\nearth, but rather traces out or hints at the genetic process by which\nthis variety has been produced, let us see if there be any other\ngoverning principle directing the process, more intelligible than the\npersistence of that mere organic life which cannot even be thought of as\ndistinct from those appliances and functions which it is supposed to\nhave evolved for its own service by \"natural selection.\"\n\nLet us admit, what is really evident, that life is nothing distinct from\nthe sum of those functions which minister to the preservation of life;\nand that therefore it is not the same thing in a man and in a\nmud-turtle. Man's superior faculties are not merely a more complicated\nmachinery for producing an identical effect which the mud-turtle\nproduces more simply and abundantly, but rather by their very play\n_constitute_ an entirely different and higher kind of life. When Hume,\nin his _Treatise on Human Nature_, says: \"Reason is and ought to be the\nslave of the passions and can never pretend to any other office than to\nserve and obey them,\" he implies that the exercise of reason is no\nconstituent factor of human life, but something outside it, subordinate\nto it, whereas that life itself consists in passion, or pleasurable\nsensation, of which man, in virtue of his reason and other advantages,\nsecures more than do his fellow-animals. This is just the conception of\nlife which we have seen to be incoherent on close inspection; and if it\nbe so, then the evolutionary process is a struggle not for bare life or\nexistence, but for the prevalence of the _higher kinds_ of life and\nexistence; and intelligence and morality are not only co-operative as\ninstruments in maintaining and extending human life, but are themselves\nthe principal elements of that complex life. True, the mind does\nminister to the body and preserve it; but still more does the body\nminister to the mind; or rather, each ministers to that whole in which\nthe play of the mind is the principal function and the play of the body\nsubordinate. If, then, we hold to the verdict of our common sense, and\nregard our mental life not as subordinate to our sensitive and vegetal\nlife, but as co-ordinate and even superior, we must (so to speak) view\nit as no less \"for its own sake,\" as no less an \"end in itself\" than\nthey are, but rather much more; we must regard evolution as making for\nthe life of truth and the life of righteousness even more principally\nthan for bare existence or animal vitality. It is now no longer mere\nlife that tries to assert itself, and in the struggle shapes things to\nwhat they are; but it is the very highest kind of life, that is trying\nto come to the birth. Nature inherently tends to the higher through the\nlower forms of life, and these minister to the higher and receive in\nreturn from them the means of a yet more efficacious ministry.\n\nIn this conception, every function of the organism has two aspects,\nunder one of which it is its own end and exists for its own sake as an\nelement of the life of the whole; under the other it is ministerial,\nserving other functions above and below it, as it in return is served by\nthem. Correspondence with the environment is, similarly, not merely a\ncondition of life, but also that wherein vitality principally consists.\n\"Living\" is spontaneous self-adaptation to surrounding reality, taken in\nthe very widest sense. The more diverse and multiform this adaptability,\nthe fuller and higher is the life; and thus our ordinary common-sense\nclassifications are justified. Each new manifestation of life means some\nnew correspondence with surrounding reality as we piss from mere\nvegetation, and then add local movement, and one sense after another,\ntill we come finally to intelligence and the life of reason and\nright-doing, which again, consists in self-conformation to things as\nthey really are. In all this we are in agreement with common sense and\ncommon language, which identify the fullest life with the fullest\nactivity; all activity being of the nature of response to stimulus, that\nis, correspondence to reality. As soon as consciousness supervenes on\nthe lower forms of life it is evident that the pleasures of sight,\nhearing, taste, mind, and affection all depend on, and consist in, the\nconsciousness of this successful accommodation of the subject to the\nobject; and that all pain and disease is simply the felt failure of such\nadaptation. What was anciently and very wisely called the \"natural\nappetite\" of living creatures is in this view nothing else but their\nresponse to the modifying attraction exerted upon them by the objective\nReality which presses upon them on every side, and tends to draw them\ninto conformity with itself so far as they have latent capacity for such\na correspondence. It is the light that makes (or rather elicits) sight;\nand it is sound that develops the sense of hearing: and it is the ideas\nembodied in Nature that call our intellect into play. Hence it follows\nthat, desire for truth and justice, for society and for religion, which\nassert themselves as invariably in the soul of man at certain stages of\nprogress, as the desire for mere life asserts itself from the first, is\nsimply the felt result of the as yet unsuccessful endeavour of Nature to\ndraw man into a fuller kind of correspondence with herself.\n\nThus conceived, the course of evolution is comparable, not as before, to\nthe gradual unveiling of a blank canvas, revealing simply a greater\nextent of the same appearance, but to the gradual unveiling of a picture\nwhose full unity of meaning is held in suspense till the disclosure is\ncompleted. We do not now interpret the higher by the lower, but the\nlower by the higher; the beginning by the end. This may seem perilously\nnear to finalism, yet it is no more necessarily so, than the process of\nphotography; we only need a self-adaptive tendency in life-matter\nresponsive to the stimulating-tendency of the environment. Not, of\ncourse, that this bundle of words really explains anything, but that\nlike other formulae of the kind, it prescinds from the question of ends\nand origins, by making a statement of what happens serve as a cause of\nwhat happens, and calling it a Law or a Tendency, or a Latent\nPotentiality--thus filling the gap which mere agnosticism creates in our\nthought.\n\nWith this conception of Evolution our ordinary estimates of \"higher\" and\n\"lower\" are saved; also the value of our mental processes upon which\nrests whatever proof the theory may admit of; while the \"argument from\nadaptability\" is provided with a firm basis independent of finality. All\nour \"natural,\" as opposed to our personal and self-determined appetites\nor cravings,--those which are, so to say, constitutional and inseparable\nfrom our nature in certain conditions, are evidence of the influence of\nsome reality outside us seeking to draw us into more perfect\ncorrespondence with itself, and whose nature can be more or less dimly\nconjectured from the nature of those cravings. What are called \"natural\nreligions\" represent man's self-devised attempts to explain the reality\nanswering to his religious and moral cravings. Revelation is but a\ndivine interpretation of the same; as though one with dim vision were to\nsupplement his defect by the testimony of another more clear-sighted.\n\nIt may be practically admitted that no philosophy allows of strict\ndemonstration, since, being a conception of the totality of things, it\nmodifies our understanding of every principle by which one might attempt\nto prove or disprove it. Eventually it is its harmony with the totality\nof things as we perceive them that determines us to accept it, and no\ntwo of us perceive just the same totality, however substantial an\nagreement there may be in our experience; yet I think it can hardly be\ndenied that this conception of evolution is far more in agreement with\nthe world as most of us know it, and commonly think and speak of it,\nthan the former; that it not merely satisfies our intellect, but offers\nsome satisfaction to our whole spiritual nature. \"Is it certain,\" asks\nMr. Bradley, in a fairly similar connection, \"that the mere intellect\ncan be self-satisfied if the other elements of our nature remain\nuncontented?\" And, again: \"A result, if it fails to satisfy our whole\nnature, comes short of perfection: and I could not rest tranquilly in a\ntruth if I were compelled to regard it as hateful.... I should insist\nthat the inquiry was not yet closed and that the result was but partial.\nAnd if metaphysics\" [for which we may substitute: any philosophy, such\na& that of Evolution] \"is to stand, it must, I think, take account of\nall sides of our being. I do not mean that every one of our desires must\nbe met by a promise of particular satisfaction; for that would be absurd\nand utterly impossible. But if the main tendencies of our nature do not\nreach consummation in the Absolute, we cannot believe that we have\nattained to perfection and truth.\"[7] From this point of view there can\nbe no doubt as to which of these conceptions of Evolution is the more\nrational and satisfactory; that which would explain it by a simple\ntendency in living matter to persist and spread, and would see in all\norganic variety only the selected means to that somewhat colourless end;\nor that conception which would explain it by a tendency in living matter\nto come into ever fuller correspondence with its environment, seeing in\nsuch spontaneous correspondence the very essence of life, and not merely\na condition of life.\n\nWe need only add a few criticisms on this second conception.\n\n1. It is true that every creature struggles more intensely and\nvigorously for the lower kind of life, or for \"mere life,\" as we might\nsay, than for any of those things which alone would seem to make life\nworth the having. But this only means that to live at all is the most\nfundamental condition of living well and fully and enjoyably. The higher\nlife cannot stand without the lower, which it includes, but the lower is\nnot therefore the better, nor is it the end for whose sake the higher is\ndesirable; but conversely. Not until men have got bread enough to eat\nwill they have leisure or energy to spare for the animal grades of\nvitality. When the means of bodily subsistence grow scarce, then the\nfaculties that were previously set free to seek the bread of a higher\nand fuller life are diverted to the struggle for bare animal existence,\nand progress is thrown back; but when there is abundance for all,\nsecured by the labour of a few from whom the remainder can buy, then\nfuller life becomes once more possible for that remainder. The struggle\nfor bodily food gives an advantage to, and \"selects\" naturally, those\nmental and other powers which facilitate its attainment; but just as man\ndoes not only eat and labour in order to live, but also (however it may\nshock conventional ethics) lives in order to eat and labour; so the new\nenergies called forth by competition do not merely secure that grade of\nlife in whose interests they are evoked and perfected, but extend the\nsphere of vitality, in so much as their own play adds a new element to\nlife and gives it a new form.\n\nThe part played by struggle and competition in this process of Evolution\nis naturally exaggerated by those who deny any latent tendency other\nthan that of mere persistence in being; who repudiate an internal\nexpansiveness towards fuller kinds of existence, drawn out or checked by\nthe environment.\n\nCompetition plays a prominent part when there is question of the lower\ngrades of life, in so far as these depend on a pabulum that is limited\nin quantity. In such cases competition, within certain limits, will\nsecure the bringing-out of latent powers by which the lower level of\nlife is maintained and a higher level entered upon; the lower being\nsecured by the superimposition of the higher.\n\nBut how does it do so? Not by creating anything, but by giving the\nvictory to those individuals who already were ahead of their fellows in\nvirtue of a fuller development of their nature from within; in clearing\nthe ground for them and letting them increase and multiply.\n\n2. Again, we should notice that development in one direction may be at\nthe cost of development in another. The struggle for any lower form of\nexistence than that already attained, is inevitably at the cost of the\nhigher. The degrading effects of destitution are proverbial. Craft,\ncruelty, selfishness, and all the vices needed for success in a\ngladiatorial contest are often the fruits of such competition. Also,\ncommercial progress seems on the whole to be at the expense of progress\nin art and the higher tastes, sacrificing everything to the production\nof the greatest possible quantity of material comforts. If it sharpens\nthe wits and sensibilities in some directions, it blunts them in others.\n\nNow, the first sense suggested to us in these days by the word\n\"progress,\" is material progress--all that came in with steam; and this\nnarrow conception vitiates much of our reasoning. It is in this realm\nundoubtedly that competition is such a factor of rapid advance; but we\nforget that the food of what the best men have ever considered the best\nlife, is not limited or divisible; but like the light and air is\nundiminished how many soever share it. Whatever advance there has been\nin the life of the mind and of the higher tastes and sensibilities,\ncannot directly be explained by competition, but simply by the quiet\nupward working of Nature's inherent forces. We look with scorn at the\nunprogressive East, satisfied that there can be no progress, no life\nworth living, where there is no rush for dollars. But I think we have\nyet to learn the meaning of _ex Oriente lux_.\n\nMuch of our immorality and our social evil comes from the fact that\nthose who have developed the faculties of a higher grade of life, seek\nthe lower as an end in itself, and not simply so far as it is a\ncondition of the higher and no further. The Gospel precept, as usual,\nenunciates only the law of reason and nature, when it bids us to \"Seek\nfirst the Kingdom of God and its justice,\" that is, to put our best life\nin the front, and to make it the measure and limit of any other quest.\nThe neglect of this principle gives us high living and plain thinking,\ninstead of \"high thinking and plain living;\" and takes the bread out of\nthe mouths of the poor. The competition for pleasures and luxuries and\namusements, may indeed develop certain industries and cause progress in\ncertain narrow lines, but it is at the cost of the only progress worth\nthe name.\n\nThe conflict between this \"struggle-theory\" and ethics has been freely\nacknowledged by Professor Huxley and others; every attempt to educe\nunselfishness from selfishness has failed. The moral man even in our day\nhas rather a bad time of it; what chance would he have had of surviving\nto propagate his species in the supposed pre-moral states of human\nsociety? Who can possibly conceive mere rottenness being cured by\nprogress in rottenness; or a man drinking himself into temperance? On\nthe other hand, it is at least conceivable that in the wildest savage\nthere is some little seed of a moral sense--weak, compared with the\nlowest springs of action, just because it is the highest and therefore\nonly struggling into being; and that in the slow lapse of time events\nmay here and there prove that honesty is the best policy; and that\nhonesty once tasted may be found not only useful for other things, but\nagreeable for itself, and may be cherished and strengthened by social\nand religious sanctions.\n\nThere is, however, a reaction on foot which tends to reconcile the\nbreach between ethics and evolution, by reducing the part played by\ncompetition within reasonable bounds, and making it subservient to the\nsurvival, not of the most selfish, but of the most social individuals.\nDefinite variations from within, modified between narrow limits by\naccidental variation from without, is coming to be acknowledged as the\nchief factor of progress. But we should not forget that to allow an\ninternal principle of orderly development is, not merely to modify the\npopular evolution theory by a slight concession to its adversaries; it\nis rather to make it no longer the supreme explanation of development,\nbut at most a slight modification of the more mysterious theory which it\nwas its boast and merit to have supplanted. According to Geddes and\nFoster and others of their school, it is the species-subserving\nqualities that Nature selects; and these, in the higher grades of life,\nare equivalent to the altruistic, social, and ethical qualities. It is\nin virtue of the parental and maternal instincts of self-sacrifice,\nself-diffusion, self-forgetfulness in the interests of the offspring,\nthat species are preserved and prevail. Selfish egoism leads eventually\n(as we see in some modern countries where _laizzez-faire_ liberalism\nprevails) to social disruption, decadence, and chaos; and this is the\nuniversal law of life in every grade. At first indeed the unit struggles\nto live, for life is the condition of propagation; but the root of this\ninstinct is altruistic; it is the whole asserting itself in the part;\nand all \"self-regarding\" instincts are to be likewise explained as\nsubordinate to the \"other-regarding\" instincts. As soon as this\nsub-ordination is ignored in practice, regress takes the place of\nprogress. The transit, we are told, from the unicellular to the\nmulticellular organism cannot be explained by individualism, but implies\na diminution of the competitive, an increase of the social and\nsubordinative tendency. The argument from economics to biology and back\nagain, is said to be nearing exposure; the \"progress of the species\nthrough the internecine struggle of its individuals at the margin of\nsubsistence,\" is the outgoing idea. Yes, and with it goes out all that\nmade Evolution a simple and therefore popular explanation of the world;\nand there comes in that \"organic\" conception of the process which\nclamours for theism and finalism as its only coherent complement.\n\n3. But though Evolution so conceived makes the \"argument from\nadaptability,\" as well as the arguments for theism, stronger rather than\nweaker; we must not shut our eyes to the difficulty created by the fact\n(too little insisted upon by Evolutionists) that there is no solid\nreason for thinking that progress is all-pervading. We have already said\nthat progress in commerce may be regress in art or in religion or in\nmorality. Also, progress in benevolence may co-exist with regress in\nfortitude and purity; progress in one point of morality with regress in\nanother; progress in ethical judgment with regress in ethical practice.\nAnd in every realm, growth and decay, life and death, seem so to\nintertwine and oscillate that it is very gratuitous to designate the\ntotal process as being one or the other. Spencer confesses that the\nentire universe oscillates between extremes of integration and\ndisintegration. Why we should consider the universe at present to be\nrising rather than falling, waxing rather than waning, one cannot say.\nThe easier presumption is that it is equally one and the other, and\nalways has been. Even were we rash enough to pronounce progress to be on\nthe whole prevalent within the narrow field of our own experience,\nsurely it were nothing but the inevitable \"provincialism\" of the human\nmind to pass _per saltum_ from that, to a generalization for all\npossible experience. Our optimism, our faith that right, truth, and\norder will eventually prevail, can find only a delusive basis in actual\nexperience, and must draw its life from some deeper source.\n\nWhy then should we so presume that our moral and religious ideas are\nreally progressive and not regressive, as to regard their interpretation\nas approximating to the truth? The answer is simply that our argument\nfrom adaptability does not require the assumption in question, but only\nthat we should be able to distinguish higher from lower tendencies,\nprogressive from regressive movements, without holding the optimistic\nview that on the whole the forward tendency is at present prevailing. It\nis not because we live in the nineteenth century that we consider our\nmoral perceptions truer than those of the ancient Hebrews, but because\nwe at once comprehend and transcend their ideas (in some respects), as\nthe greater does the less. In many points surely the relation is\ninverted and we feel ourselves transcended (or may at least suspect it),\nby those who lived or live in ruder conditions than our own. David has\nperhaps taught us more than we could have taught him; and there are\nother vices than those proper to semi-barbarism. It is not by reference\nto date or country, or grade of material progress, that we assess the\nvalue of moral judgments, but by that subjective standard with which our\nown moral attainments supply us in regard to all that is equal or less,\nsimilar or dissimilar. To deny this discernment is to throw the doors\nopen to unqualified scepticism; to admit it, is all that we need for the\nvalidity of our inference.\n\n4. If Evolution is really of this oscillatory character; if at all times\nmuch the same processes have been going on in different parts of this\nuniverse as now--one system decaying as another is coming into being; is\nit not more reasonable to imagine (for it is only a question of\nimagining) that the primordial datum was not uniform nebula, but matter\nin all stages of elaboration from the highest to the lowest--the same\nsort of result as we should get from a cross-section at any subsequent\nmoment in the process? What reason is there for assuming primordial\nhomogeneity, since every backward step would show us, together with the\nunravelling of what is now in process of weaving, a counter-balancing\nweaving of what is now in process of disintegration? Were this earth\nall, we might dream of universal advance by shutting our eyes to a great\nmany incompatible facts; but when our telescopes show us the\nco-existence of integration and disintegration everywhere, what can we\nconclude but that in the past as in the future, no alteration is to be\nlooked for beyond the shifting of the waves' crest from side to side of\nthe sea of matter--the total ratio of depressions to elevations\nremaining exactly constant.\n\nWere the other view of an original universal homogeneity correct, how\nconies it that we have still co-existent every stage of advance from the\nlowest to the highest, and that there is not a greater equality?--a\ndifficulty which does not exist if we suppose things to have been _on\nthe whole,_ as they are now, from the very first. But whichever view we\ntake; whether we suppose all things collectively to oscillate between\nrecurring extremes of \"sameness\" and \"otherness;\" or every stage of the\nwave of progress from crest to trough, to be simultaneously manifested\nin the universe at all times, the old difficulty of \"the beginning\" will\nforce itself upon us. A process _ab aeterno_ is at least as unimaginable\nas the process of creation _ex nihilo;_ if it be not altogether\ninconceivable to boot. And the alternative is, either a primordial state\nof homogeneous matter which contains the present cosmos in germ, and\nfrom which it is evolved without the aid of any environment--such a germ\nclaiming a designer as much as any ready-made perfect world; or else, a\nprimordial state of things like that which we should get at any\ncross-section of the secular process, in which every stage of life and\ndeath, growth and decay, evolution and involution, is represented as\nnow. This would include fossils and remains of past civilizations\nwhich (in the hypothesis) would never have existed; and would be\nin all respects as difficult as the crudest conception of the\ncreation-hypothesis. And if this absurdity drives us back to\nprimordial homogeneity, as before, we must remember that here, too,\nthough not so evidently, we should have all the signs of an antecedent\nprocess that was non-existent. Life and death, corruption and\nintegration, are parts of one undulatory process. Cut the wave where\nyou will its curve claims to be finished in both directions and\nsuggests a before as well as an after. If, in the very nature of\nthings, the pendulum sways between confusion and order, chaos and\ncosmos, each extreme intrinsically demands the other, not only as its\nconsequent, but as its antecedent; and the first chaos, no less than\nany succeeding one, will seem the ruin of a previous cosmos. Therefore\nwe are driven back upon a process _ab aeterno_ with every stage of\nevolution always simultaneously represented in one part or other of\nthe whole. Whatever mitigation such a conception may offer, surely we\nmay be excused for still adhering to that simpler explanation which\ninvolves a mystery indeed, but nothing so positively unthinkable as a\nprocess without a beginning.\n\n5. This same conception of a process without beginning, favours the\nnotion that since life was possible on our globe all species may well\nhave co-existed in varying proportions. From the sudden spread of\npopulation through almost accidental conditions, we can imagine how\ncertain species might have been so scarce as to leave no trace in\ngeological strata, whereas those which enormously preponderated at the\nsame time would have done so. A change of conditions might easily cause\nthe former to preponderate, and their sudden appearance in the strata\nwould look as though they had then first come into being. In a word, we\ncan have good evidence for the extinction of species, but scarcely any\nfor their origination.\n\nThis supposition is not adverse to the derivation of species from a\ncommon stock, but rather favours the notion that as in the case of the\nindividual the period of plasticity is short compared with that of\nmorphological stability, so if there was such an arboreal branching out\nof species from a common root, it took place rapidly in conditions as\ndifferent from ours as those of uterine from extra-uterine life; and\nthat the stage of inflexibility may have been reached before any time of\nwhich we have record.\n\nBut in truth when we see in the world of chemical substances an\naltogether similar sedation of species where there can be no question of\ncommon descent as its cause, we may well suspend our judgment till the\nestablished facts have excluded the many hypotheses other than Evolution\nby which they may be explained.\n\nAs long as Evolution claims to be no more than a working scientific\nhypothesis, like ether or electric fluid--a sort of frame or subjective\ncategory into which observed facts are more conveniently fitted, it\ncannot justly be pressed for a solution of ultimate problems; but when\nit claims to be a complete philosophy and as such to extrude other\nphilosophies previously in possession, it must show that it can rest the\nmind where they leave it restless; or that it has proved their proffered\nsolutions spurious. This, so far, it has absolutely failed to do. At\nmost it may determine more accurately the way in which God works out His\nIdea in Creation. It can stand as long as it is content to prescind from\nthe question of ends and origins; but then it is no longer a complete\nphilosophy. As soon as it attempts to solve those problems it becomes\nincoherent and unthinkable. Its true complement is theism and finality,\nwhich flow from it as naturally, if not quite so immediately as the\n\"argument from adaptability.\" _Deus creavit_ is so far the only\nmoderately intelligible, or at least not demonstrably unintelligible,\nanswer given to the problem of _In principio_.\n\nWe have then in this second and soberer form of the philosophy of\nEvolution, an attempt to explain the order of the universe without\nexplicit recourse to the hypothesis of an intelligent authorship and\ngovernment of the world: that is to say, independently of theism and\nfinality; and so far as this explanation admits all the effects and\nconsequences of an intelligent government, without ascribing them to\nthat cause, it admits among their number the value of the \"argument from\nadaptability,\" and allows us to infer that the postulates of man's\nhigher moral needs correspond approximately to reality, of which they\nare in some sense the product; and that the \"wish to believe\" is less\nlikely to be a source of delusion in proportion as the belief in\nquestion is higher in the moral scale.\n\nBut it is also clear how unsuccessful this attempted philosophy is in\nmany ways; and with what difficulties and mysteries it is burdened. At\nbest it can prescind from finalism by a confession of incompleteness and\nphilosophical bankruptcy; by resolutely refusing to face the problem of\nthe whole--of the ultimate whence and whither. If it would positively\nexclude theism or finalism it must ascribe all seeming order and\nadaptation to the persistence of some blind force, subduing all things\nto itself, to \"existence,\" or to \"life\" striving to assert and extend\nitself. It is this conception that seems best to bring the mystery of\nthe universe within the comprehension of the popular mind, and is more\nin keeping with those \"aggregation theories\" of our day which regard\ndust as the one eternal reality whose combination and disguises delude\nus into believing in soul and intelligence and divinity. But on closer\nexamination the words \"life\" and \"existence\" answer to no simple reality\nor force which can be regarded as governing nature, and from this\nradical fallacy of language a whole brood of further absurdities spring\nup which make the popular form of Evolution-philosophy utterly\nincoherent.\n\n_June, Aug. Sept._ 1899.\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n\n[Footnote 1: This will perhaps be the most convenient term. In the\n_Summa of Aquinas_, the elaborate treatise _De vera religione_, called\ninto existence by more recent exigencies, had no place. Still, in so far\nas it is constructed roughly on the same scheme and presupposes the same\nphilosophy, and (were it not a deepening of the roots rather than an\nextension of the branches) might almost be regarded as a development of\nscholasticism, it may rightly be called \"scholastic\" to distinguish it,\nsay, from such a work as the _Grammar of Assent_.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Science and a Future Life_, By F. W. Myers.]\n\n[Footnote 3: i.e., If an object be adequately and exhaustively\nconceived under the predicates A.B.C.D., it is inadequately conceived as\nA.B.x.x. But if each of these properties be permeated and modified by\nthe rest, then A in this object is not as A in any other combination,\nbut is A as related to and modified by B.C.D.; and similarly, the other\nproperties are each unique. Hence any part is somewhat falsely\napprehended till the whole be apprehended, when we are dealing with\norganic as opposed to mechanical totalities.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Not that the transmutation of one species into another has\nyet been detected in any instance, or perhaps, even were it a fact,\ncould be detected; but that such a serial graduation has been observed\nas might be commodiously explained by that supposition,--and also by\nfifty others.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _Mind_, 1876, p. 185.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Mind_, 1876, p. 9.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _Appearance and Reality_.]\n\n\n\nXXIII.\n\n\nIDEALISM IN STRAITS.\n\n\"Can any good come out of Trinity?\" is a question that has been asked\nand answered in various senses during the recent Catholic University\ncontroversies in Ireland; but for whatever other good Catholics might\nlook to that staunchly Elizabethan institution, they would scarcely turn\nthither for theological guidance. Yet all definition is negative as well\nas positive; exclusive as well as inclusive; and we always know our\nposition more deeply and accurately in the measure that we comprehend\nthose other positions to which it is opposed. The educative value of\ncomparing notes, quite apart from all prospect of coming to an\nagreement, or even of flaying our adversaries alive, is simply\ninestimable; we do not rightly know where we stand, except in so far as\nwe know where others stand--for place is relative.\n\nThe Donnellan Lecturer for 1897-8 [1] took for his subject the doctrine\nof the Blessed Trinity in relation to contemporary idealistic\nphilosophy. The scope of these lectures is, not to prove the doctrine of\nthe Trinity philosophically, but to show that the difficulty besetting\nthe conception of a multiplicity of persons united by a superpersonal\nbond, is just the same difficulty that brings idealistic philosophy to a\ndead-lock when it endeavours (1) to escape from solipsism, (2) to\nvindicate free-will,(3) to solve the problem of evil. He naturally\nspeaks of Idealism as \"the only philosophy which can now be truly called\nliving,\" in the sense in which a language is said to live; that is,\nwhich is growing and changing, and endeavouring to bring new tracts of\nexperience under its synthesis; which is current in universities of the\nday. Of the Realism which survives in the seminaries of the\necclesiastical world he naturally knows nothing; addressing himself to a\nwholly different public, he speaks to it on its own assumptions, in its\nown mental language; and indeed he knows no other. But having weighed\nidealism in the balance of criticism, he finds it far short of its\npretensions to be an adequate accounting for the data of experience; he\nfinds that it leads the mind in all directions to impassable chasms\nwhich only faith can overleap. It does not demand or suggest the mystery\nof the Trinity, but reveals a void which, as a fact that doctrine alone\ndoes fill. The convinced Realist will not be very interested about the\nproblem of solipsism which for him is non-existent, but the proposed\nrelief from the difficulties of free-will and of the existence of evil\nmay be grateful to all indifferently; or at least may suggest principles\nadaptable to other systems. In his Trinitarian theology Mr. D'Arcy is in\nmany points at variance with the later conclusions of the schools; and\nin some instances his argument depends vitally on this variance; but not\nin the main. For his main point is that as our own personality--the\nhighest unity of which we have experience--takes under itself unities of\na lower grade; so the doctrine of the Trinity implies what the hiatuses\nof philosophy require, namely, that personal unity is not the highest;\nthat, beyond any power of our present conception, the personally many\ncan be really (not only morally or socially) _one thing_. \"A wonderfully\nunspeakable thing it is,\" says Augustine, \"and unspeakably wonderful\nthat whereas this image of the Trinity\" _(sc.,_ the human soul), \"is one\nperson, and the sovereign Trinity itself, three persons, yet that\nTrinity of three persons is more inseparable than this trinity\" (memory,\nunderstanding, and will) \"of one person.\" This \"superpersonal\" unity is\nof course a matter of faith and not of philosophy, yet it is a faith\nwithout which subjective philosophy must come to a stand-still; it is as\nmuch a postulate of the speculative reason as God and immortality are of\nthe practical reason.\n\n\"If man is to retain the full endowment of his moral nature, we must\nmake up our minds to accept for ourselves an incomplete theory of\nthings.\" A philosophy which should unify the sum-total of human\nexperience, including the supernatural facts of Christianity, is\nimpossible; but even excluding these facts there is always need of some\nkind of non-rational assent, which, however reasonable and prudent in\nthe very interests of thought, is not necessitated by the laws of\nthought--is not, in the strictest sense philosophical. Idealism, like\nother philosophies, \"is not satisfied with an imperfect knowledge of the\ngreatest things. It must rise to the Divine standpoint and comprehend\nthe concrete universal,\" and so, of course, it breaks down. \"But it\nwould surely be a hasty inference,\" says Mr. D'Arcy, \"that philosophy\nmust needs be exhausted because idealism has done its work and delivered\nits message to mankind,\" that is, has explored another blind alley, and\nhas arrived at the _cul de sac_. In fact, if idealism is a living\nphilosophy, it is nevertheless showing signs of age and decay. Ptolemaic\nastronomy, as an explanation of planetary movements, proved its\nexhaustion by a liberal recourse to epicycles as the answer to all\nawkward objections; and philosophies show themselves moribund in an\nanalogous way, by a monotonous pressing of some one hackneyed principle\nto a degree that makes common-sense revolt and fling the whole theory to\nthe winds--chaff and grain indiscriminately. But philosophy must be\ndistinguished from philosophies, as religion from religions. The\nimperfection of the various concrete attempts to satisfy either\nspiritual need, may make the desperate-minded wish to cut themselves\nfree from all connection with any particular system; but the desire and\neffort to have a knowledge of the whole (_i.e._, a philosophy) is as\nnatural and ineradicable as the desire to live and breathe. In this\ngeneral sense, philosophy \"takes human experience, sets it out in all\nits main elements, and then endeavours to form a plan of systematic\nthought which will account for the whole. It has one fundamental\npostulate, that there is a meaning, or, in other words, that there is an\nall-pervading unity.\" This \"faith\" in the ultimate coherence and unity\nof everything is the presupposition and motive of the very attempt to\nphilosophize or to determine the nature of that unity. It is not,\ntherefore, itself a product of philosophy; it is an innate conviction\nthat can be denied only from the teeth outwards, but can neither be\nproved nor disproved by the finite mind.\n\nTo \"explain\" is in one way or another to liken the less known to what is\nbetter known; and thus every philosophy is an attempt to express--by\nmeans of sundry extensions and limitations--the universe of our\nexperience in the terms of some totality with which we are more\nfamiliar; plainly, it is also an endeavour to express the greater in\nterms of the less, and must therefore be almost infinitely inadequate\neven at the best. At one time the Whole has been conceived as the unity\nof a mere aggregate--of a heap of stones; at another, as a mere\nsand-storm of fortuitous atoms; there has been the egg-theory, and the\ntortoise-theory, and many others, no less grotesque to our seeming. But,\nleaving fanciful and poetical philosophies aside, and considering only\nthose which pretend to be strictly rational, we find the objective\nphilosophy and the subjective confronting one another; the former\nlikening the universe to the works of men's hands; the latter likening\nit to man himself; the former taking its metaphors from the artificer\nshaping his material according to a preconceived plan for a definite\npurpose; the latter, from the thinking and willing self considered as\nthe creator of its own personal experience.\n\nThere is enough uniformity of plan throughout the animal body to make\nany one part of the organism a likeness of the whole--the eye, the\nheart, or the hand. And so, presumably, there is hardly any unity we can\nthink of in our own little corner of experience that does not offer some\nsimilitude of the universal unity. But to take this as an adequate\nexplanation; to force the metaphor to its logical consequences, to the\nexclusion of every other reasonable though non-rational assent, is the\ncommonest but most fatal form of intellectual provincialism and\nnarrowness. Our mind is essentially limited not merely in that it cannot\nknow everything, but in that its mode of knowledge is imperfect and\nanalogical in regard to all that is greater than itself. It is broad\nonly when conscious of its narrowness.\n\nThe first difficulty into which idealism gets itself is that of\nsolipsism. According to its rigidly argued principles, \"mind is\nseparated from mind by a barrier which is, not figuratively, but\nliterally impassable. It is impossible for any _ego_ to leap this\nbarrier and enter into the experience of any other _ego_.\" It is not an\nabstract self-in-general, but my one solitary concrete self for which\nall experience exists. There is no room for any other person. But this\nphilosophy does not account for our common-sense belief in Nature as\nexisting independently of self and of other selfs; or in those other\nselfs with their several and distinct spheres of experience.\n\nThe unification it effects when treated rigorously as a complete\nphilosophy leaves out of account the best part of what it was bound to\naccount for. In spite of idealism, the idealist goes on _believing_ in\nother persons or spheres of experience, and in Nature as the experience\nof a Divine Person. But since, on his principles, persons are mutually\nexclusive, and none can enter the sphere of another's experience, to see\nwith his eyes, or to feel with his nerves, since,\n\n  Each in his hidden sphere of joy or woe\n     Our hermit spirits dwell and range apart,\n\nwe are thrown back on a disconnected plurality of beings, and God\nHimself, viewed as personal (in this sense) is but one among many.\nAlbeit immeasurably the greatest, He cannot be regarded as the ground of\nthe possibility and existence of all the rest--the home and bond of\nunion of all other spirits which in Him live and move and have their\nbeing.\n\nThe belief in the personality of God is all-essential for the\nsatisfaction of our religious cravings, as a presupposition of trust,\nlove, prayer, obedience, and such relationships; as bringing out the\ntranscendence in contrast with the all-pervading immanence of the deity;\nas checking the pantheistic perversion of this latter truth by which, in\nturn, its own deistic perversion is checked. God is not only in and\nthrough all things; but also outside and above all things; just as\nChrist is not only the soul of the Church, but also its Head and Ruler.\nBetween these two compensating statements the exact truth is hidden from\nour eyes.\n\nBut it is not to the conception of the Divine personality and\nseparateness that we are to look for the missing bond by which the head\nand members are to be knit together, and the essential disconnection of\nthese \"spheres of experience\" overcome. The ultimate unity is a mystery;\nin a word, philosophy, as a quest of that unity, breaks down. The\nsolution is suggested only by the revelation of a superpersonal unity in\nsome sense prior to the multiplicity of Divine Persons, a unity in which\nthey being many are one, and in which we too are, not merged, but\nunified without prejudice to our personal distinctness.\n\nHence, the writer concludes: \"Materialism, when its defect is discovered\nand understood, points on to idealism. Idealism, when its defect is\ndisclosed, points to Christian theism.\" For those who have not come to\nChristian theism by this thorny and circuitous path, the mode in which\nthe idealist extricates himself from his self-wrought entanglement may\nseem of little interest; but inasmuch as they take for granted the\nexistence of that same multitude of mutually impenetrable personalities\nwhich he, by a revolt of his common-sense against his philosophy is\nforced to confess, the problem of the ultimate unity exists for them\nalso.\n\nIf in its endeavour to vindicate the spirituality of man against the\nmaterialist, idealism tumbles into the slough of solipsism and needs to\nbe fetched out by the doctrine of the Trinity, it fares much the same\nway in its attempted defence of free-will against necessity. That\nfreedom from determination by the \"not-self\" which idealism vindicates,\ncan belong only to the all-inclusive Spirit, outside whose self nothing\nexists; it belongs to me only on the supposition that I am the\nall-inclusive; and this, as before, is the point at which common-sense\nrevolts. \"Free-will is based on man's consciousness of his moral nature.\nIt represents not any speculative theory, but one of the great facts\nwhich every theory of things must explain or perish.\" If we ascribe\nfreedom to the Absolute and to other spirits (whose existence is forced\non us in spite of Idealism), it is because we first find it in ourselves\nas the very essence of our spiritual nature. But if we accept our\nfreedom as a fact which it is the business of philosophy to explain and\nnot to deny; on just the same testimony we must accept the fact of the\nmanifold limitations of our liberty of which we are continually\nconscious. Now here it is that the Idealist defence of liberty against\nmaterialism fails by a deplorable _nimis probat_. It can only save our\nliberty by denying our limitations; or at least it leaves us facing a\nproblem which can be solved only by an assumption for which Idealism\noffers no philosophical warrant. Hence we are brought back to the\nworld-old dilemma \"between a freedom of God which annihilates man, and a\nfreedom of man which annihilates God.\" Idealism has really contributed\nnothing to the solution of the difficulty which is persistent as long as\nGod is known only as a Sovereign and Infinite Personality among a\nmultitude of finite personalities, and until revelation hints at the\npossibility of a higher \"unity which transcends personality, by which He\nis to be the reconciling principle and home of the multitude of\nself-determining agents.\" \"Final reconciliation of the Divine and human\npersonality is in fact beyond us.\"\n\nSimilarly, in dealing with problems of moral evil, Idealism leads to an\n_impasse_. As long as we keep to the notion of one all-inclusive Spirit,\nthe Subject of universal experience, it is easy to show that sin is but\nrelatively evil, that it is, when viewed absolutely, as much a factor of\nthe universal life as is righteousness; yet surely this is not to\naccount for so large and obstinate a part of our experience, but to deny\nit. Nor can the ethical corollaries of such a view be tolerated for a\nmoment. That sin is an absolute, eternal, in some sense, irreparable\nevil is a conception altogether fundamental to that morality with which\nChristianity and modern civilization have identified themselves. It is\nbut another aspect of the doctrine of freedom and responsibility. Of\nphysical and necessary evil it is possible to assert the merely negative\nor relative character; we can view it as the good in process of making;\nor as the good imperfectly comprehended; but if this optimism be\nextended to sin it can only be because sin is regarded as necessitated,\n_i.e._, as no longer sin. Hence the view in question does not account\nfor, but implicitly denies the existence of sin.\n\nFurthermore, the whole tendency of more recent idealism is to explain\nmoral evil as an offence against man's social nature by which he is a\nmember of an organism or community. It is the undue self-assertion of\nthe part against the interests of the whole. Of course the idealist\nexplains this organic conception with a respect for personality which is\nabsent from socialistic and evolutionary doctrines of society. But the\nnotion of sin as a rebellion of one member against all, is common to\nboth. The latter consider the external life and activity of the unit as\nan element in the collective external life of the community--as part of\na common work; the former considers the unity as a free spiritual\nagency, an end for itself--whose liberty is curtailed only by the claims\nof other like agencies, equal or greater. But by what process, apart\nfrom faith and practical postulates and regulative ideas, can\nsubjectivism pass to belief in other free agencies outside the thinking\nand all-creating self? The result of Mr, D'Arcy's criticism of the\nmatter is that \"it is because the man exists as a member of a spiritual\nuniverse, and must therefore so exert his power of self-determination as\nto be in harmony or discord with God above him, and with other men\naround him, that the distinction between the good self and the bad self\narises. But in this very conception of a universe of spirits we have\npassed beyond the bounds of a purely rational philosophy. Such a\nuniverse is not explicable by reference to the vivifying principle of\nthe self;\" and accordingly we are driven back as before upon the\nalternative of philosophical chaos, or else of faith in such a\nsuperpersonal unity as is suggested by the doctrine of the Trinity.\n\nWe have but hinted at the barest outlines of Mr. D'Arcy's argument\nwhich, as against Idealism, is close-reasoned and subtle; and now we\nhave left but little space to deal with the more really interesting\nchapter on the \"Ultimate Unity.\" It is not pretended that we can form\nany conception of the precise nature of that unity, but merely that some\nsuch unknown kind of unity is needed to deliver us from the antinomies\nof thought. As we could never rise to the intrinsic conception of\npersonal unity from the consideration of some lower unity, material or\nmechanical; so neither can we pass from the notion of personal to that\nof superpersonal unity or being.\n\nThis is only a modern and Hegelian setting of the truth that \"being\" and\n\"unity\" are said analogously and not univocally of God and creatures.\nThat there are grades of reality; that \"substance is more real than\nquality and subject is more real than substance,\" that \"the most real of\nall is the concrete totality, the all-inclusive universal\"--the _Ens\ndeterminatissimum_, is not a modern discovery, but a re-discovery. That\nour own personality is the highest unity of which we have any proper\nnon-analogous notion; that it is the measure by which we spontaneously\ntry to explain to ourselves other unities, higher or lower, by means of\nextensions or limitations; that our first impulse, prior to correction,\nis to conceive everything self-wise, be it super-human or infra-human,\nis of course profoundly true; but for this reason to make \"self\" the\nall-explaining and only category, to deny any higher order of reality\nbecause we can have no definite conception of its precise nature, is the\nnarrowness which has brought Idealism into such difficulties. It is\nprobably in his notion of Divine personality that Mr. D'Arcy comes most\nin conflict with the technicalities of later schools. If, as he says,\nmodern theology oscillates between the poles of Sabellianism and\nTritheism, he himself inclines to the latter pole. Father de Regnon,\nS.J., in his work on the Trinity, shows that the Greek Fathers and the\nLatin viewed the problem from opposite ends. \"How three can be one,\" was\nthe problem with the former; \"How one can be three,\" with the latter.\nThese inclined to an emptier, those to a fuller notion of personality.\nMr. D'Arcy's Trinitarianism is decidedly more Greek than Latin. The more\n\"content\" he gives to Divine personality, the more he is in-danger of\ndenying identity of nature and operation; as appears later.\n\nPlainly, the word \"person,\" however analogously applied to God, must\ncontain something of what we mean when we call ourselves \"persons,\" else\n\"we are landed in the unmeaning.\" When Christ spoke of Himself as \"I,\"\nthe selfness implied by the pronoun must have had some kind of\nresemblance to our own; just as when He called God His Father He\nintended to convey something of what fatherhood meant for His then\nhearers. That He intended to convey what it might come to mean in other\nconditions and ages seems very doubtful; and so if the word \"person\" has\nacquired a fuller and different meaning in modern philosophy, we are not\nat once justified in applying this fuller conception to the Divine\npersons, unless we can show that it is a legitimate development of the\nolder sense.\n\nHe argues that if the Trinity be the ultimate truth, the Unitarian\nsuppositions and conclusions of the \"natural theologian\" are bound to\nlead to antinomies and confusions; and he sees in those harmonious\ninterferences and variations of universal import (which are no less an\nessential factor in the evolution of the world than the groundwork of\nuniformity and law), evidence of a multi-personal Divine government, of\na division of labour between co-operant agencies. This, of course, goes\nbeyond the doctrine of \"appropriation;\" and amounts to a denial of the\nsingleness of the Divine operation _ad extra_. It seems, in short, to\nimply a diversity of nature in each of the persons, over and above the\nprinciple of personal distinctness. Indeed, while it offers a plausible\nsolution of some minor perplexities, it rather weakens the value of the\ngeneral argument. For the notion of a superpersonal unity is needed\nchiefly as suggesting a mode in which many mutually exclusive\npersonalities or \"spheres of experience\" or lives, may be welded\ntogether into a coherent whole. Even could I reproduce most exactly in\nmyself the thoughts and feelings of another, it were but a reproduction\nor similarity. I can know and feel the like; but I cannot know his\nknowing and feel his feeling; for this were to be that other and not\nmyself.\n\nThat God's knowledge of our thoughts and feelings should be of this\nexternal, inferential kind is as intolerable to our mental needs of\nunification as it is to our religious sense, our hope, our confidence,\nour love. In Him we live and move and think and feel; and He in us. That\nwe can say this of no other personality is what constitutes the burden\nof our separateness and loneliness. Our experience exists for no other;\nbut at least it is in some mysterious way shared by That which lies\nbehind all otherness, not destroying, but fulfilling. \"We know not why\nit is,\" says St. Catherine of Genoa, \"we feel an internal necessity of\nusing the plural pronoun instead of the singular.\" Perhaps it was that\nshe saw in a purer and clearer light what we only half feel in the\nobscurity of our grosser hearts.\n\nBut if God knows our knowing, and feels our feeling, not merely by a\nsimilitude but in itself, it is not because He is transcendent and\n\"personal,\" as we understand the word, because He is immanent and\n\"superpersonal,\" whatever that may mean. But it is just because\nrevelation tells us that in God there are three selves or Egos, for each\nof whom the experience (i.e., the thought, love, and action) of the\nother two exists, not merely similar, but one and the same--the same\nthinking, loving, and doing, no less than the same thought, love, and\ndeed--that we can believe in the possibility of our personal\nseparateness being at once preserved and overcome in that mysterious\nunity.\n\nThat God is love; and that love, which as an affection, produces an\naffective unity between separate persons, can as the subsistent and\nprimal unity produce a substantial and ineffable union of which the\nother is a shadow, is a view towards which revelation points. That the\nmere affection of love, the moral union of wills, is an insufficient\nunification of personalities is implied by the fact that love always\ntends to some sort of real union and communication; and still more, that\nit springs from a sense of inexplicable identity.\n\nIt is almost a crime in criticism to deal with such a multitude of deep\nproblems in so brief and hasty an essay. But if we have roughly\nindicated the main outlines of the author's position, we shall have done\nas much as can be reasonably expected of us; though it is with great\nreluctance that we pass over many points, and even whole chapters,\nbristling with interest.\n\nPerhaps the most important feature of the book is the prominence it\ngives to the difficulties and insufficiencies of idealism. With those of\nrealism we are all familiar enough, but so far, idealism has been looked\nat one-sidedly as evading, if not solving, some of the antinomies of the\nearlier philosophy, while its own embarrassments have been condoned in\nhopes of future solution. The solution has not come, and now the hopes\nare dead or dying. What we need is a higher synthesis, if such be\npossible for the human mind, or else a frank admission that faith, in\nsome sense or other, is a necessary complement of every philosophy. One\nthing is clear, that reconciliation can be effected, if at all, only by\na fair-minded admission of difficulties inseparable from either system,\nand by a conscientious criticism of presuppositions. No one can deal\neffectually with the idealist position to whom it is simply \"absurd\" or\n\"ridiculous;\" who has not been to some degree intellectually entangled\nin it; whose realism is not more or less of an effort. Else he is\ndealing with some man of straw of his own fancy, and will be found, as\nso often happens, assuming the truth of realism in every argument he\nbrings forward. Plainly the best minds of modern times have not been\nvictimized by a fallacy within the competence of a school-boy. And a\nlike intellectual self-denial is needed on the part of the idealist, who\nis apt to dismiss all realism as crude, uncritical, or barbaric. We have\nall our antinomies, our blind alleys, our crudities; and we have all to\nfill up awkward interstices with assumptions and postulates.\n\nHowever much we may dissent from Mr. D'Arcy's theology in certain\ndetails; however little we personally may labour under the difficulties\nof idealism, we cannot too strongly commend the endeavour to meet the\nmodern mind on its own platform; to speak to the cultivated in their own\nlanguage. Belief is caused by the wish to believe; but it is conditioned\nby the removal of intellectual obstacles, different for different grades\nof intelligence and education. To create the \"wish to believe\" is\nlargely a matter of example, of letting Christianity appear attractive\nand desirable, and correspondent to the deeper needs of the soul. It is\nalso to some extent a work of exposition. But when this all-important\nwish has been created, the intellect can hinder its effect. It is much\nto know and feel that Christianity is good and useful and beautiful;\n\"But some time or other the question must be asked: _Is it true_?\" And\nto liberate the will by satisfying the intellect is work of what alone\nis properly called apologetic. Unless we fall back into quietism which\nwould tell us to read a Kempis and say our prayers and wait, we must\naddress ourselves first of all to making Christianity attractive; and\nthen to making it intelligible. And if we do not find it against Gospel\nsimplicity to address ourselves, as we continually do, to the\nintelligence of the semi-educated, we cannot allege that scruple as a\nreason why we should not address ourselves to the fully educated,--to\nthose who eventually form and guide the opinions of the many.\n\n_Feb. 1901_.\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n\n[Footnote 1: _Idealism and Theology_. By Charles D'Arcy, B.D. Hodder and\nStoughton, 1900.]","title":"The Faith of the Millions (2nd series)","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":81554}