E . LI8RIS
REV. C. W. SULLIVAN
8RAMPTON

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THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY

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THE IDEA OF A UN IVERSITY

DEFINED AND ILLUSTRATED

L IN NINE DISCOURSES DELIVERED TO THE CATHOI
ICS OF
DUBLIN

II. IN OCCASIONAL LECTURES AND ESSAYS ADDRESSED TO THE
MEMBERS OF THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY

BY

JOlIN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN

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LONG MANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER RPW. LONDON
NEW YORK. BOMBAY. AND CALCUTTA
1912

Hosþes nam, et collegistis Alt.

IN GRATEPUL NEVER-DYINO REMEMBRANCE

OF HIS MANY FRIENDS AND BENEFACTORS,

LIVING AND DEAD,

AT HOME AND ABROAD,

IN GREAT BRITAIN, IRELAND, FRANCE,

IN BELGIUM, GERMANY, POLAND, ITALY, AND MALTA,

IN NORTH AMERICA, AND OTHER COUNTRIES,

WHO, BY THEIR RESOLUTE PRAYERS AND PENANCE,

AND BY THEIR GENEROUS STUBBORN EFFORTS,

AND BY THEIR MUNIFICENT ALMS,

HAVE BROKEN FOR HIM THE STRESS

OF A GREAT ANXIETY,

THE SED IS CO U R S E S,

OFFERED TO OUR LADY AND ST. PHILIP ON ITS RISE.

COMPOSED UNDER ITS PRESSURE,

FINISHED ON THE EVE OF ITS TERMINATION,

ARE RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECIIONATELY INSCRIBED

BY THE AUTHOR.

IN PEST. PRÆSENT.
B. II. V.
NOV. 21, 1852.

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PREFACE.

T HE view taken of a University in these Discourses
is the following:- That it is a place of teaching
universal knowledge. This implies that its object is, on
the one hand, intellectual, not moral; and, on the other,
that it is the diffusion and extension of knowledge rather
than the advancement. If its object \vere scientific and
philosophical discovery, I do not see v:hy a University
should have students; if religious training, I do not see
how it can be the seat of literature and science.
Such is a University in its essence, and independently
of its relation to the Church. But, practically speaking,
it cannot fulfil its object duly, such as I have described
it, without the Church's assistance; or, to use the theo-
logical term, the Church is necessary for its integrity.
Not that its main characters are changed by this incor..
poration: it still has the office of intellectual education;
but the Church steadies it in the performance of that
office.
Such are the main principles of the Discourses \vhich
follow; though it would be unreasonable for me to ex-
pect that I have treated so large and important a field
of thought with the fulness and precision necessary to
secure me from incidental misconceptions of my meaning
on the part of the reader. It is true) there is nothing

x

Pre/ace.

novel or singular in the argument \vhich I have been
pursuing, but this does not protect me from such mis-
conceptions; for the very circumstance that the views I
have been delineating are not original with me may lead
to false notions as tò my relations in opinion towards
those from whom I happened in the first instance to
learn them, and may cause me to be interpreted by the
objects or sentiments of schools to which I should be
simply opposed.
For instance, some persons may be tempted to com-
plain, that I have servilely followed the English idea of
a University, to the disparagement of that Knowledge
which I profess to be so strenuously upholding; and
they may anticipate that an academical system, formed
upon my model, will result in nothing better or higher
than in the production of that antiquated variety of
human nature and remnant of feudalism, as they consider
it, called" a gentleman." - Now, I have anticipated this
charge in various parts of my discussion; if: ho\vever,
any Catholic is found to prefer it (and to Catholics of
course this Volume is primarily addressed), I would have
him first of all ask himself the previous question, what
he conceives to be the reason contemplated by the Holy
See in recommending just no\v to the Irish Hierarchy
the establishment of a Catholic University? Has the
Supreme Pontiff recommended it for the sake of the
Sciences, which are to be the matter, and not rather of the
Students, who are to be the subjects, of its teaching?
Has he any obligation or duty at all towards secular
knowledge as such ? Would it become his Apostolical
Ministry, and his degcent from the Fisherman, to have a
zeal for the Baconian or other philosophy of man for its
* Vide Huber's English Universities. London, 1843, vol. ii., part I., pp.
321, etç.

Preface.

Xl

own sake 1 Is the Vicar of Christ bound by office or by
vow to be the preacher of the theory of gravitation, or
a martyr for electro-magnetism ? Would he be acquit-
ting himself of the dispensation committed to him if he
were smitten with an abstract love of these matters, how-
ever true, or beautiful, or ingenious, or useful? Or rather,
does he not contemplate such achievements of the intel-
lect, as far as he contemplates them, solely and simply
in their relation to the interests of Revealed Truth?
Surely, what he does he does for the sake of Religion;
if he looks with satisfaction on strong temporal govern-
ments, which promise perpetuity, it is for the sake of
Religion; and if he encourages and patronizes art and
science, it is for the sake of Religion. He rejoices in
the widest and most philosophicaJ systems of intellectual
education, from an intimate conviction that Truth is his
real ally, as it is his profession; and that Knowledge
and Reason are sure ministers to Faith.
This being undeniable, it is plain that, when he sug-
gests to the Irish Hierarchy the establishment of a U ni-
versity, his first and chief and direct obj ect is, not science,
art, professional skill, literature, the discovery of know-
ledge, but some benefit or other, to accrue, by means of
literature and science, to his own children; not indeed
their formation on any narrow or fantastic type, as, for
instance, that of an "English Gentleman" may be called,
but their exercise and growth in certain habits, moral or
intellectual. Nothing short of this can be his aim, if, as
becomes the Successor of the Apostles, he is to be able
to say with S1. Paul, "Non judicavi me scire aliquid inter
vas, nisi J esum Christum, et hunc crucifixum." Just as
a commander wishes to have tall and well-formed and
vigorous soldiers, not from any abstract devotion to the
mili tary standard of height or age, but for the purposes
b

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xu

Preface.

of war, and 110 one thinks it any thing but natural and
praiseworthy in him to be contemplating, not abstract
qualities, but his own living and breathing men; so, in
like manner, when the Church fourtds a University, she
is not cherishing talent, genius, or knowledge, for their
own sake, but for the sake of her children, with a view to
their spiritual welfare and their religious influence and
usefulness, with the object of training them to fill their
respective posts in life better, and of making them more
intelligent, capable, active members of society.
Nor can it justly be said that in thus acting she sacri.
fices Science, and, under a pretence of fulfilling the duties
of her mission, perverts a University to ends not its own,
as soon as it is taken into account that there are other
institutions far more suited to act as instruments of
stimulating philosophical inquiry, and extending the
boundaries of our knowledge, than a University. Such,
for instance, are the literary and scientific "Academies,"
which are so celebrated in Italy and France, and which
have frequently been connected with Universities, as
comn1ittees, or, as it were, congregations or delegacies
subordinate to them. Thus the present Royal Society
originated in Charles the Second's time, in Oxford; such
just now are the Ashmolean and Architectural Societies
in the same seat of learning, which have risen in our own
time. Such, too, is the British Association, a migratory
body, which at least at times is found in the halls of the
Protestant Universities of the United Kingdom, and the
faults of which lie, not in its exclusive devotion to science
,
but in graver matters which it is irrelevant here to enter
upon. Such again is the Antiquarian Society, the Royal
Academy for the Fine Arts, and others which might be
mentioned. This, then, is the sort of institution, which
prinlarily contemplates Science itself, and not students:

Preface.

Xlli

and, in thus speaking, I am saying nothing of my own,
being supported by no less an authority than Cardinal
Gerdil "Ce n'est pas," he says, CI qu'i! y ait aucune
véritable opposition entre l'esprit des Académies et celui
des U niversités; ce sont seulement des vues differéntes.
Les Universités sont établies pour enseig1ter les sciences
aux Ilèves qui veulent s'y {ormer; les Académies se
proposent de nouvelles recherches à faire dans la carrière
des sciences. Les Universités d'ltalie ont foumi des
sujets qui ont fait honneur aux Académies; et celles-ci
ont donné aux Universités des Professeurs, qui ant rempli
les chaires avec la plus grande distinction.".
The nature of the case and the history of philosophf
combine to recomm e nd to us this division of intellec-
tual labour between Academies and Universiti es. To
à iscover and to teach are distinct fu nctions; t hey- are
also distinct gifts, and are not commonly found united in
the same person. He, too, who spends his day in dispens-
ing his existing knowledge to all comers is unlikely to
ha ve either leisure or energy to acquire new. The com-
mon sense of mankind has associated the search aft<::r
truth with seclusion and quiet. The greatest thinkers
have been too intent on their subject to admit of interrup-
tion; they have been men of absent minds and idosyn-
cratic habits, and have, more or less, shunned the lecture
room and the public school. Pythagoras, the light of
Magna Græcia, lived for a time in a cave. Thales, the
light of Ionia, lived unmarried and in private, and refused
the invitations of princes. Plato withdrew from Athens
to the groves of Academus. Aristotle gave twenty years
to a studious discipleship under him. Friar Bacon lived
in his tower upon the Isis. Newton indulged in an intense
severity of meditation which almost shook his reason.
* Opere. t. iü., p. 353.

.
XIV

Prefarc.

The great discoveries in chemistry and electricity were
not made in Universities. Observatories are more fre-
quently out of Universities than in them, and even when
within their bounds need have no moral connexion with
them. Porson had no classes; Elmsley lived good part
of his life in the country. I do not say that there are
not great examples the other way, perhaps Socrates,
certainly Lord Bacon; still I think it must be allowed on
the whole that,
hi1e teaching- involves external en
a
e-
ments, the naNral home for experinlent and gpeculation
is retirement .
Returning, then, to the consideration of the question,
from which I may seem to have digressed, thus much I
think I have made gÐod,-that, whether or no a Catholic
University should put before it, as its great object, to
make its students "gentlemen," still to make them some-
thing or other is its great object, and not simply to pro-
tect the interests and advance the dominion of Science.
I
then, this may be taken for granted, as I think it may,
the only lX'
nt which remains to be settled is, whether I
have formed a probable conception of the -,ort of benefit
which the Holy See has intended to confer on Catholics
who speak the English tongue by recomnlending to the
Irish Hierarchy the establishment of a University; and
this I now proceed to consider.
Here, then, it is natural to ask those who are interested
in the question, whether any better interpretation of the
recommendation of the Holy See can be given than that
which I have suggested in this Volume. Certainly it
does not seem to me rash to pronounce that, whereas
Protestants have great advantages of education in the
Schools, Colleges, and Universities of the United King-
dom, our ecclesiastical rulers have it in purpose that
Catholics should enjoy the like advantages, whatever they

Preface.

xv

eire, to the full. I conceive they view it as prejudicial to
the interests of Religion that there should be any culti-
vation of mind bestowed upon Protestants which is not
given to their own youth also. As they wish their schools
for the poorer and middle classes to be at least on a par
with those of Protestants, they contemplate the same ob-
ject also as regards that higher education which is given to
comparatively the few. Protestant youths, who can spare
the time, continue their studies till the age of twenty-one
or twenty-two; thus they employ a time of life all-im-
portant and especially favourable to mental culture. I
conceive that our Prelates are impressed with the fact
and its consequences, that a youth who ends his educa-
tion at seventeen is no match (cæteris paribus) for one
\vho ends it at twenty-two.
All classes indeed of the community are impressed
with a fact so obvious as this. The consequence is, that
Catholics who aspire to be on a level with Protestants iñ
discipline and refinement of intellect have recourse to
Protestant Universities to obtain what they cannot find
at home. Assuming (as the Rescripts from Propaganda
allow me to do) that Protestant education is inexpedient
for our youth,-we see here an additional reason why
those advantages, whatever they are, which Protestant
communities dispense through the medium of Protest-
antism should be accessible to Catholics in a Catholic
form.
What are these advantages? I repeat, they are in one
word the culture of the intellect. Robbed, oppressed,
and thrust aside, Catholics in these islands have not been
in a condition for centuries to attempt the sort of educa-
tion which is necessary for the man of the world, the
statestnan, the landholder, or the opulent gentleman.
Their legitimate stations, duties, employments, have been

XVI

Preface.

ß.

laken from them, and the qualifications withal, social
and intellectual, which are necessary both for reversing
the forfeiture and for availing themselves of the reversal.
The time is come when this moral disability must be
removed. Our desideratu
is, not the manners and habits
of gentlemen ;-these can be, and are, acquired in various
other ways, by good society, by foreign travel, by the
innate grace and dignity of the Catholic mind ;- but the
force , the steadiness , the c om p rehensiveness and the
versatilit y of intellect , the command over our own p owers ,
th e instinctive j ust estimate of thin g' s as the y p a ss before
us , which sometimes indeed is a natural gift!. but coin ..
m onl y is not g ained without much effort and the exerCiSe
of y ears.
This is real cultivation of mind; and I do not deny
that the characteristic excellences of a gentleman are
included in it. N or need we be ashamed that they should
be, since the poet long ago wrote, that " Ingenuas didi-
cisse fideliter artes Emollit mores." Certainly a liberal
education does manifest itself in a courtesy, propriety,
and polish of word and action, which is beautiful in itself:
and acceptable to others; but it does much more. It
brings the mind into form,-for the mind is like the body.
Boys outgrow their shape and their strength; their limbs
have to be knit together, and their constitution needs
tone. Mistaking animal spirits for vigour, and over-
confident in their health, ignorant what they can bear
and how to manage themselves, they are immoderate
and extravagant; and fall into sharp sicknesses. This
is an emblem of their minds; at first they have no prin-
ciples laid down within them as a foundation for the
intellect to build upon; they have no discriminating con-
victions, and no grasp of consequences. And therefore
they talk at random, if they talk much, and cannot help

Prl-face.

. .
XVll

being flippant, or what is emphatically called" young."
They are merely dazzled by phenomena, instead of per-
ceiving things as they are.
It \vere well if none remained boys all their lives; but
what is more common than the sight of grown men,
talking on political or moral or religious subjects, in that
offhand, idle way, which we signify by the word ulzreal?
"That they simply do not know what they are talking
about " is the spontaneous silent remark of any man 01
sense who hears them. Hence such persons have no
difficulty in contradicting themselves in successive sen-
tences, without being conscious of it. Hence others,
whose defect in intellectual training is more latent, have
their most unfortunate crotchets, as they are called, or
hobbies, which deprive them of the influence which their
e.stimable qualities would otherwise secure. Hence others
can never look straight before them, never see the point,
and have no difficulties in the lnost difficult subjects.
Others are hopelessly obstinate and prejudiced, and, after
they have been driven from their opinions, return to them
the next moment without even an attempt to explain
why. Others are so intemperate and intractable that
there is no greater calamity for a good cause than that
they should get hold of it. It is very plain from the
very particulars I have mentioned that, in this delinea-
tion of intellectual infirmities, I am drawing, not from
Catholics, but from the world at large; I am referring
to an evil which is forced upon us in every railway
carriage, in every coffee-room or table-d'hôte, in every
mixed company, an evil, however, to \vhich Catholics are
not less exposed than the rest of mankind.
When the intellect has once been p roperly trained and
formed to have a connected view or grasp of thine-s , it
will display its powers with more or less effect according

^ V1l1

P refa CC.

to its particular quality and capacity in the individual.
In the case of most men it makes itself felt in the good
sense, sobriety of thought, reasonableness, candour, self-
command, and steadiness of view, \vhich characterize it.
In some it will have developed habits of business, power
of influencing others, and sagacity. In others it will
elicit the talent of philosophical speculation, and lead
the mind forward to eminence in this or that intellectua]
department. In all i t...w.ilL be a facH It y...of en tering ,vith
comparative ease into any subject of thought, and of
gking up with aptitude any science or profession. All
this it will be and will do in a measure, even ,vhen the
mental formation be made after a model but partially
true; for, as far as effectiveness goes, even false views of
things have more influence and inspire more respect than
no views at all. Men who fancy they see what is not
are more energetic, and make their way better, than
those who see nothing; and so the undoubting infidel,
the fanatic, the heresiarch, are able to do much, while the
mere hereditary Christian, who has never realized the
truths which he holds, is unable to do any thing. But, if
consistency of view can add so much strength even to
error, what may it not be expected to furnish to the
dignity, the energy, and the influence of Truth!
Some one, however, will perhaps object that I am
but advocating that spurious philosophism, which shows
itself in what, for want of a word, I may call "viewi-
ness," when I speak so much of the formation, and con-
sequent grasp, of the intellect. It may be said that the
theory of University Education, which I have been
delineating, if acted upon, would teach youths nothing
soundly or thoroughly, and would dismiss them with
nothing better than briJliant general views about al1
things whatever.

Preface.

XIX

1'his indeed, if well founded, would be a Inost serious
objection to what I have advanced in this Volume, and
would demand my immediate attention, had I any reason
to think that I could not remove it at once, by a simple
explanation of what I consider the true mode of ed uca-
ting, were this the place to do so. But these Discourses
are directed simply to the consideration of the aims and
principles of Education. Suffice it, then, to say here, that
I hold very strongly that the first step in intellectual
training is to impress upon a boy's mind the idea of
science, method, order, principle, and system; of rule
and exception, of richness and harmony. This is com-
monly and excellently done by making him begin with
Grammar; nor can too great accuracy, or minuteness
and subtlety of teaching be used towards him, as his
faculties expand, with this simple purpose. Hence it is
that critical scholarship is so important a discipline for
him when he is leaving school for the University. A
second science is the Mathematics: this should follow
Grammar, still with the same object, viz., to give him a
conception of development and arrangement from and
around a common centre. Hence it is that Chronology
and Geography are so necessary for him, when he reads
History, which is otherwise little better than a story-
book. Hence, too, Metrical Composition, when he reads
Poetry; in order to stimulate his powers into action in
every practicable way, and to prevent a merely passive
reception of images and ideas which in that case are
likely to pass out of the mind as soon as they have
entered it. Let him once gain this habit of method,
of starting from fixed points, of making his ground
good as he goes, of distinguishing what he knows
from what he does not know, and I conceive he will be
gradually initiated into the largest and truest philoso-

xx

Preface.

phical views, and will feel nothing but impatience and
disgust at the random theorie

nr1 imp()
ing sophistries
and dashing parado
which carry away half-formed
;n d superficial intellects.
Such parti-coloured ingenuities are indeed one of the
chief evils of the day, and men of real talent are not slow
to minister to them. An intellectual man, as the world
now conceives of him, is one who is full oí II views lion
all subjects of philosophy, on all matters of the day. It
is almost thought a disgrace not to have a view at a
moment's notice on any question from the Personal
Advent to the Cholera or Mesmerism. This is owing in
great measure to the necessities of periodical literature,
now so much in request. Every quarter of a year, every
month, every day, there nlust be a supply, for the grati...
fication of the public, of new and luminous theories on
the subjects of religion, foreign politics, home politics,
civil economy, finance, trade, agriculture, emigration,
and the colonies. Slavery, the gold fields, German
philosophy, the French Empire, Wellington, Peel, Ire-
land, must all be practised on, day after day, by \vhat
are called original thinkers. As the great man's guest
l11ust produce his good stories 01 songs at the evening
banquet, as the platform orator exhibits his telling facts
at mid-day, so the journalist lies under the stern obliga-
tion of extemporizing his lucid views, leading ideas, and
nutshell truths for the breakfast table. The very nature
of periodical literature, broken into small \\Tholes, and
demanded punctually to an hour, involves the habit of
this extempore philosophy. "Almost all the Ramblers,"
says Boswell of Johnson, "were written just as they
were wanted for the press; he sent a certain portion of
the copy of an essay, and wrote the remainder while the
former part of it was printing." Few men have the gifts

Preface.

.
XXi

of Johnson, who to great vigour and resource of intellect,
when it was fairly roused, united a rare common-sense
and a conscientious regard for veracity, which preserved
him from flippancy or extravagance in writing. Few
men are Tohnsons: yet how many men at this day are
assailed by incessant demands on their mental powe
,
which only a productiveness like his could suitably:
supply! ;There is a demand for a reckless orie-inalitv oL
thought. and a sparkling- plausibility of are-ument, which
he would have despised, even if he could ha ve displayed;
a demand for crude theo and unsound hiloso h ,
rather t an none a t a 1. It is a sort of repetition of the
"Quid novi? It of the Areopagus, and it must have an
answer. Men must be found who can treat, \vhere it is
necessary, like the Athenian sophist, de o1nni scibilt

"Grammaticus, Rhetor, Geometres, Pictor, Aliptes,
Augur, Schænobates, Medicus, Magus, omnia novit.-

I am speaking of such writers with a feeling of real
sympathy for men who are under the rod of a cruel
slavery. I have never indeed been in such circumstances
myself, nor in the temptations which they involve; but
most men who have had to do with composition must
know the distress which at times it occasions them to
have to write-a distress sometimes so keen and so
specific that it resembles nothing else than bodily pain
That pain is the token of the wear and tear of mind;
and, if works done comparatively at leisure involve such
mental fatigue and exhaustion, what must be the toil of if':./:j
those whose intellects are to be flaunted daily before the ·
public in full dress, and that dress ever new and varied,
and spun, like the silkworm's, out of themselves! Still,
whatever true sympathy we may feel for the ministers
of this dearly purchased luxury, and whatever sense we

. .
XXl1

Preface.

\ ma y have of the great intellectual power which the
literature in question displays, we cannot honestly close
our eyes to its direct evil.
One other remark suggests itself, which is the last I
shall think it necessary to make. The authority, which
in former times was lodged in Universities, now resides
in very great measure in that literary world, as it is
called, to which I have been referring. This is not satis-
factory, if, as no one can deny, its teaching be so off-
hand, so ambitious, so changeable. It increases the
seriousness of the mischief, that so very large a portion
of its wri ters are anonymous, for irresponsible power
never can be any thing but a great evil; and, moreover,
that, even when they are known, they can give no better
guarantee for the philosophical truth of their principles
than their popularity at the moment, and their happy
conformity in ethical character to the age which admires
them. Protestants, however, may do as they \vill: it is
a matter for their own consideration; but at least it
concerns us that our own literary tribunals and oracles
of moral duty should bear a graver character. At least
it is a Inatter of deep solicitude to Catholic Prelates that
their people should be taught a wisdom, safe from the
excesses and vagaries of individuals. embodied in institu-
tions which have stood the trial and received the sanc-
tion of ages, and administered by men who have no need
to be anonymous, as being supported by their consis..
tency ,vith their predecessors and ,vith each other.

}..;rovc111,her 21, 1852.

I.
UNIVERSITY TEACHING
CONSIDERED IN NINE DISCOURSES.

UNIVERSITY TEACHING.

DISCOURSE
I. INTRODUCTORY

.

.

PAGE
1

II. THEOLOGY A BRANCH OF KNOWLEDGE . 19

III. BEARING OF THEOLOGY ON OTHER KNOWLEDGE 43

IV. BEARING OF OTHER KlIJOWLEDGE O:-.l THEOLOGY 71

V. KNOWLEDGE ITS OWN END 99

VI. KNOWLEDGE VIE\\ ED IN RELATION TO LEARNING . 124

VII. KNOWLEDGE VIEWED IN RELATION TO PROFESSIONAL SKILL. 151

VIII. KNOWLEDGE VIEWED IN RELATION TO RELIGIOUS DUTY 179

IX. DUTIES OF THE CHURCH TOWARDS KNOWLEDGE

. 212

I)ISCOURSE 1.

INTRODUCTORV

I.
I N addressing myself, Gentlemen, to the consideration
of a question which has excited so much interest,
and elicited so much discussion at the present day, a

that of University Education, I feel some explanation is
due from me for supposing, after such high ability and
wide experience have been brought to bear upon it,
that any field remains for the additional labours either
Qf a disputant or of an inquirer. If, nevertheless, I still
venture to ask permission to continue the discussion,
already so protracted, it is because the subject of Liberal
Education, and of the principles on which it must be
conducted, has ever had a hold upon my own mind; and
because I have lived the greater part of my life in a
place which has all that time been occupied in a series
of controversies both domestic and with strangers, and
of measures, experimentai or definitive, bearing upon it.
About fifty years since, the English University, of which
I \vas so long a member, after a century of inactivity, at
length was roused, at a time when (as I may say) it was
giving no education at all to the youth committed to its
keeping, to a sense of the responsibilities which its pro-
fession and its station involved.. and it presents to us
I

2

DIscourse I.

the singular example of an heterogeneous and an inde-
pendent body of men, setting about a work of self
refor-
mation, not from any pressure of public opinion, but
because it was fitting and right to undertake it. Its
initial efforts, begun and carried on amid Inany ob-
stacles, \vere met from without, as often happens in such
cases, by ungenerous and jealous criticisms, which, at
the very moment that they were tiiged, were beginning
to be unjust. Controversy did but bring out more
clearly to its own apprehension the vie\vs on which its
reformation was proceeding, and throw them into a
philosophical form. The course of beneficial change
made progress, and what was at first but the result of
individ ual energy and an act of the academical corpora-
tion, gradually became popular, and \vas taken up and
carried out by the separate collegiate bodies, of which
the University is composed. This was the first stage oî
the controversy. Years passed a\vay, and then political
adversaries arose against it, and the system of education
which it had established was a second time assailed; but
still, since that contest was conducted for the most part
through the medium, not of political acts, but of treatises
and pamphlets, it happened as before that the threatened
dangers, in the course of their repulse, did but afford
fuller development and more exact delinèation to the
principles of which the University was the representative
In the former of these two controversies the charge
brought against its studies was their remoteness from
the occupations and duties of life, to which they are the
formal introduction, or, in other words, their Ùlutllity
. in
the latter, it was th
ir connexion with a particular form of
belief, or, in other words, their religious exclusiveness.
Ijving then so long as a witness, though hardly as an
actor, in these scenes of inteUectual conflict. I aln able

Introducto,y.

3

to bear witness to views of University Education, with-
out authority indeed in themselves, but not without
value to a Catholic, and less familiar to him, as I con...
ceive, than they deserve to be. And, while an argument
originating in the controversies to which I have referred,
Inay be serviceable at this season to that great cause in
which we are here so especially interested, to me per-
sonally it will atford satisfaction of a peculiar kind; for,
though it has been my lot for many years to take a
prominent, sometimes a presumptuous, part in theological
discussions, yet the nat ural turn of my mind carries me
off to trains of thought like those which I am now about
to . open, which, important though they be for Catholic
objects, and admitting of a Catholic treatment, are
sheltered from the extrenle delicacy and peril which
attach to disputations directly bearing on the subject-
lnrttter of Divine R
velation.

2.
There are several reasòns why I should open the
discussion with a reference to the lessons with \vhich
past years have supplied me. One reason is this: It
would concern me, Gentlemen, were I supposed to have
got up Iny opinions for the occasion. This, indeed, would
have been no reflection on me personally, supposing I
were persuaded of their truth, when at length addressing
myself to the inquiry; but it would have destroyed, of
course, the force of my testimony, and deprived such
arguments, as I might adduce, of that lTIoral persuasive-
ness which attends on tried and sustained conviction.
I t would have made me seem the advocate, rather than
the cordial and deliberate maintainer and witness, of the
doctrines which I ,vas to support; and, though it might
be said to evidence the faith I reposed in the practical

4

Discourse I.

judgment of the Church, and the intimate concurrence
of my own reason with the course she had authoritatively
sanctioned, and the devotion with which I could promptly
put myself at her disposal, it would have cast suspicion
on the validity of reasonings and conclusions which
rested on no independent inquiry, and appealed to no
past experience. In that case it might have been plau-
sibly objected by opponents that I was the serviceable
expedient of an emergency, and never, after all, could
be more than ingenious and adroit in the management of
an argulnent which was not my own, and which I was
sure to forget again as readily as I had mastered it.
But this is not so. The views to ,vhich I have referred
have grown into my whole system of thought, and are,
as it were, part of myself: Many changes has my mind
gone through: here it has known no variation or vacilla-
tion of opinion, and though this by itself is no proof of
the truth of my principles, it puts a seal upon conviction c
and is a justification of earnestness and zeal Those prin-
ciples, which I am now to set forth under the sanction of
the Catholic Church, were Iny profession at that early
period of my life, when religion was to me more a matter
of feeling and experience than of faith. They did but
take greater hold upon me, as I was introduced to the
records of Christian Antiquity, and approached in senti-
Inent and desire to Catholicism; and my sense of their
correctness has been increased with the events of every
year since I have been brought within its pale.
And here 1 am brought to a second and more important
reason for referring, on this occasion, to the conclusions
at which Protestants have arrived on the subject of
Liberal Education; and it is as follows: Let it be ob-
served, then, that the principles on which I \vouId conduct
the inquiry are attainable, as I have already implied, by

Introductory.

5

the mere experience of life. They do not come simply
of theology; they imply no supernatural discernment;
they have no speciaJ connexion with Revelation; they
almost arise out of the nature of the case; they are
dictated even by human prudence and wisdom, though a
divine illuminatio
be absent, and they are recognized
by common sense, even where self-interest is not present
to quicken it ; and, therefore, though true, and just, and
good in themselves, they imply nothing whatever as to
the religious profession of those who maintain them.
They may be held by Protestants as well as by Catholics i
nay, there is reason to anticipate that in certain times
and places they will be more thorouf:hly investigated ,
and better understood, and held more firmly by Protest-
ants than by o urselve S--.
I t is natural to expect this from the very circumstance
that the philoso p h y of Education is founded on truths
ffit&-ellatural order. Where the sun shines bright, in
- the warm climate of the south, the natives of the place
know little of safeguards against cold and wet. They
have, indeed, bleak and piercing blasts; they have chill
and pouring rain, but only now and then, for a day or a
B
\veek; they bear the inconvenience as they best may, but
they have not made it an art to repel it; it is not worth
their while; the science of calefaction and ventilation is
reserved for the north. It is in this way that Catholics
stand relatively to Protestants in the science of Edu-
cation; Protestants depending on human means mainly,
are led to make the most of them : their sale resource is
to use what they have; " Knowledge is" their "power f)
and nothing else; they are the anxious cultivators of a
rugged soil. It is other\vise \vith us; "fulles ceciderUltl
11lihi Ùz præclaris." \Ve have a goodly inheri
ance. This
is apt to cause us-I do not mean to re l y too muc f
or:..

6

Discourse I.

.J9.

prayer , and the Divine Blessin g , for t
\V
metimes for ge t .thQ.t we shall pIe
most from Him, when, according t
our shoulder to the wheel," when we
nature to the utmost, at the same t i
fof;hat is beyond nature 1n th e co
h ope. .!iõWeyer J w
are_s!)
imes
tak e th
ir course, as if they would i
turn u p ri g ht at last for certain; an
from hand to mouth, getting into di
out of them, succeedin g certainl y 0
failure in detail which might be avo
of imperfection or inferiority in
elan
, a.nd muc h disappointment .
collisio"n of opinion in conse que nc e
- -
measure the state of the case, ther
a reason for availing ourselves 0
and experience of those who are no
have to add ress ourselves to the
Ed ucation.
Nor is th
re surely any thing dero
of a Catholic in such a proceedin
ever appealed and deferred to witn
external to herself, in those m
thought they had means of formi
that on the principle, Cuiqtte in
She has even used unbelievers and
of her truth, as far as their testimo
herself of scholars, critics, and anti
of her communion. She has worded
ing in the phraseology of Ari
totle ;
Theodotion, Origen, Eusebius, and
or less heterodox, have supplied
.
,

hat
imr()ssible. but
ase Him best, and get
o the Fable , we "put
use what we have by
me t h a t we look out
n fide n ce of faith and
tempted to let thi ngs
n one wa y or another
d
w
_g oon:-li
in i
fficulties and g etting
n th
oleJ
ut-;[th
ided J and with much
.o.ur_ appointments and
discouragement , and
If this be in any
e is certainly so far
f the investigations
t Catholics, when \ve
subject of Liberal

gatory to the position
g. The Church has
esses and authorities
atters in which she
ng a judgment: and
arte sua c'Yedendum.
pagans in evidence
ny went. She avails
quarians, \vho are not
her theological teach-
Aquila, Symmachus,
Apollinaris, all more
materials for primitive
exegetlcs. St. Cypnan called Tertullian his master:

Introductory.

7

St. Augustin refers to Ticonius; Bossuet, in modern
times, cOtnplimented the labours of the Anglican Bull ;
the Benedictine editors of the Fathers are familiar with
the labours of Fell, Ussher, Pearson, and Beveridge.
Pope Benedict XIV. cites according to the occasion the
works of Protestants without reserve, and the late French
collection of Christian Apologists contains the writings
of Locke, Burnet, Tillotson, and Paley. I f, then, I
come forward in any degree as borrowing the views of
certain Protestant schools on the point which is to be
discussed, I do so, Gentlemen, as believing, first, that the
Catholic Church has ever, in the plenitude of her divine
illumination, made use of whatever truth or wisdom she
has found in their teaching or their n1easures; and next,
that in particular places or times her children are likely
to profit from external suggestions or lessons, which have
not been provided for them by herself.

3.
And here 1 may mention a third reason for appealing
at the outset to the proceedings of Protestant bodies in
regard to Liberal Education. It will serve to intimate
the mode in which I propose to handle my subject
altogether. Observe then, Gentlemen, I have no inten-
tion, in any thing I shall say, of bringing into the argument
the authority of the Church, or any authority at all ; but
I shall consider the question simply on the grounds of
human reason and human wisdom. I am investigating
in the abstract, and am determining what is in itself right
and true. For the moment I know nothing, so to say,
of history. I take things as I find them; I have no con-
cern with the past; I find myself here; I set myself to
the duties I find here; I set myself to further, by every
nleans in n1Y power, doctrines and vie\vs. true in them-

8

Discourse 1.

selves, recognized by Catholics as such, familiar to my
own mind; and to do this quite apart from the consider-
ation of questions \vhich have been determined without
me and before me. I am here the advocate and the
minister of a certain grea principle; yet not merely
advocate and minister, else had I not been here at all. It
has been my previous keen sense and hearty reception
of that principle, that has been at once the reason, as I
nlust suppose, of my being selected for this office,
and is the cause of my accepting it. I am told on
authority that a principle is expedient, \\'hich I have
ever felt to be true. And I argue in its behalf on its
own nlerits, the authority, which brings me here, being
my opportunity for arguing, but not the ground of my
argument itself.
. And a fourth reason is here suggested for consulting
the history of Protestant institutions, when I anI going
to speak of the object and nature of University Education.
It will serve to remind you, Gentlemen, that I am con-
cerned with questions, not simply of irnmutable truth,
but of practice and expedience. It would ill have
neconle me to undertake a subject, on \vhich points of
dispute have arisen among persons so far above me in
authority and name, in relation to a state of society,
about which I have so much to learn, if it involved an
appeal to sacred truths, or the determination of some
inlperative rule of conduct. It would have been pre-
sumptuous in me so to have acted, nor anI I so acting.
Even the question of the union of Theology with the
secular Sciences, which is its religious side, simple as it
is of solution in the abstract, has, according to difference
of circumstances, been at different times differently
· deoided. Necessit has n. 1.. ... . .... - is of .,
,..2!le form of necessity. I t is no principle with sensible

Introductory.

9

men. of \vhatever cast of opinion, to do alw
y
what is
abstractedly best. Where no direct duty forbids, \v

may be obliged to do, as being best under circumstances,
what we murmur and rise against, while \ve do it. We
see that to attempt more is to effect less; that we must
accept so much, or gain nothing; and so perforce we
reconcile ourselves to what we would have far otherwise,
if we could. Thus a system of \vhat is called secular
Ed ucation, in which Theology and the Sciences are
taught separately, may, in a particular place or time, be
the least of evils; it may be of long standing; it may be
dangerous to meddle with; it may be professedly a
temporary arrangement; it may be under a process of
improvement; its disadvantages may be neutralized by
the persons by whom, or the provisions under which, it is
administered.
Hence it was, that in the early ages the Church al-
lowed her children to attend the heathen schools for the
acquisition of secular accomplishments, where, as no
one can doubt, evils existed, at least as great as can
attend on Mixed Education now. The gravest Fathers
recommended for Christian youth the use of Pagan
masters; the most saintly Bishops and most authorita-
tive Doctors had been sent in their adolescence by
Christian parents to Pagan lecture halls." And, not to
take other instances, at this very tinle, and in this very
country, as regards at least the poorer classes of the
community, whose secular acquirements ever must be
limited, it has seerrled best to the Irish Bishops, under
the circumstances, to suffer the introduction into the
country of a system of lVlixed Education in the schools
called National. Such a state of things, however, is
passing a\vay; as regards University education at leàst,
· Vide 1\1. L'Ahbé Lalalme's recent work.

10

Dtscouyse I.

the highest authority has now decided that the plan,
which is abstractedly best, is in this tilne and country
also most expedient.

-4-
And here I have an opportunity of recognizing once
for all that higher view of approaching the subject of
these Discourses, which, after this formal recognition, I
mean to dispense with. Ecclesiastical authority, not
argument, is the supreme rule and the appropriate g
tide
for Catholics in matters of religion. It has always the
right to interpose, and sometimes, in the conflict of
parties and opinions, it is called on to exercise that
right. It has lately exercised it in our o\vn instance: it
has interposed in favour of a pure University system for
Catholic youth, forbidding compromise or accommodation
of any kind. Of course its decision must be heartily
accepted and óbeyed, and that the more, because tht:
decision proceeds, not simply from the Bishops of Ire-
land, great as their authority is, but the highest authority
on earth, from the Chair of St. Peter.
Moreover, such a decision not only den1ands our
submission, but has a claim upon our trust It not only
acts as a prohibition of any measures, but as an ipso
facto confutation of any reasonings, inconsistent with it.
It carries with it an earnest and an augury of its own
expediency. For instance, I can fancy, Gentlemen,
there may be some, among those who hear me, disposed
to say that they are ready to acquit the principles of
Education, which I am to advocate, of all fault what-
ever, except that of being impracticable. I can fancy
them granting to me, that those principles are most
correct and most obvious, simply irresistible on paper, but
maintainin
nevertheless, that after all, they are nothing
EX. LI8RIS
REV. C. W. SULLIVAN

Introductory.

II

more than the dreams of men who live out of the world,
and ,vho do not see the difficulty of keeping Catholicism
anyhow afloat on the bosom of this wonderful nine-
teenth century. Proved, indeed, those principles are, to
demonstration, but they will not work. Nay, it was
my own admission just now, that, in a particular in..
stance, it might easily happen, that ,vhat is only second
best is best practically, because what is actually best is
out of the question.
This, I hear you say to yourselves, is the state of
things at present. You recount in detail the numberless
impediments, great and sll1all, formidable or only vexa-
tious, which at every step embarrass the attempt to carry
out ever so poorly a principle in itself so true and
ecclesiastical. You appeal in your defence to wise and
sagacious intellects, who are far from enemies to Catho-
licism, or to the Irish Hierarchy, and you have no hope,
or rather you absolutely disbelieve, that Education can
possibly be conducted, here and now, on a theological
principle, or that youths of different religions can, under
the circumstances of the country, be educaJed apart from
each other. The more you think over the state of
politics, the position of parties, the feelings of classes,
and the experience of the past, the more chimerical
does it seem to you to aim at a University, of \vhich
Catholicity is the fundamental principle. Nay, even if
the attempt could accidentally succeed, would not the
mischief exceed the benefit of it? How great the
sacrifices, in how many ways, by which it would be
preceded and followed! how many wounds, open and
secret, would it inflict upon the body politic! And, if
it fails, which is to be expected, then a double mischief
will ensue from its recognition of evils which it has been
unable to remedy. These are your deep misgivings;

12

Vzscourse 1.

and,' in proportion to tIle force with which they come to
you, is the concern and anxiety which you feel, that
there should be those whom you love, whom you
revere, who from one cause or other refuse to enter
into them. ·

5.
This, I repeat, is what some good Catholics will say
to me, and more than this. They will express them-
selves better than I can speak for them in their behalf,-
with more earnestness and point, with more force of
argument and fulness of detail; and I will frankly and
at once acknowledge, that I shall insist on the high theo-
logical view of a University without attempting to give
a direct answer to their arguments against its present
practicability. I do not sayan answer cannot be given;
on the contrary, I have a confident expectation that, in
proportion as those objections are looked in the face,
they will fade away. But, however this may be, it \vould
not become me to argue the matter with those \vho
understand the circumstances of the problem so much
better than Inyself. What do I know of the state of things
in Ireland, that I should presume to put ideas of filine,
which could not be right except by accident, by the side
of theirs, who speak in the country of their birth and
their home? No, Gentlemen, you are natural judges of
the difficulties which beset us, and they are doubtless
greater than I can even fancy or forbode. Let me, for
the sake of argument, admit all you say against our
enterprise, and a great deal more. Your proof of its
intrinsic impossibility shall be to me as cogent as my
own of its theological advisableness. Why, then, should
I be so rash and perverse as to involve myself in trouble
not properly mine? Why go out of my own place?

Introductory.

13

Why so headstrong and reckless as to lay up for myself
miscarriage and disappointment, as though I were not
sure to have enough of personal trial anyhow without
going about to seek for it ?
Reflections such as these would be decisive even
\\Fith the boldest and most capable minds, but for one
consideration. In the midst of our difficulties I have
one ground of hope, just one stay, but, as I think, a
sufficient one, which serves me in the stead of all other
argument whatever, which hardens me against criticism,
which supports me if I begin to despond, and to
\vhich I ever come round, when the question of the
possible and the expedient is brought into discussion.
It is the decision of the Holy See; St. Peter has spoken,
it is he who has enjoined that which seems to us so
unpromising. He has spoken, and has a claim on us to
trust him. He is no recluse, no solitary student, no
dreamer about the past, no doter upon the dead and
gone, no projector of the visionary. He for eighteen
hundred y
ars has lived in the world; he has seen all
fortunes, he has encountered all adversaries, he has
shaped himself for all emergencies. If ever there wa

a eower on earth who had an eye for the times, who
has confined hhnself to the practicable, and has been
happy in his anticipations. whose words have been facts,
and \vhose commands prophecies, such is he in the
history of ag:p
J who
its from generation to generation
in the Chair of the Apostles. as the Vicar of Christ, and
the Doctor of His C hur ch.

6.
These are not the words of rhetoric, Gentlenlen, but of
history. All who take part with the A postle, are on the
winning side. He has long since given warrants for the

14

DiscourSf 1.

confidence which he claims. From the first he has
looked through the wide world, of which he has the
burden; and, according to the need of the day, and the
inspirations of his Lord, he has set himself now to one.
thing, now to another; but to all in season, and to no-
thing in vain. He came first upon an age of refinement
and luxury like our own, and, in spite of the persecutor,
fertile in the resources of his cruelty, he soon gathered,
out of all classes of society, the slave, the soldier, the
high-born lady, and the sophist, materials enough to
form a people to his Master's honour. The savage hordes
come down in torrents from the north, and Peter went
out to meet them, and by his very eye he sobered them,
and backed them in their full career. They turned aside
and flooded the \vhole earth, but only to be more surely
civilized by him, and to be made ten times more his
children even than the older populations which they had
ovenv heln1ed. Lawless kings arose, sagacious as the
Roman, passionate as the H un, yet in him they found
their match, and \vere shattered, and he lived on. The
gates of the earth were opened to the east and west, and
men poured out to take possession; but he \vent with
them by his missionaries, to China, to l\Iexico, carried
along by zeal and charity, as far as those children of
men were led by enterprise, covetousness, or ambition.
Has he failed in his successes up to this hour? Did he,
in our fathers' day, fail in his struggle with Joseph of
Germany and his confederates, \vith Napoleon, a greater
name, and his dependent kings, that, though in another
kind of fight, he should fail in ours? What grey hairs
are on the head of Judah, whose youth is renewed like
the eagle's, whose feet are like the feet of harts, and
underneath the Everlasting arms?
I n the first centuries of the Church all this practical

Introductory.

15

sagacity of Holy Church was mere matter of faith, but
every age, as it has come, has confirmed faith by actual
sight; and shame on us, if, with the accumulated testi-
mony of eighteen centuries, our eyes are too gross to
see those victories which the Saints have ever seen by
anticipation. Least of all can we, the Catholics of islands
which have in the cultivation and diffusion of Knowledge
heretofore been so singularly united under the auspices
of the Apostolic See, least of all can we be the men to
distrust its wisdom and to predict its failure, when it
sends us on a similar mission now. I cannot forget that,
at a time when Celt and Saxon were alike savage, it was
the See of Peter that gave both of them, first faith,
then civilization; and then again bound them together
in one by the seal of a joint commission to convert and
illun1Ïnate in their turn the pagan continent. I cannot
forget how it was from Rome that the glorious St. Patrick
was sent to Ireland, and did a work so great that he
could not have a successor in it, the sanctity and learning
and zeal and charity \vhich followed on his death being
but the result of the one impulse which he gave. I
cannot forget how, in no long time, under the fostering
breath of the Vicar of Christ, a country of heathen super-
stitions became the very wonder and asylum of all people,
-the wonder by reason of its kno\vledge, sacred and
profane, and the asylum of religion, literature and
science, \vhen chased away from the continent by the
barbarian invaders. I recollect its hospitality, freely
accorded to the pilgrim; its volumes munificently pre-
sented to the foreign student; and the prayers, the
blessings, the holy rites, the solemn chants, which sancti-
fied the while both giver and receiver.
N or can I forget either, how my own England had
Ineanwhile become the solicitude of the same unwearied

16

Dtscourse I.

eye: ho\v Augustine \vas sent to us by Gregory; how he
fainted in the way at the tidings of our fierceness, and,
but for the Pope, would have shrunk as from an
impossible expedition; how he was forced on "in
weakness and in fear and. in much tremb1ing," until he
had achieved the conquest of the island to Christ. Nor,
again, how it came to pass that, when Augustine died
and his work slackened, another Pope, unwearied still,
sent three saints from Rome, to ennoble and refine the
people A ugustine had converted. Three holy men set
out for England together, of different nations: Theodore,
an Asiatic Greek, from Tarsus; Adrian, an African;
Bennett alone a Saxon, for Peter knows no distinction of
races in his ecumenical work. They came with theology
and science in their train; with relics, \vith pictures, witb
manuscripts of the Holy Fathers and the Greek classics;
and Theodore and Adrian founded schools, secular and
monastic, all over England, while Bennett brought to the
north the large library he had collected in foreign parts,
and, with plans and ornamental work from France,
erected a church of stone, under the invocation of St.
Peter, after the Roman fashion, "\vhich," says the his-
torian,. "he most affected." I call to mind how St.
Wilfrid, St. John of Beverley, St. Bede, and other saintly
men, carried on the good work in the following genera-
tions, and how from that time forth the two islands,
England and Ireland, in a dark and dreary age, were
the two lights of Christendom, and had no claims on each
other, and no thought of self, save in the interchange of
kind offices and the rivalry of love.

7.
o memorable time, when St. Aidan and the Irish
· Cre8lY.

Introductory.

17

monks went up to Lindisfarne and Melrose, and taught
the Saxon youth, and when a St. Cuthbert and a St.
Eata repaid thei
charitable toil! 0 blessed days
of peace and confidence, when the Celtic Mailduf pene-
trated to l\lalmesbury in the south, which has inherited
his name, and founded there the famous school which
gave birth to the great St. Aldhelm! 0 precious seal
and testimony of Gospel unity, when, as Aldhelm in
turn tells us, the English went to Ireland It numerous as
bees;" when the Saxon St. Egbert and St. Willibrod,
preachers to the heathen Frisons, made the voyage to
Ireland to prepare themselves for their work; and \vhen
from Ireland went forth to Germany the t\VO noble
Ewalds, Saxons also, to earn the crown of martyrdom!
Such a period, indeed, so rich in grace, in peace, in love,
and in good works, could only last for a season; but,
even when the light was to pass away from them, the
sister islands were destined, not to forfeit, but to transmit
it together. The time came when the neighbouring
continental country was in turn to hold the mission
which they had exercised so long and well; and when
to it they made over their honourable office, faithful to
the alliance of twå hundred years, they made it a joint
act. Alcuin was the pupil both of the English and of
the Irish schools; and when Charlemagne would revive
science and letters in his own France, it was Alcuin, the
representative both of the Saxon and the Celt, ,vho was
the chief of those \vho went forth to supply the need of
the great Emperor. Such was the foundation of the
School of Paris, from which, in the course of centuries,
sprang the famous University, the glory of the middle
ages.

The past never returns; the course of events, old I n
2

18

Discou rse I.

its texture, is ever ne\v in its colouring and fashion.
--E ngland and Ireland are not \vhat they once \vere, but
Rome is where it was, and St. Peter is the same: his
zeal, his charity, his mission, his gifts are all the same.
He of old made the two islands one by giving them
joint work of teaching; and now surely he is giving us
a like mission, and we shall become one again, \vhile \VC
7.ealously and lovingly fulfil it.

.

IQ

DISCOURSE II.

THEOLOGY A BRANCH OF KNOWLEDGE.

T HERE were two questions, to which I drew your
attention, Gentlemen, in the beginning of my first
Discourse, as being of especial importance and interest
at this time: first, whether it is consistent with the idea
of University teaching to exclude Theology from a place
among the sciences which it embraces; next, whether it
is consistent with that idea to make the useful arts and
sciences its direct and principal concern, to the neglect
of those liberal studies and exercises of mind, in which
it has heretofore been considered mainly to consist.
These are the questions \vhich will form the subject of
what I have to lay before you, and I shall now enter upon
the former of the two.

I.
I t is the fashion just now, as you very well know, to
erect so-called Universities, without making any provi-
sion in them at all for Theological chairs. Institutions
of this kind exist both here and in England. Such a
procedure, though defended by \vriters of the genera-
tion just passed with much plausible argument and not
a little wit, seems to me an intellectual absurdity; and
my reason for saying so runs, with whatever abruptness,
into the form of a syllogism :-A University, I sèould

20

Discou'rse II.

lay down, by its very name professes to teach universal
kno\vledge: Theology is surely a branch of knowledge:
how then is it possible for it to profess all branches of
knowledge, and yet to exclude from the subjects of its
teaching one which, to sày the least, is as important
and as large as any of them? I do not see that either
premiss of this argument is open to exception.
As to the range of University teaching, certainly the
very name of University is inconsistent with restrictions
of any kind. Whatever \\raS the original reason of the
adoption of that term, which is unknown,. I am only
putting on it its popular, its recognized sense, when I say
that a University should teach universal knowledge.
That there is a real necessity for this universal teaching
in the highest schools of intellect, I will show by-and-by;
here it is sufficient to say that such universality is con-
sidered by \vriters on the subject to be the very charac-
teristic of a University, as contrasted with other seats of
learning. Thus Johnson, in his Dictionary, defines it to
be "a school where all arts and faculties are taught; "
and Mosheim, \vriting as an historian, says that, before
the rise of the University of Paris,-for instance, at Padua,
or Salamanca, or Cologne,-U the whole circle of sciences
then kno\vn was not taught;" but that the school of
Paris, II \vhich exceeded all others in various respects,
as \vell as in the number of teachers and students, \vas
the first to embrace all the arts and sciences, and there
.
fore first became a University." t
If, \vith other authors, we consider the word to be
de!ived from the invitation which is held out by a U ni-
versity to students of every kind, the result is the same;
for, if certain branches of knowledge were excluded,

* In Roman law it means a Corporation. Vide Keuffel, á
SdlOlu.

Hist. vol. ü. p. 529. London, IB4I.

Thtology a Branch o.f K wJ'll11edge. 21

those students of course would be excluded also, who
desired to pursue them.
Is it, then, logically consistent in a seat of learning
to call itself a University, and to exclude Theology
from the number of its studies? And again, is it won-
derful that Catholics, even in the view of reason, putting
aside faith or religious duty, should be dissatisfied with
existing institutions, which profess to be Universities,
and refuse to teach Theology; and that they should in
consequence desire to possess seats of learning, which
are, not only more Christian, but more philosophical
in their construction, and larger and deeper in their
provisions ?
But this, of course, is to assume that Theology tS a
science, and an important one: so I \vill throw my argu-
ment into a more exact form. I say, then, that if a
University be, from the nature of the case, a place of
instruction, where universal kno\vledge is professed, and
if in a certain University, so called, the subject of Reli-
gion is excluded, one of two conclusions is inevitable,-
either, on the one hand, that the province of Religion is
very barren of real kno\vledge, or, on the other hand, that
in such University one special and important branch of
knowledge is omitted. I say, the advocate of such an
institution must say thls, or he must say that; he must own,
either that little or nothing is known about the Supreme
Being, or that his seat of learning calls itself what it is not.
This is the thesis which I lay down, and on which I shall
insist as the subject of this Discourse. I repeat, such a
compromise between religious parties, as is involved in
the establishment of a University \vhich makes no reli-
gious profession, Í111plies that those parties severally
consider,-not indeed that their own respective opinions
are trifles in a moral and practical point of view-of

22

Dzscourse 1.1.

course not; but certainly as much as this, that they
are not knowledge. Did they in their hearts believe
that their private views of religion, whatever they are,
were absolutely and objectively true, it is inconceivable
that they would so insul them as to consent to their
on1ission in an Institution which is bound, from the
nature of the case-from its very idea and its name-
to make a profession of all sorts of knowledge whatever.

2.
( I think this \vill be found to be no matter of words.
I allow then fully, that, when men combine together
for any common object, they are obliged, as a matter of
course, in order to secure the advantages accruing from
united action, to sacrifice many of their private opinions
and \vishes, and to drop the minor differences, as they
are comrnonly called, which exist between man and man.
No two persons perhaps are to be found, however inti-
mate, ho\vever congenial in tastes and judgments, ho\v-
ever eager to have one heart and one soul, but must
deny themselves, for the sake of each other, n1uch \vhich
they like or desire, if they are to live together happily.
Comprolnise, in a lar
e sense of the word, is the first
principle of combination; and anyone who insists on
enjoying- his rights to thp- t nl1 , :lnci hi
opinions without
toleration for his neighbour's, and his own way in all
things, will soon have all thin g-s altogether to hinlsel(
and no one to sh are them with him. But most true as
this confessedly is, still there is an obvious limit, on the
other hand, to these compron1ises, ho\vever necessary they
be; and this is found in the proviso, that the differences
{ surrendere
should be bu: " m!nor," or that th:re
hould
be no sacrIfice of the Inaln object of the con1blnatIon, in
\ the concessions which are n1utually made. Any sacrifice

Theology a Branch 0/ Kno'lvledge. 23

which compromises that object is destructive of the I
principle of the combination, and no one who would be
consistent can be a party to it.
Thus, for instance, if men of various religious denomi-
nations join together for the dissemination of what are
called" evangelical" tracts, it is under the belief, that,
the obj ect of their uniting, as recognized on all hands,
beiñg the spiritual benefit of their neighbours, no reli-
gious exhortations, whatever be their character, can
essentially interfere with that benefit, which faithfully
insist upon the Lutheran doctrine of Justification. If,
again, they agree together in printing and circulating the
Protestant Bible, it is because they, one and all, hold to
the principle, that, however serious be their differences
of religious sentiment, such differences fade away before
the one great principle, which that circulation symbolizes
-that the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but tht
Bible, is the religion of Protestants. On the contrary,
if the committee of some such association inserted tracts
into the copies of the said Bible which they sold, and
tracts in recommendation of the Athanasian Creed or
the merit of good works, I conceive any subscribing
member would have a just right to comp]ain of a pro-
ceeding, which compromised the principle of Private
Judgment as the one true interpreter of Scripture.
These instances are sufficient to illustrate my general
position, that coalitions and comprehensions for an
object, have their life in the prosecution of that object,
and cease to have any meaning as soon as that object is
con1 promised or disparaged.
When, then, a number of persons come forward, not
as politicians, not as diplomatists, lawyers, traders, or
speculators, but with the one object of advancing Uni-
versal Knowledge, much we may allow them to sacrifice.

24

Discourse II.

-ambition, reputation, leisure, comfort, party-interests,
gold; one thing they may not sacrifice,-l(nowledge
itself. Knowledge being their object, they need not of
course insist on their own private views about ancient or
modem history, or national prosperity, or the balance of
power; they need not of course shrink from the co-ope-
ration of those who hold the opposite views; but stipulate
they must that l(nowledge itself is not compromised ;-
and as to those views, of whatever kind, which they do
allow to be dropped, it is plain they consider such to be
opinions, and nothing more, however dear, however im-
portant to themselves personally; opinions ingenious,
admirable, pleasurable, beneficial, expedient, but not
worthy the name of Knowledge or Science Thus no
one would insist on the Malthusian teaching being a sitze
quâ ?tOil in a seat of learning, who did not think it simply
ignorance not to be a Malthusian; and no one would
consent to drop the Newtonian theory, who thought it
to have been proved true, in the same sense as the ex-
istence of the sun and moon is true. If, then, in an
Institution which professes all knowledge, nothing is
professed, nothing is taught about the Supreme Being,
it is fair to infer that every individual in the number of
those who advocate that Institution, supposing him con-
sistent, distinctly holds that nothing is known for certain
about the Supreme Being; nothing such, as to have any
claim to be regarded as a material addition to the stock
of general knowledge existing in the world. If on the
other hand it turns out that something considerable is
known about the Supreme Being, whether from Reason
or Revelation, then the Institution in question professes
every science, and yet leaves out the foremost of them.
In a word, strong as may appear the assertion, I do not
see how I can avoid making it, and bear with Ine, Gentle-

Theology a Branch oj Knowledge. 25

men, while I do so, viz., such an Institution cannot be
what it professes, if there be a God. I do not wish to
declaim; but, by the very force of the terms, it is very
plain, that a Divine Being and a University so circum-
stanced cannot co-exist.

3.
Still, however, this may seem to many an abrupt con-
clusion, and will not be acquiesced in: what answer,
Gentlen1en, will be made to it? Perhaps this :-It will
be said, that there are different kinds or spheres of
Knowledge, human, divine, sensible, intellectual, and the
like; and that a University certainly takes in all varie-
ties of Knowledge in its own line, but still that it has
a line of its own. It contemplates, it occupies a certain
order, a certain platform, of Knowledge. I understand
the remark; but I own to you, I do not understand how
it can be made to apply to the matter in hand. I can-
not so construct my definition of the subject-matter of
University Kno\vledge, and so dra\v my boundary lines
around it, as to include therein the other sciences com-
monly studied at Universities, and to exclude the
science of Religion. For instance, are we to limit our
idea of University Knowledge by the evidence of our
senses? then we exclude ethics; by intuition? we ex-
clude history; by testimony? we exclude metaphysics;
by abstract reasoning? we exclude physics. Is not the
being of a God reported to us by testimony, landed
down by history, inferred by an inductive process, brought
orne to U
by metaphysical necessity ur ed on us b
t e sug"gestions of our conscience? I t is a truth in the
natural order, as we I as In the supernatural. So much
for its origin; and, when obtained, what is it worth? Is
it a great truth or a small one? Is it a comprehensive

26

DIscourse II.

truth? Say that no. other religious idea whatever were
given but it, and you have enough to fill the mind; you
have at once a whole dogmatic system. The word
U God" is a Theology in itself, indivisibly one, inex-
haustibly various, from the vastness and the simplicity
of its meaning. Admit a God, and you introduce
among the subjects of your knowledge, a fact encom-
passing, closing in upon, absorbing, every other fact
conceivable. How can we investigate any part of any
order of Knowledge, and stop short of that which enters
into every order? All true principles run over \vith it,
all phenomena converge to it; it is truly the First and
the Last. In word indeed, and in idea, it is easy enough
to divide Knowledge into human and divine, secular and
religious, and to lay down that we will address ourselves
to the one \vithout interfering with the other; but it is
impossible in fact. Granting that divine truth differs in
kind from human, so do human truths differ in kind one
from another. If the kno\v ledge of the Creator is in a
different order froIn knowledge of the creature, so, in like
manner, metaphysical science is in a different order from
physical, ph ysics from history, history from ethics.
You will soon break up into fragments the whole circle
of secular kno\vledge, if you begin the mutilation with
divine.
I have been speaking simply of Natural Theology;
my argument of course is stronger when I go on to
Revelation. Let the doctrine of the Incarnation be
true: is it not at once of the nature of an historical fact,
and of a metaphysical? Let it be true that there are
Angels: how is not this a point of knowledge in the
same sense as the naturalist's asseveration, that myriads
of living things might co-exist on the point of a needle?
That the Earth is to be burned by fire, is, if true, a.s

Theology a Branch oj' Knowledge. 27

large a fact as that huge monsters once played amid its
depths; that Antichrist is to come, is as categorical a
heading to a chapter of history, as that Nero or Julian
was Emperor of Rome; that a divine influence moves
the \vill, is a subject of thought not more mysterious
than the result of volition on our muscles, \vhich we
admit as a fact in metaphysics.
I do not see ho\v it is possible for a philosophical mind,
first, to believe these religious facts to be true; next, to
consent to ignore them; and thirdly, in spite of this, to go
on to profess to be teaching all the while de o1nni sc'ibili.
No; if a man thinks in his heart that these religious facts
are short of truth, that they are not true in the sense in
which the general fact and the law of the fall of a stone to
the earth is true, I understand his excluding Religion from
his University, though he professes other reasons for its
exclusion. In that case the varieties of religious opinion
under which he shelters his conduct, are not only his
apology for publicly disowning Religion, but a cause of
his privately disbelieving it. He does not think that any
thing is known or can be known for certain, about the
origin of the \vorld or the end of man.

4-
This, I fear, is the conclusion to which intellects, clear,
logical, and consistent, have come, or are coming, fronl
the nature of the case; and, alas! in addition to this
pri1llâ-facie suspicion, there are actual tendencies in the
sanle direction in Protestantism, viewed whether in its
original idea, or again in the so-called Evangelicallnove-
ment in these islands during the last century. The reli-
gious world, as it is styled, holds, generally speaking, that
Religion consists, not in knowledge, but in feeling or senti-
ment. 1'he old Catholic notion, which still lingers in the

28

Discourse II.

Established Church, was, that Faith was an intellectual
act, its object truth, and its result knowledge. Thus it
you look into the Anglican Prayer Book, you will find
definite credenda, as well as definite agenda,. but in pro-
portion as the Lutheran leaven spread, it became fashion-
able to say that Faith was, not an acceptance of revealed
doctrine, not an act of the intellect, but a feeling, an
emotion, an affection, an appetency; and, as this view
of Faith obtained, so was the connexion of Faith with
Truth and Knowledge more and more either forgotten
or denied. At length the identity of this (so-called)
spirituality of heart and the virtue of Faith was acknow-
ledged on all hands. Some men indeed disapproved
the pietism in question, others admired it; but whether
they admired or disapproved, both the one party and
the other found themselves in agreement on the main
point, viz.-in considering that this really was in sub-
stance Religion, and nothing else; that Religion ,vas
based, not on argument, but on taste and sentiment, that
nothing was objective, every thing subjective, in doctrine.
I say, even those who saw through the affectation in
which the religious school of which I am speaking clad
itself: still came to think that Religion, as such, consisted
in something short of intellectual exercises, viz., in the
affections, in the imagination, in inward persuasions and
consolations, in pleasurable sensations, sudden changes,
and sublime fancies. They learned to believe and to
take it for granted, that Religion ,vas nothing beyond a
ruþþly of the wants of hunlan nature, not an external
fact and a work of God. There was, it appeared, a
demand for Religion, and therefore there was a supply;
human nature could not do without Religion, any more
than it could do without bread; a supply was absolutely
necessary, good or bad, and, as in the case of the articles

Theology a Branch o.f Knowledge. 29

of daily sustenance, an article which was really inferior
was better than none at all. Thus Religion waS useful,
venerable, beautiful, the sanction of order, the stay of
governnlent, the curb of self-will and self-indulgence,
\vhich the laws cannot reach: but, after all, on what was
it based? Why, that was a question delicate to ask,
and imprudent to answer; but, if the truth must be
spoken, ho\vever reluctantly, the long and the short of
the matter was this, that Religion was based on custom.
on prejudice, on law, on education, on habit, on loyalty,
on feudalism, on enlightened expedience, on many,
nlany things, but not at all on reason; reason \vas nei-
ther its warrant, nor its instrument, and science had as
little connexion with it as with the fashions of the season,
or the state of the weather.
You see, Gentlemen, how a theory or philosophy,
which began with the religious changes of the sixteenth
century, has led to conclusions, which the authors of
those changes would be the first to denounce, and has
been taken up by that large and influential body which
goes by the name of Liberal or Latitudinarian; and how,
where it prevails, it is as unreasonable of course to de-
mand for Religion a chair in a University, as to demand
one for fine feeling, sense of honour, patriotism, grati-
tude, maternal affection, or good companionship, pro-
posals which would be simply unmeaning.

5.
N ow, in illustration of what I have been saying, I will
appeal, in the first place, to a statesman, but not merely
so, to no mere politician, no trader in places, or in votes,
or in the stock market, but to a philosopher, to an orator,
to one whose profession, whose aim, has ever been to
cultivate the fair, the noble, and the generous. I cannot

3 0

Discourse 11.

forget the celebrated discourse of the celebrated man to
whom I am referring; a man who is first in his peculiar
walk; and who, moreover (which is much to my purpose),
has had a share, as much as anyone alive, in effecting
the public recognition in tnese Islands of the principle
of separating secular and religious knowledge. This
brilliant thinker, during the years in which he was exert-
ing himself in behalf of this principle, made a speech
or discourse, on occasion of a public solemnity; and in
reference to the bearing of general knowledge upon reli-
gious belief: he spoke as follows :
U As men," he said, U will no longer suffer themselves
to be led blindfold in ignorance, so will they no more
yield to the vile principle of judging and treating their
fellow-creatures, not according to the intrinsic merit of
their actions, but according to the accidental and in-
voluntary coincidence of their opinions. The great
truth has finally gone forth to all the ends of the earth,"
and he prints it in capital letters, U that man shall no more
render account to man for his belief, over which he has
himself no control. Henceforward, nothing shall prevail
upon us to praise or to blame anyone for that which he
can no more change, than he can the hue of his skin or
the height of his stature.". You see, Gentlemen, if this
philosopher is to decide the matter, religious ideas are
just as far from being real, or representing anything
beyond themselves, are as truly peculiarities, idiosyn-
cracies, accidents of the individual, as his having the
stature of a Patagonian, or the features of a Negro.
But perhaps this ,vas the rhetoric of an excited
moment Far from it, Gentlemen, or I should not have
fastened on the words of a fertile mind, uttered so long
ago. What Mr. Brougham laid down as a principle in
.. M f. Brougham'!; Glasgow DÍicourse.

Theology a Branch o.f Kn01.vledge. 3 1

182 5, resounds on all sides of us, with ever-gro\ving con-
fidence and success, in 1852. I open the Minutes of
the Committee of Council on Education for the years
18 4 8 -50, presented to both Houses of Parliament by corn-
nland of Her Majesty, and I find one of Her Majesty's
Inspectors of Schools, at p. 467 of the second volume,
dividing" the topics usually embraced in the better class
of primary schools" into four :-the knowledge of signs,
as reading and writing; of facts, as geography and
:l.stronomy; of relations and laws, as mathenlatics; and
lastly sentÙllent, such as poetry and music. Now, on
first catching sight of this division, it occurred to me to
ask myself, before ascertaining the writer's own resolu-
tion of the matter, under which of these four heads
would fall Religion, or whether it fell under any of them.
Did he put it aside as a thing too delicate and sacred
to be enumerated with earthly studies? or did he dis-
tinctly contemplate it when he made his division? Any-
how, I could really find a place for it under the first
head, or the second, or the third ;-for it has to do
\vith facts, since it tells of the Self-subsisting; it has
to do with relations, for it tells of the Creator; it
has to do with signs, for it tells of the due manner of
speaking of Him. There was just one head of the
division to which I could not refer it, viz., to sent'Ùnent;
for, I suppose, music and poetry, which are the writer's
own examples of sentiment, have not Inuch to do with
Truth, which is the main object of Religion. Judge then
my surprise, Gentlemen, when I found the fourth was
the very head selected by the writer of the Report in
question, as the special receptacle of religious topics.
" The inculcation of sentz"men t," he says, "em braces read-
ing in its higher sense, poetry, music, together with
moral and religious Education." I am far from intro-

3 2

Discourse II.

clueing this writer for his own sake, because I have no
wish to hurt the feelings of a gentleman, who is but
exerting himself zealously in the discharge of anxious
duties; but, taking him as an illustration of the wicle-
spreading school of thought to which he belongs, I ask
what can more clearly prove than a candid avowal like
this, that, in the view of his school, Religion is not
knowledge, has nothing whatever to do with knowledge,
and is excluded from a University course of instruction,
not simply because the exclusion cannot be helped,
from political or social obstacles, but because it has no
business there at all, because it is to be considered
a taste, sentiment, opinion, and nothing more?
The writer avows this conclusion himself, in the ex-
planation into which he presently enters, in which he
says: 14 A.ccording to the classification proposed, the
essential idea of all religious Education will consist in the
direct cultivation of the feelings." What we contemplate,
then, what we aim at, when we give a religious Ed uca-
tion, is, it seems, not to impart any knowledge whatever,
but to satisfy anyhow desires after the Unseen \vhich
will arise in our minds in spite of o.urselves, to provide the
mind with a means of self-command, to impress on it the
beautiful ideas which saints and sages have struck out, to
embellish it \vith the bright hues of a celestial piety, to
teach it the poetry of devotion, the music of well-ordered
affections, and the luxury of doing good. As for the in-
tellect, its exercise happens to be unavoidable, whenever
moral impressions are made, from the constitution of the
human mind, but it varies in the results of that exercise,
in the conclusions which it draws from our impressions,
according to the peculiarities of the individual.
Something like this seems to be the writer's mean..
ing, but we need not pry into its finer issues in order to

Theology a Branch if Knowledge 33

.

gain a distinct view of its general bearing; and taking
it, as I think we fairly may take it, as a specimen of the
philosophy of the day, as adopted by those who are not
conscious unbelievers, or open scoffers, I consider it
amply explains how it c()mes to pass that this day's phi-
losophy sets up a system of universal knowledge, and
teaches of plants, and earths, and creeping things, and
beasts, and gases, about the crust of the earth and the
changes of the atmosphere, about sun, moon, and stars,
about man and his doings, about the history of the \vorld,
about sensation, memory, and the passions, about duty,
about cause and effect, about all things imaginable,
except one-and that is, about Him that made all these
things, about God. I say the reason is plain because
they consider kno\vledge, as regards the creature, is
illimitable, but impossible or hopeless as regards the
being and attributes and works of the Creator.

6.

Here, ho,vever, it may be objected to me that this re-
presentation is certainly extreme, for
he school in ques-
tion does, in fact, lay great stress on the evidence afforded
by the creation, to the Being and Attributes of the
Creator. I may be referred, for instance, to the words 01
one of the speakers on a memorable occasion. At the
very time of laying the first stone of the University of
London, I confess it, a learned person, since elevated to
the Protestant See of Durham, which he still fills, opened
the proceedings with prayer. He addressed the Deity, as
the authoritative Report informs us, "the whole sur-
rounding asselnbIy standing uncovered in solemn silence."
Ie Thou," he said, in the name of all present, "thou hast
constructed the vast fabric of the universe in so wonder-
ful a manner, so arranged its motions, and so formed its
3

34

Dzscourse II.

productions, that the contemplation and study of thy
works exercise at once the mind in the pursuit of human
science, and lead it onwards to Diville Truth." Here is
apparently a distinct recognition that there is such a
thing as Truth in the pra.vince of Religion; and, did the
passage stand by itself: and were it the only means ,ve
possessed of ascertaining the sentiments of the powerful
body whom this distinguished person there represented,
it would, as far as it goes, be satisfactory. I admit it ;
and I admit also the recognition of the Being and cer-
tain Attributes of the Deity, contained in the \vritings of
the gifted person whom I have already quoted, whose
genius, versatile and multiform as it is, in nothing has
been so constant, as in its devotion to the advancement
of knowledge, scientific and literary. He then certainly,
in his "Discourse of the objects, advantages, and plea-
sures of science," after variously illustrating what he
terms its U gratifying treats," cro,vns the catalogue with
Inention of "the ltigllest of all our gratifications in the
contemplation of science," which he proceeds to explain
thus:
" Weare raised by them," says he, II to an understand-
ing of the infinite wisdom and goodness which the Creator
his displayed in all His works. Not a step can be taken
in any direction," he continues, "without perceiving the
most extraordinary traces of design ; and the skill, every
where conspicuous) is calculated in so vast a proportion
of instances to promote the happiness of living creatures,
and especially of ourselves, that \ve can feel no hesitation
in concluding, that, if \ve knew the ,vhole scheme of
Providence, every part \vould be in hannony \vith a plan
of absolute benevolence. Independent, ho\vever, of this
most consoling inference, the delight is inexpressible, of
being able to follow, as it were, with our eyes, the mar-

Theology a Branch o.f Iíno'lvledge. 35

vellous works of the Great Architect of Nature, to trace
the unbounded po\ver and exquisite skill which are
exhibited in the most minute, as well as the mightiest
parts of I-lis system. The pleasure derived from this
study is unceasing, and so various, that it never tires the
appetite. But it is unlike the low gratifications of sense
in another respect: it elevates and refines our nature,
\vhile those hurt the health, debase the understanding,
and corrupt the feelings; it teaches us to look upon all
earthly objects as insignificant and belo\v our notice,
except the pursuit of knowledge and the cultivation of
virtue, that is to say, the strict performance of our duty
in every relation of society; and it gives a dignity and
importance to the enjoyment of life, which the frivolous
and the grovelling cannot even comprehend."
Such are the words of this prominent champion of
Mixed Education. If logical inference be, as it un-
doubtedly is, an instrument of truth, surely, it may be
answered to me, in admitting the possibility of inferring
the Divine Being and Attributes from the phenomena
of nature, he distinctly admits a basis of truth for the
doctrines of Religion.

7.
I wish, Gentlemen, to give these representations their
full weight, both from the gravity of the question, and
the consideration due to the persons whom I am arraign-
ing; but, before I can feel sure I understand them, I
must ask an abrupt question. When I am told, then, by
the partisans of Universities without Theological teaching,
that human science leads to belief in a Suprenle Being,
w'ithout denying the fact, nay, as a Catholic, with full
conviction of it, nevertheless I am obliged to ask what
the statement means in thelr mouths, what they, the

36

Discourse II.

f6

speakers, understand by the word "God." Let me not
be thought offensive, if I question, whether it means the
same thing on the two sides of the controversy. With
us Catholics, as with the first race of Protestants, as with
Mahometans, and all Theists, the word contains, as I
have already said, a theology in itself. At the risk of
anticipating what I shall have occasion to insist upon in
my next Discourse, let me say that, according to the
teaching of Monotheism, God is an Individual, Self-
dependent, All-perfect, Unchangeable Being; intelligent,
living, personal, and present; almighty, all-seeing, all-
remembering; between whom and His creatures there is
an infinite gulf; who has no origin, who is all-sufficient
for Hin1self; \\'ho created and upholds the universe; who
\vill judge everyone of us, sooner or later, according to
that Law of right and wrong which He has written on
our hearts. He is One who is sovereign over, operative
amidst, independent of, the appointments which He has
made; One in whose hands are all things, who has a pur-
pose in every event, and a standard for every deed, and
thus has relations of His own to\vards the subject-matter
of each particular science which the book of knowledge
unfolds; who has with an adorable, never-c
asing energy
implicated Himself in all the history of creation, the
constitution of nature, the course of the world, the
origin of society, the fortunes of nations, the action of the
human mind; and who thereby necessarily becomes the
subject-matter of a science, far wider and more noble than
any of those which are included in the circle of secular
Ed ucation.
This is the doctrine which belief in a God implies in
the mind of a Catholic: if it means any thing, it n1eans
all this, and cannot keep fronl ßleaning all this, and a
I great deal more i and, even though there were nothing

.

Theology a Branch 0/ Knowledge. 37
in the religious tenets of the last three centuries to diS- )
parage dogmatic truth, still, even then, I should have
difficulty in believing that a doctrine so mysterious, so
peremptory, approved itself as a matter of course to 1
educated men of this day, who gave their minds atten-
tively to consider it. Rather, in a state of society such
as ours, in which authority, prescription, tradition, habit, )
moral instinct, and the divine influences go for nothing,
in \vhich patience of thought, and depth and consistency I
of view, are scorned as subtle and scholastic, in \vhich
free discussion and fallible judgment are prized as the
birthright of each individual, I must be excused if I
exercise towards this age, as regards its belief in this l
doctrine, some portion of that scepticism which it'
exercises itself to\vards every received but unscrutinized
assertion \vhatever. I cannot take it for granted, I must
have it brought home to me by tangible evidence, that {
the spirit of the age means by the Supreme Being what (
Catholics mean. Nay, it \vould be a relief to my n1Ïnd
to gain some ground of assurance, that the parties in-
fluenced by that spirit had, I will not say, a true apprehen- (
sion of God, but even so much as the idea of what a true \
apprehension is.
Nothing is easier than to use the \vord, and mean no- /
thing by it. The heathens used to say, "God wills,"
when they meant (( Fate ;" (( God provides," when they
meant" Chance ;n "God acts," when they meant" In- )
stinct" or "Sense;" and U God is every where," \vhen
they meant "the Soul of Nature." The Almighty is ,
something infinitely different froln a principle, or a
centre of action, or a quality, or a generalization of
phenomena. If, then, by the word, you do but tnean a I
Being \vho keeps the \vorld in order, who acts in it, but
only in the \vay of general Providence, who acts towards

3 8

Discourse II

I us but only through what are called laws of Nature,
who is ß10re certain not to act at all than to act independ-
ent of those laws, who is known and approached indeed,
but only through the med. urn of those laws; such a God
it is not difficult for anyone to conceive, not difficult for
anyone to endure. If: I say, as you would revolu-
\ tionize society, so you w'ould revolutionize heaven, if you
I have changed the divine sovereignty into a sort of con-
stitutional monarchy, in which the Throne has honour
and ceremonial enough, but cannot issue the most
\ ordinary comlnand except through legal forms and
precedents, and with the counter-signature of a minister,
then belief iñ a God is no more than an acknowledgn1ent
' \ of existing, sensible po\vers and phenomena, which none
but an idiot can deny. If the Supreme Being is power.
ful or skilful, just so far forth as the telescope sho\\r

power, and the microscope shows skill, if His moral law
is to be ascertained simply by the physical processes of
the animal frame, or His \vill gathered from the im-
I mediate issues of human affairs, if His Essence is just as
high and deep and broad and long as the universe,
and no more; if this be the fact, then will I confess
that there is no specific science about God, that theo-
logy is but a name, and a protest in its behalf an
hypocrisy. Then is He but coincident with the laws of
the universe; then is He but a function, or correlative,
or subjective reflection and mental impression, of each
phenomenon of the material or moral world, as it flits
before us. Then, pious as it is to think of Him, \vhiIe
the pageant of experiment or abstract reasoning passes
by, sti1
such piety is nothing more than a poetry of
l thought or an örnament of language, and has not even
an infinitesimal influence upon philosophy or science, of
which it is rather the parasitical production.

Theology a Branch o.f Knowledge. 39

I under
tand, in that case, \vhy Theology should require 1
no specific teaching, for there is nothing to mistake
about; \vhy it is po\verless against scientific anticipations,
for it merely is one of them; \vhy it is simply absurd in
its denunciations of heresy, for heresy does not lie in the 1
region of fact and experiment. I understand, in that
case, how it is that the religious sense is but a " senti-
ment," and its exercise a (( gratifying treat," for it is like \
the sense of the beautiful or the sublime. I understand
how the contemplation of the universe" leads on\vards to
divine truth," for divine truth is not something separate
from Nature, but it is Nature \vith a divine glo\v upon
it. I understand the zeal expressed for Physical Theo{
logy, for this study is but a mode of looking at Physical
Nature, a certain view taken of Nature, private and \
personal, \vhich one man has, and another has not, which
gifted minds strike out, which others see to be adluirable
and ingenious, and which -all \vould be the better for
adopting. I t is but the theology of Nature, just as we I
talk of the philosophy or the rOlnance of history, or the
poetry of childhood, or the picturesque, or the sentimen-
tal, or the humorous, or any other abstract quality, which
the genius or the caprice of the individual, or the fashion I
of the day, or the consent of the world, recognizes in

any set of objects which are subjected to its contem-
pia tion. J
8.

Such ideas of religion seem to me short of Monotheism;
I do not impute them to this or that individual who be-
longs to the school \vhich gives them currency; but what
I read about the "gratification)) of keeping pace in our
scientific researches with "the Architect of Nature; It
about the said gratification" giving a dignity and import-
ance to the enjoyment of life," and teaching us that

4 0

Discourse 11.

kno\vledge and our duties to society are the only earthly
objects worth our notice, all this, I o\vn it, Gentlemen,
frightens me; nor is Dr. Maltby's address to the Deity
sufficient to reassure me. I do not see much difference
between avowing that there is no God, and implying that
nothing definite can for certain be known about Him;
and when I find Religious Education treated as the cul-
tivation of sentiment, and Religious Belief as the acci-
dental hue or posture of the mind, I am reluctantly but
forcibly reminded of a very unpleasant page of Meta-
physics, viz., of the relations behveen God and Nature
insinuated by such philosophers as H ume. This acute,
though most low-minded of speculators, in his inquiry
concerning the 1-1 uman Understanding, introduces, as is
well kno\vn, Epicurus, that is, a teacher of atheism, de-
livering an harangue to the Athenian people, not indeed
in defence, but in extenuation of that opinion. His ob-
ject is to show that, whereas the atheistic view is nothing
else than the repudiation of theory, and an accurate
representation of phenomenon and fact, it cannot be
dangerous, unless phenomenon and fact be dangerous.
Epicurus is made to say, thåt the paralogism of philo-
sophy has ever been that of arguing from Nature in
behalf of something beyond Nature, greater than Nature;
whereas, God, as he maintains, being known only
through the visible \vorld, our knowledge of Him is ab-
solutely commensurate with our knowledge of it,-is
nothing distinct from it,-is but a mode of viewing it.
Hence it follows that, provided we admit, as \ve cannot
help admitting, the phenomena of Nature and the world,
it is only a question of words \vhether or not we go on
to the hypothesis of a second Being, not visible but im-
material, parallel and coincident with Nature, to whom
we give the name of God. "Allowing," he says, U the

Tluology a Branch qf ICnowledge. 41

gods to be the authors of the existence or order of the
universe, it follo\vs that they possess that precise degree
of power, intelligence, and benevolence, \vhich appears
in their \vorkmanship; but nothing farther can be prove

except \ve call in the assistance of exaggeration and
flattery to supply the defects of argument and reasoning.
So far as the traces of any attributes, at present, appear,
so far may \ve conclude these attributes to exist. The
supposition of farther attributes is mere hypothesis;
111uch nlore the supposition that, in distant periods of
place and time, there has been, or will be, a more magni-
ficent display of these attributes, and a scheme of admin-
istration more suitable to such imaginary virtues."
I-Iere is a reasoner, \vho would not hesitate to deny
that there is any distinct science or philosophy possible
concerning the Su préme Being; since every single thing
we know of Him is this or that or the other phenomenon,
material or moral, which already falls under this or that
natural science. In hiln then it would be only consistent
to drop Theology in a course of University Education:
but how is it consistent in anyone who shrinks from his
companionship? I am glad to see that the author,
several times mentioned, is in opposition to H ume, in
one sentence of the quotation I have made from his
Discourse upon Science, deciding, as he does, that the
phenomena of the material \vorld are insufficient for the
full exhibition of the Divine Attributes, and implying
that they require a supplemental process to complete
and harmonize their evidence. But is not this supple-
mental process a science? and if so, why not acknow-
ledge its existence? If God is more than Nature,
Theology claims a place among the sciences: but, on the
other hand, if you are not sure of as much as this, how
do you differ from H ume or Epicurus 1

4 2

DiSCOUYSf II.

9.
I end then as I began: religious doctrine is knowledge.
This is the in1portant truth, little entered into at this day,
which I wish that all \vho have honoured me with their
presence here \vould allow me to beg them to take away
\vith them. I am not catching at sharp arguments, but
laying do\vn grave principles. Religious doctrine is
knowledge, in as full a sense as Newton's doctrine is
knowledge. University Teaching without Theology is
silnply unphilosophical. Theology has at least as good
a right to claim a place there as Astronomy.
In my next Discourse it will be my object to show
that its omission from the list of rec-ognised sciences is
not only indefensible in itself, but prejudicial to all the
rest

43

DISCOURSE III.

BEARING OF THEOLOGY ON OTHER BRANCHES OF
KNO\VLEDGE.

I.
W IlEN men of great intellect, who have long and
intently and exclusively given thelnselves to the
study or investigation of some one particular branch of
secular knowledge, whose mental life is concentrated and
hidden in their chosen pursuit, and \vho have neither
eyes nor ears for any thing which does not immediately
bear upon it, when such men are at length n1ade to realize
that there is a clamour all around thein, which must be
heard, for \vhat they have heen so little accustolned to
place in the category of kno\vledge as H.eligion, and that
they themselves are accused of disaffection to it, they are
iInpatient at the interruption; they call the den1and
tyrannical, and the requisitionists bigots or fanatics.
'fhey are tempted to say, that their only \vish is to be
let alone; for themselves, they are not dreaming of offend-
ing anyone, or interfering ,vith anyone; they are pur-
suing their own particular line, they have never spoken a
\vord against anyone's religion, whoever he may be,
and never mean to do so. It does not follow that they
deny the existence of a God, because they are not found
talking of it, when the topic would be utterly' irrelevant.

44

Discourse TII.

.

.J\1l they say is, that there are other beings in the world
besides the Supren1e Being; their business is with them.
After all, the creation is not the Creator, nor things
secular religious. Theology and human science are two
things, not one, and have their respective provinces,
contiguous it may be and cognate to each other, but not
identical. When we are contemplating earth, we are not
contemplating heaven; and when \ve are conten1plating
heaven, we are not contemplating earth. Separate sub-
jects should be treated separately. As division of labour,
so division of thought is the only means of successful
application. H Let us go our own way," they say, " and
you go yours. We do not pretend to lecture on Theology,
and you have no clainl to pronounce upon Science."
With this feeling they atten1pt a sort of compromise,
between their opponents who clai n1 for Theology a free
introduction into the Schools of Science, and then1selves
who would exclude it altogether, and it is this: viz., that
it should remain indeed excluded from the public
schools, but that it should be pern1itted in private,
wherever a sufficient number of persons is found to
desire it. Such persons, they seen1 to say, may have it
all their own \vay, when they are by themselves, so that
they do not attempt to disturb a comprehensive systen1
of instruction, acceptable and useful to all, by the in-
trusion of opinions peculiar to their own minds.
I am now going to attempt a philosophical ans\ver to
this representation, that is, to the proj ect of teaching
secular knowledge in the University Lecture Room, and
remanding religious knowledge to the parish priest, the
catechism, and the parlour; and in doing so, you must
pardon me, Gentlemen, if my subject should oblige me
to pursue a lengthy and careful course of thought, which
may be wearisome to the hearer :-1 begin then thus:-

Bearing if llzeology OIl Other Knowledge. 45

2.
Truth is the object of Knowledge of whatever kind;
and when we inquire what is meant by Truth, I suppose
it is right to answer that T ... - . J . d t eir
relations, \vhich stand towards each other pretty much
as subjects and predicates in logic. All that exists, as
contemplated by the human mind, forms one large
system or complex fact, and this of course resolves itself
into an indefinite number of particular facts, which, as
being portions of a whole, have countless relations of
every kind, one towards another. Knowledae is the
apprehensio !Jf these facts whether in themselve
or in
the . . ., . l' . - . r' g And, as all taken
together form one integral subject for contemplation, so
there are no natural or real limits between part and
part; one is ever running into another; all, a.s viewed
by the mind, are combined together, and possess a
correlative character one \vith another, from the internal
mysteries of the Divine Essence down to our own sen-
sations and consciousness, from the most solemn appoint-
ments of the Lord of all down to what may be called the
accident of the hour, fron1 the most glorious seraph down
to the vilest and most noxious of reptiles.
N ow, it is not wonderful that, with all its capabilities,
the human mind cannot take in this whole vast fact at a
single glance, or gain possession of it at once. Like a
short-sighted reader, its eye pores closely, and travels
slowly, over the awful volume which lies open for its in-
spection. Or again, as we deal with son1e huge structure
of many parts and sides, the n1ind goes round about it,
noting down, first one thing, then another, as it best fi1ay,
and viewing it under different aspects, by way of making
progress towards mastering the whole. So by degrees

46

Dtscou yse I I I.

and by circuitous advances does it rise aloft and subject
to itself a knowledge of that universe into which it has
been born.
These various partial views or abstractions, by means
of \vhich the mind looks .out upon its object, are called
sciences, and em brace respectively larger or smaller por-
tions of the field of knowledge; sometimes extending far
and "ride, but sURerficialIy, sometimes with exactness
.
over particular departments, sometimes occupied together
on one and the same portion, sometimes holding one part
in common, and then ranging on this side or that in abso-
lute divergence one from the other. Thus Optics has for
its subject the whole visible creation, so far forth as it is
simply visible; Mental Philosophy has a narrower pro-
vince, but a richer one. Astronomy, plane and physical,
each has the san1e subject-matter, but views it or treats
it differently; lastly, Geology and Comparative Anaton1Y
have subject-matters partly the same, partly distinct.
Now these vie\vs or sciences, as being abstractions, have
far more to do with the relations of things than with
things themselves. They tell us what things are, only or
principally by telling us their relations, or assigning pre-
dicates to subjects; and therefore they never tell us all
that can be said about a thing, even when they tell some-
thing, nor do they bring it before us, as the senses do.
They arrange and classify facts; they reduce separate
phenomena under a common law; they trace effects to a
cause. Thus they serve to transier our kno,vledge from
the custody of memory to the surer and more abiding
protection of philosophy, thereby providing both for its
spread and its advance :-for, inasn1uch as sciences are
forms of kno,vledge, they enable the intellect to n1aster
and increase it; and, inasrnuch as they are instruments,
to communicate it readily to others. Still, after all, they

Bearing o.f Theology on Other Kno
uledge. 47

proceed on the principle of a division of labour, even
though that division is an abstraction, not a literal
separation into parts; and, as the maker of a bridle or
an epaulet has not, on that account, any idea of the
science of tactics or strategy, so in a parallel way, it is
not every science which equally, nor anyone which fully,
enlightens the mind in the knowledge of things, as they
are, or brings home to it the external object on which it
\vishes to gaze. Thus they differ in importance; and
according to their importance will be their influence,
not only on the mass of knowledge to which they all
converge and contribute, but on each other.
Since then sciences are the results of Inental processes
about one and the same subject-matter, viewed under its
various aspects, and are true results, as far as they go,
yet at the same time separate and partial, it follows that
on the one hand they need external assistance, one by
one, by reason of their incompleteness, and on the other
that they are able to afford it to each other, by reason,
first, of their independence in themselves, and then of
their connexion in their s
bject-matter. Viewed alto-
gether, they approximate to a representation or sub-
jective reflection of the objective truth, as nearly as is
possible to the human mind, which advances towards the
accurate apprehension of that object, in proportion to
the number of sciences which it has mastered; and
which, when certain sciences are a\vay, in such a case has
but a defective apprehension, in proportion to the value
of the sciences which are thus wanting, and the import-
ance of the field on which they are employed.

J.
Let us take, for instance, man himself as our object of
contemplation; then at once we shall find we can view

48

Discourse III.

him in a variety of relations; and according to those
relations are the sciences of which he is the subject-Inatter,
and according to our acquaintance \vith them is our pos-
session of a true knowledge of him. We may view him
in relation to the material-elements of his body, or to his
menta] constitution, or to his household and family, or
to the community in which he lives, or to the Being who
made him; and in consequence we treat of him respec-
tively as physiologists, or as moral philosophers, or as
writers of econonlics, or of politics, or as theologians.
When we think of him in all these relations together, or
as the subject at once of all the sciences I have named,
then we may be said to reach unto and rest in the idea
of man as an object or external fact, sin1ilar to that which
the eye takes of his outward form. On the other hand,
according as we are only physiologists, or only politicians,
or only moralists, so is our idea of man more or less
unreal; we do not take in the \vhole of him, and the
defect is greater or less, in proportion as the relation is,
or is not, important, which is omitted, whether his relation
to God, or to his king, or to his children, or to his own
component parts. And if there be one relation, about
which we know nothing at all except that it exists, then
is our knowledge of him, confessedly and to our own
consciousness, deficient and partial, and that, I repeat,
in proportion to the importance of the relation.
That therefore is true of sciences in general which we
are apt to think applies only to pure mathenlatics, though
to pure mathenlatics it applies especially, viz., that they
cannot be considered as simple representations or in-
formants of things as they are. We are accustomed to
say, and say truly, that the conclusions of pure mathe-
nlatics are applied, corrected, and adapted, by mixed;
but so too the conclusions of Anatomy, Chen1Ïstry,

Bearing 0/ Theology on Other Knowledge. 49

Dynamics, and other sciences, are revised and completed
by each other. Those several conclusions do not represent
whole and substantive things, but views, true, so far
as they go; and in order to ascertain how far they
do go, that is, how far they correspond to the object
to which they belong, we must compare them with the
views taken out of that object by other sciences. Did
we proceed upon the abstract theory of forces, we should
assign a much more ample range to a projectile than in
fact the resistance of the air allovvs it to accomplish.
Let, however, that resistance be made the subject of
scientific analysis, and then we shall have a ne\v
science, assisting, and to a certain point completing, for
the benefit of questions of fact, the science of projection.
On the other hand, the science of projection itself, con-
sidered as belonging to the forces it contemplates, is
not more perfect, as such, by this supplementary in-
vestigation. And in like manner, as regards the whole
circle of science
one corrects another or purposes of
fact, and one without the other canQot dogmatize except
hypothetically and upon its own abstract principles. For
. Instance, the Newtonian philosophy requires the adn1is-
sian of certain metaphysical postulates, if it is to be nlore
than a theory or an hypothesis; as, for instance, that
what happened yesterday will happen to-morrow; that
there is such a thing as rnatter, that our senses are trust-
worthy, that there is a logic of induction, and so on.
N ow to N e\vton metaphysicians grant all that he asks;
but, if so be, they nlay not prove equally accolnmodating
to another \vho asks something else, and then all his
n10st logical conc1usions in the science of physics would
remain hopelessly on the stocks, though finished, and
never could be launched into the sphere of fact.
Again, did I know nothing about the movement of
4

"'

50

Discourse Ill.

bodies, except what the theory of gravitation supplies,
were I sil11ply absorbed in that theory so as to luake
it Ineasure all nlotion on earth and in the sky, I sh
uld
indeed conle to tnany right conclusions, I should hit off
many important facts, as
ertain ßlany existing relations,
and correct many popular errors: I should scout and
ridicule with great success the old notion, that light bodies
flew up and heavy bodies fell down; but I should go on
with equal confidence to deny the phenomenon of capil-
lary attraction. Here I should be wrong, but only be

cause I carried out my science irrespectively of other
sciences. In like lllanner, did I simply give lllyself to
the investigation of the external action of body upon
body, I might scoff at the very idea of chemical affinities
and combinations, and reject it as sitnply unintelligible.
Were I a mere chemist, I should deny the influence of
mind upon bodily health; and so on, as regards the
devotees of any science, or family of sciences, to the ex-
clusion of others; they necessarily becollle bigots and
quacks, scorning all principles and reported facts which
do not belong to their o\vn pursuit, and thinking to effect
everything without aid from any other quarter. Thus
before now, che . ry 1 as"þ
su bstituted for medicine;
and a ain, political economy or intcll
a en ighten-
ment, or the read ing of the Scriptures, has been cried up
as a panacea against vice, malevolence, an
nlisery.

4-
Summing up, Gentlemen, \vhat I have said, I lay it
down that all kno\vledge forms one \vhole, because its
subject-matter is one; for the universe in its length and
breadth is so intìtnately knit together, that we cannot
separate off portion from portion, and operation from
operation, except by a Inental abstraction; and then

Bearing if Theology on Other Knowledge. 51

again, as to its Creator, though He of course in His o\vn
Being is infinitely separate from it, and Theology has its
departments to\vards \vhich human knowledge has no
relations, yet He has so implicated Himself \vith it, and
taken it into His very bosonl, by His presence in it, I--lis
providence over it, His impressions upon it, and His
influences through it, that \ve cannot truly or fully con-
template it without in some main aspects contetnplating
Him. Next, sciences are the results of that mental
abstraction, which I have spoken of, being the logical
record of this or that aspect of the \vhole subject-n1atter
of knowledge. As they all belong to one and the same
circle of objects, they are one and all connected to-
gether; as they are but aspects of things, they are
severally incomplete in their relation to the things then1-
selves, though complete in their o\vn idea and fDr their
o\vn respective purposes; on both accounts they at once
need and subserve each other. And further the C001-
prehensi n oL.the- bearings of one science on another
and the use of each to each, and the location and limi-
tation and adjustment and due appreciation of them alII.
one with another, this belon. s I conceive, to a sort of
science distinct fron1 ail of them, and in some sense a
science of sciences, which is my o\vn concepti
f \vhat
is mean t by Pnilosop 1)' in the true sense of the word,
and of a hilosophical habit of mind, and \vhich in these
Discourses I shall .11 IY th t narne. This is what I
have to say about kno\vledge and philosophical know-
ledge generally; and now I proceed to apply it to the
particular science, which has led me to dra \v it out.
I say, then, that the systematic omission of anyone
science from the catalogue prejudices the accuracy and
completeness of our knowledge altogether, and that, in
proportion to its importance. Not even Theology itself,

52

Discourse 111.

though it comes from heaven, though its truths \VeT e
given once for all at the first, though they are more
certain on account of the Giver than those of mathe-
matics, not even Theology, so far as it is relative to us,
or is the Science of Religion, do I exclude from the la\v
to which every mental exercise is subject, viz., from that
imperfection, ,vhich ever must attend the abstract, when
it would det
rmine the concrete. N or do I speak only
of Natural Religion; for even the teaching of the Catho-
lic Church, in certain of its aspects, that is, its religious
teaching, is variously influenced by the other sciences.
Not to insist on the introduction of the Aristotelic philo-
sophy into its phraseology, its explanation of dogmas
is influenced by ecclesiastical acts or events; its inter-
pretations of prophecy are directly affected by the issues
of history; its comments upon Scripture by the con-
clusions of the astronomer and the geologist; and its
casuistical decisions by the various experience, political,
social, and psychological, with \vhich times and places
are ever supplying it.
What Theology gives, it has a right to take; or rather,
the interests of Truth oblige it to take. If ,ve \vould not
be beguiled by dreams, if we would ascertain facts as
they are, then, granting Theology is a real science, we
cannot exclude it, and still call ourselves philosophers.
I have asserted nothing as yet as to the pre-eminent
dignity of Religious Truth; I only say, if there be
Religious Truth at all, we cannot shut our eyes to it
\vithout prejudice to truth of every kind, physical, meta-
physical, historical, and moral; for it bears upon all
truth. And thus I ans\ver the objection with which I
opened this Discourse. I supposed the question put to
me by a philosopher of the day, U Why cannot you go
y
ur way, and let us go ours 1" I answer, in the name

Bearz:ng o.f Tluology on Other Knowledge. 53

of the Scien ce of Reli
ion,
When Newton can dis-
p en
ith the metaphysiçian, then may you dispense
with us." So much at first sight; now I am going on to
claim a little more for Theology, by classing it with
branches of knowledge which may \vith greater decency
be compared to it.

5.
Let us see, then, how this supercilious treatment of so
momentous a science, for momentous it must be, if there
be a God, runs in a some\vhat parallel case. The reat
hilosnpher antiquit \vhen he \vould enumerate the
causes of the things that take pIa in the \vorld J fter
luak i Ig ..... . - ,. c . ered to be
physical and material, add s, II and the mind and every-
thing \vhich is by means of man.". Certainly; it \vould
have been a preposterous course, when he would trace
the effects he saw around him to their respective sources,
had he directed his exclusive attention upon some one
class or order of originating principles, and ascribed
to these everything which happened any\vhere. It
would indeed have been unworthy a genius so curious,
so penetrating, so fertile, so analytical as Aristotle's, to
have laid it down that everything on the face of the
earth could be accounted for by the material sciences,
without the hypothesis of moral agents. It is incredible
that in the investigation of physical results he could
ignore so influential a being as man, or forget that, not
only brute force and elemental movement, but kno\v-
ledge also is power. And this so much the more, inas-
much as moral and spiritual agents belong to another,
not to say a higher, order than physical; so that the
Qmission supposed would not have been merely an
· Arist. Ethic. Nicom., ill. 3.

S4

Discourst III.

oversight in matters of detail, but a philosophical error,
and a fault in division.
However, we live in an age of the world when the
career of science and literature is little affected by what
was done, or would have
been done, by this venerable
authority; so, we will suppose, in England or Ireland, in
the middle of the nineteenth century, a set of persons of
name and celebrity to meet together, in spite of Aristotle..
in order to adopt a line of proceeding which they conceive
the circumstances of the time render imperative. We will
suppose that a difficulty just now besets the enunciation
and discussion of all matters of science, in consequence
of the extreme sensitiveness of large classes of the com-
munity, clergy and laynlen, on the subjects of necessity,
responsibility, the standard of morals, and the nature of
virtue. Parties run so high, that the only way of avoid-
ing constant quarrelling in defence of this or that side of
the question is, in the judgment of the persons I am sup-
posing, to shut up the subject of anthropology altogether.
This is accordingly done. Henceforth man is to be as if
he ,vere not, in the general course of Education ; the moral
and mental sciences are to have no professorial chairs,
and the treatment of them is to be simply left as a matter
of private judgment, which each individual may carry out
as he will. I can just fancy such a prohibition ab-
stractedly possible; but one thing I cannot fancy pos-
sible, viz., that the parties in q u
stion, after this sweeping
act of exclusion, should forthwith send out proposals on
the basis of such exclusion for publishing an Encyclo-
pædia, or erecting a National University.
It is necessary, however, Gentlemen, for the sake of the
illustration which I am setting before you, to imagine
what cannot be. I say, let us imagine a project for
organizing a systenl of scientific teaching, in which the

Bearing of Theology on Other Iínow!edge. 55

agency of man in the material world cannot allowably
be recognized, and may allowably be denied. Physical
and mechanical causes are exclusively to be treated of;
volition is a forbidden subject. A prospectus is put out,
\vith a list of sciences, we will say, Astronomy, Optics,
Hydrostatics, Galvanism, Pneumatics, Statics, Dynamics,
Pure 1iathematics, Geology, Botany, Physiology, Ana-
tomy, and so forth; but not a ,vord about the mind and
its powers, except \vhat is said in explanation of the
oU1ission. That explanation is to the effect that the
parties concerned in the undertaking have giv
n long and
anxious thought to the subject, and have been reluctantly
driven to the conclusion that it is sÍInply ÎInpracticablc
to include in the list of University Lectures the Philo-
sophy of Mind. What relieves, however, thcir regret is
the reflection, that domestic feelings and polished n1an-
ners are best cultivated in the fatnily circ Ie and in good
society, in the observance of the sacred ties which unite
father, mother, and child, in the correlative claims and
duties of citizenship, in the exercise of disinterested
loyalty and enlightened patriotism. With this apology,
3uch as it is, they pass over the consideration of the
hunlan mind and its powers and works, U in solemn
silence," in their scheme of University Education.
Let a charter be obtained for it; let professors be ap-
pointed, lectures given, examinations passed, degrees
a\varded :-what sort of exactness or trustworthiness,
what philosophical largeness, 'will attach to views formed
in an intellectual atmosphere thus deprived of some of
the constituent elements of daylight? What judgment
will foreign countries and future times pass on the labours
of the most acute and accomplished of the philosophers
who have been parties to so portentous an unreality?
Here are }?rofessors gravely lecturing on Inedicine J or

56

Ðz:scourse Ill.

history, or political economy, \vho, so far from being bound
to acknowledge, are free to scoff at the action of mind
upon matter, or of mind upon mind, or the clainls of
mutual justice and charity. Coolmon sense indeed and
public opinion set bounds at first to so intoterable a
licence; yet, as time goes on, an onlission which was
originally but a matter of expedience, comnlends itself
to the reason; and at length a professor is found, more
hardy than his brethren, still ho\vever, as he himself main-
tains, ,vith sincere respect for domestic feelings and good
tnanners, who takes on him to deny psychology Ùz toto,
to pronounce the influence of mind in the visible world
a superstition, and to account for every effect \vhich is
found in the world by the operation of physical causes.
Hitherto intelligence and volition \vere accounted real
powers; the nluscles act, and their action cannot be repre-
sented by any scientific expression; a stone flies out of the
hand and the propulsive force of the muscle resides in the
\vill; but there has been a revolution, or at least a ne\v
theory in philosophy, and our Professor, I say, after speak-
ing with the highest admiration of the human intellect,
limits its independent action to the region of speculation,
and denies that it can be a motive principle, or can exer-
cise a special interference, in the material world. He
ascribes every work, every external act of man, to the
innate force or soul of the physical universe. He observes
that spiritual agents are so mysterious and unintelligible,
so uncertain in their la\vs, so vague in their operation, so
sheltered from experience, that a wise man ,viII have
nothing to say to them. They belong to a different
order of causes, which he leaves to those whose pro-
fession it is to investigate them, and he confines hitnself
to the tangible and sure. Human exploits, human devices,
human deeds, human productions, all that comes under

Bearing of Theology on Otller J{l'lowledge. 57

the scholastic terms of" genius" and 'c art," and the meta-
physical ideas of "duty," H right," and" heroism," it is
his office to contemplate all these merely in their place
in the eternal system of physical cause and effect. At
length he undertakes to sho\v ho\v the whole fabric of
material civilization has arisen from the constructive
po\vers of physical elen1ents and physical laws. He
descants upon palaces, castles, temples, exchanges, bridges,
causeways, and shows that they never could have grown
into the imposing dimensions ,vhich they present to us,
but for the laws of gravitation and the cohesion of part
with part. The pillar \vould come down, the loftier the
more speedily, did not the centre of gravity fall within its
base j and the most admired dOlne of Palladio or of Sir
Christopher would give way, were it not for the happy
principle of the arch. He surveys the complicated
n1achinery of a single day's arrangements in a private
family j our dress, our furniture, our hospitable board;
what \vould become of them, he asks, but for the laws of
physical nature? Those la\vs are the causes of our
carpets, our furniture, our travelling, and our social inter-
course. Firm stitches have a natural power, in propor-
tion to the toughness of the material adopted, to keep
together separate portions of cloth; sofas and chairs
could not turn upside down, even if they would j and it
is a property of caloric to relax the fibres of animal
matter, acting through water in one \vay, through oil in
another, and this is the \vhole mystery of the most
elaborate cuisine :-but I should be tedious if I con-
tinued the illustration.

6.
N ow, Gentlemen, pray understand ho\v it is to be here
applied. I am not supposing that the principles of

58

Discourse III.

Theology and Psychology are the same, or arguing from
the works of nlan to the \vorks of God, which Paley has
done, which H ume has protested against. I am not
busying myself to prove the existence and attributes of
God, by means of the Argument from design. I am
not proving anything at all about the Supreme Being.
On the contrary, I am assuming His existence, and I do
but say this :-that, man existing, no University Pro-
fessor, who had suppressed in physical lectures the idea
of volition, who did not take volition for granted, could
escape a one-sided, a radically false view of the things
which he discussed; not indeed that his own definitions,
principles, and laws would be wrong, or his abstract
statements, but his considering his own study to be the
key of everything that takes place on the face of the
earth, and his passing over anthropology, this would be
his error. I say, it would not be his science which was
untrue, but his so-called knowledge which was unreal.
He w ould b e decidi ng on facts by mE ns of theorie s.
The various busy world, spread out before our eyes, is
physical, but it is more than physical; and, in making
its actual system identical with his scientific analysis,
formed on a particular aspect, such a Professor as I have
imagined was betraying a want of philosophical depth,
and an ignorance of what an University Teaching ought
to be. He was no longer a teacher of liberal knowledge,
but a narrow-n1Ïnded bigot. While his doctrines pro-
fessed to be conclusions formed upon an hypothesis or
partial truth, they were undeniable; not so if they pro-
fessed to give results in facts which he could grasp and
take possession of. Granting, indeed, that a man's arm
is moved by a simple physical cause, then of course we
may dispute about the various external influences which,
\vhen it changes its position! sway it to and fro, like 3

Beart:llg 0.1 Theology on Other Knowledge. 59

scarecrow in a garden; but to assert that the motive
cause is physical, this is an assumption in a case, when
our question is about a matter of fact, not about the
logical consequences of an assumed premiss. And in
like manne r, if a people prays, and...l.he wind changes, th
rain sun shines, an. th - . afely
housed, hen no e
p .t, rofessor may, if
he will, consult the barometer, discourse a bout the
atmosphere, and throw w hat has happ ened into an
e uation ing
J. even t hough it be not ru ; but,
should he
roceed to rest the pheno J. latte
fact, sirnpl upon a physical ause to the exclusion of a
- -
divine, and to say that the given case actually belongs to
hi
i
b-;ëãuse other li ke'

;d o I_must t 11 him,
Ne slttor ultra crepr:dam : he is making his parti ul r

ft usurp and occu py the universe. This then is the {
drift of my illustration. If the creature is ever setting in
motion an endless series of physical causes and effects,
much nlore is the Creator; and as our excluding volition I
from our range of ideas is a denial of the soul, so our
ignoring Divine Agency is a virtual denial of God.
Moreover, supposing man can will and act of himself in
spite of physics, to shut up this great truth, though one,
is to put our whole encyclopædia of knowledge out Of \
joint; and supposing God can will and act of Himself in
this world \vhich He has made, and we deny or slur it,
over, then \ve are throwing the circle of universal science
into a like, or a far worse confusion.
Worse incomparably, for the idea of God, if there be
a God, is infinitely higher than the idea of man, if there
be man. If to blot out man's agency' is to deface the
book of knowledge, on the supposition of that agency
existing, what must it be, supposing it exists, to bi tout
the agenc of God? I have hitherto been engaged in

60

Ðtscourse III.

showing that all the sciences come to us as one, that
they all relate to one and the san1e integral subject-
matter, that each separately is more or less an abstrac-
tion, wholly true as an hypothesis, but not wholly trust-
worthy in the concrete, conversant with relations more
than with facts, with principles more than with agents,
needing the support and guarantee of its sister sciences,
and giving in turn while it takes :-from which it follows:
that none can safely be omitted, if we would obtain the
exactest knowledge possible of things as they are, and
that the onlission is more or less important, in propor-
tion to the field which each covers, and the depth to
\vhich it penetrates, and the order to which it belongs;
for its loss is a positive privation of an influence which
exerts itself in the correction and completion of the rest.
This is a general statement; but now as to Theology in
particular, what, in matter of fact, are its pretensions,
what its importance, what its influence upon other
branches of knowledge, supposing there be a God, which
it would not become me to set about proving? Has it
vast dimensions, or does it lie in a nutshell? Will its
omission be imperceptible, or \vill it destroy the equili-
briunl of the whole system of Knowledge? This is the
inquiry to which I proceed.

7.
Now \vhat is Theology? First, I will tell you what it
is not. And here, in the first place (though-of course I
speak on the subject as a Catholic), observe that, strictly
speaking, I am not assuming that Catholicism is true,
\vhile I make myself the champion of Theology.
Catholicism has not formally entered into my argument
hitherto, nor shall I just now assume any principle
peculiar to it, for reasons which \vill appear in the sequel,

Bearing- of Theolog;y 01l Other I{llozvledg
. 61

though of course I shall use Catholic language. Neither,
secondly, \vill I fall into the fashion of the day, of identi-
fying Natural Theology \\Tith Physical Theology; which
said Physical Theology is a most jejune study, considered
as a science, and really is no science at all, for it is
ordinarily nothing more than a series of pious or polemical
remarks upon the physical \vorld vie\ved religiously,
,vhereas the \vord "X atural " properly comprehends man
and society, and all that is invohyed therein, as the great
Protestant \vriter, Dr. Butler, sho\vs us. Kor, in the third
place, do I mean by Theology polemics of any kind; for
instance, \vhat are called "the Evidences of Religion,"
or H the Christian Eyidences ;" for, though these constitute
a science supplemental to Theology and are necessary
in their place, they are not Theology itself, unless an
army is synonymous \vith the body politic.
or, fourthly,
do I lnean by Theology that vague thing called "Chris-
tianity," or (( our common Christianity," or " Christianity
the law of the land," if there is any man alive \vho can
tell what it is. I discard it, for the very reason that it
cannot thro\v itself into a proposition. Lastly, I do not
understand by Theology, acquaintance \vith the Scrip-
tures; for, though no person of religious feelings can
read Scripture but he \vill find those feelings roused,
and gain much knowledge of history into the bargain,
yet historical reading and religious feeling are not science.
I mean none of these things by Theology, I simply
mean the Science of God, or the truths we know about
God put into system; just as we have a science of the
stars, and call it astronomy, or of the crust of the earth"
and call it geology.
For instance, I mean, for this is the main point, that,
as in the human frame there is a living principle, acting
upon it and through it by means of volition, so, behind

62

Discourse III.

the veil of the visible universe, there is an invisible,
intelligent Being, acting on and through it, as and \vhen
He \vill. Further, I mean that this invisible Agent is in
no sense a soul of the world, after the analogy of human
nature, but, on the contràry, is absolutely distinct from
the world, as being its Creator, Upholder, Governor, and
Sovereign Lord. Here we are at once brought into the
circle of doctrines \vhich the idea of God embodies. I
mean then by the Supreme Being, one who is simply
self-dependent, and the only Being who is such; moreover,
that He is \vithout beginning or Eternal, and the only
Eternal; that in consequence He has lived a \vhole
eternity by Himself; and hence that He is all-sufficient,
sufficient for His own blessedness, and all-blessed, and
ever-blessed. Further, I n1ean a Being, who, having
these prerogatives, has the Supreme Good, or rather is
the Supreme Good, or has all the attributes of Good in
infinite intenseness; all wisdom, all truth, all justice, all
love, all holiness, all beautifulness; who is omnipotent,
omniscient, omnipresent; ineffably one, absolutely perfect;
and such, that \vhat we do not kno\v and cannot even
Ïlnagine of Him, is får more wonderful than what we do
and can. I mean One who is sovereign over His o\vn will
and actions, though always according to the eternal Rule
of right and wrong, which is Himself. I mean, moreover,
that He created all things out of nothing, and preserves
them every moment, and could destroy them as easily as
He made them; and that, in consequence, He is separated
from them by an abyss, and is incommunicable in all
His attributes. And further, He has stamped upon all
things, in the hour of their creation, their respective
natures, and has given them their work and mission and
their length of days, greater or less, in their appointed
place. I mean, too, that He is ever present with His

Bl'arin g of Theology on Other ftJlO1Vledge. 63

works, one by one, and confronts every thing lIe has
made by I lis pal ticular and Inost loving Providence, and
luanifests Hinlself to each according to its needs; and
has on rational beings imprinted the moral la\v, and
given them power to obey it, imposing an them the duty
of worship and service, searching and scanning them
through and through with His omniscient eye, and
putting before them a present trial and a judgment to
come.
Such is what Theology teaches about God, a doctrine,
as the very idea of its subject-matter presupposes, so
mysterious as in its fulness to lie beyond any systelll,
and in particular aspects to be simply external to nature,
and to seem in parts even to be irreconcileable \vith
itself, the imagination being unable to embrace what the
reason determines. It teaches of a Being infinite, yet
personal; all-blessed, yet ever operative; absolutely
separate from the creature, yet in every part of the
creation at every moment; above all things, yet under
every thing. It teaches of a Being who, though the
highest, yet in the work of creation, conservation,
government, retribution, makes Himself, as it were, the
minister and servant of all; who, though inhabiting
eternity, allovls Himself to take an interest, and to have
a sympathy, in the matters of space and time. His are
all beings, visible and invisible, the noblest and the vilest
of them. His are the substance, and the operation, and
the results of that system of physical nature into \vhich
we are born. I-lis too are the po\vers and achievements
of the intellectual essences, on which He has bestowed
an independent action and the gift of origination. The
laws of the universe, the principles of truth, the relation
of one thing to another, their qualities and virtues, the
order and harmony of the whole, all that exists, is from

64

Discourse Ill.

Hin1; and, if evil is not from Him, as assuredly it is not,
this is because evil has no substance of its o\vn, but is
only the defect, excess, perversion, or corruption of that
which has substancc. All we see, hear, and touch, the- re-
n10te sidereal firmament, as well as our o\vn sea and land,
and the elements \vhich compose them, and the ordinances
they obey, are His. The primary atoms of matter, their
properties, their mutual action, their disposition and
collocation, electricity, magnetislTI, gravitation, light, and
whatever other subtle principles or operations the wit of
man is detecting or shall detect, are the work of His
hands. Fron1 Him ha,; been every movenlent which
has convulsed -and re-fashioned the surface of the earth.
The most insignificant or unsightly insect is from Him,
and good in its kind; the ever-teeming, inexhaustible
swarms of animalculæ, the myriads of living motes in-
visible to the naked eye, the restless ever-spreading
vegetation which creeps like a garment over the whole
earth, the lofty cedar, the umbrageous banana, are His.
His are the tribes and families of birds and beasts, their
graceful forms, their wild gestures, and their passionate
cries.
And so in the inteIlectual, moral, social, and political
world. Man, 'with his motives and works, his languages,
his propagation, his diffusion, is from Hinl. Agriculture,
medicine, and the arts of life, are His gifts. Society,
laws, government, He is their sanction. The pageant of
earthly royalty has the semblance and the benediction
I of the Eternal King. Peace and civilization, commerce
and adventure, wars when just, conquest when hunlane
\ and necessary, have His co-operation, and His blessing
upon them. The course of events, the revolution of
. empires, the rise and fall of states, the periods and eras,
\the progresses and the retrogressions of the world:s

Bearing if Theology on Other Knowledge. 65

history, not indeed the incidental sin, over-abundant as
it is, but the great outlines and the results of human
affairs, are from His disposition. The elements and
types and seminal principles and constructive powers of
the lTIoral world, in ruins though it be, are to be referred
to HilTI. He U enlighteneth every man that cometh into
this world." His are the dictates of the moral sense, and
the retributive reproaches of conscience. To Him must
be ascribed the rich endowments of the intellect, the
irradiation of genius, the imagination of the poet, the
sagacity of the politician, the wisdom (as Scripture calls
it), \vhich now rears and decorates the Temple, now
manifests itself in proverb or in parable. The old saws
of nations, the majestic precepts of philosophy, the
luminous maxims of law, the oracles of individual wis-
dom, the traditionary rules of truth, justice, and religion,
even though imbedded in the corruption, or alloyed with
the pride, of the world, betoken His original agency, and
His long-suffering presence. Even where there is habi-
tual rebellion against Him, or profound far-spreading
social depravity, still the undercurrent, or the heroic out-
burst, of natural virtue, as well as the yearnings of the
heart after what it has not, and its presentiment of its
true remedies, are to be ascribed to the Author of all
good. Anticipations or ren1iniscences of His glory haunt
the mind of the self-sufficient sage, and of the pagan
devotee; His writing is upon the \vall, whether of the
Indian fane, or of the porticoes of Greece. He introduces
Himself, He all but concurs, according to His good plea-
sure, and in His selected season, in the issues of unbelief,
superstition, and false worship, and He changes the cha-
racter of acts by His overruling operation. He conde-
scends, though He gives no sanction, to the altars and
shrines of imposture, and He makes His own fiat the
5

66

Discourse III.

substitute for its sorceries. He speaks amid the incan...
tations of Balaam, raises Samuel's spirit in the witch's
cavern, prophesies of the Messias by the tongue of the
Sibyl, forces Python to recognize His ministers, and
baptizes by the hand of-the misbeliever. He i
with the
heathen dramatist in his denunciations of injustice and
tyranny, and his auguries of divine vengeance upon
crime. Even on the unseemly legends of a popular
mythology He casts His shadow, and is din11y discerned
in the ode or the epic, as in troubled water or in fan-
tastic dreams. All that is good, all that is true, all that
is beautiíul, all that is beneficent, be it great or small, be it
perfect or fragmentary, natural as well as supernatural,
moral as \\'ell as material, comes fronl Him.

8.

If this be a sketch, accurate in substance and as far as
it goes, of the doctrines proper to Theology, and espe-
cially of the doctrine of a particular Providence, which is
the portion of it most on a level \vith human sciences, I
cannot understand at all how, supposing it to be true, it
can fail, considered é15 knowledge, to exert a powerful
influence on philosophy, literature, and every intellectual
creation or discovery whatever. I cannot understand
how it is possible, as the phrase goes, to blink the ques-
tion of its truth or falsehood. It meets us with a pro-
fession and a proffer of the highest truths of which the
J human mind is capable; it enlbraces a range of subjects
the most diversified and distant from each other. What
science will not find one part or other of its province
traversed by its path? What results of philosophic

speculation are unquestionable, if they have been gained
without inquiry as to \vhat The010gy had to say to them?
Does it cast no light upon history? has it no influence

Bearing o.f Theology Oll Other Knowledge. 67

upon the principles of ethics? is it without any sort of
bearing on physics, metaphysics, and political science?
Can we drop it out of the circle of knowledge, without
allowing, either that that circle is thereby mutilated, or on
the other hand, that Theology is really no science?
And this dilemn1a is the more inevitable, because
Theology is so precise and consistent in its intellectual
structure. When I speak of Theism or Monotheism, I
am not throwing together discordant doctrines; I am
not merging belief, opinion, persuasion, of whatever kind,
into a shapeless aggregate, by the help of ambiguous
words, and dignifying this medley by the name of
Theology. 1 speak of one idea unfolded in its just pro-
portions, c
rried out upon an intelligible method, and
issuing in necessary and immutable results; understood
indeed at one time and place better than at another,
held here and there wi th more or less of inconsistency,
but still, after all, in all times and places, where it is found,
the evolution, not of half-a-dozen ideas, but of one.

9.

.

And here I ain led to another and most important
point in the argument in its behalf,- I mean its ,vide re-
.septioIL Theology, as I have described it, is no accident
of particular minds, as are certain systems, for instance,
of prophetical interpretation. It is not the sudden birth of
a crisis, as the Lutheran or Wesleyan doctrine. It is not
the splendid development of some uprising philosophy,
as the Cartesian or Platonic. I t is not the fashion of a
season, as certain medical treatments may be considered. ;y,. h .
I t has had a place, if not possession, in the intellectual '(:f
world froln time immemorial; it ha
been received by
minds the most various, and in systen1s of religion the
most hostile to each other. I t has þrÍ1llâ facie claims

68

Discourse III.

N.n

upon us, so imposing, that it can only be rejected on the
ground of those claims being nothing more than im pos-
ing, that is, being false. As to our .Jwn countries, it
occupies our language, it meets us at ev
ry turn in our
literature, it is the secret
ssumption, too axiomatic to be
distinctly professed, of all our writers; nor can we help
assuming it ourselves, except by the most unnatura]
vigilance. Whoever philosophizes, starts with it, and
introduces it, when he \vill, without any apology. Bacon,
Hooker, Taylor, Cudworth, Locke, Newton, Clarke,
Berkeley, and Butler, and it would be as easy to find
nlore, as difficult to find greater names among English
authors, inculcate or comment upon it. Men the most
opposed, in creed or cast of mind, Addison and Johnson,
Shakespeare and T\1ilton, Lord Herbert and Baxter,
herald it forth. N or is it an English or a Protestant
notion only; you track it across the Continent, you
pursue it into former ages. When was the world with-
out it ? Have the systems of Atheism or Pantheism, as
! sciences, prevailed in the literature of nations, or received
a formation or atta.ined a completeness such as Mono-
theism ? We find it in old Greece, and even in Rome,
as well as in J udea and the East. We find it in
popular literature, in philosophy, in poetry, as a positive
and settled teaching, differing not at all in the appear-
ance it presents, whether in Protestant England, or in
schisn1atical Russia, or in the Mahon1etan populations,
or in the Catholic Church. If ever there was a subject
of thought, which had earned by prescription to be
received among the studies of a University, and whicl:
could not be rejected except on the score of convicteå
Ïtl1posture, as astrology or alchen1Y; if there be a science
anywhere, which at least could claim not to be ignored,
but to be entertained, and either distinctly accepted or

Bearing of Theology on Other I(llo'lvltdg-f. 69

distinctly reprobated, or rather, which cannot be passed )
over in a .s<:herne
f univ
rsal instr
ct.ion,
vitho
t invol
-
ing a posItIve dental of ItS truth, It IS tlus anCient, this
far-spreading philosophy.

10.
And now, Gentlemen, I may bring a somewhat tedious
discussion to a close. I t will not take many words to
sum up what I have been urging. I say then, if the
various brancnes of knowledge, which are the matter of
teaching in a University, so hang together, that none
can be neglected without prejudice to the perfection of
the rest, and if Theology be a branch of knowledge, of
wide reception, of philosophical structure, of unutterable
importance, and of supreme influence, to what COl1- # '()
clusion are we brought from these two premisses but
this? that to withdraw Theology from the public
schools is to impair the completeness and t o invalidate
the trustworthine
s of all that is actually taught in them.
But I have been insisting simply on Natural Theology,
and that, because I wished to carry along with me those
who were not Catholics, and, again, as being confident,
that no one can really set himself to master and to
teach the doctrine of an intelligent Creator in its fulness,
without going on a great deal farther than he at present
dreams. I say, then, secondly :-if this Science, even
as human reason may attain to it, has such claims on
the regard, and enters so variously into the objects, of
the Professor of Universal Knowledge, how can any
Catholic imagine that it is possible for him to cultivate
Philosophy and Science with due attention to their
ultimate end, which is Truth, supposing that system of
revealed facts and principles, which constitutes the
Catholic Faith, which goes so far beyond nature, and

7 0

J.J/SCOllrse /1 J.

(

which he knows to be most true, be onlitted from among
the subjects of his teaching?
In a word, Religious Truth is not only a portion, but
a condition of general knowledge. To blot it out is
nothing short, if I may sò speak, of unravelling the web
of U niversity Teaching. It is, according to the Greek
proverb, to take the Spring from out of the year; it is
to imitate the preposterous proceeding of those trage-
dians who represented a drama with the omission of its
principal part.

7 1

DISCOURSE IV.

BEARING OF OTHER BRANCHES OF KNOWLEDGE ON
THEOLOGY.

I.
N OTHING is more common in the world at large
than to consider the resistance, made on the part
of religious men, especially Catholics, to the separation
of Secular Education from Religion, as a plain token
that there is some real contrariety between human science
and Revelation. To the multitude ,vho dra\v this infer-
ence, it n1atters not whether the protesting parties avow
their belief in this contrariety or not; it is borne in upon
the many, as if it were self-evident, that religious men
would not thus be jealous and alarmed about Science,
did they not feel instinctively, though they may not
recognize it, that knowledge is their born enemy, and
that its progress, if it is not arrested, will be certain to
destroy all that they hold venerable and dear. It looks
to the world like a misgiving on our part similar to that
which is imputed to our refusal to educate by means of
the Bible only; why should you dread the sacred text,
men say, if it be not against you? And in like man-
ner, why should you dread secular education, except
that it is against you? Why impede the circulation
of books \vhich take religious views opposite to your
own? Why forbid your children and scholars the free

7 2

Discourse IV.

perusal of poems or tales or essays or other light
literature \vhich you fear would unsettle their minds?
Why oblige them to know these persons and to shun
those, if you think that your friends have reason on their
side as fully as your oppo
ents? Truth is bold and un-
suspicious; want of self-reliance is the mark of false-
hood.
Now, as far as this objection relates to any supposed
opposition bet\veen secular science and divine, which is
the subject on which I am at present engaged, I nlade a
sufficient answer to it in my foregoing Discourse. In it
I said, that, in order to have possession of truth at all,
we must have the whole truth; and no one science, no
two sciences, no one family of sciences, nay, not even aU
secular science, is the whole truth; that revealed truth
enters to a very great extent into the province of
science, philosophy, and literature, and that to put it on
one side, in compliment to secular science, is simply,
under colour of acorn pliment, to do science a great
damage. I do not say that every science will be equally
affected by the omission; pure mathematics will not
suffer at all; chemistry will suffer less than politics,
politics than history, ethics, or metaphysics; still, that
the various branches of science are intimately connected
with each other, and form one whole, which whole is im-
paired, and to an extent which it is difficult to limit, by
any considerable omission of kno\vledge, of whatever
kind, and that revealed knowledge is very far indeed
from an inconsiderable departnlent of kno\vledge, this I
consider undeniable. As the written and unwritten word
of God make up Revelation as a whole, and the written,
taken by itself, is but a part of that \vhole, so in turn
Revelation itself may be viewed as one of the constituent
parts of human knowledge, considered as a whole, and

Bearzng of Other Kno1uledge on Theology. 73

its omission is the omission of one of those constituent
parts. Revealed Reli g ion furnishes facts to the ot h

sciences . which those sciences . left to themselves, would
never reach : and it invalidates apparent facts . \vhich,
left to themselves,L. the y would ima g ine. Thus, in the
science of histor y , the p reservation of our race in Noah's
ark. is an historical fact . which hi
tnTY never w ould
à rrive at without Revelation; and, in the p rovince of
physiology and moral philosoph y . our race's p ro g ress Y .;;,
an
e - . .' . . . . ... b -. - R
tiQn
-
tradicts it . whatever ma y be plausibl)UUg l1pn in it
he -
half b scientific in uirers. It is not then that
lies are afraid of human knowledge , but that the y are
proud of divine knowled g- e , and that the y think the
omission of any kind of knowled g e whatever . hU IJ!
!L.QL
divine , to be , as fa r as _ it goes, not knowledge, bu t
ignorance.

2.
Thus I anticipated the objection in question last week:
now I am going to make it the introduction to a further
vie\v of the relation of secular kno\vledge to divine. I
observe. then, that, if you drop any science out of t

é ircl -. .... .. a - . .... - epJts_ place_v acant for
it; that science is for g otten; the other sciences clos

up, 'or, in other words, they exceed their pæper b ou vds.
and intrude where they ha ve no right. For instance, I
suppose, if ethics were sent into ban is hm ent, its territory
would soon disappear, under a treaty of partition, as it
may be called, between law, political economy, and
physiology; what, again, would become of the pro-
vince of experimental science, if made over to the Anti-
quarian Society; or of history, if surrendered out and
out to l\Ietaphysicians? The case is the saIne with the

74

Discourse IV.

'Y:tll .

subject-matter of Theology; it would be the prey of a
dozen various sciences, if Theology were put out of
possession; and not only so, but those sciences would
be plainly exceeding their rights and their capacities in
seizing upon it. They \vould be sure to teach wrongly,
where they had no mission to teach at all. The enemies
of Catholicism ought to be the last to deny this :-for they
have never been blind to a like usurpation, as they have
called it, on the part of theologians; those who accuse
us of \vishing, in accordance with Scripture language, to
make the sun go round the earth, are not the men to
deny that a science \vhich exceeds its limits falls into
error.
I neither then am able nor care to deny, rather I
assert the fact, and to-day I am going on to account for
it, that any secular science, cultivated exclusively, may
become dangerous to Religion; and I account for it on
this broad principle, that no science whatever, however
comprehensive it may be, but will fall largely into error,
if it be constituted the sole exponent of all things in
heaven and earth, and that, for the sinlple reason that it
is encroaching on territory not its o\vn, and undertaking
problems which it has no instruments to solve. And I
set off thus:

3.
One of the first acts of the human mind is to take
hold of and appropriate what meets the senses, and here-
in lies a chief distinction between man's and a brute's use
of them. Brutes gaze on sights, they are arrested by
sounds; and what they see and what they hear are
mainly sights and sounds only. The intellect of man,
on the contrary, energizes as well as his eye or ear, and
perceives in sights and sounds something beyond them.

BearIng 0/ Other Knowledge on Theology. 75

I t seizes and unites what the senses present to it; it
grasps and forms what need not have been seen or
heard except in its constituent parts. It discerns in lines
and colours, or in tones, what is beautiful and what is
not. It gives them a meaning, and invests them with
an idea. It gathers up a succession of notes into the
expression of a whole, and calls it a melody; it has a
keen sensibility towards angles and curves, hghts and
shadows, tints and contours. It distinguishes bet\veen
rule and exception, between accident and design. It
assigns phenomena to a general law, qualities to a subject,
acts to a principle, and effects to a cause. In a word,
it philosophizes; for I suppose Science and Philosophy,
in their elementary idea, are nothing else but this habit
of virdJing. as it may be called, the objects which sense
conveys to the mind, of throwing them into system, and
uniting and stamping them with one form.
This method is so natural to us, as I have said, as to be
almost spontaneous; and we are impatient when we can-
not exercise it, and in consequence we do not always
wait to have the means of exercising it aright, but

often put up with insufficient or absurd vicws or inter-
pretations of what \ve meet with, rather than have none

t all. We refer the various matters which are brought
home to us, material or moral, to causes which we happen
to kno\v of, or to such as are simply imaginary, sõoner
than refer them to nothing; and according to the activity
of our intellect do we feel a pain and begin to fret, if we
are not able to do so. Here we have an explanation of
the multitude of off-hand sayings, flippant judgments,
and shallow generalizations, ,vi th which the world
abounds. Not from self-will only, nor from malevolence, \
but froln the irritation which suspense occasions, is the
mind forced on to pronounce, without sufficient data for

.

76

Discourse IV.

pronouncing. Who does not form some vie\v or other,
I for instance, of any public man, or any public event, nay,
even so far in some cases as to reach the nlental delinea-
tion of his appearance or of its scene? yet ho\v fe\v have
a right to form any view.- Hence the misconceptions of
character, hence the false itnpressionsand reports of words
I or deeds, which are the rule, rather than the exception,
in the world at large; hence the extravagances of un-
disciplined talent, and the narrowness of conceited igno-
rance; because, though it is no easy matter to view things
correctly, nevertheless the busy mind will ever be viewing.
V\' e cannot do without a view, and we put up with an
) illusion, when we cannot get a truth.

Now, observe how this impatience acts in matters of
research and speculation. What happens to the ignorant
and hotheaded, will take place in the case of every person
whose education or pursuits are contracted, whether they
be merely professional, merely scientific, or of whatever
other peculiar complexion. Men. whose life lies in the
cultivation of nnp C::('1e11
p, or tnp pxercise of one method
of thought, have no more ri
ht, tho ug h they have often
more ambition. to generalize uP.9 Jl. the_basis of th eir ow n
pursuit but beyond its ran
e, th a n the schoolb
L th

ploughman to iudge of a Prime Minister. But they must
have something to say on every subject; habit, fashion,
the public require it of them: and, if so, they can only
give sentence according to their knowledge. You might
think this ought to make such a person modest in his enun-
ciations; not so: too often it happens that, in proportion
to the narrowness of his knowledge, is, not his distrust
of it, but the deep hold it has upon him, his absolute
conviction of his own conclusions, and his positiveness in

Bearing oj Other Knowledge 011- Tlzeology. 77

maintaining them. He has the obstinacy of the bigot,
whom he scorns, without the bigot's apology, that he has
been taught, as he thinks, his doctrine from heaven.
Thus he becomes, what is commonly called, a man. of one
idea; which properly means a man of one science, and
of the view, partly true, but subordinate, partly false,
which is all that can proceed out of any thing so partial.
Hence it is that we have the principles of utility, of
combination, of progress, of philanthropy, or, in material
sciences, comparative anatomy, phrenology, electricity}
exalted into leading ideas, and keys, if not of all know-
ledge, at least of many things more than belong to them,-
principles, all of them true to a certain point, yet all
degenerating into error and quackery, because they are
carried to excess, viz. at the point where they require
interpretation and restraint from other quarters, and
because they are en1ployed to do what is simply too
much for them, inasmuch as a little science is not deep
philosophy.
Lord Bacon has set down the abuse, of which I am
speaking, among the impediments to the Advancement
of the Sciences, when he observes that "men have used
to infect their meditations, opinions, and doctrines, with
some conceits which they have most adnlired, or sonte
Sciences which they have 1nost applied; and give all things
else a tincture according to them utterly untrue and im-
proper. So have the alchemists made a philo-
sophy out of a few experiments of the furnace; anrl
Gilbertus, our countrYlnan, hath made a philosophy out
of the observations of a lodestone. So Cicero, when,
reciting the several opinions of the nature of the soul, he
found a musician that held the soul was but a hannony,
saith pleasantly, 'hic ab arte suâ non recessit,' 'he was
true to his art.' But of these conceits Aristotle speaketh

78

Disco1t1'Se IV.

seriously and wisely ,vhen he saith, 'Qui respiciunt
ad pauca, de facili pronunciant ' 'they \vho contemplate
a few things have no difficulty in deciding.'"

· 5.
And now I have said enough to explain the incon-
venience \vhich I conceive necessarily to result from a
refusal to recognize theological truth in a course of
Universal Knowledge ;-it is not only the loss of Theo-
logy, it is the perversion of other
ciences. \Vhat it
unjust]y forfeits, others unjustly seize. They have their
o\vn department, and, in going out of it, attempt to do
what they really cannot do; and that the more mis-
chievously, because they do teach what in its place is
true, though when out of its place, perverted or carried to
excess, it is not true. And, as every man has not the
capacity of separating truth from falsehood, they per-
suade the world of what is false by urging upon it what
is true. Nor is it open enemies alone who encounter us
here, sometimes it is friends, sometilnes persons who, if
not friends, at least have no wish to oppose Religion, and
are not conscious they are doing so; and it will carry
out my meaning more fully if I give some illustrations
of it.
As to friends, 1 may take as an instance the cultivation
of the Fine Arts, Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, to
which 1 may add Music. These high ministers of the
Beautiful and the Noble are, it is plain, special attendants
and handmaids of Religion; but it is equally plain that
they are apt to forget their place, and, unless restrained
\vith a firm hand, instead of being s<;rvants, will aim at
beconling principals. Here lies the advantage, in an
ecclesiastical point of view, of their more rudimental
state, I mean of the ancient style of architecture, of Gothic

Bearing 0/ Other Knowle
l[e on Tlztology. 79

sculpture and painting, and of what is called Gregorian
music, that these inchoate sciences have so little innate
vigour and life in them, that they are in no danger of
going out of their place, and giving the law to Religion.
But the case is very different when genius has breathed
upon their natural elements, and has developed them
into what I may call intellectual powers. When Paint-
ing, for example, grows into the fulness of its function as
a simply imitative art, it at once ceases to be a dependant
on the Church. It has an end of its own, and that cf
earth: Nature is its pattern, and the obj ect it pursues is
the beauty of Nature, even till it becomes an ideal beauty,
but a natural beauty still. It cannot imitate that beauty
of Angels and Saints which it has never seen. At first,
indeed, by outlines and emblems it shadowed out the
Invisible, and its want of skill became the instrument of
reverence and modesty; but as time went on and it at-
tained its full dimensions as an art, it rather subjected
Religion to its o\vn ends than ministered to the ends of
Religion, and in its long galleries and stately chambers,
did but mingle adorable figures and sacred histories with
a multitude of earthly, not to say unseen1ly forms, which
the Art had created, borrowing \vithal a colouring and a
character from that bad company. Not content ,vith
neutral ground for its development, it \vas attracted by
the sublimity of divine subjects to ambitious and hazar-
dous essays. Without my saying- a word more, you will
clearly understand, Gentle me.n.,.tha.t. IInòer these c ircum-
stances Religion was bound to exert itself, that the

mig-ht not gain an advantage over it. Put out of sight
the severe teaching of Catholicism in the
c hools of Paint -

g-t as men now \vould put it aside in their philosophical
studies, and in no long time you would have the hierarcl!y
of the Church, the Anchorite a n d Virg i n-martyr. the

80

Discourse 1 V.

Confessor and the Doctor, the Angelic _ Hosts, the
Mother of God. the Crucifix, the Eternal Trini t
. su R:-
planted b y a sort of pag an m y tholo gy. the g uise of
sacred names, by a creat ion indeed _ Qf hig h eenins, ql
intense , and d a zzlin g, and soul-absorbing _ beauty in
whi ch, ho wever, there was nothin g whic h subserv
d the
cau s e of Religion, nothi ng
n the other hand w hich d id
n
t directly or indirectly minister to- co rru pt nature and
the pow ers of darkne ss.

6.

rrhe art of Painting, however, is peculiar: Music and
Architecture are more ideal, and their respective arche-
types, even if not supernatural, at least are abstract and
unearthly; and yet what I have been observing about
Painting, holds, I think, analogously, in the marvellous
development which 1\1 usical Science has undergone in
the last century. Doubtless here too the highest genius
may be made subservient to Religion; here too, still
more simply than in the case of Painting, the Science
has a field of its own, perfectly innocent, into which
Religion does not and need not enter; on the other
hand here also, in the case of Music as of Painting, it is
certain that Religion must be alive and on the defensive,
for, if its servants sleep, a potent enchantment will steal
over it. Music, I suppose, though this is not the place
to enlarge upon it, has an object of its own; as n1athe-
matical science also, it is the expression of ideas greater
and more profound than any in the visible \vorId, ideas,
which centre indeed in Him \vhom Catholicism mani-
fests, \vho is the seat of all beauty, order, and perfection
whatever, still ideas after all which are not those on
which Revclation directly and principally fixes our gaze.
If then a great Inaster in this luysterious science (if I

Bearing 0/ Other IíJlowle{lge Oil Theology. 81

may speak of matters which seeIn to lie out of my own
province) throws hinlself on his own gift, tru.sts its in-
spirations, and absorbs himself in those thoughts \vhich,
though they come to him in the way of nature, belong
to things above nature, it is obvious he will neglect
everything else. Rising in his strength, he will break
through the trammels of words, he will scatter hUlnan
voices, even the sweetest, to the winds; he will be borne
upon nothing less than the fullest flood of sounds which
art has enabled him to draw from Inechanical contri-
vances; he will go forth as a giant, as far as ever his in-
struments can reach, starting from their secret depths
fresh and fresh elements of beauty and grandeur as he
goes, and pouring them together into still more marvel-
lous and' rapturous combinations ;-and well indeed and
lawfully, \vhile he keeps to that line which is his own;
but, should he happen to be attracted, as he well may,
by the sublimity, so congenial to him, of the Catholic
doctrine and ritual, should he engage in sacred themes,
should he resolve by means of his art to do honour to
the Mass, or the Divine Office,-(he cannot have a more
pious, a better purpose, and Religion will gracefully
accept what he gracefully offers; but)-is it not certain,
from the circumstances of the case, that he will be
carried on rather to use Religion than to minister to it,
unless Religion is strong on its own ground, and reminds
him that, if he would do honour to the highest of
subjects, he must make himself its scholar, must humbly
follow the thoughts given him, and must aim at the
glory, not of his own gift, but of the Great Giver?

7
As to Architecture, it is a rernark, if I recollect aright,
both of Fénélon and Berkeley, men so different, that it
6

82

Discourse IV.

;(.iJ.

carries more with it even than the nan1es of those cele-
brated men, that the Gothic style is not as sÍ1lJple as
befits ecclesiastical structures. I understand this to be
a similar judgment to that which I have been passing
on the cultivation of Painting and Music. For myself,
certainly I think that that style which, whatever be its
origin, is called Gothic, is endowed with a profound and
a commanding beauty, such as no other sty Ie possesses
with which we are acquainted, and which probably the
Church will not see surpassed till it attain to the Celestial
City. No other architecture, now used for sacred pur-
poses, seems to be the gro\vth of an idea, whereas the
Gothic style is as harn1onious and as intellectual as it is
graceful. But this feeling should not blind us, rather it
should awaken us, to the danger lest what is really a
divine gift be incautiously used as an end rather than as
a n1eans. It is surely q
within th e .-b.Q unds of po
..
sibility, that, as.---1he rCllaissaJJa_ three centu ri
_s ago

ied a
ay
it s own d ay, in s p ite of the Church:intQ.
excesses in literature and art, so that revival of an almost

for g otten archi.1: eçtur
whlc h is é!1- present taking place
"'-in ou r own countries , in France, a n d in Germany, may-
in some w a y or oth
run a\vay with 1], ;nto this or that
erro r,
nless we keep a \ t h over its course. J am not
speaking of rreland : but to English Catholics at least it
\vould be a serious evil, if it came as the en1 b km
nd

dvocate of a past ceremonial or an extinct nationalism.
Weare not living in an age of wealth and loyalty, of
pomp and stateliness, of time-honoured establishments,
of pilgrimage and penance, of hermitages and convents
in the wild, and of fervent populations supplying the
want of education by love, and apprehending- in form

nd sy mbol hat they cannot read in boo
Our rules
and our rubrics have been altered now to Dleet the

Bearing of Other Jinowledge 01l Theology. 83

titnes, and hence
n obsolet
discipline may be a \
eresent heresy.

8.
I have been pointing out how the Fine Arts may pre-
judice Religion, by laying down the law in cases where
they should be subservient. The illustration is analo-
gous rather than strictly proper to my subject, yet I
think it is to the point. If then the most loyal and
dutiful children of the Church must deny themselves,
and do deny themselves, when they would sanctify to a
heavenly purpose sciences as sublime and as divine as
any which are cultivated by fallen man, it is not wonder-
ful, when we turn to sciences of a different character, of
which the obj ect is tangible and material, and the
principles belong to the Reason, not to the Imagination,
that we should find their disciples, if disinclined to the
Catholic Faith, acting the part of opponents to it, and
that, as may often happen, even against their will and
intention. Many men there are, who, devoted to one
particular subject of thought, and making its principles
the measure of all things, become enemies to Revealed
Religion before they know it, and, only as time proceeds,
are aware of their own state of mind. These, if they
are writers or lecturers, while in this state of unconscious
or semi-conscious unbelief, scatter infidel principles under
the garb and colour of Christianity; and this, simply
because they have made their own science, whatever it
is, Political Economy, or Geology, or Astronomy, to the
neglect of Theology, the centre of all truth, and view
every part or the chief parts of knowledge as if de-
veloped from it, and to be tested and determined by its
principles. Others, though conscious to themselves of
their anti-christian opinions, have too much good feeling

84

DiscourSl IV.

and good taste to obtrud
then1 upon the world. They
neither \vish to shock people, nor to earn for thelllsel ves
a confessorship \vhich brings with it no gain. They
know the strength of prejudice, and the penalty of in-
novation; they wish to go through life quietly; they
scorn polemics; they shrink, as from a real humiliation,
from being mixed up in religious controversy; they are
ashamed of the very name. H o\vever, they ha ve had
occasion at some time to publish on some literary or
scientific subject; they have wished to give no offence;
but after all, to their great annoyance, they find when
they least expect it, or when they have taken consider-
able pains to avoid it, that they have roused by their
publication what they \vould style the bigoted and
bitter hostility of a party. This misfortune is easily
conceivable, and has befallen many a man. Before he
knows \vhere he is, a cry is raised on all sides of him;
and so little does he know' what we may call the lie of
the land, that his attempts at apology perhaps only
n1ake matters worse. In other words, an exclusive line
of study has led him, whether he will or no, to run
counter to the principles of Religion; \vhich principles
he has never made his landn1arks, and which, \vhatever
might be their effect upon himself, at least would have
warned hin1 against practising upon the faith of others,
had they been authoritatively held up before him.

9.
Instances of this kind are far from uncommon. tien
who are old enough, will remember the trouble \vhich
came upon a person, eminent as a professional man in
London even at that distant day, and still more eminent
since, in consequence of his publishing a book in which
he so treated the subject of Comparative Anatomy as

Bearing 0/ Other Knowltdg-e on Theology. 85

to seem to deny the immateriality of the soul. I speak
here neither as excusing nor reprobating sentiments
about which I have not the means of forming a judg-
ment; all indeed I have heard of him makes me men-
tion him with interest and respect; anyhow of this I
am sure, that if there be a calling which feels its position
and its dignity to lie in abstaining from controversy and
in cultivating kindly feelings with men of all opinions,
it is the medical profession, and I cannot believe that
the person in question would purposely have raised the
indignation and incurred the censure of the religious
public. vVhat then must have been his fault or mistake,
but that he unsuspiciously threw himself upon his own
particular science, which is of a material character, and
allowed it to carry him forward into a subject-matter,
where it had no right to give the law, viz., that of spiri-
tual beings, which directly belongs to the science of
Theology?
Another instance occurred at a later date. A living
dignitary of the Established Church wrote a History of
the Jews; in which, with what I consider at least bad
judgment, he took an external view of it, and hence was
led to assimilate it as nearly as possible to secular his-
tory. A great sensation was the consequence among
the members of his own communion, from which he still
suffers. Arguing from the dislike and contempt of pole-
mical demonstrations which that accomplished writer has
ever shown, I must conclude that he was simply betrayed
into a false step by the treacherous fascination of what
is called the Philosophy of History, which is good in its
place, but can scarcely be applied in cases where the
Almighty has superseded the natural laws of society and
history. From this he would have been saved, had he
been a Catholic; but in the Establishment he knew of

86

Discourse IV.

no teaching, to which he was bound to defer, which
migl1t rule that to be false which attracted him by its
speciousness.
10.
1 will now take an instance from another science, and
will use more words about it. Political Economy is the
science, I suppose, of wealth,-a science simply lawful
and useful, for it is no sin to make money, any more
than it is a sin to seek honour; a science at the same
time dangerous and leading to occasions of sin, as is the
pursuit of honour too; and in consequence, if studied by
itself, and apart from the control of Revealed Truth,
sure to conduct a speculator to unchristian conclusions.
Holy Scripture tells us distinctly, that "covetousness,"
or nlore literally the love of money, U is the root of all
evils;" and that" they that would become rich fall into
temptation;" and that U hardly shall they that have
riches enter into the kingdom of God; It and after dra\v-
ing the picture of a wealthy and flourishing peop]e, it
adds, U They have called the people happy that hath
these things; but happy is that people whose God is the
Lord: "-while on the other hand it says with equal
distinctness, " If any will not work, neither let him eat;"
and, "If any man have not care of his own, and espe-
cially of those of his house, he hath denied the faith,
and is worse than an infidel." . These opposite injunc-
tions are summed up in the wise man's prayer, who says,
" Give me neither beggary nor riches, give me only the
necessaries of life." With this most precise view of a
Christian's duty, viz., to labour indeed, but to labour for
a competency for himself and his, and to be jealous of
wealth, whether personal or national, the holy Fathers
are, as might be expected, in simple accordance.
(( ] udas," says St. Chrysostom J CI was with Him who

Bearing 0.1 Other Knowled..R'e on Theology. 87

knew not where to lay His head, yet could not restrain
himself; and how canst thou hope to escape the con-
tagion without anxious effort?" " It is ridiculous," says
St. Jerome, "to call it idolatry to offer to the creature
the grains of incense that are due to God, and not to
call it so, to offer the whole service of one's life to the
creature." Ii There is not a trace of justice in that
heart," says St. Leo, "in which the love of gain has
made itself a dwelling." The same thing is emphatically
taught us by the counsels of perfection, and by every
holy monk and nun anywhere, who has ever embraced
them; but it is needless to collect tèstimonies, when
Scripture is so clear.
Now, observe, Gentlemen, my drift in setting Scripture
and the Fathers over against Political Economy. Of
course if there is a science of wealth, it must give rules
for gaining wealth and disposing of wealth, and can do no-
thing more; it cannot itself declare that it is a subordi-
nate science, that its end is not the ultimate end of all
things, and that its conclusions are only hypothetical,
depending on its premisses, and liable to be overruled
by a higher teaching. I do not then blame the Political
Economist for anything which follows from the very
idea of his science, from the very moment that it is
recognized as a science. He must of course direct his
inquiries towards his end; but then at the same time it
must be recollected, that so far he is not practical, but
only pursues an abstract study, and is busy himself in
establishing logical conclusions from indisputable pre-
misses. Given that wealth is to be sought, this and
that is the method of gaining it. This is the extent to
which a Political Economist has a right to go; he has
no right to determine that \vealth is at any rate to be
sou
ht, or th
t it
s the way to be vi
uous and the price
. .

88

Discourse IV.

of happiness; I say, this is to pass the bounds of his
science, independent of the question whether he be
right or wrong in so determining, for he is only con-
cerned with an hypothesis.
To take a parallel case :-a physician may tell you,
that if you are to preserve your health, you must give
up your employment and retire to the country. He
distinctly says" if;" that is all in which he is concerned,
he is no judge \vhether there are objects dearer to you,
more urgent upon you, than the preservation of your
health; he does not enter into your circumstances, your
duties, your liabilities, the persons dependent on you,
he kno\vs nothing about what is advisable or what is
not; he only says," I speak as a physician; if you
would be well, give up your profession, your trade,
your office, whatever it is." However he may wish it, it
would be impertinent in him to say more, unless indeed
he spoke, not as a physician but as a friend; and it
would be extravagant, if he asserted that bodily health
was the sun2112U11l b01l U 111, and that no one could be
virtuous whose animal system was not in good order.

II.
But now let us turn to the teaching of the actual
Political Economist, in his present fashionable shape. I
will take a very favourable instance of him: he shall be
represented by a gentleman of high character, whose
religious views are sufficiently guaranteed to us by his
being the special choice, in this department of science,
of a University removed more than any other Protes-
tant body of the day from sordid or unchristian princi-
ples on the subject of money-making. I say, if there
be a place where Political Economy would be kept in
order, and would not be suffered to leave the high road

Beari1J,f[ oj' Other Know/edge on Theology. 89

and ride across the pastures and the gardens dedicated
to other studies, it is the University of Oxford. And if
a man could anywhere be found who would have too
much good taste to offend the religious feeling of the
place, or to say any thing which he would himself allow
to be inconsistent with Revelation, I conceive it is the
person whose temperate and well-considered composi-
tion, as it would be generally accounted, I am going to
offer to your notice. Nor did it occasion any excite-
ment whatever on the part of the academical or the re-
ligious public, as did the instances which I have hitherto
been adducing. I am representing then the science of
Political Economy, in its independent or unbridled
action, to great advantage, when I select, as its specimen,
the-Inaugural Lecture upon it, delivered in the U niver-
sity in question, by its first Professor. Yet with all these
circumstances in its favour, you will soon see, Gentlemen,
into \vhat extravagance, for so I must call it, a grave
la\\J7er is led in praise of his chosen science, merely
from the circumstance that he has fixed his mind upon
it, till he has forgotten there are subj ects of thought
I
higher and more heavenly than it. You will find be-
yond mistake, that it is his object to recommend the
science of wealth, by claiming for it an ethical quality,
viz., by extolling it as the road to virtue and happi-
ness, whatever Scripture and holy men may say to the
contrary.
He begins by predicting of Political Economy, that
in the course of a very few years, U it will rank in public
estimation among the first of moral sciences in interest
and in utility." Then he explains most lucidly its
objects and duties, considered as "the science which
teaches in what wealth consists, by what agents it is
produced, and áccording to what laws it is distributed,

90

Discourse IV.

and what are the institutions and customs by which pro-
duction may be facilitated and distribution regulated, so
as to give the largest possible amount of wealth to each
individual." And he dwells upon the interest which
attaches to the inquiry, .. whether England has run her
full career of wealth and improvement, but stands safe
where she is, or whether to remain stationary is inlpos-
sible." After this he notices a certain obj ection, which
I shall set before you in his own \vords, as they will
furnish me \vith the illustration I propose.
This objection, he says, is, that, "as the pursuit of
wealth is one of the hUlnblest of human occupations,
far inferior to the pursuit of virtue, or of knowledge, or
even of reputation, and as the possession of wealth is
not necessarily joined,-perhaps it will be said, is not
conducive,-to happiness, a science, of which the only
subject is wealth, cannot claim to rank as the first, or
nearly the first, of moral sciences. It * Certainly, to an
enthusiast in behalf of any science whatever, the temp-
tation is great to meet an objection urged against its
dignity and worth; however, from the very form of it,
such an objection cannot receive a satisfactory answer
by means of the science itself. It is an objection exter-
nal to the science, and reminds us of the truth of Lord
Bacon's remark, "No perfect discovery can be made
upon a flat or a level; neither is it possible to discover
the more renlote and deeper parts of any science, if you
stand upon the level of the science, and ascend not to a
higher science." t The objection that Political Economy
is inferior to the science of virtue, or does not con-
duce to happiness, is an ethical or theological objection;
the question of its "rank" belongs to that Architectonic
· Introd. Lecture on Pol. Econ. pp. II, 12.
t Advanc
ment of Learning.

Bearing oj Other Knowledgl on Theology. 9 1

Science or Philosophy, ,vhatever it be, which is itself the
arbiter of all truth, and which disposes of the claims
and arranges the places of all the departments of know-
ledge which man is able to master. I say, when an
opponent of a particular science asserts that it does
not conduce to happiness, and much more when its
champion contends in reply that it certainly does con-
duce to virtue, as this author proceeds to contend, the
obvious question which occurs to one to ask is, what
does Religion, \vhat does Revelation, say on the point?
Political Economy must not be allowed to give judg-
ment in its o,vn favour, but must come before a higher
tribunal. The objection is an appeal to the Theologian;
however, the Professor does not so vie,v the matter; he
does not consider it a question for Philosophy; nor in-
deed on the other hand a question for Political Economy;
not a question for Science at all; but for Private J udg-
n1ent,-so he an
wcrs it himself, and as follows:

12.
U My answer," he says, U is, first, that the pursuit of
wealth, that is, the endeavour to accumulate the means of
future subsistence and enjoyment, is, tÐ the mass of
mankind, the great source of moral improvement." Now
observe, Gentlemen, how exactly this bears out what I have
been saying. It is just so far true, as to be able to instiJ
what is false, far as the author was from any such design.
I grant, then, that, ordinarily, beggary is not the means of
moral improvement; and that the orderly habits which
attend upon the hot pursuit of gain, not only may effect
an external decency, but may at least shelter the soul
froIn the temptations of vice. Moreover, these habits of
good order guarantee regularity in a family or household,
and thus are accidentally the means of good; moreover,

9 2

Discourse IV.

they lead to the education of its younger branches, and
they thus accidentally provide the rising generation with
a virtue or a truth which the present has not: but with-
out going into these considerations, further than to allow
them generally, and undec circumstances, let us rather
contemplate what the author's direct assertion is. He
says," the endeavour to accumulate," the words should be
weighed, and for what? "for enjoY1nent,. "_CI to accumu-
late the means of future subsistence and enjoyment, is, to
the mass of mankind, the great source," not merely a
source, but the great source, and of what? of social and
political progress ?-such an answer would have been
more within the limits of his art,-no, but of sOßlething
individual and personal, U of moral t"mþrovcJncnt." The
soul, in the case of" the mass of mankind," improves in
moral excellence from this more than any thing else, viz.,
from heaping up the means of enjoying this world in
time to come! I really should on every account be
sorry, Gentlemen, to exaggerate, but indeed one is taken
by surprise, one is startled, on meeting with so very
categorical a contradiction of our Lord, St. Paul, St
Chrysostom, St. Leo, and all Saints.
" No institution," he continues, "could be more bene-
ficial to the morals of the lower orders, that is, to at least
nine-tenths of the whole body of any people, than one
which should increase their po\ver and their wish to
accum ulate; none more mischievous than one \vhich
should diminish their motives and means to save." No
institution more beneficial than one \vhich should increase
the wish to accltmulate I then Christianity is not one of
such beneficial institutions, for it expressly says," Lay
1tot up to yourselves treasures on earth . . . for where
thy treasure is, there is thy heart also;" -no institution
more nlischievous than one \vhich should dÎ1ninish the

Bearing o.f Other Kno'lvledge on Theology. 93
.

motives to save! then Christianity is one of such mischiefs,
for the inspired text proceeds, II Lay up to yourselves
treasures 'in heaven, where neither the rust nor the moth
doth consume, and where thieves do not dig through,
nor stea1."
But it is not enough that morals and happiness are
n1ade to depend on gain and accumulation; the practice
of Religion is ascribed to these causes also, and in the
following way. Wealth depends upon the pursuit of
\vealth; education depends upon wealth; knowledge
depends on education; and Religion depends on know-
ledge; therefore Religion depends on the pursuit of
wealth. He says, after speaking of a poor and savage
people, II Such a population must be grossly ignorant.
The desire of knowledge is one of the last results
of refinelnent; it requires in general to have been im-
planted in the mind during childhood; and it is absurd
to suppose that persons thus situated would have the
power or the will to devote much to the education of
their children. A further consequence is the absence
of all real religion,. for the religion of the grossly igno-
rant, if they have any, scarcely ever amounts to more
than a debasing superstition.". The pursuit of gain
then is the basis of virtue, religion, happiness; though
it is all the while, as a Christian knows, the "root
of all evils," and the" poor on the contrary are blessed,
for theirs is the kingdom of God."
As to the argument contained in the logical Sorites
which I have been drawing out, I anticipated just now
what I should say to it in reply. I repeat, doutbtless
"beggary," as the wise man says, is not desirable; doubt-
less, if men will not work, they should not eat; there is
doubtless a sense in which it may be said that mere
· Intr. Leet., p. 16.

-

94

Discourse l

.

social or political virtue tends to Inoral and religious
excellence; but the sense needs to be defined and the
statenlent to be kept within bounds. This is the very
poin t on which I am all along insisting. I am not
denying, I am granting, I am assuming, that there is
reason and truth in the "leading ideas," as they are
called, and II large views" of scientific men; I only
say that, though they speak truth, they do not speak the
whole truth; that they speak a narrow truth, and think it
a broad truth; that their deductions must be compared
with other truths, which are acknowledged to be truths,
in order to verify, complete, and correct them. They say
what is true, erceþ/is ercipiendis,. what is true, but
requires guarding; true, but must not be ridden too
hard, or made what is called a hobby,. true, but not the
n1easure of all things; true, but if thus inordinately,
extravagantly, ruinously carried out, in spite of other
sciences, in spite of Theology, sure to become but a
great bubble, and to burst.

13.
I am getting to the end of this Discourse, before I
have noticed one tenth part of the instances with \vhich
I n1ight illustrate the subject of it. Else I should have
wished especially to have dwelt upon the not unfrequent
perversion which occurs of antiquarian and historical re-
search, to the prejudice of Theology. It is undeniable
that the records of former ages are of primary in1port-
ance in detern1Ïning Catholic doctrine; it is undeniable
also that there is a silence or a contrariety abstractedly
conceivable in those records, as to an alleged portion of
that doctrine, which would be sufficient to invalidate its
claims on our acceptance; but it is quite as undeniable
that the existing documentary testimony to Catholicism

Bearing o.f Other I(nowledge OIl Theology. 9S

and Christianity may be so unduly valued as to be
n1ade the absolute measure of Revelation, as if no part
of theological teaching were true which cannot bring its
express text, as it is called, from Scripture, and authori-
ties from the Fathers or profàne writers,-whereas there
are numberless facts in past times which we cannot deny,
for they are indisputable, though history is silent about
them. I suppoSt; on thi" score... we o u ght tQ deny that
the round towers of this country had any origin, because
history does not discl os e it; or that any individu al c
_
from Adam who cannot produce th e table of his an-
5estry. Yet Gibbon argues against the darkness at the
Passion, from the accident that it is not mentioned by
Pagan historians :-as well might he argue against the
existence of Christianity itself in the first century, be-
cause Seneca, Pliny, Plutarch, the Jewish lVIishna, and
other authorities are silent about it. Protestants argue
in a parallel way against Transubstantiation, and Arians
against our Lord's Divinity, viz., on the ground that
extant \vritings of certain Fathers do not witness those
doctrines to their satisfaction :-as well might they say
that Christianity was not spread by the Twelve Apostles,
because we know so little of their labours. The evidence
of History, I say, is invaluable in its place; but, if it as-
sumes to be the sole means of gaining Religious Truth,
it goes beyond its place. We are putting it to a larger
office than it can undertake, if we countenance the
usurpation; and we are turning a true guide and bless-
ing into a source of inexplicable difficulty and inter-
o1inable doubt
And so of other sciences: just as Comparative Ana-
tomy, Political Economy, the Philosophy of History, and
the Science of Antiquities may be and are turned
against Religion, by being taken by them.nelves, as I

9 6

Discourse 1 V

have been showing, so a like mist
ke may befall any
other. Gramlnar, for instance, at first sight does not
appear to admit of a perversion; yet Horne Tooke
made it the vehicle of his peculiar scepticism. Law
would seem to have eno+tgh to do with its own clients, and
their affairs; and yet Mr. Bentham made a treatise on
Judicial Proofs a covert attack upon the miracles of
Revelation. And in like manner Physiology may deny
moral evil and human responsibility; Geology may deny
1'loses; and Logic may deny the Holy Trinity; · and
other sciences, now rising into notice, are or will be
victims of a similar abuse.

,
.

I

And now to sum up what I have been saying in a few
words. My object, it is plain, has been-not to show
that Secular Science in its various departments may take
up a position hostile to Theology ;-this is rather the
basis of the objection with which I opened this Discourse;
-but to point out the cause of an hostility to ,vhich all
parties will bear witness. I have been insisting then on
this, that the hostility in question, when it occurs, is
coincident with an evident deflection or exorbitance of
Science from its proper course; and that this exorbi-
tance is sure to take place, almost from the necessity of
the case, if Theology be not present to defend its own
boundaries and to hinder the encroachment. The human
mind cannot keep from speculating and systematizing;
and if Theology is not allowed to occupy its own territory,
adjacent SCIences, nay, sciences which are quite foreign to
Theology, will take possession of it. And this occupation
is proved to be a usurpation by this circumstance, that
these foreign sciences will assume certain principles as
* Vide Abelard, for instance.

Bearing o.f Other Knowledge on Theology. 97

true, and act upon them, which they neither have
authority to lay down thenlselves, nor appeal to any
other higher science to lay down for them. For example,
it is a mere unwarranted assumption if the Antiquarian
says, "Nothing has ever taken place but is to be found in
historical documents;" or if the Philosophic Historian
says, "There is nothing in Judaism different from other
political institutions;" or if the Anatomist, U There is
no soul beyond the brain; " or if the Political Economist,
" Easy circumstances make men virtuous." These are
I
enunciations, not of Science , but of Private 1 udg ment ; 1
3nd it is Private T yd gment that infects eve ry science
which it touches with a hostility to Theolo gy, a]}.os tility
wh ich p!.QPe!ly
tta ches to no scie nce in itself whatever.
If then, Gentlemen, I now resist such a course of
acting as unphilosophical, what is this but to do as men
of Science do when the interests of their own respective
pursuits are at stake? If they certainly would resist the
divine who determined the orbit of Jupiter by the
Pentateuch, why am I to be accused of cowardice or
illiberality, because I will not tolerate their attempt in
turn to theologize by means of astronomy? And if ex-
perimentalists would be sure to cry out, did I attempt
to install the Thomist philosophy in the schools of astro-
nomyand medicine, why may not I, when Divine Science
is ostracized, and La Place, or Buffon, or Humboldt, sits
down in its chair, why may not I fairly protest against
their exclusiveness, and demand the emancipation of
Theology ?

IS.
And now I consider I helve said enough in proof of
the first point, which I undertook to maintain, viz., the
claim of Theology to be represented among the Chairs
7

98

Ðt'jcourse IV.

of a University. I have sho\vn, I think, that exclusive-
ness really attaches, not to those who support that claim,
but to those who dispute it. I have argued in its behalf,
first, from the consideration that, whereas it is the very
profession of a University to teach all sciences, on this
account it cannot exclude Theology without being untrue
to its profession. Next, I have said that, all sciences
being- connected togeth
L a nd havin g bearings one on
another. it is impossible to teach theIn all thoroughly,

nless they an :Ire taken into account. and Theology

mong them. Moreover, I have insiste g on the iUlportant
influence, which Theolog-y in matter of fact does and must
exercise over a gr eat variety of sciences. completing and
correctin g the ln ; so t hat.J ...g rantin g it to be a real science
occ upi ed u p'
n truth1.j t can n ot be omitted without great
p'!:ej udice to the teaching of the rest. And l astl y!... I ha ve
urged that. supposing Theolo gy be not taughtJ-1!

province will not simply be n eglected, þut w ill b e act.uall y_
u
r ged by other scie nces, \vhich \vill teac h, \vithout
\varra nt, conclusions _of their ow njn -1L suþj
t-matter
which needs its own p ro p er princip les for its_du
form,!:
t i on an d dis position.
Abstract statements are always unsatisfactory; these,
as I have already observed, could be illustrated at far
greater length than the time allotted to me for the
purpose has allowed. Let me hope that I have said
enough upon the subject to suggest thoughts, which
those who take an interest in it may pursue for them-
selves.

99

DISCOURSE V.

KNOWLEDGE ITS OWN END.

A UNIVERSITY may be considered with reference
either to its Students or to its Studies j and the
principle, that all Knowledge is a whole and the sepa-
rate Sciences parts of one, which I have hitherto been
using in behalf of its studies, is equally important \vhen
we direct our attention to its students. N ow then I
turn to the students, and shall consider the education
which, by virtue of this principle, a University will give
them; and thus I shall be introduced, Gentlemen, to
the second question, which I proposed to discuss, viz.
whether and in what sense its teaching, viewed relatively
to the taught, carries the attribute of Utility along with it.

I.
I have said that all branches of knowledge are con-
nected together, because the subject-matter of knowledge
is intimately united in itself, as being the acts and the
\vork of the Creator. Hence it is that the Sciences, into
\vhich our knowledge :nay be said to be cast, have multi-
plied bearings one on another, and an internal sympathy,
and admit, or rather demand, comparison and adjustment.
They complete, correct, balance each other. This con.
sideration, if well-founded, must be taken into account,
not only as regards the attainment of truth, \vhich is

100

Discourse V.

their common end, but as regards the influence which
they exercise upon those whose education consists in the
study of them. I have said already, that to give undue
prominence to one is to be unjust to another; to neglect
or supersede these is to divert those from their proper
object. It is to unsettle the boundary lines between
science and science, to disturb their action, to destroy
the harmony which binds them together. Such a pro-
ceeding will have a corresponding effect when introduced
into a place of education. There is no science but tells
a different tale, when viewed as a portion of a whole,
from what it is likely to suggest when taken by itsel

without the safeguard, as I may call it, of others.
Let me make use of an illustration. In the combination
of colours, very different effects are produced by a
difference in their selection and juxta-position; red, green,
and \vhite, change their shades, according to the contrast
to ,,,hich they are submitted. And, in like manner, the
drift and meaning of a branch of knowledge varies \vith
the company in which it is introduced to the student.
If his reading is confined simply to one subject, however
such division of labour may favour the advancement of a
particular pursuit, a point into which I do not here enter,
certainly it has a tendency to contract his mind. If it is
incorporated with others, it depends on those others as
to the kind of influence which it exerts upon him. Thus
the Classics, which in England are the means of refining
the taste, have in France subserved the spread of revolu-
tionary and deistical doctrines. In Metaphysics, again,
Butler's Analogy of Religion, \vhich has had so much to
do with the conversion to the Catholic faith of ßlenlbers'
of the University of Oxford, appeared to Pitt and others,
who had received a different training, to operate only in
the direction of infidelity. And so again, Watson, Bishop

Knowledgt its Own End.

ÌOt

of Llandaff, as I think he tells us in the narrative of his
life, felt the science of Mathematics to indispose the
mind to religious belief: while others see in its investiga-
tions the best parallel, and thereby defence, of the Chris-
tian Mysteries. In like manner, I suppose, Arcesilas
would not have handled logic as Aristotle, nor Aristotle
have criticized poets as Plato; yet reasoning and poetry
are subject to scientific rules.
It is a great point then to enlarge the range of studies
which a University professes, even for the sake of the
students; and, though they cannot pursue every subject
which is open to them, they will be the gainers by living
among those and under those who represent the \vhole
circle. This I conceive to be the advantage of a seat of
universal learning, considered as a place of education.
An assemblage of learned men, zealous for their own
sciences, and rivals of each other, are brought, by familiar
intercourse and for the sake of intellectual peace, to
adj ust together the claims and relations of their respective
subjects of investigation. They learn to respect, to
consult, to aid each other. Thus is .created a pure and
clear atmosphere of thought, which the student also
breathes, though in his own case he only pursues a few
sciences out of the multitude. He profits by an intel-
lectual tradition, which is independent of particular
teachers, which guides him in his choice of subjects, and
duly interprets for him those which he chooses. He
apprehends the great outlines of knowledge, the principles
on which it rests, the scale of its parts, its lights and its
shades, its great points and its little, as he otherwise
cannot apprehend them. Hence it is that his education
is called II Liberal." A habit of mind is formed which
lasts through life, of which the attributes are, freedom,
equitableness, caln1ness, moderation, and wisdom; or

102

DiscourSl V.

what in a former Discourse I have ventured to call a
philosophical habit. This then I would assign as. the
special fruit of the education furnished at a University,
as contrasted with other places of teaching or modes of
teaching. This is the main purpose of a University in
its treatment of its students.
And now the question is asked me, What is the use
of it? and my answer will constitute the main subject of
the Discourses which are to follow.

2.
Cautious and practical thinkers, I say, will ask of n1e,
what, after all, is the gain of this Philosophy, of \vhich I
n1ake such account, and from \vhich I promise so much.
}::ven supposing it to enable us to exercise the degree of
trust exactly due to every science respectively, and to
estimate precisely the value of every truth \vhich is any-
where to be found, how- are \\re better for this master view
of things, which I have been extolling? Does it not re-
verse the principle of the division of labour? will prac-
tical objects be obtained better or worse by its culti-
vation? to what then does it lead? where does it end?
what docs it do? how does it profit? \vhat does it
promise? Particular sciences are respectively the basis
of definite arts, which carryon to results tangible and
beneficial the truths which are the subjects of the know-
ledge. attained; what is the Art of this science of
sciences ? what is the fruit of such a Philosophy? what
are we proposing to effect, what inducements do we hold
out to the Catholic cOffilnunity, \vhen we set about the
enterprise of founding a University?
I am asked what is the end of University Education,
and of the Liberal or Philosophical Knowledge \vhich I
conceive it to impart: I answer, that \vhat I have already

Knowledge its Own End.

10 3

said has been sufficient to show that it has a very tan-
gible, real, and sufficient end, though the @nd cannot be
divided frOIn that knowledge itself. Knowledge is capa-
ble of being its own end. Such is the constitution of the
human mind, that any kind of knowledge, if it be really
such, is its o\vn reward. And if this is true of all know-
ledge, it is true also of that special Philosophy, which
I have made to consist in a comprehensive view of truth
in all its branches, of the relations of science to science,
of their mutual bearings, and their respective values.
What the worth of such an acquirement is, compared
with other objects which we seek,-wealth or power or
honour or tbe conveniences and comforts of life, I do not
profess here to discuss; but I would maintain, and
mean to show, that it is an object, in its own nature so
really and undeniably good, as to be the cOInpensation
of a great deal of thought in the compassing, and a
great deal of trouble in the attaining.
N O\V, when I say that Knowledge is, not merely a
n1eans to something beyond it, or the preliminary of
certain arts into which it naturally resolves, but an end
sufficient to rest in and to pursue for its o\vn sake, surely
I am uttering no paradox, for I am stating what is both
intelligible in itself, and has ever been the common
judgment of philosophers and the ordinary feeling of
mankind. I am saying what at least the public opinion
of this day ought to be slow to deny, considering how
much we have heard of late years, in opposition to
Religion, of entertaining, curious, and various kno\vledge.
I am but saying \vhat whole volumes have been written
to illustrate, viz., by a H selection from the records of Phi-
losophy, Literature, and Art, in all ages and countries,
of a body of examples, to show ho\v the most unpropitious
circumstances have been unable to conquer an ardent

104

Dz.scourse 11:

ß

desire for the acquisition of knowledge.". That further
advantages accrue to us and redound to others by its
possession, over and above what it is in itself, I aID very
far indeed from denying; but, independent of these,

are satisfying a direct. need of o ur na
ure in its very_
acquiSlt1on;a ncçw hereas our na ture, tLnlike h t of the_
inferior creati on, does Qot at once r
ach it
p
r fect io!1,- _
'put de
n ds, iñor der to it, on a number.-of exte rnal aids. _
and appliance s, Knowledge , as one of the p rinci pal of_

ese, IS va [u able- f(;;W hat i t ery_ p rese i us does_
for us àft
the m anne r of a habit, even thou gh it be
t..!!.
d to no further
nt 1. nor subserve a nydir ec t-
,end.

-

3.
Hence it is that Cicero, in enumerating the various
heads of mental excellence, lays down the pursuit of
Knowledge for its own sake, as the first of them. " This
pertains most of all to human nature," he says, H for we
are all of us drawn to the pursuit of Knowledge; in
which to excel we consider excellent, whereas to mis-
take, to err, to be ignorant, to be deceived, is both an
evil and a disgrace." t And he considers Knowledge
the very first object to which we are attracted, after the
supply of our physical wants. After the calls and duties
of our animal existence, as they may be termed, as re-
gards ourselves, our family, and our neighbours.. follows,
he tells us, "the search after truth. Accordingly, as
soon as we escape from the pressure of necessary cares,
forthwith we desire to see, to hear, and to learn; and
consider the knowledge of what is hidden or is wonder-
ful a condition of our happiness."
· Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties. Introd.
t Cicer. 0 ffic. init.

Knowledge its Own End.

10 5

This passage, though it is but one of many similar
passages in a multitude of authors, I take for the very
reason that it is so familiarly known to us; and I wish
you to observe, Gentlemen, how distinctly it separates
the pursuit of Knowledge from those ulterior objects to
which certainly it can be made to conduce, and which
are, I suppose, solely contemplated by the persons who
would ask of me the use of a University or Liberal
Education. So far from dreaming of the cultivation of
Knowledge directly and mainly in order to our physical
comfort and enjoyment, for the sake of life and person,
of health, of the conjugal and family union, of the social
tie and civil security, the great Orator implies, that it is
only after our physical and political needs are supplied,
. and \vhen \ve are" free from necessary duties and cares,"
that we are in a condition for "desiring to see, to hear,
and to learn." Nor does he contemplate in the least
degree the reflex or subsequent action of Knowledge,
when acquired, upon those material goods which we set
out by securing before we seek it; on the contrary, he
expressly denies its bearing upon social life altogether,
strange as such a proced ure is to those who live after the
rise of the Baconian philosophy, and he cautions us
against such a cultivation of it as will interfere with our
duties to our fellow-creatures. U All these methods," he
says, U are engaged in the investigation of truth; by the
pursuit of which to be carried off from public occupa-
tions is a transgression of duty. For the praise of virtue
lies altogether in action; yet intermissions often occur,
and then we recur to such pursuits; not to say that the
incessant activity of the mind is vigorous enough to
carry us on in the pursuit of knowledge, even \vithout
any exertion of our own." The idea of benefiting
society. by means of "the pursuit of science and know-

106

ÐiJjcourse

ledge" did not enter at all into the motives which he
would assign for their cultivation.
This \vas the ground of the opposition which the elder
Cato made to the introduction of Greek Philosophy
among his countrymen,' when Carneades and his conl-
panions, on occasion of their embassy, were charn1ing
the Roman youth with their eloquent expositions of it.
The fit representative of a practical people, Cato esti-
n1ated every thing by what it produced; whereas the
Pursuit of Knowledge promised nothing beyond Kno\\'-
ledge itself. He despised that refinen1ent or enlargenlent
of mind of which he had no experience.

4.
Things, which can bear to be cut off frolll every thing
else and yet persist in living, nlust have life in then1selves;
pursuits, \vhich issue in nothing, and still nlaintain their
ground for ages, \vhich are regarded as adnlirable, though
they have not as yet proved themselves to be useful,
nlust have their sufficient end in themselves, whatever it
turn out to be. And \ve are brought to the same con-
clusion by considering the force of the epithet, by \vhich
the kno\vledge under consideration is popularly desig-
nated. It is common to speak of H liberal knowledge,"
of the II librral arts and stud ies," and of a CI liberal ed u-
cation," as the especial characteristic or property of a
University and of a gentleman; \vhat is really meant
by the \vord? N O\V, first, in its grarnmatical sense it is
opposed to servile; and by U servile work" is understood,
as our catechisms inforn1 us, bodily labour, mechanical
employment, and the like, in which the n1ind has little
or no part. Parallel to such servile \vorks are those arts,
if they deserve the name, of \vhich the poet speaks,"
· TÉx,,7'J ""x7'J"ltTUPt f Kal TUx7'J Tix,,7'J".
Vid. Arisl Nic. Ethic. vi.

Knowledge t'ts Own End.

107

which o\ve th
ir origin and their method to hazard, not
to skill; as, for instance, the practice and operations of
an empiric. As far as this contrast may be considered
as a guide into the meaning of the word, liberal educa-
tion and liberal pursuits are exercises of mind, of reason,
of reflection.
But we want something more for its explanation, for
there are bodily exercises which are liberal, and mental
exercises which are not so. For instance, in ancient
times the practitioners in medicine were conlmonly
slaves; yet it was an art as intellectual in its nature, in
spite of the pretence, fraud, and quackery with which it
might then, as now, be debased, as it was heavenly in its
aim. And so in like manner, we contrast a liberal
education with a commercial education or a professional;
yet no one can deny that commerce and the professions
afford scope for the highest and rnost diversified power.s
of olind. There is then a great variety of intellectual
exercises, which are not technically called" liberal;" on
the other hand, I say, there are exercises of the body
which do receive that appellation. Such, for instance,
was the palæstra, in ancient times; such the Olympic
games, in which strength and dexterity of body as well
as of mind -gained the prize. In Xenophon we read of
the young Persian nobility being taught to ride on horse-,
back and to speak the truth; both being among the
accon1plishments of a gentlenlan. \Var, too, however
rough a profession, has ever been accounted liberal,
unless in cases when it becon1es heroic.. which would
introduce us to another subject.
Now comparing these instances together, we shall
have no difficulty in determining the principle of this
apparent variation in the application of the term which
I am examining. Manly games, or gan1es of skill, or

108

Discourse V.

n1Ïlitary prowess, though bodily, are, it seems, accounted
liberal; on the other hand, what is merely professional,
though highly intellectual, nay.. though liberal in con1-
parison of trade and m:-nuallabour, is not simply called
liberal, and mercantile occupations are not liberal at alL
Why this distinction? because that alone is liberal kno,v-
ledge, which stands on its own pretensions, which is
independent of sequel, expects no complement, refuses
to be informed (as it is called) by any end, or absorbed
into any art, in order duly to present itself to our con-
templation. The most ordinary pursuits have this specific
character, if they are self-sufficient and conlplete; the
highest lose it, when they minister to something beyond
them. I t is absurd to balance, in point of worth and
importance, a treatise on reducing fractures with a game
of cricket or a fox-chase; yet of the two the bodily
exercise has that quality which we call" liberal," and
the intellectual has it not. And so of the learned pro-
fessions altogether, considered merely as professions;
although one of them be the most popularly beneficial,
and another the most politically important, and the third
the most intimately divine of all human pursuits, yet
the very greatness of their end, the health of the body,
or of the commonwealth, or of the soul, diminishes, not
increases, their claim to the appellation U liberal," and
that still more, if they are cut down to the strict exigen-
cies of that end. If, for instance, Theology, instead of
being cultivated as a contemplation, be limited to the
purposes of the pulpit or be represented by the cate..
chism, it loses,-not its usefulness, not its divine character,
not its meritoriousness (rather it gains a claim upon these
titles by such charitable condescension),-but it does lose
the particular attribute which I atn illustrating; just as
a face worn by tears and fasting loses its beauty. or a

Knowledge ,"Is Own End.

log

labourer's hand loses its delicateness ;-for Theology
thus exercised is not simple knowledge, but rather is
an art or a business making use of TheQlogy. And
thus it appears that even what is supernatural need not
be liberal, nor need a hero be a gentleman, for the plain
reason that one idea is not another idea. And in like
manner the Baconian Philosophy, by using its physical
sciences in the service of man, does thereby transfer them
from the order of Liberal
ursuits to, I do not say the
inferior, but the distinct class of the Useful. And, to
take a different instance, hence again, as is evident,
vlhenever personal gain is the motive, still n10re distinc-
tive an effect has it upon the character of a given pursuit;
thus racing, which was a liberal exercise in Greece, for-
feits its rank in times like these, so far as it is made the
occasion of gambling.
All that I have been now saying is summed up in a
few characteristic words of the great Philosopher. "Of
possessions," he says, U those rather are useful, which
bear fruit; those liberal, which tend to enjoyment. By
fruitful, I mean, which yield revenue; by enjoyable,
where nothing accrues of consequence bey01Zd tlte using.".

5.
Do not suppose, that in thus appealing to the ancients,
I am throwing back the \vorld two thousand years, and
fettering Philosophy with the reasonings of paganism.
While the world lasts, will Aristot l e's doctrine .J!.n these
matters last, for he is the oracl e of nature and of truth.
While we are men, we cannot h
to a g r eat ext ent,
being A ristote l1 a ns, for the grea t Master does but an alyze
the tho
hts, feelings, vie wsJ and üÌniõn s of human Kiñd:--
lIe has told us the meaning of our own words and ideas,
* Aristot. Rhet. i. s.

110

D ISCOUYSe V.

before we were born. In many subject-matters, to think
correctly, is to think like Aristotle; and we are his dis-
ciples whether we will or no, though we may not know
it. N O\V, as to the particular instance before us, the
word "liberal" as applied to Knowledge and Ed ucation,
expresses a specific idea, which ever has been, and ever
will be, while the nature of man is the same, just as the
idea of the Beautiful is specific, or of the Sublime, or of
the Ridiculous, or of the Sordid. It is in the world
now, it ,vas in the world then; and, as in the case of
the dogmas of faith, it is illustrated by a continuous
historical tradition, and never was out of the world, from
the time it came into it. There have indeed been dif-
ferences of opinion from time to time, as to what pur-
suits and what arts came under that idea, but such
differences are but an additional evidence of its reality.
That idea must have a substance in it, which has main-
tained its ground amid these conflicts and changes,
which has ever served as a standard to measure things
withal, which has passed from mind to mind unchanged,

'hen there was so much to colour, so much to influence
any notion or thought whatever, which was not founded
in our very nature. Were it a mere generalization, it
would have varied with the subjects from which it was
generalized; but though its subjects vary with the age,
it varies not itself. The palæstra may seem a liberal
exercise to Lycurgus, and illiberal to Seneca; coach-
driving and prize-fighting may be recognized in Elis,
and be condemned in England; music may be despica-
ble in the eyes of certain moderns, and be in the highest
place with Aristotle and Plato,-(and the case is the
same in the particular application of the idea of Beauty,
or of Goodness, or of Moral Virtue, there is a difference
of tastes, a difference of judgments)-still these varia-

Kn01.vledge -its Own End.

I I I

tions imply, instead of discrediting, the archetypal idea,
\vhich is but a previous hypothesis or condition, by
means of which issue is joined bet\veen contending
opinions, and without which there would be nothing to
dispute about.
I consider, then, that I am chargeable with no para-
dox, when I speak of a Knowledge which is its own end,
when I call it liberal kno\vledge, or a gentleman's know-
ledge, \vhen I educate for it, and make it the scope of a
University. And still less am I incurring such a charge,
when I make this acquisition consist, not in Knowledge
in a vague and ordinary sense, but in that Knowledge
which I have especially called Philosophy or, in an ex-
tended sense of the word, Science; for whatever claims
Kno\vledge has to be considered as a good, these it has
in a higher degree when it is vie\ved not vaguely, not
popularly, but precisely and transcendently as Philo-
sophy. Knowledge, I say, is then especially liberal, or
sufficient for itself, apart from every external and ulterior
object, when and so far as it is philosophical, and this I
proceed to show.

6.
N ow bear with me, Gentlemen, if what I am about to
say, has at first sight a fanciful appearance. Philosophy,
then, or Science, is related to Knowledge in this way:-
Knowledge is called by the name of Science or Philoso-
phy, when it is acted upon, informed, or if I may use a
strong figure, impregnated by Reason. Reason is the
principle of that intrinsic fecundity of Kno\vledge, \vhich,
to those who possess it, is its especial value, and \vhich
dispenses with the necessity of their looking abroad for
any end to rest upon external to itself. Kno\vledge, in-
deed, when thus exalted into a scientific form, is also

112

Discourse V.

power; not only is it excellent in itself: but whatever
such excellence may be, it is something more, it has a
result beyond itself. Doubtless; but that is a further
consideration, with which I am not concerned. I only
say that, prior to its being a power, it is a good; that it
is, not only an instrument, but an end. I know well it
may resolve itself into an art, and terminate in a
mechanical process, and in tangible fruit; but it also
may fall back upon that Reason which informs it, and
resolve itself into Philosophy. In one case it is called
Useful Knowledge, in the other Liberal. The same person
nlay cultivate it in both ways at once; but this again
is a matter foreign to my subject; here I do but say
that there are Ì'NO ways of using Knowledge, and in
matter of fact those who use it in one way are not likely
to use it in the other, or at least in a very limited mea-
sure. You see, then, here are t\VO methods of Education;
the end of the one is to be philosophical, of the other to
be mechanical; the one rises towards general ideas, the
other is exhausted upon what is particular and external.
Let me not be thought to deny the necessity, or to decry
the benefit, of such attention to what is particular and
practical, as belongs to the useful or mechanical arts; life
could not go on without them; we owe our daily welfare
to them; their exercise is the duty of the many, and we
owe to the many a debt of gratitude for fulfilling that
duty. I only say that Knowledge, in proportion as it
tends more and more to be particular, ceases to be
ICnowledge. I t is a question whether Knowledge can
in any proper sense be predicated of the brute creation;
without pretending to metaphysical exactness of phrase-
ology, which would be unsuitab]e to an occasion like this,
I say, it seems to nle improper to call that passive sen-
sation, or perception of things, \vhich brutes seem to

K n011 1 ledge its Own End.

I 13

possess, by the na01e of Knowledge. \Vhen I speak of
Knowled
el I mean somethin g
t
lectua lJ 2.o methi ng _
which gras
s what it p
r ceives through th e Êenses ; some-,
tÞing- which takes a view of things; which sees mo r

than the senses convey; which reason
upo
wh at.JL_
sees, and while it sees; \vhich invests it with an idea.
It expresses itself, not in a mere enunciation, but by an
enthymeme: it is of the nature of science from the first,
and in this consists its dignity. The principle of real
dignity in Kno\vledge, its worth, its desirableness, con-
sidered irrespectively of its results, is this germ within it
of a scientific or a philosophical process. This is how
it comes to be an end in itself; this is why it admits of
being called Liberal. Not to know the relative dispo-
sition of thine-s is the s tå te of sla ves or children ; j:o pave
filapped out th
1rnl
_
_lS -1h
ÞQ
stJ_ 01' at _least the__
r- ambitiOlly-Of l?hUosophy_
---
Moreover, such kno\vledge is not a mere extrinsic or
accidental advantage, which is ours to-day and another's
to-morrow, \vhich may be got up from a book, and
easily forgotten again, which we can command or com-
municate at our pleasure, which we can borrow for the
occasion, carry about in our hand, and take into the
market; it is an acquired illumination, it is a habit, a
personal possession, and an inward endowment. And
this is the reason, why it.is more correct, as \vell as n10re
usual, to speak of a University as a place of education,
than of instructioD, though, ,vhen knowledge is co
cerned,
instruction would at first sight have seemed the n10re
appropriate word. \Ve are instructed, for instance, in
manual exercises, in the fine and useful arts, in trades,
and in ways of business; for these are methods, which
have little or no effect upon the mind itself, are contained
in rules con1mitted to memory, to tradition, or to use,
8

114

Discouyst V

and b
ar upon an end external to themselves. But
education is a higher word; it implies an action upon
our mental nature, and the formation of a character; it
is something individual and permanent, and is commonly
spoken of in connexiol? with religion and virtue. When,
then, we speak of the con1munication of Knowledge as
being Education, we thereby really imply that that
Kno\vledge is a state or condition of mind; and since
cultivation of mind is surely worth seeking for its own
sake, we are thus brought once more to the conclusion,
\vhich the word (( Liberal" and the word " Philosophy"
have already suggested, that there is a Knowledge,
which is desirable, though nothing come of it, as being
of itself a treasure, and a sufficient reoluneration of years
of labour.

7.
This, then, is the answer which I am prepared to give
to the question with which I opened this Discourse.
Before going on to speak of the object of the Church in
taking up Philosophy, and the uses to \vhich she puts it,
I am prepared to maintain that Philosophy is its o\vn
end, and, as I conceive, I have now begun the proof of
it. I am prepared to maintain that there is a knowledge
worth possessing for what it is, and not merely for what
it does; and what nlinutes remain to me to-day I shall
devote to the removal of some portion of the indistinct-
ness and confusion with which the subject may in sonle
minds be surrounded.
It may be objected then. that, \vhen we profess to
seek Knowledge for some end or other beyond itself:
whatever it be, we speak intelligibly; but that, what-
ever men may have said, ho\vever obstinately the iùea
may have kept its ground from age to age, still it is

K1l0w/edge lis Own End.

( 15

sirnply unlueaning to say that we seek Knowledge for
its own sake, and for nothing else; for that it ever leads
to sOlnething beyond itself, \vhich therefore is its end,
and the cause why it is desirable ;-moreover, that this
end is twofold, either of this world or of the next; that
all knowledge is cultivated either for secular objects or
for eternal; that if it is directed to secular objects, it is
called Useful Knowledge, if to eternal, Religious or
Christian Kno\vledge ;-in consequence, that if, as I have
allowed, this Liberal Knowledge does not benefit the
body or estate, it ought to benefit the soul; but if the
fact be really so, that it is neither a physical or a secular
good on the one hand, nor a moral good on the other, it
cannot be a good at all, and is not worth the trouble
which is necessary for its acquisition.
And then I may be reminded that the professors of this
Liberal or Philosophical Knowledge have thelnselves, in
every age, recognized this exposition of the matter, and
have submitted to the issue in which it terminates; for
they have ever been attempting to make men virtuous;
or, if not, at least have assumed that refinement of mind
was virtue, and that they themselves \vere the virtuous
portion of mankind. This they have professed on the
one hand; and on the other, they have utterly failed in
their professions, so as ever to make themselves a proverb
among men, and a laughing-stock both to the grave and
the dis
ipated portion of mankind, in consequence of
them. Thus they have furnished against themselves both
the ground and the means of their own exposure, \vith-
out any trouble at all to anyone else. In a word, from
the time that Athens was the University of the world,
what has Philosophy taught men, but to promise without
practising, and to aspire without attaining? \Vhat has
the deep and lofty thought of its disciples ended in but

116

Disrourse V.

eloquent words? Nay, what has its teaching ever medi...
tated, when it \vas boldest in its remedies for human ill,
beyond charming us to sleep by its lessons, that we
might feel nothing at all? like some melodious air, or
rather like those strong..and transporting perfumes, which
at first spread their sweetness over every thing they
touch, but in a little while do but offend in proportion as
they once pleased us. Did Philosophy support Cicero
under the disfavour of the fickle populace, or nerve Seneca
to oppose an imperial tyrant? It abandoned Brutus, as he
sorrowfully confessed, in his greatest need, and it forced
Cato, as his panegyrist strangely boasts, into the false
position of defying heaven. Ho\v few can be counted
among its professors, who, like Polemo, were thereby
converted from a profligate course, or like Anaxagoras,
thought the world well lost in exchange for its posses-
sion? The philosopher in Rasselas taught a superhunlan
doctrine, and then succumbed without an effort to a trial
of human affection.
" He discoursed," we are told, " with great energy on
the governlnent of the passions. His look was venerable,
his action graceful, his pronunciation clear, and his
dicti
n elegant. He showed. \vith great strength of
sentiment and variety of illustration, that human nature
is degraded and debased, \vhen the lower faculties pre-
dominate over the higher. He communicated the
various precepts given, from titl1e to time, for the con-
quest of passion, and displayed the happiness of those
who had obtained the in1 portant victory, after which
man is no longer the slave of fear, nor the fool of hope. . .
He enuInerated many examples of heroes immoveable
by pain or pleasure, who looked \vith indifference on
those modes or accidents to \vhich the vulgar give the
names of good and eviL"

Knowledge its Own End.

II?

Rasselas in a few days found the philosopher in a
room half darkened, with his eyes misty, and his face
pale. "Sir," said he, .. you have come at a time when
all human friendship is useless; what I suffer cannot be
remedied, what I have lost cannot be supplied. My
daughter, my only daughter, from whose tenderness I
expected all the comforts of my age, died last night of
a fever." "Sir," said the prince, II mortality is an event
by which a wise man can never be surprised; we know
that death is always near, and it should therefore always
be expected." Ie Young man," answered the philosopher,
"you speak like one who has never felt the pangs of
separation." II Have you, then, forgot the precept," said
Rasselas, "which you so powerfully enforced? . . . con-
sider that external things are naturally variable, but
truth and reason are ahvays the same." "What comfort,"
said the mourner, "can truth and reason afford me?
Of what effect are they now, but to tell me that my
daughter will not be restored 1 "

8.
Better, far better, to make no professions, you will
say, than to cheat others with what we are not, and to
scandalize them with what we are. The sensualist, or
the man of the world, at any rate is not the victim of fine
words, but pursues a reality and gains it. The Philo-
sophy of Utility, you will say, Gentlemen, has at least
done its work; and I grant it,-it aimed lo\v, but it has
fulfilled its aim. If that man of great intellect who has
been its Prophet in the conduct of life played false to
his own professions, he was not bound by his philosophy
to be true to his friend or faithful in his trust. Moral
virtue was not the line in which he undertook to instruct
men; and though, as the poet calls him, he were the

, 18

Dtscouyse V.

"meanest" of mankind, he was so in what tnay be caned
his private capacity and
ithout any prejudice to the
theory of induction. He had a right to be so, if he chose,
for any thing that the Idols of the den or the theatre
had to say to the contrary. His mission \vas the
increase of physical enjoyment and social comfort;.
and most wonderfully, most awfully has he fulfilled his
conception and his design. Almost day by day have
we fresh and fresh shoots, and buds, and blossoms,
which are to ripen into fruit, on that magical tree of
Kno\vledge which he planted, and to which none of
us perhaps, except the very poor, but owes, if not his
present life, at least his daily food, his health, and
general well-being. He \vas the divinely provided
minister of temporal benefits to all of us so gredt, that,
\vhatever I am forced to think of him as a man, I have
not the heart, from mere gratitude, to speak of hin)
6cverely. And, in spite of the tendencies of his philoso-
phy, which are, as we see at this day, to depreciate, or
to trample on Theology, he has himself: in his writings,
gone out of his way, as if with a prophetic misgiving
of those tendencies, to insist on it as the instrument of
that beneficent Father,t who, when He came on earth in
visible form, took on Him first and most prominently

· It will be seen that on the whole I agree with Lord l\Iacaulay in his
Essay Ðn Hacon', Philosophy. I do not know whether he would agree
with me.
t De Augment. iv. 2, vide Macaulay's Essay; vide also U In principio
operis ad Deurn Patrern, Deurn Verbum, Deum Spiritum, preces fundimus
humillimas et ardentissimas, ut humani generis ærumnarurn rnemores, et
peregrinationis istius vitæ, in quâ dies paucos et rnatos terimus, novi.s suis

/

mosynis, p" manus ,zostras, familiam humanam dotare dignentur.
Atque illud insuper supplices rogamus, ne humana divinis oJIidant,. neve
ex r
s"ati()n
viarum s
nsfjs, et accensione majore luminis naturnlis, aliquid
illrr
dlllitatis et noctis, animis nostris erga divina mysteria oboriatur:' etc.
Prato Instaur. Magn.

Knowledge its Own End.

119

the office of assuaging the bodily wounds of human
nature. And truly, like the old mediciner in the tale,
"he sat diligently at his work, and hummed, with
cheerful countenance, a pious song;" and then in turn
"went out singing into the meadows so gaily, that those
who had seen him from afar might ,veIl have thought it
was a youth gathering flowers for his beloved, instead
of an old physician gathering healing herbs in the
. d ".
mornIng eWe
Alas, that men, in the action of life or in their heart
of hearts, are not what they seem to be in their moments
of excitement, or in their trances or intoxications of
genius,-so good, so noble, so serene! Alas, that Bacon
too in his o,vn way should after all be but the fellow of
those heathen philosophers who in their disadvantages
had some excuse for their inconsistency, and who surprise
us rather in what they did say than in what they did
not do ! Alas, that he too, like Socrates or Seneca, must
be stripped of his holy-day coat, which looks so fair, and
should be but a mockery amid his most majestic gravity
of phrase; and, for all his vast abilities, should, in the
littleness of his own moral being, but typify the intel-
lectual narro\vness of his school I However, granting
all this, heroism after all was not his philosophy:- I
cannot deny he has abundantly achieved what he
proposed. His is simply a Method whereby bodily dis-
comforts and temporal wants are to be most effectually
removed from the greatest number; and already, before
it has sho\vn any signs of exhaustion, the gifts of nature,
in their most artificial shapes and luxurious profusion
and diversity, from all quarters of the earth, are, it is
undeniable, by its means brought even to our doors, and
\ve rejoice in them.
· fouque's Unknown Patient.

120

D iscou YSl l/.

9.
Useful Knowledge then, I grant, has done its work;
and Liberal Knowledge as certainly has not done its
\vork,-that is, supposing, as the objectors assume, its
direct end, like Religious Knowledge, is to make men
better; but this I will not for an instant allow, and,
unless I allo\v it, those objectors have said nothing to
the purpose. I ad[l1it, rather I maintain, what they have
been urging, for I consider Know'ledge to have its end in
itself. For all its friends, or its enenlies, may say, I
insist upon it, that it is as real a nlistakc to burden it
\vith virtue or religion as \\Tith the nlcchanical arts. Its
direct business is not to steel the soul against temptation
or to console it in affliction, any more than to set the
100n1 in nlotion, or to direct the steam carriage; be it
ever so much the means or the condition of both ma-
terial and nloral advancement, still, taken by and in
itself, it as little mends our hearts as it improves our
temporal circunlstances. And if its eulogists claim for
it such a po\ver, they commit the very same kind of
encroachment on a province not their own as the
political economist who should maintain that his science
educated him for casuistry or diplomacy. Knowledge
is one thing, virtue is another; good sense is not con-
science, refinement is not humility, nor is largeness and
justness of view faith. l-h ilos o--2 hy, ho\vever enli g htened,

weY'er profound, gives no c
m mand ove r the 'p assion
__
n o I n fluen tial motives, no vivifying principles. Libera]
dY.Cati OIL makes no t the. . t at olic
but the gentleman. It is well to be a gen t1
en, it is
well to have a cultivated intellect , a delicate taste, a

dj<t
quitable

assion ate mind, a noble and
çourteous bearing in the conduct of li fe ;-t h ese are ilie
--

Knowledge its 01.vn End.

121

.
connatural Qualities of a large kno,vled
e; they are th

objects of a University: I am advocating', I shall illu

trate and insist upon them; but s t ill, I re p
at, they are
no guarantee for sancti ty or even for c on sci entiousness,
th ey may attach to the man of th e \vorl d, to the pro fli-=-
gate, to the heartless. -::-p leasant. alas, an
attr
ctive

s_\vh
n_deck ed out in them. Taken by then1-
selves, they do but seem to be what they are not; they
look like virtue at a distance, but they are detected by
close observers, and on the long run; and hence it is;
that they are popularly accused of pretence and hypo-
crisy, not, I repeat, from their o\vn fault, but because
their professors and their admirers persist in taking them
for \vhat they are not, and are officious in arrogating for
them a praise to which they have no claim. Quarry the
granite rock with razors, or moor the vessel \vith

thread of silk; then may you hope \vith such keen and
!Jelicate ins truments as human kno\v legge and human
reason to conten d against those g iants, the E assion an d
the pride of m an!.. -
Surely \ve are not driven to theories of this kind, in
order to vindicate the value and dignity of Liberal
Knowledge. Surely the real grounds on which its pre-
tensions rest are not so very subtle or abstruse, so very
strange or improbable. Surely it is very. Jn.tcllig ible to

ay, and that is. \vhat I say _her.e, that Liberal Educati on1..
vie\ved in itself, is sim ply the cultiva_tiQn of the intellectl.
as such, and its --2Þj ect is _ nothing _more or less t þ
!!
intellectual ex cellence. Every thing has its own perfec-
tion, be it higher or lower in the scale of things; and the
perfection of one is not the perfection of another.
Things animate, inanimate, v!sible, invisible, all are good
in their kind, and have a best of themselves, which is an
object of pursuit. Why do you take such pains with

122

Discourse V.

your garden or your park? You see to your walks and
turf and shrubberies; to your trees and drives; not as
if you lueant to make an orchard of the one, or corn or
pasture land of the other, but because there is a special
beauty in all that is goodly in wood, water, plain, and
slope, brought all together by art into one shape, and
grouped into one whole. Your cities are beautiful, your
palaces, your public buildings, your territorial Inansions,
your churches; and their beauty leads to nothing beyond
itself. There is a-rhvsical beauty anti a m{)r
1. there is
p. beauty of person, there is a beauty of our moral bein
__
which is natural virtue; and in like manner th e re is a
beauty, there is 3.j) erfection, of the intell ect. There is
an ideal perfection in these various subj ect -matters,
to\vards which individual instances are seen to rise, and
\\-hich are the standards for all instances \vhalever. The
Greek divinities and demigods, as the statuary has
Inoulded them, with their symmetry of figure, and
their high forehead and their regular features, are the
perfection of physical beauty. The heroes, of whom
history tells, Alexander, or Cæsar, or Scipio, or Saladin,
are the representatives of that magnanimity or self-
mastery which is the greatness of human nature. Chris-
tianity too has its heroes, and in the supernatural order,
and we call them Saints. The artist puts before him
beauty of feature and form; the poet, beauty of mind;
the preacher. the beauty of grace: then intellect too, I
repeat, has its beauty, and it has those who aim at it.
J 0 open the mind , to correct it, to refin e it, to enable it
to know , and t o d igest, master, rule, and use Its know -
le dge, to give it power over ÎtsûWñ fãculti es, app lication,
flexibility,
hod-:critìca l

a ctness, sagacit y, re
our ceJ
address, eloquent ex r ession, is an o bject_as intel1 igL
l

(for here we are inquiring, not what the object of a.

Kno'Wledge its Own End.

I 23

Liberal Education is worth, nor what use the Church
makes of it, but what it is in itself), I say. aIL-object as
intelligible as the cultiv ation of virtue. while , at the
same time, it is absolu ìy i tinct from it._

10.
This indeed is but a temporal object, and a transitory
possession; but so are other things in themselves which
we make much of and pursue. The moralist will tell
us that man, in all his functions, is but a flower which
blossoms and fades, except so far as a higher principle
breathes upon him, and makes him and what he is im-
mortal. Body and mind are carried on into an eternal
state of being by the gifts of Divine Munificence j but
at first they do but fail in a failing world; and if the
po\vers of intellect decay, the po\vers of the body have
decayed before them, and, as an Hospital or an Alms-
house, though its end be ephemeral, may be sanctified
to the service of religion, so surely may a University,
even were it nothing more than I have as yet described
it. We attain to heaven by using this world well,
though it is to pass away; we perfect our nature, not by
undoing it, but by adding to it what is more than nature,
and directing it towards a.i1ns higher tha.n its own.

12 4

DISCOURSE VI

KNOWLEDGE VIEWED IN RELATION TO LEARNING.

I.

I T were wen if the English, like the Greek language,
possessed some definite word to express, simply and
generally, intellectual proficiency or perfection, such as
" health," as used \vith reference to the animal frame, and
"virtue," with reference to our moral nature. I an1 not
able to find such a term ;-talent, ability, genius, belong
di
tinctly to the raw material, which is the subject-n1atter,
not to that excellence which is the result of exercise and
training. When we turn, indeed, to the particuJar kinds
of intellectual perfection, words are forthcoming for our
purpose, as, for instance, judgment, taste, and skill; yet
even these belong, for the most part, to powers or
habits bearing upon practice or upon art, and not to any
perfect condition of the intellect, considered in itself.
Wisdom, again, is certainly a more comprehensive word
than any other, but it has a direct relation to conduct,
and to hun1an life. Kno\vledge, indeed, and Science
express purely intellectual ideas, but still not a state
or quality of the intellect; for knowledge, in its ordinary
sense, is but one of its circumstances, denoting a posses-
sion or a habit; and science has been appropriated to
the subject-matter of the intellect, instead of belonging
jn English, as it ought to do. to the intellect itself. The

Knowledgè viewed in Rela/ion to Lea
níng. t 25

consequence is that, on an occasion like this, many words
are necessary, in order, first, to bring out and convey
what surely is no difficult idea in itself,-that of the
cultivation of the intellect as an end; next, in order to
recommend what surely is no unreasonable object; and
lastly, to describe and make the mind realize the particular
perfection in \vhich that object consists. Every one
kno\\rs practically what are the constituents of health or
of virtue; and everyone recognizes health and virtue as
ends to be pursued; it is otherwise \vith intellectual
excel1ence, and this must be my excuse, if I seem to
anyone to be besto\ving a good deal of labour on
a preliminary matter.
In default of a recognized term, I have called the
perfection or virtue of the intellect by the name of philo-
sophy, philosophical knowledge, enlargement of mind,
or illumination; terms which are not uncommonly given
to it by writers of this day: but, ,vhatevcr name ,ve
bestow on it, it is, I believe, as a matter of histor
., the
business of a University to make this intellectual culture
its direct scope, or to employ itself in the education of
the intellect,-just as the \vork of a Hospital lies in
healing the sick or wounded, of a Riding or Fencing
School, ::>r of a Gymnasium, in exercising the limbs, of
an Almshouse, in aiding and solacing the old, of an
Orphanage, in protecting innocence, of a Penitentiary,
in restoring the guilty. I say, a University, taken in its
bare idea, and before we view it as an instrument of the
Church, has this object and this mission; it contemplates
neither moral impression nor mechanical production; it
professes to exercise the mind neither in art nor in
duty; its function is intellectual culture; here it may
leave its scholars, and it has done its work when it
has done as nluch as this. It educates the intellect

126

Ðz.scourse VI.

to reason well in all matters, to reach out towards
truth, and to grasp it.

2.
This, I said in my foregoing Discourse, was the object
of a University, viewed in itself, and apart from the
Catholic Church, or from the State, or from any other
power which may use it ; and I illustrated this in various
ways. I said that the intellect must have an excellence
of its own, for there was nothing \vhich had net its
specific good; that the word "educate" would not be
used of intellectual culture, as it is used, had not the
intellect had an end of its o\vn; that, had it not such an
end, there would be no meaning in calling certain
intellectual exercises" liberal," in contrast with U useful,"
as is commonly done; that the very notion of a philo-
sophical temper implied it, for it threw us back upon
research and system as ends in themselves, distinct from
effects and ,yorks of any kind; that a philosophical
scheme of knowledge, or system of sciences, could not,
frorn the nature of the case, issue in anyone definite art
or pursuit, as its end; and that, on the other hand, the
discovery and contemplation of truth, to which research
and systematizing led, were surely sufficient ends, though
nothing beyond them were added, and that they had
ever been accounted sufficient by mankind.
Here then I take up the subject; and, having deter-
nlined that the cultivation of the intellect is an enò distinct
and sufficient in itself: and that, so far as words go it
is an enlargement or illumination, I proceed to inquire
what this mental breadth, or power, or light, or philo-
sophy consists in. A Hospital heals a broken linlb or
cures a fever: \vhat does an Institution effect, which
professes the health. not of the bod)', not of the soul.

Kno1.vledge viewed in Relation to Learning. 12 7
but of the intellect? What is this good, which in
former times, as well as our o\vn, has been found worth
the notice, the appropriation, of the Catholic Church?
I have then to investigate, in the Discourses which
follow, those qualities and characteristics of the intellect
in which its cultivation issues or rather consists; and,
with a view of assisting myself in this undertaking, I
shall recur to certain questions which have already been
touched upon. These questions are three: viz. the
relation of intellectual culture, first, to 1nere kno\vledge ;
secondly, to professiollal knowledge; and thirdly, to
religious knowledge. In other words, are acquire/nellts
and attainJ1z&llts the scope of a University Education?
or expertness ill particular arts and pursuits? or 11Zoral
alld religious projicient-Jl? or something besides these
three? 1'hese questions I shall examine in succession,
with the purpose I have mentioned; and I hope to be
excused, if, in this anxious undertaking, I am led to
repeat what, either in these Discourses or elsewhere, I
have already put upon paper. And first, of Mere
Knowledge, or Learning, and its connexion \vith intel-
lectual illulnination or Philosophy.

3.
I suppose the pril1zd-facie vie\v \vhich the public at
large would take of a University, considering it as a place
of Education, is nothing nlore or less than a place for
acquiring a great deal of kno\vledge on a great many
subjects. Men10ry is one of the first developed of the
mental faculties; a boy's business when he goes to
school is to learn, that is, to store up things in his
nlenlory. For some years his intellect is little more
than an instrument for taking in facts, or a receptacle for
storing them; he welcomes then1 as fast as they come to

128

Discourse VI.

him; he lives on what is \vithout; he has his eyes ever
about him; he has a lively susceptibility of irnpressions ;
he iInbibes information of every kind; and little does he
Inake his own in a true sense of the word, living rather
'Upon his neighbours aU around him. He has opinions,
religious, political, and literary, and, for a boy, is very
positive in them and sure about thenl ; but he gets thetn
from his schoolfellows, or his masters, or his parents, as
the case may be. Such as he is in his other relations,
such also is he in his school exercises; his mind is obser-
vant, sharp, ready, retentive j he is almost passive in the
acquisition of kno\vledge. I say this in no disparage-
ment of the idea of a clever boy. Geography, chronology,
history, language, natural history, he heaps up the matter
of these studies as treasures for a future day. It is the
se\'en years of plenty with him: he gathers in by hand-
fuls, like the Egyptians, \vithout counting j and though,
as time goes on, there is exercise for his argumentative
powers in the Elements of 1\1athematics, and for his
taste in the Poets and Orators, still, while at school, or
at least, till quite the last years of his time, he acquires,
and little more; and \vhen he is leaving for the Univer-
sity, he is mainly the creature of foreign influences and
circumstances, and made up of accidents, hotnogeneous
or not, as the case may be. l\1:oreover, the n10ral habits,
which are a boy's praise, encourage and assist this
result; that is, diligence, assiduity, regularity, despatch,
persevering application; for these are the direct conditions
of acquisition, and naturally lead to it. Acquirenlents,
again, are emphatically producible, and at a mOlnent;
they are a something to sho\v, both for master and
-scholar; an audience, even though ignorant themselves
-of the subjects of an examination, can comprehend
.\\yhen questions are ans\vered and \vhen they are not.

Knowledge viewed ill Relatioll to Learnz'ng. 129

IIere again is a reason why mental culture is in the minds
of men identified with the acquisition of knowledge.
The same notion possesses the public mind, when it
passes on from the thought of a school to that of a
University: and with the best of reasons so far as this,
that there is no true culture without acquirements, and
that philosophy presupposes kllowlellge. It requires a
great deal of reading, or a wide range of information, to
warrant us in putting forth our opinions on any serious
subject; and without such learning the most original
mind may be able indeed to dazzle, to amuse, to
refute, to perplex, but not to come to any useful result
or any trustworthy conclusion. There are indeed persons
\vho profess a different view of the matter, and even
act upon it. Every now and then you will find a
person of vigorous or fertile mind, \vho relies upon his
own resources, despises all former authors, and gives the
world, with the utmost fearlessness, his views upon
religion, or history, or any other popular subject. And
his works may sell for a while; he may get a name in
his day; but this will be all. His readers are sure to
find on the long run that his doctrines are mere theories,
and not the expression of facts, that they are chaff in-
stead of bread, and then his popularity drops as suddenly
as it rose.
Knowledge then is the indispensable condition of
expansion of mind, and the instrument of attaining to it ;
this cannot be denied, it is ever to be insisted on; I
begin with it as a first principle; however, the very truth
of it carries men too far, and confirms to them the notion
that it is the whole of the matter. A narrow mind is
thought to be that which contains little knowledge; and
an enlarged mind, that \vhich holds a great deal; and
what seems to put the matter beyond dispute is, the
9

'30

Discourse VI.

fact of the great number of studies \vhich are pursued
in a University, by its very profession. Lectures are
given on every kind of subject; examinations are held;
prizes awarded. There are moral, metaphysical, phy-
sical Professors; Professors of languages, of history,
of mathematics, of experimental science. Lists of ques-
tions are published, wonderful for their range and
depth, variety and difficulty; treatises are written, which
carry upon their very face the evidence of extensive
reading or multifarious information; what then is want-
ing for mental culture to a person of large reading and
scientific attainments? what is grasp of mind but ac-
quirement? where shall philosophical repose be found,
but in the consciousness and enjoyment of large intel-
lectual possessions?
And yet this notion is, I conceive, a mistake, and my
present business is to show that it is one, 'and that the end
of a Liberal Education is not mere kno\vledge, or know-
ledge considered in its matter,. and I shall best attain nIY
object, by actually setting down some cases, which will
be generally granted to be instances of the process of
enlightenment or enlargement of mind, and others \vhich
are not, and thus, by the comparison, you will be able
to judge for yourselves, Gentlemen, whether Kno\vledge,
that is, acquirement, is after all the real principle of the
enlargement, or whether that principle is not rather
something beyond it.

4-
For instance,. let a person, \vhose experience has
hitherto been confined to the more calm and unpretend-

* The pages which follow are taken almost v"batim from the author's
14 th (Oxford) University Sennon, which, at the time of writing this
Discourse, Q
d
d not expect ever to reprint.

Knowledge viewed in Relatzon to Lt;arning. 131

ing scenery of these islands, whether here or in England,
go for the first time into parts \vhere physical nature
puts on her wilder and more awful forms, whether at
home or abroad, as into mountainous districts; or let one,
who has ever lived in a quiet village, go for the first
time to a great metropolis,-then I suppose he will have
a sensation which perhaps he never had before. He has
a feeling not in addition or increase of former feelings,
but of something different in its nature. He will perhaps
be borne fOr\vard, and find for a time that he has lost his
bearings. He has made a certain progress, and he has
a consciousness of mental enlargement; he does not
stand where he did, he has a new centre, and a range of
thoughts to which he was before a stranger.
Again, the view of the heavens which the telescope
opens upon us, if allowed to fill and possess the mind,
may almost whirl it round and make it dizzy. It brings
in a flood of ideas, and is rightly called an intellectual
enlargement, whatever is meant by the term.
And so again, the sight of beasts of prey and other
foreign animals, their strangeness, the originality (if I
may use the term) of their forms and gestures and habits
and their variety and independence of each other, throw
us out of ourselves into another creation, and as if under
another Creator, if I may so express the temptation
which may come on the mind. We seem to have new
faculties, or a new exercise for our faculties, by this
addition to our knowledge; like a prisoner, who, having
been accustomed to wear manacles or fetters, suddenly
finds his arms and legs free.
Hence Physical Science generally, in all its depart-
tnents, as bringing before us the exuberant riches and
resources, yet the orderly course, of the Universe, elevates
and excites the student, and at first, I may say, almost

13 2

Discourse VI.

takes a\vay his breath, while in time it exercises a
tranquilizing influence upon him.
Again, the study of history is said to enlarge and
enlighten the mind, and why? because, as I conceive, it
gives it a power of judging of passing events, and of all
events, and a conscious superiority over them, ,vhich
before it did not possess.
And in like n1anner, what is called seeing the world,
entering into active life, going into society, travelling,
gaining acquaintance with the various classes of the
community, coming into contact with the principles and
nIcdes of thought of various parties, interests, and races,
their views, aims, habits and manners, their religious
creeds and forms of worship,-gaining experience how
various yet how alike n1en are, how low-minded, how
bad, how opposed, yet how confident in their opinions;
all this exerts a perceptible influence upon the mind,
\vhich it is Í111possible to mistake, be it good or be it
bad, and is popularly called its enlargement.
And then again, the first time the mind comes across
the argulnents and speculations of unbelievers, and feels
what a novel light they cast upon what he has hitherto
accounted sacred; and still more, if it gives in to them
and embraces them, and throws off as so much prejudice
what it has hitherto held, and, as if waking from a
dream, begins to realize to its imagination that there is
now no such thing as law and the transgression of law,
that sin is a phantom, and punishment a bugbear, that it
is free to sin, free to enjoy the world and the flesh; and
still further, when it does enjoy them, and reflects that
it may think and hold just what it will, that" the world
is all before it where to choose," and \vhat system to
build up as its own private persuasion; when this torrent
of wilful thoughts rushes over and inundates it, \vho \vill

Kno'lJJledge viewed in Relation to Learning. 133

deny that the fruit of the tree of knowledge, or what the
ß1ind takes for kno\vledge, has made it one of the gods,
with a sense of expansion and elevation,-an intoxication
in reality, still, so far as the subjective state of the mind
goes, an illumination? Hence the fanaticism of individuals
or nations, \vho suddenly cast off their Maker. Their eyes
are opened; and, like the judgment-stricken king in the
Tragedy, they see t\VO suns, and a magic universe, out of
\vhich they look back upon their former state of fa
th and
innocence with a sort of contempt and indignation, as if
they \vere then but fools, and the dupes of imposture.
On the other hand, Reli gi on ha s it s o\v n enlarg em
1

nd an enla rg ement, not of tumult, but of peace. It is
often remarked of uneducated persons, who have hitherto
thought little of the unseen \vorld, that, on their turning
to God, looking into themselves, regulating their hearts,
reforming their conduct, and meditating on death an
judgment, heaven and hell, they seem to become, i
point of intellect, different beings from \vhat they \vere.
Before, they took things as they came, and thought no
more of one thing than another. But now every event
has a meaning; they have their o\vn estimate of whatever
ha ppens to them; they are mindful of times and seasons,
and compare the present with the past; and the world.
no longer dull, monotonous, unprofitable, and hopeless,
is a various and complicated drama, with parts and an
object, and an awful moral.

5.
N ow from these instances, to \vhich many more might
be added, it is plain, first, that the communication of
knowledge certainly is either a condition or the means
of that sense of enlargement or enlightenment, of \vhich
at this day \ve hear so much in certain quarters: this

134

Ðz.scourSf VI.

cannot be denied; but next, it is equally plain, that such
comnlunication is not the whole of the process. The
enlargen1ent consists, not merely in the passive reception
into the mind of a number of ideas hitherto unknown to
it, but in the mind's energetic and simultaneous action
upon and towards and among those ne\v ideas, which are
rushing in upon it. It is the action of a formative power,
reducing to order and meaning the matter of our acquire-
nlents; it is a n1aking .the objects of our knowledge
subjectively our own, or, to use a familiar word, it is a
digestion of \vhat we receive, into the substance of our
previous state of thought; and without this no enlarge..
01ent is said to follow. T here is no enlargen1ent, unless _
there be a
parison of ideas one wit
aI
.o
er,

they
conle before the mind, and a systematizing- of thenl.
\Ve feel our minds to be growing and expanding theil,
when we not only learn, but refer what we learn to \vhat
we know already. It is not the mere addition to our
knowledge that is the illumination; but the locomotion,
the moven1ent onwards, of that mental centre, to which
both what \ve know, and what \ve are learning, the ac-
cun1ulating mass of our acquirements, gravitates. And
therefore a truly great intellect, and recognized to be
such by the common opinion of mankind, such as the
intellect of Aristotle, or of St. Thomas, or of N e\vton, or
of Goethe, (I purposely take instances within and with-
out the Catholic pale, when I would speak of the intellect
as such,) is one which takes a connected view of old and
new, past and present, far and near, and which has an
insight into the influence of all these one on another;
\\'ithout \vhich there is no whole, and no centre. It
possesses the knowledge, not only of things, but also oi
their mutual and true relations; knowledge, not merely
considered as acquirement, but as philosophy.

Knowledge vle1.t'ed Ù, Relation to Learning. 135

Accordingly, when this analytical, distributive, har-
monizing process is away, the mind experiences no
enlargement, and is not reckoned as enlightened or
comprehensive, whatever it may add to its kno\vledge.
For instance, a reat memo ,as I have alread said,
oes not make a p hiloso p her , an y more than a dictiona ry
can be called a grammar. There are men wþo
gl brace
in their min dLayast !1lJJlti tude
Cid easJ b u t with little
sensibili t y about their r e al relatio n_s towards e a ch otb.er .
These may be antiquarians, annalists, naturalists; they
n1ay be learned in the law; they may be versed in
statistics; they are most useful in their own place; I
should shrink from speaking disrespectfully of them;
still, there is nothing in such attainments to guara..D

t he abs e nce of
wness of mind. If -.!...h
y are nothin L
more than well-read men, or me n of informatio n , they
11 a ve no t what s p ecially dese rve
e D ame of culture of t
Inind, or fulfils the typ e of Liberal Edu cation.
In like manner, we sometin1es fall in with pe
sons who
have seen much of the world, and of the men who, in
their day, have played a conspicuous part in it, but who
generalize nothing, and have no observation, in the true
sense of the word. They abound in information in
detail, curious and entertaining, about men and things;
and, having lived under the influence of no very clear or
tq
settled principles, religious or political, they speak of .. '\!!J
every one and every thing, only as so many phenomena,
which are complete in themselves, and lead to nothing,
not discussing them, or teaching any truth, or instructin
the hearer, but simply talking. No one would say tha
these persons, well informed as they are, had attained to
any great culture of intellect or to philosophy.
The case is the same still more strikingly where the
persons in question are beyond dispute men of inferior

13 6

Ð,:SCOUYSf VI.

powers and deficient education. Perhaps they have
been nluch in foreign countries, and they receive, in a
passive, otiose, unfruitful way, the various facts which are
forced upon thenl there. Seafaring men, for example,
range fronl one end of the earth to the other; but the
multiplicity of external objects, which they have encoun-
tered, forms no symmetrical and consistent picture upon
their imagination; they see the tapestry of human life,
as it were on the wrong side, and it tells no story. They
sleep, Rnd they rise up, and they find themselves, now in
Europe, now in Asia; they see visions of great cities and
wild regions; they are in the marts of commerce, or amid
the islands of the South; they gaze on Pompey's Pillar,
or on the Andes; and nothing which meets thenl carries
thenl forward or backward, to any idea beyond itself.
Nothing has a d rift or relation ; nothing ha s a his tory
r
a promise. Every thing stands by itself, and comes and -
g oes i n Its turn, like the shifting scenes of a show, ,vhich
leave the spectator where he was. Perhaps you are near
such a man on a particular occasion, and expect him to
be shocked or perplexed at something which occurs;
but one thing is much the same to him as another, or, if
he is perplexed, it is as not knowing what to say, whether
it is right to admire, or to ridicule, or to disapprove,
\vhile conscious that some expression of opinion is ex-
pected fronl him; for in fact he has no standard of judg-
nlent at all, and no landmarks to guide hiIn to a conclu-
sion. Such is mere acquisition, and, I repeat, no one
would dream of calling it philosophy.

6.

Instances, such as these, confirm, by the contrast, the
conclusion I have already drawn from those which pre-
ceded them. That only is true enlar
enlent of n1Ï!ld

I{nowledge v'iewed Ùz Rø/alion to Learning. [37

\vhich is the power of viewing many things at once as

ne whole, of referring them severally to their true place
in the universal system, of understanding their respective
values, and determining- their mutual dependence. Thus
is that form of Universal Knowledge, of which I have on
a former occasion spoken, set up in the individual intel-
lect, and constitutes its perfection. Possessed of this
real illumination, the mind never views any part of the
extended subject-matter of Kno\vledge without recol-
lecting that it is but a part, or without the associations
which spring from this recollection. It makes every
thing in some sort lead to every thing else; . it would
communicate the image of the whole to every separate
portion, till that whole becomes in imagination like a
spirit, every where pervading and penetrating its com-
ponent parts, and giving them one definite meaning.
Just as our bodily organs, when mentioned, recall their
function in the body, as the word U creation" suggests
the Creator, and" subjects" a sovereign, so, in the mind
of the Philosopher, as we are abstractedly conceiving of
him, the elements of the physical and moral world,
sciences, arts, pursuits, ranks, offices, events, opinions,
individualities, are all viewed as one, with correlative
functions, and as gradually by successive combinations
converging, one and all, to the true centre.
To have even a portion of this illuminative reason and
true philosophy is the highest state to which nature can
aspire, in the way of intellect; it puts the mind above
the influences of chance and necessity, above anxiety,
suspense, unsettlement, and superstition, which is the lot
of the many. Men, whose minds are possessed with
some one object, take exaggerated views of its impor-
tance, are feverish in the pursuit of it, make it the
measure of things which are utterly foreign to it, and

138

D,scourse VI.

8.

are startled and despond if it happens to fail them.
They are ever in alarm or in transport. Those on the
other hand who have no object or principle whatever to
hold by, lose their way, every step they take. They are
thrown out, and do nbt know what to think or say, at
every fresh juncture; they have no vie\v of persons, or
occurrences, or facts, which come suddenly upon them,
and they hang upon the opinion of others, for want of
internal resources. But the intellect, which has been
disciplined to the perfection of its powers, which knows,
and thinks \vhile it knows, which has learned to leaven
the dense mass of facts and events with the elastic force
of reason, such an intellect cannot be partial, cannot be
exclusive, cannot be impetuous, cannot be at a loss, cannot
but be patient, collected, and majestically calm, because it
discerns the end in every beginning, the origin in every
end, the law in every interruption, the limit in each delay;
because it ever knows where it stands, and how its path lies
from one point to another. It is the TfTpá'Ywvo!; of the
Peripatetic, and has the" nil admirari " of the Stoic,-

Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
Atque metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari.

There are men who, when in difficulties, originate at the
nloment vast ideas or dazzling projects; who, under the
influence of excitement, are able to cast a light, almost
as if from inspiration, on a subject or course of action
which comes before them; who have a sudden presence
of mind equal to any emergency, rising \vith the occasion,
and an undaunted magnanimous bearing, and an energy
and keenness which is but made intense by opposition.
This is genius, this is heroism; it is the exhibition of a
natural gift, which no culture can teach, at which no

.A:nowledge viewed in Relation to Learning. 139

Institution can aim; here, on the contrary, we are con-
cerned, not with mere nature, but with training and
teaching. That perfection of the Intellect, which is the
result of Education, and its beau ideal, to be imparted
to individuals in their respective measures, is the clear,
caln1, accurate vision and comprehension of all things,
as far as the finite mind can embrace them, each in its
place, and with its own characteristics upon it. It is
almost prophetic from its knowledge of history; it is
almost heart-searching from its knowledge of human ' .fJ.
nature; it has almost supernatural charity frorn its
freedom from littleness and prejudice; it has almost the
repose of faith, because nothing can startle it; it has
alnlost the beauty and harmony of heavenly contern-
plat ion, so intimate is it with the eternal order of things
and the n1usic of the spheres.

7.
And now, if I may take for granted that the true and
adequate end of intellectual training and of a University
is not Learning or Acquirement, but rather, is Thought
or Reason exercised upon Kno\vledge, or what may be
called Philosophy, I shall be in a position to explain the
various mistakes which at the present day beset the
subject of University Education.
I say then, if we would improve the intellect, first of
all, we must ascend; we cannot gain real knowledge on
a level; we must generalize, we must reduce to method,
we must have a grasp of principles, and group and shape
our acquisitions by means of them. It matters not
whether our field of operation be wide or limited; in
every case, to command it, is to mount above it. Who 4""./;).
has not felt the irritation of mind and impatience
created by a deep, rich cOl!ntry, visited for the first tiIne.

14 0

DiscouYJe VI.

with winding lanes, and high hedges, and green steeps, .
and tangled \voods, and every thing smiling indeed, but
in a Inaze? The san1e feeling COInes upon us in a strange
city, when we have no map of its streets. Hence you
hear of practised travellers, when they first come into a
place, mounting some high hill or church tower, by way
of reconnoitring its neighbourhood. In like manner, you
nurst be above your knowledge, not under it, or it will
oppress you; and the more you have of it, the greater
will be the load. The learning of a Salmasius or a
Burman, unless you are its n1aster, will be your tyrant.
" Imperat aut servit ;" if you can wield it with a strong
arm, it is a great weapon; otherwise,

Vis consili expers
!\1ole ruit suâ.

. You will be overwhelmed, like Tarpeia, by the heavy
\vealth which you have exacted fronl tributary
generations.
Instances abound; there are authors who are as
pointless as they are inexhaustible in their literary
resources. They measure knowledge by bulk, as it lies
in the rude block, without symmetry, without design.
How many commentators are there on the Classics, how
tnany on Holy Scripture, from whom \ve rise up, won-
dering at the learning which has passed before us, and
wondering why it passed! How many writers are there
of Ecclesiastical History, such as Mosheim or Du Pin,
who, breaking up their subj ect into, details, destroy its
life, and defraud us of the whole by their anxiety about
the parts I The Sermons, again, of the English Divines
in the seventeenth century, how often are they mere
repertories of miscellaneous and officious learning! Of
course Catholics also may read-\vithout thinking; and

Knowledge v'iewed tn Relalton to Learning. 14 I

in their case, equally as with Protestants, it holds good,
that such knowledge is unworthy of the name, knowledge
which they have not thought through, and thought out.
Such readers are only possessed by their knowledge, not
possessed of it; nay, in matter of fact they are often
even carried away by it, without any volition of their
own. Recollect, the Memory can tyrannize, as well as
the Imagination. Deran
ement, I believe, has been
considered :I
:I lo

of control over the
equence of
ideas. 1 0 he mind, once set in motion, is henceforth
deprived of the power of initiation, and becomes the
victiln of a train of associations, one thought suggesting
another, in the way of cause and effect, as if by a
nlechanical process, or some physical necessity. No
one , who has had ex p erience of men of studious habits.
but must reco e- nize the existence of a 'parallel p he-
nomenon in the case of those who have over-stimulated
the Memory. In such p ersons Reason acts almost as
feebl y and as im p otentl y as in the madnlan ; once fairly
started on an y sub j ect whatever, the y have no po\ver 0
self-control; they p assivel y eI1d
_the_ su
ss ion ...Q..
impulses which are evolved out of the ori g inal excitin
cause ; the y are passed on fron1 one idea to an oth er and
go steadily forwar d, plodd I ng al on g one line of thou-ßQ.t
- ill s p ite oT the am p Ies concession8-QÍ th e h earer, or wan-
dering from it in endless digression in s p i t e of his remon-
strances. N O\V, if, as is very certaJn .JJo_o
uld envy th

adman the glow and ori ginali ty of his conceptions, wh i
must we extol the cultivatiÕÏÏÕf t hat inte Ïl ect, whic h is
the prey, not indeèd of barren fancies but of barren fact

of random intrusions from wi t!!
ut, though not of n10rb id
inlaginations from within? And in thus speaking, I alll
not denying that a strong and ready memory is in itself
a real' treasure; I am not disparaging a well-stored

l.-1- 2

DtSCOurSl VI.

mind, though it be nothing besides, provided it be sober,
any more than I would despise a bookseller's shop :-it
is of great value to others, even when not so to the
owner. Nor am I banishing, far from it, the possessors
of deep and multifarious learning from my ideal
University; they adorn it in the eyes of filen; I do but
say that they constitute no type of the results at which
it aims; that it is no great gain to the intellect to have
enlarged the memory at the expense of faculties \\.hich
are indisputably higher.

r.
,

8.
( Nor indeed am I supposing that there is any great
danger, at least in this day, of over-education; the danger
is on the other side. I will tell you, Gentlemen, what has
: been the practical error of the last twe
ty .years,-not to
load the memory of the student with a mass of undigested
knowledge, but to force upon him so much that he has
rejected all. I t has been the error of distracting and
enfeebling the mind by an unmeaning profusion of
subjects; of implying that a smattering in a dozen
branches of study is not shallowness, which it really is,
but enlargelnent, which it is not; of considering an ac-
q uaintance with the learned names of things and persons,
and the possession of clever duodecimos, and attendance
on eloquent lecturers, and membership \vith scientific in-
stitutions, and the sight of the experiments of a platform
and the specimens of a museum, that all this was not
dissipation of mind, but progress. All things now are to
be learned at once, not first one thing, then another, not
one well, but many badly. Learning is to be without
exertion, \vithout attention, without toil; without ground-
Ing, \vithout advance, without finishing. There is to be
\?-othing individual in it; and this J forsooth, is the wonder

Knowledge viewed t:n Relation to Learning. 143

of the age. What the steam engine does ,vith matter,
the printing press is to do with mind; it is to act
mechanically, and the population is to be passively, almost
unconsciously enlightened, by the mere multiplication
and dissemination of vol urnes. Whether it be the
school boy, or the school girl, or the youth at college,
or the mechanic in the town, or the politician in the
senate, all have been the victims in one way or other of
this most preposterous and pernicious of delusions.
W'
e rnpn h
vp Jiftpil up thpir voices in vain; and at
length, lest thpir own institutions should be outshone T
and should disappear in the folly of the hour. they have j
been obli ed as far as the could with a ood conscience I'
t o humo ur a s p irit which the y could not withstand, and
make temporizin
concessions at which they could not T
but inwardly smile._
I t must not be supposed that, because I so speak,
therefore I have some sort of fear of the education of the
people: on the contrary, the more education they have"
the better, so that it is really education. N or am I a ,
enemy to the cheap publication of scientific and literar
\vorks, which is now in vogue: on the contrary, I consider
it a great advantage, convenience, and gain; that is, to
those to whom education has given a capacity for using
them. Fufther, I consider such innocent recreations as
science and literature are able to furnish will be a very
fit occupation of the thoughts and the leisure of young
persons, and may be made the means of keeping them
fron1 bad employments and bad companions. Moreover,
as to that superficial acquaintance with chemistry, and
g-eology, and astronomy, and political economy, and
lTIodern history, and biography, and other branches of
knowledge, which periodical Ii terature and occasional
lectures and scientific institutions diffuse through the

144

Discourse VI.

comnlunity, I think it a graceful accomplishment) and
a suitable, nay, in this day a necessary accomplishment,
in the case of educated men. N or, lastly, am I dis-
paraging or discouraging the thorough acquisition of
anyone of these studies, or denying that, as far as it
goes, such thorough acquisition is a real education of
the mind. All I say is, call things by their right names)
and do not confuse together ideas which are essentially
different. A thorough knowled
e of one science and a
superficial acquaintance with many, are not the same
thing; a smattering of a hundred things or a memory
for detail, is not a philosophical or comprehensive view.
Recreations are not education; accomplishments are
not education. Do not say, the people ll1ust be edu-
cated, when, after all, you only mean, amused, refreshed,
soothed) put into good spirits and good humour, or kept
from vicious excesses. I do not say that such amuse-
nlents, such occupations of nlind, are not a great gain;
but they are not education. You nlayas well call draw-
ing and fencing education, as a general knowledge of
botany or conchology. Stuffing birds or playing stringed
instruments is an elegant pastime, and a resource to the
idle, but it is not education; it does not form or cultivate
the intellect. Education is a high word; it is the prepara-
tion for knowledge, and it is the imparting of knowledge
in proportion to that preparation. vVe require intellec-
tual eyes to kno\v withal, as bodily eyes for sight. We
need both objects and organs intellectual; we cannot
gain them without setting about it; we cannot gain
them in our sleep, or by hap-hazard. The best telescope
does not dispense with eyes; the printing press or the
lecture roonl \vill assist us greatly, but we must be true
to ourselves, we must be parties in the \vork. A Uni-
versity is, according to the uc;ual designation, an Alma

Knowledge viewed in Relation to Learning. 145

Mater, knowing her children one by one, not a foundry.;
or a mint, or a treadmill

9.
I protest to you, Gentlemen, that if I had to choose
between a so-called University, which dispensed with
residence and tutorial superintendence, and gave its
degrees to any person who passed an examination in a
,vide range of subjects, and a University which had no
professors or examinations at all, but merely brought a
number of young men together for three or four years,
and then sent them away as the University of Oxford is
said to have done some sixty years since, if I were asked
\vhich of these t\VO methods was the better discipline of
the intellect,-mind, I do not say which is morally the
better, for it is plain that compulsory study must be a
good and idleness an intolerable mischief,-but if J
must determine which of the two courses was the more
successful in training, moulding, enlarging the mind,
which sent out men the more fitted for their secular
duties, which pr09uced better public men, men of the
world, men whose names would descend to posterity, I
have no hesitation in giving the preference to that U ni-
versity which did nothing, over that which exacted of its
members an acquaintance with every science under the
sun. And. paradox as this may seem. still if results be
the test of systems, the influence of the pnnlir
rhools
and colleg-es of Rng-Iand, in the course of the last century,
....1t least ,vill bear out one side of the contrast as I have
dr2-wn it . What would come, on the other hand, of the

ideal systems of education which have fascinated the
itnagination of this age, could they ever take effect, and
whether they would not produce a generation frivolous,
narrow-minded, and resourceless, intellectually considered,
10

14 6

DÙ,courSf VI.

is a fair subject for debate; but so far is certain, that the
U niversities and scholastic establishments, to which I
refer, and which did little more than bring together first
þovs and then youths in large numbers! the
p institutions,
with miserable deformities on the side of morals, \\Tith a
[oHow profession of Christianity, and a heathen code
of ethics.-I say, at least they can boast of a succession
of heroes and statesmen, of literary men and philosophers,
of men cons2icuous for t';reat natural virtues, for habits
of busin
ssJ for knowledge of life. for practical iudg-ment,
fur cultivated tastes, for accomplishments, who have
made En
land what it is.-able to subdue the earth L
able to domineer over Catholics.
How is this to be explained? I suppose as follo\vs;
When a n1ultitude of young men, keen, open-hearted)
sympathetic, and observant, as young men are, come
together and freely mix with each other, they are sure
to learn one from another, even if there be no one to
teach them; the conversation of all is a series of lectures
to each, and they gain for themselves new ideas and
views, fresh matter of thought, and distinct principles
for judging and acting, day by day. An infant has to
learn the meaning of the information which its senses
convey to it, and this seems to be its employment. It
fancies all that the eye presents to it to be close to it,
till it actually learns the contrary, and thus by practice
does it ascertain the relations and uses of those first
elements of knowledge which are necessary for its
animal existence. A parallel teaching is necessary for
our social being, and it is secured by a large school or a
college; and this effect may be fairly called in its own
department an enlargement of mind. It is seeing the
world on a small field with little trouble; for the
pupils or students come from very different places, and

Kllo'lvledge v'iewed in Relation 10 LearninK' 147

with \videly different notions, and there is much to
generalize, much to adjust, n1uch to eliminate, there are
inter-relations to be defined, and conventional rules to
be established, in the process, by which the whole
assemblage is moulded together, and gains one tone and
one character.
Let it be clearly understood, I repeat it, that I am not
taking into account moral or religious considerations; I
am but saying that that youthful community \vill con-
stitute a whole, it will enlbody a specific idea, it will
represent a doctrine, it will administer a code of conduct,
and it will furnish principles of thought and action.. It
will give birth to a living teaching, which in course of
time will take the ))hape of a self-perpetuating tradition,
or a genius loci, as it is sometin1es called; which haunts
the home where it has been born, and which imbues and
forms, more or less: and one by one, every individual
who is successively brought under its shado\v. Thus it
is that, independent of direct instruction on the part of
Superiors, there is a sort of self-education in the academic
institutions of Protestant England; a characteristic tone
of thought, a recognized standard of judglnent is found
in them, which, as developed in the individual who is
su bmitted to it, becomes a twofold source of strength to
him, both fro In the distinct stamp it irnpresses on his
mind, and from the bond of unioa which it creates
between him and others,-effects which are shared by
the authorities of the place, for they themselves have
been educated in it, and at all times are exposed to the
influence of its ethical atmosphere. Here then is a real
teaching, whatever be its standards and principles, true
or false; and it at least tends towards cultivation of the
intellect; it at least recognizes that knowledge is some-
thing more than a sort of passive reception of scraps and

148

Discourse VI

details; it is a something, and it does a something, \vhich
never will issue from the most strenuous efforts of a set
of teachers, with no mutual sympathies and no inter-
communion, of a set of examiners with no opinions \vhich
they dare profess, and with no common principles. \vho
are teaching or questioning a set of youths who do not
know them, and do not know each other, on a large
number of subjects, different in kind, and connected by
no \vide philosophy, three tin1es a week, or three times a
year, or once in three years, in chill lecture-rooms or on
a pompous anniversary.

10.
Nay, self-education in any shape, in the most restricted
sense, is preferable to a system of teaching which, pro-
fessing so much, really does so little for the mind. Shut
your College gates against the votary of knowledge,
throw him back upon the searchings and the efforts of
his own mind; he \vill gain by being spared an entrance
intú your Babel. few indeed there are who can dis-
pense with the stinlulus and support of instructors. or
rwill do any thing at all, if left to themselves. And fewer
still (though such great minds are to be found), who
will not, from such unassisted attempts, contract a self-
reliance and a self-esteem, which are not only morai
evils, but serious hindrances to the attalnment of truth.
And next to none, perhaps, or none, who \vill not be
reminded from time to time of the disadvantage
under which they lie, by their imperfect grounding, by
the breaks, deficiencies, and irregularities of their know-
ledge, by the eccentricity of opinion and the confusion
of principle which they exhibit. They will be too often
ignorant of \vhat every one knows and takes for granted,
of that multitude of small truths \vhich fall upon the

Knowledge viewed in Relation to Learning. 149

mind like dust, impalpable and ever accumulating j they
may be unable to converse, they may argue perversely,
they may pride themselves on their worst paradoxes or
their grossest truisms, they may be full of their o\vn
mode of viewing things, unwilling to be put out of their
way, slow to enter into the minds of others i-but, with
these and whatever other liabilities upon their heads,
they are likely to have more thought, more mind, more
philosophy, more true enlargement, than those earnest
but ill-used persons, who are forced to load their minds
with a score of subjects against an examination, who
have too much on their hands to indulge themselves in
thinking or investigation, who devour premiss and con-
clusion together with indiscrinlinate greediness, who
hold whole sciences on faith, and commit demonstra-
tions to memory, and who too often, as might be ex-
pected, when their period of education is passed, throw
up all they have learned in disgust, having gained
nothing really by their anxious labours, except perhaps
the habit of application.
Yet such is the better specimen of the fruit of that
ambitious system which has of late years been making
way among us: for its resuit on ordinary minds, and on
the common run of students, is less satisfactory still;
they leave their place of education simply dissipated
and relaxed by the multiplicity of subjects, which they
have never really mastered, and so shallow as not even
to kno\v their shallowness. How much better, I say, is
it for the active and thoughtful intellect, where such is
to be found, to eschew the College and the University
altogether, than to submit to a drudgery so ignoble, a
mockery so contumelious! How much more profitable
for the independent mind, after the mere rudiments of
education, to range through a library at random, taking

15 0

Discourse VI.

do\vn books as they meet him, and pursuing the trains
of thought which his mother wit suggests! How much
healthier to wander into the fields, and there with the
exiled Prince to find " tongues in the trees, books in the
running brooks I" How much more genuine an educa-
tion is that of the poor boy in the Poem.-a Poem,
whether in conception or in execution, one of the most
touching in òur language-who, not in the wide world,
but ranging day by day around his widowed mother's
honle, U a dèxterous gleaner" in a narro\v field, and
with only such slender outfit

"as the village school and books a few
Supplied, "

contrived from the beach, and the quay, and the fisher's
boat, and the inn's fireside, and the tradesman's shop,
and the shepherd's walk, and the smuggler's hut, and
the mossy moor, and the screaming gulls, and the rest-
less waves, to fashion for himself a philosophy and a
poetry of his own I

But in a large subject, I am exceeding my necessary
linlits. Gentlemen, I must conclude abruptly; and
postpone any summing up of my argun1ent, should that
be necessary, to another day.

· Crabbe's Tales of the Hall. This Poem, let me say, I read on its
first publication, above thirty years ago, with extreme delight, and have
never lost my love of it ; and on taking it up lately, found I was even more
touched by it than heretofore. A work which can please in youth and age,
seems to fulfil (in logical language) the auid
ntal dØnitwn of a Classic.
r A further coone of twenty years has past, and I bear the same witne
in
favour of lhis Poem.J

15 1

DISCOURSE VII.

KNO\\LEDGE VIEWED IN RELATION TO PROFESSIONAL
SKILL.

I.

I HA VE been insisting, in my two preceding Dis-
courses, first, on the cultivation of the intellect, as
an end which may reasonably be pursued for its o\vn
hake; and next, on the nature of that cultivation, or
what that cultivation consists in. Truth of whatever
kind is the proper obj ect oLthe intelle.c t.;. its_ cultivation
'then lies in fitting it to apprehend and contem p lat

truth. Now the intellect in its present state, with
exceptions which need not here be specified, does not
discern truth intuitively, or as a whole. We know, not
by a direct and simple vision, not at a glance, but, as it
were, by piecemeal and accumulation, by a mental pro-
cess, by going round an object, by the comparison, the
combination, the mutual correction, the continual adap-
tation, of many partial notions, by the employment,
concentration, and joint action of n1any faculties and
exercises of nlind. Such a union and concert of the
intellectual powers, such an enlargement and develop-
ment, such a comprehensiveness, is necessarily a matter
of training. And again, such a training is a matter of
rule; it is not mere application, however exemplary,
which introduces the mind to truth, nor the leading

15 2

Disrourse VII.

many books, nor the getting up many subjects, nor the
witnessing many experiments, nor the attending many
lectures. All this is short of enough; a man may have
done it all, yet be lingering in the vestibule of know-
ledge :-he may not realize what his mouth utters; he
may not see with his mental eye what confronts him; he
n1ay have no grasp of things as they are; or at least he
may have no power at all of advancing one step forward
of himself, in consequence of what he has already ac-
quired, no power of discriminating between truth and
falsehood, of sifting out the grains of truth from the
mass, of arranging things according to their real value,
and, if I may use the phrase, of building up ideas.
Such a power is the result of a scientific formation of
n1ind; it is an acquired faculty of judgment, of clear-
sightedness, of sagacity, of wisdom, of philosophical
reach of mind, and of intellectual self-possession and
repose,-qualities which do not come of mere acquire-
ment. The bodily eye, the organ for apprehending
n1aterial objects, is provided by nature; the eye of the
mind, of which the object is truth, is the work of dis-
cipline and habit.
This process of traw.ing, _by_whic h the intellect,
instead of being fOTlned or sacri fi ced t2 _some_particuJ
r_
or accidental p
p ose , some speci fic trade or profession L
or s tudy or science, is disciplined for its own sak
io.r.
th
per ce ption of its own proper objeçtJ- and for its own
hig h est culture, is called Lib_era l Education 1_ and though
there is no one in whom it is carried as far as is con-
ceivable, or whose intellect would be a pattern of what
intellects should be made, yet there is scarcely anyone
but may gain an idea of what real training is, and at
least look towards it, and make its true scope and
result, not something else, his standard of excellence;

Knowledge and Professiònal Skill. 153

and numbers there are who may submit themselves to it,
and secure it to themselves in good measure. And to
set forth the right standard, and to train according to it,
and to help forward all students to\vards it according to
their various capacities, this I conceive to be the business
of a University.

2.
Now this is what some great men are very slow to
allow; they insist that Education should be confined to
some particular and narrow end, and should issue in
some definite work, which can be weighed and measured.
They argue as if every thing, as well as every person,
had its price; and that where there has been a great
outlay, they have a right to expect a return in kind.
This they call making Education and Instruction
"useful," and II Utility" becomes their watchword.
With a fundamental principle of this nature, they very
naturally go on to ask, what there is to show for the
expense of a University; what is the real worth in the
market of the article called "a Liberal Education," on
the supposition that it does not teach us definitely how
to advance our manufactures, or to improve our lands,
or to better our civil economy; or again, if it does not
at once make this man a la \vyer, that an engineer, and
that a surgeon; or at least if it does not lead to dis-
coveries in chemistry, astronomy, geology, magnetism,
and science of every kind.
1'his question, as might have been expected, has been
keenly debated in the present age, and formed one main
subject of the controversy, to which I referred in the
Introduction to the present Discourses. as having been
sustained in the first decade of this century by a cele-

rated Northern Review on the one hand, and defenders

154

Discourse VII.

of the University of Oxford on the other. Hardly had
the authorities of that ancient seat of learning, waking
from their long neglect, set on foot a plan for the edu-
cation of the youth con1mitted to them, than the repre-
sentatives of science and literature in the city, which
has sometimes been called the Northern Athens, remon-
strated, with their gravest arguments and their most
brilliant satire, against the direction and shape which
the reform was taking. Nothing \vould content them,
but that the University should be set to rights on the
basis of the philosophy of Utility; a philosophy, as
they seem to have thought, which needed but to be pro-
claimed in order to be embraced. In truth, they were
little aware of the depth and force of the principles on
which the academical authorities were proceeding, and,
this being so, it was not to be expected that they would
be allowed to walk at leisure over the field of contro-
versy which they had selected. Accordingly they \vere
encountered in behalf of the University by two men of
great name and influence in their day, of very different
minds, but united, as by Collegiate ties, so in the clear-
sighted and large view which they took of the whole
subject of Liberal Education; and the defence thus
provided for the Oxford studies has kept its ground to
this day.

3.
Let n1e be allowed to devote a few words to the
memory of distinguished persons, under the shadow of
whose name I once lived, and by whose doctrine I am now
prcfiting. In the heart of Oxford there is a small plot
of ground, hemmed in by public thoroughfares, which has
been the possession and the home of one Society for
above five hundred years. In the old time of Boniface
the Eighth and John the Twenty-second, in the age of

Know/edge and Professl:onal Skztl. 155

Scotus and Occam and Dante, before Wiclif or H uss had
kindled those miserable fires which are still raging to the
ruin of the highest interests of man, an unfortunate king
of England, Ed \vard the Second, flying from the field of
Bannockbum, is said to have made a vow to the Blessed
Virgin to found a religious house in her honour, if he
got back in safety. Prompted and aided by his
Almoner, he decided on placing this house in the city
of Alfred; and the Image of our Lady, which is oppo-
site its entrance-gate, is to this day the token of the
vow and its fulfilment. King and Almoner have long
been in the dust, and strangers have entered into their
inheritance, and their creed has been forgotten, and
their holy rites disowned; but day by day a memento is
still made in the holy Sacrifice by at least one Catholic
Priest, once a member of that College, for the souls
of those Catholic benefactors who fed him there for so
many years. The visitor, whose curiosity has been
excited by its present fame, gazes perhaps with some-
thing of disappointment on a collection of buildings
which have with them so few of the circumstances of
dignity or wealth. Broad quadrangles, high halls and
chambers, ornamented cloisters, stately walks, or um-
brageous gardens, a throng of students, ample revenues,
or a glorious history, none of these things were the
portion of that old Catholic foundation; nothing in
short which to the common eye sixty years ago would
have given tokens of what it was to be. But it had at
that time a spirit \vorking within it, which enabled its
inmates to do, amid its seeming insignificance, what no
other body in the place could equal; not a very abstruse
gift or extraordinary boast, but a rare one, the honest
purpose to administer the trust cOInmitted to them in
such a way as their conscience pointed out as best. So,

15 6

lJiscourse VII.

whereas the Colleges of Oxford are self-electing bodies,
the fellows in each perpetually filling up for themselves
the vacancies which occur in their number, the members
of this foundation determined, at a time when, either
from evil custom or fròm ancient statute, such a thing
was not known elsewhere, to throw open their fellow-
ships to the competition of all comers, and, in the choice
of associates henceforth, to cast to the winds every per-
sonal motive and feeling, family connexion, and friend-
ship, and patronage, and political interest, and local
claim, and prejudice, and party jealousy, and to elect
solely on public and patriotic grounds. Nay, with a
remarkable independence of mind, they resolved that
even the table of honours, awarded to literary merit by
the University in its new system of examination for
degrees, should not fetter their judgment as electors;
but that at all risks, and whatever criticism it might
cause, and whatever odium they might incur, they
would select the men, whoever they were, to be children
of their Founder, whom they thought in their consciences
to be most likely from their intellectual and moral
qualities to please him, if (as they expressed it) he were
still upon earth, most likely to do honour to his College,
most likely to promote the objects which they believed
he had at heart. Such persons did not promise to be
the disciples of a low Utilitarianism; and consequently,
as their collegiate reform synchronized with that reform
of the Academical body, in which they bore a principal
part, it was not unnatural that, when the storm broke
upon the University from the North, their Alma Mater,
whom they loved, should have found her first defenders
within the walls of that stnall College, which had first
put itself into a condition to be her champion.
These defenders, I have said, were two, of whom the

KllO'Wledge and Proflssz"onal Skill. I 57

more distinguished was the late Dr. Copleston, then a
Fello\v of the College, successively its Provost, and Pro-
testant Bishop of LlandatI In that Society, \vhich o,ves
so much to him, his name lives, and ever will live, for
the distinction which his talents bestowed on it, for the
academ:cal importance to which he raised it, for the
generosity of spirit, the liberality of sentiment, and the
kindness of heart, with which he adorned it, and which
even those who had least sympathy \vith some aspects
of his mind and character could not but admire and
love. Men conle to their meridian at various periods of
their lives; the last years of the eminent person lain
speaking of were given to duties which, I aln told, have
been the means of endearing him to numbers, but
\vhich afforded no scope for that peculiar vigour and
keenness of nlind which enabled him, when a young
nlan} single-handed, with easy gallantry, to encounter
and overthrow the charge of three giants of the North
combined against him. I believe I am right in saying
that, in the progress of the controversy, the Inost
scientific, the most critical, and the nlost witty, of that
literary con1pany, all of them now, as he himsel( re-
nloved from this visible scene, Professor PIa yfair, Lord
Jeffrey, and the Rev. Sydney Smith, threw together
their several efforts into one article of their Revie\v, in
order to crush and pound to dust the audacious contro-
vertist 'who had conle out against them in defence of
his o\vn Institutions. To have even contended" \vith
such men was a sufficient voucher for his ability, even
before \ve open his pamphlets, and have actual evidence
of the good sense, the spirit, the scholar-like taste, and
the purity of style, by which they are distinguished.
lIe ,vas supported in the controversy, on the same
general principles, but ,vith more of method and distinct-

15 8

Discourse VII.

ness, and, I will add, with greater force and beauty and
perfection, both of thought and of language, by the other
distinguished writer, to whom I have already referred,
Mr. Davison; who, though not so well known to the
world in his day, has left more behind him than the
Provost of Oriel, to make his name remembered by pos-
terity. This thoughtful man, who was the admired and
intimate friend of a very remarkable person, whom,
whether he wish it or not, numbers revere and love as
the first author of the subsequent movement in the Pro-
testant Church towards Catholicism,. this grave and
philosophical writer, whose works I can -never look into
\\'ithout sighing that such a man was lost to the Catholic
Church, as Dr. Butler before him, by some early bias or
sonle fault of self-education-he, in a review of a work
by Mr. Edgeworth on Professional Education, which
attracted a good deal of attention in its day, goes leisurely
over the same ground, which had already been rapidly
traversed by Dr. Copleston, and, though professedly em-
ployed upon Mr. Edgeworth, is really replying to the
northern Cl itic who had brought that writer's work into
notice, and to a far greater author than either of theIn,
who in a past age had argued on the same side.

4-
The author to whom I allude is no other than Locke.
That celebrated philosopher has preceded the Edinburgh
Reviewers in condemning the ordinary subjects in which
boys are instructed at school, on the ground that they
are not needed by them in after life; and before quoting
what his disciples have said in the present century, I
will refer to a few passages of the master. u'Tis matter
*
1r. KeLle, Vicar of Bursley, late Fellow of Oriel, and Professor ot
Poetry in the University of Oxford.

Knowledgt and Profissional Skill. 159

of astonishment," he says in his work on Education,
It that (nen of quality and parts should suffer themselves
to be so far misled by custom and implicit faith. Reason J
if consulted with, would advise, that their children's time
should be spent in acquiring what might be useful to
them, when they come to be men, rather than that their
heads should be stuffed with a deal of trash, a great part

rhereof they usually never do ('tis certain they never
need to) think on again as long as they live; and so
much of it as does stick by them they are only the
worse for."
And so again, speaking of verse-lnaking, he says, " I
know not what reason a father can have to wish his son
a poet, who does not desire him to bid defiance to all
other callings and business,. which is not yet the worst
of the case; for, if he proves a successful rhymer, and
gets once the reputation of a wit, 1 desire it to be con-
sidered, \vhat company and places he is likely to spend
his time in, nay, and estate too; for it is very seldom
seen that anyone discovers ?!lines of gold or silver in
Par1zassus. 'Tis a pleasant air, but a barren soil:'
In another passage he distinctly limits utility in edu-
cation to its bearing on the future profession or trade of
the pupil, that is, he scorns the idea of any education of
the intellect, simply as such. " Can there be any thing
more ridiculous," he asks, "than that a father should
waste his own money, and his son's time, in setting him
to learn the R01Jlall language, \vhen at the same time he
designs him for a trade, wherein he, having no use of
Latin, fails not to forget that little which he brought
from school, and which 'tis ten to one he abhors for the
ill-usage it procured him? Could it be believed, unless
,\'e have every where amongst us examples of it, that a
. 'hild should be forced to learn the rudiments of a

160

Discourse VII.

language, which he t"s llC'ver to use in tlte course of life tltat
he t"s designed to, and neglect all the while the writing
a good hand, and casting accounts, which are of great
advantage in all conditions of life, and to most trades
indispensably necessary?" Nothing of course can be
more absurd than to neglect in education those matters
which are necessary for a boy's future calling; but the
tone of Locke's remarks evidently implies more than
this, and is condemnatory of any teaching which tends
to the general cultivation of the mind.
N ow to turn to his modern disciples. The study of
the Classics had been made the basis of the Oxford
education, in the reforms which I have spoken of, and
the Edinburgh Reviewers protested, after the Inanner
of Locke, that no good could come of a system which
was not based upon the principle of Utility.
" Classical Literature," they said, U is the great object
at Oxford. l\'Iany minds, so employed, have produced
many works and much fame in that department; but if
all liberal arts and sciences, useful to huttlan life, had
been taught there, if some had dedicated themselves to
chemistry, SOlne to mathe1natics, some to exþeri1nelltal
pllilosophy, and if e'llcry attainment had been honoured in
the mixt ratio of its difficulty and utility, the system of
such a U'J1iversity would have been much more valuable,
but the splendour of its name something less."
Utility may be made the end of education, in two
respects: either as regards the individual educated, or the
community at large. In which light do these writers
regard it? in the latter. So far they differ from Locke,
for they consider the advancement of science as the
supreme and real end of a University. This is brought
into view in the sentences which foHow.
"\Vhen a 1J niversity has been doing useless things for

Itllow/edge and Profissiollal Skill. 161

a long time, it appears at first degrading to them to be
useful. A set of Lectures on Political Economy would
be discouraged in Oxford, probably despised, probably
not permitted. To discuss the inclosure of commons,
and to dwell upon imports and exports, to come so near
to common life, would seem to be undignified and con-
temptible. In the same manner, the Parr or the Bentley
of the day would be scandalized, in a University, to be
put on a level with the discoverer of a neutral salt; and
yet, what other measure is Illere of dignity ill 'Ùztellectua!
labour but usefulness? And ,vhat ought the term
University to mean, but a place ,vhere every science
is taught which is liberal, and at the same time useful
to' mankind? Nothing would so much tend to bring
classical literature ,vithin proper bounds as a steady and
in
'ariable appeal to utt"!Üy in our appreciation of all
human knowledge. . . . Looking always to real utility
as our guide, we should see, with equal pleasure, a
studious and inquisitive mind arranging the produc-
tions of nature, investigating the qualities of bodies, or
mastering the difficulties of the learned languages. We
should not care whether he was chemist, naturalist, or
scholar, because we know it to be as 1zecessary that
matter should be studied and subdued to the use oj
'nan, as that taste should be gratified, and imagination
inflan1ed."
Such then is the enunciation, as far as words go, of the
theory of Utility in Education; and both on its own
account, and for the sake of the able men \vho have
advocated it, it has a claim on the attention of those
\vhose principles I am here representing. Certainly it is
specious to contend that nothing is \vorth pursuing but
\vhat is useful; and that life is not long enough to ex-
pend upon interesting, or curious, or brilliant trifles.
II

162

Discourse VII.

Nay, in one sense, I will grant it is more than specious,
it is true; but, if so, how do I propose directly to meet
the objection? Why, Gentlemen, I have really met it
already, viz., in laying down, that intellectual culture is
its own end; for what- has its end in itself, has its use in
itself also. I say, if a Liberal Education consists in the
culture of the intellect, and if that culture be in itself a
good, here, without going further, is an answer to Locke's
question; for if a healthy body is a good in itself, why
is not a healthy intellect l and if a College of Physicians
is a useful institution, because it contenlplates bodily
health, why is not an Academical Body, though it were
simply and solely engaged in inlparting vigour and
beauty and grasp to the intellectual portion of our
nature? And the Reviewers I am quoting seem to
allo\v this in their better moments, in a passage which,
putting aside the question of its justice in fact, is sound
and true in the principles to which it appeals :-
H The present state of classical education," they say,
"cultivates the. Ùnagination a great deal too much,
and other habits of mind a great deal too little, and
trains up many young men in a style of elegant imbe-
cility, utterly unworthy of the talents with which nature
has endowed them. . . . The matter of fact is, that a
classical scholar of twenty-three or twenty-four is a man
principally conversant with works of imagination. His
feelings are quick, his fancy lively, ånd his taste good.
Talents for speculation and orig'inal Í1lquir)' he has none,
nor has he formed the invaluable habit of pushing things
up to their first principles, or of collecting dry and un-
alnusing facts as the nlaterials for reasoning. All the
solid and masculine parts of his understandi1lg are left
wholly without cultivation.; he hates the pain of thinking,
and suspects every man ,\\9hose boldness and originality

Kllowledge and Professional Skill. 16 3

call upon him to defend his opinions and prove his
assertions.1t

s.
Now, I am not at present concerned with the specific
question of classical education; else, I might reasonably
question the justice of calling an intellectual discipline,
which embraces the study of Aristotle, Thucydides, and
Tacitus, which involves Scholarship and Antiquities,
i11lagi1lative,. still so far I readily grant, that the culti-
vation of the" understanding," of a U talent for specu-
lation and original inquiry," and of "the habit of pushing
things up to their first principles," is a principal portion
of a good or liberal education. If then the Reviewers
consider such cultivation the characteristic of a useful
education, as they seem to do in the foregoing passage,
it follows, that what they mean by II useful" is just \vhat
I mean by II good" or fl liberal:" and Locke's question
becomes a verbal one. Whether youths are to be
taught Latin or verse-making will depend on the fact,
whether these studies tend to mental culture; but, how-
ever this is determined, so far is clear, that in that
mental culture consists what I have called a liberal or
non-professional, and what the Reviewers call a useful
education.
This is the obvious answer which may be made to
those who urge upon us the clain1s of Utility in our
plans of Education; but I am not going to leave the
subject here: I mean to take a \vider view of it. Let
us take U useful," as Locke takes it, in its proper and
popular sense, and then we enter upon a large field of
thought, to which I cannot do justice in one Discourse,
though to-day's is all the space that I can give to it. I
say, let us take "useful" to meaQ, not what is simply

16 4

Discourse
'lI.

good, but what tellds to good, or is the Ì11stru111ellt of
good; and in this sense also, Gentlemen, I will show
you how a liberal education is truly and fully a useful,
though it be not a (>rofessional, education. ,( Good"
indeed means one thing, and U useful" n1eans another;
but I lay it down as a principle, which \vill save us a
great deal of anxiety, that, though the useful is not
always good, the good is always useful. Good is not
only good, but reproductive of good; this is one of its
attributes; nothing is excellent, beautiful, perfect, desir-
able for its o\vn sake, but it overflows, and spreads the
likeness of itself all around it. Good is prolific; it is
not only good to the eye, but to the taste; it not only
attracts us, but it communicates itself; it excites first
our admiration and love, then our desire and our grati-
tude, and that, in proportion to its intenseness and
f ulness in particular instances. A great good will im-
part great good. If then the intellect is so excellent a
portion of us, and its cultivation so excellent, it is not
only beautiful, perfect, admirable, and noble in itself,
but in a true and high sense it must be useful to the
possessor and to all around him; not useful in any low,
mechanical, mercantile sense, but as diffusing good, or
as a blessing, or a gift, or power, or a treasure, first to
the owner, then through him to the world. I say then,
if a liberal education be good, it must necessarily be
useful too.

6.
You \vil1 see \vhat I ßlean by the paraIlel of bodily
health. Health is a good in itself, though nothing caIne
of it, and is especially ,\\rorth seeking and cherishing;
yet, after all, the blessings which attend its presence are
so great, while they are so close to it and so redound

Knowledge and Profissional Skill. 165

.
back upon it and encircle it, that \ve never think of it
except as useful as \vell as good, and praisè and prize it
for what it does, as well as for what it is, though at the
same time we cannot point out any definite and distinct
work or production which it can be said to effect. And
so as regards intellectual culture, I am far from denying
utility in this large sense as the end of Education, when
I lay it do\vn, that the culture of the intellect is a good
in itself and its own end; I do not exclude from the
idea of intellectual culture what it cannot but be, from
the very nature of things; I only deny that we must be
able to point out, before we have any right to call it
useful, some art, or business, or profession, or trade, or
work, as resulting from it, and as its real and conlplete
end. The parallel is exact :-As the body may be
sacrificed to some manual or other toil, whether lllode-
rate or oppressive, so may the intellect be devoted to
some specific profession; and I do not call tkis the culture
of the intellect. Again, as saine member or organ of
the body may be inordinately used and developed, so
may menlory, or imagination, or the reasoning faculty;
and this again is not intellectual culture. On the other
hand, as the body may be tended, cherished, and exer-
cised with a simple vie\v to its general health, so may
the intellect also be generally e}Çercised in order to its
perfect state; and this is its cultivation.
Again, as health ought to precede labour of the body,
and as a man in health can do \vhat an unhealthy man
cannot do, and as of this health the properties are
strength, energy, agility, graceful carriage and action,
manual dexterity, and endurance of fatigue, so in like
nlanner general culture of mind is the best aid to pro-
fessional and scientific study, and educated nlen can do
what illiterate cannot j and the man who has learned to

/(
.

166

Discourse VII.

,
.

.
tJ1ink and to reason and to con1pare and to discriminate
and to analyze, who has refined his taste, and formed his
judgment, and sharpened his mental vision, will not in-
deed at once be a lawyer, or a pleader, or an orator, or
a statesman, or a physician, or a good landlord, or a
man of business, or a soldier, or an engineer, or a
chemist, or a geologist, or an antiquarian, but he will be
placed in that state of intellect in \vhich he can take up
anyone of the sciences or callings I have referred to, or
any other for \vhich he has a taste or special talent, with
an ease, a grace, a versatility, and a success, to which
another is a stranger. In this sense then, and as yet I
have said but a very few words on a large subject, mental
culture is emphatically useful.
If then I am arguing, and shall argue, against Profes-
sional or Scientific kno\vledge as the sufficient end of a
University Education, let me not be supposed, Gentle-
men, to be disrespectful towards particular studies, or
arts, or vocations, and those who are engaged in them.
In saying that Law or Medicine is not the end of a
University course, I do not mean to imply that the
University does not teach Law or Medicine. What in-
deed can it teach at all, if it does not teach something
particular? It teaches all knowledge by teaching all
branches of knowledge, and in no other way. I do but
say that there \vill be this distinction as regards a Pro-
fessor of Law, or of Medicine, or of Geology, or of
Political Economy, in a University and out of it, that
out of a University he is in danger of being absorbed
and narrowed by his pursuit, and of giving Lectures which
are the Lectures of nothing n10re than a lawyer, physi-
cian, geologist, or political economist; \vhereas in a U ni-
versity he \vill just know where he and his science stand,
he has come to it, as it were, from a height, he has taken

Kllowledgt and Profiss'lonal SÆtïl. 16 7

a survey of all knowledge, he is kept [rotn extravagance
by the very rivalry of other studies, he has gained from
them a special illumination and largeness of mind and
freedom and self-possession, and he treats his o\vn in con-
sequence \vith a philosophy and a resource, \vhich belongs
not to the study itself, but to his liberal education.
This then is how I should solve the fallacy, for so I
must call it, by which Locke and his disciples would
frighten us fronl cultivating the intellect, under the notion
that no education is useful which does not teach us some
tenlporal calling, or some mechanical art, or some phy-
sical secret. I say that a cultivated intellect, because it
is a good in itself, brings with it a power and a grace
to every work and occupation which it undertakes, and
enables us to be more useful, and to a greater number.
-[here is a duty we o\ve to human society as such, to the
state to which we belong, to the sphere in which we
move, to the individuals towards whom we are variously
related, and \vhom we successively encounter in life;
and that philosophical or liberal education, as I have
called it, which is the proper function of a University, if
it refuses the foremost place to professional interests,
does but postpone them to the formation of the citizen,
and, while it subserves the larger interests of philan-
thropy, prepares also for the successful prosecution of
those merely personal objects, which at first sight it
seems to disparage.

7.
And now, Gentlemen, I wish to be allowed to enforce
in detail what I have been saying, by some extracts
from the writings to which I have already alluded, and to
which I am so greatly indebted.
" It is an undisputed maxim in Political Economy,"

168

Discourse VII.

says Dr. Copleston, H that the separation of professions
and the division of labour tend to the perfection of
every art, to the wealth of nations, to the general com-
fort and well-being of the community. This principle
of division is in sorne.instances pursued so far as to
excite the \vonder of people to whose notice it is for the
first time pointed out. There is no saying to what ex-
tent it may not be carried; and the more the powers of
each individual are concentrated in one emploYlnent, the
greater skill and quickness \vill he naturally display in
performing it. But, \vhile he thus contributes nlore
effectually to the accumulation of national wealth, he
becolnes himself more and more degraded as a rational
being. In proportion as his sphere of action is narrowed
his Inental powers and habits become contracted; and
he resen1bles a subordinate part of sonle po\verful Ina-
chinery, useful in its place, but insignificant and worth-
less out of it. If it be necessary, as it is beyond all
question necessary, that society should be split into
divisions and subdivisions, in order that its several duties
may be well performed, yet we must be careful not to
yield up ourselves wholly and exclusively to the guidance
of this system; \ve must observe what its evils are, and we
should modify and restrain it, by bringing into action
other principles, which may serve as a check and coun-
terpoise to the main force.
"There can be no doubt that every art is improved by
confining the professor of jt to that single study. But,
although tlte art itself is advanced by this cOllcentration oj
mind in t'ts service, the individual who is cOltjilled to -it
goes back. The advantage of the como1unity is nearly in
an inverse ratio \vith his own.
Ie Society itself requires some other contribution from
each individual, besides the particular duties of his

Knowledge and Professtollal Sktll. 16 9

profession. And, if no such liberal intercourse be estab-
lished, it is the common failing of human nature, to be
engrossed with petty views and interests, to underrate
the importance of all in \vhich we are not concerned, and
to carry our partial notions into cases where they are
inapplicable, to act, in short, as so many unconnected
units, displacing and repelling one another.
" In the cultivation of literature is found that common
link, which, among the higher and middling departments
of life, unites the jarring sects and subdivisions into one
interest, which supplies common topics, and kindles
comnlon feelings, unmixed with those narrow prej udices
\vith which all professions are more or less infected. The
knowledge, too, which is thus acquired, expands and
enlarges the mind, excites its faculties, and calls those
lio1bs and muscles into freer exercise which, by too
constant use in one direction, not only acquire an
illiberal air, but are apt also to lose some\vhat of their
native play and energy. And thus, without directly
qualifying a man for any of the employments of life, it
enriches and ennobles all. \Vithout teaching him the
peculiar business of anyone office or calling, it enables
him to act his part in each of them with better grace and
more elevated carriage; and, if happily planned and con-
ducted, is a main ingredient in that complete and
generous education which fits a man' to perform justly,
skilfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both private
and public, of peace and war.' "'if

8.
The view of Liberal Education, advocated in these
extracts, is expanded by Mr. Davison in the Essay to
\vhich I have already referred. He lays n10re stress on
· Vide Milton on Education.

170

Discourse VII.

the U usefulness" of Liberal Education in the larger sense
of the \vord than his predecessor in the controversy.
Instead of arguing that the Utility of kno\vledge to the
individual varies inversely with its Utility to the public,
he chiefly employs himself on the suggestions contained
in Dr. Copleston's last sentences. He shows, first, that
a Liberal Education is something far higher, even in
the scale of Utility, than \vhat is commonly called a
Useful Education, and next, that it is necessary or useful
for the purposes even of that Professional Education which
commonly engrosses the title of Useful. 'fhe former of
these two theses he recofi1mends to us in an argument
fronl \vhich the following passages are selected :-
II It is to take a very contracted view of life," he says,
"to think with great anxiety how persons may be
eùucated to superior skill in their department, corn para-
tively neglecting or excluding the more liberal and
enlarged cultivation. In his (rvlr. Edgeworth's) systenl,
the value of every attainment is to be measured by its
subserviency to a calling. The specific duties of that
calling are exalted at the cost of those free and indepen-
dent tastes and virtues \vhich come in to sustain the
common relations of society, and raise the individual in
theine In short, a man is to be usurped by his profession.
He is to be clothed in its garb from head to foot. His
virtues, his science, and his ideas are all to be put into a
go\vn or uniform, and the \vhole man to be shaped,
pressed, and stiffened, in the exact mould of his technica]
character. Any interloping accomplishments, or a faculty
which cannot be taken into public pay, if they are to be
indulged in him at all, must creep along under the cloak
of his more serviceable privileged merits. Such is the
state of perfection to which the spirit and general ten-
dency of this system \vould lead us.

Kno'lvledge and Prifessional Sk'ill. 17 I

"But the professional character is not the only one
which a person engaged in a profession has to support.
He is not always upon duty. There are services he owes,
,,'hich are neither parochial, nor forensic, nor military,
nor to be described by any such epithet of civil regulation,
and yet are in no ,vise inferior to those that bear these
authoritative titles; inferior neither in their intrinsic value,
nor their moral import, nor their impression upon society.
As a friend, as a companion, as a citizen at large; in
the connections of domestic life; in the improvement and
embellishment of his leisure, he has a sphere of action,
,.evolving, if you please, within the sphere of his profes-
sion, but not clashing with it; in which if he can show
none of the advantages of an improved understanding,
whatever n1a y be his skill or proficiency in the other, he
is no more than an ill-educated man.
" There is a certain faculty in which all nations of any
refinement are great practitioners. It is not taught at
school or college as a distinct science; though it deserves
-that what is taught there should be Inade to have some
reference to it; nor is it endowed at all by the public;
everybody being obliged to exercise it for himself in
person, which he does to the best of his skill. But in
nothing is there a greater difference than in the manner
of doing it. The advocates of professional learning will
smile \vhen we tell them that this sanle faculty which we
would have encouraged, is sin1ply that of speaking good
sense in English, without fee or re\vard, in common con-
versation. They will smile when we lay some stress
upon it; but in reality it is no sùch trifle as they
imagine. Look into the huts of savages, and see, for
there is nothing to listen to, the dismal blank of their
stupid hours of silence; their professional avocations of
war and hunting are over; and, having nothing to do,

17 2

Discourse VII

they have nothing to say. Turn to inlproved life, and you
find conversation in all its forms the nlediuffi of some-
thing more than àn idle pleasure; indeed, a very active
agent in circulating and forming the opinions, tastes, and
feelings of a whole peöple. It makes of itself a con-
siderable affair. Its topics are the most promiscuous-
all those \vhich do not belong to any particular province.
As for its power and influence, ,ve may fairly say that it
is of just the same consequence to a man's imlnediate
society, how he talks, as how he acts. N ow of all those
who furnish their share to rational conversation, a mere
adept in his own art is universally admitted to be the
worst. The sterility and uninstructiveness of such a
person's social hours are quite proverbial. Or if he
escape being dull, it is only by launching into ill-titned.
learned loquacity. We do not desire of hÎIn lectures or
speeches; and he has nothing else to give. Arllong
benches he may be po\verful; but seated on a chair he
is quite another person. On the other hand, \ve may
affirm, that one of the best companions is a man who,
to the accuracy and research of a profession, has joined
a free excursive acquaintance with various learning, and
caught from it the spirit of general observation."

9.
Having thus shown that a liberal education is a real
benefit to the subjects of it, as members of society, in the
various duties and circumstances and accidents of life,
he goes on, in the next place, to show that, over and
above those direct services which nlight fairly be ex-
pected of it, it actually subserves the discharge of those
particular functions, and the pursuit of those particular
advantages, which are connected with professional exer-
tion, and to which Professional Education is directed.

Knowledge and Profissional Skill. 173

Ie We adnlit,J' he observes, "that \vhen a person makes
a business of one pursuit, he is in the right way to emî-
nence in it; and that divided attention \vill rarely give
excellence in many. But our assent will go no further.
For, to think tilat the way to prepare a person for excel-
ling in anyone pursuit (and that is the only point in
hand), is to fetter his early studies, and cramp the first
development of his mind, by a reference to the exigencies
of that pursuit barely, is a very different notion, and one
which, we apprehend, deserves to be exploded' rather than
received. Possibly a fe\v of the abstract, insulated kinds
of learning might be approached in that way. The ex-
ceptions to be made are very few, and need not be
recited. But for the acquisition of professional and
practical ability such maxims are death to it. The
nlain ingredients of that ability are requisite knowledge
and cultivated faculties; but, of the two, the 12.tter is by
far the chief. A man of \vell improved faculties has the
command of another's knowledge. A man without thell1,
has not the cOßlmand of his own.
"Of the intellectual powers, the judgment is that which
takes the foremost lead in life. How to form it to the
two habits it ought to possess, of exactness and vigour, is
the problenl. It would be ignorant presulnption so
much as to hint at any routine of method by which
these qualities may with certainty be imparted to every
or any understanding. Still, however, we may safely
lay it down that they are not to be got 'by a gatherer of
silnples,' but are the cOlnbined essence and extracts of
ßlany different things, dra\vn from much varied reading
and discipline, first, and observation aftenvards. For if
there be a single intelligible point on this head, it is that
a 11lan \vho has been trained to think upon one subject
or for one subject only, will never be a good judge even

174

Discourse VII.

in that one: whereas the enlargement of his circle gives
him increased knowledge and power in a rapidly in-
creasing ratio. So much do ideas act, not as solitary
units, but by grouping and combination; and so clearly
do all the things that fall within the proper province of
the same faculty of the mind, intertwine with and support
each other. Judgment lives as it were by comparison
and discrimination. Can it be doubted, then, whether
the range and extent of that assemblage of things upon
\\'hich it is practised in its first essays are of use to its
po\ver ?
U To open our way a little further on this matter, we
\vill define what we mean by the po\ver of judgment;
and then try to ascertain anlong what kind of studies
the improvement of it may be expected at all.
1& Judgment does not stand here for a certain homely,
useful quality of intellect, that guards a person from
committing mistakes to the injury of his fortunes or
conlmon reputation; but for t hat master- p rinci p le of
business. literature, and t alent
which gives hi m stre ngtþ_
in any subject he chooses to g rap ple with, and e na bles
hitn to seize the stroll&" lJoÍ1zt in it.
Whether thIs definition
be metaphysically correct or not, it comes home to the
substance of our inquiry. It describes the po\\-er that
every one desires to possess when he comes to act in a
profession, or elsewhere; and corresponds with our best
idea of a cultivated mind.
U Next, it will not be denied, that in order to do any
good to the judgment, the mind must be employed
upon such subjects as come within the cognizance of
that faculty, and give some real exercise to its percep-
tions. Here we have a rule of selection by which the
different parts of learning nlay be classed for our purpose.
Those which belong to the province of the judgment

linowledge and Profissz.onal Skill. 175

are religion (in its evidences and interpretation), ethics,
history, eloquence, poetry, theories of general speculation,
the fine arts, and works of wit. Great as the variety of
these large divisions of learning may appear, they are all
held in union by two capital principles of connexion.
First, they are all quarried out of one and the same great
subject of man's moral, social, and feeling nature. And
secondly, they are all under the control (more or less
strict) of the same po\ver of moral reason."
II If these studies," he continues, II be such as give a
direct play and exercise to the faculty of the judgment,
then they are the true basis of education for the active
and inventive powers, whether destined for a profession
or any other use. Miscellaneous as the assemblage may
appear, of history, eloquence, poetry, ethics, etc., blended
together, they will all conspire in an union of effect.
They are necessary mutually to explain and interpret
each other. The knowledge derived from them all will
amalgamate, and the habits of a mind versed and
practised in them by turns will join to produce a richer
vein of thought and of more general and practical
application than could be obtained of any single one, as
the fusion of the metals into Corinthian brass gave the
artist his most ductile and perfect material. l\Iight we
venture to inlitate an author (whom indeed it is much
safer to take as an authority than to attempt to copy),
Lord Bacon, in some of his concise illustrations of the
con1parative utility of the different studies, we should
say that history \vould g-ive fulness, moral philoso I?

..?trength. and poetry elevation t o the understanding.
Such in reality is the natural force and tendency of the
studies; but there are few Ininds susceptible enough
to derive from them any sort of virtue adequate tú
those high expressions. We nlust be contented there-

176

Discourse VII.

fore to Io\ver our panegyric to this, that a person cannot
avoid receiving some infusion and tincture, at least, of
those several qualities, from that course of diversified
reading. One thing is unquestionable, that the elements
of general reason are Rot to be found fully and truly ex-.
pressed in anyone kind of study; and that he who 'would
wish to know her idiom, must read it in many books.
" If different studies are useful for aiding, they are still
more useful for correcting each other; for as they have
their particular merits severally, so they have their
defects, and the most extensive acquaintance \vith one
can produce only an intellect either too flashy or too
jejune, or infected \vith some other fault of confined
reading. History, for exam p le, shows t hings as they...ar

that is, the morals and interests of m en disfigured and
perve rted b y a ll their imperfectio ns of passion, folly, and
ãñ1bitioll ; p hiloso phy _strips the p ictur
t Q o mucþ i. po etry
adorns it too much; the concentrated l ig hts of the

correct the fa l
e
uliar colouri ng of each.
nd show us
the truth. The right mode of thinking upon it is to be
had fronl them taken all together, as everyone must
know who has seen their united contributions of thought
and feeling expres!Jed in the luasculine sentinlent of our
inlffiortal statesman, Mr. Burke, whose eloquence is
inferior on1y to his more admi rà ble wisdorn. If anx.
mind improved like his, is to be our instructor, we must

go to the fountain head of thin
s as he did, and stuùy:
n ot his works but his method; by th e one we m
'y"
become feeble imitators, ..Qy the other arrive at some
abilit y of our o\vn. But, as all biography assures us, he,

..---- .
and every other able thInker, has been fornled, not by
a parsinlonious adnlcasuremcnt of studies to some
definite future object (\vhich is J\1r. Edgeworth's maxinl),
but by taking a \vide and liberal compass, and thinking

Knowledge and Professional Skill. 177

a great deal on many subjects with no better end in
view than because the exercise \vas one which nlade
. them nlore rational and intelligent beings."

. :

10.
But I must bring these extracts to an end. To-da.y I
have confined myself to saying that that training of the
intellect, \vhich is best for the individual hilnself, best
enables him to discharge his duties to society. The
Philosopher, indeed, and the man of the \vorld difÜ
r in
their very notion, but the methods, by which they are re-
spectively formed, are pretty nluch the saIne. The Philoso-
pher has the same command of matters of thought, \vhich
the true citizen and gentleman has of nlatters of business
and conduct. If then a practical end must be assigned to a
University course, I say it is that of training good rnem-
bers of society. Its art is the art of social life, and its end is
fitness for the \vorld. It neither confines its vie\vs to parti-
cular professions on the one hand, nor creates heroes or
inspires genius on the other. Works indeed of genius fall
under no art; heroic minds come under no rule; a U niver-
sity is not a birthplace of poets or of immortal authors, of
founders of schools, leaders of colonies, or conquerors of
nations. It does not promise a generation of Aristotles or
Ne\vtons, of Napoleons or Washingtons, of Raphaels or ..Æ:h
Shakespeares, though such miracles of nature it has before · ü:
now contained within its precincts. Nor is it content on the
other hand with forming the critic or the experinlentalist,
the economist or the engineer, though such too it includes
within its scope. But a University training is the great
ordinary means to a great but ordinary end; it aims at
raising the intellectual tone of society, at cultivating the
public nlind, at purifying the national taste, at supplying
true principles to popular enthusiasm and fixed aims to
12

178

Disrourse 1 7 11.

popular aspiration, at giving enlargen1ent and sobriety to
the ideas of the age, at facilitating the exercise of political
power, and refining the intercourse of private life. I t is
the education \vhich gives a man a clear conscious vie\v
of his o,vn opinions and..judgn1ents, a truth in developing
them, an eloquence in expressing them, and a force in
urging them. It teaches him to see things as they are,
to go right to the point, to disentangle a skein of thought,
to detect what is sophistical, and to discard \vhat is irre-
levant. It prepares him to fi11 any post with credit, and
to Inaster any subject ,vith facility. It shows him how
}, to accommodate himself to others, how to throw himself
J VJj into their state of mind, ho\\' to bring before then1 his
I o\vn, how to influence then1, how to come to an under-
standing with them, how to bear \vith them. He is at
home in any society, he has common ground \vith every
\ class; he kno\vs when to speak and \vhen to be silent;
he is able to converse, he is able to listen; he can ask a
: question pertinently, and gain a lesson seasonably, when
I he has nothing to impart himself; he is ever ready, yet
, never in the \vay; he is a pleasant cOlupanion, and a
comrade you can depend upon; he kno\vs \\'hen to be
I serious and when to trifle, and he has a sure tact which
enables him to trifle \vith gracefulness and to be serious
with effect. I-Ie has the repose of a nlind which lives in
itself, while it lives in the \vorld, and which has resources
for its happiness at haole \vhcn it cannot go abroad. J-Ie
has a gift which serves him in public, and supports hin1
I in retiren1ent, \vithout which good fortune is but vulgar,
( and \vith \vhich failure and disappointtnent have a charnl.
The art \vhich tends to make a man all this, is in the
object which it pursues as useful as the art of wealth or the
\ art of health, though itjs less susceptible of nlethod, and
',less tangible, less certain. less conlplete in its result.

179

DISCOURSE VIII.

KNOWLEDGE VIEWED IN RELATION TO RELIGION.

I.

W E shall be brought, Gentlemen, to-day, to the
termination of the investigation \vhich I corll-
menced three Discourses back, and which, I \vas \vell
aware, from its length, if for no other reason, ,vould make
demands upon the patience even of indulgent hearers.
First I employed myself in establishing the principle
that Knowledge is its own reward; and I sho,ved that,
when considered in this light, it is called Liberal Know-
ledge, and is the scope of Academical Institutions.
Next, I examined what is meant by Kno\vledge, \vhen
it is said to be pursued for its own sake; and I sho\ved.
that, in order satisfactorily to fulfil this idea, Philosophy
must be its form.: or, in other words, that its n1atter
rnust not be adnlitted into the n1ind passively, as so much
acquireluent, but must be mastered and appropriated as a
systeu1 consisting of parts, related one to the other, and
interpretative of one another in the unity of a vvhole.
Further, I sho\ved that such a philosophical conten1':
plation of the field of Knowledge as a \vhole, leading, as
it did, to an understanding of its separate departInents,
and an appreciation of them respectively, might in con-
sequence be rightly called an illun1ination; also, it \vas
rightly cal1ed an enlargement of mind, because it was a

180

Discou'rse V I I I

distinct location of things Ol1e \vith another, as if in
space; \vhile it was nh)reOVer its proper cultivation and
its best condition, both because it secured to the intellect
the sight of things as they are, or of truth, in opposition
to fancy, opinion, and theory; and again, because it pre-
supposed and involved the perfection of its various
powers.
Such, I said, was that Know 1edge, which deserves to.
be sought for its o\\'n sake, even though it promised no'
ulterior advantage. But, ,,,hen I had got as far as thIS, I
\vent farther, and observed that, from the nature of the:
case, what was so good in itself could not but have al
number of external uses, though it did not promise then1,.
simply because it was good; and that it was necessarily
the source of benefits to society, great and diversified in
proportion to its own intrinsic excellence. Just as in
morals, honesty is the best policy, as being profitable in
a secular aspect, though such profit is not the measure
of its worth, so too as regards what may be called the
virtues of the Intellect, their very possession indeed is a
substantial good, and is enough, yet still that substance
has a shadow, inseparable from it, viz., its social and!
political usefulness. And this was the subject to which
I devoted the preceding Discourse.
One portion of the subject remains :-this intellectual!
culture, \vhich is so exalted in itself, not only has a:
bearing upon social and active duties, but upon Religion
also. The educated mind may be said to be in a certain.
sense religious; that is, it has what may be considered a.
religion of its own, independent of Catholicism, partly co-
operating with it, partly thwarting it; at once a defence'
yet a disturbance to the Church in Catholic countries,-
and in countries beyond her pale, at one time in open
warfare with her, at anotryer in defensive alliance. The-

.

K1lowledge and Religious Duty. I8I

history of Schools and Academies, and of Literature and
Science generally, will, I think, justify me in thus speak-
ing. Since, then, my aim in these Discourses is to
ascertain the function and the action of a University,
vie\ved in itself, and its relations to the various instru-
ments of teaching a
d training \vhich are round about it,
my survey of it would not be complete unless I attempted,
as I now propose to do, to exhibit its general bearings
upon IZeligion.

2.
Right Reason, that is, Reason rightly exercised, leads
the Inind to the Catholic Faith, and plants it there, and
teaches it in all its religious speculations to act under its
guidance. But Reason, considered as a real agent in the
\vorld, and as an operative principle in man's nature, with
an historical course and with definite results, is far from
taking so straight and satisfactory a direction. It
considers itself from first to last independent and
supreme; it requires no external authority; it makes a
religion fOt itself. Even though it accepts Catholicism,
it does not go to sleep; it has an action and development
of its own, as the passions have, or the moral sentiments,
or the principle of self-interest. Divine grace, to use the
language of Theology, does not by its presence supersede
nature; nor is nature at once brought into simple concur-
rence and coalition with grace. Nature pursues its course,
now coincident with that of grace, now parallel to it, no\v
across, now divergent, now counter, in proportion to its
own imperfection and to the attraction and influence
which grace exerts over it. And \vhat takes place as
regards other principles of our nature and their develop-
ments is found also as regards the Reason. There is, ",-e
know, a Religion of enthusiasln, of superstitious ignoran\

182

Discourse VIIi.

of statecraft; and each has that in it which resembles
Catholicism, and that again which contradicts Catho-
licism. There is the Religion of a warlike people, and
of a pastoral people; there is a Religion of rude times,
and in like manner there is a Religion of civilized times,
of the cultivated intellect, of the philosopher, scholar,
and gentleman. This is that Religion of Reason, of
which I speak. Viewed in itself, however near it comes
to Catholicism, it is of course simply distinct from it; for
Catholicism is one whole, and admits of no compromise
or modification. Yet this is to view it in the abstract;
in nlatter of fact, and in reference to individuals, we
can have no difficulty in conceiving this philosophical
Religion present in a Catholic country, as a spirit in-
fluencing men to a certain extent, for good or for bad
or for both,-a spirit of the age, which again may be
found, as among Catholics, so with still greater sway
and success in a country not Catholic, yet sped fically
the same in such a country as it exists in a Catholic
community. The problem then before us to-day, is to
set down some portions of the outline, if we can ascertain
them, of the Religion of Civilization, and to deternline
how they lie relatively to those principles, doctrines, and
rules, \vhich H ea ven has given us in the Catholic
Church.
And here again, when I speak of Revealed Truth, it
is scarcely necessary to say that I aln not referring to
the main articles and prominent points of faith, as con-
tained in the Creed. Had I undertaken to delineate a
philosophy, which directly interfered with the Creed, I
could not have spoken of it as compatible with the pro-
fession of Catholicism. The philosophy I speak ot:
whether it be vie\ved within or outside the Church, does
not necessarily take cognizance of the Creed. Where

Kllo'lvledge and Religious Duty. 18 3

the country is Catholic, the educated mind takes its
articles for granted, by a sort of implicit faith; where
it is not, it simply ignores theln and the whole subject.
matter to which they relate, as not affecting social and
political interests. Truths about God's Nature, about
His dealings towards the human race, about the
Economy of Redemption,-in the one case it humbly
accepts them, and passes on; in the other it passes them
over, as matters of simple opinion, which never can be
decided, and which can have no power over us to make
us morally better or worse. I am not speaking then of
belief in the great objects of faith, when I speak of
Catholicisln, but I am contemplating Catholicism chiefly
as a systerll of pastoral instruction and moral duty j and
I have to do with its doctrines mainly as they are sub-
servient to its direction of the conscience and the con-
duct. I speak of it, for instance, as teaching the ruined
state of man; his utter inability to gain Heaven by any
thing he can do himself; the moral certainty of his
losing his soul if left to himself; the simple absence of
all rights and clailns on the part of the creature in the
presence of the Creator; the illimitable claims of the
Creator on the service of the creature; the imperative
and obligatory force of the voice of conscience; and
the inconceivable evil of sensuality. I speak of it as
teaching, that no one g
ins Heaven except by the free
grace of God, or \vithout a regeneration of nature; that
no one can please Hitn without faith; that the heart is
the seat both of sin and of obedience; that charity is
t. he fulfillin
of the Law; and that incorporation into
the Catholic Church is the ordinary instrument of salva-
tion. These are the lessons \vhich distinguish Catholi-
cism as a popular religion, and these are the subjects to
which the cultivated intellect \vill practically be turned :-

184

Discourse VIIL

I have to compare allJ contrast, not the doctrinal, but
the moral and social teaching of Philosophy on the one
hand, and Catholicism on the other.

" 3.
N ow, on opening the subject, we see at once a momen..
tous benefit which the philosopher is likely to confer on
the pastors of the Church. It is obvious that the first
step which they have to effect in the conversion of n1an
and the renovation of his nature, is h
s rescue from that
fearful subjection to sense \vhich is his ordinary state.
To be able to break through the meshes of that thral..
dom, and to disentangle and to disengage its ten thou-
sand holds upon the heart, is to bring it, I 111ight almost
say, half ,vay .to Heaven. Here, even divine grace, to
speak of things according to their appearances, is ordi-
I narily bé\ffied, and retires, \vithout eÀpedient or resource,
before this giant fascination. Religion seems too high
I and unearthly to be able to exert a continued influence
, upon us : its effort to rouse the soul, and the soul's effort
to co-operate, are too violent to last. I t is like holding
out the arm at full length, or supporting some great
\veight, which we Inanage to do for a time, but soon are
exhausted and succutub. Nothing can act beyond its
own nature; when then we are called to \vhat is super-
natural, though those extraordinary aids from Heaven
are given us, with which obedience becomes possible, yet
even with them it is of transcendent difficulty. \Ve are
drawn down to earth every moment with the ease and
certainty of a natural gravitation, and it is only by
sudden impulses and, as it were, forcible plunges that we
-
I attempt to mount upwards. Religion indeed enlightens,
· . terrifies, subdues; it gives faith, it inflicts remorse, it in..
spires resolutions, it draws tears, it ìnfian1es devotion, but

Knowledge alld I
e'Z:gÙ)u.s Duty. 185
only for the occasion. I repeat, it imparts an inward I
power which ought to effect more than this; I am not
forgetting either the real sufficiency of its aids, nor the
responsibility of those in whom they fail. I am not
discussing theological questions at all, I am looking at
phenomena as they lie before me, and I say that, in
nlatter of fact, the sinful spirit repents, and protests it
will never sin again, and for a while is protected by disgust
and abhorrence from the malice of its foe. But that foe
knows too well that such seasons of repentance are \vont
to have their end: he patiently waits, till nature faints
with the effort of resistance, and lies passive and hope-
less under the next access of temptation.' What we
need then is SOlne ex p edient or instrumen t. which at least
will obstruct and stave off the approach of our spiritua l
enemy. and \vhich is sufficiently congenial _ and level
with our nature to maintain as firm a hold u p on us as
the inducetnents of sensual
ratification. It will be our
wisdom to employ nature against itsel( Thus sorrow,
sickness, and care are providential antagonists to our
inward disorders; they come upon us as years pass on,
and generally produce their natural effects on us, in pro-
portion as we are subjected to their influence. These,
hó\vever, are God's instruments, not ours; we need a
similar remedy, which we can make our own, the object
of some legitimate faculty, or the aim of some natural
affection, \vhich is capable of resting on the mind, and
taking up its familiar lodging with it, and engrossing it,
and which thus becolues a match for the besetting po\ver
of sensuality, and a sort ofhomæopathic medicine for the
disease. Here then I think is the important aid which
intellectual cultivation furnishes to us in rescuing the
victims of passion and self-will. It does not supply re-
ligious motives; it is not the cause or proper antecedent
J

186

DÙ;course VIII.

of any thing supernatural; it is not meritorious of
heavenly aid or reward; but it does a work, at least
111nterially good (as theologians speak), ,vhatever be its
. real and formal character. It expels the excitements of
sense by the introduction of those of the intellect.
This then is the þrimd facie advantage of the pursuit
of Knowledge; it is the drawing the mind off from
things which ,vill harm it to subjects which are worthy
, a rational being; and, though it does not raise it above
nature, nor has any tendency to make us pleasing to our
Maker, yet is it nothing to substitute what is in itself

harmless for what is, to sa}" the least, inexpressibly
r
.I dangerous? is it a little thing to exchange a circle of
ideas ,vhich are certainly sinful, for others which are
certainly not so ? You will say, perhaps, in the words
of the Apostle, " Knowledge pufreth up:" and doubtless
this mental cultivation, even when it is successful for the
purpose for which I am applying it, may be from the
first nothing nlore than the substitution of pride for
I sensuality. I grant it, I think I shall have something to
say on this point presently; but this is not a necessary
result, it is but an incidental evil, a danger which may
be realized or may be averted, whereas we may in most
cases predicate guilt, and guilt of a heinous kind, where
the mind is suffered to run wild and indulge its thoughts
without training or law of any kind; and surely to turn
away a soul from mortal sin is a good and a gain so.
far, whatever comes of it. And therefore, if a friend in
need is twice a friend, I conceive that intelk:ctual employ-
nlents, though they do no more than occupy the mind
\vith objects naturally noble or innocent, have a special
clain1 upon our consideration and
ratitude.

Knowledge and Religious Duly. 187

4-
Nor is this all: Kno,vledge, the discipline by which it
is gained, and the tastes which it forms, have a natural
tendency to refine the mind, and to give it an indispo-
sition, simply natural, yet real, nay, more than this, a
disgust and abhorrence, towards excesses and enorm Í-
ties of evil, which are often or ordinarily reached at
length by those \vho are not careful from the first to
set themselves against what is vicious and criminal. .1.t
generates within the mind a fastidiousness, analo
ous to

the delicacy or daintiness \vhich
ood nurture or a sickly
habit induces in respect of food; and this fastidiousness,
thou
h arg-uine- no hiQ"h principle, though no protection
in the case of violent tenlptation, nor sure in its operation,
yet ,vill often or enerall be livel enou h to create
an a so ute loathin g- of certain offences . or a detestation
and scorn of them as ungentlemanlike, to which ruder
natures, nay, such as have far more of real reli
i on in
them, are tempted. or even betrayed. Scarcely can we
exaggerate the value, in its place, of a safeguard such as
this, as regards those multitudes who are thrown upon
the open field of the world, or are withdrawn from its
eye and fron1 the restraint of public opinion. In many
cases, \vhere it exists, sins, familiar to those who are
otherwise circumstanced, will not even occur to the
mind: in others, the sense of shame and the quickened
apprehension of detection will act as a sufficient obstacle
to theIn, when they do present themselves before it.
Then, again, the fastidiousness I am speaking of will
create a simple hatred of that miserable tone of conver-
sation which, obtaining as it does in the world, is a con-
stant fuel of evil, heaped up round about the soul: more.
over, it ,vill create an irresolution and indecision in doing

J
'13.

188

Discourse Vill.

, ß.

wrong, which will act as a remora till the danger is past
away. And though it has no tendency, I repeat, to
mend the heart, or to secure it from the dominion in
other shapes of those very evils which it repels in the
particular modes of approach by which they prevail over
others, yet cases may occur when it gives birth, after sins
have been committed, to 50 keen a remorse and so intense-
a self-hatred, as are even sufficient to cure the particulatT"
moral disorder, and to prevent its accesses ever after-
wards ;-as the spendthrift in the story, \vho, after gazing
on his lost acres from the summit of an eminence, came
down a Iniser, and remained a miser to the end of his
days.
And all this holds good in a special way, in dn age
such as ours, \vhen, although pain of body and mind
J11ay be rife as heretofore, yet other counteractions of evil,
of a penal character, which are present at other tin1es, are
away. In rude and semi-barbarous periods, at least in a
climate such as our own, it is the daily, nay, the principal
business of the senses, to convey feelings of discomfort
to the mind, as far as they convey feelings at all. Expo-
sure to the elements, social disord.er and la\vlessne5s, the
tyranny of the powerful, and the inroads of enemies, are
a stern discipline, allo\ving brief intervals, or awarding a
sharp penance, to sloth and sensuality. The rude food,
the scanty clothing, the violent exercise, the vagrant life,
the military constraint, the imperfect pharnlacy, \\'hich
now are the trials of only particular classes of the
con1ffiunity, were once the lot more or less of all. In the
deep woods or t he wild solitudes of the medieval era,
feelings of relig-ion or super
tition w
re tg! urall y pre- _
sent to the p2P ulation, which in various ways co-operated _
with the missiona ry or pasto r , in retai ningJ.L in a noble
simplicity of manners. But, when in the advancelUcllt

Knowledge and Religt'ous Duty. 189

of societ y men con g regate in towns, and multi p l y in con-
tracted s p aces , and làw e- ives the m secu ri tYr and ar
..
gives them cOlnfo
ts, and good government robs theln of
courage a nd manltness, an monoton y of li fe throw
_
"-them back u P2. n th emselves , who does not see t hat
diversion or protectio n fro m evil the y have none, that

v ice is the mere reaction of unhealthy toil, and sensual
.excess the hol y da y of resourceless ignorançe l- This is- ...If..
:50 well understood by the practical benevolence of the ...",

day, that it has especially busied itself in plans for sup-
lplying the nlasses of our to\vn population with intel-
lectual and honourable recreations. Cheap literature,
libraries of useful and entertaining knowledge, scientific
lectureships, museums, zoological collections, buildings
and gardens to please the eye and to give repose to the
feelings, external objects of whatever kind, which may
take the luind off itself, and expand and elevate it in
liberal contemplations, these are the human means, wisely
suggested, and good as far as they go, for at least parrying
the assaults of moral evil, and keeping at bay the enelnies,
not only of the individual soul, but of society at large.
Such are the instruments by which an age of advanced
civilization combats those moral disorders, \vhich Reason
as well as Revelation denounces; and I have not been
backward to express my sense of their serviceableness
to Religion. Moreover, they are but the foremost of

series of influences. which intellectual culture exerts
upon our moral nature, and all upon the type of Chris-
tianity, manifestine- themselves in veracity, probity,
. equity, fairness, gentleness, benevolence, and arniable-
ness; so much so, that a character more noble to look
at, more beautiful, more winn . ne'. in the various relations
of life and in personal duties, is hardly conceivable. than
..!!@- y, or mi g ht be. its result, \vhen that culture is bestowed -

19 0

Discourse T/III.

.-!lpon a soil n:1tlJr::ll1.): adapted to virtue. If vou would
9btain a picture for contetnplation which may seem to
fulfil the ideal, \vhich the Apostle has delineated under
the name of charity, in its sweetness and harnlony, its
generosity, its courtes to others and its depreciation of
se ,you could not have recourse to a etter urniSiíed-
studio than to that of Philosophy, with the sp e cimens of
it, which with greater or less exactness are sca ttered
through society in a civilized ag-e. It is enough to refer
you, Gentlemen, to the various Biographies and Remains
of contemporaries and others, which from time to time
issue from the press, to see how striking is the action of
our intellectual upon our moral nature, where the n10ral
material is rich, and the intellectual cast is perfect
Indiv iduals \vill occur to all of us, who deservedly attract_
OUf love and admiration and whom the wort altllost
- -
, \vorshl s as the work of i hands._ Religious
principle, indeed,-that is, faith,- is, to all appearance,
simply away; the work is as certainly not supernatural
as it is certainly noble and beautiful. This must be
insisted on, that the Intellect nlay have its due; but
it also must be insisted on for the sake of conclusions
) to which I wish to conduct our investigation. The
radical difference indeed of this mental refinement fronl
genuine religion, in spite of its seen1ing relationship, is
the very cardinal point on which nlY present discussion
turns; yet, on the other hand, such refinement may
readily be assigned to a Christian origin by hasty or
distant observers, or by those \vho view it in a particular
light. And as this is the case, I think it advisable,
before proceeding with the delineation of its character-
istic features, to point out to you distinctly the elemen-
tary principles on which its morality is based.

Knowledge and Religious Duty. 19 1

s.
You will bear in n1ind then, Gentlemen, that I spoke
just no\v of the scorn and hatred which a cultivated mind
feels for some kinds of vice, and the utter disgust and
profound humiliation which may come over it, if it
should happen in any degree to be betrayed into them.
Now this feeling may have its root in faith and love, but
it may not; there is nothing really religious in it, con-
sidered by itself. Conscience indeed is im p lanted in the.
breast by nature but jt . flicts upa s fear as we
as

shame; when the mind is si mply angry with .t
anL
nothin g more, sure ly _the t!:,u e in lp ort of th
voice of
nature and the depth of its intimations have bee n-
forgo tten, a n<l a f;l s e philosop hy- has mi sint erp reted
emoti on s which ought to le ad to God. Fear imp lies
rthe transgression of;:1 l;:1\v j and a law. pl
a law g iYeL
and judge; but the te ndency.Di.intel lpc.tu;}l culture is to-
swallow up the fear in the self-r ep roach, and self-re p roach
is directed and limited to our mere sense of what is fittin L
a nd becoming. Fear carries us out of ourselves, \vhereas
shame may act upon us only \vithin the round of our
own thoughts. Such, I say, is the 'danger which awaits
a civilized age; such is its besetting sin (not inevitable,
God forbid! or we must abandon the use of God's o\vn
gifts), but still the ordinary sin of the Intellect; con-
science tends to become \\rhat is called a moral sense;
the command of duty is a sort of taste; sin is not an
offence against God, but against human nature.
The less amiable specimens of this spurious religion
are those which we meet not unfrequently in my own
country. I can use with all my heart the poet's words,

" England, with all thy faults, I love thee still; "

19 2

Discourse VIII.

but to those faults no Catholic can be blind. We find,
there men possessed of many virtues, but proud, bashful,
fastidious, and reserved. Why is this? it is because
they think and act as if there were really nothing
objective in their religion; it is because conscience to
them is not the word of a la\vgiver, as it ought to be,
but the dictate of their own minds and nothing more;
it is because they do not look out of themselves, because
they do not look through and beyond their own minds
to their 1\1:aker, but are engrossed in notions of what is
due to themselves, to their o\vn dignity and their o\vn
consistency. Their conscience h as b ec ome a mere self-
respect. Instead of doing one thing and then another,
-
as each is called for, in faith and obedience, careless of
what may be called the keeping of deed with deed, and
leaving Him who gives the command to blend the por-
tions of their conduct into a \vhole, their one object,
ho\vever unconscious to themselves, is to paint a smooth
and perfect surface, and to be able to say to thelnselves
that they have done their duty. When they do wrong,
they feel, not contrition, of which God is the object, but
remorse, and a sense of degradation. They call them-
selves fools, not sinners; they are angry and impatient,
not hun1ble. They shut themselves up in themselves;
it is n1Ïsery to thenl to think or to speak óf their own
feelings; 1t is misery to suppose that others see them, and
their shyness and sensitiveness often become morbid. As
to confession, which is so natural to the Catholic, to thenl
it is impossible; unless indeed, in cases where they have
been guilty, an apology is due to their o\vn character, is
expected of them, and will be satisfactory to look b,lck
upon. They are victims of an intense self-contetnplation.
There are, however, far more pleasing and interesting
forms of this moral tnalady than that which I have been

Knowledge and Religious Duty. 193.

depicting: I have spûken of the effect of intel1ectual
culture on proud natures; but it will snow to greater
advantage, yet with as little approximation to religious
faith, in amiable and unaffected n1inds. Observe, Gentle-
men, the heresy, as it may be called, of which I speak,
is the substitution of a moral sense or taste for con-
science in the true meaning of the word; now this error
may be the foundation of a character of far more
elasticity and grace than ever adorned the persons whom
I have been describing. It is especially congenial to men
of an ilnaginative and poetical cast of mind, who will
readily accept the notion that virtue is nothing more
than the graceful in conduct. Such persons, far from
tolerating fear, as a principle, in their apprehension of
religious and moral truth, will not be slow to call it
simply gloom and superstition. Rather a philosopher's,
a gentleman's religion, is of a liberal and generous
character; it is based upon honour; vice is evil, because
it is unworthy, despicable, and odious. This was the
quarrel of the ancient heathen with Christianity, that,
instead of simply fixing the mind on the fair and the
pleasant, it intermingled other ideas with then1 of a sad
and painful nature; that it spoke of tears before joy, a
cross before a crown; that it laid the foundation of
heroism in penance; that it made the soul tremble with
the news of Purgatory and Hell; that it insisted on views
and a worship of the Deity, which to their minds was
nothing else than mean, servile, and cowardly. The
notion of an All-perfect, Ever-present God, in whose
sight we are less than atoms, and who, while He deigns
to visit us, can punish as well as bless, was abhorrent to
them; they made their o\vn luinds their sanctuary, their
own ideas their oracle, and conscience in olorals \vas but
Rarallel to genius in art, and wisdom in philosophy.
13

194

Dlscourse VIII.

6.
Had I room for all that might be said upon the subject,
I might illustrate this intellectual religion from the history
of the Emperor J uliaq" the apostate from Christian Truth,
the foe of Christian education. He, in whom every
Catholic sees the shadow of the future Anti-Christ, \vas
all but the pattern-man of philosophical virtue. Weak
points in his character he had, it is true, even in a merely
poetical standard; but, take him all in all, and I cannot
but recognize in him a specious beauty and nobleness of
moral deportment, which combines in it the rude great-
ness of Fabricius or
egulus with the acconlplishments
of Pliny or Antoninus. His simplicity of manners, his
frugality, his austerity of life, his singular disdain of
sensual pleasure, his military heroisn1, his application to
business, his literary diligence, his modesty, his clernency,
his accon1plishments, as I view them, go to make him
one of the most eminent specimens of pagan virtue
\vhich the world has ever seen. * Yet how shallow, ho\v
meagre, nay, ho\v unamiable is that virtue after all, when
brought upon its critical trial by his sudden sununons
into the presence of his Judge! His last hours fonn a
u1lique passage in history, both as illustrating the help-
lessness of philosophy under the stern realities of our
· I do not consider I have said above any thing inconsistenl with the
following passage from Cardinal Gerdil. though I have enlarged on the favour-
able side of Julian's character. II Du génie, des connaissances, de l'habilité
dans Ie métier de la guerre, du courage et du désintéressement dans Ie com-
mandement des armées, des actions plutôt que des qualités estimables.
ma.is Ie plus souvent gât
es par la vanit
qui en était Ie principe, la super-
stition jointe à l'hypocrisie; un esprit fécond en ressources éclairé. mais sus-
ceptible de petitesse; des fautes essentielles dans Ie gouvernement; des in-
nocens sacrifiés à la vengeance; une hatne envenimée contre Ie Christianisme,
qu'il avait abandonné; un attachement passionné aux folies de la Théurgie;
tels étaient les traits sous lesqueis on nous preignait Julien." Op. t. x. p. 54.

Kno'lvledge and Religious Dllty. 195

being, and as being reported to us on the evidence of an
eye-witness. " Friends and fellow-soldiers," he said, to
use the words of a writer, well fitted, both from his
literary tastes and fron1 his hatred of Christianity, to be
his panegyrist, "the seasonable period of my departure
is now arrived, and I discharge, with the cheerfulness of
a ready debtor, the demands of nature. . . . I die with-
out remorse, as I have lived without guilt. I am pleased
to reflect on the innocence of my private life; and I can
affirm with confidence that the supreme authority, that
emanation of the divine Po\ver, has been preserved in
my hands pur
and immaculate... I no\v offer my
tribute of gratitude to the Eternal Being, who has not
suffered me to perish by the cruelty of a tyrant, by the
secret dagger of conspiracy, or by the slow tortures uf
lingering disease. He has given me, in the midst of an
honourable career, a splendid and glorious departure
from this world, and I hold it equally absurd, equally
base, to solicit, or to decline, the stroke of fate. . .
" He reproved the immoderate grief of the spectators,
and conjured them not to disgrace, by unmanly tears,
the fate of a prince \vho in a few mon1ents would be
united with Heaven and with the stars. The spectators
were silent; and Julian entered into a metaphysical
argument with the philosophers Priscus and Maxinlus
on the nature of the soul. The efforts which he made,
of mind as well as body, most probably hastened his
death. His \vound began to bleed with great violence;
his respiration was embarrassed by the swelling of the
veins; he called for a draught of cold water, and as soon
as he had drank it expired without pain, about the
hour of midnight.". Such, Gentlenlen, is the final
exhibition of the Religion of Reason: in the insensibility
*
ibbon, Hist., ch. 24.

19 6

DÚcourse Vi II.

of conscience, in the ignorance of the very idea of sin, in
the contemplation of his own moral consistency, in the
sÏInple absence of fear, in the cloudless self-confidence,
in the serene self-possession, in the cold self-satisfaction,
we recognize the mere Philosopher.

7-
Gibbon paints with pleasure \vhat, conformably with
the sentiments of a godless intellectualism, was an his-
torical fulfilnlent of his own idea of moral perfection;
Lord Shaftesbury had already drawn out that idea in a
theoretical from, in his celebrated collection of Treatises
which he has called "Characteristics of men, manners

opinions, views ;" and it will be a further illustration of
the subject before us, if you will allow me, Gentlemen, to
n1ake some extracts from this work.
One of his first attacks is directed against the doctrine
of re\vard and punishment, as if it introduced a notion
into religion inconsistent with the true apprehension of
the beauty of virtue, and with the liberality and noble-
ness of spirit in which it should be pursued. "Men
have not been content," he says, "to show the natural
advantages of honesty and virtue. They have rather
lessened these, the better, as they thought, to advance
another foundation. They have made virtue so Iner-
cenarya thing, and have talked so much of its rewards,
that one can hardly tell \vhat there is in it, after all, which
can be \vorth rewarding. For to be bribed only or
ter1 ificd into an honest practice, bespeaks little of real
honesty or worth." "If," he says elsewhere, insinuating
\"hat he dare not speak out, {{ if through hope merely of
reward, or fear of punishll1ent, the creature be inclined
to do the good he hates, or restrained froIH doing the in
to \v}lich he is not otherwise in the least degree averse,

Knowledge and Religlous Duty. 197

there is in this case no virtue or goodness whatever.
There is no Inore of rectitude, piety, or sanctity, in a
creature thus reformed, than there is meekness or
gentleness in a tiger strongly chained, or innocence and
sobriety in a monkey under the discipline of the \vhip
. . . . While the will is neither gained, nor the inclination
wrought upon, but awe alone prevails and forces obedi-
ence, the obedience is servile, and all \vhich is done
through it nlerely servile." That is, he says that
Christianity is the enemy of moral virtue, as influencing
the mind by fear of God, not by love of good.
The motives then of hope and fear being, to say the
least, put far into the background, and nothing being
morally good but what springs simply or mainly from a
love of virtue for its own sake, this love-inspiring quality
in virtue is its beauty, \vhile a bad conscience is not
n1uch more than the sort of feeling which makes us
shrink from an instrument out of tune. "Some by mere
nature," he says, " others by art and practice, are masters
of an ear in music, an eye in painting, a fancy in the
ordinary things of ornarnent and grace, a judgment in
proportions of all kinds, and a general good taste in
010st of those subjects which make the amuselnent and
delight of the ingenious people of the world. Let such
gentlen1en as these be as extravagant as they please, or
as irregular in their morals, they must at the same time
discover their 'Ùzcollsistency, live at variance \vith them-
selves, and in contradictioll to that principle on which
they ground their highest pleasure and entertainment.
Of all other beauties which virtuosos pursue, poets
:elebrate, musicians sing, and architects or artists of
whatever kind describe or form, the most delightful,
the most engq,ging and pathetic, is that which is dra \vn
fron\ real life and from the passions. Nothing affects

Ig8

D.iscourse Vl11.

the heart like that which is purely from itself, and

f its own nature: such as the beauty of sentilnents,
the grace of actions, the turn of characters, and the
proportiolls a1ld features of a human mind. This lesson
of philosophy, even a r.pmance, a poem, or a play Ina)
teach us . . . . Let poets or the men of hannony deny.
if they can, this force of nature, or withstand this 1noral
11lagic . . . . Everyone is a virtuoso of a higher or
lower degree; everyone pursues a grace . . . of one
kind or other. The venustulll, the h01testuln, the decorlll1t
of things \vill force its way . . . . The most natural
beauty in the world is honesty and moral truth; for all
beauty is truth."
Accordingly, virtue being only one kind of beauty, the
principle which detennines what is virtuous is, not con-
science, but taste. H Could we once convince ourselves,'
he says, (( of \vhat is in itself so evident, viz., that in the
very nature of things there must of necessity be the
foundation of a right and wrong taste, as \vell in respect
of in\vard character of features as of out\vard person, be-
haviour, and action, we should be far more ashamed of
ignorance and \vrong judgment in the' forn1er than in
the latter of these subjects . . . . One who aspires to the
character of a man of breeding and politeness is careful
to form his judgment of arts and sciences upon right
n10dels of perfection . . . . He takes particular care to
turn his eye from every thing \vhich is gaudy, luscious,
and of false taste. N or is he less careful to turn his ear
from every sort of music, besides that which is of the
best manner and truest harmony. 'T\vere to be wished
we had the same regard to a right taste in life and
JllallnerS . . . . If civility and hun1anity be a taste; if
brutality, insolence, riot, be in the same manner a taste,
. . . . who \vould not endeavour to force nature as welI

Knowledge and Religious Duty. 199

in this respect as in what relates to a taste or judgment
in other arts and sciences?"
Sometimes he distinctly contrasts this taste \vith prin-
ciple and conscience, and gives it the preference over
them. "After all," he says, U i tis not 1Jterely wlzat 1.ve
call principle, but a taste, which governs men. They
may think for certain, 'This is right,' or (that wrong; ,
they may believe (this is a virtue,' or 'that a sin; , 'this
is punishable by man,' or 'that by God;' yet if the
savour of things lies cross to honesty, if the fancy be
florid, and the appetite high towards the subaltern
beauties and lower orders of worldly symlnetries and
proportions, the conduct will infallibly turn this latter
way." Thus, somewhat like a Jansenist, he makes the
superior pleasure infallibly conquer, and implies that,
neglecting principle, we have but to train the taste to a
kind of beauty higher than sensual. He adds: "Eve11-
conscience, I fear, such as is owing to religious discipline,
will make but a slight figure, \vhen this taste is set
. "
amISS.
And hence the well-known doctrine of this author,
that ridicule is the test of truth; for truth and virtue
being beauty, and falsehood and vice deformity, and the
feeling inspired by deformity being that of derision, as
that in
pired by beauty is admiration, it follows that
vice is not a thing to ,veep about, but to laugh at.
" Nothing is ridiculous," he says, " but what is deforn1ed ;
nor is any thing proof against raillery but \vhat is hand-
some and j list. And therefore 'tis the hardest thing in
the world to deny fair honesty the use of this \veapon,
which can never bear an edge against herself: and bears
against every thing contrary."
And hence again, conscience, which intimates a La\v-
giver, being superseded by a moral taste or sentinlent,

200

DÙ;collyse VIIL

which has no sanction beyond the constitutIon of our
nature, it follows that our great rule is to contelnplate
ourselves, if we would gain a standard of life and morals.
Thus he has entitled one of his Treatises a H Soliloquy,"
with the motto, H Nec te quæsiveris extra;" and he
.
observes, "The chief interest of ambition, avarice,
corruption, and every sly insinuating vice, is to prevent
this interview and fan1iliarity of discourse, \vhich is
consequent upon close retiren1ent and inward recess.
'Tis the grand artifice of villainy and le\vdness, as 'ZtJell
as of suþerstitio1/, and bigotry, to put us upon tern1S of
greater distance and forn1ality with ourselves, and evade
our provÍ11g ß1ethod of soliloquy. . . . A passionate
lover, \vhatever solitude he may affect, can never be truly
by hÍ111self . . . . 'Tis the saine reason \vhich keeps the
imaginary saint or mystic from being capable of this
entertainn1ent. Instead oì looking narrowly into his own
nature and tnind, that he may be no longer a mystery to
himself, he is taken up with tlte contemplatioll of other
11lJlsteripus natures, which he never can explain or
com prehend."

8.
l'aking these passages as specimens of \vhat I call the
Religion of Philosophy, it is obvious to observe that
there is no doctrine contained in then1 which is not in a
certain sense true; yet, on the other hand, that almost
every staten1ent is perverted and made false, because it
is not the whole truth. They are exhibitions of truth
under one aspect, and therefore insufficient; conscience
is most certainly a moral sense, but it is more; vice
again, is a defonnity, but it is worse. Lord Shaftesbury
n1ay insist, if he \vill, that simple and solitary fear cannot
t:ffect a nloral conversion, and we are not concerned to

Knowledge a11d Religious Duty. 201

ans\ver him; but he will have a difficulty in proving that
any real conversion follows from a doctrine which ll1akes
virtue a mere point of good taste, and vice vulgar and
ungentlemanlike.
Such a doctrine is essentially superficial, and such will
be its effects. I t has no better measure of right and
wrong than that of visible beauty and tangible fitness.
Conscience indeed inflicts an acute pang, but that pang,
forsooth, is irrational, and to reverence it is an illiberal
superstition. But, if we will ll1ake light of what is deepest
\vithin us, nothing is left but to pay homage to what is
more upon the surface. To seem becomes to be,. what
looks fair will be good, what causes offence will be evil ;
virtue will be what pleases, vice \vhat pains. As well
may we measure virtue by utility as by such a rule.
Nor is this an imaginary apprehension; we all must
recollect the celebrated sentiment into which a great and
wise man was betrayed, in the glowing eloquence of his
valediction to the spirit of chivalry. "It is gone," cries
Mr. Burke; "that sensibility of principle, that chastity
of honour, which felt a stain like a wound; which inspired
courage, while it mitigated ferocity; which ennobled
whatever it touched, and under which vice lost half ,its
e'l/1:1 by losing all its grossness." In
he last clause of this
beautiful sentence we have too apt an illustration of the
ethical temperament of a civilized age. It is detection,
not the sin, which is the crime; private life is sacred,
and inquiry into it is intolerable; and decency is virtue.
Scandals, vulgarities, whatever shocks, whatever disgusts,
are offences of the first order. Drinking and swearing,
squalid poverty, improvidence, laziness, slovenly disor:ler,
n1ake up the idea of profligacy: poets may say any
thing, however wicked, with impunity; works of genius
n1ay be read without danger or shame, whatever their

202

Ðtscourse VIII.

r.,ß

principJes; fashion,. celebrity, the beautiful, the heroic,
will suffice to force any evil upon the con1munity. The
splendours of a court, and the charms of good society,
wit, imagination, taste, and high breeding, the prestige
of rank, and the resour.ces of wealth, are a screen, an
instrull1ent, and an apology for vice and irreligion. And
thus at length we find, surprising as the change may be,
that that very refinement of Intellectualism, which began
by repelling sensuality, ends by excusing it. Under the
shado\\F indeed of the Church , and in its due develo p men t
Philoso p h y does service to the cause of moralit y; but ,
when it is stron e- enou Q" h to have a will of its o\vn, and is
lifted up with an idea of its o\vn importance, and attempts
to form a theor y, and to la y down a princi p le , and to_
car ry out a s y stem of ethics , and undertakes the 1110ral
educati o n of the man , then it does but abet evils to
which at first it seeme d ins t inc tiv el y -9'p Q9 sed. '"frue
Religion is slow in growth, and, when once planted, is
difficult of dislodgelnent; but its intellectual counterfeit
has no root in itself: it springs up suddenly, it suddenly
withers. It appeals to what is in nature, and it falls
under the dominion of the old Adam. Then, like
dethroned princes, it keeps up a state and majesty,
\vhen it has lost the real power. Deformity is its abhor-
ren\:e; accordingly, since it cannot dissuade n1en frol11
vice, therefore in order to escape the sight of its deformity,
it embellishes it. It" skins and filIns the ulcerou

place," which it cannot probe or heal,

" \Vhiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen."

And from this shallo\vness of philosophical Religion
it conIes to pass that its disciples seem able to fulfil certain
precepts of Christianity more readily and exactly than

Knowledge anå Religious Duty. 20 3

Christians themselves. St. Paul, as I have said, gives us
a pattern of evangelical perfection ; he dra \VS the Chris-
tian character in its most graceful form, and its most
beautiful hues. He discourses of that charity which is
patient and meek, humble and single-minded, disinter-
ested, contented, and persevering. He tells us to prefer
each the other before himself, to give way to each other,
to abstain from rude words and evil speech, to avoid self-
conceit, to be calm and grave, to be cheerful and happy, to
observe peace with all men, truth and justice, courtesy and
gentleness, all that is modest, anliable, virtuous, and of
good repute. Such is St. Paul's exemp lar of the-Ch.r.ê-
tian in his external relations; and, I repea t-1. the s ch opl of.
the world seems to send o ut li vin g co p ies of this t yp ical
excellence with greater success than the Church. At
..t his da y the " g- entleman" is the creation . not of Chris-
tianit y. but of civilization. But the reason is obviou
f
The \vorld is content with settin g right th e sur fa ce of 'i:,
!hin
s ; the Church aims at reg enerati ng th T.ary -.Qep ths
of the heart. She ever begins with the beginning; and,
as regards the multitude of her children, is never able
to get beyond the beginning, but is continually employed
in laying the foundation. She is engaged with what is
essential, as previous and as introductory to the orna-
mental and the attractive. She is curing men and keep-
ing them clear of mortal sin; she is "treating of justice
and chastity, and the judgment to come :" she is insist-
ing on faith and hope, and devotion, and hone::;ty,
and the elements of charity; and has so much to do with
precept, that she almost leaves it to inspirations fronl
Heaven to suggest what is of counsel and perfection.
She aims at what is necessary rather than at what is de-
sirable. She is for the many as well as for the few. She
is putting souls in the way of salvation, that they may

20 4

Discourse VIII.

then be in a condition, if they shall be called upon, to.
aspire to the heroic, and to attain the full proportions, as
\\'ell as the rudiments, of the beautifuL

9.
Such is the nlethod, or the policy (so to caU it), of the
Church; but J>hilosophy looks at the matter Cronl a very
different point of vie\v: what have Philosophers to do
with the terror of judglnent or the saving of the soul?
Lord Shaftesbury calls the former a sort of " panic fear."
Of the latter he scoffingly complains that" the saving of
souls is now the heroic passion of exalted spirits." Of
course he is at liberty, on his principles, to pick and
choose out of Christianity \vhat he will; he discards the
theological, the Inysterious, the spiritual; he makes
selection of the morally or esthetically beautiful. To
him it mattèrs not at all that he begins his teaching
where he should end it; it rnatters not that, instead of

planti ng the tre e , he merely cro p s its flo\vers fo r his bat!.:
quet; he only aims at the present life, his philo
ophy
-diëS'Wlth him ; if his fl ower s-do but last to the end -of-

ev el he has n othing more to seek. - When night-
comes, the wit hered leaves may be mingled \vith his own
ashes; he and they will have done their work, he and
they will be no more. Certainly, it costs little to make::
men virtuous on conditions such as these; it is like
teaching them a language or an accomplishnlent, to
write Latin or to play on an instrument,- the profession
of an artist, not the commission of an A postle:
This embellishment of the exterior is almost the be-
ginning and the end of philosophical morality. This is
\\Thy it aims at being modest rather than humble; this
is ho\\' it can be proud at the very time that it is unas-
suming To hunlility indeed it does not even aspire;

f(nowledge and Religiùles Duly. 20 5

humility is one of the most difficult of virtues both to
attain and to ascertain. It lies close upon the heart
itself, and its tests are exceedingly delicate and subtle.
Its counterfeits abound; ho\vever, we are little concerned
with thenl here, for, I repeat, it is hardly professed even
by nante in the code of ethics which we are reviewing.
As has been often observed ) ancient civilization had _

ot the ide a.] and had n rdJ:o express it: or rather,
.,,-.-- -
it had the idea, and considere d it a defect of mind , n

a virtue, so that the word which denoted it conveyed 1L.
reproach. As to the m od ern world, you may gather its
i norance of - it by its p erver si on of the somewhat
parallel term " condescens ion." Humility or condescen- J
s ion, vie\ved as a virtue ofCõñduct, may be said to con-
sist. as in other things, so in our placing ourselves in our
thoughts on a level \vith our inferiors; it is not only a
voluntary relinquishrnent of the privileges of our o\vn
station, but an actual participation or assumption of the
condition of those to whom we stoop. This is true
hunlility, to feel and to behave as if we were lo\v; not, to
cherish a notion of our importance, while we affect a low
position. Such was St. Paul's humility, \vhen he called
himself" the least of the saints;" such the humility of
those many holy nlen who have considered themselves
the greatest of sinners. I t is an abdication , as far as their
own tho
ghts are conc
rned, of those prerogati ves _or
j>rivileges to \vhich others deem them en ti tle d._No\v it is ,
not a little instructive to contrast with this idea, Gentle- .'

men,-\vith this theological meaning of the word " con-
descension,"- -its proper English sense; put them in
juxta-position, and you will at once see the difference
beween the "TorId's humility and the hun1ility of the
Gospel. As the world uses the \vonl, "condescension"
is a stooping indeed of the person, but a bending for-

206

ÐtScoU1'se VIIL

\vard, unattended with any the slightest effort to leave by
a single inch the seat in which it is so firmly established.
/ 1 t is the act of a superior, who protests to himself, while
he commits it, that he is superior still, and that he is doing
nothing else but an act of grace towards those on whose
level, in theory, he is placing himself. And this is the
nearest idea which the philosopher can form of the virtue
1 of self-abasement; to do more than this is to his mind a
meanness or an hypocrisy, and at once excites his sus-
picion and disgust. What the world i S 1 such it ba s ever
been; we know the cont em pt which the educated pag

had for th e
t.Y

co nfe ssors o f th e C hu r ch ; and
\ it is shared b y the anti- Cath olic bodies of t his d_ay

Such are the ethIcs of Philosophy, \vhen faithfully re-
presented; but an age like this, not pagan, but profes-
sedly Christian, cannot venture to reprobate humility in
set terms, or to make a boast of pride. Accordingly, it
looks out for sonle expedient by which it may blind
itself to the real state of the case. Humility, with
its grave and self-denying attributes, it cannot love:
but what is more beautiful, what more winning, than
Inodesty? \vhat virtue, at first sight, simulates hunltlity
so well? though \vhat in fact is more radically distinct
from it ? In truth, great as is its chann, modesty is not
the deepest or the most religious of virtues. Rather it is
the advanced guard or sentinel of the soul militant, and
\\ atches continually over its nascent intercourse with the
world about it. It goes the round of the senses; it
mounts up into the countenance; it protects the eye and
ear; it reigns in the voice and gesture. Its province is
the outward deportolent, as other virtues have relation
to matters theological, others to society, and others to
the nlind itself. And being more superficial than other
virtues, it is Inore easily disjoined from their cOßlpany ; if

Knowledge and Religious Duty. 207

admits of being associated with principles or qualities
naturally foreign to it, and is often made the cloak of
feelings or ends for which it was never given to us. . So
little is it the necessary index of humility, that it is even
compatible with pride. The better for the purpose of
Philosophy; humble it cannot be. so forthwith modestL
becomes its humility.
Pride, under such trainin g, instead of runnin g to was t

in the education of the mind, is turne d to account; 1.t_ Æé
g ets a new name; it is called self-respect; and ceases to _ .
.!2.-e the disa
reeable. uncompanionable quality which it j

in itself. 1"'hough it be the motive principle of the soul,
it seldom comes to view; and when it shows itself, then
delicacy and gentleness are its attire, and good sense
and sense of honour direct its motions. It is no longer
a restless agent, without definite aim; it has a large field
of exertion assigned to it, and it subserves those social
interests which it would naturally trouble. l! is directed
into the ch ann - . . . .. e
t r and obe-
dience; and it becomes the v..ery staple of the reliRion
and morality hplr1 in honour in a day like our own. It
becomes th

rlfe
uard of chastity, the g-uarantee of vpra :.
cit
, in hi
h and low; it is the very household god of
society, as at present constituted, inspiring neatness and
Jecency in the servant eirl propriety of carriag-e and re -
fined manners in her mistress. uprightness, manlines s.!.. and
--
g enerosity in the head of the family. It diffuses a light
over town and country; it covers the soil with h andsome
edifices and smiling gardens; it tills the_ fi.clc4 it stocks

nd embellishes the shop. It is the stimulating pri nciple
of providence on the one h and, aod of free ex
nditure on
the other; of an ho nQura_b le rlmhiti Qn and of elegant en-
)Oyn1ent. It breathes up on the fa ceofthe.con1nlulÚtyJ. a
d
the hollow sepul chre is forth\vith beautiful to look upoI!- -

208

Discourse VI/I.

Refined by the civilization which has brought it into
activity, this self-respect infuses into the mind an intense
horror of exposure, and a keen sensitiveness of notoriety
and ridicule. It becomes the enemy of extravagances of
any kind; it shrinks froln what are called scenes; it has
no mercy on the mock-heroic, on pretence or egotism, on
verbosity in language, or what is called prosiness in con-
versation. It detests gross adulation; not that it tends
at all to the eradication of the appetite to which the
flatterer ministers, but it sees the absurdity of indulging
it, it understands the annoyance thereby given to others,
and jf a tribute must be paid to the \vealthy or the power-
ful, it demands greater subtlety and art in the prepara-
tion. Thus vanity is changed into a more dangerous
self-conceit, as being checked in its natural eruption.
I t teaches men to suppress their feelings, and to control
their tempers, and to mitigate both the severity and the
tone of their judgInents. As Lord Shaftesbury would
desire, it prefers playful \vit and satire in putting down
what is obj ectionable, as a more refined and good-
natured, as well as a more effectual method, than the
expedient which is natural to uneducated tninds. It is
from this inlpatience of the tra gic and
he bOlubastic _
th at it i
no
q uietl y but energetically opposing itself to
ih U1 nchris tian practic e of duelling-, \vhich it brands as

lply _ out of tast ,.a.n.d-as the renUlant of a barbarous
é!ß"e ; and ce rtain i it seems likel to effect what Religion _
has aimed at abo lishing in vain.

10.
J-I ence it is that it is
ln lost a .definition of a gentle-
man to sa yJl e is _one \vho nc.vCL inflil.t5-. pafu. This
description is both refined and, as far as it goes, ac-
curate. lIe is mainly occupied in n1crely removing the

Knowledge and Religious Duty. 209

obstacles \vhich hinder the free and unembarra<;sed
action of those about him; and he concurs with their
n10vements rather than takes the initiative himself. His
benefits may be considered as parallel to what are called
comforts or conveniences in arrangernents of a personal
nature: like an easy chair or a good fire, which do their
part in dispelling cold and fatigue, though nature pro-
vides both means of rest and animal heat without them.
The true gentleman in like manner carefully avoids
whatever may cause a jar or a jolt in the minds of those
with whom he is cast ;-all clashing of opinion, or
collision of feeling, all restraint, or suspicion, or gloom,
or resentment; his great concern being to make every
one at
"ease and at home. He has his eyes on all
his company; he is tender towards the bashful, gentle
towards the distant, and merciful to\vards the absurd;
he can recollect to w honl he is speaking; he guards
against unseasonable allusions, or topics which may
irritate; he is seldom prominent in conversation, and
never \veårisome. He makes light of favours while he
does them, and seems to be receiving when he is con-
ferring. He never speaks of himself except when cùm-
pelIed, never defends himself by a mere retort, he has no
ears for slander or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing
motives to those who interfere with him, and interprets
every thing for the best. He is never mean or little in
his disputes, never takes unfair advantage, never mis-
takes personalities or sharp sayings for arguments, or in-
sinuates evil which he dare not say out. From a long-
sighted prudence, he observes the maxim of the ancient
sage, that we should ever conduct ourselves towards our
enemy as if he were one day to be our friend. He has
too much good sense to be affronted at insults, he is too
well employed to remelnber injuries, and too indolent to
14

210

.Discourse l?IIl

bear malice. I-Ie is )
!1t forbearing, and resigned, on
philosophical principles; he submits to pain, becau!,e it
is inevitable, to bereavement, because it is irreparable-:--
and to death, because it is his destiny. If he engages in
controversy of any kind, his disciplined intellect preserves
..
him froll1 the blundering discourtesy of better, perhaps,
but less educated n1inds; \vho, like blunt weapons,
tear and hack instead of cutting clean, \vho mistake the
point in argument, waste their strength on trifles, mis-
conceive their adversary, and leave the question n10re
involved than they find it. He may be right or \vrong
in his opinion, but he is too clear-headed to be unjust;
he is as silnple as he is forcible, and as brief as he is
decisive. Nowhere shall we find greater candour, con

sideration, indulgence: he throws himself into the n1inds
of his opponents, he accounts for their mistakes. I--Ie
knows the \veakness of hunlan reason as well as its
strength, its province and its limits. If he be an un-
believer, he will be too profound and large-minded to
ridicule religion or to act against it; he is too wise to be
a dogmatist or fanatic in his infidelity. He respects piety
and devotion; he even supports institutions as vene-
rable, beautiful, or useful, to \vhich he does not assent;
he honours the ministers of religion, and it contents
him to decline its nlysteries without assailing or Je.
nouncing them. He is a friend of religious toleration,
and that, not only because his philosophy has taught
him to look on all forms of faith with an inlpartial eye,
but also from the gentleness and effeminacy of feeling,
\\'hich is the attendant on civilization.
Not that he may not hold a religion too, in his o'wn
way, even when he is not a Christian. In that case his
religion is one of imagination and sentiment; it is the
enlbodiment of those ideas of the sublime, majestic.

K nO'll/ledge a1ul A.ellgious Duty. 2 I I

and beautiful, without \vhich there can be no large
philosophy. Sometimes he acknowledges the being of
God, sometimes he invests an unknown principle or
quality with the attributes of perfection. And this de-
duction of his reason, or creation of his fancy, he makes
the occasion of such excellent thoughts, and the start-
ing-point of so varied and systematic a teaching, that he
even seems like a disciple of Christianity itself. From
the very accuracy and steadiness of his logical powers,
he is able to see \vhat sentiments are consistent in those
who hold any religious doctrine at all, and he appears to
others to feel and to hold a whole circle of theological
truths, which exist in his mind no otherwise thaa as a
number of deductions.

Such are some of the lineaments afthe ethical charac-
t er, which the cultivated intellect will forol, apart fr oIlI
.;ëllglous PrInciple. '[hey are seen within the pale of the
Church d.nd without it, in hol y Inen, and in profligate;
. - - ----- - -----
they form the .beazt-tdeal of the world j th ey p art l y assis! AI"
a nd partly distort the deveiopnient of the Catholic. "'1.'
They may subserve the education ofast
Francis de- .
Sales or a Cardinal Pole; they may be t he limit
f the
contemp latiOl I of :l Shaftesbu ry ar a Gibb on. _ B.as.iL.a.nd
Julian were fellow-students at the scho ol s of At4.. ens;
and one beca m e the Saint and Doctor of the C hurch, th;
other her scoffing and relentless foe.

212

DISCOUR
E IX.

DUTIES OF THE CHURCH TOWARDS KNOWLEDGE.

I.
I HAVE to congratulate myself, Gentlemen, that at
length I have accomplished, with whatever success,
the difficult and anxious undertaking to \vhich I have
been immediately addressing myself. Difficult and
anxious it has been in truth, though the main subject of
University Teaching has been so often and so ably dis-
cussed already; for I have attempted to follo\v out a line
of thought more familiar to Protestants just no\v than
to Catholics, upon Catholic grounds. I declared my
intention, \vhen I opened the subject, of treating it as a
philosophical and practical, rather than as a theological
question, with an appeal to common sense, not to
ecclesiastical rules; and for this very reason, while my
argument has been less ambitious, it has been deprived of
the lights and supports which another mode of handling
it would have secured.
No anxiety, no effort of mind is nlore severe than
his, who in a difficuÌt matter has it seriously at heart
to investigate without error and to instruct without
obscurity; as to myself, if the past discussion has at any
time tried the patience of the kind persons who have
given it their attention, I can assure them that on no
one can it have inflicted so great labour and fatigue as

Duties 0/ the Church Towards Kno'lvledgfe 21 3

on myself. Happy they who are engaged in provinces
of thought, so familiariy traversed and so thoroughly
explored, that they see every \vhere the footprints, the
paths, the landmarks, and the remains of former tra-
vellers, and can never step wrong; but for myself,
Gentlemen, I have felt like a navigator on a strange sea,
who is out of sight of land, is surprised by night, and has
to trust mainly to the rules and instruments of his science
for reaching the port. The everlasting mountains, the
high majestic cliffs, oÎ the opposite coast, radiant in the
sunlight, which are our ordinary guides, fail us in an
excursion such as this; the lessons of antiquity, the
determinations of authority, are here rather the needle,
chart, and plummet, than great objects, with distinct and
continuous outlines and completed details, which stand
up and confront and occupy our gaze, and relieve us
from the tension and suspense of our personal obser-
vation. And thus, in spite of the pains \ve may take
to consult others and avoid mistakes, it is not till the
morning comes and the shore greets us, and we see our
vessel making straight for harbour, that we relax OUf
jealous watch, and consider anxiety irrational. Such in
a measure has been my feeling in the foregoing inquiry;
in which indeed I have been in \vant neither of authori-
tative principles nor distinct precedents, but of treatises
in extenJ"O on the subject on which I have written,-the
finished work of writers, who, by their acknowledged
judgment and erudition, might furnish me for my private
guidance with a running instruction on each point which
successively came under review.
1 have spoken of the arduousness of my "immediate"
undertaking, because \vhat I have been attempting has
been of a preliminary nature, not contemplating the
duties of the Church towards a University, nor the

214

Discourse IX.

characteristics of a University which is Catholic, but
inquiring what a University is, what is its aim, what its
nature, what its bearings. I have accordingly laid down
first, that all branches of knowledge are, at least im-
plicitly, the su bject-II1.atter of its teaching; that these
branches are not isolated and independent one of an-
other, but form together a whole or system; that they
run into each other, and complete each other, and that,
in proportion to our view of them as a whole, is the
exactness and trustworthiness of the knowledge which
they separately convey; that the process of imparting
kno\vledge to the intellect in this philosophical way is
its true culture; that such culture is a good in itself; that
the kno\vledge which is both its instrument and result is
called Liberal Knowledge; that such culture, together
with the knowledge which effects it, may fitly be sought
for its o\vn sake; that it is, however, in addition, of great
secular utility, as constituting the best and highest for-
mation of the intellect for social and political life; and
lastly, that, considered in a religious aspect, it concurs
with Christianity a certain way, and then diverges from
it; and consequently proves in the event, sometimes its
serviceable ally, sometimes, from its very resemblance to
it, an insidious and dangerous foe.
Though, however, these Discourses have only pro-
fessed to be preliminary, being directed to the investiga-
tion of the object and nature of the Education which a
University professes to impart, at the same time I do not
like to conclude without making some remarks upon the
duties of the Church towards it, or rather on the ground
of those duties. If the Catholic Faith is true, a U niver-
sity cannot exist externally to the Catholic pale, for it
cannot teach Universal Knowledge if it does not teach
Catholic theology. This is certain; but still, though it

Duties of the Church T07vartls l
nowledge. 2 IS

had ever so many theological Chairs, that would not
suffice to make it a Catholic University; for theology
\vould be included in its teaching only as a branch of
knowledge, only as one out of many constituent portions,
however important a one, of what I have called Philos-
ophy. Hence a direct and active jurisdiction of the
Church over it and in it is necessary, lest it should be-
come the rival of the Church with the community at
large in those theological Inatters which to the Church
are exclusively committed,---:-acting as the representative
of the intellect, as the Church is the representative of the
religious principle. The illustration of this proposition
shall be the subject of my concluding Discourse.

2.
I say then, that, even though the case could be so
that the whole system of Catholicism was recognized and
professed, without the direct presence of the Church,
still this would not at once make such a University a
Catholic Institution, nor be sufficient to secure the due
\veight of religious considerations in its philosophical
studies. For it may easily happen that a particular
bias or drift may characterize an Institution, which no
rules can reach, nor officers remedy, nor professions
or promises counteract. We have an instance of such
a case in the Spanish Inquisition ;-here was a purely
Catholic establishment, devoted to the maintenance, or
rather the ascendancy of Catholicisnl, keenly zealous fot
theological truth, the stern foe of every anti-Catholic
idea, and administered by Catholic theologians; yet it
in no proper sense belonged to the Church. It was
simply and entirely a State institution, it was an expres-
sion of that very Church-and-King spirit \vhich has pre-
vailed in these islands; nay, it was an instrunlent of the

216

DÚ;couyse IX.

State, according to the confession of the acutest Protes-
tant historians, in its warfare against the Holy See. Con-
sidered "materially:' it was nothing but Catholic; but
its spirit and form were earthly and secular, in spite of
\vhatever faith and zeal and sanctity and charity were to
be found in the individuals who from time to time h;-d a
share in its administration. And in like manner, it is no
sufficient security for the Catholicity of a University,
even that the whole of Catholic theology should be pro-
fessed in it, unless the Church breathes her own pure and
unearthly spirit into it, and fashions and moulds its
organization, and watches over its teaching, and knits
together its pupils, and superintends its action. The
Spanish Inquisition canle into collision with the suprenlc
Catholic authority, and that, from the fact that its imme-
diate end was of a secular character; and for the same
reason, whereas Academical Institutions (as I have been
so long engaged in showing) are in their very nature
directed to social, national, temporal objects in the first
instance, and since they are living and energizing bodies,
if they deserve the name of University at all, and of
necessity have some one formal and definite ethical cha-
racter, good or bad, and do of a certainty imprint that
character on the individuals who direct and who frequent
them, it cannot but be that, if left to themselves, they
will, in spite of their profession of Catholic Truth, work
out results more or less prejudicial to its interests.
N or is this all: such Institutions may become hostile
to Revealed Truth, in consequence of the circun1stances
of their teaching as well as of their end. They are em-
ployed in the pursuit of Liberal Knowledge, and Libera]
Knowledge has a special tendency, not necessary OJ
rightful, but a tendency in fact, when cultivated by
beings such as we are, to impress us with a nlere philo-

flutzes 0/ the Chllrch T01.l.!ar(ls Knou.fedge. 2 17

sophical theory of life and conduct, in the place of
Revelation. I have said much on this subject already.
Truth has two attributes-beauty and power;

while Useful Knowledge is the possession of truth as
powerful, L i beral Knowledg-e is the a pR rehension of it as
beautiful. Pursue it, either as beauty or as power, to its
furthest extent and its true limit, and you are led by
either road to the Eternal and Infinite, to the intimations
of conscience and the announcements of the Church.
Satisfy yourself with what is only visibly or intelligibly
excellent, as you are likely to do, and you will make
present utility and natural beauty the practical test of
truth, and the sufficient object of the intellect. It is not
that you will at once reject Catholicism, but you will
measure and proportion it by an earthly standard. You
\vill throw its highest and most momentous disclosures
into the background, you will deny its principles, explain
away its doctrines, re-arrange its precepts, and make
light of its practices, even while you profess it. Know-
ledge, viewed as Knowledge, exertS- a subtle influence in
throwing us back on ourselves, and making us our own
centre, and our minds the measure of all things. This
then is the tendency of that Liberal Education, of which
a University is the school, viz., to view Revealed Reli-
gion from an aspect of its own,-to fuse and recast it,-
to tune it, as it were, to a different key, and to reset its
harmonies,-to circumscribe it by a circle \\Thich unwar-
rantably amputates here, and unduly developes there;
and all under the notion, conscious or unconscious
,
that the human intellect, self-educated and self-sup-
ported, is more true and perfect in its ideas and judg-
ments than that of Prophets and Apostles, to whom the
sights and sounds of Heaven were inlmediately con-
veyed. A sense of propriety, order, consistency, and

218

Disc01f1/se /)(.

completeness gives birth to a rebellious stirring against
tniracle and mystery, against the severe and the terrible.
This Intellectualism first and chiefly comes into colli-
sion with precept, then with doctrine, then with the very
principle of doglnatisQ1 ;-a perception of the Beautiful
becomes the substitute for faith. In a country \vhich
does not profess the faith, it at once runs, if allo\ved, into
scepticism or infidelity; but even \vithin the pale of the
Church, and with the most unqualified profession of her
Creed, it acts, if left to itself, as an element of corrup-
tion and debility. Catholicism, as it has come do\vn to
us from the first, seems to be mean and illiberal; it is a
mere popular religion; it is the religion of illiterate ages
or servile populations or barbarian warriors; it must
be treated with discrimination and delicacy, corrected,
softened, improved, if it is to satisfy an enlightened
generation. It must be stereotyped as the patron of
arts, or the pupil of speculation, or the protégé of science;
it must play the literary academician, or the empirical
philanthropist, or tlie political partisan; it must keep
up with the age; some or other expedient it must devise,
in order to explain away, or to hide, tenets under which
the intellect labours and of which it is ashamed-its doc-
trine, for instance, of grace, its mystery of the Godhead,
its preaching of the Cross, its devotion to the Queen of
Saints, or its loyalty to the Apostolic See. Let this
spirit be freely evolved out of that philosophical condition
of mind, which in former Discourses I have so highly,
so justly extolled, and it is impossible but, first indiffer-
ence, then laxity of belief, then even heresy will be the
successive results.
Here then are two injuries which Revelation is likely
to sustain at the hands of the Masters of human reason
unless the Church, as in duty bound, protects the sacred

Dutzes of the Church Tozf1ards Knowledge. 2 19

treasure which is in jeopardy. The first is a simple
ignoring of Theological Truth altogether, under the pre-
tence of not recognising differences of religious opinion;
-\vhich will only take place in countries or under govern-
ments which have abjured Catholicism. The second,
which is of a more subtle character, is a recognition indeed
of Catholicism, but (as if in pretended mercy to it) an
adulteration of its spirit. I will now proceed to describe
the dangers I speak of more distinctly, by a reference
to the general subject-matter of instruction which a
University undertakes.
!here are three great subjects on \vhicb Human Reason...,
e mploys itself :-God, Nature. and M aJ.t : and theology
be ing put aside in the present argument, the physical
and social worlds remain. These, when respectively sub-
jected to Human Reason, form two books: the book
of nature is called Science, the book of man is called
Literature. Literature and Science, thus considered,
nearly constitute the subject-matter of Liberal Educa-
tion; and, \vhile Science is made to subserve the former
of the two injuries, which Revealed Truth sustains,-its
exclusion, Literature subserves the latter,-its corruption.
Let us consider the influence of each upon Religion
separately.

3.
I. As to Physical Science, of course there can be no
real collision between it and Catholicism. Nature and
Grace, Reason and Revelation, come from the same
Divine Author, whose works cannot contradict each
other. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that, in matter
of fact, there always has been a sort of jealousy and
hostili ty between Religion and physical philosophers.
The nanle of Galileo reminds us of it at once. Not con-

220

Dlscourse I
Y.

tent \\ ith investigating and reasoning in his own province,
it is said, he went out of his way directly to insult the
received interpretation of Scripture; theologians repelled
an attack which was wanton and arrogant; and Science,
affronted in her min .ster, has taken its full revenge upon
Theology since. A vast multitude of its teachers, I fear
it must be said, have been either unbelievers or sceptics,
or at least have denied to Christianity any teaching,
distinctive or special, over the Religion of Nature. There
have indeed been most illustrious exceptions; some men
protected by their greatness of mind, some by their
religious profession, some by the fear of public opinion;
but I suppose the run of experimentalists, external to
the Catholic Church, have more or less inherited the
positive or negative unbelief of Laplace, Buffon, Franklin,
Priestley, Cuvier, and Humboldt. I do not of course
mean to say that there need be in every case a resentful
and virulent opposition made to Religion on the part ot
scientific men; but their emphatic silence or phlegmatic
inadvertence as to its claims have implied, more elo-
quently than any words, that in their opinion it had no
voice at all in the subject-matter, which they had ap-
propriated to themselves. The same antagonism shows
itself in the middle ages. Friar Bacon was popularly
regarded with suspícion as a dealer in unlawful arts;
Pope Sylvester the Second has been accused of magic
for his knowledge of natural secrets; and the geographical
ideas of St. Virgil, Bishop of Saltzburg, were regarded
with anxiety by the great St. Boniface, the glory of
England, the Martyr-Apostle of Germany. I suppose,
in matter of fact, magical superstition and physical
kno\vledge did commonly go together in those ages:
however, the hostility between experimental science and
theology is far older than Christianity. Lord Bacon

Duties of the Church Towards Knowledge. 221

traces it to an era prior to Socrates; he tells us that,
alnong the Greeks, the atheistic \vas the philosophy nlost
favourable to physical discoveries, and he does not hesi-
tate to imply that the rise of the religious schools was the
ruin of science. *
N O\V, if we would investigate the reason of this oppo-
sition between Theology and Physics, I suppose we must
first take into account Lord Bacon's o\vn explanation of
it. It is common in judicial inquiries to caution the
parties on WhOlIl the verdict depends to put out of their
minds whatever they have heard out of court on the sub-
ject to \vhich their attention is to be directed. They are to
judge by the evidence; and this is a rule \vhich holds in
other investigations as far as this, that nothing of an ad

ventitious nature ought to be introduced into the process.
In like manner, from religious investigations, as such,
physics must be excluded, and from physical, as such,
religion; and if we mix them, we shall spoil both. The
theologian, speaking of Divine Omnipotence, for the time
simply ignores the laws of nature as existing restraints
upon its exercise; and the physical philosopher, on the
other hand, in his expenments upon natural phenomena,
is simply ascertaining those laws, putting aside the ques-
tion of that Omnipotence. If the theologian, in tracing
the ways of Providence, were stopped with objections
grounded on the impossibility of physical miracles, he
would justly protest against the interruption; and were
the philosopher, who was determining the motion of the
heavenly bodies, to be questioned about their Final or
their
'irst Cause, he too would suffer an illogical inter-
ruption. The latter asks the cause of volcanoes, and is
impatient at being told it is "the divine vengeance;" the

* Vid. Hallam's Literature of Europe, Macaulay's E
ay, and th
Author's
Oxford University Sermons, IX.

222

Discourse IX.

fornler asks the cause of the overthrow of the guilty
cities, and is preposterously referred to the volcanic
action still visible in their neighbourhood. The inquiry
into final causes for the moment passes over the exist-
ence of established laws; the inquiry into physical,
passes over for the monlent the existence of God. In
other words, physical science is in a certain sense athe-
istic, for the very reason it is not theology.
This is Lord Bacon's justification, and an intelligibJe
one, for considering that the fall of atheistic philosophy
in ancient times was a blight upon the hopes of physical
science. "Aristotle," he says, "Galen, and others fre-
quently introduce such causes as these :-the hairs of
the eyelids are for a fence to the sight; the bones for
pillars whence to build the bodies of animals; the
leaves of trees are to defend the fruit from the sun and
wind; the clouds are designed for watering the earth.
All which are properly alleged in metaphysics; but in
physics, are impertinent, and as re11l0raS to the ship, that
hinder the sciences from holding on their course of
inlprovement, and as introducing a neglect of searching
after physical causes." *" Here then is one reason for the
prejudice of physical philosophers against Theology:-
on the one hand, their deep satisfaction in the la\vs of
nature indisposes them towards the thought of a Moral
Governor, and makes them sceptical of His interpo-
sition; on the other hand, the occasional interference of
religious criticism in a province not religious, has made
them sore. suspicious, and resentful.

Another reason of a kindred nature is to be found
in the difference of method by which truths are gained
.. In Augment.,

Duties of the C.h"1"ch ?;ru'arrlJ l('nozfJ!ed.
(. 223

in theology and in physical science. Induction is the
instrun1ent of Physics, and deduction only is the instru-
Inent of Theology. There the simple question is, What
is revealed? all doctrinal kno\vledge flow's from one
fountain head. If we are able to enlarge our view and
tIlultiply our propositions, it n1ust be n1erél y by the
c0I11parison and adjustn1ent of the original truths; if we
v:ould solve ne\v questions, it must be by consulting old
answers. The notion of doctrinal knowledge absolutely
novel, and of sin1ple addition from without, is intole-
rable to Catholic ears, and never was entertained by
anyone who was even approaching to an understand-
ing of our creed. Revelation is all in all in doctrine;
the A postles its sole depository, the inferential method
its sole instrument, and ecclesiastical authority its sole
sanction. The Divine Voice has spoken once for all,
and the only question is about its tneaning. Now
this process, as far as it was reasoning, was the very
nlode of reasoning which, as regards physical know-
ledge, the school of Bacon has superseded by the in-
ductive tnethod :-no wonder, then, that that school
should be irritated and indignant to find that a subject-
Iuatter remains still, in \vhich their favourite instrunlent
has no office; no wonder that they rise up against this
nlen10rial of an antiquated system, as an eyesore and an
insult; and no wonder that the very force and dazzling
success of their own n1ethod in its own departments
should sway or bias unduly the religious sentin1ents of
any persons who come under its influence. They assert
that no ne\v truth can be gained by deduction; Catho-
lics assent, but add that, as regards religious truth, they
have not to seek at all, for they have it already. Chris-
tian 1"'ruth is purely of revelation; that revelation we can
Lut explain, we cannot increase, except relatively to our

224

Discourse IX.

own apprehensions; without it we should have known
nothing of its contents, with it we know just as much as its
contents, and nothing more. And, as it was given by a
divine act independent of man, so will it remain in spite
of man. r-{iebuhr
ay revolutionize history, Lavoisier
chemistry, Ne\vton astronon1Y; but God Hin1self is the
author as well as the subject of theology. When Truth
can change, its Revelation can change; when hun1an
reason can outreason the On1niscient, then may it super-
sede His work.
Avowals such as these fall strange upon the ear of
men whose first principle is the search after truth, and
whose starting-points of search are things material and
sensible. They scorn any process of inquiry not founded
on experiment; the Mathematics indeed they endure,
because that science deals with ideas, not with facts, and
leads to conclusions hypothetical rather than real;
., Metaphysics" they even use as a by-word of reproach;
lind Ethics they admit only on condition that it g
ves up
conscience as its scientific ground, and bases itself on
tangible utility: but as to Theology, they cannot deal
with it, they cannot master it, and so they simply outlaw
it and ignore it. Catholicisn1, forsooth, "confines the
intellect," because it holds that God's intellect is greater
than theirs, and that what He has done, man cannot
ilTI prove. And \vhat in some sort justifies them to th

selves in this extravag-ance is the circun1stance that

there is a relig-ion close at their doors which, discarding
so severe a tone, has actually adopted their own
principle of inqui . Protestantism treats Scri ture_i ust
as t ey deal with Nature; it takes th e
r ed text a
a _
large collection of phenomena, from which, by an In-
ductive process, each individual Christian Ina arrive at
just t lose re igiou> conclusions which approve them-

D"b"';s oj the Cñurch Towaras I(nowtedj[f. 225

selves to h is own iud
ment. It considers faith a mere
modification of reason, as being an acquiescence in
certain probable conclusions till better are found.
Sympathy, then, if no other reason, throws experimental
philosophers into alliance with the enemies of Catho-
licism.

5
I have another consideration to add, not less impor-
tant than any I have hitherto adduced. The physical
sciences, Astronomy, Chemistry, and the rest, are
doubtless engaged upon divine works, and cannot issue
in untrue religious conclusions. But at the same time it
tnust be recollected that Revelation has reference to
circumstances which did not arise till after the heavens
and the earth were made. They were made before the
introduction of mor
1 pul1 into thp world: whereas the
Catholic Church is the instrnmp,nt of a remedial dispen-
sation to meet that introduction. No wonder then that
her teaching is simply distinct, though not divergent,
from the theology which Physical Science suggests to its
followers. She sets before us a number of attributes
and acts on the part of the Divine Being, for which the
tnaterial and animal creation gives no scope; power,
\visdotn, goodness are the burden of the physical world,
but it does not and could not speak of mercy, long-
suffering, and the economy of human redemption, and
but partially of the moral law and moral goodness.
" ref ..10- "s. .. &.0 "mu .-.. .
from the words and the orades of God: not from the
li
ht of nature or the dictates of reason. It is written,
that 'the Heavens declare the glory of God ;' but \ve no-
where find it that the Heavens declare the will of God;
\vhich is pronounced a law and a testimony, that men
15

226

Discourse IX.

should do according to it. N or does this hold only in
the great mysteries of the Godhead, of the creation,
of the redemption. . . . We cannot doubt that a large
part of the moral law is too sublime to be attained by
the light of nature. though it is still certain that m
n,
even with the light and law of nature, have some notions
of virtue, vice, justice, \vrong, good, and evi1.
' * That
the new and further manifestations of the Almighty,
made by Revelation, are in perfect harmony with the
teaching of the natural world, forms indeed one subject
of the profou nd work of the Anglican Bishop Butler;
but they cannot in any sense be gathered from nature,
and !he silence of nature concerning- them m ay easily
seduce the im
i nation, thou g h it bas no force to per-
suade the reason, to rev olt from doctrines which have
not been auth e!1tiça .Jed Qy facts.! but are enfor ced b
authority. In a scientific age, then, there will naturally
be a parade of what is called Natural Theology, a wide-
spread profession of the Unitarian creed, an impatience
-
of mystery, and a scepticism about miracles.
And to all this must be added the ample opportunity
\vhich physical science gives to the indulgence of those
sentÏtl1ents of beauty, order, and congruity, of which I
have said so n1uch, as the ensigns and colours (as they
may be called) of a civilized age in its warfare against
Catholicism.
It being considered, then, that Catholicism differs from
physical science, in drift, in nlethod of proof: and in su b-
ject-matter, how can it fail to meet with unfair usage
from the philosophers of any Institution in which there
is no one to take its part? That Physical Science itself
will be ultin1ately the loser by such ill treatment of Theo...
· De Augw..
28.

Dutit:s of the Church Towards Knowledge. 227

logy; I have insisted on at great length in some pre-
ceding Discourses; for to depress unduly, to encroach
upon any science, and much more on an important one,
is to do an injury to all. However, this is not the con-
cern of the Church; the Church has no call to watch
over and protect Science: but towards Theology .she has
a distinct duty: it is one of the special trusts committed
to her keeping. Where Theology is, there she must be;
and if a University cannot fulfil its name and office with-
out the recognition of Revealed Truth, she must be there
to see that it is a b01ld fide recognition, sincerely made
and consistently acted on.

6.
II. i\.nd if the interposition of the Church is necessary
in the Schools of Science, still more imperatively is it
demanded in the other main constituent portion of
the subject-matter of Liberal Education,-Literature.
Literature stands related to Man as Science stanrIs tQ
..
Nature: it is his history. Man is composed of body
" and soul; he thinks and he acts; he has appetites,
passions, affections, motives, designs; he has within hin1
the lifelong struggle of duty with inclination; he has an
intellect fertile and capacious; he is formed for society,
and society multiplies and diversifies in endless combina-
tions his personal characteristics, moral and intellectual.
All this constitutes his life; of all this Literature is the
expression; so that Literature is to man in some sort what
autobiography is to the individual; it is his Life and Re-
mains. Moreover, he is this sentient, intelligent, creative,
and operative being, quite independent of any extraor-
dinary aid froln Heaven, or any definite religious belief;
and as such, as he is in himself, does Literature represent
him; it is the Life and Remains of the 1la/ural man,

228

Discoltrsl' IJí..

j(/3

innocent or guilty. I do not mean to say that- it Is
impossible in its very notion that Literature should be
tinctured by a religious spirit; Hebrew Literature, as far
as it can be called Literature, certainly is simply theo-
logical, and has a,character imprinted on it which is
above nature; but I am speaking of what is to be ex-
pected without any extraordinary dispensation; and I
say that, in matter of fact, as Science is the reflection of
Nature, so is Literature also-the one, of Nature physical,
the other, of Nature moral and social. Circumstançes,
such as locality, period, language, seem to make little or
no difference in the character of Literature, as such;
on the whole,- all Literatures are one: they are the
voices of the natural man
I wish this were all that had to be said to the disad-
vantage of Literature; but while Nature physical remains
fixed in its laws, Nature moral and social has a will of
its own, is self-governed, and never remains any long
\\'hile in that state from which it started into action.
Man will never continue in a mere state of innocence; he
is sure to sin, and his literature will be the expression of
his sin, and this whether he be heathen or Christian.
Christianity has thrown gleams of light on him and his
literature; but as it has not converted him, but only
certain choice specimens of him, so it has not changed
the characters of his mind or of his history; his literature
is either what it was, or worse than ,vhat it was, in pro-
portion as there has been an abuse of knowledge granted
and a rejection of truth. ..Qn the ,vhole, then, I think it
will be found, and ever fo
nd , as a ....tt r of course, t hat_
Literature, as such, no matter of what .J}a
ion, is

sci
nce or history, partly an d at he st of the nat ural man,
partly of ß1an in rebellion.

Dulzis o.f th
Church Towards Knowledge. 229

'I
Here then, I say, you are involved in a difficulty
greater than that which besets the cultivation of Science;
for, if Physical Science be dangerous, as I have said, it is
dangerous, because it necessarily ignores the idea of
moral evil; but Literature is open to the more grievous
itnputation of recognizing and understanding it too well.
Some one will say to me perhaps: "Our youth shall
not be corrupted. We will dispense with all general or
national Literature whatever, if it be so exceptionable;
we will have a Christian Literature of our own, as pure,
as true, as the J ewish." You cannot have it :-1 do not
say you cannot form a select literature for the young, nay,
even for the n1iddle or lower classes; this is another
matter altogether: I am speaking of University Educa-
tion, which implies an extended range of reading, which
has to deal with standard works of genius, or what are
called the classics of a language: and I say, fron1 the
nature of the case, if Literature is to be made a study of
human nature, you cannot have a Christian Literature.
It is a contradiction in terms to attem.pt a sinless Litera-
ture of sinful man. You may gather together sOInething
very great and high, something higher than any Literature
ever was; and when you have done so, you will find that
it is not Literature at all. You will have simply left the
delineation of man, as such, and have substituted for it,
as far as you have had any thing to substitute, that of
man, as he is or might be, under certain special advan-
tages. Give up the study of man, as such, if so it must
be j but say you do so. Do not say you are studying
hinl, his history, his mind and his heart, when you are
studying something else. Man is a being of genius,
passion, intellect, conscience, power. He exercises these

230

Discourse IX.

various gifts in various ways, in great deeds, in great
thoughts, in heroic acts, in hateful crimes. He founds
states, he fights battles, he builds cities, he ploughs the
forest, he subdues the elements, he rules his kind. He
creates vast ideas, and influences many generations.
He takes a thousand shapes, and undergoes a thousand
fortunes. Literature records then1 all to the life,

Quicquid agunt homines, votum. timor, ira, voluptas.
Gaudia, discursus.

He pours out his fervid soul in poetry j he sways to and
fro, he soars, he dives, in his restless speculations; his
lips drop eloquence; he touches the canvas, and it
glo\vs with beauty; he sweeps the strings, and they
thrill with an .ecstatic n1eaning. He looks back into
himself: and he reads his own thoughts, and notes them
down; he looks out into the universe, and tells over and
celebrates the elements and principles of which it is the
product.
Such is man: put him aside, keep him before you;
but, '\\"hatever you do, do not take him for what he is
not, for something more divine and sacred, for man re-
generate. Nay, beware of showing God's grace and its
work at such disadvantage as to make the few \VhOnl it
has thoroughly influenced compete in intellect with the
vast multitude who either have it not, or use it ill. The
elect are few to choose out of: and the world is inex-
haustible. From the first, J abel and Tubalcain, Nimrod
"the stout hunter," the learning of the Pharaohs, and
the wisdom of the East country, are of the world. Every
now and then they are rivalled by a Solomon or a Be-
seleel, but the ltab-itat of natural gifts is the natural man.
The Church Inay use then1,
he cannot at her will origi-

Duties of the Church TOluards f(llozvledg-e. 23 1

nate them. Not till the whole human race is made

w ill its literature be pur e and true. Possible of course
it is in idea, for nature, inspired by heavenly grace, to
exhibit itself on a large scale, in an originality of thought
or action, even far beyond what the world's literature
has recorded or exemplified; but)j f you woul d in fact
ha ve a literature of saints, first of all have a nation of

t hem.
-W hat is a clearer proof of the truth of all this than
the structure of the Inspired Word itself? It is un-
deniably not the reflection or picture of the many, but
of the fe\v; it is no picture of life, but an anticipation 01
death and judgment. Human literature is about all
things, grave or gay, painful or pleasant; but the
Inspired Word views them only in one aspect, and as
they tend to one scope. It gives us little insight into
the fertile developments of Inind; it has no terms in its
vocabulary to express with exactness the intellect and
its separate faculties: it knows nothing of genius, fancy,
wit, invention, presence of mind, resource. It does not
discourse of empire, commerce, enterprise, learning,
philosophy, or the fine arts. Slightly too does it touch
on the more simple and innocent courses of nature and
their reward. Little does it say - of those temporal
blessings which rest upon our worldly occupations, and
make them easy; of the blessings which we derive from
the sunshine day and the serene night, from the succes-
sion of the seasons, and the produce of the earth. Little
about our recreations and our daily domestic comforts;
little about the ordinary occasions of festivity and mirth,
which sweeten human life; and nothing at all about
various pursuits or amusements, which it would be going
too much into detail to mention. We read indeed of the
· Vid. the Author's Parochial Sermons. vol. i. 25.

23 2

D'isèourse IX.

feast when Isaac \vas weaned, and of Jacob's courtship,
and of the religious Inerry-nlakings of holy Job; but
exceptions, such as these, do but retnind us what nlight
be in Scripture, and is not. If then by Literature is
meant the manifestation of hunlan nature in human lan-
--.,. - -
g uage, yo u will seek for it in vain except in the world.
Pu
p with it, as it is , or do llot pretend to c l!!ti vate it;
take things as th ey_a
J not as you could wish the n}.

8.
Nay, I am obliged to go further still; even if we could,
still we should be shrinking froul our plain duty, Gentle-
filcn, did we ledve out Literature fronl Education. For
why do we educate, except to prepare for the world?
Why do we cultivate the intellect of the many beyond
the first elenlents of knowledge, except for this world?
Will it be Inuch matter in the world to come \vhethe:f
our bodily health or whether our intellectual strength
was Inore or less, except of course as this world is in
all its circumstances a trial for the next? If then a
-r:--- --
Universi ty is a direct prep aration for this w oi:W, let it _
be w hat it professes. It is not a Co nveI}t.a-it is _not

Semi
ry. it is a p lace t o fit men of the world for tl
e
world. We cannot possibly keep them from plunging
into the world, with all its ways and principles and
maxims, when their time comes; but we can prepare
thenl against \vhat is inevitable; and it is not the way
to learn to swim in troubled waters, never to have
gone into them. Proscribe (I do not merely say parti-
cular authors, particular works, particular passages) but
Secular Literature as such; cut out from your class
books all broad nlanifestations of the natural man; and
those nlanifestations are waiting for your pupil's benefit
at the very doors of your lecture roonl in Jiving and

Duties oj the Church TO'llJards Knowltdge. 233

breathing substance. They will meet him there in all
the charm of novelty, and all the fascination of genius
or of amiableness. To-day a pupil, to-morrow a mem-
ber of the great world: to-day confined to the Lives
of the Saints, to-morrow thrown upon Babel ;-thrown
on Babel, without the honest indulgence of wit and
humour and imagination having ever been permitted to
him, without any fastidiousness of taste wrought into
him, without any rule given him for discriminating" the
precious fron1 the vile," beauty froln sin, the truth from
the sophistry of nature, what is innocent from what is
poison. You have refused him the masters of huu1an
thought, who would in some sense have educated him,
because of their incidental corruption: you have shut
up from him those whose thoughts strike home to our
hearts, whose words are proverbs, whose names are in-
digenous to all the world, who are the standard of their
mother tongue, and the pride and boast of their country-
filen, Homer, Ariosto, Cervantes, Shakespeare, because
the old Adam smelt rank in them; and for what have
you reserved him ? You have given him "a liberty
unto" the multitudinous blasphemy of his day; you
have made him free of its newspapers, its reviews, its
n1agazines, its novels, its controversial pamphlets, of its
Parliamentary debates, its law proceedings, its platform
speeches, its songs, its drama, its theatre, of its envelop-
ing, stifling atrnosphere of death. You have succeeded
but in this,-in making the world his University.
Difficult then as the q uestion may_ be,
n d much a s it
may try the iudgments and even d
ide the_opini ons of
zealous and religious Catholics, T cr.nnot feel any do

Lmysclf, Gentlemen, that the Churçb
s tru.e Jmlicy is not
!o aim at the exclus ion of Literature from Secular
Schools, but at her own a dn1ission into them. Let her d

234

Dtscourse IX.

for Literature in one way what she does for Science in
another; each has its imperfection, and she has her remedy
for each. She fears no knowledge, but she purifies all ;
she represses no element of our nature, but cultivates
the whole. Science.is grave, methodical, logical; with
Science then she argues, and opposes reason to reason.
Literature does not argue, but declaims and insinuates;
it is multiform and versatile: it persuades instead of
convincing, it seduces, it carries captive; it appeals to the
sense of honour, or to the imagination, or to the stirn u-
Ius of curiosity; it makes its way by means of gaiety,
satire, romance, the beautiful, the pleasurable. Is it
wonderful that with an agent like this the Church should
claim to deal with a vigour corresponding to its restless-
ness, to interfere in its proceedings with a higher hand,
and to wield an authority in the choice of its studies and
of its books which would be tyrannical, if reason and
fact \\'ere the only instruments of its conclusions? But,
any how, her principle is one and the same throughout:
not to prohibit truth of any kind, but to see that no doc-
trines pass under the name of Truth but those which
claim it rightfully.

9.
Such at least is the lesson which I am taught by all
the thought which I have been able to bestow upon the
subject; such is the lesson which I have gained from the
history of my own special Father and Patron, St. Philip
Neri. He lived in an age as traitorous to the interests
of Catholicism as any that preceded it, or can follow it.
He lived at a time when pride mounted high, and the
senses held rule; a time when kings and nobles never
had more of state and homage, and never less of per-
sonal responsibility and peril; when medieval \\'inter was

Dubis of the Church TO'Wards Knowledge. 235

receding, and the summer sun of civilization was bring-
ing into leaf and flower a thousand forms of luxurious
enjoyment; when a new world of thought and beauty
had opened upon the human mind, in the discovery of
the treasures of classic literature and art. He saw the
great and the gifted, dazzled by the Enchantress, and
drinking in the magic of her song; he saw the high and
the wise, the student and the artist, painting, and poetry,
and sculpture, and music, and architecture, drawn \vithin
her range, and circling round the abyss: he saw heathen
forms mounting thence, and forming in the thick air:-
all this he saw, and he perceived that the mischief was to
be met, not with argumen
, not with science, not with
protests and warnings, not by the recluse or the preacher,
but by means of the great counter-fascination of purity
and truth. He was raised up to do a work almost pecu-
liar in the Church,-not to be a Jerome Savonarola,
though Philip had a true devotion towards him and a
tender memory of his Florentine house; not to be a
St. Charles, though in his beaming countenance Philip
had recognized the aureole of a saint; not to be a St.
Ignatius, wrestling \vith the foe, though Philip was termed
the Society's bell of call, so many subjects did he send
to it; not to be a St Francis Xavier, though Philip
had longed to shed his blood for Christ in India with him;
not to be a St. Caietan, or hunter, of souls, fo Philip
preferred, as he expressed it, tranquilly to cast in his
net to gain them; he preferred to yield to the stream,
and direct the current, which he could not stop, of
science, literature, art, and fashion, and to sweeten and
to
anctify what God had made very good and man had
spoilt.
And so he \:ontemplated as the idea of his mission,
not the propag-ation of the faith, nor the exposition of

23 6

Discours'i IX.

doctrine, nor the catechetical schools; whatever was exact
and systematic pleased hitu not; he put frool him 1110-
nastic rule and authoritative speech. as David refused the
armour of his king. No; he would be but an ordinary
individual priest as others: and his weapons should be but
.
unaffccted humility and unpretending love. Ail He did
\vas to be done by the light, and fervour, and convincing
eloquence of his personal character and his easy conver-
sation. He canle to the Eternal City and he sat himself
down there, and his home and his family gradually grew
up around hinI, by the spontaneous accession of materials
froll1 \vithout. He did not so much seek his own as
draw them to him. He sat in his small room, and they
in their gay worldly dresses, the rich and the wellborn,
as wel1 as the simple and the illiterate, crowded into it.
In the mid-heats of summer, in the frosts of winter, still
was he in that low and narrow cell at San Girolamo,
reading the hearts of those \vho came to him, and curing
their souls' maladies by the very touch of his hand. It
was a vision of the Magi worshipping the infant Saviour,
so pure and innocent, so sweet and beautiful was he;
and so loyal and so dear to the gracious Virgin Mother.
And they \vho caine remained gazing and listening, till
at length, first one and then another threw off their
bravery, and took his poor cassock and girdle instead:
or, if they kept it, it was to put haircloth under it, or to
take on them a rule of life, while to the world they looked
as before.
In the words of his biographer, "he was all things to
all men. He suited himself to noble and ignoble, young
and old, subjects and prelates, learned and ignorant;
and received those who were strangers to him with
singular benignity, and embraced them with as much
love and charity as if he had been a long while expect-

Duties of the Church Towards J(1wwledg-e. 237

Ing them. When he was called upon to be merry he
was so; if there was a demand upon his sympathy he
was equally ready. He gave the same ,velcome to all :
caressing the .poor equally ,vith the rich, and wearying
himself to assist all to the utmost limits of his power.
In consequence of his being so accessible and willing to
receive all comers, many went to him every day, and
some continued for the space of thirty, nay forty years,
to visit him very often both morning and evening, so
that his room went by the agreeable nickname of the
Hotne of Christian mirth. Nay, people came to him,
not only from all parts of Italy, but from France, Spain,
Germany, and all Christendom; and even the infidels
and Jews, who had ever any communication with him,
revered him as a holy man." * The first families of
Rome, the Massimi, the Aldobrandini, the Colonnas, the
Altieri, the Vitelleschi, were his friends and his penitents.
Nobles of Poland, Grandees of Spain, Knights of Malta,
could not leave Rome without coming to him. Car-
dinals, Archbishops, and Bishops were his intimates;
Federigo Borromeo haunted his room and got the name
of" Father Philip's soul." The Cardinal-Archbishops of
Verona and Bologna wrote books in his honour. Pope
Pius the Fourth died in his arms. Lawyers, painters,
musicians, physicians, it was the same too with them.
Baronius, Zazzara, and Ricci, left the law at his bid-
ding, and joined his congregation, to do its work, to
write the annals of the Church, and to die in the odour
of sanctity. Palestrina had Father Philip's ministra-
tions in his last moments. Animuccia hung about him
during life, sent him a message after death, and ,vas
conducted by him through Purgatory to Heaven. And
who was he, I say. all the \vhile. but an hutnble prie:;t,
* Bacci, vol. i. J p. 192, ii. J p. 9 8 .

23 8

Ð'':scourse IX.

a stranger in Rome, with no distinction of family or
letters, no claim of station or of office, great simply in
the attraction with which a Divine Power had gifted
him? and yet thus humble, thus unennobled, thus empty-
handed, he has achieved the glorious title of Apostle of
Rome.

10.
Well were it for his clients and children, Gentlemen, it
they could promise themselves the very shadow of his
special power, or could hope to do a miserable fraction
of the sort of work in which he was pre-eminently
skilled. But so far at least they may attempt,-to take
his position, and to use his method, and to cultivate the
arts of which he was so bright a pattern. For me, if it be
God's blessed will that in the years now coming I am to
have a share in the great undertaking, which has been
the occasion and the subject of these Discourses, so far
I can say for certain that, whether or not I can do any
thing at all in St. Philip's way, at least I can do nothing
in any other. N either by my habits of life, nor by
vigour of age, am I fitted for the task of authority, or
of rule, or of initiation. I do but aspire, if strength is
given me, to be your minister in a work which must em-
ploy younger minds and stronger lives than mine. I anI
but fit to bear my witness, to proffer my suggestions, to
express my sentiments, as has in fact been my occupa-
tion in these discussions; to throw such light upon
general questions, upon the choice of objects, upon the
impðrt of principles, upon the tendency of n1easures, as
past reflection and experience enable me to contribute.
I shall have to make appeals to your consideration, your
friendlines
, your confidence, of which I have had so
many instances, on which 1 50 tranquilly repose; and

Duties of the Church Towards Knowledge. 239

after all, neither you nor I must ever be surprised, should
it so happen that the Hand of Him, with whom are the
springs of life and death, weighs heavy on me, a!1d
makes me unequal to anticipations in which you have.
been too kind, and to h?pes in which I may have been
too sanguine.

II.
UNIVERSITY SUBJECTS,
DISCUSSED IN OCCASIONAL LECTURES AND ESSAYS.

rú

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

WILLIAM MaNSELL, M.P., ETC., ETC.-

Mv DEAR MONSELL,
I seem to have some claim for asking leave of you to
prefix your name to the following small Volume, since it
is a memorial of work done in a country whic
you so
dearly love, and in behalf of an undertaking in which
you feel so deep an interest.
N or do I venture on the step without some hope that
it is worthy of your acceptance, at least on account of
those portions of it which have already received the
approbation of the learned men to whom they were
addressed, and which have been printed at their desire.
But, even though there were nothing to recommend it
except that it came from me, I know well that you
would kindly welcome it as a token of the truth and
constancy with which I am,
MY DEAR MONSELL,
Yours very affectionately,
[No'Vtmber 18 5 8 .] JOHN H. NEWMAN.

[-Now LORD EM LV.]

.

ADVERTISEl\IENT.

I T has been the fortune of the author through life,
that the Volumes which he has published have grown
for the most part out of the duties which lay upon him,
or out of the circulnstances of the moment. Rarely has
he been master of his own studies.
The present collection of Lectures and Essays, written
by him while Rector of the Catholic University of Ire..
land, is certainly not an exception to this rem
rk.
Rather, it requires the above consideration to be kept in
view, as an apology for the want of keeping which is
apparent between its separate portions, some of them
being written for public delivery, others with the
privileged freedom of anonymous compositions.
However, whatever be the inconvenience which such
varieties in tone and character may involve, the author
cannot affect any compunction for having pursued the
illustration of one and the same important subject-matter
,
with which he had been put in charge, by such methods,
graver or lighter, so that they were lawful, as successively
came to his hand.

1\' :Jvembcr, 1858.

UNIVERSITY SUBJECTS.

PAGB
t CHRISTIANITY AND LETTERS. A Lecture read in the School
of Philosophy and Letters, November, 18 54 - 249

H. LITERATURE. A Lecture read in the School of Philosophy
and Letters, November. 1858 - 268

III. CATHOLIC LITERATURE IN THE ENGLISH
18 54- 8 :-

. I. in its relation to Religious Literature -
fi. 2. to Science

. 3. to Classical Literature .
f. 4. to Literature of the Day

TONGUE,
- 295
. 29 6
- 299
- 3 0 7
- 320

IV. ELEMENTARY STUDIES, 1854-6 :-
j. I. Grammar

. 2. Composition

. 3. Latin Writing -
I. 4. General Religious Knowledge .
V. A FORM OF INFIDELITY OF THE DAY, 1854.-
I. I. Its sentiments -
I. 2. Its policy

- 33 1
- 334
- 34 8
- 3 6 2
. 37 2
. 3 81
- 3 8 1
- 39 2

VI. UNIVERSITY PREACHING, 1855

. 4 0 5

VII. CHRISTIANITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. A Lecture read
in the School of Meè.icine, November, 1855 - 428

VIII. CHRISTIANITY AND SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION.
for the School of Science, 1855 -

A Lecture
- 45 6

IX. DISCIPLINE OF MIND. An Address delivered to tbe Evening
Classes, November, 1858 - 480

x. CHRISTIANITY AND MEDICAL SCIENCE. An Address delivered
to the Students of Medicine, November, 1858 - 505

249

I.

CHRISTIANITY AND LETTERS.

A LECTURE IN THE SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY AND
LETTERS.

1.
I T seems but natural, Gentlemen, now that we art
opening the School of Philosophy and Letters, or,
as it was formerly called, of Arts, in this new University,
that we should direct our attention to the question, what
are the subjects generally included under that name,
and what place they hold, and how they come to hold
that place, in a University, and in the education which
Cl. University provides. This would be natural on
such an occasion, even though the Faculty of Arts held
but a secondary place in the academical system ; but
it seems to be even imperative on us, considering that
the studies which that Faculty embraces are almost the
direct subject-matter and the staple of the mental exer-
cises proper to a University.
It is indeed not a little remarkable that, in spite of
the special historical connexion of University Institutions
with the Sciences of Theology, Law, and Medicine, a
University, after all, should be formally based (as it realty
is), and should emphatically live in. the Faculty of Arts;
but such is the deliberate decision of those who have

.

25 0

Christianitv and Letters.

most deeply and impartially considered the subject. iff
Arts existed before other Faculties; the Masters of Arts
were the ruling and directing body; the success and
popularity of the Faculties of Law and Medicine were
considered to be in no slight measure an encroachment
and a usurpation, and were met with jealousy and
resistance. When Colleges arose and became the
medium and instrument of University action, they did
but confirm the ascendency of the Faculty of Arts; and
thus, even down to this day, in those academical cor-
porations which have more than others retained the
traces of their medieval origin,-l mean the Universities
of Oxford and Cambridge,-we hear little of Theology,
Medicine, or Law, and almost exclusively of Arts.
Now, considering the reasonable association, to which I
have already referred, which exists in our minds between
Universities and the three learned professions, here is a
phenomenon which has to be contemplated for its own
sake and accounted for, as well as a circumstance en-
hancing the significance and importance of the act in
which we have been for some weeks engaged; and I
consider that I shall not be employing our time unprofit-
ably) if I am able to make a suggestion, which, while
it illustrates the fact, is able to explain the difficulty.

2.
Here I must go back, Gentlemen, a very great way,
and ask you to review the course of Civilization since
the beginning of history. When we survey the stream
of human affairs for the last three thousand years, we
find it to run thus :-At first sight there is so llluch
fluctuation, agitation, ebbing and flowing, that we may
despair to discern any law in its movements, taking the
· Vid Huber_

Chrtstia1llty and Leite?' 9.

25 1

earth as its bed, and mankind as its contents; but, on
looking more closely and attentively, we shall discern, in
spite of the heterogeneous materials and the various his-
tories and fortunes which are found in the race of man
during the long period I have mentioned, a certain for-
nlation amid the chaos,-one and one only,-and ex-
tending, though not over the whole earth, yet through a
very considerable portion of it. Man is a social being
and can hardly exist without society, and in matter of
fact societies have ever existed all over the habitable
earth. The greater part of these associations have been
political or religious, and have been comparatively
limited in extent, and temporary. They have been
formed and dissolved by the force of accidents or by
inevitable circumstances; and, when we have enumerated
them one by one, we have made of them all that can be
made. But there is one remarkable association which
attracts the attention of the philosopher, not political
nor religious, or at least only partially and not essentially
such, which began in the earliest times and grew with
each succeeding age, till it reached its complete develop-
ment, and then continued on, vigorous and unwearied.
and which still remains as definite and as firm as ever it
was. Its bond is a common civilization; and. though
there ::l.re other civilizations in the world. as there are
'other societies, yet this civilization, tog-ether with the'

socie!y which is its creation and its home, is so distinc-
tive and luminous in its character, so imperial in its ex-
tent, so imposing in its duration, and so utterly without
rIval upon the face of the earth, that the association may
fitly assume to itself the title of "Human Society." and
its civilization the abstract term "Civilization."
'rh ere are indeed great outlying portions of mankind
which are not, perhaps never have been, included in this

25 2

Christianity and Letters.

Human Society; still they are outlying portions and
nothing else, fragmentary, unsociable, solitary, and un-
meaning, protesting and revolting against the grand
central formation of which I am speaking, but not unit-
ing with each other into a second whole. I am not deny-
ing of course the civilization of the Chinese, for instance J
though it be not our civilization; but it is a huge, sta-
tionary, unattractive, morose civilization. Nor do I deny
a civilization to the Hindoos, nor to the ancient Mexicans,
nor to the Saracens, nor (in a certain sense) to the Turks;
but each of these races has its own civiJization, as sepa-
rate from one another as from ours. I do not see how
they can be all brought under one idea. Each stands
by itself, as if the other were not ; each is local ; many of
them are temporary; none of them will bear a com pari-
so
with the Society and the Civilization \vhich I have
described as alone having a claim to those names, and on
\vhich I am going to dwell.
Gentlemen, let me here observe that I am not entering
upon the question of races, or upon their history. I have
nothing to do with ethnology. I take things as I find
them on the surface of history, and am but classing phe-
nomena. Looking, then, at the countries which surround
the Mediterranean Sea as a whole, I see them to be, from
time immemorial, the seat of an association of intellect
and mind, such as to deserve to be called the Intellect
and the Mind of the Human Kind. Starting as it does
and advancing from certain centres, till their respective
\nfluences intersect and conflict, and then at length inter-
n1ingle and combine, a common Thought has been gene-
rated, and a common Civilization defined and established.
Egypt is one such starting point, Syria another, Greece
a third, Italy a fourth, and North Africa a fifth,-after-
wards France and Spain. As time goes on, and as coloni..

Christian'ity and Letters.

253

zation and conquest work their changes, we see a great
association of nations formed, of which the Roman
empire is the maturity and the most intelligible expres-
sion; an association, however, not political, but mental,
based on the same intellectual ideas, and advancing by
COlnmon intellectual methods. And this association or
social commonwealth, with whatever reverses, changes,
and momentary dissolutions, continues down to this day;
not, indeed, precisely on the same territory, but with
such only partial and local disturbances, and on the
other hand, with so combined and harmonious a move-
ment, and such a visible continuity, that it would be
utterly unreasonable to deny that it is throughout all
that interval but one and the same.
In its earliest ag
it included far more of the eastern
world than it has since; in these later times it has taken
into its compass a new hemisphere; in the middle ages
it lost Africa, Egypt, and Syria, and extended itself to
Germany, Scandinavia, and the British Isles. At one
time its territory was flooded by strange and barbarous
races, but the existing civilization was vigorous enough
to vivify what threatened to stifle it, and to assimilate to
the old social forms what came to expel them; and thus
the civilization of modern times remains what it was of
old, not Chinese, or H indoo, or Mexican, or Saracenic,
or of any new description hitherto unknown, but the
lineal descendant, or rather the continuation, mutatis
'tnutalldis, of the civilization which began in Palestine
and Greece.
Considering, then, the characteristics of this great civi-
lized Society, which I have already insisted on, I think
it has a claim to be considered as the representative
Society and Civilization of the human race, as its perfect
result and limit, in fact ;-those portions of the race which

,

254

Christianzly and Letters.

do not coalesce with it being left to stand by themselves
as anomalies, unaccountable indeed, but for that very
reason not interfering with what on the contrary has
been turned to account and has grown into a whole. I
call then this commonwe
lth pre-eminently and emphati-
cally HUlnan Society, and its intellect the Human Mind,
and its decisions the sense of mankind, and its disciplined
and cultivated state Civilization in the abstract, and the
territory on which it lies the orbis terrarum, or the World.
For, unless the illustration be fanciful, the object which
I am contemplating is like the impression of a seal upon
the wax; which rounds off and gives form to the greater
portion of the soft material, and presen ts something de-
finite to the eye, and preoccupies the space against any
second figure, so that we overlook and leave out of our
thoughts the jagged outline or unmeaning lumps outside
of it, intent upon the harmonious circle which fills the
imagination within it.

3.
N ow, before going on to speak of the education, and
the standards of education, which the Civilized W orId, as
I nlay now call it, has enjoined and requires, I wish to
draw your attention, Gentlemen, to the circumstance
that this same orbis terrarU1n, which has been the seat of
Civilization, will be found, on the whole, to be the seat
also of that supernatural society and system which our
Ivlaker has given us directly from Himself, the Christian
Polity. The natural and divine associations are not
indeed exactly coincident, nor ever have been. As tIle
territory of Civilization has varied with itself in different
ages, while on the whole it has been the same, so, in like
manner, Christianity has fallen partly outside Civilization,
R.nd Civilization partly outside Christianity; but, on the

ChrIstianity and Letters.

255

whole, the two have occupied one and the same orbis ter-
ra/ U1Jl. Often indeed they have even Inoved þari passu,
and at all times there has been found the most intimate
connexion between them. Christianity waited till the
orbis terrarum attained its most perfect form before it
appeared; and it soon coalesced, and has ever since co-
operated, and often seemed identical, with the Civiliza-
tion which is its companion.
There are certain analogies, too, which hold between
Civilization and Christianity. As Civilization does not
cover the \vhole earth, neither does Christianity j but
there is nothing else like the one, and nothing else like
the other. Each is the only thing of its kind. Again,
there are, as I have already said, large outlying portions
of the world in a certain sense cultivated and educated
,
which, if they could exist together in one, would go far
to constitute a second orbis terrarU1n, the home of a
second distinct civilization; but every one of these is
civilized on its own principle and idea, or at least they
are separated from each other, and have not run together,
while the Civilization and Society \vhich I have been
describing is one organized whole. And, in like manner, ·
Christianity coalesces into one vast body, based upon
common ideas; yet there are large outlying organizations
of religion independent of each other and of it. More-
over, Christianity, as is the case in th
p
r
llpl in
t
nrp of
r Civilization, continues on in the world without interr \ij2:
tion from the date of its rise, w hile.. o ther reIigi04s bodies L
nuge, local, a nd isolated, are rising and falling. or are

h e l p l ess l y s t at i onar from a
to ag-e, on all sides of it .
ere is another rem arkable analogy between Chns-
tianity and Civilization, and the mention of it will
introduce my proper subject, to which what I have
hitherto said is merely a preparation. We kno\v that

25 6

Chrtstian-i
v and Letters.

Christianity is built upon definite ideas, principles,
doctrines, and writings, which were given at the time of
its first introduction, and have never been superseded,
and admit of no addition. I am not going to parallel
any thing which is the work of man, and in the natural
order, with what is from heaven, and in consequence
infallible, and irreversible, and obligatory; but, after
making this reserve, lest I should possibly be misunder-
stood, still I would remark that, in matter of fact, look-
ing at the state of the case historically, Civilization too
has its common principles, and views, and teaching, and
especially its books, which have more or less been given
from the earliest times, and are, in fact, in equal esteerrl
and respect, in equal use now, as they were when they
were received in the beginning. In a word, the Classics,
and the subjects of thought and the studies to which
they give rise, or, to use the term most to our present
purpose, the Arts, have ever, on the whole, been tht:
instruments of education which the civili zed o rbis ter-
rarum has adopted; just as inspired works. and the
Jives of saints, and the articles of faith, and the cat
chism,
have ever been the instrument of education in the case of
Christianity. And this consideration, you see, Gentle-
men (to drop down at once upon the subject proper to
the occasion which has brought us together), invests
the opening of the School in Arts with a solemnity and
moment of a peculiar kind, for we are but reiterating an
old tradition, and carrying on those august methods of
enlarging the mind, and cultivating the intellect, and
refining the feelings, in which the process of Civilization
has ever consisted.

4.
In the country which has been the fountain head

Christianity and Letters.

257

of intellectual gifts, in the age which preceded or
introduced the first formations of Human Society, in an
era scarcely historical, we may dinIly discern an almost
mythical personage, who, putting out of consideration
the actors in Old Testament history, may be called the'
first Apostle of Civilization. Like an Apostle in a higher
order of things, he was poor and a wanderer, and feeble
in the flesh, though he \vas to do such great things, and
to live in the mouths of a hundred generations and a
thousand tribes. A blind old man; whose wanderings
were such that, when he became famous, his birth-place
could not be ascertained, so that it was said,-

"Seven famous towns contend for Homer dead,
Through which the living Homer begged his bread."

Yet he had a name in his day; and, little guessing in
what vast measures his wish would be answered, he sup-
plicated, with a tender human sentiment, as he wandered
over the islands of the Ægean and the Asian coasts, that
those who had kno\vn and loved him would cherish his
memory when he was away. Unlike the proud boast
of the Roman poet, if he spoke it in earnest, "Exegi
monumentum ære perennius," he did but indulge the
hope that one, whose coming had been expected with
pleasure, might excite regret when he had departed, and
be rewarded by the sympathy and praise of his friends
even in the presence of other minstrels. A set of verses
renlains, which is ascribed to him, in which he addresses
the Delian women in the tone of feeling which I have
described. "Farewell to you all," he says, "and re-
luember n1C in time to come, and when anyone of men
on earth, a stranger from far, shall inquire of you, 0
maidens, who is th
sw

te
t of rninstrels here about,
11

25 8

ChristiaJltty and Letters.

and in whom do you most delight? then make answer
lllodestly, It is a blind man, and he lives in steep
Chios."
The great poet remained unknown for some centuries,
-that is, unknown to what we call fame. His verses
were cherished by his countryn1en, they might be the
secret delight of thousands, but they \vere not collected
into a volulne, nor viewed as a whole, nor made a sub-
ject of criticism. At length an Athenian Prince took
upon him the task of gathering together the scattered
fragments of a genius which had not aspired to immor-
tality, of reducing thenl to writing, and of fitting them
to be the text-book of ancient education. Henceforth
the vagrant ballad-singer, as he might be thought, was
submitted, to his surprise, to a sort of literary canoni-
zation, and was invested \vith the office of forn1ing the
xoung mind of Greece to noble thoughts and bold deeds.
To be read in HOllIer soon became the education of a
gentleman; and a rule, recognized in her free age, re-
mained as a tradition even in the times of her degra-
dation. Xenophon introduces to us a youth \vho knew
both Iliad and Odyssey by heart; Dio witnesses that
they were some of the first books put into the hands of
boys; and Horace decided that they taught the science
of life better than Stoic or Academic. Alexander the
Great nourished his imagination by the scenes of the
Iliad. As time \vent on, other poets were associated
\vith Homer in the \vork of education, such as Hesiod
and the Tragedians. The majestic lessons concerning
duty and religion, justice and providence, \vhich occur in
Æschylus and Sophocles, belong to a higher school than
that of Homer; and the verses of Euripides, even in his
lifetime, were so familiar to Athenian lips and so dear
to foreign ears, that, as is reported, the captives of

Chrisliallzïy and Letters.

259

Syracuse gained their freedom at the price of reciting
them to their conquerors.
Such poetry may be considered oratory also, since it
has so great a power of persuasion; and the alliance
between these two gifts had existed from the time that
the verses of Orpheus had, according to the fable, made
woods and streams and \vild animals to follow him
about. Soon, however, Oratory became the subject of
a separate art, which was called Rhetoric, and of which
the Sophists were the chief masters. Moreover, as
Rhetoric was especially political in its nature, it pre-
supposed or introduced the cultivation of History; and
thus the pages of Thucydides became one of the special
studies by which Demosthenes rose to be the first orator
of Greece.
But it is needless to trace out further the formation of
the course of liberal education; it is sufficient to have
given some specimens in illustration of it. The studies,
\vhich it was found to involve, were four principal ones,
Gran1rnar, Rhetoric, Logic, and Mathematics; and the
science of Mathematics, again, was divided into four;
Geometry, Arithmetic, Astronomy, and Music; making
in all seven, which are known by the name of the Seven
Liberal Arts. And thus a definite school of intellect was
formed, founded on ideas and methods of a distinctive
character, and (as we may say) of the highest and truest
character, as far as they went, and which gradually asso-
ciated in one, and assimilated, and took possession of,
that multitude of nations which I have considered to
represent mankind, and to possess the orbis terrarum.
When we pass from Greece to Rome, \ve are filet with
the common rernark, that Rome produced little that \vas
original, but borrowed from Greece. It is true; Terence
copied from l\Ienander, Virgil from Homer, Hesiod, and

260

Christiall'ity and Letters.

Theocritus; and Cicero professed merely to reproduce
the philosophy of Greece. But, granting its truth ever
so far, I do but take it as a proof of the sort of instinct
which has guided the course of Civilization. The world
was to have certain intellectual teachers, and no others;
-
Homer and Aristotle, \vith the poets and philosophers
who circle round them, were to be the schoolmasters of
all generations, and therefore the Latins, falling into the
law on which the \vorld)s education ,vas to be carried on,
so added to the classical library as not to reverse or in-
terfere with what had already been determined. And
there was the more meaning in this arrangement, when
it is considered that Greek was to be forgotten during
many centuries, and the tradition of intellectual training
to be conveyed through Latin; for thus the world was
secured against the consequences of a loss \vhich would
have changed the character of its civilization. I think it
very remarkable, too, how soon the Latin \vriters becaIue
text-books in the boys' schools. Even to this day Shake-
speare and lVIilton are not studied in our course of edu-
cation; but the poems of Virgil and Horace, as those of
Homer and the Greek authors in an earlier age, were in
schoolboys' satchels not much more than a hundred
years after they were written.
I need not go on to show at length that they have
preserved their place in the system of education in the
orbis terra ru l1Z, and the Greek writers \vith them or
through them, down to this day. The induction of cen-
turies has often been made. Even in the lowest state
of learning the tradition was kept up. S1. Gregory the
Great, whose era, not to say \vhose influence) is often con-
sidered especially unfavourable to the old literature, was
himself well versed in it, encouraged purity of Latinity
in his court, and is said figuratively by the contemporary

Christia1l'ity and Letteys.

261

historian of his life to have supported the hall of the
Apostolic See upon the columns of the Seven Liberal
Arts. In the ninth century, \vhen the dark age was
close at hand, \ve still hear of the cultiv dtion, \vith ,vhat-
ever success (according of course to the opportunities 01
the times, but I am speaking of the nature of the studies,
not of the proficiency of the students), the cultivation
of Music, Dialectics, Rhetoric, Grammar, Mathematics,
Astronomy, Physics, and Geometry; of the supremacy
of Horace in the schools, "and the great Virgil, Sallust,
and Statius." In the thirteenth or following centuries,
of "Virgil, Lucian, Statius, Ovid, Livy, Sallust, Cicero,
and Quintilian; ,t and after the revival of literature in
the commencement of the modern era, we find St. Carlo
BorroIoeo enjoining the use of works of Cicero, Ovid,
Virgil, and Horace.-

s.
I pass thus cursorily over the series of informations
which history gives us on the subject, merely with a view
of recalling to your memory, Gentlemen, and impressing
upon you the fact, that the literature of Greece, con-
tinued into, and enriched by, the literature of Rome, to-
gether with the studies which it involves, has been the
instrument of education, and the food of civilization, from
the first times of the world do\vn to this day ;-and now
we are in a condition to answer the question which there-
upon arises, when we turn to consider, by way of contrast,
the teaching which is characteristic of Universities. How
has it come to pass that, although the genius of U niversi-
ties is so different from that of the schools which preceded
them, nevertheless the course of study pursued in those
.. Vide the treatises of P. Daniel and Mgr. Landriot, referred to in His-
torical Sketches, vol. ii., p. 460, note.

262

Christianity and Llt/lYs.

schools \vas not superseded in the middle ages by those
more brilliant sciences which Universities introduced?
It might have seemed as if Scholastic Theology, Law, and
Medicine would have thrown the Seven Liberal Arts into
the shade, but in the event they failed to do so. I con-
sider the reason to be, that the authority and function of
the monastic and secular schools, as supplying to the
young the means of education, lay deeper than in any
appointment of Charlemagne, who was their nominal
founder, and were based in the special character of th
t
civilization which is so intimately associated \vith Chris-
\, tianity, that it may even be called the soil out of which
Christianity gre\v. The medieval sciences. g-reat as is
their dignity and utility, were never intended to sup
rspc1

that more real and proper cultivation of th mind whic.h
is e ected y t Ie study of the liberal Arts; and, when
certain of these sciences did in fact 0 ut of th .
vince and di attem p t to p re j udice the tra dit ion al cou rs

"Of education, the encr oa_chmc. '. II. .
-r esisted. There were those in the middle age, as John of
Salisbury, \vho vigorously protested against the extrava-
gances and usurpations which ever attend the introduc-
tion of any great good whatever, and which attended the
rise of the peculiar sciences of \vhich U niversi ties \vere
the seat j and, though there were times when the old
traditions seemed to be on the point of failing, somehow
it has happened that they have never failed; for the in-
stinct of Civilization and the common sense of Society
prevailed, and the danger passed away, and the studies
which seemed to be going out gained their ancient place,
and were acknowledged, as before, to be the best instru-
n1ents of mental cultivation, and the best guarantees for
intellectual progress.
And this experience of the past we may apply to the

Chrt'stÙlntty and Letters.

26 3

circumstances in which we find ourselves at present: for,
as there was a movement against the Classics in the
middle age, so has there been now. The truth of the
Baconian method for the purposes for which it was
created, and its inestimable services and inexhaustible
ap lications in the interests of our terial well-being,
have dazzled the imaginations of men. somewhat in t e
?ame way as certain new sciences carried them away in
the age of Abelard; and si nc' .. II.. .. .. es such
wonders in its own rovince it is not unfre uentl su

j ose t h at it can do as much in any othe r p ro v i n ce also.
Now, Bacon himself never would have so ar
ued; he
would not have needed to be reminded that to advance Æ

the useful arts is one thing', and to cultivate the mind
another. L-The simple Question to be considered is, how
-'þest to strengthen, refine, and enrich the intellectual
powers; the perusal of the poets, historians. and philo-
sophers of Greece and Rome wil1 :lccomplish this pur-
pose, as long experience has shown: but that the study
.Q[lþe experimental sciences will do the 1 ike, i
proved
to us as yet by no experienc.e whatever.
Far
jndeed am I from denving- the extreme attrac-
tiveness, as well as the practical benefit to the world
at lar
e, of the sciences of Chemistry. Electricity. and

eolog-y; but the Question is not what department of
study contains the more wonderful facts. or promises
the more bri lliant discoveries, and which is in the
higher and which in an inferior rank; but simply which
out of all provides the most robust and invigoratin

discipline for the unformed mind. And I conceive it is

s little disrespectful to Lord Bacon to prefer the Classics
in this point of view to the sciences \vhich have gro\vn
out of his philosophy as it \vould be disrespectful to St.
Thomas in the middle ages to have hindered the study

264

Christzallily and Letters.

o t . S 'I. I II I .
Arts. Accordingly, I anticipate that, as in the middle
ages both the teaching and the governn1ent of the
University remained in the Faculty of Arts, in spite
of the genius which created or illustrated Theology and
Law, so now too, wha ever be the splendour of the
modern philosophy, the marvellousness of its disclosures,
the utility of its acquisitions, and the talent of its masters,
still it will not avail in the event, to detrude classical litera-
ture and the studies connected with it from the place which
they have held in all ages in education.
Such, then, is the course of reflection obviously sug-
gested by the act in which we have been lately engaged,
and which \ve are now celebrating. In the nineteenth
century, in a country which looks out upon a new world,
and anticipates a coming age, we have been engaged in
opening the Schools dedicated to the studies of polite
literature and liberal science, or \vhat are called the
Arts, as a first step to\vard" the establishment on
Catholic ground of a Catholic University. And while
we thus recur to Greece and Athens \vith pleasure
and affection, and recognize in that famous land the
source and the school of intellectual culture, it \vould be
strange indeed if we forgot to look further south also,
and there to bow before a more glorious luminary, and
a more sacred oracle of truth, and the source of another
sort of kno\vledge, high and supernatural, \vhich is
seated in Palestine. Jerusalem is the fountain-h ead o f
relig-ious kno\vledge, as Athens is of secular. In the
ancient world we see two centres of illuminatio n
acting
independently of each other, each with its own Inove-
ment, and at first apparently \vithout any promise 01
'convergence. Greek civilization spreads over the East,

nquering in the conquests of Alexander, and, when

.

Christianliy and Letters.

26 5

carried captive into the West, subdues the conquerors WhO (
brought it thither. Religion, on the other hand, is driven
from its o\vn aboriginal home to the North and West by
reason of the sins of the people who were in charge of
it, in a long course of judgments and plagues and perse-
cutions. Each by itself pursues its career and fulfils its
tuission; neither of them recognizes, nor is recognized
by the other. At length the Temple of Jerusalem is
rooted up by the armies of Titus, and the effete schools
of Athens are stifled by the edict of Justinian. So pass
away the ancient Voices of religion and learning; but they
are silenced only to revive more gloriously and perfectly
elsewhere. Hitherto they came from separate sources,
and perfonned separate works. Each leaves an heir and
successor in the West, and that heir and successor is
one and the same. The grace stored in Jerusalem, and
the gifts which radiate from Athens, are made over and
concentrated in Rome. This is true as a matter of
histo ry . Rome has in h eriteLbot h sacred and pro-
fane learnin g ; she has perp etuated and di sp ensed the
traditions of Moses and David in the su p atural order.l...
and of Homer and Aristotle in the natural. To separate
those distinct teachings, human and divine. which meet \
in Rome. is to retr og rade; it is to rebuild the l
ish
Temple and to plant anew the groves of Acaden1us.

6.
On this large subject, however, on which I might say
much, time does not allow me to enter. To show ho\v
sacred learning and profane are dependent on each other,
correlative and mutually complementary, how faith
operates by means of reason, and reason is directed
and corrected by faith, is really the subject of a distinct
lecture. I would conclude, then, with merely congratu-

.

266

Chnstianzty and Letters.

lating you, Gentlemen, on the great undertaking which
we have so auspiciously commenced. Whatever be its
fortunes, whatever its difficulties, \vhatever its delays, I
cannot doubt at all that the encouragement which it has
already received, and the measure of success 'which it
has been allotted, are b
t a presage and an anticipation
of a gradual
dvance towards its completion, in such
times and such manner as Providence shaH appoint.
For myself, I have never had any misgiving about it,
because I had never known anything of it before the
time when the Holy See had definitely decided upon its
prosecution. It is my happiness to have no cognizance
of the anxieties and perplexities of venerable and holy
prelates, or the discussions of experienced and prudent
men, which preceded its definitive recognition on the
part of the highest ecclesiastical authority. It is n1Y
happiness to have no experience of the time when good
Catholics despaired of its success, distrusted its expe-
diency, or even felt an obligation to oppose it. It has
been my happiness that I have never been in con-
troversy with persons in this country external to the
Catholic Church, nor have been forced into any direct
collision with institutions or measures which rest on a
foundation hostile to Catholicism. No one can accuse
me of any disrespect towards those whose principles or
whose policy I disapprove; nor am I conscious of any
other aim than that of working in n1Y o\vn place, without
going out of my way to offend others. If I have taken
part in the undertaking which has now brought us to-
gether, it has been because I believed it was a great
work, great in its conc
ption, great in its promise, and
great in the authority from which it proceeds. I felt it
to be so great that I did not dare to incur the responsi..
bility of refusing to take part in it.

Clzrislianz'ty and Lt
ttt1YS.

26 7

How far indeed, and how long, I am to be connected
with it, is another matter altogether. It is enough for
one man to lay only one stone of so noble and
rand an
edifice; it is enou
h, more than enough for me, if I do
so much as merely begin, what others may more hope-
full y continue. One only amon
the sons of men has
carried out a perfect work, and satisfied and exhausted
the mission on which He came. One alone ha s with
-His last breath said" Consummatum est." But all who

set about their duties in faith and hope and love. witb a A .
resolute heart and a devoted will, are able, weak thou
h / f · <.
!hey be, to do what, thou
h incomplete, is imperishabie

Even their failures become successes, as being necessary
steps in a course, and as terms (so to say) in a long
series, which will at length fulfil the object \vhich they
propose. And they will unite themselves in spirit, in
their humble degree, with those real heroes of Holy
Writ and ecclesiastical history, Moses, Elias, and David,
Basil, Athanasius, and Chrysostom, Gregory the Se-
venth, St. Thomas of Canterbury, and many others,
\vho did most when they fancied themselves least
prosperous, and died without being permitted to see
the fruit of their labours.

268

IL

LITERATURE.

A LECTURE IN TIlE SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY AND
LETTERS.

I.

W ISHING to address you, Gentlemen, at the com-
mencement of a new Session, I tried to find a
subject for discussion, which might be at once suitable to
the occasion, yet neither too large for your time, nor too
minute or abstruse for your attention. I think I see one
for my purpose in the very title of your Faculty. It
is the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. N ow the
question may arise as to ,.,hat is meant by H Philosophy,"
and what is meant by It Letters." As to the other
Faculties, the subject-matter which they profess is iIl-
telligible, as soon as named, and beyond all dispute.
We know what Science is, what Medicine, what Law,
and what Theology; but we have not so much ease in
determining what is meant by Philosophy and Letters.
Each department of that twofold province needs expla-
nation: it will be sufficient, on an occasion like this, to
investigate one of them. Accordingly I shall select for
remark the latter of the two, and attempt to determine
what we are to understand by Letters or Literature, in
what Literature consists, and how it stands relatively to

Literature.

26 9

Science. We speak, for instance, of ancient and modern
literature, the literature of the. day, sacred literature,
light literature; and our lectures in this place are
devoted to classical literature and English literature.
Are Letters, then, synonymous with books? This cannot
be, or they would include in their range Philosophy,
La\v, and, in short, the teaching of all the other Faculties.
Far from confusing these various studies, we view the
works of Plato or Cicero son1etinles as philosophy, some-
times as literature; on the other hand, no one would
ever be tempted to speak of Euclid as literature, or of
Matthiæ's Greek Grammar. Is, then, literature synony-
mous with composition? with books written with an
attention to style? is literature fine writing 1 again, is it
studied and artificial writing?
There are excellent persons who seem to adopt this
last account of Literature as their own idea of it. They
depreciate it, as if it were the result of a mere art or
trick of words. Professedly indeed, they are aiming at
the Greek and Roman classics, but their criticisms have
quite as great force against all literature as against any.
I think I shall be best able to bring out what I have to
say on the subject by examining the statements which
they make in defence of their o\vn view of it. They
contend then, I. that fine writing, as exemplified in the
Classics, is mainly a matter of conceits, fancies, and pret-
tinesses, decked out in choice words; 2. that this is the
proof of it, that the classics will not bear translating ;-
(and this is why I have said that the real attack is upon
literature altogether, not the classical only; for, to speak
generally, all literature, modern as ,yell as ancient, lies
under this disadvantage. This, however, they will not
allov;; for they maintain,) 3. that Holy Scripture presents a
remarkable contrast to secular writings on this very point,

270

Literature.

viz., in that Scripture does easily admit of translation,
though it is the most sublime and beautiful of all writings.

2.
N ow I will begin by stating these three positions in
the words of a writer, who is cited by the estimable
Catholics in question as a witness, or rather as an
advocate, in their behalf, though he is far from being
able in his own person to challenge the respect which is
inspired by themselves.
II There are two sorts of eloquence," says this writer,
" the one indeed scarce deserves the name of it, which
consists chiefly in laboured and polished periods, an
over-curious and artificial arrangement of figures, tin-
selled over with a gaudy embellishment of \vords,
which glitter, but convey little or no light to the under-
standing. This kind of writing is for the most part
much affc..:ted and adn1ired by the people of weak
judgment and vicious taste; but it is a piece of affecta-
tion and formality the sacred writers are utter strangers
to. It is a vain and boyish eloquence; and, as it has
always been esteemed below the great geniuses of all
ages, so much more so \vith respect to those writers who
were actuated by the spirit of Infinite Wisdom, and
therefore wrote with that force and majesty with which
never man writ. The other sort of eloquence is quite
the reverse to this, and which may be said to be the true
characteristic of the Holy Scriptures; where the ex-
cellence does not arise from a laboured and far-fetched
elocution, but from a surprising mixture of simplicity
and majesty, which is a double character, so difficult to
be united that it is seldom to be met with in compo-
sitions merely human. We see nothing in Holy Writ
of affectation and superfluous ornament. . . Now, it is

Literature.

27 I

observable that the most excellent profane authors,
whether Greek or Latin, lose most of their graces when-
ever we find them literally translated. Homer's famed
representation of Jupiter-his cried-up description of a
tempest, his relation of Neptune's shaking the earth and
opening it to its centre, his description of Pallas's horses,
with numbers of other long-since admired passages,
flag, and altnost vanish away, in the vulgar Latin
transla tion.
"Let anyone but take the pains to read the common
Latin interpretations of Virgil, Theocritus, or even of
Pindar, and one rnay venture to affirm he \vill be able to
trace out but few remains of the graces which charmed
him so much in the original. The natural conclusion
from hence is, that in the classical authors, the expres-
sion, the sweetness of the numbers, occasioned by a
musical placing of words, constitute a great part of their
beauties; whereas, in the sacred writings, they consist
more in the greatness of the things themselves than in
the words and expressions. The ideas and conceptions
are so great and lofty in their own nature that they
necessarily appear magnificent in the most artless dress.
Look but into the Bible, and we see them shine through
the most simple and literal translations. That glorious
description \vhich Moses gives of the creation of the
heavens and the earth, which Longin us . . . was so
greatly taken with, has not lost the least whit of its
intrinsic worth, and though it has undergone so many
translations, yet triumphs over all, and breaks forth
\vith as n1uch force and vehemence as in the original. . . .
In the history of Joseph, \vhere Joseph makes hin1self
known, and weeps aloud upon the neck of bis dear
brother Benjamin, that all the house of Pharaoh heard
him, at that instant none of his brethren are introduced

27 2

Literature.

as uttering aught, either to express their present joy
or palliate their former injuries to him. On all sides
there immediately ensues a deep and solemn silence; a
silence infinitely more eloquent and expressive than any-
thing else that could have been substituted in its place.
Had Thucydides, Herodotus, Livy, or any of the cele-
brated classical historians, been employed in writing this
history, when they came to this point they would doubt-
less have exhausted all their fund of eloquence in fur-
nishing Joseph's brethren with laboured and studied
harangues, which, however fine they might have been in
themselves, would nevertheless have been unnatural, and
altogether improper on the occasiqn." ·
This is eloquently written, but it contains, I consider,
a mixture of truth and falsehood, which it will be my
business to discriminate from each other. Far be it
from me to deny the unapproachable grandeur and sim-
plicity of Holy Scripture; but I shall maintain that the
classics are, as human compositions, simple and majestic
and natural too. I grant that Scripture is concerned
with things, but I will not grant that classical literature
is simply concerned with words. I grant that hUII1an
literature is often elaborate, but I will maintain that
elaborate composition is not unknown to the writers of
Scripture. I grant that human literature cannot easily
be translated out of the particular language to which it
belongs; but it is not at all the rule that Scripture can
easily be translated either i-and now I address myself
to my task:-

3.
Here, then, in the first place, I observe, Gentlemen,
that Literature, frOITI the derivation of the word, implies
· Sterne. Sermon xlü.

Literature.

27.3

writing, not speaking; this, however, arises from the
circulnstance of the copiousness, variety, and public
circulation of the matters of which it consists. What is
spoken cannot outrun the range of the speaker's voice,
ánd perishes in the uttering. When words are in de-
mand to express a long course of thought, when they
have to be conveyed to the ends of the earth, or perpe-
tuated for the benefit of posterity, they must be written
down, that is, reduced to the shape of literature; still,
properly speaking, the terms, by ,vhich we denote this
characteristic gift of man, belong to its exhibition by
means of the voice, not of handwriting. It addresses
itself, in its primary idea, to the ear, not to the eye. We
call it the power of speech, we call it language, that is,
the use of the tongue; and, even when we write, we still
keep in mind what was its original instrument, for we use
freely such terms in our books as U saying," "speaking,"
U telling," "talking," "calling;" we use the terms" phrase-
ology" and "diction;" as if we were still addressing our-
selves to the ear.
N ow I insist on this, because it shows that speech, and
therefore literature, which is its permanent record, is
essentially a personal work. It is not some production
or result, attained by the partnership of several persons,
or by Inachinery, or by any natural process, but in its
very idea it proceeds, and must proceed, from some one
given individual. Two persons cannot be the authors of
the sounds which strike our ear; and, as they cannot be
speaking one and the same speech, neither can they be
writing one and the same lecture or discourse,-which
n1ust certainly belong to some one person or other, and
is the expression of that one person's ideas and feelings,
-ideas and feelings personal to hhuself, though others
n1ay have parallel and similar ones,-proper to himself,
18

2.74

Lzleraiure.

in the same sense as his voice, his air, his countenance,
his carriage, and his action, are personal. In other
words, Literature expresses, not objective truth, as it is
called, but subjective; not things, but thoughts.
Now this doctrine will become clearer by considering
another use of words: which does relate to obj ective
truth, or to things; which relates to matters, not
personal, not subjective to the individual, but which,
even were there no individual man in the \vhole world
to know them or to talk about them, would exist still.
Such objects become the matter of Science, and words
indeed are used to express them, but such words are
rather symbols than language, and however many we
use, and however \ve may perpetuate them by \vriting.
we never could make any kind of literature out of them,
or call them by that name. Such, for instance, would
be Euclid's Elements; they relate to truths universal
and eternal; they are not mere thoughts, but things:
they exist in themselves, not by virtue of our under-
standing them, not in dependence upon our will, but in
\vhat is called the 1zature of things, or at least on con-
ditions external to us. The \vords, then, in which they
are set forth are not language, speech, literature, but
rather, as I have said, symbols. And, as a proof of it,
you will recollect that it is possible, nay usual, to set
forth the propositions of Euclid in algebraical notation,
\vhich, as all would admit, has nothing to do with
literature. What is true of mathematics is true also of
every study, so far forth as it is scientific; it n1akes use
of words as the mere vehicle of things, and is thereby
withdrawn from the province of literature. Thus
metaphysics, ethics, law, political economy, cheInistry,
theology, cease to be literature in the same degree as
they are capable of a severe scientific treatment. And

L,terature.

275

hence it is that Aristotle's works on the one hand,
though at first sight literature, approach in character, at
least a great number of them, to mere science; for even
though the things which he treats of and exhibits may
not always be real and true, yet he treats them as if they
were, not as if they were the thoughts of his own mind;
that is, he treats them scientifically. On the other hand,
Law or Natural History has before now been treated by
an author with so much of colouring derived from his
o\vn mind as to become a sort of literature; this is
especially seen in the instance of Theology, when it
takes the shape of Pulpit Eloquence. It is seen too in
historical composition, which becomes a mere specimen
of chronology, or a chronicle, when divested of the
philosophy, the skill, or the party and personal feelings
of the particular writer. Science, then, has to do with
things, literature with thoughts; science is universal.
literature is pf>rC\on
1; science uses w ds merely as
symbols, but literature uses language in its full comp
-
as includin
phraseology, idiom, style com po sitioI1
rhythm, eloquence, and whatever other proRerties are-
incl uded in it.
9 Let us then put aside the scientific use of words, when
we are to speak of language and literature. Literature is
the personal use or exercise of language. That this is so
is further proved from the fact that one author uses it so
differently from another. Language itself in its very
origination would seem to be traceable to individuals.
Their peculiarities have given it its character. We are
often able in fact to trace particular phrases or idioms to
individuals; \\T
know the history of their rise. Slang
surely, as it is called, comes of, and breathes of the per-
sonal. The connection between the force of words in
particular languages and the habits and sentiments of

.

27 6

LiteralUYi.

JÝ.ß.

the nations speaking them has often been pointed out
And, \vhile the nlany use language as they find it, the
man of genius uses it indeed, but subjects it withal to his
own purposes, and moulds it according to his own pecu-
liarities. The throng and succession of ideas, thoughts,
feelings, imaginations, àspirations, ,vhich pass within him,
the abstractions, the juxtapositions, the comparisons, the
discriminations, the conceptions, ,vhich are so original in
him, his views of external things, his judgments upon
life, n1anners, and history, the exercises of his wit, of
his humour, of his depth, of his sagacity, all these in-
numerable and incessant creations, the very pulsation
and throbbing of his intellect, does he image forth, to all
does he give utterance, in a corresponding language,
which is as multiform as this in\vard mental action itself
and analogous to it, the faithful expression of his in-
tense personality, attending on his own inward ,vorld of
thought as its very shado\v: so that we might as ,yell
say that one man's shadow is another's as that the style
of a really gifted n1ind can belong to any but himself.
It follo\vs him about as a shadow. His thought and
feeling are personal, and so his language is personal.

4-
Thought and speech are inseparable from each other.

1atter and expression are parts of one: style is a think-
ing out into language. This is \vhat I have been laying
down, and this is literature; not things, not the verbal
symbols of things; not on the other hand mere words;
but thoug-hts expressed in language. Call to mind,
Gentlemen, the meaning of the Greek \vord \vhich ex-
presses this special prerogative of man over the feeble
intelligence of the inferior animals. It is called Logos:
what does Logos mean? it stands both for reason and for

.

Literature.

277

speech, and it is difficult to say \vhich it means more pro-
perly. It means both at once: why? because really they
cannot be divided,-because they are in a true sense one.
When we can separate li
ht and illumination, life and
motion, the convex and t l1
concay
of a curve, then will
it be possible for t

ug ht to t r ead s pe ec
nder foot, and

to hope to do \vitho ut it -then will it be c onceivable
that the vi g orous and fert ile intellec
should renounce
its own double, its ir trument of e
ression, and the
channel of its speculations a nd e motions. -
- Critics should consider this view of the subject before
they lay down such canons of taste as the writer whose
pages I have quoted. Such men as he is consider fine
writing to be an addition Iron/. without to the matter
treated of,-a sort of ornament superinduced, or a luxury
indulged in, by those who have time and inclination for
such vanities. They speak as if one man could do the
thought, and another the style. We read in Persian
travels of the ,yay in which young gentlemen go to work
in the East, \vhen they would engage in correspondence
with those \vho inspire them with hope or fear. They
cannot write one sentence themselves; so they betake
themselves to the professional letter-writer. They con-
fide to him the object they have in vie\v. They have a
point to gain from a superior, a favour to ask, an evil to
deprecate; they have to approach a man in po\ver, or to
make court to some beautiful lady.. The professional
man manufactures words for them, as they are wanted,
as a stationer sells them paper, or a schoolmaster tnight
cut their pens. Thought and word are, in their concep-
tion, two things, and thus there is a division of labour.
The man of thought comes to thp man o( "ï: ord
and..
the man of \vords, du l instrj1cte d in the tho ug ht J-Aips_
t,he p e n of desire int o the ink o( devot edn
s
an(:tp

278

Litfyalure.

,ceeds to s pread it over the pa e of desolation. Th he
!!!g htin ga le of affection is l1.eardJo _warble to the rose of
l oveliness, while the br eeze oCanxiet
lay s around the
br o,v of e xp ectation. This is \vhat the Easterns are said
to consider fine writing' and it seems pretty n1uch the idea
of the school of critics to whom I have been referring.
We have an instance in literary history of this very
proceeding nearer home, in a great University, in the
latter years of the last century. I have referred to it
before now in a public lecture elsewhere. ; but it is too
n1uch in point here to be omitted. A learned Arabic
scholar had to deliver a set of lectures before its doctors
and professors on an historical subject in which his
reading had lain. A linguist is conversant with science
rather than with literature; but this gentleman felt that
his lectures must not be \vithout a style. Being of the
opinion of the Orientals, with whose writings he was
familiar, he detennined to buy a style. He took the
step of engaging a person, at a price, to turn the matter
which he had got together into ornamental English.
Observe, he did not wish for mere grammatical English,
but for an elaborate, pretentious style. An artist was
found in the person of a country curate, and the job was
carried out. His lectures remain to this day, in their
own place in the protracted series of annual Discourses
to which they belong, distinguished amid a number of
heavyish compositions by the rhetorical and ambitious
diction for which he went into the market. This learned
divine, indeed, and the author I have quoted, differ from
each other in the estimate they respectively form of
literary composition; but they agree together in this,-in
considering such composition a trick and a trade; they
put it on a par with the gold plate and the flowers and
· "Poiition of Catholics in England," pp. IOI. 2.

L'iterature.

279

the music of a banquet, which do not make the viands
better, but the entertainment more pleasurable; as if
language were the hired servant, the mere mistress of the
reason, and not the lawful wife in her own house.
But can they really think that Homer, or Pindar,
or Shakespeare, or Dryden, or Walter Scott, were
accustomed to aim at diction for its own sake, instead of
being inspired with their subject, and pourii1g forth
beautiful \vords because they had beautiful thoughts?
this is surely too great a paradox to be borne. Rather,
it is the fire within the author's breast which overflows
in the torrent of his burning, irresistible eloquence; it is
the poetry of his inner soul, which relieves itself in the
Ode or the Elegy; and his mental attitude and bearing,
the beauty of his moral countenance, the force anò
keenness of his logic, are imaged in the tenderness, or
energy, or richness of his language. Nay, according to
the well-known line, "facit indignatio versus,." not the
\vords alone, but even the rhythm, the metre, the verse,
will be the conten1 poraneous offspring of the emotion or
imagination which possesses him. " Poeta nascitur, non
fit," says the proverb; and this is in numerous instances
true of his poems, as well as of himself. They are born,
not framed; they are a strain rather than a composition;
and their perfection is the monument, not so much of his
skill as of his power. And this is true of prose as well as
of verse in its degree: who will not recognize in the vision
of Mirza a delicacy and beauty of style which is very
difficult to describe, but which is felt to be in exact
correspondence to the ideas of which it is the expression?

5.
l\nd, since the thoughts and reasonings of an author
have, as I have said, a personal character, no wonder that,

280

Literature.

t

his style is not only the image of his subject, but of his
mind. That pomp of language, that full and tuneful
diction, that felicitousness in the choice and exquisiteness
in the collocation of words, which to prosaic \vri ters seems
artificial, is nothing els
but the mere habit and way of a
lofty intellect. Aristotle, in his sketch of the magnani-
mous man, teHs us that his voice is deep, his motions slo\v,
and his stature commanding. In like manner, the elocu-
tion of a great intellect is great His language expresses,
not only his great thoughts, but his great self. Certainly
he might use fe\ver words than he uses; but he fertilizes
his simplest ideas, and germinates into a multitude of
details, and prolongs the march of his sentences, and
sweeps round to the full diapason of his harmony, as if
"ÍJðei ryaíCJJv, rejoicing in his own vigour and richness of re-
s
urce. I say, a narro\v critic will call it verbiage, \vhen
really it is a sort of fulness of heart, parallel to that which
makes the .nerry boy whistle as he walks, or the strong
man, like the smith in the novel, flourish his club when

there is no one to fight with.
" Shakespeare furnishes us with frequent instances of
this peculiarity, and all so beautiful, that it is difficult to
select for quotation. For instance, in Macbeth:-

"Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,
Cleanse the foul bosom of that perilous stuff,
Which weighs upon the heart?"

Here a simple idea, by a process which belongs to the
orator rather than to the poet, but still comes from the
native vigour of genius, is expanded into a many-mem.
bered period.

L z'teratu rt.

281

The following from Han1let is of the same kind :-

" 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
N or customary suits of solemn black,
N or windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
N or the dejected haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, modes, shows of grief,
That can denote me truly."

Now, if such declan1ation, for declamation it is, how-
ever noble, be allowable in a poet, whose genius is so far
removed from pompousness or pretence, much more is
it allowable in an orator, whose very province it is to
put forth words to the best advantage he can. Cicero
has nothing more redundant in any part of his writings
than these passages from Shakespeare. No lover then
at least of Shakespeare may fairly accuse Cicero of
gorgeousness of phraseology or diffuseness of style.
Nor \vill any sound critic be tempted to do so. As a
certain unaffected neatness and propriety and grace of
diction may be required of any author who lays claim to
be a classic, for the same reason that a certain attention
to dress is expected of every gentleman, so to Cicero
may be allowed the privilege of the" os magna sona-
turum," of which the ancient critic speaks. His copious,
majestic, musical flow of language, even if sometimes
beyond what the subject-matter demands, is never out
of keeping with the occasion or with the speaker. It is
the expression of lofty sentiments in lofty sentences, the
H mens magna in corpore magno." It is the develop-
ment of the inner man. Cicero vividly realised the
status of a Roman senator and statesn1an, and the
" pride of place" of Rome, in all the grace and grandeur
which attached to her; and he imbibed, and becan1e,

282

Literature.

what he admired. As the exploits of Scipio or Pompey
are the expression of this greatness in deed, so the
language of Cicero is the expression of it in word. And,
as the acts of the Roman ruler or soldier represent to us,
in a manner special to themselves, the characteristic
magnanimity of the lòrds of the earth, so do the
speeches or treatises of her accomplished orator bring it
home to our imaginations as no other writing could do.
Neither Livy, nor Tacitus, nor Terence, nor Seneca, nor
Pliny, nor Quintilian, is an adequate spokesman for
the Imperial City. They write Latin; Cicero writes
Roman.

6.
V ou will say that Cicero's language is undeniably
studied, but that Shakespeare's is as undeniably naturai
and spontaneous; and that this is what is meant, when
the Classics are accused of being mere artists of ,vords.
Here we are introduced to a further large question,
which gives me the opportunity of anticipating a misap-
prehension of my meaning. I observe, then, that, not
only is that lavish richness of style, which I have noticed
in Shakespeare, justifiable on the principles which I have
been laying down, but, what is less easy to receive, even
elaborateness in composition is no mark of trick or
artifice in an author. Undoubtedly the works of the
Classics, particularly the Latin, are elaborate; they have
cost a great deal of time, care, and trouble. They have
had many rough copies; I grant it. I grant also that
there are writers of name, ancient and modern, who really
are guilty of the absurdity of making sentences, as the
very end of their literary labour. Such was Isocrates;
such were some of the sophists; they were set on words,
to the neglect of thoughts or things; I cannot defend them.

Lt"teraturt.

28 3

If I must
ive an Eng-lish instance of this fault. n1uch

I love and revere the personal character and intellectual
vigour of Dr. J o hJl
Q n
ot deny that his style often
outruns the sense and the occasion, and is wanting in
that simplici t y which is the attribute of g enius. Still,
granting all this, I cannot grant, notwithstanding, that
genius never need take pains,-that genius may not im-
prove by practice,-that it never incurs failures, and
succeeds the second time,-that it never finishes off at
leisure what it has thrown off in the outline at a stroke.
Take the instance of the painter or the sculptor; he
has a conception in his mind which he wishes to repre-
sent in the medium of his art ;-the Madonna and Child,
or Innocence, or Fortitude, or some historical character
or event. Do you n1ean to say he does not study his
subject? does he not make sketches? does he not even
call them U studies" l does he not call his workroom
a studio! is he not ever designing, rejecting, adopting,
correcting, perfecting? Are not the first attempts of
Michael Angelo and Raffaelle extant, in the case of
some of their most celebrated compositions? Will any
one say that the Apollo Belvidere is not a conception
patiently elaborated into its proper perfection? These
departments of taste are, according to the received
notions of the world, the very province of genius, and yet
we call them arts
. they are the "Fine Arts." Why
may not that be true of literary composition which is true
of painting, sculpture, architecture, and music? Why
may not language be wrought as well as the clay of the
modeller? why may not words be worked up as well as
colours l why should not skill in diction be simply sub-
servient and instrumental to the great prototypal ideas
which are the contemplation of a Plato or a VirgiJ?
Our greatest poet tells us,

284

Literature.

f'The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
t Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,

Q; And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
.'JSe... I . Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
\ A local habitation and a name."

N ow, is it wonderful that that pen of his should some-
times be at fault for a while,-that it should pause,
write, erase, re-write, amend, complete, before he satisfies
himself that his language has done justice to the
conceptions which his mind's eye contemplated?
In this point of view, doubtless, many or most writers
are elaborate; and those certainly not the least whose
style is furthest removed from ornament, being simple
and natural, or vehement, or severely business-like and
practical. Who so energetic and manly as Demos-
thenes ? Yet he is said to have transcribed Thucydides
many times over in the formation of his style. Who so
gracefully natural as Herodotus? yet his very dialect
is not his own, but chosen for the sake of the perfectiùn
of his narrative. Who exhibits such happy negligence
as our o\vn Addison? yet artistic fastidiousness was so
notorious in his instance that the report has got abroad,
truly or not, that he was too late in his issue of an
important state-paper, from his habit of revision and re-
composition. Such great authors were working by a
model which was before the eyes of their intellect, and
they were labouring to say what they had to say, in
such a way as would most exactly and suitably express
it. It is not wonderful that other authors, \vhose style
is not simple, should be instances of a similar literary
diligence. Virgil wished his Æneid to be burned,
elaborate as is its composition, because he felt it needed
more labour still, in order to make it perfect. The

Literatun' .

285

historian Gibbon in the last century is another instance
in point. You must not suppose I am going to reCOOl-
mend his style for inlitation, any nlore than his principles;
but I refer to him as the example of a \vriter feeling the
task which lay before him, feeling that he had to bring
out into words for the cOlnprehension of his readers a
great and complicated scene, and \vishing that those
words should be adequate to his undertaking. I think
he wrote the first chapter of his History three times
over; it was not that he corrected or im proved the first
copy; but he put his first essay, and then his second,
aside-he recast his matter, till he had hit the precise
exhibition of it which he thought demanded by his
subject.
Now in all these instances, I wish you to observe,
that what I have admitted about literary workmanship
differs from the doctrine \vhich I am opposing in this,-
that the mere dealer in words cares little or nothing for
the subject which he is embellishing, but can paint and
gild anything whatever to order; whereas the artist,
whom I am acknowledging, has his great or rich visions
before him, and his only aim is to bring out what he
thinks or what he feels in a way adequate to the thing
spoken of, and appropriate to the speaker.

7.
The illustration which I have been borrowing from
the Fine Arts will enable me to go a step further. I
have been showing the connection of the thought \vith
the language in literary composition; and in doing so.
I have exposed the unphilosophical notion, that the-
language was an extra which could be dispensed with,.
and provided to order according to the demand. But I
have not yet brought out, what imnlediately follows.

1.86

Literature.

from this, and which was the second point \vhich I had
to show, viz., that to be capable of easy translation is no
test of the excellence of a composition. If I must say
what I think, I should lay down, with little hesitation,
that the truth was almost the reverse of this doctrine.
N or are many words required to show it. Such a
doctrine, as is contained in the passage of the author
whom I quoted when I began, goes upon the assumption
that one language is just like another language,-that
every language has all the ideas, turns of thought,
delicacies of expression, figures, associations, abstractions,
points of vie\v, which every other language has. Now,
as far as regards Science, it is true that all languages
are pretty n1uch alike for the purposes of Science; but
even in this respect some are more suitable than
others, which have to coin words, or to borro\v them, in
order to express scientific ideas. But if languages are
not all equally adapted even to furnish symbols for
those universal and eternal truths in which Science con-
sists, how can they reasonably be expected to be all
equally rich, equally forcible, equally n1usical, equally
exact, equally happy in expressing the idiosyncratic
peculiarities of thought of some original and fertile mind,
who has availed himself of one of them? A great
author takes his native language, masters it, partly
thro\\rs himself into it, partly moulds and adapts it, and
pours out his multitude of ideas through the variously
ralnified and delicately minute channels of expression
which he has found or framed :-does it f<?llow that this
his personal presence (as it may be called) can forth-
with be transferred to every other language under the
sun? Then may we reasonably maintain that Beeth-
oven's piano 111usic is not really beautiful, because it
cannot be played on the hurdy-gurdy. Were not this

Literature.

287

astonishing doctrine maintained by persons tar superior
to the \vriter whonl I have selected for animadversion, I
should find it difficult to be patient under a gratuitous
extravagance. It seems that a really great author must
admit of translation, and that we have a test of his excel-
lence when he reads to advantage in a foreign language
as well as in his own. Then Shakespeare is a genius be-
cause he can be translated into German, and not a genius
because he cannot be translated into French. Then the
multiplication-table is the most gifted of all conceivable
compositions, because it loses nothing by translation, and
can hardly be said to belong to anyone language what-
ever. Whereas I should rather have conceived that, in
proportion as ideas are novel and recond ite, they would
be difficult to put into words, and that the very fact of
their having insinuated themselves into one language
would diminish the chance of that happy accident being
repeated in another. In the language of savages you
can hardly express any idea or act of the intellect at
all: is the tongue of the Hottentot or Esquimaux to
be made the Ineasure of the genius of Plato, Pindar,
Tacitus, St. Jerome, Dante, or Cervantes?
Let us recur, I say, to the illustration of the Fine
Arts. 1 suppose you can express ideas in painting
which you cannot express in sculpture; and the n10re
an artist is of a painter, the less he is likely to be of
a sculptor. The more he commits his genius to the
Inethods and conditions of his own art, the less he will
be able to throw himself into the circumstances of
another. Is the genius of Fra Angelico, of Francia, or
of Raffaelle disparaged by the fact that he was able to
do that in colours which no man that ever lived, \vhich
no Angel, could achieve in wood? Each of the Fine
Arts has its own subject-matter; from the nature of the

288

Literature.

case you can do in one what you cannot do in another;
you can do in painting what you cannot do in carving;
you can do in oils what you cannot do in fresco; you
'can do in marble what you cannot do in ivory; you can
do in wax what you cannot do in bronze. Then. I
repeat, applying this to the case of languages, ,vhy
should not genius be able to do in Greek what it cannot
do in Latin? and why are its Greek and Latiri works
defective because they \vill not turn into English? That
genius, of \vhich we are- speaking, did not make English;
it did not make all languages, present, past, and future;
it did not make the laws of any language: why is it to
be judged of by that in which it had no part, over which
it has no control?

8.
And now we are naturally brought on to our third
point, which is on the characteristics of Holy Scripture
as cOlnpared with profane literature. Hitherto we have
been concerned \vith the doctrine of these writers, viz' f
that style is an extra, that it is a mere artifice, and that
hence it cannot be translated; now we come to their
fact, viz., that Scripture has no such artificial style, and
that Scripture can easily be translated. Surely their
fact is as untenable as their doctrine.
Scripture easy of translation! then \vhy have there
been so few good translators? why is it that there
has been such great difficulty in conlbining the two
necessary qualities, fidelity to the original and purity in
the adopted vernacular? why is it that the author-
ized versions of the Church are often so inferior to
the original as compositions, except that the Church
is bound above all things to see that the version is doc-
..rinally correct, and in a difficult problem is obliged to

Literature.

28('
':)

put up ,vith defects in what is of secondary inlportance,
provided she secure what is of first? If it were so
easy to transfer the beauty of the original to the copy,
she would not have been content with her received
version in various languages which could be named.
And then in the next place, Scripture not elaborate!
Scripture not ornamented in diction, and tllusical in
cadence! Why, consider the Epistle to the Hebrews-
\vhere is there in the classics any composition more care-
fully, more artificially ,vritten? Consider the book of
Job-is it not a sacred drama, as artistic, as perfect,
as any Greek tragedy of Sophocles or Euripides? Con-
sider the Psalter-are there no ornaments, no rhythlll, no
studied cadences, no responsive members, in that divinely
beautiful book? And is it not hard to understand? are
not the Prophets hard to understand? is not St. Paul
hard to understand? Who can say that these are
popular compositions? who can say that they are level
at first reading with the understandings of the mul-
titude ?
That there are portions indeed of the inspired volurne
nlore sinlple both in style and in meaning, and that
these are the nlore sacred and sublime passages, as,
for instance, parts of the Gospels, I grant at once:
but this does not Inilitate against the doctrine I have
been laying down. Recollect, Gentlemen, my distinction
,vhen I began. I have said Literature is one thing, and
that Science is another; that Literature has to do \vith
ideas, and Science with realities; that Literature is of
a. personal character, that Science treats of what is
universal and eternal. In proportion, then, as Scripture
excludes the personal colouring of its \vriters, and rises
into the region of pure and mere inspiration, when it
ceases in any sense to be the \vriting of man, of S1. Paul
19

29 0

Literalu t.

or St. John, of l\Ioses or Isaias, then it COInes to belong
to Science, not Literature. Then it conveys the things
of heaven, unseen verities, divine manifestations, and
them alone-not the ideas, the feelings, the aspirations,
of its human instruments, who, for all that they \vere
inspired and infallible
did llot cease to be men. St.
Paul's epistles, then, I consider to be literature in a rea]
and true sense, as persona], as rich in reflection and
emotion, as Denlosthenes or Euripides; and, \vithout
ceasing to. be revelations of objective truth, they are
expressions of the subjective notwithstanding. On the
other hand, portions of the Gospels, of the book of
Genesis, and other passages of the Sacred Volume,
are of the nature of Science. Such is the beginning of
S1. John's Gospel, \vhich we read at the end of IVlas:;.
Such is the Creed. I nlean, passages such as these are
the mere enunciation of eternal things, without (so to
say) the medium of any human mind transmitting thern
to us. Th{' \vords used have the grandeur, the nlajesty,
the calm, unin1passioned beauty of Science; they are in
no sense Literature, they are in no sense personal; and
therefore they are easy to apprehend, and easy to
transla tee
Did time admit I could show you parallel instances of
Vw-hat I am speaking of in the Classics, inferior to the
inspired \vord in proportion as the subject-matter of the
classical authors is imnlensely inferior to the subjects
treated of in Scripture-but parallel, inasnluch as the
classical author or speaker ceases for the moment to
have to do with Literature, as speaking of things
objectively, and rises to the serene sublimity of Science.
But I should be carried too far if I began.

Lz'terature.

29 1

9-
I shall then merely sum up \vhat I have said, and
come to a conclusion. Reverting, then, to my original
question, what is the meaning of Letters, as contained,
Gentlemen, in the designation of your Faculty, I have
ans\vered, that
Letters or Literature is meant the
expression of thought in languag-e, where by " thought"
} mean the ideas, feeling-s, vie\vs, reasonings, and oth

operatiQns of the human mind. And the Art of Letters
is the method by which a speaker or writer brings out
in words, worthy of his subject, and sufficient for his
audience or readers, the thoughts which impress him.
Literature, then, is of a personal character; it conststs in
the enunciations and teachings of those who have a right
to speak as representatives of their kind, and in whose
words their brethren find an interpretation of their own
sentiments, a record of their own experience, and a
suggestion for thcir own j udgnlcnts. A great author,
Gentlemen, is not one who merely has a copia verboru111,
whether in prose or verse, and can, as it were, turn on at
his \vill any number of splendid phrases and s\velling
sentences; but he is one \vho has something to say and
knows how to say it. I do not claim for him, as such,
any great depth of thought, or breadth of view, or
philosophy, or sagacity, or kno\vledge of human nature,
or experience of human life, though these additional
gifts he may have, and the n10re he has of them the
greater he is; but I ascribe to him, as his characteristic
gift, in a large sense the faculty of Expression. He is
master of the two-fold Logos, the thought and the word,
distinct, but inseparable from each other. He may, if so

29 2

Literature.

be, elaborate his compositions, or he may pour out his
in1provisations, but in either case he has but one aim,
\vhich he keeps steadily before hin1, and is conscientious
and single-minded in fulfilling. That aim is to give forth
\vhat }1e has \vithin hin1; and from his very earnestness
it con1es to pass that, \\,hatever be the splendour of his
diction or the harmony of his periods, he has with him
the charn1 of an incomn1unicable simplicity. Whatever
be his subject, high or low, he treats it suitably and for
its own sake. If he is a poet, U nil molitur inept}." If he
is an orator, then too he speaks, not only "distinctè" and
"splendidè," but also "apt}." His page is the lucid
n1irror of his mind and life-

" Quo fit, ut omnis
V otivâ pateat veluti descripta tabellâ
Vita senis."

r I-I c writes passionately, because he feels keenly;
forcibly, because he conceives vividly; he sees too clearly
to be vague; he is too serious to be otiose; he can
analyze his subject, and therefore he is rich; he clnbraces
'it as a whole and in its parts, and therefore he is
consistent; he has a firm hold of it, and therefore he is
luminous. When his imagination wells up, it overflows
. in ornament; \vhen his heart is touched, it thrilIs along
his verse. If e always has the right word for the right
idea, and never a \vard too much. If he is brief, it is
because few \vords suffice; \vhen he is lavish of them, still
each ,yard has its mark, and aids, not embarrasses, the
vigorous march of his elocution. He expresses what all
, I feel, but all cannot say; and his sayings pass into
proverbs among his people, and his phrases become
household \vords and idioms of their daily speech, which

Litfrature.

293

is tesselated with the rich fragments of his language, J
as we see in foreign lands the marbles of Roman gran-
Jeur worked into the walls and pavements of modern
palaces.
Such pre-eminently is Shakespeare among ourselves;
such pre-eminently Virgil among the Latins; such in
their degree are all those writers who in every nation
go by the name of Classics. To particular nations they
are necessarily attached from the circumstance of the
variety of tongues, and the peculiarities of each; but so
far they have a catholic and ecumenical character, that
\vhat they express is common to the whole race of n1an,
and they alone are able to express it.

10.
[f then the po\ver of speech is a gift as great as any
that can be named,-if the origin of language is by
1nany philosophers even considered to be nothing short
of divine,-if by means of words the secrets of the heart
are brought to light, pain of soul is relieved, hiddeI1
grief is carried off, sympathy conveyed, counsel imparted.
experience recorded, and wisdom perpetuateò,-if by
great authors the nlany are drawn up into unity, na-
tional character is fixed, a people speaks, the past and
the future, the East and the West are brought into
cOllln1unication \vith each other,-if such men are, in a
word, the spokesmen and prophets of the human falnily,
-it will not answer to nlake light of Literature or
to neglect its study; rather we may be sure that, in
proportion as we master it in \vhatever language, and
imbibe its spirit, we shall ourselves become in our
o\\pn measure the ministers of like benefits to others,

294

L ittratuYe.

be they many or few, be they in the obscurer or the more
distinguished walks of life,--who are united to us by
social tics, and are within the sphere of our personal
infl uenee.

295

I I I.

ENGLISH CATHOLIC LITERATURE.

O NE of the special objects which a Catholic {J ni-
versity would promote is that of the formation
oÍ a Catholic Literature in the English language. It is an
object, ho\vever, which must be understood before it
can be suitably prosecuted; and which will not be
understood without some discussion and investigation.
.Fir
t ideas on the subject must almost necessarily be
crude. The real state of the case, what is desirable,
what is possible, has to be ascertained; and then what
has to be done, and what is to be expected. We have
seen in public matters, for half a year past,. to what
mistakes, and to what disappointments, the country
has been exposed, from not having been able distinctly
to put before it \vhat was to be aimed at by its fleets and
armies, what was practicable, what ,vas probable, in
operations of war: and so, too, in the field of literature,
we are sure of falling into a parallel perplexity and
dissatisfaction, if we start with a vague notion of doing
something or other important by means of a Catholic
University, ,vithout having the caution to examine what
is feasible, and what is unnecessary or hopeless. Ac-
cordingly, it is natural I should ,vish to direct attention
to this subject, even though it be too difficult to handle
in any exact or con1plete \vay, and though my attempt
must be left for others to bring into a more perfect shape,
who are more fitted for the task.
Here I shall chiefly employ myself in investigating
what the object is 1l0t.
* August, 185
.

4

29b

.

. I. In z"ls relation to Reltg.ious L iteralu,"e.

\ì x l HEN a "Catholic Literature in the English
'\ tongue" is spoken of as a desideratu11l, no reason-
able person will mean by U Catholic works" n1uch more
than the "works of Catholics. u The phrase does not
mean a religious literature. "Religious Literature"
indeed would mean much more than u the Literature of
religious men;" it Ineans over and above this, that the
subject-matter of the Literature is religious; but by
U Catholic Literature" is not to be understood a litera-
ture which treats exclusively or primarily of Catholic
matters, of Catholic doctrine, controversy, history, per-
sons, or politics; but it includes all subjects of literature
\vhatever, treated as a Catholic \vould treat thenl, and
as he only can treat thenl. Why it is important to have
them treated by Catholics hardly need be eXplained
here, though son1ething \vill be incidentally said on the
point as we proceed: Ineanwhile I an} dra\ving atten-
tion to the distinction bet\veen the two phrases in order
to avoid a serious misapprehension. For it is evident
that, if by a Catholic Literature \vere meant nothing
more or less than a religious literature, its \vriters would
be mainly ecclesiastics; just as \vriters on Law are
l11ainly lawyers, and writers on 1Iedicine are nlainly
physicians or surgeons. And if this be so, a Catholic
Literature is no object special to a University, unless a
University is to be considered identical \vith a Seminary
or a. Theological Sehoul.

English Catholic Literature. 297

I anI not denying that a University might prove of the
greatest benefit even to our religious literature; doubt-
less it would, and in various ways; still it is concerned
with Theology only as one great subject of thought, as the
greatest indeed which can occupy the human mind, yet
not as the adequate or direct scope of its institution.
Yet I suppose it is not impossible for a literary layman
to wince at the idea, and to shrink from the proposal,
of taking part in a scheme for the formation of a Catholic
Literature, under the apprehension that in some way or
another he \vill be entangling- himself in a semi-clerical
occupation. It is not uncommon, on expressing an
anticipation that the Professors of a Catholic University
\vill pron10te a Catholic Literature, to have to encounter
a vague notion that a lecturer or \vriter so en1ployed
ßlust have something poleluical about hÏ1n, n1ust
moralize or preach, must (in Protestant language)
'Ùnprove tIle occasion, though his subject is not at all a
religious one; in short, that he must do something else
besides fairly and boldly go right on, and be a Catholic
speaking as a Catholic spontaneously \vill speak, on the
Classics, or Fine Arts, or Poetry, or \vhatever he has
taken in hand. Men think that he cannot give a lecture
on Comparative Anatolny \vithout being bound to
digress into the Argulnent from Final Causes; that he
cannot recount the present geological theories without
forcing theln into an interpretation seriatÙn of the first
t\VO chapters of Genesis. Many, indeed, seem to go
further still, and actually pronounce that, since our o\vn
University has been recommended by the Holy See, and
is established by the Hierarchy, it cannot but be engaged
in teaching religion and nothing else, and must and will
ha\tc the discipline of a Seminary; which is about as
sensible and logical a view of the rnatter as it would be

29 8 E1lglish Catholic Literature.

to maintain that the Prime Minister ipso facto holds an
ecclesiastical office, since he is always a Protestant; or
that the members of the 1 louse of COffilnons Inust neces-
sarily have been occupied in clerical duties, as long as
they took an oath about Transubstantiation. Catholic
Literature is not synonymous with Theology, nor does it
supersede or interfere with the work of catechist'), divines
prcd.chcrs, or schoohnen.

299

.. 2. In ,lIs relation 10 Sriellce.

I.
A ND next, it nlust be borne in mind, that when we
aim at providing a Catholic Literature for Catholics,
in place of an existing literature which is of a marked
Protestant character, we do not, strictly speaking,
include the pure sciences in our desz"deratul1z. Not that
we should not feel pleased and proud to find Catholics
distinguish themselves in publications on abstract or
experimental philosophy, on account of the honour it
does to our religion in the eyes of the world ;-not that
W
are insensible to the congruity and respectability of
depending in these matters on ourselves, and not on
others, at least as regards our text-books ;-not that we
do not confidently anticipate that Catholics of these
countries will in tÎIne to conle be able to point to
authorities and discoverers in science of their own, equal
to those of Protestant England, Germany, or Sweden;-
but because, as regards mathenlatics, chemistry, as-
tronomy, and similar subjects, one man \vill not, on the
score of his religion, treat of them better than another,
and because the works of even an unbeliever or idolator,
while he kept within the strict range of such studies,
nlight be safely admitted into Catholic lecture-rooIns,
and put without scruple into the hands of Catholic youths.
There is no crying denland, no imperative necessity,
for our acquisition of a Catholic Euclid or a Catholic
Newton. The object of all science is truth ;-the pure

3 00 English Cathú/ic Literature.

sciences proceed to their enunciations from principles
which the intellect discerns by a natural light, and by
a process recognized by natura] reason; and the experi-
mental sciences investigate facts by methods of analysis
or by ingenious expedients, ultimat
ly resolvable into
instruments of thought equally native to the human
mind. If then we may assume that there is an objective
truth, and that the constitution of the human mind is
in correspondence with it, and acts truly when it acts
according to its own laws; if we may assume that God
made us, and that what He made is good, and that
no action from and according to nature can in itself be
evil; it will follow that, so long as it is man who is the
geometrician, or natural philosopher, or [nechanic, or
critic, no matter \vhat ß1an he be, Hindoo, Mahon1etan,
or infidel, his conclusions within his own science, accord-
ing to the laws of that science, are unquestionable, ànd
not to be suspected by Catholics, unless Catholics l11ay
legitimately be jealous of fact and truth, of divine
principles and divine creations.
I have been speaking of the scientific treatises or
investigations of those who are not Catholics, to which
the subject of Literature leads Ine; but I lnight even go
on to speak of them in their persons as well as in their
books. Were it not for the scandal \vhich they would
create; were it not for the exan1ple they would set;
were it not for the certain tendency of the hUßlan nlind
involuntarily to outleap the strict boundaries of an
abstract science, and to teach it upon extraneous princi-
ples, to embody it in concrete examples, and to carry it
on to practical conclusions; above aU: \vere it not for
the indirect influence, and living energetic presence, and
collateral duties, which accompany a Professor in a great
school of learning, I do not see (abstracting fronl hinl, I

English Càtholù; Llle1 ø atUY{'. 301

repeat, in hypothesis, what never could possibly be
<ibstracted from him in fact), why the chair of Astronomy
in a Catholic University should not be filled by a La
Place, or that of Physics by a Humboldt. Whatever
they might wish to say, still, while they kept to their
o\\'n science, the} would be unable, like the heathen
Prophet in Scripture, to "go beyond the \vord of the
I"ord, to utter any thing of their own head."

2.
So far the argunlents hold good of certain celebrated
\vriters in a Northern Review, who, in their hostility to
the principle of dogmatic teaching, seem obliged to
nlaintain, because subject-matters are distinct, that
living opinions are distinct too, and that men are
abstractions as well as their respective sciences. IC On
the morning of the thirteenth of August, in the year
1704," says a justly celebrated author, in illustration and
defence of the anti-dogmatic principle in political and
social 1l1atters, Ie two great captains, equal in authority,
united by dose private and public ties, but of different
creeds, prepa.red for battle, on the event of which \vere
staked the liberties of Europe. . . Marlborough gave
orders for public prayers; the English chaplains read
the service at the head of the English regiments; the
Calvinistic chaplains of the Dutch army, with heads on
which hand of Bishop had never been laid, poured forth
their supplications in front of their countrymen. In the
meantime the Danes 1l1ight listen to the Lutheran
ministers; and Capuchins might encourage the Austrian
squadrons, and pray to the Virgin for a blessing on the
anns of the holy Roman Empire. The battle com-
Inences; these men of various religions all act like
members of one body: the Catholic and the Protestant

302 E nglis}l Catholic L-i/tralure.

generals exert themselves to assist and to surpass each
other; before sunset the Empire is saved; France has
lost in a day the fruits of eight years of intrigue and of
victory; and the allies, after conquering together, return
thanks to God separately, each after his own form of
1 . ,'. -
\\'ors IIp.
The writer of this lively passage would be doubtless
un\villing himself to carry out the principle \vhich it
insinuates to those extreme conclusions to ,vhich it is
often pushed by others, in n1atters of education. Viewed
in itself: vie\ved in the abstract, that principle is simply,
undeniably true; and is only sophistical when it is
carried out in practical matters at all. A religious
opinion, though not formally recognized, cannot fail of
influencing i1l fact the school, or society, or polity in
which it is found; though in the abstract that opinion
is one thing, and the school, society, or polity, another.
Here were Episcopalians, Lutherans, Calvinists, and
Catholics found all fighting on one side, it is true, \vith-
out any prejudice to their respective religious tenets:
and, certainly, I never heard that in a battle soldiers
did do any thing else but fight. I did not know they
had time for going beyond the matter in hand; yet,
even as regards this very illustration which he has
chosen, if we were bound to decide by it the contro-
versy, it does so happen that that danger of interference
and collision bet\veen opposite religionists actually does
occur upon a campaign, which could not be incurred in a
battle: and at this very time some jealousy or disgust
has been shuwn in English popular publications, ,vhen
they have had to record that our ally, the Emperor of
the French, has sent his troops, who are serving with
the British against the Russians, to attend High Mass,
., :f\.lacaulay's Essays.

'''c
ltsh Càtlzolic Literature. 3 0 3

or has presented his sailors with a picture of the

Iadonna.
If, then, \ve could have Professors who were mere
abstractions and phantoms, marrowless in their bones,
and without speculation in their eyes; or if they could
only open their nIouths on their own special subject, and
in their scientific pedantry were dead to the \vorld; if
they resenlbled the well kno\vn character in the Romance,
\vho \vas so imprisoned or fossilized in his erudition,
that, though "he stirred the fire with some address,"
nevertheless, on attempting to snuff the candles, he
" \vas unsuccessful, and relinquished that aInbitio
post
of courtesy, after having twice reduced the parlour to
total darkness," then indeed Voltaire himself might be
adnlitted, not without scandal, but without risk, to lecture
on astronomy or gah-anism in Catholic, or Prote
tant,
or Presbyterian Colleges, or in all of them at once; and
we should have no practical controversy with philoso-
phers \vho, after the fashion of the author I have been
quoting, are so smart in proving that \ve, who differ fronl
them, must needs be so bigotted and puzzle-headed.
And in strict conformity with these obvious distin
-
tions, it \vill be found that, so far as we are able to
reduce scientific men of anti-Catholic opinions to the
type of the imaginary bookworm to whom I have been
alluding. we do actually use them in our schools. \Ve
allo\v our Catholic student to use them, so far as he can
surprise them (if I may use the expression), in their
fornlal treatises, and can keep them close prisoners there.

Vix dcfessa senem passus componere membra,
Cum c1amore ruit magno, manicisque jacentem
Occupat.

The fishernlan, in the Arabian tale, took no harm from

304 English Catholic Li/e1ature.

the genius, till he let him out from the brass bottle in
,vhich he was confined. "He examined the vessel and
shook it, to see if what ,vas within made any noise, but
he heard nothing." All was safe till he had succeeded
in opening it, and "then came out a very thick smoke,
\vhich, ascending to the clouds and extending itself
along the sea shore in a thick mist, astonished him very
much. After a time the sn10ke collected, and was con-
verted into a genius of enormous height. At the sight
of this monster, whose head appeared to reach the
clouds, the fisherman trembled with fear." Such is the
differ Ice bet\veen an unbelieving or heretical philoso-
pher in person, and in the mere disquisitions proper to his
science. Porson was no edifying companion for young
Inen of eighteen, nor are his letters on the text of the
Three I-Ieavenly Witnesses to be recomn1ended; but
that does not hinder his being admitted into Catholic
schools, while he is confined within the limits of his Pre-
face to the Hecuba. Franklin certainly would have
been intolerable in person, if he began to talk freely,
and thro\v out, as I think he did in private, that each
solar systenl had its o\vn god; but such extravagances
of so able a man do not interfere with the honour \ve
justly pay his naIne in the history of experimental
science. Nay, the great Newton hin1self would have
been silenced in a Catholic University, when he got
upon the Apocalypse; yet is that any reason why we
should not study his Principia, or avail ourselves of the
\vonderful analysis \vhich he, Protestant as he ,vas,
originated, and \vhich French infidels bave developed?
We are glad, for their own sakes, that anti-Catholic
writers should, in their posthumous influence, do as
Inuch real service to the human race as ever they can,
and we have no ,vish to interfere with it.

English Catholic Litera/ure. 305

3.

Returning-, then, to the point from which we set out, I
observe that, this being the state of the case as regards
abstract science, viz., that we have no quarrel with its
anti-Catholic commentators, till they thrust their persons
into our Chairs, or their popular \vritings into our read-
ing-rooms, it follows that, when we contemplate the
formation of a Catholic Literature, we do not consider
scientific works as among our most prominent desiderata.
They are to be looked for, not so much for their own
sake, as because they are indications that we have able
scientific men in our communion; for if we have such,
they will be certain to write, and in proportion as they
increase in number will there be the chance of really
profound, original, and standard books issuing from our
Lecture-rooms and Libraries. But, after all, there is no
reason why these should be better than those which we
have already received from Protestants; though it is at
once more beconling and more agreeable to our feelings
to use books of our own, instead of being indebted to
the books of others.
Literature, then, is not synonymous with Science;
nor does Catholic education imply the exclusion of
works of abstract reasoning, or of physical experiment,
or the like, though written by persons of another or of
no communion. .
There is another consideration in point here, or rather
prior to what I have been saying j and that is, that,
considering certain scientific works, those on Criticism,
for instance, are so often written in a technical phrase-
ology, and since others, as mathematical, deal so largely
in signs, symbols, and figures, which belong to all lan-
guages, these abstract studies cannot properly be said to
20

3 06 EnglisJl Catholic Literature.

fall under English Literature at all ;-for by Literature
I understand Thought, conveyed under the forms of
son1e particular language. And this brings me to speak
of Literature in its highest and most genuine sense, viz.,
as an historical and national fact j and I fear, in this
sense of the word also, it is altogether beside or beyond
any object ,vhich a Catholic University can reasonably
contemplate, at least in any moderate term of years ;
but so large a subject here opens upon us that I Inust
postpone it to another Section.

3 0 7

9. 3. In its relation to Classical Literature.

I.
I HAVE been directing the readerts attention, hrst
to what we do not, and next to what we need not
contem plate, when we turn our thoughts to the formation
of an English Catholic Literature. I said that our
object was neither a library of theological nor of scien-
tific knowledge, though theology in its literary aspect,
and abstract science as an exercise of intellect, have
both of course a place in the Catholic encyclopædia.
One undertaking, however, there is, which not merely
does not, and need not, but unhappily cannot, COine into
the reasonable contemplation of any set of persons,
whether members of a University or not, who are desi-
rous of Catholicizing the English language, as is very
evident; and that is sin1ply the creation of an E1zg1ish
Classical Literature, for that has been done long ago,
and would be a work beyond the powers of any body of
men, even if it had still to be done. If I insist on this
point here, no one must suppose I do not consider it to
be self-evident; for I shall not be aiming at proving it, so
much as at bringing it home distinctly to the mind, that
we may, one and all, have a clearer perception of the
state of things with which we have to deal. There is
many an undeniable truth which is not practically felt
and appreciated; and, unless we master our position in
the matter before us, we may be led off into various
\vild imaginations or impossible schemes, which will) as
a n1atter of course, end in disappointment.

3 0 8 English Cat/lotic L'lteralure.

\Vere the Catholic Church acknowledged from this mo-
ment through the length and breadth of these islands, and
the English tongue henceforth baptized into the Catholic
faith, and sealed and consecrated to Catholic objects, and
\vcre the present intellectual activity of the nation to con-
tinue, as of course it whuld continue, \ve should at once
have an abundance of Catholic works, which would be
English, and purely English, literature and high litera-
ture; but still all these \vould not constitute" English
Literature," as the words are commonly understood, nor
even then could we say that the "English Literature"
was Catholic. Much less can we ever aspire to affirm it,
\vhile we are but a portion of the vast English-speaking
world-wide race, and are but striving to create a current
in the direction of Catholic truth, when the waters are
rapidly flowing the other way. In no case can we,
strictly speaking, fonn an English Literature; for by
the Literature of a Nation is n1eant its Classics, and its
Classics have been given to England, and have been
recognized as such, long since.

2.
A Literature, \vhen it is formed, is a national and
historical fact; it is a matter of the past and the present,
and can be as little ignored as the present, as little undone
as the past. We can deny, supersede, or change it, then
only, when \ve can do the same towards the race or lan-
guage \vhich it represents. Every great people has a cha-
racter of its own, which it n1anifests and perpetuates in
a variety of \vays. It developes into a monarchy or re-
public;-bymeans of commerce or in \var,in agriculture or
in manufactures, or in all of these at once; in its cities, its
public edifices and works, bridges, canals, and harbours ;
in its laws, traditions, customs. and manners; in its sonß'S

English Catl/otic Literature. 30g

and its proverbs; in its religion; in its line of policy, its
bearing, its action towards foreign nations; in its alliances,
fortunes, and the whole course of its history. All these
are peculiar, and parts of a whole, and betoken the
national character, and savour of each other; and the
case is the same with the national language and litera-
ture. They are what they are, and cannot be any thing
else, \vhether they be good or bad or of a mixed nature;
before they are formed, we cannot prescribe them; and
afterwards, we cannot reverse them. We may feel great
repugnance to Milton or Gibbon as men; \ve may most
seriously protest against the spirit \vhich ever lives, and
the tendency \vhich ever operates, in every page of
their writings; but there they are, an integral portion
of English Literature; we cannot extinguish them; we
cannot deny their power; we cannot \vrite a new Milton
or a new Gibbon; we cannot expurgate \vhat needs to
be exorcised. They are great English authors, each
breathing hatred to the Catholic Church in his O\Vll way,
each a proud and rebellious creature of God, each gifted
\vith incomparable gifts.
We must take things as they are, if \ve take them at all.
We may refuse to say a word to English literature, if we
'.viB; we may have recourse to French or to Italian instead,
if \ve think either of these less exceptionable than our own;
\ve may fall bdck upon the Classics of Greece and Rome;
\ve may have nothing \vhatever to do with literature, as
such, of any kind, and confine ourselves to purely amor-
phous or monstrous specimens of language; but if \
te
do once profess in our Universities the English language
and literature, if we think it allo\\'able to kno\v the state
of things \ve live in, and that national character which \ve
share, if we think it desirable to have a chance of writing
what may be read after our daYt and praise\vorthy to aim

310 English Catholic Ltterature.
at providing for Catholics who speak English a Catbo-
lic Literature then-I do not say that we must at once
throw open every sort of book to the young, the weak, or
the untrained,-I do not say that we may dispense \vith
our ecclesiastical indexes and emendations, but-we must
not fancy ourselves crèating what is already created in
spite of us, and which never could at a moment be created
by nleans of us, and we must recognize that historical
literature, which is in occupation of the language, both
as a fact, nay, and as a standard for ourselves.
There is surely nothing either U temerarious " or para-
doxical in a statement like this. The growth of a nation
is like that of an individual; its tone of voice and subjects
for speech vary with its age. Each age has its own pro-
priety and charnl ; as a boy's beauty is not a man's, and
the sweetness of a treble differs from the richness of a
bass, so it is with a whole people. The same period does
not produce its most popular poet, its most effective orator,
lnd its most philosophic historian. Language changes
with the progress of thought and the events of history, and
style changes with it; and \vhile in successive generations
it passes through a series of separate excellences, }h

espectiv
e ficiencies of all are supplied alternately by
eac h . 1' hus language and literature may be considered as
---
dependent on a process of nature, and admitting of subjec-
tion toher laws. Father Hardouin indeed, who maintained
that, with the exception of Pliny, Cicero, Virgil's Georgics,
and Horace's Satires and Epistles, Latin literature was the
work of the medieval monks, had the conception of a
literature neither national nor historical; but the rest of
the world will be apt to consider time and place as neces-
sary conditions in its formation, and will be unable to con-
ceive of classical authors, _except as either the elaboration
of centuries, or the rare and fitful acciden t of genius.
r - -

English Catholic LitelatUYf'. 31 I

Flr
t-ratc excellence in literature, as in other matters,
is either an accident or the outcome of a process; and Ï1
either case demands a course of years to secure. We can..
not reckon on a Plato, we cannot force an Aristotle, any
more than we can command a fine harvest, or create a
coal field. If a literature be, as I have said, the voice of a
particular nation, it requires a territory and a period, as
large as that nation's extent and history, to mature in.
It is broader and deeper than the capacity of any body
of men, however gi (ted, or any system of teaching,
however true. It is the exponent, not of truth, but of
nature, which is true only in its elements. It is the
result of the mutual action of a hundred simultaneous
influences and operations, and the issue of a hundred
strange accidents in independent places and times; it is
the scanty compensating produce of the wild discipline
of the world and of life, so fruitful in failures; and it is
the concentration of those rare manifestations of intel..
lectual power, which no one can account for. It is made
up, in the particular language here under consideration.
of hUlnan beings as heterogeneous as Burns and Bunyan.
De Foe and Johnson, Goldsn1ith and Co\vper, Law and
Fielding, Scott and Byron. The remark has been made
that the history of an author is the history of his works;
it is far more exact to say that, at least in the case of great
writers, the history of their works is the history of their
fortunes or their times. Each is, in his turn, the man of
his age, the type of a generation, or the interpreter of a
crisis. He is made for his day, and his day for him.
Hooker would not have been, but for the existence of
Catholics and Puritans, the defeat of the former and the
rise of the latter; Clarendon \vould not have been with-
out the Great Rebellion; Hobbes is the prophet of the
reaction to scoffing infidelity; and Addison is the child

3 I 2 Ellg1l:r;;h Catholic Literature.

of the Revolution and its attendant chclnges. If there be
any of our classical authors, \vho might at first sight have
been pronounced a University man, with the exception of
Johnson, Addison is he; yet even Addison, the son and
brother of clergymen, the fellow of an Oxford Society,
the resident of a Col1
e \vhich still points to the walk
which he planted, nlust be something more, in order to
take his place among the Classics of the language, and
owed the variety of his matter to his experience of life,
and to the call made on his resources by the exigencies
of his day. The world he lived in made hÏln and used
him. While his writings educated his o\vn generation,
they have delineated it for all posterity after hinl.

3.
I have been speaking of the authors of a literature, in
their relation to the people and course of events to
which they belong; but a prior consideration, at which
I have already glanced, is their connection \vith the
language itself, which has been their organ. If they are
in great measure the creatures of their times, they are
on the other hand in a far higher sense the creators of
their language. It is indeed commonly called their
mother tongue, but virtually it did not exist till they
gave it life and fornl. All greater nlatters are carried
on and perfected by a succession of individual minds;
what is true in the history of thought and of action is
true of language also. Certain masters of composition,
as Shakespeare, Milton, and Pope, the writers of the
Protestant Bible and Prayer Book, Hooker and Addi-
son, Swift, H ume, and Goldsmith, have been the making
of the English language; and as that language is a fact,
so is the literature a fact, by \vhich .it is formed, and ill
which it lives. ivIen of great ability have taken it in

Englis/z Catholic Literature. 3 1 3

hand, each in his own day, and have done for it what
the master of a gymnasium does for the bodily frame.
They have formed its limbs, and developed its strength;
they have endowed it with vigour, exercised it in sup-
pleness and dexterity, and taught it grace. They have
made it rich, harmonious, various, and precise. They
have furnished it with a variety of styles, which from
their individuality may almost be called dialects, and are
nlonunlents both of the po\\yers of the language and the
genius of its cultivators.
How real a creation, how sui gelleris, is the style of
Shakespeare, or of the Protestant Bible and Prayea
Book, or of Swift, or of Pope, or of Gibbon, or of J ohn-
son! Even were the subject-matter without meaning,
though in truth the style cannot really be abstracted
froin the sense, still the style would, on that supposition,
remain as perfect and original a work as Euclid's ele 4
ments or a symphony of Beethoven. And, like nlusic,
it has seized upon the public mind; and the literature
of England is no longer a mere letter, printed in books,
and shut up in libraries, but it is a living voice, \vhich
has gone forth in its expressions and its sentiments into
the world of rnen, which daily thrills upon our ears and
syllables our thoughts, which speaks to us through our
correspondents, and dictates when we put pen to paper.
Whether we will or no, the phraseology and diction of
Shakespeare, of the Protestant formularies, of I\iilton,
of Pope, of Johnson's Tabletalk, and of vValter Scott,
have become a portion of the vernacular tongue, the
household words, of which perhaps we little guess the
origin, and the very idioms of our familiar conversation.
The Juan in the comedy spoke prose without knowing
it; and we Catholics, \vithout consciousness and without
offence, are ever repeating the half sentences of dissolute

3 14 h'Jlglzsh Catholic Lzteratu1 t.

pIay\vrights and heretical partizans and preachers. So
tyrannous is the literature of a nation; it is too n1uch
for us. We cannot destroy or reverse it; we may con-
front and encounter it, but \ve cannot make it over
again. It is a great \vork of man, \vhen it is no work of
God's. ·
I repeat, then, \vhatever we be able or unable to effect
in the great problem which lies before us, any how we
cannot undo the past. En
lish Literature will ever have
been Protestant. Swift and Addison, the n10st native
and natural of our writers, Hooker and Milton, the most
elaborate, never can become our co-religionists; and,
though this is but the enunciation of a truism, it is not
on that account an unprofitable enunciation.

4-
I trust we are not the men to give up an unõertclking
because it is perplexed or arduous; and to do nothing-
because we cannot do everything. Much may be at-
tempted, much attained, even granting English Litera-
ture is not Catholic. Something indeed may be said
even in alleviation of the misfortune itself, on which I
have been insisting; and with two remarks bearing upon
this latter point I Nill bring this Section to an end.
I. First, th en it is to be considered that, whether_we_
l ook to countries Christi an Q r h eathen, we fin d the state of
literature there as little satisfac to ry as it is in thes e islands;
so that, whatever are our difficu lties her e, .!.hey
e not -
worse than those of Catholics all over the world. I would
- - -
not indeed say a word to extenuate the calamity, under
which we lie, of having a literature formed in Protestan t-
ism; still, other literatures have disadvantages of their
own; and, though in such. matters comparisons are im-
possible, I doubt whether we should be better pleased if

l
1lglisk Catholic Literature. 3 IS

our English Classics were tainted with licentiousness, or
defaced by infidelity or scepticism. I conceive we should
not much mend matters if we were to exchange litera-
tures with the French, Italians, or Germans. About
Germany, however, I will not speak; as to France, it
has great and religious authors; its classical drama, even
in comedy, compared with that of other literatures, is
singularly unexceptionable; but \vho is there that holds
a place among its \vriters so historical and important,
who is so copious, so versatile, so brilliant, as that Voltaire
who is an open scoffer at every thing sacred, venerable,
or high-minded? N or can Rousseau, though he has
not the pretensions of Voltaire, be excluded from the
classical \vriters of France. Again, the gifted Pascal,
in the work on which his literary fame is mainly founded,
does not approve himself to a Catholic judgment; and
Descartes, the first of French philosophers, was too
independent in his inquiries to be always correct in his
conclusions. The \vitty Rabelais is said, by a recent
critic,. to show covertly in his former publications,
and openly in his latter, his It dislike to the Church of
Rome." La Fontaine was with difficulty brought, on
his death-bed, to make public satisfaction for the scandal
\vhich he had done to religion by his immoral COlltes,
though at length he threw into the fire a piece which he
had just finished for the stage. Montaigne, whose
Essays" make an epoch in literature," by u their influence
upon the tastes and opinions of Europe;" whose "school
embraces a large proportion of French and English
literature;" and of whose "brightness and felicity of
genius there can be but one opinion," is disgraced, as the
same \vriter tells us, by "a sceptical bias and great indiffer-
ence of temperament;" and "has led the way" as an
· Hallam.

3 1 6 ElI.
/ish Catholic Ltleraluyt.

habitual offender, "to the indecency too characteristic of
French literature."
N or does Italy present a more encouraging picture.
Ariosto, one of the fe\v names, ancient or modern, who
is allowed on all hands to occupy the first rank of Litera-
ture, is, I suppose, rigfitly arraigned by the author I have
above quoted, of "coarse sensuality." l)ulci," by his
sceptical insinuations, seems clearly to display an inten-
tion of exposing religion to contetnpt." Boccaccio, the
first of Italian prose-writers, had in his old age touch-
ingly to lament the corrupting tendency of his popular
conlpositions; and Bcllarmine has to vindicate him,
Dante, and Petrarch, frOITI the charge of virulent abuse
of the Holy See. Dante certainly does not scruple to
place in his Inferno a Pope, \vhom the Church has since
canonized, and his work on 1Ilo1larchia is on the Index.
Another great Florentine, Macchiavel, is on the Index
also; and Giannone, as great in political history at
Naples as Macchiavel at Florence, is notorious for his
disaffection to the interests of the Ronlan Pontiff
1'hese are but specin1ens of the general chard.cter of
secular literature, whatever be the people to whon1 it be-
longs. One literature may be better than another, but
bad \vill be the be
t, when \veighed in the balance of
truth and nlorality. It cannot be othenvise; hun1an
nature is in all ages and all countries the same; and its
literature, therefore, \vill ever and everywhere be one and
the saine also. Man's work will savour of man; in hi

elements and po\vers excellent and admirable, but prone
to disorder and excess, to error and to sin Such too
\"ill be his literature; it will have the beauty and the
fierceness, the sweetness and the rankness, of the natural
111an, and, \vith all its richness and greatness, \vill neces-
sarily offend the senses of those who, in the Apostle's

English Catholic Literature. 3 17

words, are really" exercised to discern between good
and evil." " It is said of the holy Sturme," says an Ox-
ford writer, U that, in passing a horde of unconverted
Gernlans, as they were bathing and gambolling in the
stream, he was so overpo\vered by the intolerable scent
which arose from them that he nearly fainted away."
National Literature is, in a parallel way, the untutored
- --- -- --
nlovements of the reason, in lagination, passions, and
--
affections of the natural nl a n, the leapings and the
friskings, the p lung inKs and the snortin gs, the_spo rtin g

and the buffoonin g s, the ClUl11 SY play and-1 he a iml

toil, of the noble , lawless sav ag e of God' s in t
le
al
creation.
... It is well that \ve should clearly apprehend a truth so
simple and elenlentary as this, and not expect from the
nature of man, or the literature of the world, what they
l1ever held out to us. Certainly, I did not know that the
world was to be regarded as favourable to Christian faith
or practice, or that it would be breaking any engagement
with us, if it took a line divergent froln our own. I have
6-never fancied that \ve should have reasonable gr<;? und for I
surprise or complaint, though m an's intelle c! p'ztrÙ' 1l !!:.:
turalibus did prefer, of the two. liberty to truth , or though
11Îs heart cherished a l eaning to\vards licence of tho ught
and speech in com p arison with restraint. -

5.
2. If we do but resign ourselves to facts, we shall soon
be led on to the second reflection which I have promised
-viz., that, not only are things not better abroad, but
they n1ight be worse at home. We have. it is true. a
Protestant literature: but th e n it is neither atheistical
-nor inlmoral ; and in the
a se of at . least half a doz en
of its highest a nd nlost influenti al de partments, and of
- -

3 18 E llglish Catholic Literature.

t he Ulost PQP ular of its a uthors.. CQD1es to us with ve ry
con s iderable al1eviatio n
For instance, there surely is
ã(;u on us for thankfulness that the nlost illustrious
amongst English writers has so little of a Protestant
about him that Catholics have been able, without ex-
travagance, to clainl him as their own, and that enemîes
to our creed have allowed that he is only not a Catholic,
because, and as far as, his times forbade it. It is an
additional satisfaction to be able to boast that he offends
in neither of those two respects, which reflect so seriously
upon the reputation of great authors abroad. Whatever
passages may be gleaned from his dramas disrespectful
to ecclesiastical authority, still these are but passages; on
the other hand, there is in Shakespeare neither contempt
of religion nor scepticism, and he upholds the broad laws
of moral and divine truth with the consistency and severity
of an Æschylus, Sophocles, or Pindar. There is no mis-
taking in his works on which side lies the right; Satan
is not made a hero, nor Cain a victinl, but pride is pride,
and vice is vice, and, whatever indulgence he may allow
himself in light thoughts or unseemly words, yet his
admiration is reserved for sanctity and truth. From the
second chief fault of Literature, as indeed n1Y last words
imply, he is not so free; but, often as he may offend
against modesty, he is clear of a worse charge, sensuality,
and hardly a passage can be instanced in all that he
has ,vritten to seduce the imagination or to excite the
passions.
A rival to Shakespeare, if not in genius, at least in
copiousness and variety, is found in Pope; and he \vas
actually a Catholic, though personally an unsatisfactory
one. His freedom indeed from Protestantisnl is but a poor
compensation for å false theory of religion in one of his
poems; but, taking his works as a whole, we may surely

English Catholic Literature. 319

acquit them of being dangerous to the reader, whether
on the score of morals or of faith.
Again, the special title of moralist in English Litera-
ture is accorded by the public voice to Johnson, whose
bias towards Catholicity is well known.
If we were to ask for a report of our philosophers, the
investigation would not be so agreeable; for we have
three of evil, and one of unsatisfactory repute. l.ocke
is scarcely an honour to us in the standard of truth, grave
and manly as he is; and Hobbes, Hume, and Bentham)'
in spite of their abilities, are simply a disgrace. Yet,
even in this department, we find some compensation in
the names of Clarke, Berkeley, Butler, and Reid, and in
a name more famous than them all. Bacon was too
intellectually great to hate or to contemn the Catholic
faith; and he deserves by his writings to be called the
most orthodox of Protestant philosophers.

3 2 0

. 4. lit its r
lation 10 tlte Lt"!eral1tr
0/ the DaJ'.

I.
T HE past cannot be undone. That our English
Classical Literature is not Catholic is a plain fact,
which we cannot deny, to which we must reconcile our-
selves, as best \ve may, and which, as I have shown above>
has after all its compensations. When, then, I speak of
the desirableness of forming a Catholic Literature, I am
contemplating no such vain enterprise as that of reversing
history; no, nor of redeeming the past by the future. I
have no dream of Catholic Classics as still reserved for the
English language. In truth, classical authors not only
are national, but belong to a particular age of a nation's
life; and I should not wonder if, as regards ourselves,
that age is passing a\vay. l\1:oreover, they perform a
particular office towards its language, which is not likely
to be called for beyond a definite time. And further,
though analogies or parallels cannot be taken to decide
a question of this nature, such is the fact, that the series of
our classical writers has already extended through a
longer period than was granted to the Classical Litera-
ture either of Greece or of Rome; and thus the English
language also may have a long course of literature still
to come through many centuries, without that Literature
being classical.
Latin, for instance, was a living language for many
hundred years after the date of the writers who brought
it to its perfection; and then it continued for a second

Englt"sh Catholic Lzterature. 32 J

long period to be the medium of European correspon-
dence. Greek \vas a living language to a date not very
far short of that of the taking of Constantinople, ten cen.
turies after the date of St. Basil, and seventeen hundred
years after the period commonly called classical. And
thus, as the year has its spring and sumlner, so even for
those celebrated languages there was but a season of splen-
dour, and, compared with the whole course of their dura-
tion, but a brief season. Since, then, English has had its
great \vriters for a term of about three hundred years,-as
long, that is, as the period from Sappho to Demosthenes,
or from Pisistratus to Arcesilas, or fronl Æschylus and
Pindar to Carneades, or from Ennius to Pliny,-we
should have no right to be disappointed if the classical
period be close upon its termination.
By the Classics of a national Literature I Iuean those
authors who have the foremost place in exemplifying
the powers and conducting the development of its lan-
guage. The language of a nation is at first rude and
clun1sy; and it demands a succession of skilful artists to
Inake it malleable and ductile, and to v;ork it up to its
proper perfection. It improves by use, but it is not
everyone who can use it while as yet it is unformed.
To do this is an effort of genius; and so men of a pecu-
liar talent arise, one after another, according to the cir-
cumstances of the times, and accomplish it. One gives it
flexibility, that is, shows how it can be used without
difficulty to express adequately a variety of thoughts and
feelings in their nicety or intricacy; another makes it
perspicuous or forcible; a third adds to its vocabulary ;
and a fourth gives it grace and harmony. The style of
each of such enlinent nldsters becomes henceforth in
SOlne sort a property of the language itself; words,
phrases, collocations, and structure, which hitherto did
21

322 English Catholic Literature.

not exist, gradually passing into the conversation and
the composition of the educated classes.

2.
Now I will attempt to sho\v how this process of im-
provement is effected, and what is its limit. I conceive
then that these gifted writers act upon the spoken and
written language by means of the particular schools
which form about them respectively. Their style, using
the word in a large sense, forcibly arrests the reader, and
draws him on to imitate it, by virtue of what is excellent
in it, in spite of such defects as, in common with all human
\vorks, it may contain. I suppose all of us \vill recognize
this fascination. For myself when I was fourteen or
fifteen, I in1itated Addison; when I was seventeen, I
wrote in the style of Johnson; about the same time I fell
in \vith the twelfth volume of Gibbon, and my ears rang
with the cadence of his sentences, and I dreamed of it for
a night or two. Then I began to n1ake an analysis of
Thucydides in Gibbon's style. In like manner, most
Oxford undergraduates, forty years ago, when they would
write poetry, adopted the versification of Pope Darwin,
and the Pleasures of Hope, which had been made popular
by Heber and Milman. The literary schools, indeed,
which I am speaking of, as resulting from the attractions
of some original, or at least novel artist, consist for the
most part of mannerists, none of whom rise much above
mediocrity; but they are not the less serviceable as
channels, by means of which the achievements of genius
may be incorporated into the language itself, or become
the C0111mon property of the nation. Henceforth, the
most ordinary composer, the very student in the lecture-
. room, is able to \\rrite \vith a precision, a grace, or a copi-
ousness, as the case may be
unkno\vn before the date

English Catholic Literature. 323

of the authors whom he imitates, and he wonders at, if
he does not rather pride himself on, his

novas frondes, et non sua poma.

If there is anyone who illustrates this remark, it is
Gibbon; I seem to trace his vigorous condensation and
peculiar rhythm at every turn in the literature of the
present day. Pope, again, is said to have tuned our
versification. Since his time, anyone, who has an ear
and turn for poetry, can with little pains throw off a copy
of verses equal or superior to the poet's own, and \vith
far less of study and patient correction than would have
been demanded of the poet himself for their production.
Compare the choruses of the Samson Agonistes with any
stanza taken at random in Thalaba: how much had the
language gained in the interval between them! Without
denying the high merits of Southey's beautiful romance,
we surely shall not be wrong in saying, that in its unem-
barrassed eloquentflow,itis the language of the nineteenth
century that speaks, as much as the author himself.
I will give an instance of what I mean: let us take the
beginning of the first chorus in the Samson :-
Just are the ways of God,
And justifiable to men;
Unless there be who think not God at all ;
If any be, they walk obscure,
F or of such doctrine never was there school,
But the heart of the fool,
And no man therein doctor but himself.
But men there be, who doubt His ways not just,
As to H is own edicts found contradicting,
Then give the reins to wandering thought,
Regardless of His glory's diminution;
Till, by their own perplexities involved,
They ravel more, still less resolved,
But never find self-satisfying solution.

324 English Catholic Literature.

And now take the opening stanza of Thalaba :-

How beautiful is night!
A dewy freshness fills the silent air;
No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain,
Breaks he serene of heaven.
In full-orb'd glory yonder Moon divine
Rolls through the dark blue depths.
Beneath her steady ray
The desert circle spreads,
Like the round ocean girdled with the sky.
How beautiful is night!

Does not Southey show to advantage here? yet the
voice of the world proclaims Milton pre-eminently a
poet; and no one can affect a doubt of the delicacy and
exactness of his ear. Yet, much as he did for the lan-
guage in verse and in prose, he left much for other artists
to do after him, which they have successfully accom-
plished. We see the fruit of the literary labours of
Pope, Thonlson, Gray, Goldsnlith, and other poets of
the eighteenth century, in the musical eloquence of
Southey.

3.
So much for the process; now for its termination. I
think it is brought about in some such way as the
following :-
The influence of a great classic upon the nation which
he represents is twofold; on the one hand he advances
his native language towards its perfection; but on the
other hand he discourages in sonle measure any advance
beyond his own. Thus, in the parallel case of science,
it is commonly said on the continent, that the very
marvellousncss of Nc\vton's powers was the bane of
English mathematics: inastnuch as those who succeeded

English Catholic Lzïeralure. 325

him were content with his discoveries, bigoted to his
methods of investigation, and averse to those new instru-
ments \vhich have carried on the French to such brilliant
and successful results. In Literature, also, there is some-
thing oppressive in the authority of a great writer, and
something of tyranny in the use to which his adnlirers
put his name. The school which he forms would fain
n10nopolize the language, draws up canons of criticism
from his writings, and is intolerant of innovation. Those
who come under its influence are dissuaded or deterred
from striking out a path of their own. Thus Virgil's
transcendent excellence fixed the character of the hexa

nIeter in subsequent poetry, and took away the chances,
if not of in1provenlent, at least of variety. Even J uvenal
has n1 uch of Virgil in the structure of his verse. I have
kno\vn those who prefer the rhythm of Catullus.
However, so sumn1ary a result is not of necessary
occurrence. The splendour of an author may excite a
generous emulation, or the tyrannous formalism of his
follo\vers are-action; and thus other authors and other
schools arise. We read of Thucydides, on hearing
Herodotus read his history at OlYlnpia, being incited to
attempt a similar work, though of an entirely different
and of an original structure. Gibbon, in like manner,
writing of Hume and Robertson, says: "The perfect com-
position, the nervous language, the well-turned periods
of Dr. Robertson, inflamed me to the ambitious hope
that I Inight one day tread in his footsteps; the calm
philosophy, the careless inimitable beauties of his friend
and rival, often forced me to close the volume with a
mixed sensation of delight and despair.".
. As to re-actions, I suppose there has been something
of the kind against the supremacy of Pope, since the tin1e
· Mise. Works, p. 55.

326 Ellg/zsh Catholic Literature.

that his successors, Campbell especially, have developed
his peculiarities and even defects into extravagance.
Crabbe, for instance, turned back to a versification having
much more of Dryden in it; and Byron, in spite of his
high opinion of Pope, threw into his lines the rhythm of
blank verse. Still, on the whole, the influence of a Classic
acts in the way of discouraging any thing new, rather than
in that of exciting rivalry or provoking re-action.
And another consideration is to be taken into account.
When a language has been cultivated in any particular
department of thought, anù so far as it has been generally
perfected, an existing \vant has been supplied, and there
is no need for further workmen. In its earlier times,
\vhile it is yet unformed, to write in it at all is almost a
work of genius. It is like crossing a country before
roads are made c0I11municating between place and place.
The authors of that age deserve to be Classics, both
because of \vhat they do and because they can do it. It
requires the courage or the force of great talent to com-
pose in the language at all; and the composition, when
effected, makes a permanent impression on it. In
those early times, too, the licence of speech unfettered
by precedents, the novelty of the work, the state of
society, and the absence of criticism, enable an author fo
\vrite with spirit and freshness. But, as centuries pass on,
this stimulus is taken away; the language by this time
has become manageable for its various purposes, and is
ready at command. Ideas have found their correspond-
ing expressions; and one word will often convey what
once required half a dozen. Roots have been expanded,
derivations multiplied, terms invented or adopted. A
variety of phrases has been provided, which form a sort
of compound words. Separate professions, pursuits, and
provinces of literature have gained their
onventional

l!,"nglz"sh Cat/wlie Literature. 327

tenninology. There is an historical, political, social, COß1-
mercial style. The ear of the nation has become accus-
tomed to useful expressions or combinations of words,
which otherwise would sound harsh. Strange metaphors
have been naturalized in the ordinary prose, yet cannot
be taken as precedents for a similar liberty. Criticism
has become an art, and Ç.xercises a continual and jealous
watch over the free genius of new writers. It is difficult
for them to be original in the use of their mother tongue
\vithout being singular.
Thus the language has become in a great measure
stereotype; as in the case of the human frame, it has
expanded to the loss of its elasticity, and can expand no
more. Then the general style of educated men, formed
by the accumulated iruprovements of centuries, is far
superior perhaps in perfectness to that of anyone of
those national Classics, \vho have taught their country-
men to write more clearly, or more elegantly, or more
forcibly than themselves. And literary men submit
themselves to what they find so well provided for them j
or, if impatient of conventionalities, and resolved to
shake off a yoke which tames them down to the loss of
individuality, they adopt no half measures, but indulge
in novelties which offend against the genius of the lan-
guage, and the true canons of taste. Political cause s may"
co-operate in a revolt of this kind; and , as a nat i..9n
declines in patriotism, so does its languag e in p !:!!:!ty.
It seems to me as if the sententious, epigramtnatic style
of writing, which set in with Seneca, and is seen at least
as late as in the \vritings of St. Ambrose, is an atten1pt
to escape from the simplicity of Cæsar and the nlajestic
elocution of Cicero; while T ertullian, with more of
genius than good sense, relieves himself in the harsh
originality of his provincial Latin.

328 English Catholic Literature.

There is another itnpediulent, as tinle goes on, to the
rise of fresh classics in any nation; and that is the effect
which foreigners, or foreign literature, will exert upon
it. It may happen that a certain language, like Greek, is
adopted and used familiarly by educated men in other
countries; or again, that educated men, to whom it is
native, may abandon it for sOlne other language, as the
Romans of the second and third centuries wrote in
Greek instead of Latin. The consequence will be, that
the language in question will tend to lose its nationality
-that is, its distinctive character; it will cease to be
idionlatic in the sense in \vhich it once was so; and
whatever grace or propriety it tnay retain, it will be
conlparatively tarne and spiritless; or, on the other
hand, it will be corrupted by the admixture of foreign
elenlents.

Such, as I consider, being the fortunes of Classical
Literature, vie\ved generally, I should never be sur-
prised to find that, as regards this hemis p he r
, for I can
prophesy nothin g of America. we have well n i C-h seen
the end of E ng lish Classics. Certainly, it is in no ex-
pectation of Catholics continuing the series here that I
speak of the duty and necessity of their cultivating
English literature. When I speak of the forrnation of a
Catholic school of writers, I have respect princip..dly to
the tnatter of what is written, and to C0I11position only
so far forth as style is necessary to convey and to recom-
nlend the matter. I mean a literature which resernbles
the literature of the day. This is not a day for great
writ ers, bu t for good writi
, and a
reat deal of it.
_There never was a titne when Olen wrote so much and

o well, and that, \vithout being of anygreat account thenl-

Engltsh Catholic Literature. 329

selves. While our literature in this day, especially the
p eriodical, is rich and various, its language is elaborated
to a perfection far beyond that of our Classics, by the
jealous rivalry, the incessant practice, the mutual in-
fluence, of its many \vriters. In point of mere style, I
suppose, many an article in the T'Ùnes newspaper, or
Edinburgh Review, is superior to a preface of Dryden's,
or a Spectator, or a pamphlet of Swift's, or one of
South's sermons.
Our writers write so well that there is little to choose
between them. What they lack is that individuality,
that earnestness, most personal yet most unconscious of
self, ,vhich is the greatest charm of an author. The very
form of the compositions of the day suggests to us their
lTId.in deficiency. They are anonymous. So was it not in
the literature of those nations which we consider t
e
special standard of classical writing; so is it not with
our own Classics. The Epic was sung by the voice of
the living, present poet. The drama, in its very idea,
is poetry in persons. Historians begin, "Herodotus, of
Halicarnassus, publishes his researches;" or, "Thucy-
dides, the Athenian, has composed an account of the
war." Pindar is all through his odes a speaker. Plato,
Xenophon, and Cicero, throw their philosophical disser-
tations into the form of a dialogue. Orators and preachers
are by their very profession known persons, and the per-
sonal is laid down by the Philosopher of antiquity as the
source of their greatest persuasiveness. Virgil and
Horace are ever bringing into their poetry their own
characters and tastes. Dante's poems furnish a series of
events for the chronology of his times. Milton is frequent
in allusions to his own history and circumstances. Even
when Addison ,vrites anonymously, he writes under a
professed character, and that in a great measure his own;

330 E1lglish Catholic Literature.

he writes in the first person. The U I " of the Spectator,
and the "we " of the modern Rev ie
Q LN ewspa per, are
the respective symbols of the two a g es in our literature.
Catholics must do as their neighbours; they must be
content to serve their generation, to promote the interests
of religion, to recomm
nd truth, and to edify their breth-
ren to-day, though their names are to have little weight,
and their works are not to last much beyond themselves.

5.
And now having sho\vn what it is that a Catholic
University does not think of doing, what it need not do,
and what it cannot do, I might go on to trace out in
detail what it is that it really might and will encourage
and create. But, as such an investigation would neither
b
difficult to pursue) nor easy to terminate, I prefer to
leave the subject at the preliIninary po
nt to which 1
have broue-ht it.

33 1

IV.

ELEl\IENTARY STUDIES.

I T has often been observed that, when the eyes of the
infant first open upon the world, the reflected rays of
light \\rhich strike them from the myriad of surrounding
objects present to him no inlage, but a medley of colours
and shadows. I'hey do not form into a whole; they do
not rise into foregrounds and melt into distances; they
do not divide into groups; they do not coalesce into
unities; they do not combine into persons; but each
particular hue and tint stands by itself, wedged in amid
a thousand others upon the vast and flat mosaic, having
no intelligence, and conveying no story, any 1nore than
the wrong side of some rich tapestry. The little babe
stretches out his arms and fingers, as if to grasp or to
fathom the many-coloured vision; and thus he gradually
learns the connexion of part with part, separates what
1I10VeS from what is stationary, watches the coming and
going of figures, masters the idea of shape and of per-
spective, calls in the information conveyed through the
other senses to assist :. .1) is . ntal process, and thus
gradually converts a c: II oscop'
nto a picture. The
first view was the more splendid, the second the more
real; the former more poetical, the latter more philoso-
phical. Alas! what are we d oing a ll throu gh life both_

a necess!ty and as a duty, but unlearning the world

33 2

Elemi!ntary Studies.

p oet ry and a ttaining to its p ro
el This is our educa-
tion, as boys and as men, in the action of life, and in the
closet or library; in our affections, in our aims, in our
hopes, and in our memories. And in like manner it is
the education of our intellect; I say, that one main por-
tion of intellectual ëducation, of the labours of both
school and university, is to remove the original dimness
of the nlind's eye; to strengthen and perfect its vision;
to enable it to look out into the \vorlp right forward,
steadily and truly; to give the mind clearness, accuracy,
precision; to enable it to use \vords aright, to understanJ
what it says, to conceive justly what it thinks about, to
ab
tract, conlpdre, analyze, divide, define, and reason, cor-
rectly. There is a particular science \vhich takes these
matters in hand, and it is called logic; but it is not by
logic, certainly not by logic alone, that the faculty I
speak of is acquired. The infant does not learn to spell
and read the hues upon his retina by any scientific rule;
nor does the student learn accuracy of thought by any
n1anual or treatise. The instruction
iven him, of w hat-
ever kind, jf it be reall y ins truction, is nlainly, or a t l

. pre-eminentl t)1Ïs,,-=-a discipline i n accurac y of mi

-
-Hoys are always more or less inaccurate, and too many,
or rather the Inajority, remain boys all their lives. When,
for instance, I hear speakers at public meetings declainl-
ing about" large and enlightened views," or about" free-
dom of conscience," or about " the Gospel," or any other
popular subject of the day, I am far from denying that
some among them know what they are talking about;
but it would be satisfactory, in a particular case, to be
sure of the fact; for it seems to me that those household
words may stand in a man's mind for a something or
other, very glorious indeed, but very misty, pretty much
like the idea of "civilization" which floats before the

Elementary Stud'ies.

333

mental vision of a
rurk,-that is, if: when he interrupts
his smoking to utter the word, he condescends to reflect
whether it has any meaning at all. Again, a critic in a
periodical dashes off, perhaps, his praises of a new work,
as " talented, original, replete \vith intense interest, irre..
sistible ín argument, and, in the best sense of the word,
a very readable book; "-can we really believe that he
cares to attach any definite sense to the words of which
he is so lavish? nay, that, if he had a habit of at-
taching sense to them, he could ever bring himself to so
prodigal and 'wholesale an expenditure of them?
To a short-sighted person, colours run together and
intermix, outlines disappear, blues and reds and yellows
become russets or browns, the lamps or candles of an
illumination spread into an unn1eaning glare, or dissolve
into a milky way. He takes up an eye-glass, and the
mist clears up; every image stands out distinct, and the
rays of light fall back upon their centres. It is this
haziness of intellectual vision which is the malady of all
classes of men by nature, of those \vho read and write
and compose, quite as well as of those who cannot,-of
all who have not had a really good education. Those
who cannot either read or write may, nevertheless, be in
the number of those who have remedied and got rid of
it; those who can, are too often still under its power.
It is an acquisition quite separate from miscellaneous in-
formation, or knowledge of books. This is a large su b-
ject, which might be pursued at great length, and of
vlhich here I shall but attempt one or two illustrations.

334

- J-Gra111trtar.

I.
O NE of the subjects especially interesting to all
persons who, from any point of view, as officials
or as students, are regarding a University course, is that
of the Entrance Examination. Now a principal subject
introduced into this examination will be If the elements
of Latin and Greek Grammar." "Grammar U in the
middle ages was often used as almost synonymous with
" literature," and a Grammarian was a "Professor litera-
rum." This is the sense of the word in which a youth
of an inaccurate mind delights. He rejoices to profess
all the classics, and to learn none of them. On the
other hand, by "Gramnlar" is now more commonly
meant, as Johnson defines it, ({ the art of using words
properly," and it If comprises four parts-Orthography,
Etyrnology, Syntax, and Prosody." Grammar, in this
sense, is the scientific analysis of language, and to be
conversant \vith it, as regards a particular language, is
to be able to understand the meaning and force of that
language when thrown into sentences and paragraphs.
Thus the \vord is used when the "elements of Latin
and Greek Grammar" are spoken of as subjects of our
Entrance Examination; not, that is, the elements of
Latin and Greek literature, as if a youth were intended
to have a smattering of the classical ",-riters in general,
and were to be able to give an opinion about the elo-
quence of Demosthenes and Cicero, the value of Livy,

E le1Jlentary Stud'ies.

335

or the existence of Homer; or need have read half a
dozen Greek and Latin authors, and portions of a dozen
others :-though of course it would be much to his credit
if he had done so; only, such proficiency is not to be
expected, and cannot be required, of him :-but we mean
the structure and characteristics of the Latin and Greek
languages, or an exan1ination of his scholarship. That is,
an examination in order to ascertain whether he knows
Etymology and Syntax, the two principal departments
of the science of language,-whether he understands
how the separate portions of a sentence hang together,
how they form a whole, how each has its own place in
the government of it, what are the peculiarities of con-
struction or the idiomatic expressions in it proper to the
language in which it is written, what is the precise mean-
ing of its terms, and what the history of their formation.
All this will be best arrived at by trying how far he
can frame a possible, or analyze a given sentence. To
translate an English sentence into Latin is to fra11le a
sentence, and is the best test whether or not a student
knows the difference of Latin from English construction;
to construe and parse is to analyze a sentence, and is an
evidence of the easier attainment of knowing what
Latin construction is in itself. And this is the sense of
the word "Grammar" which our inaccurate student
detests, and this is the sense of the word \vhich every
sensible tutor will maintain. His maxim is, "a little,
but well;" that is, really know \vhat you say you know:
know what you know and \v hat you do not kno\v; get
one thing \vell before you go on to a second; try to
ascertain what your words mean; when you read a sen-
tence, picture it before your mind as a whole, take in the
truth or information contained in it, express it in your
own words, and, if it be important, commit it to the

33 6

Elementary Studies.

faithful menlory. Again, compare one idea with another;
.
adjust truths and facts; form them into one whole, or
notice the obstacles which occur in doing so. This is
the way to make progress; this is the way to arrive at
results; not to swallow knowledge, but (according to the
figure sometimes used) to masticate and digest it.

2.
To illustrate what I mean, I proceed to take an in-
stance. I will draw the sketch of a candidate for entrance,
deficient to a great extent. I shall put him below þar,
and not such as it is likely that a respectable school would
turn out, with a view of clearly bringing before the reader,
by the contrast, what a student ought not to be, or \vhat
is meant by z.naccuracy. And, in order to simplify the
case to the utmost, I shall take, as he will perceive as I
proceed, one single word as a sort of text, and show ho\v
that one \vord, even by itself, affords matter for a suffi-
cient examination of a youth in grammar, history, and
geography. I set off thus :-
Tutor. Mr. Brown, I believe? sit down. Candidate.
Yes.
T. What are the Latin and Greek books you propose
to be examined in? C. Homer, Luci8.n, Demosthenes,
Xenophon, Virgil, Horace, Statius, Juvenal, Cicero,
Analecta, and Matthiæ.
T. No; I mean what are the books I am to exan1ine
you in? C. tS silc1zt.
T. The two books, one Latin and one Greek: don't
flurry yourself. C. Oh, . . . Xenophon and Virgil.
T. Xenophon and Virgil. Very well; what part of
Xenophon ? C. is silellt.
T. What work of Xenophon ? C. Xenophon.
T. Xenophon wrote many works. Do you know the

Elementary
ìudies.

337

names of arty of them? C. I . . . Xenophon
Xenophon.
T. Is it the Anabasis you take up? C. (wtth su.rprise)
o yes; the Anabasis.
T. Well, X:enophon's Anabasis; now what is the
meaning of the word a1tabast.s! C. is st'len!.
T. You know very well; take your time, and don't
be alarmed. Anabasis means. . . C. An ascent.
T. Very right; it means an ascent. N ow how comes
it to mean an ascent? What is it derived from? C. It
comes from . . . (a pause). Anabasis... it is the
nominative.
T. Quite right: but what part of speech is it ? C. A
noun,-a noun substantive.
T. Very well; a noun substantive, no\v what is the
verb that anabasis is derived from? C. is silent.
T. From the verb åvaßalvw, isn't it? from åvaßalvw.
C. Yes.
T. Just so. Now, what does åvaßalvO} mean? c._ To
go up, to ascend.
T. Very well; and which part of the word means to
go, and which part uþ.'I C. åvá. is uþ, and ßatvw is go.
T. Balvw to go, yes; now ßáuI,ç 1 What does ßáUI8
mean? C. A going.
T. That is right; and åvá-ßa(T18 ?
T. Now what is a going down?
T. What is down? . . . KaTá. . .
KaTá. C. KaTá.
T. Well, then, what is a going dowlt , Cat . . . cat
II .. C. Cat. . . .
T. Cata . .. C. Cata. . . .
T. Catabasis. C. Oh, of course, catabasis.
T. N o\V tell me what is the future of ßalvw? C. (thillks)
Bavw.

C. A going up.
C. is silent.
don't you recollect?

22

3.38

E/è1llelltalY Studz('!'.

T. No, no; think again; you know better than that.
C. (ob
jects) iþaívw, cþavw?
T. Certainly, cþavw is the future of cþatvw; but ßa,tvw
is, you know, an irregular verb. C. Oh, I recollect, ß1JU(J).
T. Well, that is much better; but you are not quite
right yet; ß
uoJLat. C. Oh, of course, ßl]UO/-Lat.
T. B
uoJLat. Now do you mean to say that ß1JuOJLat
comes from ßaívw ? C. is silellt.
T. For instance: TlrtW comes fron1 T1nrTW by a change
of letters; does ß
uoJ.ULt in any similar way come fron1
ßalvw ? C. I t is an irregular verb.
T. What do you mean by an irregular verb? does it
forn1 tenses anyhow and by caprice? C. It does not
go according to the paradigm.
T. Yes, but how do you account for this? C. is silent.
T. Are its tenses formed from several roots? C. tS
silent. T. is silent,. then he changes tlte subject.
T. Well, now you say Anabasis means an ascent. Who
ascended? C. The Greeks, Xenophon.
T. Very well: Xenophon and the Greeks; the Greeks
ascended. To what did they ascend? C. Against the
Persian king: they ascended to fight the Persian king.
T. That is right . . . an ascent; but I thought \ve
called it a descent when a foreign army carried war into
a country? C. is silent.
T. Don't \ve talk of a descent of barbarians? C. Yes.
1: Why then are the Greeks said to go up! C. '[hey
went up to fight the Persian king.
T. Yes; but why uþ . . . why not down'! C. They
came down afterwards, when they retreated back to
Greece.
T. Perfectly right; they did . . . but could you give
no reason why they are said to go ttp to Persia, not
down! C. They went up to Persia.

Elementary Studies.

339

T. Why do you not say they went dO"liNl? C. pauses,
theil, . . . They went d01.vn to Persia.
T. You have misunderstood me.
A silence.
T. Why do you not say down? C. I do . . . down.
T. You have got confused; you know very well. C.
I understood you to ask why I did not say" they went
down ".
A silence Oil botll sides.
T. Have you come up to Dublin or down? I came
up.
T. Why do you call it coming up ! C. thinks, thell
SJ11'ilcs, then. . . We always call it coming up to Dublin.
T. Well, but you always have a reason for what you
do . . . what is your reason here? C. is silent.
T. Come, come, Mr. Brown, I won't believe you don't
kno\v; I am sure you have a very good reason for saying
you go up to Dublin, not down. C. thinks, then. . . It
is the capital.
T. Very well; now was Persia the capital? C. Yes.
T. Well . . . no . . . not exactly. . . explain your-
self; was Persia a city? C. A country.
T. That is right; well, but did you ever hear of Susa?
Now, why did they speak of going up to Persia? C. zs
silent.
T. Because it was the seat of government; that was
one reason. Persia was the seat of governnH:nt; they
went up because it was the seat of government. C. Be-
cause it was the seat of governn1ent.
T. Now \vhere did they go up from? c. Fron1 Greece.
T. But where did this army assemble? whence did it
set out? C. is silent.
T. It is mentioned in the first book j where did the
troops rendezvous? C. ls silent.

340

E le1JlenlaYY Stud'ies.

T. Open your book; no\v turn to Book I., éhapter ii.;
now tell me. C. Oh, at Sardis.
T. Very right: at Sardis; now where was Sardis?
C. In Asia Minor? . . . no . . . it's an island . . . (1.
pause, thnl . . . Sardinia.
T. In Asia Minor; the army set out from Asia Minor,
and went on towards Persia; and therefore it is said to
go up-because . .. C. is silcnt.
T. Because. . . Persia . .. C. Because Persia . . .
T. Of course; because Persia held a sovereignty over
Asia Minor. C. Yes.
T. Now do you know how and when Persia came to
conquer and gain possession of Asia Minor? C. is
sile1lt.
T. Was Persia in possession of many countries? C.
1,S silent.
T. \Vas Persia at the head of an empire? C. is silent.
T. \Vho was Xerxes? C. Oh, Xerxes . . . yes . . .
Xerxes; he invaded Greece; he flogged the sea.
T. Right; he flogged the sea: what sea? C. is silent.
T. Have you read any history of Persia? . . . what
history? C. Grote, and Mitford.
T. Well, now, Mr. Brown, you can name some other
reason why the Greeks spoke of going up to Persia?
Do we talk of going up or dow1l from the sea-coast?
c: Up.
1: That is right; well, going from Asia Minor, \vould
you go from the sea, or towards it? O. From.
T. What countries would you pass, going from the
coast of Asia Minor to Persia 1 . . . mention any of them.
C. is s'ilent.
T. What do you mean by Asia Minor f . . . why
called Minor 1 . . . how does it lie? C. is sztCJzt.
Etc., etc.

hïementary
tudiej.

34 1

3.
I have drawn out this specimen at the risk of weary-
ing the reader; but I have wished to bring out clearly
\vhat it really is which an Entrance Examination should
aim at and require in its students. This young man had
read the Anabasis, and had some general idea what the
word meant; but he had no accurate knowledge how the
word came to have its meaning, or of the history and
geography implied in it. This being the case, it was
useless, or rather hurtful, for a boy like him to amuse
himself with running through Grote's many volumes, or
to cast his eye over Matthiæ's minute criticisms. Indeed,
this seems to have been Mr. Bro\vn's stumbling-block; he
began by saying that he had read Demosthenes, Virgil,
J uvenal, and I do not know how many other authors.
Nothing is more common in an age like this, when books
abound, than to fancy that the gratification of a love of
reading is real study. Of course there are youths who
shrink even from story books, and cannot br- coaxed into
getting through a tale of romance. Such Mr. Bro,vn
was not; but there are others, and I suppose he was in
their number, who certainly have a taste for reading, but
in whom it is little more than the result of n1ental rest-
lessness and curiosity. Such minds cannot fix their
gaze on one object for two seconds together; the very
impulse which leads them to read at all, leads them to
read on, and never to stay or hang over anyone idea.
The pleasurable excitement of reading what is new is
their motive principle; and the imagination that they
are doing something, and the boyish vanity which accom-
panies it, are their reward. Such youths often profess
to like poetry, or to like history or biography; they are
fond of lectures on certain of the physical sciences; or
they may possibly have a real and true taste for natural

34 2

Elf1Ilentar)' Stud/fl.

,'"

history or other cognate subjects ;-and so far they tnay
be regarded with satisfaction; but on the other hand
they profess that they do not like logic, they do not like
algebra, they have no taste for nlathematics ; which only
means that they do not like application, they do not
like attention, they shrink from the effort and labour of
thinking, and the process of true intell(;
tual gymnastics.
The consequence will be that, when they grow up, they
may, if it so happen, be agreeable in conversation, they
may be ,vell informed in this or that department of
knowledge, they may be ,vhat is called literary; but
they will have no consistency, steadiness, or perseve-
ranee; they will not be able to n1ake a telling speech, or
to write a good letter, or to fling in debate a smart
antagonist, unless so far as, now and then, nlother-\vit
supplies a sudden capacity, which cannot be ordinarily
counted on. They cannot state an argument or a ques-
tion, or take a clear survey of a whole transaction, or
give sensible and appropriate advice under difficulties, or
U o any of those things which inspire confidence and gain
influence, which raise a man in life, and make him useful
to his religion or his country.
And now, having instanced what I mean by the want
of accuracy, and stated the results in which I think it
issues, I proceed to sketch, by way of contrast, an ex-
amination which displays a student, \vho, whatever may
be his proficiency, at least kno,vs what he is about, and
has tried to master what he has read. I am far from
saying that every candidate for admission must come up
to its standard :-
T. I think you have named Cicero's Letters ad Fami-
Hares, Mr. Black? Open, if you please, at Book xi.,
Epistle 29, and begin reading.

Ele1Jlelllary Studies.

343

C. reads. Cicero Appio salutem. Dubltanti mihi (quod
scit Atticus noster), de hoc toto consilio profectionis, quod
in utramque parten1 in mentem multa veniebant, magnuln
pondus accessit ad tollendam dubitationem, judicium et
consilium tuum. Nam et scripsisti aperte, quid tibi vide-
retur; et Atticus ad me sermonem tuum pertulit. Semper
judicavi,in te, et in capiendo consilio prudentiam summam
esse, et in dando fidem; maximeque sum expertus, cùm,
initio civilis belli, per literas te consuluissem quid mihi
faciendum esse censeres; eundumne ad Pompeium an
manendum in I taliâ.
T. Very well, stop there; No\v construe. C. Cicero
Appio salutem. . . Cicero greets Appius.
T. "Greets Appius." True; but it sounds stiff in
English, doesn't it? vVhat is the real English of it?
C. " My dear Appius ?" . . .
T. That will do; go on. C. Dubitanti mihi, quod scit
Atticus noster, JVhile I 'lvas hes1:tating, as our frt"end
A tticlts knows. . .
T. That is right. C. De hoc toto consilio profectionis,
about tlte whole Plan. . . C11tire prOject. . . de hoc toto
consilio profectionis. . . on the subject of 11ty proposed
journey. . . 011 111)' proposed Journey altogether.
T. Never mind; go on; any of them will do. C.
Quod in utramque partem in mentem multa veniebant,
inas1nltch as many considerations both for a1zd against it
came 1:11,to my ,nÙ1d, magnum pondus accessit ad tollen-
dam dubitationelo, it came wit/" great force to relnove my
hesitation.
T. What do you nlean by II accessit"? C. It means
,:t contributed to turn the scale,. accessit, it was an addition
to one side.
T. Well, it may mean so, but the words run, ad
tollendam dubitationem. C. It was a .great. . . it was

344

Ele111entary Studies.

a powerful help towards remov'ing 1ny hesitation. . .
no. . . this 'lvas a powerful help, viz., your J.udgmellt and
advl:ce.
T. Well, what is the construction of "pondus" and
" judicium" ? C. You advice came as a great weight.
T. Very \vell, go on. C. N am et scripsisti aperte quid
tibi videretur ; for you distinctly wrote your opinion.
T. Now, what is the force of" nam"? C. pauses,. thi'll,
I t refers to U accessit" . . . it is an explanation of the
fact, that Appius's opinion was a help.
T. II Et "; you omitted U et" . . . "et scripsisti." C.
It is one of two c, ets "; et scripsisti, et Atticus.
T. Well, but why don't you construe it? C. Et
6cripsisti, you both dl:stinctly. . .
T. No; tell me, why did you leave it out? had you a
reason? C. I thought it was only the Latin style, to
dress the sentence, to make it antithetical; and was not
English.
T. Very good, still, you can express it; try. C. A Iso,
with the second clause?
T. That is right, go on. C. Nam et,for you distinctly
stated in writing your opinion, et Atticus ad me ser-
monem tuum pertulit, and A tticus too sent me word of
what you said, . . . of what you said to him in conver..
sation.
T. U Pertulit." C. It means that Atticus conveyed on
to Cicero the conversation he had with Appius.
T. fVho was Atticus ? C. is silent.
T. Who was Atticus? C. I didn't think it came into
the examination. . .
T. Well, I didn't say it did: but still you can tell me
who Atticus was. C. A great friend of Cicero's
T. Did he take much part in politics? C. No.
T. What \vere his opinions? C. He was an Epicurean.

Elel1zentary Studies.

345

T. What was an Epicurean? c.':s silent, then,
Epicureans lived for themselves.
T. You are answering very well, sir; proceed. C.
Semper judicavi, I have eve,. consz.dered, in te, et in
capiendo consilio prudentiam summam esse, et in dando
fidem; that your wisd01n was of tlte highest order. . .
that you had the greatest wisdom . . . that nothing could
exceed the wz'sdom of your resolves, 0,. the honesty of your
advice.
T. "Fidem." C. It means faltlifubtess to the person
asklng . . . maximeque sum expertus, and I had a great
proof of it. . . . . .
T. Great,. why don't you say greatest! Ie maxime "
is superlative. C. The Latins use the superlative, when
they only mean the positive.
T. You mean, \vhen English uses the positive; can
you give me an instance of what you mean? C. Cicero
al\vays speaks of others as amplissimi, optimi, doctissimi,
clarissi mi.
T. Do they ever use the comparative for the positive?
C. thinks, theIl, Certior factus sum.
T. Well, perhaps; ho\vever, here, "maxime" may mean
speet.a!, may it not? C. And 1 had a special proof of it,
cùm, initio civilis belli, per literas te consuluissem, wllel"
011 the C0l1l1JlenCe1ne1lt of the civz1 war, I had writtell to ask
your advice, quid mihi faciendum esse censeres, what you
thought I ought to do, eundumne ad Pompeium, an ma-
nendum in Italiâ, to go to POlnpey, or to renzaz'n t'n Italy.
T. Very well, no,v stop. Dubitanti mihi, quod scit
Atticus noster. You construed quod, as. C. I meant
the relative as.
T. Is as a relative? C. As is used in English for the
relative, as when we say such as for those who.
T. Well, but why do you use it here 1 What is the

34 6

Ele1l1clllary Studies.

antecedent to u quod "? C. The sentence Dubitanti
olihi, etc.
T. Still, construe II quod JJ literally. C. A thing which.
T. Where is a thing? C. I t is understood.
T. Well, but put it.in. C. Illud quod.
T. Is that right? what is the common phrase? C is
silent .
T. Did you ever see U illud quod" in that position? is
it the phrase? C. is st'len!.
T. It is commonly" id quod," isn't it? id quod. C.
Oh, I recollect, id quod.
T. \Vell, which is more common, "quod," or II id
quod," \vhen the sentence is the antecedent? C. J think
u id quod."
T. At least it is far more distinct; yes, I think it is
IHore common. What could you put Instead of it? C.
Quod quidem.
T. Now, dubitanti n1Ïhi; \vhat is "mihi" governed
by ? C. Accessit.
T. No; hardly. C. is silellt.
T. Does "accessit" govern the dative? C. I thought
it did.
T. Well, it may; but would Cicero use the dative
after it? what is the more common practice with words
of motion? Do you say, Venit mihi J he ca1ne to l1ze'! C.
N 0, Venit ad me ;-1 recollect.
T. That is right; venit .ad me. Now, for instance,
U incumbo:" what case does" incumbo" govern? C. In-
cun1bite remis ?
T. Where is that? in Cicero? C. No, in Virgil. Cicero
uses" in "; I recollect, incumbere in opus . . . ad opus.
T. Well, then, is this II mihi " governed by II access it " ?
what comes after accessit? C. I see j it is, accessit ad
tollendam dubitationem.

.h:?el1te1ztary Studies.

347

T. That is right j but then, what after all do you do
with" mihi " ? how is it governed? C. 1:S sZtellt.
T. How is lC mihi " governed, if it does not come after
H access it "? C. þauses, then, "Mihi" . . . ff mihi" is
often used so; and lC tibi" and "sibi": I mean "suo
sibi gladio hunc jugula !I'; . . . "venit nlihi in mentem JJ ;
that is, it came z'nto 1'lJ1 111Ùzd,. and so, U accessit mihi ad
tolIendam,JJ etc.
T. That is very right. C. I recollect somewhere in
Horace, vellunt tiJ)i barbam.
Etc., etc.

4.
And no\v, my patient reader, I suspect you have had
enough of me on this subject; and the best I can expect
from you is, that" you will say: U His first pages had some
amusement in them, but he is dullish towards the end."
Perhaps so; but then you must kindly bear in mind
that the latter part is about a steady careful youth, and
the earlier part is not; and that goodness, exactness,
and diligence, and the correct and the unexceptionable,
though vastly more desirable than their contraries in
fact, are not near so entertaining in fiction.

348

2.-CoJJtþosition.

I
I AM able to present the reader by anticipation \vith
the correspondence which will pass bet\veen l\lr.
Brown's father and Mr. White, the tutor, on the subject
of !vIr. Brown's examination for entrance at the Univer-
sity. And, in doing so, let me state the reason why I
dwell on what many will think an extreme case, or even
a caricature. I do so, because what may be called exag-
geration is often the best means of bringing out certd.i n
faults of the mind which do indeed exist commonly, if
not in that degree. If a master in carriage and deport-
ment wishes to carry home to one of his boys that he
slouches, he will caricature the boy himself, by way of
impressing on the boy's intellect a sort of abstract and
typical representation of the ungraceful habit which he
wishes corrected. When we once have the simple and
perfect ideas of things in our minds, we refer the parti-
cular and partial manifestations of them to these types ;
we recognize what they are, good or bad, as we never
did before, and we have a guide set up \vithin us to
direct our course by. So it is with principles of taste,
good breeding, or of conventional fashion; so it is in
the fine arts, in painting, or in m usic. We cannot even
understand the criticism passed on these subjects until
we have set up for ourselves the ideal standard of what
is admirable and what is absurd.
So is it with the cultivation and discipline of the mind,

Elementary Stud'ies.

349

as it should be conducted at College and University, and
as it luanifests itself afterwards in life. Clearness of
head, accuracy, scholarlike precision, method, and the
like, are ideas obvious to point out, and easy to grasp;
yet they do not suggest themselves to youths at once,
and have to be urged and inflicted upon them. And
this is done best by a caricature of their opposites.
And, as I am no\v going to continue the caricature by
bringing in :rvIr. Brown's father as well as himself, I have
to make a fresh explanation, lest I should seem to
imply there are fathers altogether such as he will prove
to be. I do not mean to say there are; yet it may
easily happen that many excellent fathers, many even
able and thoughtful men, may be found, who in a certain
measure are under the bias of that error of which Mr.
Brown senior is the typical instance, and who may be
led possibly to reconsider some of their views, and in a
measure to modify them, if they are confronted with
an exhibition of them in their full dimensions ;-and
that, in consequence of their being forced to master the
typical representation, though the error is never found
thus pure and complete in fact, but only in degrees and
portions, so that, when represented pure, it is called, and
may fairly be called, a caricature. With this explana-
tion of my meaning, and this apology in anticipation, I
hope to be able \vithout misconstruction to put before
the reader the correspondence of which I have spoken.

2.
.ðfr. BrOWIl,}lIn., /0 his father.
'4 My DEAR FATHER,
U It seems odd I never was in Dublin before, though
we have been now some tÎIne in Ireland. Well, I find

35 0

E le11le11 tary Studies.

it a handson1er place than I thought for-really a re-
spectable town. But it is sadly behind the world in
many things. Think of its having no Social Science, not
even a National Gallery or British Museum! nor have
they any high art here: some good public buildings, but
very pagan. The bay is a fine thing.
U I called with your letter on l\ir. Black, \vho intro-
duced me to the professors, some of whom, judging by
their skulls, are clever men.
U There is a lot here for examination, and an Exhi-
bition is to be given to the best. I should like to get it.
Young Black,-you saw him once,-is one of them; I
knew him at school; he is a large fellow now, though
younger than I am. If he be the best of them, I shall
not be much afraid.
"Well-in I went yesterday, and was examined. It
was such a queer concern. One of the junior Tutors had
me up, and he n1ust be a new hand, he was so uneasy.
He gave me the slowest examination! I don't know
to this nlinute what he was at. He first said a word or
two, and then was silent. He then asked me why we
came up to Dublin, and did not go down; and put some
absurd little questions about BalvCJJ. I was tolerably
satisfied with myself, but he gave me no opportunity to
show off. He asked me literally nothing; he did not
even give me a passage to construe for a long time, and
then gave me nothing more than two or three easy
sentences. And he kept playing with his paper knife,
and saying: 'How are you now, Mr. Brown? don't be
alanned, Mr. Brown; take your titne, Mr. Bro\vn; you
know very well, Mr. Brown;' so that I could hardly
help laughing. I never was less afraid in my life. It
would be wonderful if such an examination could put me
out of countenance. .

Elef1lelltary Studies.

351

"There's a lot of things which I know very well,
which the Examiner said not a word about. Indeed, I
think I have been getting up a great many things for
nothing ;-provoking enough. I had read a good deal
of Grote; but though I told him so, he did not ask me
one question in it; and there's Whewell, Macaulay, and
Schlegel, all thrown a way.
"He has not said a word yet where I am to be
lodged. He looked quite confused when I asked him.
He is, I suspect, a clzaracter.
" Your dutiful son, etc.,
" ROBERT."

Mr. White to Mr. Bro'ltJlz, sell.
., MY DEAR SIR,
" I have to acknowledge the kind letter you sent
nle by your son, and I am much pleased to find the
confidence you express in us. Your son seems an
anliable young man, of studious habits, and there is
every hope, when he joins us, of his passing his academi-
cal career with respectability, and his examination with
credit This is what I should have expected from his
telling me that he had been educated at home under
your own paternal eye; indeed, if I do not mistake, )rou
have undertaken the interesting office of instructor your-
self.
" I hardly know what best to recommend to him at
the moment: his reading has been desultory,. he knows
sOlnetfling about a great many things, of which youths of
his age commonly know nothing. Of course we could
take him into residence now, if you urge it; but my
advice is that he should first direct his efforts to distinct
preparation for our examination, and to study its par-

35 2

Elementary Studies.

ticular character. Our rule is to recommend youths to
do a It'ttle 'lvell, instead of throwing themselves upon a
large field of study. I conceive it to be your son's fault
of mind not to see exactly the point of things, nor to be
so well grounded as he might be. Young men are in-
deed always wanting in accuracy ,. this kind of deficiency
.is not peculiar to him, and he will doubtless soon over-
\come it when he sets about it
CI On the whole, then, if you will kindly send him up
'six months hence he will be more able to profit by our
.lectures. I will tell him \vhat to read in the meanwhile.
Did it depend on me, I should send hi m for that time to
.a good school or college, or I could find you a private
"Tutor for him.

II I am, etc:'

Mr. BrO'lV1t, sen., to Mr. White.

'''SIR,
" Your letter, which I have received by this morning's
post, is gratifying to a parent's feelings, so far as it bears
witness to the impression which my son's amiableness
and steadiness have made on you. He is indeed' a
most exen1plary lad: fathers are partial, and their word
about their children is commonly not to be taken; but
I flatter myself that the present case is an exception to
the rule; for, if ever there was a \vell-cond ucted youth,
it is my dear son. He is certainly very clever; and a
closer student, and, for his age, of more extensive read-
ing and sounder judgment, does not exist.
"With this conviction, you will excuse me if I say
that there \vere portions of your letter which I could not
reconcile with that part of it to which I have been allud-
ing. You say he is 'a young man of studious habits,'
having' e1 J ery Itoþe of passing his academical career \vith

Elementary Stud-ies.

353

respectability, and his exalnillation witlt credit,.' you
allow that 'he knows something about a great InallY
thi1lgS, of which youths of his age commonly know no-
thing:' no common commendation, I consider j yet, in
spite of this, you recommend, though you do not exact,
as a complete disarrangement of my plans (for I do not
kno\v how long my duties will keep me in Ireland), a
postponement of his coming into residence for six
months.
"Will you allow me to suggest an explanation of this
inconsistency? It is found in your confession that the
examination is of a 'particular character.' Of course it
is very right in the governors of a great Institution to be
'particular,' and it is not for me to argue with them.
Nevertheless, I cannot help saying, that at this day
nothing is so much \vanted in education asgelleral know-
ledge. This alone will fit a youth for the world. In a
less stirring time, it may be \vell enough to delay in
particularities, and to trifle over minutiæ; but the world
will not stand still for us, and, unless we are up to its
requisitions, we shall find ourselves thrown out of the
contest. A man must have sometlÛng z'n him now, to
make his way; and the sooner we understand this, the
better.
" It mortified me, I confess, to hear from my son, that
you did not try him in a greater number of subjects, in
handling \vhich he \vould probably have changed your
opinion of him. He has a good memory, and a great
talent for history, ancient and modern, especially con-
stitutional and parliamentary; another favourite study
with him is the philosophy of history. He has read
Pritchard's Physical History, Cardinal Wiseman's Lec-
tures on Science, Bacon's Advancement of Learning l
11acaulay, and Ha11am : I never met with a faster reader.
23

354

.Elementary Studz"ts.

I have let him attend, in England, some of the most
talented lecturers in chemistry, geology, and comparative
anatomy, and he sees the Quarterly Reviews and the
best l\lagazines, as a matter of course. Yet on these
matters not a word of examination!
"I have forgotten to mention, he has a very pretty
idea of poetical composition: I enclose a fragment
which I have found on his table, as well as one of his
prose Essays.
U Allow me, as a warm friend of your undertaking, to
suggest, that the substallce of kno\vledge is far Inore valu-
able than its techllicalities,. and that the vigour of the
youthful mind is but wasted on barretl learning, and its
ardour is que'llchcd in dry disquisition.
" I have the honour to be, etc."

On the receipt of this letter,
Ir. White wiU find, to
his dissatisfaction, that he has not advanced one hair's
breadth in bringing home to 1\lr. Brown's father the real
state of the case, and has done no more than present
himself as a mark for certain commonplaces, very true,
but very inappropriate to the matter in hand. Filled
\vith this disappointing thought, for a while he will not
inspect the enclosures of Mr. Bro\vn's letter, being his
son's attempts at composition. At length he opens theIn,
and reads as follows :

lIlr. Browll's poetry.

THE TAKING OF SEBASTOPOL.*
Oh, might I flee to Araby the blest,
The world forgetting, but its gifts possessed,
\Vhere fair-eyed peace holds sway from shore to shore,
And war's shrill clarion frights the air no n10re.
· This was written in June, 1854, before the sicge began.

.Elementary Studies.

355

Heard ye the cloud-compelling blast. awake r Bombarding)
The slumbers of the inhospitable lake? t (+ The Black Sea)
Ba w ye the banner in its pride unfold
The blush of crimson and the blaze of gold 1

Raglan and St. Arnaud, in high command,
Have steamed from old Byzantium's hoary strand;
The famed Cyanean rocks presaged their fight,
Twin giants, with the astonished Muscovite.
So the loved maid, in Syria's balmy noon,
Forebodes the coming of the hot simoon,
And sighs . . . . .
And longs . . . . . .
And dimly traces. . . . .

..
,

,

*

*

*

...

...

.

*

-
Mr. Brown's prose.
"FOR.TES FORTUNA ADJUVAT."

II Of all the uncertain and capricious po\vers which rule
our earthly destiny, fortune is the chief. \Vho has not
heard of the poor being raised up, and the rich being laid
low? Alexander the Great said he envied Diogenes in
his tub, because Diogenes could have nothing less. We
need not go far for an instance of fortune. Who was so
great as Nicholas, the Czar of all the Russias, a year
ago, and now he is "fallen, fallen from his high estate,
without a friend to grace his obsequies." t The Turks
are the finest specimen of the human race, yet they, too,
have experienced the vicissitudes of fortune. Horace
says that we should wrap ourselves in our virtue, when
fortune changes. Napoleon, too, shows us ho\v little we
can rely on fortune; but his faults, great as they were,
are being redeemed by his nephew, Louis Napoleon, who
has sho\vn hirnself very different from what we expected,
: Here again Mr. Brown prophesies. He wrote in June, 185+

35 6

Elenuntary Studüs.

though he has never explained how he came to swear to
the Constitution, and then mounted the imperial throne.
U From all this it appears, that we should rely on for-
tune only while it remains,-recollecting the words of
the thesis, 'Fortes fortuna adjuvat;' and that, above all,
we should ever cultiv
te those virtues which will never
fail us, and which are a sure basis of respectability, and
will profit us here and hereafter."

On reading these con1positions over, Mr. White will
take to musing; then he will reflect that he may as well
spare himself the trouble of arguing \vith a correspondent,
whose principle and standard of judgment is so different
fl.om his own; and so he will write a civil letter back to
Mr. Brown, enclosing the two papers.

3.
Mr. Brown, however, has not the resignation of Mr.
White; and, on his Dublin friend, 1\1r. Black, paying
him a visit, he will open his mind to him; and I am
going to tell the reader all that will pass between the
two.
Mr. Black is a man of education and of judgment. He
knows the difference between show and substance; he is
penetrated with the conviction that Rome was not built
in a day, that buildings will not stand without founda-
tions, and that, if boys are to be taught well, they must
be taught slowly, and step by step. Moreover, he thinks
in his secret heart that his own son Harry, whose ac-
quaintance we have already formed, is worth a dozen
young Browns. 1'0 him, then, not quite an impartial
judge, 1\1r. Bro\vn unbosoms his dissatisfaction, present-
ing to him his son's Theme as an exþerÙne1ltu11l crucis
bet\veen him and Mr. White. Mr. Black reads it

Elelllentary Studüs.

357

through once, and then a second time; and then he
observes-
U Well, it is only the sort of thing which any boy
would write, neither better nor worse. I speak candidly."
On Mr. Brown expressing disappointment, inasmuch
as the said Theme is 110t the sort of thing which any boy
could write, Mr. Black continues-
II There's not one \vord of it upon the thesis; but all
boys write in this way."
Mr. Brown directs his friend's attention to the know-
ledge of ancient history \vhich the composition displays,
of Alexander and Diogenes; of the history of Napoleon;
to the evident interest which the young author takes in
contemporary history, and his prompt application of
passing events to his purpose; moreover, to the apposite
quotation from Dryden, and the reference to Horace;-
all proofs of a sharp wit and a literary mind.
But Mr. Black is more relentlessly critical than the
occasion needs, and more pertinacious than any father
can comfortably bear. He proceeds to break the butter..
fly on the wheel in the following oration :-
U Now look here," he says, "the subject is 'Fortes
fortuna adjuvat' ; now this is a proposltion,. it states a
certain general principle, and this is just what an ordinary
boy \vould be sure to nliss, and Robert does miss it.
He goes off at once on the word' fortuna.' 'Fortuna'
\vas not his subject; the thesis was intended to guide him,
for his own good; he refuses to be put into leading-
strings; he breaks loose, and runs off in his own fashion
on the broad field and in wild chase of ' fortune,' instead
of closing \vith a subject, which, as being definite, would
have supported him.
U It would have been very cruel to have told a boy to
\vritc op 'fortune' i it would h
ve been like asking him

35 8

Elementary Stud'iøs.

his opInIon C of things in general.' Fortune is 'good,'
{ bad,' , capricious,' , unexpected,' ten thousand things all
at once (you see them all in the Gradus), and one of
them as much as the other. Ten thousand things may
be said of it: give me LJne of them, and I will write upon
it; I cannot \vrite on more than one; Robert prefers to
write upon all.
" C Fortune favours the bold;' here is a very definite
subject: take hold of it, and it will steady and lead you
on : you will know in what direction to look. Not one
boy in a hundred does a vail himself of this assistance;
your boy is not solitary in his inaccuracy; all boys are
nlore or less inaccurate, because they are boys; boy.ish..
ness of mind nleans inaccuracy. Boys cannot deliver a
nlessage, or execute an order, or relate an occurrence,
without a blunder. 'I'hey do not rouse up their attention
and reflect: they do not like the trouble of it: they
cannot look at anything
teadily; and, when they
attempt to write, off they go in a rigmarole of words,
which does them no good, and never would, though they
scribbled themes till they "'rote their fingers off.
" A really clever youth, especially as his mind opens,
is impatient of this defect of Inind, even though, as being
a youth, he be partially under its influence. He shrinks
froln a vague subject, as spontaneously as a slovenly
nlind takes to it; and he will often show at disadvan-
tage, and seem ignorant and stupid, from seeing more
and knowing more, and having a clearer perception of
things than another has. I recollect once hearing such
a young man, in the course of an examination, asked
very absurdly what C his opinion' was of Lord Chatham.
Well, this was like asking him his view of C things in
general.' The poor youth stuck, and looked like a fool,
though it was not he. The examiner, blind to his own

Elementary Studz.es.

359

absurdity, went on to ask him ' what were the charac-
teristics of English history.' Another silence, and the
poor fello\v seemed to lookers-on to be done for, when
his only fault was that he had better sense than his
in terrogator.
II When I hear such questions put, I admire the tact
of the worthy Milnwood in Old Mortality, \vhen in a
similar predicament. Sergeant Bothwell broke into his
house and dining-room in the king's name, and asked
him what he thought of the murder of the Archbishop of
St. Andrew's; the old man was far too prudent to hazard
any opinion of his o\vn, even on a precept of the Decalogue,
when a trooper called for it; so he glanced his eye down
the Royal Proclamation in the Sergeant's hand, and ap-
propriated its sentiments as an ans\ver to the question
before him. Thereby he was enabled to pronounc
the
said assassination to be 'savage,' 'treacherous,' 'diabolical,'
and' contrary to the king's peace and the security of the
subject;' to the edification of all present, and the satis-
faction of the nli1itary inquisitor. It was in some such
way my young friend got off. His guardian angel re-
minded him in a \vhisper that Mr. Grey, his examiner,
had himself written a book on Lord Chatham and his
times. This set him up at once; he drew boldly on his
knowledge of his man for the political vie\vs advanced in
it; was at no loss for definite propositions to suit his pur-
pose; recovered his ground, and came off triumphantly."
Here Mr. Black stops; and rvlr. Brown takes advantage
of the pause to insinuate that 1\1r. Black is not himself a
disciple of his o\vn philosophy, having travelled some
way from his subject ;-his friend stands corrected, and
retraces his steps.
"The thesis," he begins again, "is 'Fortune favours
the brave;' Robert has gone off wi
h t4e nominative

3 6 0

Eletnelltary Stud'ies.

without waiting for verb and accusative. He might as
easily have gone off upon 'brave,' or upon 'favour,' except
that' fortune' comes first. He does not merely ramble
from his subject, but he starts from a false point. Nothing
could go right after this.beginning, for having never gone
off his subject (as I did off mine), he never could come
back to it. Ho\vever, at least he might have kept to
sorne subject or other; he might have sho\vn some exact-
ness or consecutiveness in detail; but just the contrary;
-observe. He begins by calling fortune' a power' ; let
that pass. Next, it is one of the powers 'which rule
our earthly destiny,' that is, fortune rules destiny. Why,
where there is fortune, there is no destiny; where there
is destiny, there is no fortune. N ext, after stating gene..
rally that fortune raises or depresses, he proceeds to ex-
emplify: there's Alexander, for instance, and Diogenes,-
instances, that is, of \vhat fortune did not do, for they died,
as they lived, in their respective states of life. Then comes
the Emperor Nicholas hic et nU1lc,. with the Turks on the
other hand, place and time and case not stated. Then
examples are dropped, and we are turned over to poetry,
and what we ought to do, according to Horace, when for-
tune changes. Next, we are brought back to our exam-
ples, in order to commence a series of rambles, beginning
with Napoleon the First. Apropos of Napoleon the First
comes in Napoleon the Third; this leads us to observe
that the latter has acted 'very differentJy from what we
expected;' and this again to the further remark, that no
explanation has yet been given of his getting rid of the
Constitution. He then ends by boldly quoting the thesis,
in proof that we may rely on fortune, \vhen we cannot
help it; and by giving us advice, sound, but unexpected,
to cultivate virtue."
" O! Black. it is quite ludicrolts" . . . breaks in Mr.

Eleme'Jltary Studies.

3 61

Brown ;-this Mr. Brown must be a very good-tempered
man, or he would not bear so much :-this is my remark,
not Mr. Black's, who \vill not be interrupted, but only
raises his voice: "Now, I know how this Theme was
written," he says, "first one sentence, and then your boy
sat thinking, and devouring the end of his pen; presently
down went the second, and so on. The rule is, first
think, and then \vrite: don't write when you have nothing
to say; or, if you do, you will make a mess of it. A
thoughtful youth may deliver himself clumsily, he may
set do\vn little; but depend upon it, his half sentences
will be worth more than the folio sheet of another boy,
and an experienced exaIniner will see it.
"Now, I \vill prophesy one thing of Robert, unless this
fault is knocked out of him," continues merciless Mr.
Black. "When he grows up, and has to make a speech,
or write a letter for the papers, he \vill look out for
flowers, full-blown flo\vers, figures, smart expressions, trite
quotations, hackneyed beginnings and endings, pompous
circumlocutions, and so on: but the meaning, the sense,
the solid sense, the foundation, you may hunt the slipper
long enough before you catch it."
"Well," says Mr. Brown, a little chafed, "you are a
great deal worse than Mr. White; you have missed your
vocation: you ought to have been a schoolmaster." Yet
he goes home somewhat struck by what his friend has
said, and turns it in his mind for some time to come
,
\vhen he gets there. He is a sensible man at bottom. as
wen as good-tempered, this Mr. Brown.

3 62

..
fi. 3-Latin Wrt"t'i1Ig.

I.
M R. WI-IITE, the Tutor, is more and more pleased
\vith young l\lr. Black; and, when the latter asks
him for some hints for writing Latin, Mr. White takes
him into his confidence and lends him a number of his
own papers. Among others he puts the following into
Mr. Black's hands.

J.J1 r. Wldte's view of LatÙz traltslatioll.
U There are four requisites of good Composition,-cor-
rectness of vocabulary, or diction, syntax, idiom, and
elegance. Of these, the two first need no explanation,
and are likely to be displayed by every candidate. The
last is desirable indeed, but not essential. The point
\vhich requires especial attention is idiomatic þroþriety.
U By idio111 is meant that use of \vords which is peculiar
to a particular language. Two nations may have corre-
sponding words for the same ideas, yet differ altogether
in their 11lode of using those words. For instance, 'et'
t1ICanS' and,' yet it does not always admit of being used
in Latin, where' and' is used in English. 'Faire' may
be French for' do'; yet in a particular phrase, for' How
do you do l' , faire ' is not used, but' se porter: vis., ' Com-
ment vous portes-vous l' An Englishman or a French-
man would be almost unintelligible and altogether ridi-
culous to each other, who used the French or English
words, with the idioms or peculiar uses of his own Ian-

Elementary Studüs.

3 6 3

guage. Hence, the most complete and exact acquain-
tance with dictionary and grammar will utterly fail to
teach a student to write or compose. Something more
is wanted, viz., the knowledge of the use of words and
constructions, or the knowledge of idiom.
I( Take the following English of a modern writer:
" I This is a serious consideration :-Among men, as
among wild beasts, the taste of blood creates the
appetite for it, and the appetite for it is strengthened
by indulgence.'
"Translate it word for word literally into Latin,
thus :-
'" Hæc est seria consideratio. Inter homines, ut inter
feras, gustus sanguinis creat ejus appetitum, et ejus
appetitus induigentiâ roboratur.'
"Purer Latin, as far as dictio11, is concerned, more
correct. as far as syntax, cannot be desired. Every word
is flassical, every construction grammatical: yet Latinity
it simply has none. From beginning to end it follo\vs
the English 1node of speaking, or English idiom, not the
Latin.
" In proportion, then, as a candidate advances from
this Anglicism into Latinity, so far does he \vrite good
Latin.
(I We might make the following remarks upon the
above literal version.
(I I. I Consideratio ' is not I a consideration;' the Latins,
having no article, are driven to expedients to supply its
place, e.g., quidatn is sometimes used for a.
"2. 'Consideratio' is not I a consideration,' i.e., a thing
considered, or a subject; but the act of considering.
"3. It must never be forgotteñ, that such words as
4 consideratio' are generally metaphorical, and therefore

nnot be used simply, and without litnitation or ex...

364

Elementary Studi
j.

planation, in the English sense, according to which the
1Jll'lltat act is primarily conveyed by the word. 'Con-
sideratio,' it is true, can be used absolutely, with greater
propriety than n10st words of the kind; but if we take
a parallel case, for instance, 'agitatiú,' we could not use
it at once in the metÎtal sense for 'agitation,' but we
should be obliged to say' agitatio l1zelltis, flllÍ1lli: etc.,
though even then it \vould not ans\ver to 'agitation.'
"4- 'Inter houlines, gustus,' etc. Here the English, as
is not uncommon, throws two ideas together. It means,
first, that something occurs among men, and occurs
among \vild beasts, and that it is the same thing which
occurs among both; and secondly that this something
is, that the taste of blood has a certain particular effect.
In other words, it means, (I) 'this occurs aillong beasts
and men,' (2) viz., that the' taste of blood: etc. There-
fore, 'inter homines, etc., gustus creat, etc.,' does not ex-
press the English 1Jlt'alling, it only translates its expression.
Ie 5. 'Inter homines' is not the Latin phrase for' among.'
, Inter' generally involves some sense of divisio1t, viz.,
interruption, contrast, rivalry, etc. Thus, with a singular
noun, 'inter cænam hoc accidit,' i.e.. this interrupted
the supper. And so with two nouns, 'inter me et Brun-
dusium Cæsar est.' And so \vith a plural noun, 'hoc
Ùl!er h01JlÙleS ambigitur,' t'.e., man with man. ' Micat
inter 01JlIleS J ulium sidus,' i.e., in the rivalry of star
against star. 'Inter tot annos unus (vir) inventus est,'
i.e., though all those years, one by one, put in their
claim, yet only one of them can produce a man, etc.
, Inter se diligunt: they love each other. On the contrary,
the Latin word for' among,' simply understood, is 'in.'
6. "As a general rule, indicatives active follo\ved by
accusatives, are foreign to the main structure of a Latin
sentenc
.

Ek1l1elliary Stua'ù
.

3 6 5

II 7. I Et;' here two clauses are connected, having
dtfferellt subjects or nominatives; in the former I appe-
titus' is in the nominative, and in the latter in the accu-
sative. It is usual in Latin to carry on the same subject,
in c01lnected clauses.
"8. I Et ' here connects two distinct clauses. I Autem J
is more common.
"These being some of the faults of the literal version.
I transcribe the translations sent in to me by six of my
pupils respectively, who, however deficient in elegance of
conlPosition. and though more or less deficient in hitting
the Latin idiom, yet evidently kno\v what idiom is.
" The first wrote :- Videte rem graviorem; quod feris J
id hominibus quoque accidit,-sanguinis sitim semel
gustantibus intus concipi. plenè pot an tibus maturari.
"The second wrote :-Res seria agitur; nam quod in
feris, illud in hominibus quoque cernitur, sanguini,
appetitionem et suscitari lambendo et epulando inflam-
man.
" The third :-Ecce res summâ consideratione digna;
et in feris et in hominibus, sanguinis semel delibati sitis
est, sæpius hausti libido.
"The fourth :-Sollicitè animadvertendum est, cum in
feris turn in hominibus fieri, ut guttæ pariant appetitun1
sanguinis, frequentiores potus ingluviern.
I, And the fifth :-Perpende sedulo, gustum sanguinis
tam in hominibus quam in feris primò appetitionem sui
tandem cupidinem inferre.
"And the sixth :-Hoc grave est, quod hominibus
cum feris videmus commune, gustasse est appetere san-
guinem, hausisse in deliciis habere."
Mr. Black, junr., studies this paper, and considers that
he has gained something from it. Accordingly, \vhen
he sees his father, he mentions to him Mr. White. his

366

Elementary Studies.

kindness, his papers, and especially the above, of which
he has taken a copy. His father begs to see it; and,
being a bit of a critic, forthwith delivers his judgment
on it, and condescends to praise it; but he says that it
fails in this, viz., in overlooking the subject of structure.
He maintains that the turning-point of good or bad
Latinity is, not idiom, as Mr. White says, but structure.
Then Mr. Black, the father, is led on to speak of himself,
and of his youthful studies; and he ends by giving Harry
a history of his own search after the knack of writing
Latin. I do not see quite how this is to the point of
Mr. White's paper, which cannot be said to contradict
Mr. Black's narrative; but for this very reason, I may
consistently quote it, for from a different point of view
it may thro\v light on the subject treated in common by
both these literary authorities.

2.

Old Afr. Black's Confessio1t of his search after a Latt.n
style.
"The attempts and the failures and the successes of
those who have gone before, my dear son, are the direc-
tion-posts of those \vho come after; and, as I am only
speaking to you, it strikes me that I may, \\,ithout
egotism or ostentation, suggest views or cautions, which
might indeed be useful to the University Student gene-
rally, by a relation of some of my own endeavours to
improve my own mind, and to increase my own know-
ledge in my early life. I am no great admirer of self-
taught geniuses; to be self-taught is a misfortune,
except in the case of those extraordinary minds, to
whonl the title of genius justly belongs; for in most
cases, to be self-tau
ht is to be badly groun ded. to be_

Elementary StudIes.

367

slovenly finished,
nd to be preposterously conceited.
Nor, again, \vas that misfortune I speak of really mine; "
but I have been left at times just so much to myself, as
to make it possible for young students to gain hints from
the history of my mind, which will be useful to them-
selves. And now for my subject.
U At school I was reckoned a sharp boy; I ran through
its classes rapidly; and by the time I was fifteen, my
masters had nothing more to teach me, and did not kno\v
what to do with me. I might have gone to a public
school, or to a private tutor for three or four years; but
there were reasons against either plan, and at the unusual
age I speak of, with some inexact acquaintance with
Homer, Sophocles, Herodotus, and Xenophon, Horace,
Virgil, and Cicero, I was matriculated at the University.
I had from a child been very fond of composition, verse
and prose, English and Latin, and took especial interest
in the subject of style; and one of the wishes nearest
my heart \vas to write Latin \vell. I had some idea of
the style of Addison, H ume. and Johnson, in English;
but I had no idea what was meant by good Latin style.
I had read Cicero without learning \vhat it \vas; the
books said, C This is neat Ciceronian language,' C this is
pure and elegant Latinity,' but they did not tell me \vhy.
Some persons told me to go by my ear; to get Cicero
by heart; and then I should kno\v how to turn my
thoughts and marshal my words. nay, more, 'where to
put subjunctive moods and \vhere to put indicative. In
consequence I had a vague, unsatisfied feeling on the
subject, and kept grasping shadows, and had upon me
something of the unpleasant sensation of a bad dream.
"When I \vas sixteen, I feU upon an article in the
Quarterly, which reviewed a Latin history of (I think)
the Rebellion of 1715; perhaps by Dr. Whitaker.

368

E lel1Zelltary Studt
s.

Years afterwards I learned that the critique Was the
writing of a celebrated Oxford scholar; but at the time,
it was the subject itself, not the writer, that took hold of
me. I read it carefully, and made extracts which, I
believe, I have to this day. Had I kno,vn more of Latin
\vriting, it would have been of real use to me; but as it
was concerned of necessity in verbal criticisms, it did but
lead me deeper into the mistake to which I had already
been introduced,-that Latinity consisted in using good
phrases. Accordingly I began noting down, and using
in my exercises, idionlatic or peculiar expressions: such
as ' oleum perdidi,' 'haud scio an non,' 'cogitanti mihi,'
'verum enimvero,' 'equidem,' 'dixerim,' and the like;
and I made a great point of putting the verb at the end
of the sentence. What took me in the same direction
\vas Dumesnil's Synonymes, a good book, but one \vhich
does not even profess to teach Latin writing. I was
ai m . . _ ...... .' ect by lear ". ........'
"Then I fell in ,vith the Gerl1tallia and Agricola of
Tacitus, and \vas very much taken by his style. Its
peculiarities were much easier to understand, and to
copy, than Cicero's: 'decipit exenlplar vitiis imitabile; ,
and thus, \vithout any advance whatever in understanding
the genius of the language, or the construction of a Latin
sentence, I added to my fine words and cut-and-dried
idioms, phrases smacking of Tacitus. The Dialogues of
Erasmus, which I studied, carried me in the same direc-
tion; for dialogues, from the nature of the case, consist
of words and clauses, and smart, pregnant, or colloquia]
expressions, rather than of sent
nces with an adequate
structure. tJ
Mr. Black takes breath, and then continues:
"The labour, then, of years came to nothing. and \vhen
I was twenty I knew no more of Latin composition than

.E
/emelltary Stud-its.

3 6 9

I had known at fifteen. It was then that circumstances
turned my attention to a volume of Latin Lectures,
which had been published by the accomplished scholar
of whose critique in the Quarterly Review I have already
spoken. The Lectures in question had been delivered
terminally while he held the Professorship of Poetry,
and were afterwards collected into a volume; and various
circumstances combined to give them a peculiar character.
Delivered one by one at intervals, to a large, cultivated,
and critical audience, they both demanded and admitted
of special elaboration of the style. As coming from a
person of his high reputation for Latinity, they were dis-
plays of art; and, as addressed to persons who had to
follow a felnþore the course of a discussion delivered in
a foreign tongue, they needed a style as neat, pointed,
lucid, and perspicuous as it was ornamental. l\loreover,
as expressing modern ideas in an ancient language, they
involved a new development and application of its powers.
The result of these united conditions was a style less
simple, less natural and fresh, than Cicero's; more studied,
more ambitious, more sparkling; heaping together in a
page the flowers \vhich Cicero scatters over a treatise;
but still on that very account more fitted for the purpose
of inflicting upon the inquiring student \vhat Latinity was.
Any how, such was its effect upon me; it was like the
C Open Sesame' of the tale; and I quickly found that I
had a new sense, as regards conlposition, that I under-
stood beyond mistake what a Latin sentence should be,
and saw ho\v an English sentence must be fused and
remoulded in order to make it Latin. lIenceforth Cicero,
as an artist, had a meaning, when I read him, which he
never had had to me before; the bad dream of seeking
and never finding \vas over; and, whether I ever wrote
Latin or not, at least I knew what good Latin \vas.
24

37 0

Ele1Jle1zfary Siudzes.

,. I had now learned that good Latinity lies in struc-
ture; that every \vord of a sente
ce may be Latin, yet
the whole sentence remain English; and that diction-
aries do not teach composition. Exulting in my dis-
covery, I next proceeded to analyze and to throw into
the shape of science that idea of Latinity to \vhich I had
attained. Rules and rernarks, such as are contained in
works on com posi tion, had not led me to master the
idea; and no\v that I really had gained it, it led me to
form from it rules and remarks for myself. I could now
turn Cicero to account. and I proceeded to make his
writings the materials of an induction, from \vhich I
drew out and threw into form \vhat I have called a
science of Latinity,-with its principles and peculiarities,
their connection and their consequences.-or at least
considerable specimens of such a science, the like 01
which I have not happened to see in print. Consider-
ing, ho\vever, ho\v much has been done for scholarship
since the time I speak of: and especially ho\v many
German books have been translated, I doubt not I
should no\v find my own poor investigations and dis-
coveries anticipated and superseded by works which are
in the hands of every school-boy. At the same time,
I am quite sure that I gained a very great deal in the
way of precision of thought, delicacy of judgment, and
refinement of taste, by the processes of induction to
\vhich I am referring. I kept blank books, in which
every peculiarity in every sentence of Cicero was
minutely noted down, as I went on reading. The
force of words, their combination into phrases, their
collocation-the carrying on of one subject or nomina-
tive through a sentence, the breaking up of a sentence
into clauses, the evasion of its categorical form, the reso-
lution of abstract nouns into verbs and participles j-

Elementary Studies.

37 1

what is possible in Latin composition and what i3 not,
how to compensate for \vant of brevity by elegance, anå
to secure perspicuity by the use of figures, these, and a
hundred similar points of art, I illustrated with a dili-
gence \vhich even bordered on subtlety. Cicero became
a mere luagazine of instances, and the main use of the
river was to feed the canal. I am unable to say whether
these elaborate inductions would profit anyone else, but
1 have a vivid recollection of the great utility they wet e
at that time to my own mind.
"The general subject of Latin composition, my deal
son, has ever interested lne much, and you see only one
point in it has olade me speak for a quarter of an hour;
but now that I have had my say about it, \vhat is its
upshot? The great moral I would impress upon you is
this, that in learning to write Latin, as in all learning,
you must not trust to books, but only make use of
thcln; not hang like a dead weight upon your teacher,
but catch some of his life; handle what is given you,
not as a formula, but as a pattern to copy and as a
capital to improve; thro\v your heart and mind into
what you are about, and thus unite the separate advan-
tages of being tutored and of being self-taught,-self-
taught, yet without oddities, and tutorized, yet without
conventionalities. "
"Why, my dear father," says young Mr. Black, "you

peak like a book. You must let me ask you to write
down for me what you have been giving out in conver..
. "
satl0n.
1 have had the advantage of the \vritten copy.

37 2

4.-General Religious K1towledge.

I.

I T has been the custom in the English Universities
to introduce religious instruction into the School of
Arts; and a very right custon1 it is, which every U niver-
sity nlay well imitate. I have certainly felt it ought to
have a place in that School; yet the subject is not \vith.
out its difficulty, and I intend to say a few words upon
it here. That place, if it has one, should of course be
determined on some intelligible principle, which, while
it justifies the introduction of Religion into a secular
Faculty, will preserve it from becoming an intrusion, by
fixing the conditions under which it is to be adrnitted.
There are many ,vho \vould n1ake over the subject ot
Religion to the theologian exclusively; there are others
who allo\v it alnlost unlimited extension in the province
of Letters. The latter of these t\VO classes, if not large,
at least is serious and earnest; it seems to consider that
the Classics should be superseded by the Scriptures and
the Fathers) and that Theology proper should be taught
to the youthful aspirant for University honours. I an1
not here concerned with opinions of this character, which
I respect, but cannot follow. N or am I concerned \vith
that large class, on the other hand, who, in their ex-
clusion oí Religion from the lí:cture-rooms of Philosophy
and Letters (or of Arts, as it used to be called), are
actuated by scepticism or indifference; but there are
other persons, much to be consulted, who arrive at the

Ek1nentary Studzes.

373

same practical conclusion as the sceptic and unbeiiever,
from real reverence and pure zeal for the interests of
Theology, which they consider sure to suffer from the
superficial treatment of lay-professors, and the superficial ·
reception of young minds, as soon as, and in whatever
degree, it is associated with classical, philosophical, and
historical studies ;-and as very many persons of great
consideration seem to be of this opinion, I will set down
the reasons why I follow the English tradition instead,
and' in what sense I follow it.
I might appeal, I conceive, to authority in my favour,
but I pass it over, because mere authority, however
sufficient for my own guidance, is not sufficient for the
definite direction of those \vho have to carry out the
matter of it in practice.

2.
In the first place, then, it is congruous certainly that
youths who are prepared in a Catholic University for
the general duties of a secular life, or for the secular
professions, should not leave it without some knowledge
of their religion; and, on the other hand, it does, in
matter of fact, act to the disadvantage of a Christian
place of education, in the \vorld and in the judgment of
men of the world, and is a reproach to its conductors,
and even a scandal, if it sends out its pupils accon1plished
in all knowledge except Christian knowledge; and hence,
even though it were impossible to rest the introduction
of religious teaching into the secular lecture-room upon
any logical principle, the imperative necessity of its in-
troduction would remain, and the only question would
be, what matter was to be introduced, and how much.
And next, considering that, as the mind is enlarged
and cultivated generally, it is capable, or rather is

374

Elementary Studies.

desirous and has need, of fuller religious infonnation, it
is difficult to maintain that that knowledge of Christi-
anity which is sufficient for entrance at the University is
all that is incumbent on students who have been sub-
mitted to the academical course. So that we are un.
.
avoidably led on to the further question, viz., shall ,,'e
sharpen and refine the youthful intellect, and then leave
it to exercise its new powers upon the most sacred of
subjects, as it will, and \vith the chance of its exercising
them wrongly; or shall we proceed to feed it \vith divine
truth, as it gains an appetite for kno\vledge?
Religious teaching, then, is urged upon us in the case
of University students, first, by its evident propriety;
secondly, by the force of public opinion; thirdly, from
the great inconveniences of neglecting it. And, if the
subject of Religion is to have a real place in their course
of study, it must enter into the examinations in \vhich
that course results; for nothing \vill be found to impress
and occupy their minds but such matters as they have
to present to their Examiners.
Such, then, are the considerations which actually oblige
us to introduce the subject of Religion into our secular
schools, \vhether it be logical or not to do so; but next..
I think that we can do so without any sacrifice of prin-
ciple or of consistency; and this, I trust, ,viII appear, if
I proceed to explain the mode which I should propose
to adopt for the purpose :-
I \vould treat the subject of Religion in the School of
Philosophy and Letters simply as a branch of know-
ledge. If the University student is bound to have a
knowledge of History generally, he is bound to have
inclusively a kno\vledge of sacred history as well as
profane; if he ought to be well instructed in Ancient
Literature, Biblical Literature comes under that general

Elementary Studies.

375

descrtption as well as Classical; if he knows the Philo-
sophy of men, he will not be extravagating from his
general subject, if he cultivate also that Philosophy which
is divine. And as a student is not necessarily superficial.
though he has not studied all the classical poets, or all
Aristotle's philosophy, so he need not be dangerously
superficial, if he has but a parallel knowledge of Religion.

3.
However, it may be said that the risk of theological
error is so serious, and the effects of theological conceit
are so mischievous, that it is better for a youth to know
nothing of the sacred subject, than to have a slender
knowledge \vhich he can use freely and recklessly, for
the very reason that it is slender. And here we have
the maxim in corroboration:" "A little learning is a
dangerous thing."
This obj ection is of too anxious a character to be dis-
regarded. I should answer it thus :-In the first place it
is obvious to remark, that one great portion of the know-
ledge here advocated is, as I have just said, historical
knowledge, which has little or nothing to do with doc-
trine. If a Catholic youth mixes with educated Protes-
tants of his own age, he will find them conversant with
the outlines and the characteristics of sacred an d eccle-
;iastical history as well as pro fane
it is desirabl e that
he should be on a
ar with them ! and able to keep-!.lp_a_
conversation \vith hem. It is desirable, if he has left
our University \vith honours or prizes, that he should
kno\v as well as they about the great primitive divisions
of Christianity, its polity, its luminaries, its acts, and its
fortunes; its great eras, and its course do\vn to this day.
He should have some idea of its propagation, and of the
order in \vhich the nations, \vhich have submitted to it,

376

ElelJlenlary Studies.

entered its pale; and of the list of its Fathers, and of
its \vriters generally, and of the subjects of their works.
He should kno\v who St. Justin Martyr was, and when
he lived; \vhat language St" Ephraitn wrote in ; on \vhat
St. Chrysostom's literary fd.lne is founded; who was
Celsus, or Ammonius, or Porphyry, or Ulphilas, or Sym-
machus, or Theodoric. Who were the N estorians ; \vhat
was the religion of the barbarian nations who took pos-
session of the ROlnan Elnpire: who was Eutyches, or
Berengarius, who the Albigenses. He should know
something about the Benedictines, Dominicans, or Fran-
ciscans, about the Crusades, and the chief movers in
them. He should be able to say \vhat the Holy See
has done for learning and science; the place which these
islands hold in the literary history of the dark age; what
part the Church had, and how her highest interests fared,
in the revival of letters; who Bessarion was, or Ximenes,
or William of \V ykeham, or Cardinal Allen. I do not
say that we can insure all this knowledge in every ac-
complished student who goes from us, but at least \ve
can admit such knowledge, we can encourage it, in our
lecture-rooms and examination-halls.
And so in like manner, as regards Biblical knowledge,
it is òcsirable that, while our students are encouraged to
pursue the history of classical literatur(f, they should
also be invited to acquaint themselves \vith some general
facts about the canon of Holy Scripture, its history, the
Jewish canon, S1. Jerome, the Protestant Bible; again,
about the languages of Scripture, the contents of its
separate books, their authors, and their versions. In all
such kno\vledge I conceive no great harm can lie in being
superficial.
But now as to Theology itself: To meet the appre-
hended danger, I \vould exclude the teachin
in extellSC of

Elementary Studzes.

377

pure dogma from the secular schools, and l;ontent my-
self with enforcing such a broad knowledge of doctrinal
subjects as is contained in the catechisms of the Church,
or the actual writings of her laity. I would have students
apply their minds to such religious topics as laymen
actually do treat, and are thought praiseworthy in
treating. Certainly I admit that, when a la\vyer or
physician, or statesman, or merchant, or soldier sets
about discussing theological points, he is likely to suc-
ceed as ill as an ecclesiastic who meddles with law, or
medicine, or the exchange. But I am professing to con-
template Christian knowledge in what may be called its
secular aspect, as it is practically useful in the intercourse
of life and in general conversation; and I would encou-
rage it so far as it bears upon the history, the literature,
and the philosophy of Christianity.
It is to be considered that our students are to go out
into the world, and a ,vorld not of professed Catholics,
but of inveterate, often bitter, commonly contemptuous,
Protestants; nay, of Protestants who, so far as they
come from Protestant Universities and public schools,
do know their own system, do know, in proportion to
their general attainments, the doctrines and arguments
of Protestantism. I should desire, then, to encourage
in our students an intelligent apprehension of the rela-
tions, as I may call them, between the Church and
Society at large; for instance, the difference between
the Church and a religious sect; the respective preroga-
tives of the Church and the civil power; \vhat the Church
claims of necessity, what it cannot dispense with, what
it can; what it can grant, what it cannot. A Catholic
hears the celibacy of the clergy discussed in general
society; is that usage a matter of faith, or is it not of
faith? He hears the Pope accused of interfering with

378

Eúmentayy Studies.

the prerogatives of her Majesty, because he appoints an
hierarcry. What is he to answer? What principle is to
guid
him in the remarks \vhich he cannot escape fronl
the necessity of making? He fills a station of in1por-
tance, and he is address d by some friend who has political
reasons for wishing to know what is the difference be-
tween Canon and Civil Law, whether the Council of
Trent has been received in France, whether a Priest
cannot in certain cases absolve prospectively, what is
meant by his intention, what by the opus operatul1l;
whether, and in what sense, \ve consider Protestants to
be heretics; whether anyone can be saved \vithout
sacramental confession; whether we deny the reality of
natural virtue, or what worth we assign to it ?
Questions may be multiplied without limit, which
occur in conversation between friends, in social inter-
course, or in the business of life, when no argument is
needed, no subtle and delicate disquisition, but a fe\v
direct words stating the fact, and when perhaps a few
words may even hinder most serious inconveniences to the
Catholic body. Half the controversies which go on in
the world arise from ignorance of the facts of the case;
half the prejudices against Catholicity lie in the misin-
formation of the prejudiced parties. Candid persons are
set right, and enemies silenced, by the mere statement
of what it is that we believe. I t will not answer the
purpose for a Catholic to say, II I leave it to theologians,"
" I will ask my priest;" but it will commonly give him
a triumph, as easy as it is complete, if he can then and
there lay do\vn the law. I say" lay down the law; " for
ren1arkable it is that even those who speak against
Catholicism like to hear about it, and \vill excuse its
advocate from alleging arguments if he can gratify
their curiosity hy giving
U1 information. Generally

Elementary Studies.

379

speaking, however, as I have said, what is given as informa-
tion will really be an argument as well as infonnation. I
recollect, some twenty-five years ago, three friends of my
own, as they then \vere, clergymen of the Establishment,
making a tour through Ireland. In the 'vVest or South
they had occasion to become pedestrians for the day;
and they took a boy of thirteen to be their guide. They
amused theqlselves with putting questions to him on the
subject of his religion; and one of them confessed to me
on his return that that poor child put them all to silence.
How? .Not. of course. by an y train of arguments, or re-
fined theological disquisition, but merely by kno\vin g and
und erstandin g the ans,vers in his catechism.
----

4.
Nor will argument itself be out of place in the hands
of laymen mixing with the world. As secular power,
influence, or resources are never more suitably placed
than when they are in the hands of Catholics, so secular
knowledge and secular gifts are then best employed
when they minister to Divine Revelation. Theologians
inculcate the matter, and determine the details of that
Revelation; they vie\v it fron1 within; philosophers view
it from without, and this external view may be called
the Philosophy of Religion, and the office of delineating
it externally is most gracefully performed by laymen.
In the first age laymen were most commonly the Apolo-
gists. Such were Justin, Tatian, Athenagoras, Aristides,
Hermias, Minucius Felix, Arnob:us, and Lactantius. In
like manner in this age some f)f the most prominent
defences of the Church are from iaymen: as De Maistre,
Chateaubriand. Nicolas, Monta.lembert, and others. If
laymen may write, lay student
may read; they surely
may read what their fathers m

have written. They

3 80

E lenzelltary Studies.

might surely study other works too, ancient and modern.
\vritten \vhether by ecclesiastics or laymen, \vhich, al--
though they do contain theology, nevertheless, in theit
structure and drift, are polemic41. Such is Origen's great
work against Celsus; and Tertullian's Apology; such
some of the controversial treatises of Eusebius and
Theocloret; or St. Augustine's City of God; or the tract
of Vincentius Lirinensis. And I confeS3 that I should
not even object to portions of Bellarmine's Controversies,
or to the work of Suarez on laws, or to Melchior Canus's
treatÌses on the Loci Theologici. On these questions in
detail, ho,,'ever,-\vhich are, I readily acknowledge, very
delicate,-opinions may differ, even where the general
principle is admitted; but, even if \ve confine ourselves
strictly to the Philosophy, that is, the external contem-
plation, of Religion, we shall have a range of reading
sufficiently ,vide, and as valuable in its practical applica-
tion as it is liberal in its character. In it will be included
\vhat are commonly called the Evidences; and what is
a subject of special interest at this day, the Notes of the
Church.

But I have said enough in general illustration of the
rule which I am recommending. One more remark I
make, though it is implied in what I have been saying :-
\Vhatever students read in the province of Religion,
they read, and would read from the very nature of
the case, under the superintendence, and with the expla-
nations, of those who are older and more experienced
than themselves.

3 81

VI

_ FORM OF INFIDELITY OF THE DAY.

9. I. Its Sellti11Zellts.

I.

T HOUGH it cannot be denied that at the present
day, in consequence of the close juxtaposition and
intercourse of men of all religions, there is a considerable
danger of the subtle, silent, 'unconscious perversion and
corruption of Catholic intellects, who as yet profess, and
sincerely profess, their submission to the authority of
Revelation, still that danger is far inferior to what it ,vas
in one portion of the middle ages. Nay. contrasting the
Jwo periods together, we may even s aL. that in this very
p oint they differ, that, in the nlediev a l. since Catholicism
was then the sol e religion _ r_ecogniz
d in _ Christend om-J

b elief necessaril y mad e--1!s advances under the lan-
gua e and the uis e of faith
whereas in the p resent,
-;hen universal toleration p revails, and it is open to
assail revealed truth (\vheth er Scripture-or - Traditiotly-
.!he Fathers o r the" Sense o f the faithful"), un heJipf in
conse que nce thr ows off the mas k, and takes up a po sition
o ver agäins t us Incitãdëfsõf-its own, and confront

in the broad l i ght and with a direct assault. And I have
no hesitation in saying (apart of course from moral and
ecclesiastical considerations, and under correction of the

382 A Fornl 0/ InjÚk:ityo/ the Da)'.

con1n1and and policy of the Church), that I prefer to live
in an age \vhen the fight is in the day, not in the
hvili g ht; and think it a gain to be speared by a foe, rather
than to be stabb e.d-b y a friend.
1 do not, then, repine at all at the open development
of unbelief in Germany, supposing unbelief is to be, or at
its gro,ving audacity in England; not as if I were satis-
fied with the state of things, considered positively, but
because, in the unavoidable alternative of avo\\.eù unbe-
lief and secret, my o\vn personal leaning is in favour of
the former. I hold that unbelief is in some shape una-
voidable in an a ge of intellect and in a world lik e this
_
considering- that faith re qu ires an act of the \vill
and
p resupposes the due exercise of relig iou
dvantagcs.
You may persist in calling Europe Catholic, though it is
not; you may enforce an out\vard acceptance of Catho-
lic dogma, and an out\vard obedience to Catholic pre-
cept; and your enactments Inay be, so far, not only
pious in themselves, but even merciful to\vards the
teachers of false doctrine, as ,veIl as just towards their
victin1s; but this is all that you can do; you cannot
bespeak conclusions which, in spite of yourselves, you
are leaving free to the human \viII. Th ere will be, I say,
in spite of you, unbelief and immornl ity to th e end of.
Jhe_\H2rld, -ill1!L you n1ust be p repared for illlinor ality
.. h more odious, and unb elie f more astute, m ore su btlè;
r/.j. .!!l9re bitter, and m ore rese nj fu l, in proportion as it i

oblige d to dissemble.
It is one great advantage of an age in \vhich unbelief
speaks out, that Faith can speak out too; that, if false-
hood assails Truth, Truth can assail falsehood. In such
an ag e it is possible to found a University nlore
h

tic
lly Catholic than could be set uP-in-th e middle age,
b ecause Truth can ent r enc nitself c arefu lJy, and defi ne

A Form 0/ Infidelity 0/ the Day. 3 8 3

.'

its own p r o fes sion severe ly, and_ disp-Iay -.its- C0 10urL

nequivocally,.-by occasion of th at.xery unbelie f which
s o shamelessly vaunts itself. And a kindred advantage
to this is the confidence which, in such an age, we can
place in all \vho are around us, so that we need look for
no foes but those who are in the enemy's camp.

2.
The medieval schools \vere the arel1a of as critical
a struggle between truth and error as Christianity has
ever endured; and the philosophy which. bears their
name carried its supremacy by means of a succession
of victories in the cause of the Church. Scarcely had
U niversities risen into PPP!:!.illrity
when th ey were found
to be infected w ith the mo
t subtle and fatal forms of I
;nbelief: and the heresies Q f the East g erminated in th 1
West of Europe and in Catholic lectu re-rooms, with-a
mysteriou vigQUUlpon which is or T throws little light.
The questions agitated were as deep as any in theology;
the being and essence of the Almighty were the main
subj h ects of l th
d
spu l tation l ' and Aristo h tle wa f s P introduced r
to t e ecc eSlasÌ1ca yout 1 as a teac er 0 antheism.
Saracenic expositions of the great philosopher were in
vogue; and, \vhen a fresh treatise ,vas imported from)
Constantinople, the curious and impatient student threw
himself upon it, regardless of the Church's warnings,
and reckless of the effect upon his own mind. The
acutest intellects became sceptics and misbelievers; and
the head of the Holy Roman Empire, the Cæsar Frede-
rick the Second, to say nothing of our miserable king
John, had the reputation of meditating a profession of
Mahometanism. It is said that, in the community at
large, men had a vague suspicion and mistrust of each
other's belief in Revelation. A secret socie t y was dis-

384 A Form 0/ Infidelity of the Da)

covered in the Universities of Lombard y, Tusca ny,..aruL
France, organized for the prop agat ion of infide l opinions.
it was bound to g eth
by _oath s and
ent its mi ssionaries
among the peo p le in the d isg uise of p edlars and vag rants

-The success of such efforts was attested ., ,- . u ,
....o f Franc e b y the gr eat extens i

f th e Albige ns es anò
th e J reva enc e_o f Manichean doctrin
h e University_
of Paris was obliged to limit the number of its doctors in
!
eolo g y to as fe\v as eight, from mi sgiving
about thtL
orthodoxy of its divines g.en erall
. The narrative of
Simon of Tournay, struck dead for crying out after
lecture, H Ah! good Jesus, I could disprove Thee, did I
please, as easily as I have proved," whatever be its
authenticity, at least may be taken as a representation
of the frightful peril to \vhich Christianity was exposed.
Amaury of Chartres \vas the author of a school of Pan-
theism, and has given his name to a sect; Abelard,
Roscelin, Gilbert, and David de Dinant, Tanquelin, and
Eon, and others \vho might be named, show the extra-
ordinary influence of anti-Catholic doctrines on high
and lo\v. Ten ecclesiastics and several of the populace
of Paris were condemned for maintaining that our Lord's
reign was past, that the Holy Ghost was to be incarnate,
or for parallel heresies.
.Frederick the Second established a Universi ty
t_
Naples with a vi ew to .!he r
aga tion of the infid elity _
which "'as so dear to him. I t gave birth t o the great
St. Thomas, thëCha mp ion of-remïë"d trut h . So i
i-
nla te was th e-intermi
ture, so clos
the grapple, þ etwee I!..
faith and un beliëf.- IfWãS -theconspiracy of traitors , it
was a civil strife, of \vhich the medieval s
ats of lear ninf!
w ere the scene.
I n this d ay on the con ry, Truth and Error lie over
a.gainst e ach other with a valley betwe en _ them, and

A Forí/l 0/ IJljÙlelity of the Day. 3 8 5

David g-oes forward in the $ight of all men, and from
J1is own camp. to eßgage with the Philistine. Such is
t he providential overrulin
of that principle of toleration.
which was conceived in the spirit of unbelief, in order to
the destruction of Catholicity. The sway of the Church
is contracted; but she gains in intensity \vhat she loses-""
v in extent. She has now a direct CO ffi wand and a .(eliable
influence over her o wt1_ins titutions. which was \vanting
}n the middle ag-es. A University is her possession in
these times, as well as her creation: nor has she the
neðd, which once ,vas so urgent, to expel heresies from

her pale, which have now their own centres of attrac-
tion elsewhere, and spontaneously take their departure.
-S ecular advantages no longer present an inducement to
hypocrisy, and her members in consequence have the
consolation of being able to be sure of each other. How
much better is it, for us at least, whatever it may be for
themselves (to take a case before our eyes in Ireland),
that those persons, who have left the Church to become
ministers in the Protestant Establishment, should be in
their proper place, as they are, than that they should
have perforce continued in her comnlunion!
I repeat
it, I would rather fi
ht ,vith unbelief as w e find it in the
nineteenth century. t hatLaSit existed in the twelfth and...
thirteen th.

3.
I look out, then, into the enemy's camp, and I try to
trace the outlines of the hostile movements and the
preparations for assault which ar
there in agitation
against us. The arnling and the ßlanæuvring, the earth-
works and the mines, go on incessantly; and one cannot
of course tell, \vithout the gift of prophecy, which of his
projects will be çarrieq Ü
to
ffeçt and attain its purpose}
25

386 A FOY11l of /llfideltïy t!/ the Day.

and \vhich will eventually fail or be abandoned. Threaten-
ing demonstrations may come to nothing; and those
who are to be our most formidable foes, may before the
attack elude our observation. All these uncertainties,
we know, are the lot of the soldier in the field: and
.
they are parallel to those which befall the warriors of
the Temple. Fully feeling the force of such considera-
tions, and under their correction, nevertheless I make
lllY anticipations according to the signs of the tillles;
and such must be my þroviso, when I proceed to describe
some characteristics of one particular form of infidelity,
which is coming into existence and activity over against
us, in the intellectual citadels of England.
It Inust not be supposed that I attribute, what I am
going to speak of as a form of infidelity of the day, to
any given individual or individuals; nor is it necessary
to my purpose to suppose that anyone lllan as yet con-
sciously holds, or sees the drift, of that portion of the
theory to \vhich he has given assent. I am to describe
a set of opinions \vhich nlay be considered as the true
explanation of many floating views, and the converging
point of a multitude of separate and independent nlinds;
and, as of old Arius or Nestorius not only was spoken
of in his own person, but was vie\ved as the abstract and
typical teacher of the heresy \vhich he introduced, and
thus his name denoted a heretic more complete and
explicit, even though not more formal, than the here-
siarch himself, so here too, in like lllanner, I may be
describing a school of thought in its fully developed
proportions, which at present every one, to \vhom mem-
bership with it is imputed, \vill at once begin to diso\vn,
and I may be pointing to teachers whom no one will be
able to descry. Still, it is not less true that I may be
speaking of tendencies and elements \vhich exist; and

A Form o.f InJidelity o.f the Day. 387

he may come in person at last, who comes at first to us
merely in his spirit and in his power.
The teacher, then, whom I speak of: will discourse
thus in his secret heart :- He will begin, as many so far
have done before him, by laying it down as if a position
\vhich approves itself to the reason, immediately that it
is fairly examined,-which is of so axiomatic a character
as to have a claim to be treated as a first principle, and
is firnl and steady enough to bear a large superstructure
upon it,-that Religion is not the subject-matter of a
science. " You may have opinions in religion, you may
have theories, you may have arguments, you may have
probabilities; you may have anything but demonstration,
and therefore you cannot have science. In mechanics
you advance from sure premisses to sure conclusions; in
optics you form your undeniable facts into system,
arrive at general principles, and then again infallibly
apply them: here you have Science. On the other
hand, there is at present no real science of the weather,
because you cannot get hold of facts and truths on which
it depends; there is no science of the coming and going
of epidemics; no science of the breaking out and the
cessation of wars; no science of popular likings and dis-
likings, or of the fashions. It is not that these subject-
matters are themselves incapable of science, but that,
under existing circumstances, we are incapable of sub-
jecting them to it. And so, in like manner," says the
philosopher in question, "withottt denying that in the
matter of religion sonIe things are true and some things
false, still \ve certainly are not in a position to detern1Ïne
the one or the other. And, as it would be absurd to
dogmatize about the weather, and say that 1860 \vill be
a wet season or a dry season, a tinle of peace or war, so
it is absurd for nlen in our present state to teach any-

3 8 8 A F0111l of Infidelity of the DO)I.

thing positively about the next world, that there is a
heaven, or a hell, or a last judgment, or that the soul is
immortal, or that there is a God. It is not that you have
not a right to your own opinion, as you have a right to
place implicit trust in your own banker, or in your own
physician; but undeniably such persuasions are not
knowledge, they are not scientific, they cannot become
public property, they are consistent with your allowing
your friend to entertain the opposite opinion; and. if
you are tempted to be violent in the defence of your o\vn
view of the case in this matter of religion, then it is well
to lay seriously to heart whether sensitiveness on the
subject of your banker or your doctor, \vhen he is handled
sceptically by another, would not be taken to argue a
secret misgiving in your mind a bout him, in spite of your
confident profession, an absence of clear, unruffled cer-
tainty in his honesty or in his skill."
Such is our philosopher's primary position. He does
not prove it; he does but distinctly state it; but he
thinks it self-evident when it is distinctly stated. And
there he leaves it.

4-
Taking his primary position henceforth for granted,
he will proceed as follows :-" Well, then, if Religion is
just one of those subjects about which we can know no-
thing, what can be so absurd as to spend tin1e upon it?
what so absurd as to quarrel with others about it? Let
us all keep to our own religious opinions respectively,
and be content; but so far from it, upon no subject
whatever has the intellect of man been fastened so in-
tensely as upon Religion. And the n1isery is, that, if
once we allow it to engage our attention, we are in a
circle from which we never shall be able to extricate

A FOY1Jl o.Il/ifidelity 0.1 the Day. 3 8 9

ourselves Our mistake reproduces and corroborates itself.
A small ins
ct, a wasp or a fly, is unable to make his way
through the pane of glass; and his very failure is the oc-
casion of greater violence in his struggle than before. He
is as heroically obstinate in his resolution to succeed as
the assailant or defender of some critical battle-field; he
is unflagging and fierce in an effort which cannot lead to
anything beyond itself. When, then, in like manner, you
have once resolved that certain religious doctrines shall be
indisputably true, and that all men ought to perceive their
truth, you have engaged in an undertaking which, though
continued on to eternity, \vill never reach its aim; and,
since you are convinced it ought to do so, the 1nore you
have failed hitherto, the 1110re violent and pertinacious \vill
be your attern pt in tinle to conle. And further still, since
you are not the only nlan in the \vorld \vho is in this error,
but one of ten thousand, all holding the general principle
that Religion is scientific, and yet all differing as to the
truths and facts and conclusions of this science, it follows
that the misery of social disputation and disunion is added
to the nlisery of a hopeless investigation, and life is not
only wasted in fruitless speculation, but embittered by
bigotted sectarianism.
" Such is the state in which the world has lain," it will
be said, "ever since the introduction of Christianity.
Christianity has been the bane of true knowledge, for it
has turned the intellect away from what it can know, and
occupied it in \vhat it cannot. Differences of opinion crop
up and nlultiply themselves, in proportion to the diffi-
culty of deciding them; and the unfruitfulness of Theo-
logy has been, in matter of fact, the very reason, not for
seeking better food, but for feeding on nothing else.
Truth has been sought in the wrong direction, and the
attainable has been put aside tor the visionary."

39 0 A Þòrm 0/ Infidelity of the Day.

Now, there is no call on me here to refute these argu-
ments, but merely to state then1. I need not refute what
has not yet been proved. It is sufficient for rue to repeat
what I have already said, that they are founded upon a
mere assumption. Suþposing, indeed, religious truth can-
.
not be ascertained, tlufz, of course, it is not only idle, but
mischievous, to attenl pt to do so; then, of course, argu-
ment does but increase the mistake of attempting it. But
surely both Catholics and Protestants have \vritten solid
defences of ReveJation, of Christianity, and of dogma, as
such, and these are not simply to be put aside without
saying why. It has not yet been shown by our philo-
sophers to be self-evident that religious truth is really
incapable of attainment; on the other hand, it has at
least been powerfully argued by a number of profound
n1inds that it call be attained; and the OIlUS probandi
plainly lies \vith those \vho are introducing into the world
what the whole world feels to be a paradox.

s.
However, where men really are persuaded of all this,
however unreasonable, what will follow? A feeling, not
merely of contempt, but of absolute hatred, towards the
Catholic theologian and the dogmatic teacher. The
p atriot abhors and 10at
-1:h e partizans who have de-
g raded and injured his countr ; and the citizen -Ðf the
Ài h wor , t Ie a v
ate o f the human race ) feels bitter indi g -
'{ ''fð nation at those whom he holds to have been its misleaders--
, 'and tyrants for two thousand years. "The world has
lost t\VO thousand years. I t is pretty much where it \vas
in the days of Augustus. This is \\
hat has come of priests."
There are those who are actuated by a benevolent liberal-
.ism, and condescend to say that Catholics are not worse
than other maintainers of dogmatic theology. There are

A Form 0/ In fidelxi)' o.f the Day. 39 1

those, again, who are good enough to grant that the
Catholic Church fostered kno\vledge and science up to
the days of Galileo, and that she has only retrograded
for the last several centuries. But the new teacher, \vhom
I am contemplating in the light of that nebula out of
which he will be concentrated, echoes the words of the
early persecutor of Christians, that they are the "enemies
of the human race." "But for Athanasius, but for
Augustine, but for Aquinas, the world would have had
its Bacons and its Newtons, its Lavoisiers, its Cuviers, its
Watts, and its Adam Smiths, centuries upon centuries
ago. A nd now, when at length the true philosophy has
struggled into existence, and is making its way, what is
left for its champion but to make an eager desperate
attack upon CÞ.nstian theology, the scabbard flung away,
and no quarter given? and what will be the issue but
the triunlph of the stronger,-the overthrow of an old
error and an odious tyranny, and a reign of the beautiful
'[ruth?" _Thus he thinks, a
d he sits drealning over the

spiring thou
ht, and longs for that approachine-, that.
inevita@e c1
y
-- There let us lea ve_him for the p re s ent , dre aming and
long-ing- in his im p otent hatre d o
Power whic h J uli

and Frederic. Shaftesbury and Voltaire,
nd a tho usaiîd
other gr eat sovereigns and su þt1e thinkers, have assailed-
---
in vain.

39 2

2. Its Policy.

I.
I T is a miserable time when a nlan's Catholic profes-
sion is no voucher for his orthodoxy, and \vhen a
teacher of religion Inay be within the Church's pale, yet
external to her faith. Such has been for a season the
trial of her chilòren at various eras of her history. It was
the state of things during the dreadful Arian ascenùancy,
when the flock had to keep aloof from the shepherd,
and the unsuspicious l
athers of the Western Councils
trusted and follo\ved SOIne consecrated sophist fronI
Greece or Syria. It was th
case in those passages of
medieval history when simony resisted the Supreme
Pontiff, or \vher. heresy lurked in Universities. It was a
longer and more tedious trial, while the controversies
lasted \vith the Monophysites of old, and with the J an-
senists in modern times. A great scandal it is and a
perplexity to the little ones of Christ, to have to choose
between rival claimants upon their allegiance, or to find
a conden1nation at length pronounced upon one whom
in their simplicity they have admired. We, too, in this
a ge have our scandals, for s c andals must -'þe; bu t the y
ãre not what they were once ; and if it be the just conl:-
paint o f pio
en now, th at never ,vas infidelity so-
ralnpan t
it is their boast and_ co n solatio n, on the ..Qthe !:....

d ,-thdt never was the Church less troubled with false
teachers, never lnore united.
- .False teachers do not renlain within her pa]e no

A Forn/, 0/ IJifitlelity of the Day. 393

because they can easily leave it, and beca u se there are
.. s eats of Frror f'xh"'rn::11 to h er to which the y are attracted.

9
" They went out from us," says the Apostle, " but they
were not of us; for if they had been of us, they \vould
110 doubt have continued with us: but that they might
be made Iuanifest that they are not all of us." It is a
great gain when error becomes manifest, for it then ceases
to deceive the simple. With these thoughts I began to
describe by anticipation the formation of a school of
unbelief external to the Church, which perhaps as yet
only exists, as I then expressed it, in a nebula. In the
I1liddle ages it might have managed, by means of subter-
fuges, to nlaintain itself for a \vhile \vithin the sacred
liInits,-no\v of course it is outside of it; yet still, fronl
the intenuixture of Catholics \vith the ,vorld, and the
present immature condition of the false doctrine, it may
at first ëxert an influence even upon those who would
shrink from it if they recognized it as it really is and as
it will ultimately show itself. Moreover, it is natural, and
not unprofitable, for persons under our circumstances to
speculate on the forms of error with \vhich a University
of this age will have to contend, as the medieval U niver-
sities had their own special antagonists. And for both
reasons I am hazarding some remarks on a set of opinions
and a line of action \vhich seems to be at present, at least
in its rudiments, in the seats of English intellect, whether
the danger dies a\vay of itself or not.
I have already said that its fundamental dogma is,
that nothing can be known for certain about the unseen
\vodd. This being taken for granted as a self-evident
point, undeniable as soon as stated, it goes on, or will go on,
to argue that, in consequence, the immense outlay which
has been made of time, anxiety, and toil, of health, bodily
and mental, upon theological researches, has been simply

394 ./1 ForNi of InfÙlelz'ty 0/ the Day.

thrown away; nay, has been, not useless ß1erely, but
even mischievous, inasßluch as it has indirectly thwarted
the cultivation of studies of far greater promise and
of an evident utility. This is the main position of the
School 1 am contemplating; and the result, in the minds
of its n1embers, is a deèp hatred and a bitter resentnlent
against the Power which has managed, as they consider,
to stunt the \vorld's kno\vledge and the intellect of man
for so many hundred years. Thus much I have already
said, and no\v I an1 going to state the line of policy which
these people \vill adopt, and the course of thought which
thct.t policy of theirs will ßlake necessary to them or
natural.

2.
Supposing, then, it is the main tenet of the School
in question, that the study of Religion as a science has
been the bane of philosophy and knowledge, what
remedy will its masters apply for the evils they de-
plore ? Should they profess themselves the antagonists
of theology, and engage in argumentative exercises \vith
theologians? This evidently would be to increase, to
perpetuate the calamity. Nothing, they will say to them.
selves, do religious Olen desire so ardently, nothing would
so surely advance the cause of Religion, as Controversy.
The very policy of reJigious men, they will argue, is to get
the world to fix its attention steadily upon the subject of
Religion, and Controversy is the most effectual means of
doing this. And their o\vn game, they will consider,
is, on the contrary, !Q be elaborately silen t about is
Should they not then go on to shut up the theological
schools, and exclude Religion from the subjects scienti-
fically treated in philosophical education? This indeed
has been, and is, a favourite mode of proceeding with very

A FOr11l o.f Infidelity of the Day. 395

n1any of the enemies of Theology; but still it cannot be
said to have Þeen justified by any greater success than the
policy of Controversy. The establishment of the Lon-
don University only gave immediate occasion to the
establishInent of King's College, founded on the dogma..
tic principle; and the liberalism of the Dutch govern N
ment led to the restoration of the University of Louvain.
It is a well-known story how the very absence of the
statues of Brutus and Cassius brought them more vividly
into the recollection of the Roman people. When, then,
in a comprehensive scheme of education, Religion alone
is excluded, that exclusion pleads in its behalf. vVhat N
ever be the real value of Religion, say these philosophers
to themselves, it has a name in the world, and must not
be ill-treated, lest men should rally round it from a feel-
ing of generosity. They will decide, in consequence, that
the exclusive method, though it has met with favour in
this generation, is quite as much a mistake as the con-
troversial.
Turning, then, to the Universities of England, they
will pronounce that the true policy to be observed there
would be simply to let the schools of Theology alone.
Most unfortunate it is that they have been roused from
the state of decadence and torpor in which they lay some
twenty or thirty years ago. Up to that time, a routine
lecture, delivered once to successive batches of young
men destined for the Protestant Ministry, not during
their residence, but when they were leaving or had
already left the U niversity,-and not about dogmatics,
history, ecclesiastical law, or casuistry, but about the list
of authors to be selected and works to be read by those
who had neither curiosity to read them nor money to
purchase ;-and again a periodical advertisement of a
lecture on the Thirty-nine Articles, which was never

39 6 A POI1/l o.f II/jidelity o.f the Day.

delivered because it was never attended,-these two de-
monstrations, one undertaken by one theological Pro-
fessor, the other by another, comprised the theological
teaching of a seat of learning which had been the hOlne
of Duns Scotus and Alexander Hales. What envious
.
mischance put an end to those halcyon days, and revived
the odÙun theologicu1n in the years which followed? Let
us do justice to the authoritative rulers of the University;
they have their failings; but not to them is the revo-
lution to be ascribed. It was nobody's fault among all
the guardians of education and trustees of the intellect
in that celebrated place. However, the t11ischief has
been done; and no\v the \visest course for the interests
of infidelity is to leave it to it')elf, and let the fever
gradually subside; treabnent \vould but irritate it. Not
to interfere with 'rheology, not to raise a little finger
against it, is the only means of superseding it. 1'he
more bitter is the hatred which such men bear it, the
less they must sho\v it.

3.
W hat , then, is the line of action which the y must pur -
sue? They thin k
an d rightly think, that, in all contests,
the \visest and largest policy is to conduct a positive,
not a negative opposition, not to prevent but to antici-
pate, to obstruct by constructing, and to exterminate by
supplanting. To cast any slight upon Theology, whether
in its Protestant or its Catholic schools, would be to
elicit an inexhaustible stream of polemics, and a phalanx
of dogmatic doctors and confessors.

" Let alone Camarina, for 'tis best let alone."

The proper procedure, then, is, not to oppose Theology,
but to rival it. Leave its teachers to thenlselves; merely

A FOY11l o.f IJ/fidelity o.f the Day. 397

aim at the introduction of other studies, which, while'
they have the accidental charm of novelty, possess a
surpassing interest, richness, and practical value of their
own. Gët possession of these studies, and appropriate
them, and monopolize the use of them, to the exclusion
of the votaries of Religion. Take it for granted, and
protest, for the future, that Religion has nothing to do
with the studies to which I am alluding, nor those studies
\vith Religion. Exclaim and cry out, if the Catholic
Church presumes herself to handle what you mean to
use as a weapon against her. The range of the Experi-
mental Sciences, viz., psychology, and politics, and political
economy, and the many departments of physics, various
both in their subject-matter and their n1ethod of re-
search; the great Sciences which are the characteristics
of this era, and which become the more marvellous,
the more thoroughly they are understood,-astronomy,
magnetism, chemistry, geology, comparative anatomy,
natural history, ethnology, languages, political geography, A /
antiquities,-these be your indirect but effectual means IV

of overturning Religion! They do but need to be
seen in order to be pursued; you will put an end,
in the Schools of learning, to the long reign of the un-
seen shadowy world, by the mere exhibition of the
visible. This was impossible heretofore, for the visible
world was so little known itself; but now, thanks to the
New Philosophy, sight is able to contest the field with
faith. The medieval philosopher had no weapon against
Revelation but Metaphysics; Physical Science has a
better tern per, if not a keener edge, for the purpose.
Now here I interrupt the course of thought I am
tracing, to introduce a caveat, lest I should be thought
to cherish any secret disrespect to\vards the sciences I
have enumerated, or apprehension of their legitin1ate

39 8 A Fornl o.f InJidel1lY if the Day.

tendencies; whereas my very object is to protest against
a monopoly of theln by others. And it is not surely a
heavy inlputation on them to say that they, as other
divine gifts, may be used to wrong purposes, \vith \\Thich
they have no natural connection, and for which they
were never intended; and that, as in Greece the element
of beauty, with which the universe is flooded, and the
poetical faculty, \vhich is its truest interpreter, \\'ere
made to minister to sensuality; as, in the middle ages,
abstract speculation, another great instrument of truth,
was often frittered a\vay in sophistical exercises; so now,
too, the department of fact, and the method of research
and experiment which is proper to it, may for the moment
eclipse the light of faith in the imagination of the studeht,
and be degraded into the accidental tool, hic et nunc, of
infidelity. I am as little hostile to physical science as I
am to poetry or meta physics; but I wish for studies of
every kind a legitimate application: nor do I grudge
them to anti-Catholics, so that anti-Catholics \vill not
clahn to monopolize them, cry out when we profess
them, or direct them against Revelation.
I wish, indeed, I could think that these studies were
not intended by a certain school of philosophers to bear
directly against its authority. There are those who hope,
there are thos e ,vho are sure , that in the incessant inves- ,
!igation of fac ts , p h y sica l. p olitical and .... .. - . .
or other, or m an y thin g s , will sooner or later turn u p ,
---and stubborn facts too, sim p l y cont ra dicto ry of reveale d

declarations. A vision con1es before then1 of some phy-

sical or historical proof tnat ll1ankind is not descended
from a common origin, or that the hopes of the world
\\'ere never consigned to a \vooden ark floating on the
\vaters, or that the nlanifestations on 110unt Sinai \\ ere
the \vork of 111an or nature, or that the Hebrew patriarchs

A FOrIJl of Infidelity of the Day. 399

or the judges of Israel are mythical personages, or that
St Peter had no connection \vith Rome, or that the doc-
trine of the Holy Trinity or of the Real Presence was
foreign to primitive belief. An anticipation possesses
them that the ultimate truths embodied in mesmerism
will certainly solve all the Gospel miracles; or that to
Niebuhrize the Gospels or the Fathers is a simple
expedient for stultifying the whole Catholic system.
They imagine that the eternal, immutable word of God
is to quail and come to nought before the penetrating
intellect of man. And, \vhere this feeling exists, there "'- It:
will be a still stronger motive for letting Theology alone. ·
That party, with whom success is but a matter of tirne ,
ca n afford to wait atientl . and if an inevitable train
is laid for blowin
u the fortress wh need we be
c-a nxi ous that the catastrophe should take place to-day,
räf'fí'é"r than to-morrow?

4-
But, \vithout tnaking too much of their o\vn anticipa-
tions on this point, which mayor may not be in part
fulfilled, these men have secure grounds for knowing that
the sciences, as they would pursue them, will at least be
prejudicial to the religious sentiment.
ny one stud )'.
of whatever kind. exclusive ly- pursued, deadens in the ß
mind the interest, nay. the
eption of any other. Thus.
Ci cero says that Plato and Demosthenes, Aristotle and
Isocrates, might have respectively excelled in each other's
province, but that each was absorbed in his o\vn; his
\vords are emphatic; "quorum uterque, suo studio delec-
tatus, contelns'Ït alterum." Specimens of this peculiarity
occur every day. You can hardly persuade some men
to talk about any thing but their o\vn pursuit; they refer
the whole world to their own centre, and fileasure all

400 A Form of Infidelity of thi' Day.

matters by their o\vn rule, like the fisherman in the
drama, whose eulogy on his deceased lord \vas, that ee he
was so fond of fish." The saints illustrate this on the
other hand; St. Bernard had no eye for architecture;
St. Basil had no nose for flowers; St. Aloysius had no
palate for meat and drink; St. Paula or St. Jane Frances
could spurn or could step over her own child ;-not that
natural faculties were wanting to those great servants of
God, but that a higher gift outshone and obscured every
lower attribute of man, as human features may remain
I in heaven, yet the beauty of them be killed by the sur-
passing light of glory. And in like manner it is clear
that the tendency of science is to make m e n indiffer :.-
· entists or sc e ptics, merel y b y bein g exclusive ly p ursue c!:
The party, then, of whom I speak, understanding this
well, would suffer disputations in the theological schools
every day in the year, provided they can manage to keep
the students of science at a distance from them.
N or is this all; they trust to the influence of the
modem sciences on what may be called the Imagination.
When any thing, which comes before us, is very unlike
what we commonly experience, we consider it on that
account untrue; not because it really shocks our reason
as improbable, but because it startles our imagination as
strange. Now, Revelation presents to us a perfectly dif-
ferent aspect of the universe from that presented by the
Sciences. The two informations are like the distinct
subjects represented by the lines of the same drawing,
\vhich, accordingly as they are read on their concave or
convex side, exhibit to us now a group of trees with
branches and leaves, and now human faces hid amid the
leaves, or some majestic figures standing out from the
branches. Thus is faith opposed to sight: it is parallel
to the contrast afforded by plane astronomy and physical;

A FOY111 0/ Infidelity of the Day. 4 01

plane, in accordance with our senses, discourses of the
sun's rising and setting, while physical, in accordance
\vith our reason, asserts, on the contrary, that the sun is
all but stationary, and that it is the earth that l11oves.
This is \vhat is meant by saying that truth lies in a well .
phenomena are no measure of fact; py'imd facie repre-
sentations, which \ve receive from without, do not reaCH \
to the real state of things, or put them before us sitnply
as they are.
While, then, Reason and Revelation are consistent in
fact, they often are inconsistent in appearance; and
this seeming discordance acts most keenly and alarm-
ingly on the Imagination, and may suddenly expose a
man to the temptation, and even hurry him on to the
commission, of definite acts of unbelief, in which reason
itself really does not come into exercise at all. I mean,
let a person devote himself to the studies of the day;
let him be taught by the astronomer that our sun is but
one of a million central luminaries, and our earth but onð
of ten million globes moving in space; let him learn
from the geologist that on that globe of ours enornlOUS
revolutions have been in progress through innulnerable
ages; let him be told by the comparative anatonlist
of the minutely arranged system of organized nature;
by the chemist and physicist, of the peremptory yet
intricate la\vs to which nature, organized and inorganic,
is subjected; by the ethnologist, of the originals, and
ranlifications, and varieties, and fortunes of nations; by
the antiquarian, of old cities disinterred, and primitive
countries laid bare, with the specific forms of human
society once existing; by the linguist, of the slow form-
ation and development of languages; by the psycho-
logist, the physiologist, and the economist, of the subtle,
complicated structure of the breathing, energetic, reBtless
26

402 A FOYJll of Injidelity 0/ the Da..v.

world of tnen; I say, let hinl take in and master the
vastness of the vie\v thus afforded hin1 of Nature, its
infinite cOInplexity, its a\vful coolprchcnsivencss, and its
diversified yet harmonious colouring; and then, when he
has for years drank in and fed upon this vision, let him
turn round to peruse the inspired records, or listen to
the authoritative teaching of Revelation, the book of
Genesis, or the \varnings and prophecies of the Gospels,
or the Synlbolum QUiClt1llque, or the Life of St. Antony
or St. H ilarion, and he may certainly exp
rience a most
distressing revulsion of feeling,. -not that his reason
really deduces any thing from his much loved studies
contrary to the faith, but that his imagination is be-
wildered, and swi nlS with the sense of the ineffable dis-
tance of that faith from the view of things which is
familiar to him, with its strangeness, and then again
its rude simplicity, as he considers it, and its apparent
poverty contrasted with the exuberant life and reality
of his o\vn \vorld. All this, the school I am speaking
of understands well; it comprehends that, if it can
but exclude the professors of Religion froIn the lecture-
halls of science, it may safely allo\v them full play in
their own; for it will be able to rear up infidels, without
speaking a \vord, merely by the terrible influence of that
faculty against \vhich both Bacon and Butler so soleolnly
warn us.
I say, it leaves the theologian the full and free pos-
session of his own schools, for it thinks he \vill have no
chance of arresting the- opposite teaching or of rivalling
the fascination of modern science. Kno\ving little, and
caring less for the depth and largeness of that heavenly
vVisdom, on which the Apostle delights to expatiate, or
the variety of those sciences, dogmatic or ethical, mysti-
I . Vida University Sennons, vii., 1+

A FOY1Jl oj l1ifidelity oj tIle Day. 403

calor hagiological, historical or exegetical, which Reve_ /
lation has created, these philosophers kno\v perfectly
\vell that, in Inatter of fact, to beings, constituted as we
are, sciences which concern this \vorld and this state of
existence are \vorth far more, are more arresting and'
attractive, than those \vhich relate to a systeln of things l
\vhich they do not see and cannot master by their natura]
powers. Sciences \vhich deal with tangible facts, prac-
tical results, evergrowing discoveries, and perpetual
novelties, \vhich feed curiosity, sustain attention, and
stimulate expectation, require, they consider, but a fair
stage and no favour to distance that Ancient Truth,
which never changes and but cautiously advances,.1!l. #

the race for popularity and power. And therefore they
look out for the day when they shall have put down
Religion, not by shutting its schools, but byelnptying
them; not by disputing its tenets, but by the superior
worth and persuasiveness of their own.

5.
Such is the tactic which a new school of philosophers
adopt against Christian Theology. They have this
characteristic, compared with fonner schools of infidelity,
viz., the union of intense hatred with a large toleration
of Theology. They are professedly civil to it, and run
a race with it. They rely, not on any logical disproof
of it, but on three considerations; first, on the effects of
studies of whatever kind to indispose the Inind to\vards
other studies; next, on the special effect of modern
sciences upon the imagination, prejudicial to revealed
truth; and lastly, on the absorbing interest attached to
those sciences from their marvellous results. This line
of action will be forced upon these persons by the pecu-
liar character and position of Religion in England.

404 A Fornz o.f Infidelz"ty of the Day.

And here I have arrived at the limits of my paper
before I have finished the discussion upon which I have
entered; and I must be content with having made son1e
. suggestions which, if wortJ1 anything, others may use.

4 0 5

VI.

UNIVERSITY PREACHING.

I.
W HEN I obtained fronl various distinguished per-
sons the acceptable prolnise that they vlould give
me the advantage of their countenance and assistance by
appearing fronl tÏtne to tÏtne in the pulpit of our new
University, some of thenl acconlpanied that promise \vith
the natural request that I, who had asked for it, should
offer them my own views of the mode and form in which
the duty would be lnost satisfactorilyaccolnplished. On
the other hand, it was quite as natural that I on lny part
should be disinclined to take on myself an office \vhich
belongs to a higher station and authority in the Church
than lny o\vn; and the lnore so, because, on the definite
subject about \vhich the inquiry is made, I should have
far less direct aid from the writings of holy lnen and great
divines than I could desire. Were it indeed my sole
business to put into shape the scattered precepts \vhich
saints and doctors have delivered upon it, I might have
ventured on such a task with comparatively little mis-
giving. Under the shado\v of the great teachers of the
pastoral office I might have been content to speak, with-
out looking out for any living authority to prompt me.
But this unfortunately is not the case; such venerable
guidance does not extend beyond the general principles

4 0 6

Univcysi(JI P, (aching.

and rules of preaching, and these require both expansion
and adaptation when they are to be made to bear on
compositions addressed in the name of a University to
University men. They define the essence of Christian
preaching, which is one and the same in all cases; but
not the subject-matte
or the method, which vary accord-
ing to circumstances. Still, after all, the points to which
they do reach are more, and more important, than those
which they fall short of. I therefore, though with a good
deal of anxiety, have attenlpted to perform a task which
scenled naturally to fall to me; and I anI thankful to
say that, though I nlust in sonle lueasure go beyond the
range of the sÏ1nple direction to which I have referred,
the greater part of my renlarks wil1lie within it.

2.
I. SO far is clear at once, that the preacher's object is
the spiritual good of his hearers. U Finis prædicanti sit,"
says St. Francis de Sales j
(ut vitalll (justitiæ) Itabeall!
homÙles, et abundantius habeant." And St. Charles:
't Considerandum, ad Dei omnipotentis gloriam, ad ani-
marumque salutem, referri Oinnem concionandi vim ac
rationem." Moreover, U Prædicatorem esse Ininistrum
Dei, per quem verbum Dei å spiritßs fonte ducitur ad
fidelium animas irrigandas." As a marksnlan ainls at
the target and its bull's-eye, and at nothing else, so the
preacher must have a definite point before him, which he
has to hit. So much is contained for his direction in this
simple nlaxim, that duly to enter into it and use it is half
the battle; and if he mastered nothing else, still if he
really mastered as much as this, he would know all that
was imperative for the due discharge of his office.
For \vhat is the conduct of nlen \"ho have one object
definitely before thcIn. and one only? \Vhy, that, wh;at-

UnÙ.'crsit), Preaching.

4 0 7

ever be their skill, \vhatever their resources, greater or
less, to its attainment all their efforts are sirnply, spon-
taneously, visibly, directed. This cuts off a number of
questions sometimes asked about preaching, and extin-
guishes a number of anxieties. " Sollicita es, et turbaris:'
says our Lord to St. 1Ylartha; U erga plurima; porro unUlrJ
est necessariun1." We ask questions perhaps about dic-
tion, elocution, rhetorical power; but does the comlnander
of a besieging force dream of holiday displays, revie\vs,
mock engagements, feats of strength, or trials of skill,
such as would be graceful anti suitable on a parade
ground when a foreigner of rank \vas to be received and
fêted,. or does he ainl at one and one thing only, viz., to
take the strong place? Display dissipates the energy,
\vhich for the object in view needs to be concentrated
and condensed. We have no reason to suppose that the
Divine blessing follows the lead of human accon1plish-
ments. Indeed, St. Paul, .writing to the Corinthians,
who Inade much of such advantages of nature, contrasts
the persuasive words of human \visdom (( with the show-
ing of the Spirit," and tells us that u the kingdom of God
is not in speech, but in power."
But, not to go to t
e consideration of divine influences,
which is beyond my subject, the very presence of simple
earnestness is even in itself a powerful natural instrument
to effect that toward which it is directed. Earnestness
creates earnestness in others by sympathy; and the more
a preacher loses and is lost to himself, the more does he
gain his brethren. Nor is it without some logical force
also; for what is powerful erlough to absorb and possess
a preacher has at least a prÙnli facie claim of attention
on the part of his hearers. On the other hand, any thing
which interferes \vith this earnestness, or \vhich argues
its absence, is still nlore certain to blunt the force of the

408

University Preaching.

tHOst cogent argument conveyed in the most eloquent
language. Hence it is that the great philosopher of
antiquity, in speaking, in his Treatise on Rhetoric, of
the various kinds of persuasives, which are available in
the Art, considers the most authoritative of these to be
that which is drawn rom personal traits of an ethical
nature evident in the orator; for such matters are cog.
nizable by all men, and the common sense of the world
decides that it is safer, where it is possible, to commit
oneself to the judgment of men of character than to any
considerations addressed nlerely to the feelings or to the
reason.
On these grounds I would go on to lay do\vn a precept,
which I trust is not extravagant, \vhen allowance is tnade
for the preciseness and the point \vhich are unavoidable
in all categorical statenlents upon matters of conduct.
I t is, that preachers should neglect everything whatever
besides devotion to their one object, and earnestness in
pursuing it, till they in some good measure attain to these
requisites. Talent, logic, learning, words, manner, voice,
action, all are required for the perfection of a preacher;
but II one thing is necessary,"-an intense perception and
.appreciation of the end for which he preaches, and that is,
to be the minister of SOine definite spiritual good to those
who hear him. \Vho could wish to be more eloquent,
more powerful, nlore successful than the Teacher of the
Nations? yet who more earnest, \vho (nore natural, who
more unstudied, who more self-forgetting than he ?

3.
(I.) And here, in order to prevent nlisconception, two
remarks must be made, which will lead us further into
the subject we are engaged upon. The first is, tha t l in
what I have be en saying, I do not nl ean that _ a preach er_

UIlz"verszl)' l
, eachzllg.

4 0 9

must aim at earllestlless. but that he Iuust aim at his
obJect, which is to do some spiritual good to his hearers,
and which will at once "lake him earnes t. It is said
that, when a man has to cross an abyss by a narrow
plank thrown over it, it is his wisdom, not to look at the
plank, along which lies his path, but to fix his eyes
steadily on the point in the opposite precipice at which'
the plank ends. It is by gazing at the object which he
must reach, and ruling himself by it, that he secures to
himself the power of walking to it straight and steadily.
The case is the same in moral matters; no one will
become really earnest by ailuing directly at earnest-
ness; anyone may beconle eaI4t1est by meditating on
the n10tives, and by drinking at the sources, of earnest-
ness. We may of course \vork ourselves up into a pre-
tence, nay, into a paroxysm, of earnestness; as we may
chafe our cold hands till they are warm. But when we
cease chafing, we lose the warmth again; on the con-
trary, let the sun come out and strike us with his beams,
and we need no artificial chafing to be :warm. The hot
words, then, and energetic gestures of a preacher, taken
by themselves, are just as much signs of earnestness as
rubbing the hands or flapping the anns together are
signs of warmth; though they are natural where earnest-
ness already exists, and pleasing as being its spontaneous
concomitants. To sit do\vn to co mpo se for the pulpit
\vith a resolution to be eloquent is one _ i 1Jlpediment to
persuasion; but to be determined to be earnest is abso-
lutelv fatal to it. -
.- He who has before his mental eye the Four Last
Things will have the true earnestness, the horror or the
rapture, of one who witnesses a conflagration, or discerns
some rich and sublime prospect of natural scenery. His
countend.nçe. his manner, his voice, speak for him, in pro-

4 10

Un/'versify p, tach ing.

portion as his view has been vivid and nlinute. 1'he
great English poet has described this sort of eloquence
when a calamity had befallen:-

Yea, this n1an's brow, like to a title page,
Foretells the natUre of a tragic volume.
Thou tremblest, and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.

1 t is this earnestness, in the supernatural order, which
is the eloquence of saints; and not of saints only, but of
all Christian preachers, according to the measure of
thcir faith and love. As the case would be with one.
\vho has actually seen \vhat he relates, the herald of
tid ings of the invisible world also \viII be, fronl the
nature of the case, whether vehenlent or caln1, sad or
exulting, always simple, grave, emphatic, and perernp-
tory; and all this, not because he has proposed to hinl-
self to be so, but because certain intellectual convictions
involve certain external manifestations. St. Francis de
Sales is full and clear upon this point. It is necessary,
he says, Hut ipsemet penitus hauseris, ut persuasissimam
tibi habeas, doctrinam quam aliis persuasam cupis.
Artificium sumn1um erit, nullum habere artificium. In-
flammata sint verba, non clamoribus gesticulationibusve
immodicis, sed interiore affectione. De corde plus quàm
de ore proficiscantur. Quantumvis ore dixerimus, sanè
cor cordi loquitur, lingua non nisi au res pulsat." St.
Augustine had said to the same purpose long before:
"Sonus verborum nostrorum aures percutit; magister
intus est."
(2.) !VI v second remark is, that it is the preacher's duty
to aim at imparti.ng. t o others, not any
ortuitous , unpr e-
meditated benefit. but sonIe definite spiritual Rood. It is
he re that design and study find their place; the more

Un iversilJ' P reachzon g.

41 I

exact and precise is the subject which he treats, the more
impressive and practical \vill he be; whereas no one will
carry off much froln a discourse which is on the general
subject of virtue, or vaguely and feebly entertains the
question of the desirableness of attaining Heaven, or the
rashness of incurring eternal ruin. As a distinct itnage
before the mind makes the preacher earnest, so it will give
him something which it is worth while to communicate to
others. Mere sympathy, it is true, is able, as I have said,
to transfer an elnotion or sentiment from mind to mind,
but it is not able to fix it there. He must aim at imprint-
ing on the heart \vhat \vill never leave it, and this he
cannot do unless he en1ploy hilnsclf on sorne definite
subject, which he has to handle and \veigh, and then, as it
\vere, to hand over from hiInself to others.
Hence it is that the Saints insist so expressly on the
necessity of his addressing himself to the intellect of
nlen, and of convincing as well as persuading. "N ecesse
est ut doceat et moveat," says St. Francis; and St.
Antoninus still more distinctly: "Debet prædicator
clare loqui, ut instruat Ùztellectu1n auditoris, et doceat."
Hence, moreover, in St. Ignatius's Exercises, the act of
the intellect precedes that of the affections. Father
Lohner seems to me to be giving an instance in point
when he tells us of a court-preacher, who delivered what
\vould be commonly considered eloquent sermons, and
attracted no one; and next took to simple explanations
of the Mass and similar subjects, and then found the
church thronged. So necessary is it to have something
to say, if we desire anyone to listen.
Nay, I would go the len
t h of re comlnending a
preacher to place a distinct categ-orical proposition
before him , such
s he can \vrite do\vn in a form of words,-
and to guide and limit his p
eparation b y it, and to ai nl

412

UlliVe'I'Sl
}' EJ 1eac hlng.

in all he sa y
to bring it out, and nothing clse._ This
seems to be inlplied or suggested in S1. Charles's direc-
tion: "Id omnino studebit, ut quod in concione dicturus est
antea belle cogn-Üu1n habeat." Nay, is it not expressly con-
veyed in the Scripture phrase of" preaching the word" ?
for what is meant by U the word" but a proposition ad-
dressed to the intellect? nor will a preacher's earnestness
show itself in anything Inore unequivocally than in his re-
jecting, whatever be the telnptation to admit it, every
remark, however original, every period, however eloquent,
which does not in some way or other tend to bring out this
one distinct proposition which he has chosen. Nothing is
so fatal to the effect of a sermon as the habit of preacÍling
on three or four subjects at once. I acknowledge laIn
advancing a step beyond the practice of great Catholic
preachers when I add that, even though we preach on
only one at a time, finishing and dismissing the first
before \ve go to the second, and the second before we
go to the third, still, after all, a practice like this, though
not open to the inconvenience \vhich the confusing of one
subject with another involves, is in matter of fact nothing
short of the delivery of three sermons in succession with-
out break bet\veen them.
.
Summing up, then, what I have been saying, I observe
that, if I have understood the doctrine of St. Charles,
St. Francis, and other saints aright, defi1liteness of ob
ject
is in various ways the one virtue of the preacher ;-and
this means that he should set out with the intention of
conveying to others some spiritual benefit; that, with
a view to this.. and as the only ordinary way to it, he
should select some distinct fact or scene, some passage
in history, some truth, simple or profound, some doctrine,
some principle, or some sentiment, and should study it
well and thoroughly, and first n1ake it his own, or else

Un't"versz"ty Preaching.

4 1 3

have already dwelt on it and rnastered it, so as to be
able to use it for the occasion from an habitual under-
standing of it; and that then he should en1ploy hinlsclf,
as the one business of his discourse, to bring home to
others, and to leave deep within them, \vhat he has, be-
fore he began to speak to them, brought home to himself.
What he feels himself, and feels deeply, he has to make
others feel deeply; and in proportion as he comprehends
this, he will rise above the teæptation of introducing
collateral matters, and will have no taste, no heart. for
going aside after flowers of oratory, fine figures. tuneful
periods, which are worth nothing, unless they come to
him spontaneously, and are spoken (( out of the abun-
dance of the heart." Our Lord said on one occasion:
" I am come to send fire on the earth, and \vhat will I
but that it be kindled?" He had one work, and He
accomplished i.t. " The words," He says, "which Thou
gavest Me, I have given to them, and they have received
them, . and 1l0W I come to Thee." And the
Apostles, again, as they had received, so were they to
give. "That \vhich we have seen and have heard," says
one of them, U \ve declare unto you, that you may have
fello'lvshiþ with us." If, then, a preacher's subject only
be some portion of the Divine message, however elemen-
tary it may be, ho\vever trite, it will have a dignity such
as to possess him, and a virtue to kindle him, and an in-
fluence to subdue and convert those tc vdlom it goes
forth from him, according to the ,vords of the promise,
" My word, ,vhich shall go forth from My mouth, shall
not return to Me void, but it shall do ,vhatsoever I please,
and shall prosper in the things for ,vhich I sent it."

4.
2. And no,v having got as far as this, we shall see

4 1 4

Unz'versity Preach illg.

without difficulty \vhat a University Sernlon ought to be
just so f..lr as it is distinct from other sennons; for, if all
preaching is directed to\vards a hearer, such as is the
hearer will be the preaching, and, as a University audi-
tory differs from other auditories, so will a sermon
addressed to it differ from other sermons. This, indeed,
is a broad maxim \vhich holy men lay down on the
subject of preaching. Thus, St. Gregory Theologus, as
quoted by the Pope his namesake, says: "The self-same
exhortation is not suitable for all hearers; for all have
not the same disposition of mind, and what profits these
is hurtful t
those." The holy Pope himself throws the
Inaxim into another form, still more precise: II Debet
prædicator," he says, "perspicere, ne plus prædicet,
quàm ab audiente capi possit." And Sf. Charles ex-
pounds it, referring to Pope St. Gregory: "Pro audien-
tium genere locos doctrinarum, ex quibus concionenl
conficiat, non modo distinctos, sed optimè explicatos
habebit. Atque in hoc quidem multiplici genere con-
cionator videbit, ne quæcumque, ut S. Gregorius scitè
Inonet, legerit, aut scientiâ comprehenderit, omnia en un-
ciet atque effundat; sed delectum habebit, ita ut do-
cumenta alia exponat, alia tacitè relinquat, prout locus,
ordo, conditioque auditorum deposcat." And, by \vay of
obviating the chance of such a rule being considered a
hUlnan artifice inconsistent \vith the simplicity of the
Gospel, he had said shortly before: "Ad Dei glorian1, ad
cælestis regni propagationem, et ad animarum saluten1,
plurimum interest, non solum quales sint prædicatores,
sed quâ viâ, quâ ratione prædicent."
It is true, this is also one of the elementary principles
of the Art of Rhetoric; but it is no scandal that a
saintly Bishop should in this matter borrow a maxin1
from secular, nay, from pagan schools. For divine grace

University Preachz.ng.

4 1 5

does not overpo\ver nor supersede the action of the human
tnind according to its proper nature; and if heathen
\vriters have analyzed that nature well, so far let thenl
be used to the greater glory of the Author and Source
of all Truth. Aristotle, then, in his celebrated treatise
on Rhetoric, makes the very essence of the Art lie in the
precise recognition of a hearer. It is a relative art, and in
that respect differs from Logic, \vhich simply teaches the
right use of reason, whereas Rhetoric is the art of per-
suasion, which implies a person \vho is to be persuaded.
As, then, the Christian Preacher aims at the Divine
Glory, not in any vague and general way, but definitely
by the enunciation of some article or passage of the
Revealed Word, so further, he enunciates it, not for the
instruction of the whole \vorld, but directly for the sake
of those very persons who are before him. He is, \vhen
in the pulpit, instructing, enlightening, informing, ad..
vancing, sanctifying, not all nations, nor all classes, nor
all callings, but those particular ranks, professions, states,
ages, characters, which have gathered around him.
Proof indeed is the saIne all over the earth; but he has
not only to prove, but to persuade ;- Whom? A hearer,
then, is included in the very idea of preachin
; and \ve
cannot determine ho\v in detail we ought to preach, till
\ve know whom we are to address.
In all the most inlportant respects, indeed, all hearers
are the same, and what is suitable for one audience is
suitable for another. All hearers are children of Adan1,
all, too, are children of the Christian adoption and of the
Catholic Church. The great toprcs which suit the
multitude, \vhich attract the poor, which sway the un-
learned, which warn, arrest, recall, the wayward and
wandering, are in place within the precincts of a
University as elsewhere. A Studium Generate is not a

4 16

University Preaching.

cloister, or noviciate, or sen1inary, or boarding-school; it
is an assemblage of the young, the inexperienced, th

lay and the secular; and not even the simplest of
religious truths, or the most elementary article of the
Christian faith, can b
unseasonable from its pulpit. A
sermon on the Divine Omnipresence, on the future judg-
nlent, on the satisfaction of Christ, on the intercession of
saints, will be not less, perhaps n10re, suitable there than
if it were addressed to a parish congregation. Let no
one suppose that any thing recondite is essential to the
idea of a University sermon. The n105t obvious truths
are often the most profitable. Seldom does an oppor-
tunity occur for a subject there which might not under
circumstances be treated before any other auditory \vhat-
ever. Nay, further; an academical auditory Inight be
\vell content if it never heard any subject treated at all
but what would be suitable to any general congregation.
However, after all, a University has a character of its
own; it has some traits of human nature more promi-
nently developed than others, and its members are brought
together under circumstances which impart to the auditory
a peculiar colour and expression, even where it does not
substantially differ fronl another. It is composed of
men, not women; of the young rather than the old; and
of persons either highly educated or under education.
These are the points which the preacher will bear in
mind, and which will direct hinl both in his choice of
subject.. and in his nlode of treating it.

s.
(I.) And first as to his 1naller or subject. Here I
would remark upon the circumstance, that courses of
sermons upon theological points, polen1ical discussions,
treatises itl exlt'1lS0
and the like, are often illcl uded in

University Preaching.

4 1 7

the idea of a University Sermon, and are considered to
be legitirnately entitled to occupy the attention of a
University audience; the object of such compositions
being, not directly and mainly the edification of the
hearers, but the defence or advantage of Catholicism at
large, and the gradual formation of a volume suitable
for publication. Without absolutely discountenancing
such important works, it is not necessary to say more of
them than that they rather belong to the divinity school,
and fall under the idea of Lectures, than have a claim
to be viewed as University Sermons. Anyhow, I do
not feel called upon to speak of such discourses here.
And I say the same of panegyrical orations, discourses
on special occasions, funeral sennons, and the like.
Putting such exceptional compositions aside, I will con-
fine myself to the consideration of what may be calleå
Sermons proper. And here, I repeat, any general sub-
ject \vill be seasonable in the University pulpit which
would be seasonable else\vhere; but, if we look for sub-
jects especially suitable, they will be of t\vo kinds. The
"""-- --
temptations w hich ordinarily ass ail the young and the
'intellectual are t wo: those _which a re directed a

their virt ue, ap d tho s e which are -A irected ag ainst their
faith. All divine gifts are exposed to misuse and per

version; youth and intellect are both of theln goods)
and involve in them certain duties respectively, and can
be used to the glory of the Giver; but, as youth becomes
the occasion of excess and sensuality, so does intellect
give accidental opportunity to religious error, rash specu-
lation, doubt, and infidelity. That these are in fact the
peculiar evils to which large Academical Bodies are
liable is shown from the history of Universities; and if
a preacher \vould have a subject which has especial sig-
nificancy in such a place, he must select one which bears
27

418

lhz iversity Preach /11 g.

upon one or other of these t\\"o classes of sin. I mean,
he would be treating on some such subject with the
same sort of appositeness as he \\
ould discourse upon
ahnsgiving when addressing the rich, or on patience,
resignation, and industry, ,,,hen he ,vas addressing the
poor, or on forgiveness of injuries when he ,vas arldress-
ing the oppressed or persecuted.
To this suggestion I append t\VO cautions. _First, I
need hardly s a y, that a pr eacher sho uld be quite sure
that he underst a nds th e per
ons he is addressinc- before
hè ven tures to aim at ,vh Ie consid
be their ethical
condition ; for, if he ll1istakes, he w ill prob ililybe doi n K-
harm rat her th ãl1 good. I have kno\vn consequences
to occurvery far fronl edifying, \vhen strangers have
fancied they knew an auditory ,vhen they did not, and
have by implication imputed to them habits or motives
which were not theirs. Better far ,vould it be for a
preacher to select one of those more general subjects
which are safe than risk \vhat is evidently a 111 bitious, if
it is not successful.
l\f Y......9th er caution is this :-tha t J even when he ad-
dresses hÎInself to some sp ecial dan geLQr p robable defi-
cienc y or need of h is np;lrers, he s hould_ d o so cov erfu,
not showi ng on the surface of his disco urse \vhat he is

iming at. I see no advantage in a preacher pro-"
fessing to treat of infidelity, orthodoxy, or virtue, or the
pride of reason, or riot, or sensual indulgence. To say
nothing else, common-places are but blunt ,veapons;
,vhereas it is particular topics that penetrate and reach
their mark. Such subjects rather are, for instance, the
improvement of time, avoiding the occasions of sin,
frequenting the Sacraments, divine warnings, the inspi-
rations of grace, the mysteries of the Rosary, natural
virtue, beauty of the rites of the Church, consistency of

University Preachill g.

4 1 9

the Catholic faith, relation of Scripture to the Church, the
philosophy of tradition, and any others, \vhich may touch
the heart and conscience, or may suggest trains of
thought to the intellect, ,vithout proclaiming the main
reason why they have been chosen.
(2.) Next, as to the 1node of treating its subject, which
a University discourse requires. It is this respect, after all,
I think, in which it especially differs from other kinds of
preaching. As translations differ from each other, as
expressing the same ideas in different languages, so i!l
the case of sermons, each may undertake the san1e sub-
ject, yet treat it in its o\vn ,yay, as contemplating its
own hearers. This is \vell exemplified in the speeches of
S t. Paul, as recorded in the book of Acts. To the J e\vs he
quotes the Old Testament; on the Areopagus, addressinl

the philosophers of Athens, he insists,-not indeed upon
any recondite doctrine, contrariwise, upon the most ele-
mentary, the being and unityof God ;-but he treats it with
a learning and depth of thought, \vhich the presence of that
celebrated city naturally suggested. And in like manner,
while the most simple subjects are apposite in a Univer-
sity pulpit, they certainly would there require a treatInent
more exact than is necessary in merely popular exhorta-
tions. It is not asking much to demand for acadelnical
discourses a more careful study beforehand, a more
accurate conception of the idea .which they are to enforce,
a more cautious use of words, a more anxious consulta-
tion of writers of authority, and somewhat more of
philosophical and theological knowledge.
But here again, as before, I would insist on the neces-
sity of such compositions being unpretending. It is not
necessary for a preacher to quote the Holy Fathers, or
to sho\v erudition, or to construct an original argument,
or to be ambitious in style and profuse of ornament, on

420

U'ìzi'l'ersz"ty Preaching.

the ground that the audience is a University: it is only
necessary so to keep the character and necessities of his
hearers before him as to avoid \vhat may offend them..
or n1islead, or disappoint, or fail to profit.

6.
3. But here a distinct question opens upon us, on \vhich
I must say a few \vords in conclusion, viz., \vhether or not
the preacher should preach \vithout book.
This is a delicate question to enter upon, considering
that the Irish practice of preaching \vithout book, which
is in accordance with that of foreign countries, and, as it
would appear, \vith the tradition of the Church from the
first, is not universally adopted in England, nqr, as I
believe, in Scotland; and it might seem unreasonable
or presumptuous to abridge a liberty at present granted
to the preacher. I will simply set down \vhat occurs to
me to say on each side of the question.
First of all, looking at the matter on the side of usage,
I have always understood that it \vas the rule in Catholic
countries, as I have just said, both in this and in former
times, to preach \vithout book; and, if the rule be really
so, it carries extreme weight with it. I do not speak as
if I had consulted a library, and made my ground sure;
but at first sight it would appear impossible, even from
the number of homilies and comn1entaries which are
assigned to certain Fathers, as to St. Augustine or to St.
Chrysostom, that they could have delivered them from
formally-written compositions. On the other hand, St.
Leo's sern10ns certainly are, in the strict sense of the word,
compositions; nay, passages of them are carefully dog-
matic; nay, further still, they have sometimes the character
of a symbol, and, in consequence, are found repeated in
other parts of his works j and again6 though I do not

University Preaching.

4 21

profess to be well read in the works of St
hrysostom,
there is generally in such portions of them as are known
to those of us \vho are in Holy Orders, a peculiarity, an
identity of style, which enables one to recognize the
author at a glance, even in the latin version of the Bre-
viary, and \vhich \vould seem to be quite beyond the mere
fidelity of reporterr. It would seem, then, he must after
all have written them; and if he did \vrite at all, it is
more likely that he wrote with the stimulus of preaching
before him, than that he had time and inducement to
correct and enlarge them after\vards from notes, for what
is now called "publication," \vhich at that time could
hardly be said to exist at all. To this consideration \ve
must add the remarkable fact (\vhich, though in classical
history, throws light upon our inquiry) that, not to pro-
duce other instances, the greater part of Cicero's po\ver-
ful and brilliant orations against Verres were never
delivered at all. Nor must it be forgotten that Cicero
specifies memory in his enumeration of the distinct talents
necessary for a great orator. And then we have in corro-
boration the French practice of writing sermons and
learning them by heart.
These remarks, as far as they go, lead us to lay great
stress on the preparatio1z of a sermon, as amounting in
fact to composition, even in \vriting, and i11, extenso. No\v
consider St. Carlo's direction, as quoted above: "Id
omnino studebit, ut quod in concione dicturus est, antea
bene cognituln habeat." Now a parish priest has neither
time nor occasion for any but elementary and ordinary
topics; and any such subject he has habitually made
his own, "cogniturn habet," already; but when the
matter is of a ITIore select and occasional character, as
in the case of a University Sermon, then the preacher
has to study it well and thoroughly, and master it before-

422

Unt"vtrsify Preacht"ng.

hand. Study and meditation being imperative, can it
be denied that one of the most effectual nleans by which
we are able to ascertain our understanding of a subject,
to bring out our thoughts upon it, to clear our meaning,
to enlarge our vie\vs Qf its relations to other subjects,
and to develop it generally, is to \vrite do\vn carefully
all ,ve have to say about it? People indeed differ in
ll1atters of this kind, but I think that writing is a stimu-
lus to the Inental faculties, to the logical talent, to
originality, to the po\ver of illustration, to the arrange-
Jnent of topics, second to none. Till a man begins to
put do\vn his thoughts about a subject on paper he will
not ascertain \vhat he kno\vs and what he does not
kno\v; and still les
\vill he be able to express what he
does know. Such a formal preparation of course cannot
be required of a parish priest, burdened, as he may be,
\vith other duties, and preaching on elementary subjects,
and supported by the systematic order and the sugges-
tions of the Catechisn1; but in occasional sermons the
case is othen.vise. In these it is both possible and gene-
rally necessary; and the fuller the sketch, and the more
clear and continuous the thread of the discourse, the more
the preacher \vill find hiIDself at home \vhen the time 01
delivery arrives. I have said "generally necessary," for
of course there \vill be exceptional cases, in \vhich such
a nlode of preparation does not answer, whether from
SOine mistake in carrying it out, or from some special
gift superseding it.
To many preachers there \vill be another advantage
besides ;-such a practice will secure then1 against ven-
turing upon really extc1J1þore Inatter" The more ardent
a man is, and the greater po\ver he has of affecting his
hearers, so much the lnore \vill he need self-control and
sustained recollection, and feel the ad vantage of com-

Un'iversity Preaching.

4 2 3

mitting himself, as it were, to the custody of his previous
intentions, instead of yielding to any chance current of
thought which rushes upon him in the midst of his
preaching. His very gifts may need the counterpoise
of more ordinary and homely accessories, such as the
drudgery of cOlnposition.
It must be borne in mind too, that, since a University
Sermon will commonly have more pains than ordinary
besto\ved on it, it \vill be considered in the nun1ber of
those which the author \vould especially \vish to preserve.
Some record of it then will be natural, or even is involved
in its composition; and, \vhile the least elaborate will be
as n1uch as a sketch or abstract, even the most minute,
exact, and copious assemblage of notes will not be found
too long hereafter, supposing, as tilne goes on, any reason
occurs for wishing to commit it to the press.
Here are various reasons, \vhich are likely to lead, or
to oblige, a preacher to have recourse to his pen in pre-
paration for his special office. A further reason might
be suggested, which would be more intimate than any
we have given, going indeed so far as to justify the in-
troduction of a n1anuscript into the pulpit itself, if the
case supposed fell for certain under the idea of a Uni-
versity Sermon. It nlay be urged \vith great cogency
that a process of argument, or a logical analysis and in-
vestigation, cannot at all be conducted with suitable
accuracy of \vording, completeness of statemént, or suc-
cession of ideas, if the conlposition is to be prompted at
the n10nlent, and breathed out, as it \vere, from the
intellect together \vith the very words which are its
vehicle. There are indeed a few persons in a generation,
such as Pitt, \vho are able to converse like a book, and
to speak a parnphlet; but others must be content to \vrite
and to read their \vriting. This is true; but I have

4 2 4

Universtly Preach'ing.

already found reason to question whether such delicate
and complicated organizations of thought have a right
to the name of Sermons at all. In truth, a discourse,
\"hich, from its fineness and precision of ideas, is too
difficult for a preacher 0 deliver without such extraneous
assistance, is too difficult for a hearer to follow; and, if
a book be in1perative for teaching, it is imperative for
learning. Both parties ought to read, if they are to be
on equal terms ;-and this remark furnishes me with a
principle \vhich has an application \vider than the par-
ticular case which has suggested it.
vVhile, then, a preacher will find it becoming and advis-
able to put into \\Triting any ilnportant discourse before-
hand, he will find it equally a point of propriety and
expedience not to read it in the pulpit. I am not of
course denying his right to use a manuscript, if he wishes;
but he will do \vell to conceal it, as far as he can, unless,
which is the IDOst effectual concealment, \vhatever be its
counterbalancing disadvantages, he prefers, mainly not
verbally, to get it by heart. To conceal it, indeed, in one
way or other, \vill be his natural impulse; and this very
circumstance seems to show us that to read a sermon needs
an apology. For, why should he comn1it it to memory, or
conceal his use of it, unless he felt that it was nlore natural,
more decorous, to do \vithout it? And so again, if he em-
ploys a n1anuscript, the more he appears to dispense with
it, the more he looks off from it, and directly addresses his
audience, the more will he be cùnsidered to preach; and,
on the other hand, the IDore will he be judged to come
short of preaching the more sedulous he is in following
his manuscript line after line, and by the tone of his
voice makes it clear that he has got it safely before him.
\\That is this but a popular testimony to the fact that
preaching is not reading, and reading is not preaching?

University Preacht'nff.

4 2 5

There is, as I have said, a principle involved in this
decision. It is a common answer made by the Protestant
poor to their clergy or other superiors, \vhen asked why
they do not go to church, that "they can read their book
at home quite as \vell" It is quite true, they can read
their book at home, and it is difficult \vhat to rejoin, and
it is a problem, which has employed before now the more
thoughtful of their communion, to G13.ke out what is got
by going to public service. The prayers are from a
printed book, the sermon is from a rnanuscript. The
printed prayers they have already; and, as to the manu-
script sermon, why should it be in any respects better
than the volume of sermons which they have at home?
Why should not an approved author be as good as one
who has not yet submitted himself to criticism? And
again, if it is to be' read in the church, why may not one
person read it quite as well as another? Good advice is
good advice, all the world over. There is something
more, then, than composition in a sermon; there is
son1ething personal in preaching; people are drawn and
moved, not simply by what is said, but by how it is said,
and who says it. The same things said by one man are not
the same as when said by another. The same things when
read are not the same as when they are preached.

7.
In this respect the preacher differs from the n1inister
of the sacraments, that he comes to his hearers, in some
sense or other, \vith antecedents. Clad in his s<:.cerdotal
vestments, he sinks what is individual in himself alto-
gether, and is but the representative of Him from whom
he derives his comn1ission. His words, his tones, his
actions, his presence, lose their personality; one bishop,
one priest, is like another; they all chant the same notes,

426

UniverStlY Preaching

and observe the same genuflexions, as they gIve one
peace and one blessing, as they offer one and the
same sacrifice. The Mass must not be said without a
lVlissal under the priest's eye; nor in any language but
that in which it has come do\vn to us from the early
hierarchs of the \Vestern Church. But, ,vhen it is over,
and the celebrant has resigned the vestInents proper to
it, then he reSUlnes himself, and comes to us in the gifts
and associations which attach to his person. He knows
his sheep, and they kno\v him; and it is this direct bear-
ing of the teacher on the taught, of his mind upon their
minds, and the mutual sympathy \vhich exists between
them, \vhich is his strength and influence when he ad-
dresses them. They hang upon his lips as they cannot
hang upon the pages of his book. Definiteness is the
life of preaching. A definite hearer, not the whole
\vorld; a definite topic, not the whole evangelical tradi-
tion; and, in like manner, a definite speaker. Nothing
that is anonymous will preach; nothing that is dead and
gone; nothing even which is of yesterday, however
religious in itself and useful. Thought and word are
one in the Eternal Logos, and must not be separate in
those \vho are His shadows on earth. They must issue
fresh and fresh, as from the preacher's mouth, so from
his breast, if they are to be "spirit and life" to the hearts
of his hearers. And \vhat is true of a parish priest ap-
plies, IJlutatis 1Jlutalldis, to a University preacher; who,
even n10
e, perhaps, than the ordinary parochus, comes to
his audience \vith a name and a history, and excites a
personal interest, and persuades by what he is, as \vell a

by what he delivers.
I am far from forgetting that every one has his o\vn
talent, and that one has not \vhat another has. Elo-
quence is a divine gift, which to a c.ertain point super

U niversit:J' Preaching.

4 2 7

sedes rules, and is to be used, like other gifts, to the glory
of the Giver, and then only to be discountenanced \vhen
it forgets its place, \vhen it thro\vs into the shade and em-
barrasses the essential functions of the Christian preacher,
and claims to be cultivated for its own sake instead of
being made subordinate and subservient to a higher \vork
and to sacred objects. And how to make eloquence sub-
servient to the evangelical office is not more difficult
than ho\v to use learning or intellect for a supernatural
end; but it does not come into consideration here.
In the case of particular preachers, circumstances may
constantly arise \vhich render the use of a manuscript the
more advisable course; but I have been considering
ho\v the case stands in itself, and attempting to set do\vI1
\vhat is to be aimed at as best. If religious men once
ascertain \vhat is abstractedly desirable, and acquiesce
in it \vith their hearts, they will be in the way to get over
many difficulties \vhich otherwise will be insurn10untable.
For n1yself, I think it no extravagance to say that a
very inferior sermon, delivered \vithout book, ans\vers
the purposes for \vhich all sermons are delivered more
perfectly than one of great merit, if it be written and
read. Of course, all men \vill not speak without book
equally \vell, just as their voices are not equally clear
and loud, or their manner equally inlpressive. Elo-
quence, I repeat, is a gift; but most men, unless they
have passed the age for learning, may \vith practice
attain such fluency in expressing their thoughts as \vill
enable them to convey and manifest to their audience
that earnestness and devotion to their object, which is the
life of preaching,-which both covers, in the preacher's
own consciousness, the sense of his own deficienci
sJ and
Inakes up for them over and over again in the judgment
of his hearers.

428

VII.

CHRISTIAN ITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE.

A LECTURE IN THE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE.

I.
N OW that we have just comnlenced our second
Academical Year, it is natural, Gentlemen, that,
as in N ovem ber last, \vhen \ve were entering upon our
great undertaking, I offered to you some remarks Sl1g..
gested by the occasion, so no\v again I should not suffer
the first weeks of the Session to pass away without
addressing to you a few words on one of those subjects
which are at the moment especially interesting to us.
And \\ hen I apply myself to think \vhat topic I shall in
consequence submit to your consideration, I seem to be
directed \vhat to select by the principle of selection which
I followed on that former occasion to which I have
been referring. Then. we \vere opening the Schools of
Philosophy and Letters, as now we are opening those
of Medicine; and, as I then attempted some brief in-
vestigation of the mutual bearings of Revelation and
Literature, so at the present time I shall not, I trust, be
unprofitably engaging your attention, if I make one or
t\VO parallel reflections on the relations existing between
Revelation and Physical Science.
This subject, indeed, viewed in its just dimensions, is
far too large for an occasion such as this; still I may be
· VUJ. Article L

Christianity and Physical Science. 429

able to select some one point out of the many which it
offers for discussion, and, while elucidating it, to throw
. light even on others wàich at the moment I do not
formally undertake. l
ropose, then, to discuss the an-

nism \vhich is popularly sup
osed to exist between
.Physics and Theology: and to show. first. that such
antagonism does not really exist, and, next, to account
for the circumstance that so groundless an imagination
]þould have got abroad.
I think I am not mistaken in the fact that there exists,
both in the educated and half-educated portions of the
comm unity, something of a surmise or misgiving, that
there really is at bottom a certain contrariety between
the declarations of religion and the results of physical
inquiry; a suspicion such, that, while it encourages those
persons who are not over-religious to anticipate a coming
day, \vhen at length the difference will break out into
open conflict, to the disadvantage of Revelation, it leads
religious minds, on the other hand, who have not had
the opportunity of considering accurately the state of the
case, to be jealous of the researches, and prejudiced
against the discoveries, of Science. The consequence is,
on the one side, a certain contempt of Theology; on the
other, a disposition to undervalue, to deny, to ridicule,
to discourage, and almost to denounce, the labours of the
physiological, astronomical, or geological investigator.
I do not suppose that any of those gentlemen \vho are
now honouring me with their presence are exposed to
the temptation either of the religious or of the scientific
prejudice; but that is no reason why some notice of it
may not have its use even in this place. It may lead us
to consider the subject itself nlore carefully and exactly;
it may assist us in attaining clearer ideas than before
how Physics and Theology stand relatively to each other.

-J30 (ÏlrÙiiallity and PhY3lt.Yli

Cle1tCe.

2.
Let us begin with a first approximation to the real
state of the case, or a broad view, which, though it may
require corrections, will serve at once to illustrate and to
start the subject. We may divide kno\vledge, then, into
natural and supernatural. Some "knowledge, of course,
is both at once; for the moment let us put this circum-
stance aside, and view these two fields of knowledge in
themselves, and as distinct from each other in idea. By
nature is meant, I suppose, that vast system of things,
taken as a whole, of which we are cognizant by means of
our natural po\vers. By the supernatural world is meant

hat still more marvellous and awful universe, of which
the Creator Himself is the fulness, and which becomes
known to us, not through our natural faculties, but by
superadded and direct communication from Him. These
t
.o great circles of kno\vledge, as I have said, intersect;
first, as far as supernatural knowledge includes truths
and facts of the natural world, and secondly, as far as
truths and facts of the natural world are on the other
hand data for inferences about the supernatural. Still,
.-1l1owing this interference to the full, it will be found,
en the whole, that the two \vorlds and the t\VO kinds
of knowledge respectively are separated off from each
other; and that, therefore, as being separate, they can-
not on the whole contradict each other. That is, in
other words, a person who has the fullest kno\vledge of
one of these worlds, may be nevertheless, on the \vhole,
as ignorant as the rest of mankind, as unequal to form a
judgment, of the facts and truths of the other. He who
knows all that can possibly be kno\vn about physics,
about politics, about geography, ethnology, and ethics,
will have made no approximation whatever to decide

(nyislianity and Physical SC'ieJl('t,. 43 I

the question whether or not there are angels, and how
many are their orders; and on the other hand, the most
learned of dogmatic and mystical divines,-St. Augustine,
St. Thomas,-will not on that score know more than a
peasant about the laws of motion, or the wealth of nations.
I do not n1ean that there may not be speculations and
guesses on this side and that, but I speak of any conclu-
sion which merits to be called, I will not say kno\vledge,
but even opinion. If, then, Theology be the philosophy
of the supernatural world, and Science the philo
ophy of
the natural, Theology and Science, whether in their re-
spective ideas, or again in their own actual fields, 011 the
whole, are incon1n1unicable, incapable of collision, and
needing, at most to be connected, never to be reconciled.
No\v this broad general view of our subject is found to
be so far true in fact, in spite of such deductions from
it that have to be made in detail, that the recent French
editors of one of the works of St. Thomas are able to
give it as one of their reasons why that great theologian
made an alliance, not with Plato, but with Aristotle,
because Aristotle (they say), unlike Plato, confined him-
self to hU1l1an science, and therefore ,vas secured from
coming into collision \vith divine.
"Not without reason," they say, "did St. Thomas
ackno\vledge Aristotle as if the Master of human philo-
sophy; for, inasmuch as Aristotle was not a Theologian,
he had only treated of logical, physical, psychological,
and metaphysical theses, to the exclusion of those which
are concerned about the supernatural relations of man to
God, that is, religion; which, on the other hand, had
been the source of the worst errors of other philosophers,
and especially of Plato.'"

432 (Ïlristt'lllUY alld.PJt)'si{al S(Ù'}lce

3.
But if there be so substantial a truth even in this
very broad statement concerning the independence of the
fields of Theology an<t general Science severally, and the
consequent impossibility of collision behveen them, how
Inuch more true is that statement, from the very nature
of the case, \vhen \ve contrast Theology, not with Science
generally, but definitely with Physics! In Physics is
cOlllprised that family of sciences \vhich is concerned
\vith the sensible world, with the phenomena whic
we
see, hear, and handle, or, in other words, \vith matter. It
is the philosophy of matter. I ts basis of operations.
what it starts from, \vhat it falls back upon, is the phe-
nomena which ll1eet the senses. Those phenomena it
ascertains, catalogues, compares, combines, arranges, and
then uses for determining something beyond themselves,
viz., the order to \vhich they are subservient, or what we
commonly call the la\vs of nature. It never travels be-
yond the examination of cause and effect. Its object is
to resolve the complexity of phenomena into simple ele-
ments and principles; but when it has reached those first
elements, principles, and laws, its mission is at an end;
it keeps \vithin that material system with which it began,
and never ventures beyond the "flammantia mænia
mundi." It ma}
, indeed, if it chooses, feel a doubt of
the completeness of its analysis hitherto, and for that
reason endeavour to arrive at more simple la\vs and fewel
principles. It may be dissatisfied \vith its own combina-
tions,hypotheses, systems; and leave Ptolemy for Newton,
the alchemists for Lavoisier and Davy ;-that is, it may
decide that it has not yet touched the botton1 of its own
subject; but still its aim \vill be to get to the bottom,
and nothing more. \Vith matter it began, with ll1atter it

Christianlïj a1uí Physical Sciellce. 433

will end; it \vill never trespass into the province of mind.
The I-lindoo notion is said to be that the earth stands
upon a tortoise; but the physicist, as such, \vill never
ask himself by \vhat influence, external to the universe,
the universe is sustained; simply because he is a physicist.
If indeed he be a religious man, he \vill of course have
a very definite view of the subject; but that vie\v of his
is private, not professional,-the view, not of a physicist,
but of a religious man; and this, not because physical
science says any thing different, but simply because it
says nothing at all on the subject, nor can do so by the
very undertaking with \vhich it set out. The question
is simply extra arte-m. The physical philosopher has
nothing \vhatever to do \vith final causes, and will get
into inextricable confusion, if he introduces them into his
investigations. He has to look in one definite direction,
not in any other. It is said that in some countries, when
a stranger asks his \vay, he is at once questioned in turn
what place he came from: something like this \vould be
the unseasonableness of a physicist, \vho inquired how the
phenomena and la\vs of the nlaterial \vorld prin1arily
came to be, \vhen his simple task is that of ascertaining
what they are. \tVithin the limits of those phenomena
he nlay speculate and prove; he may trace the operation
of the laws of matter through periods of time; he may
penetrate into the past, and anticipate the future; he
may recount the changes \vhich they have effected upon
matter, and the rise, growth, ånd decay of phenomena;
and so in a certain sense he may write the history of
the material \vorld, as far as he can; still he \vill ahvays
advance from phenomena, and conclude upon the internal
evidence which they supply. He \vill not come near the
questions, \vhat that ultimate element is, \vhich \ve call
matter J how it came to be, \vhether it can cease to be,
28

434 Chrzs!Ùlnity and Ph)1sical Scicnce.

\vhether it ever \vas not, ,vhether it will evet come tQ
nought, in what its Ia\vs really consist, \vhether they can
cease to be, whether they can be suspended, \vhat causa-
tion is, \vhat time is, what the relations of time to cause
and effect, and a hundred other questions of a sitni lar
.
character.
Such is Physical Science, and Theology, as is obvious,
is just what such Science is not. Theology begins, as its
name denotes, not with any sensible facts, phenomena,
or results, not \vith nature at all, but with the Author of
nature,-with the one invisible, unapproachable Cause
and Source of all things. It begins at the other end of
kno,vledge, and is occupied, not ,vith the finite, but the
Infinite. It unfolds and systen1atizes what He Himself
has told us of Himself; of His nature, His attributes,
His \vill, and His acts. As far as it approaches to\vards
Physics, it takes just the counterpart of the questions
which occupy the Physical Philosopher. He contem-
plates facts before him; the Theologian gives the reasons
of those facts. The Physicist treats of efficient causes;
the Theologian of final. The Physicist tells us of la \VS ;
the Theologian of the Author, Maintainer, and Controller
of them; of their scope, of their suspension, if so be; of
their beginning and their end. This is ho\v the t\VO
schools stand related to each other, at that point "'here
they approach the nearest; but for the most part they
are absolutely divergent. What Physical Science is en-
gaged in I have already said; as to Theology, it con-
templates the world, not of matter, but of mind; the
Supreme Intelligence; souls and their destiny; conscience
and duty; the past, present, and future dealings of the
Creator with the creature.

Christianity and PhJ1sicai Science. 435

4-
So far, then, as these remarks have gone, Theology and
Physics cannot touch each other, have no intercommunion,
have no ground of difference or agreement, of jealousy or
of sympathy. As well may Inusical truths be said to
interfere \vith the doctrines of architectural science; as
well may there be a collision bet\veen the m
chanist and
the geologist, the engineer and the grammarian ; as well
nlight the British Parliament or thp French nation be
jealous of some possible belligerent power upon the
l1r-
face of the moon, as Physics pick a quarrel \vith Theolo gx.
And it may be weIl,-before I proceed to fill up in detail
this outline, and to explain what has to be explained in
this statement,-to corroborate it, as it stands, by the
remarkable \vords upon the subject of a \vriter of the
day :--
U "Ve often hear it said," he observes, \vriting as a Pro-
testant (and here let me assure you, Gentlen1en, that
though his \vords have a controversial tone \vith them, I
do not quote them in that aspect, or as \vishing here to
urge any thing against Protestants, but merely in pur-
suance of my own point, that Revelation and Physical
Science cannot really come into collision), "we" often hear
it said that the world is constantly becoming more and
more enlightened, and that this enlightenment must be
favourable to Protestantism, and unfavourable to Catho-
licism. We \vish that \ve could think so. But we see
great reason to doubt \vhether this is a \vell-founded ex-
pectation. We see that during the last t\VO hundred and
fifty years the hun1an mind has been in the highest degree
active; that it has made great advances in every branch
of natural philosophy; that it has produced innumerable
* Ma
1.u13Y's Ess-ays.

436 Ch1"tstza ltty and Ph)lsÙ;al Scic1lcE.

inventions tending to promote the convenience of life;
that medicine, surgery, chemistry, engineering, have been
very greatly improved, that governn1ent, police, and la\v
have been improved, though not to so great an extent as
the physical sciences.. Yet \ve see that, during these t\VO
hundred and fifty years, Protestantisnl has made no con-
quests \vorth speaking of. Nay, we believe that, as far
as there has been change, that change has, on the whole,
been in favour of the Church of Rome. \Ve cannot,
therefore, feel confident that the progress of kno\vledge
\vili necessarily be fatal to a systelll ,vhich has, to say the
least, stood its ground in spite of the imn1ense progress
made by the human race in kno\vledge since the days of
Queen Eliza beth.
"Indeed, the argument \vhich we are considering
seems to us to be founded on an entire mistake. There
are branches of kno\vledge with respect to which the law
of the human mind is progress. In mathematics, ,,,hen
once a proposition has been demonstrated, it is never
aftenvards contested. Every fresh story is as solid a
basis for a ne\v superstructure as the original foundation
was. Here, therefore, there is a constant addition to
the stock of truth. In the inductive sciences, again, the
la,v is progress. . .
"But \vith theology the case is very different. As
respects natural religion (Revelation being for the pre-
sent altogether left out of the question), it is not easy to
see that a philosopher of the present day is more favour-
ably situated than Thales or Simonides. He has before
him just the same evidences of design in the structure of
the universe \vhich the early Greeks had. . . As to the
other great question, the question what becomes of man
after death, \ve do not see that a highly educated Euro-
pean, left to his unassisted reason, is 1110re likely to be

Christianity and PhysÙ:al 8tïenct. 437

in the right than a Blackfoot Indian. Not a single one
of the many sciences, in \vhich we surpass the Blackfoot
Indians, thro\vs the smallest light on the state of the soul
after the animal life is extinct. . .
(( Natural Theology, then, is not a progressive science.
1'hat kno\vledge of our origin and of our destiny \vhich
\ve derive from Revelation is indeed of very different
clearness, and of very different importance. But neither
is Revealed Rçligion of the nature of a progressive
science. . . In divinity there cannot be a progress ana-
logous to that \vhich is constantly taking place in phar-
macy, geology, and navigation. A Christian of the fifth
century with a Bible is neither better nor ,vorse situated
than a Christian of the nineteenth century \vith a Bible,
candour and natural acuteness being of course supposed
equal. It matters not at all that the compass, prin"ting,
gunpowder, steam, gas, vaccination, and a thousand other
discoveries and inventions, which \vere unknown in the
fifth century, are faI1riliar to the nineteenth. None oi
these discoveries and inventions has the smallest bear-
ing on the question \vhether man is justified by faith
alone, or \vhether the invocation of saints is an orthodox
practice. . . We are confident that the world \vill never
go back to the solar system of Ptolemy; nor is our con-
fidence in the least shaken by the circumstance that so
great a man as Bacon rejected the theory of Galileo
with scorn; for Bacon had not all the means of arriving
at a sound conclusion. . . But when \ve reflect that Sir
Thomas l\Iore ,vas ready to die for the doctrine of
Transubstantiation, ,ve cannot but feel some doubt
whether the doctrine of Transubstantiation may not
tri umph over all opposition. l\iore was a man of emi-
nent talents. He had all the information on the sub-
ject that \ve have, or fltat, while the u'orld lasts, all)'

438 ChYl
stialltty and Physical SC1
nce.

hU1nan being will have. . . No progress that science has
11tade, or wil/111ake, can add to what seems to us the
overwhelming force of the argument against the Real
Presence. We are therefore unable to understand why
what Sir Thomas l\iore believed respecting Transubstan-
tiation may not be believed to the end of time by men
equal in abilities and honesty to Sir Thomas
lore. But
Sir Thomas More is one of the choice specimens of
hUlnan wisdom and virtue; and the doctrine of Tran-
substantiation is a kind of proof charge. The faith
,vhich stands that test ,vill stand any test. . .
(( The history of Catholicism strikingly illustrates these
observations. During the last seven centuries the public
nlind of Europe has made constant progress in every
department of secular knowledge; but in religion we
can trace no constant progress. .. Four times since
the authority of the Church of Rome was established in
Western Christendom has the human intellect risen up
against her yoke. T\\Tice that Church remained com-
pletely victorious. Twice she came forth froIn the con-
flict bearing the marks of cruel wounds, but with the
principle of life still strong within her. When we reflect
on the tremendous assaults she has survived, we find it
difficult to conceive in what ,vay she is to perish."
You see, Gentlemen, if you trust the judgment of a
sagacious mind, deeply read in history, Catholic Theo_ e
logy has nothing to fear from the progress of Physical
Science, even independently of the divinity of its doc-
trines. It speaks of things supernatural; and these, by
the very force of the words, research into nature cannot
touch.

s.
It is true that the author in question, ,vhile saying all

ChYl,stianity and Physz'cal Scz"ence. 439

this, and much more to the same purpose, also makes
mention of one exception to his general statement,
though he mentions it in order to put it aside. I, too,
have to notice the same exception here; and you will
see at once, Gentlemen, as soon as it is named, how little
it interferes really with the broad view which I have
been drawing out. It is true, then.. that Revelation hé!L
in one or two instances advanc
d b ey ond its chosen
territory, which is the invisible world
in order to throw
Jight upon the history of...the- material universe. Ho ly
Scripture, it is p
rfectly true , does declare a few mo-
mentous facts, so few that they ma y be counted, of a
phy sical character. It speaksof a p rocess of formation
oot of chaos which occupied six days; it speaks of the
firmament; of the sun and moon being created for the
sake of the earth; of the earth being immovable; of a
great deluge; and of several other similar facts and
events. It is true; nor is there any reason why \ve
should anticipate any difficulty in accepting these state-
ments as they stand, \vhenever their meaning and drift
are authoritatively determined; for, it must be recol-
lected} their mea ning has not yet e ngag ed the formal
attention of the C hurch, or re.. cej ved any interpretation
-;hich, as Catholics, we are bound to _ a
cept. and in
the absence of such definite inte r pretation. there is per-
haps some presumption in saying that it means this. and
dges not mean that. And this being the case, it is not
at all probable that any discoveries ever should be made
by physical inquiries incompatible at the same time
with one and all of those senses which the letter admits,
and \vhich are still open. As to certain popular interpre-
tations of the texts in question, I shall have something
to say of them presently; here I aln only concerned
with the letter of the Holy Scriptures itself, as far as it

440 Christianity and Physical
èiella'.

bears upon the history of the heaven
and the earth; and
I say that \ve may \vait in peace and tranquil1ity till
there is SOlne real collision between Scripture authorita-
tively interpreted, and results of science clearly ascer-
tained, before \ve consider ho\v we are to deal \vith a
difficulty which we have reasonable grounds for think-
ing \vill never really occur.
And, after noticing this exception, I really have made
the utn10st admission that has to be made about the
existence of any comn10n ground upon \vhich Theology
and Physical Science may fight a battle. On the \vhole,
the t\VO studies do most surely occupy distinct fields, in
\vhich each may teach without expecting any inter-
position from the other. It might indeed have pleased
the Almighty to have superseded physical inquiry by
revealing the truths \vhich are its object, though He has
not done so: but \vhether it had pleased Him to do so
or not, anyho\v Theology and Physics would be distinct
sciences; and nothing which the one says of the ma-
terial \vorld ever can contradict \vhat the other says of
the immaterial. Here, then, is the end of the question;
and here I n1Ïght come to an end also, were it not in-
cumbent on me to explain ho\v it is that, though Theo-
logy and Physics cannot quarrel, nevertheless, Physical
Philosophers and Theologians have quarrelled in fact,
and quarrel still. To the solution of this difficulty I
shall devote the ren1ainder of n1Y Lecture.

6.
I observe, then, that the elen1entary methods of reason-
ing and inquiring used in Theology and Physics are
contrary the one to the other; each of them has a ·
method of its own; and in this, I think, has lain the
point of controversy between the t\VO schools, vi7..,

Christianity and Plrysical Scienu. 44 I

neither of thenl has been Quite content to remain on its
own honlest ead...put _ t hat, \vhereas each has its o\vn
"'-nlethod, \vhich is the best for its own science, each has
considered it the best for all p urpos es whatever. and has

t different times thou g ht to iãïPose it upon the other
science, to the disparageme nt ou-eject ion of that.9p-p osite
methodwhichl ëg i!imately belon g
.1o it.
- The argumentative method of Theol ogy is that of
a strict science, such as Geomet ry . or deductive ;

method of Physics, at least on starti ng, is that of aIL

mpirical pursuit. or inductive. This peculiarity on either
side arises from the nature of the case. In Physics a
vast and omnigenous mass of information lies before the
inquirer, all in a confused litter, and needing arrangement
and analysis. In Theology such varied phenomena are
wanting, and Revelation presents itself instead. What is
known in Christianity is just that which is revealed, and
nothing more; certain truths, communicated directly from
above, are committed to the keeping of the faithful, and
to the very last nothing can really be added to those
truths. From the time of the Apostles to the end of
the \vorld no strictly new truth can be added to the theo-
10gicaJ information \vhich the Apostles \vere inspired to
deliver. It is possible of course to make numberless de-
ductions from the original doctrines; but, as the conclu-
sion is ever in its premisses, such deductions are not,
strictly speaking, an addition; and, though experience
may variously guide and modify those deductions, stili,
on the whole, Theology retains the severe character of
a science, advancing syllogistically from premisses to
conclusion.
The method of Physics is just the reverse of this: it
has hardly any principles or truths to start with, exter-
nally delivered and already ascertained. It has to com-

442 Christianity and Phys'Z"cal Scz.enct.

mence with sight and touch; it has to handle, weigh,
and measure its o\vn exuberant sylva of phenomena, and
from these to advance to new truths,-truths, that is,
which are beyond and distinct from the phenomena from
which they originate. . Thus Physical Science is experi-
nlental, Theology traditional; Physical Science is the
richer, Theology the more exact; Physics the bolder t
Theology the surer; Physics progressive, Theology, in
comparison, stationary; Theology is loyal to the past,
Physics has visions of the future. Such they are, I repeat,
and such their respective methods of inquiry, from the
nature of the case.
But minds habituated to either of thes e two me thods
can hardly hel p extendin g it beyon d its _ due liïñ

un less th ey are p ut upon their guard, and have great
comman d of th s It cannot be denied that
divines have from time to time been much inclined to
give a traditional, logical shape to sciences \vhich do not
admit of any such treatment. N or can it be denied, on the
other hand, that men of science often show a special
irritation at theologians for going by antiquity, precedent,
authority, and logic, and for declining to introduce
Bacon or Niebuhr into their own school, or to apply
some ne\v experimental and critical process for the
improvement of that \vhich has been given once for all
from above. Hence the mutual jealousy of the two
parties; and I shall no\v attempt to give instances of it.

7.
First, then, let me refer to those interpretations of
Scripture, popular and of long standing, though not
authoritative, to \vhich I have already had occasion to
allude. Scripture, we know, is to be interpreted accord-
ing to the unanimous consent of the Fathers; but,

Chrl:
lianit)' and Physual Science. 443

besides this consent, which is of authority, carrying with
it the evidence of its truth, there have ever been in
Christendom a number of floating opinions, more or less
appended to the divine tradition; opinions which have a
certain probability of being more than human, or of having
a basis or admixture of truth, but which admit of no test,
whence they canle, or how far they are true, besides the
course of events, and which meanwhile are to be received
at least with attention and deference. Sometimes they
are comments on Scripture prophecy, sometimes on other
obscurities or mysteries. It ,vas once an opinion, for
instance, drawn from the sacred text, that the Chris-
tain Dispensation ,vas to last a thousand years, and no
more; the event disproved it. A still more exact and
plausible tradition, derived from Scripture, was that
which asserted that, when the Roman Empire should
fall to pieces, Antichrist should appear, who should be
followed at once by the Second Coming. Various Fathers
thus interpret S1. Paul, and Bellarmine receives the inter-
pretation as late as the sixteenth century. The event
alone can decide if, under any aspect of Christian history,
it is true; but at present we are at least able to say that
it is not true in that broad plain sense in which it was
once received.
Passing from comments on prophetical passages of
Scripture to those on cosmological, it was, I suppose, the
conlmon belief of ages, sustained by received interpreta-
tions of the sacred text, that the earth was immovable.
Hence, I suppose, it was that the Irish Bishop who as-
serted the existence of the Antipodes alarmed his con-
temporaries; though it is well to observe that, even in
the dark age in which he lived, the Holy See, to ,vhich
reference was made, did not conlmit itself to any condem-
nation of the unusual opinion. The same alarm again

444 Ch1-istianíty and Plzysical SCIßnce.

occupieò the public mind when the Copernican System
\vas first advocated: nor were the received traditions,
which were the ground of that alarm, hastily to be
rejected; yet rejected they ultimately have been. If
in any quarter these. human traditions ,vere enforced,
and, as it were, enacted, to the prejudice and detriment
of scientific investigations (and this was never done by
the Church herself), this \vas a case of undue interference
on the p art of the Theolo g ical schools in the p rov i nce _
.Q.!l
þysics.
So much may be said as regards interpretations of
Scripture; but it is easy to see that other received
opinions, not resting on the sacred volume, might \vith
less claim and greater inconvenience be put fonvard to
harass the physical inquirer, to challenge his submission,
and to preclude that process of examination ,vhich is
proper to his o,vn peculiar pursuit. Such are the dicta-
torial formulæ against ,vhich Bacon inveighs, and the
effect of \vhich was to change Physics into a deductive
science, and to oblige the student to assume implicitly,
as first principles, enunciations and maxims, ,vhich were
venerable, only because no one could tell whence they
came, and authoritative, only because no one could say
what arguments there \vere in their favour. In proportion
as these encroachments \vere made upon his o\vn field of
inquiry \vould be the indignation of the physical philo-
sopher; and he would exercise a scepticism \vhich re-
lieved his feelings, while it approved itself to his reason,
if he was called on ever to keep in mind that light bodies
\vent up, and heavy bodies fell down, and other similar
maxims, which had no pretensions to a divine origin, or
to be considered self-evident principles, or intuitive truths.
And in like manner, if a philosopher \vith a true genius
for physical research found the Physical Schools of hi

Christianity and Physlcat
ClèllCe. 445

day occupied with the discussion of final causes, and
solving difficulties in material nature by means of them;
if he found it decided, for instance, that the roots of trees
make for the river, because they need Inoisture, or that
the axis of the earth lies at a certain angle to the plane
of its motion by reason of certain advantages thence
accruing to its inhabitants, I should not wonder at his
exerting himself for a great reform in the process of in-
quiry, preaching the method of Induction, and, if he
fancied that theologians were indirectly or in any respect
the occasion of the blunder, getting provoked for a time,
however unreasonably, \vith Theology itsel(
I wish the experimental school of Philosophers had
gone no further in its opposition to Theology than in..
dulging in son1e indignation at it for the fault of its dis-
ciples; but it must be confessed that it has run into
excesses on its own side for which the school of high
Deductive Science has afforded no precedent; and that,
if it once for a time suffered from the tyranny of th

logical method of inquiry, it has encouraged, by \vay of · Ý..
reprisals, encroachments and usurpations on the province
of Theology far more serious than that unintentional ana
long obsolete interference with its own province, on the
part of Theologians, ,vhich has been its excuse. And to
these unjustifiable and mischievous intrusions made by
the Experimentalists into the department of Theology
I have no\v, Gentlemen, to call your attention.

8.
You will let me repeat, then, what I have already said,
that, taking things as they ar
, the very idea of Revela-
tion is that of a direc t interference fr om above. for th<:
introduction of truths otherwise unknow n; moreover, as
such a comlnunication implies recipi
nts. an authoritative

446 Chrislia1li
y and Physical Science.

dcpo5itary of the things revealed will be found practically
to be involved in that idea. Knowledge, then, of these
revealed truths, is gained, not by any research into facts,
but sinlply by appealing to the authoritative keepers of
them, as every Cath
lic knows, by learning what is a
matter of teaching, and by dwelling upon, and drawing
out into detail, the doctrines which are delivered; ac-
cording to the text, "Faith cometh by hearing." I do
not prove what, after all, does not need proof: because
I speak to Catholics; I am stating what we Catholics
know, and ever will lnaintain to be the method proper
to Theology, as it has ever been recognized. Such, I
say, is the theological method, deductive; however, the
history of the last three centuries is only one long course
of attempts, on the part of the partisans of the Baconian
Philosophy, to get rid of the method proper to Theology
and to make it an experimental science.
But, I say, for an experimental science, we must have
a large collection of phenomena or facts: where, then, are
those which are to be adopted as a basis for an inductive
theology? Three principal stores have been used, Gentle-
men: the first, the text of Holy Scripture; the second,
the events and transactions of ecclesiastical history; the
third, the phenomena of the visible world. This triple
subject-matter,-Scripture, Antiquity, Nature,-has been
taken as a foundation, on ,vhich the inductive method may
be exercised for the investigation and ascertainment of
that theological truth, which to a Catholic is a matter of
teaching, transmission, and deduction.
N ow let us pause for a moment and make a reflection
before going into any detail. Truth cannot be contrary
to truth; if these three S'J
jcct-matters were able, under
the pressure of the inductive method, to yield respectively
theological conclusions in unison and in concord \vith each

Christianity and Physical Science. 447

other, and also contrary tD the doctrines of Theology as
a deductive science, then that Theology would not indeed
at once be overthrown (for still the question \vould remain
for discussion, which of the t\VO doctrinal systems \vas the
truth, and which the apparent truth), but certainly the
received deductive theological science would be in an
anxious position, and would be on its trial.
Again, truth cannot be contrary to truth j-if, then, on
the other hand, these three subject-matters,-Scripture,
Antiquity, and Nature,-\vorked through three centuries
by men of great abilities, \vith the method or instrument
of Bacon in their hands, have respectively issued in con-
clusions contradictory of each other, nay, have even issued,
this or that taken by itself, Scripture or Antiquity, in
various systems of doctrine, so that on the \vhole, instead
of all three resulting in one set of conclusions, they have
yielded a good score of them ; then and in that case-
it does not at once follow that no one of this score of
conclusions may happen to be the true one, and all the
rest false; but at least such a catastrophe will throw
a very grave shade of doubt upon them aU, and bears out
the antecedent declaration, or rather prophecy, of theo-
logians, before these experimentalists started, that it was
nothing more thanahuge mistake to introduce the method
of researcà and of induction into the study of Theology
a tall.
Now I think you will allow me to say, Gentlemen, as
a matter of historical fact, that the latter supposition has
been actually fulfilled, and that the former has not. I
mean that, so far from a scientific proof of some one
system of doctrine, and that antagonistic to the old
Theology, having been constructed by the experimental
party, by a triple convergence, from the several bases of
Scripture, Antiquity, and Nature, on the contrary, that.

r: .J1.

448 ChristÙlllity and Physical Science.
I empirical method, which has done such wonderful things
in physics and other human sciences, has sustained a most
enlphatic and eloquent reverse in its usurped territory,-
has come to no one conclusion,-has illuminated no de-
finite vie\v,-has brought its glasses to no focus,-has
..
sho\vn not even a tendency towards prospective success;
nay, further still, has already confessed its own absolute
failure, and has closed the inquiry itself, not indeed by
giving place to the legitimate method \vhich it dispos-
sessed, but by announcing that nothing can be kno,vn
on the subject at all,-that religion is not a science, and
that in religion scepticisln is the only true philosophy;
or again, by a still more renlarkable avowal, that the
decision lies bcl'l()[f1l the old Theology and none at all,
and that, certain though it be that religious truth is no-
where, yet that, if anywhere it is, it undoubtedly is not
in the ne\v en1pirical schools, but in that old teaching,
founded on the deductive method, \vhich was in honour
and in possession at the time \vhen Experiment and In-
duction conlmenced their brilliant career. What a sin-
gular break-do\vn of a noble instrunlent, when used for
the arrogant and tyrannical invasion of a sacred territory!
\Vhat can be nlore sacred than Theology? vVhat can
be more noble than the Baconian method? But the t\VO
do not correspond; they are nlismatched. The age has
mistaken lock and key. I t has broken the key in a lock
\vhich does not belong to it; it has ruined the \vards by
a key 'which never \vill fit into then1. Let us hope that
its present disgust and despair at the result are the pre-
\ liminaries of a generous and great repentance.
I have thought, Gentlemen, that you would allow me
to dra\v this Inoral in the first place; and no\v I \vill say
a fe\v \\'or<1s on one specimen of this error in detail

.

Lïzristiallzïy and Pk.vsz"cal Science. 4..J-9

9.
It seems, then, that instead of having recourse to the
tradition and teaching of the Catholic Church, it has been
the philosophy of the modern school to attempt to de-
termine the doctrines of Theology by means of Holy
Scripture, or of ecclesiastical antiquity, or of physical
phenomena. And the question may arise, why, after all,
should not such informations, scriptural, historical, or
physical, be used? and if used, why should they not lead
to true results? Various answers may be given to this
question: I shall confine myself to one; and again, for
the sake of brevity, I shall apply it mainly to one out of
the three expedients, to which the opponents to Theology
have had recourse. Passing over, then, what might be
said respecting what is called Scriptural Religion, and
Historical Religion, I propose to direct your attention, in
conclusion, to the real character of Physical Religion, or
Natural Theology, as being more closely connected with
the main su bj ect of this Lecture.
The school of Physics, from its very drift and nlethod
of reasoning, has, as I have said, nothing to do with
Religion. However, there is a science which avails itself
of the phenomena and laws of the material universe, as
exhibited by that school, as a means of establishing the
existence of Design in their construction, and thereby
the fact of a Creator and Preserver. This science has, in
these modern times, at least in England, taken the name
of Natural Theology;- and, though absolutely distinct
fron1 Physics, yet Physical Philosophers, having furnished
its most curious and interesting data, are apt to claim it
as their own, and to pride themselves upon it accordingly.

* I use the word, not in the sense of "N aturalis Theologia, tJ but, in the
sense in wlúch Paley uses it in the work which he has so entitled.
29

-
50 LnristiaJlity and jJhysicai !::'èúllce.

I have no ,vish to speak lightly of the merits of this
so-called Natural or, more properly, Physical Theology.
There are a great rnany minds so constituted that, when
they turn their thoughts to the question of the existence
of a Supreme Being they feel a comfort in resting the
proof mainly or solely on the Argument of Design ,vhich
the Universe furnishes. To them this science of Physical
Theology is of high importance. Again, this science
exhibits, in great prominence and distinctness, three of
the more elementary notions which the human reason
attaches to the idea of a Supreme Being, that is, three of
I lis simplest attributes, Po,ver, \Visdom, and Goodness.
These are great services rendered to faith by Physical
'rheology, and I acknowledge them as such. Whether,
ho\vever, Faith on that account owes any great deal to
Physics or Physicists, is another matter. The Argument
fronl Design is really in no sense due to the philosophy
of Bacon. The author I quoted just now has a striking
passage on this point, of \vhich I have already read to
you a part. " As respects Natural Religion," he says, "it
is not easy to see that the philosopher of the present day
is more favourably situated than Thales or Simonides.
He has before him just the same evidences of design in
the structure of the universe \vhich the early Greeks had.
'VVe say, just the same; for the discoveries of modern astro-
nomers and anatomists have really added /lothi1lg to the
force of that argument which a reflecting mind finds in
every beast, bird, insect, fish, leaf: flower, and shell. The
reasoning by which Socrates, in Xenophon's hearing,
confuted the little atheist, Aristodemus, is exactly the
reasoning of Paley's Natural Theology. Socrates makes
precisely the sanle use of the statues of Polycletus and
the pictures of Zeuxis, \vhich Paley nlakes of the \vatch."
Physica1 Theology, then, is pretty much what it was

Christianity and Physical Science. 45 I

t\vo thousand years ago, and has not received much help
from modern science: but now, on the contrary, I think
it has received from it a positive disadvantage,-I mean,
it has been taken out of its place, has been put too promi-
nently forward, and thereby has almost been used as an
instrument against Christianity,-as I will attempt in a
few \vords to explain.

10.
r ubserve, then, that there are many investigations in
ev(:ry subject-matter which only lead us a certain way
towards truth, and not the whole way: either leading us,
for instance, to a strong probability, not to a certainty, or
again, proving only some things out of the whole number
which are true. And it is plain that if such investiga-
tions as these are taken as the measure of the whole
truth, and are erected into substantive sciences, instead
of being understood to be, what they really are, inchoate
and subordinate processes, they will, accidentally indeed,
but seriously, mislead us.
I. Let us recur for a moment, in illustration, to the
instances which I have put aside. Consider what is called
Scriptural Religion, or the Religion of the Bible. The
fault which the theologian, over and above the question of
private judgment, will find with a religion logically drawn
from Scripture only, is, not that it is not true, as far as it
goes, but that it is not the whole truth; that it consists of
only some out of the whole circle of theological doctrines,
and that, even in the case of those which it includes, it
does not ahvays invest them with certainty, but only with
probability. If, indeed, the Religion of the Bible is made
subservient to Theology, it is but a specimen of useful
induction; but if it is set up, as something complete in
itself, against Theology, it is turned into a mischievous

45 2 Christia1lity and Ph)1sical ....)cience.

paralogism. And if such a paralogism has taken plaèe,
and that in consequence of the influence of the Baconian
philosophy, it shows us what comes of the intrusion of that
philosophy into a province with which it had no concern.
2. And so, again, as to Historical Religion, or what is
often called Antiquity. A research into the records of
the early Church no Catholic can view with jealousy:
truth cannot be contrary to truth; we are confident that
\vhat is there found \vill, \vhen maturely weighed, be
nothing else than an illustration and confirmation of
our o\vn Theology. But it is another thing altogether
whether the results \vill go to the full lengths of our
Theology; they \vill indeed concur with it, but only as far
as they go. There is no reason why the data for investi-
gation supplied by the extant documents of Antiquity
should be sufficient for all that \vas included in the Divine
Revelation delivered by the Apostles; and to expect
that they will is like expecting that one witness in a
trial is to prove the whole case, and that his testimony
actually contradicts it, unless it does. While, then. this
research into ecclesiastical history and the writings of
the Fathers keeps its proper place, as subordinate to the
magisterial sovereignty of the Theological Tradition
and the voice of the Church, it deserv
s the ackno\v-
ledgments of theologians; but when it (so to say) sets
up for itself, when it professes to fulfil an office for which
it was never intended, when it claims to issue in a true
and full teaching, derived by a scientific process of
induction, then it is but another instance of the encroach-
nlent of the Baconian empirical method in a depart-
ment not its o\vn.
3. And now \ve come to the case of Physical Theology,
which is directly before us. I confess, in spite of what-
ever may be said in its favour, I have ever viewed it \vith

Christianity and Phys'ical Scúnce. 453

the greatest SUspIcion. As one class of thinkers has
substituted what is called a Scriptural Religion, and
another a Patristical or Primitive Religion, for the theo-
logical teaching of Catholicism, so a Physical Religion
or Theology is the very gospel of many þersons of the
Physical School, and therefore, true as it may be in itself,
still under the circumstances is a false gospel. Half of
the truth is a falsehood :-consider, Gentlemen, what this
so-called Theology teaches, and then say whether what
I have asserted is extravagant.
Anyone divine attribute of course virtually includes
all; still if a preacher always insisted on the Divine
Justice, he would practically be obscuring the Divine
Mercy, and if he insisted only on the incommunic-ableness
and distance from the creature of the U ncreated Essence,
he would tend to throw into the shade the doctrine of a
Particular Providence. Observe, then, Gentlemen, that
Physical Theology teaches three Divine Attributes, I may
say, exclusively; and of these, most of Power, and least
of Goodness.
And in the next place, what, on the contrary, are those
special Attributes, which are the immediate correlatives
of religious sentiment? Sanctity, omniscience, justice,
mercy, faithfulness. What does Physical Theology, what
does the Argument from Design, what do fine disquisitions
about final causes, teach us, except very indirectly, faintly,
enigmatically, of these transcendently important, these
essential portions of the idea of Religion 1 Religion is
t"nore than Theology; it is something relative to us; and
it includes our relation towards the Object of it. \Vhat
does Physical Theology tell us of duty and conscience?
of a particular providence? and, coming at length to
Christianity, what does it teach us even of the four last
things, death, judgment, heaven, and hell, the mere ele-

454 ChI istianity and Physical Science.

I

nlents of Christianity? It cannot tell us anything of
Christianity at all.
Gentlemen, let me press this point upon your earnest
attention. I say Physical Theology cannot, from the
nature of the .case, tell us one word about Christianity
proper; it cannot be Christian, in a ny true sense, at all :
-and from this.. plain reason, because it is derived from
inforn1ations which existed just as they are now to before

n w as created, an d Adam fell. How can that be a
real substantive Theology, though it takes the name,
which is but an abstraction, a particular aspect of the
whole truth, and is dumb almost as regards the moral
attributes of the Creator, and utterly so as regards the
evangelical?
Nay, more than this; I do not hesitate to say that,
t aking men as they are. t hi s so-called s cience te nds. if it _
o ccupies the mi n d, t o disp ose it a gainst Christianity. And
for this plain reason, because it speaks r ly of laws
and _
c annot contemplate their su sp
i on, that is , miracles,
,vhich are of the essence of the i dea of a Revelation.
T hus, t he Gõdof P hysica l T heol ogy may very easily
become a mere idol; for I-Ie comes to the inducti ve mind
( in the medium of fixed ap pointments, so excellen tJ,

ilfuI. so beneficent, tha t,
hen it has for a l <?ng tinle
g azed upon t h
J- it will think then} too beautiful to be _
broken, an d ,vill
t length SQ con tract its no tio n of !ii!!1__
as to conclude th a t He never co u ld have the heart GL..I
may dare use such a ter m ) to un do or mar His own work .,;
à nd this conclusion will be the first step towards Its de-
grading its idea of God a second time, and identifying
Him with His works. Indeed, a Being of Po,ver, Wisdom,
and Goodness, and nothing else, is not very different fronl
the God of the Pantheist.
1 n thus speaking of the Theology of the modern Phy-
",
J. ." /
.

. - ........
,..LM. . I .

I .

.1':-

.
.i-

4-

Christianity and PhY!!Jlcat SCIenCe. 455

sical School, I have said but a few words on a large sub-
ject; yet, though few \vords, I trust they are clear enough
not to hazard the risk of being taken in a sense which I
do not intend. Graft the science, if it is so to be called,
on Theology proper, and it will be in its right place, and
will be a religious science. Then it will illustrate the
a\vful, incomprehensible, adorable Fertility of the Divine
Omnipotence; it will serve to prove the real miraculous-
ness of the Revelation in its various parts, by impressing
on the mind vividly what are the laws of nature, and ho\v
immutable they are in their own order; and it will in
other ways subserve theological truth. Separate it fronl
the supernatural teaching, and make it stand on its own
base, and (though of course it is better for the individual
philosopher himself), yet, as regards his influence on the
world and the interests of Religion, I really doubt whether
I should not prefer that he should be an Atheist at once
than such a naturalistic, pan theistic religionist. His
profession of Theology deceives others, perhaps deceives
himself.
Do not for an instant suppose, Gentlemen, that I \vould
identify the great mind of Bacon with so serious a delu-
sion: he has expressly warned us against it; but I cannot
deny that many of his school have from time to time in
this way turned physical research against Christianity.

But I have detained you far longer than I had in-
tended; and now I can only thank you for the patience
\vhich has enabled you to sustain a discussion which
cannot be complete, upon a subject which, however
tnomentous, cannot be popular.

45 6

VIII.

CHRISTIANITY AND SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION.

A LECTURE 'VRITTEN FOR THE SCHOOL OF SCIENCE.

I.
T HIS is a time, Gentlemen, when not only the
Classics, but nluch n10re the Sciences, in the largest
sense of the word, are looked upon with anxiety, not
altogether ungrounded, by religious men; and, whereas
a University such as ours professes to embrace all depart-
ments and exercises of the intellect, and since I for
my part wish to stand on good tern1S with all kinds of
knowledge, and have no intention of quarrelling with
any, and would open my heart, if not my intellect (for
that is beyond me), to the whole circle of truth, and
would tender at least a recognition and hospitality even
to those studies \vhich are strangers to me, and would
speed them on their way,-therefore, as I have already
been making overtures of reconciliation, first between
Polite Literature and Religion, and next between Physics
and Theology, so I would now say a word by \vayof de-
precating and protesting against the needless antagonism,
which sometimes exists in fact, bet\veen divines and the
cultivators of the Sciences generally.

2.
Here I am led at once to expatiate on the grandeur

Christianity a1/d Scientific Investigation. 457
of an Institution which is comprehensive enough to )
admit the discussion of a subject such as this. l\mong
the objects of human enterprise,-I may say it surely
without extravagance, Gentlemen,-none higher or
nobler can be named than that which is contemplated
in the erection of a University. To set on foot and to
maintain in life and vigour a real University, is con-
fessedly, as soon as the word H University" is unùcf- I
stood, one of those greatest works, great in their difficulty ,
and their importance, on which are deservedly expended
the rarest intellects and the most varied endowments. I
For, first of all, it professes to teach whatever has to be \
taught in any whatever department of human knowledge,
and it embraces in its scope the loftiest subjects of
human thought, and the richest fields of human inquiry.
Nothing is too vast, nothing too subtle, nothing too dis-
tant, nothing too min
te, nothi.ng too discursive, nothing I
too exact, to engage Its attention.
This, however, is not the reason why I claim for it so
sovereign a position; for, to bring schools of all know-
ledge under one name, and call them a University, may
be fairly said to be a mere generalization; and to pro-
claim that the prosecution of all kinds of kno\vledge to
their utmost limits demands the fullest reach and range
of our intellectual faculties is but a truism. My reason
for speaking of a University in the terms on ,vhich I
have ventured is, not that it occupies the whole territory
of knowledge merely, but that it is the very realm; that
it professes much more than to take in and to lodge as
in a caravanserai all art and science, all history and
philosophy. In truth, it professes to assign to each
study, which it receives, its own proper place and its just
boundaries; to define the rights, to establish the mutual
relations, and to effect the intercommunion of one and

458 Christian'ity uad Scz.elltific Investzgatio1l

all; to keep in check the ambitious and encroaching.
and to succour and maintain those which from time to
time are succumbing under the more popular or the
more fortunately circumstanced; to keep the peace be-
tween them all, and to convert their mutual differences
and contrarieties into the common good. This, Gentle-
men, is why I say that to erect a University is at once
so arduous and beneficial an undertaking, viz., because
it is pledged to admit, \vithout fear, without prejudice,
without compromise, all comers, if they come in the
name of Truth; to adjust views, and experiences, and
habits of mind the n10st independent and dissimilar;
and to give full play to thought and erudition in their
most original forms, and their most intense expressions,
and in their most ample circuit. Thus to dra\v many
things into one, is its special function; and it learns to
do it, not by rules reducible to writing, but by sagacity,
wisdom, and forbearance, acting upon a profound insight
into the subject-matter of knowledge, and by a vigilant
repression of aggression or bigotry in any quarter.
We count it a great thing, and justly so, to plan and
carry out a wide political organization. To bring under
one yoke, after the manner of old Rome, a hundred
discordant peoples; to maintain each of them in its own
privileges within its legitÎ1nate range of action; to allow
them severally the indulgence of national feelings, and
the stimulus of rival interests; and yet \vithal to blend
them into one great social establishment, and to" pledge
them to the perpetuity of the one imperial power ;-this
is an achievement which carries with it the unequivocal
token of genius in the race which effects it.

" Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento."

This \vas the special boast, as the poet considered it,

Christianity and Scientific InvestigaÜ'oll. 459

of the Roman; a boast as high in its own line as that
other boast, proper to the Greek nation, of literary pre-
eminence, of exuberance of thought, and of skill and
refinement in expressing it.
What an empire is in political history, such is a
University in the sphere of philosophy and research. It
is, as I have said, the high protecting power of all know-
ledge and science, of fact and principle, of inquiry and
discovery, of experiment and speculation; it maps out
the territory of the intellect, and sees that the boundaries
of each province are religiously respected, and that there
is neither encroachlnent nor surrender on any side. It
acts as umpire between truth and truth, and, taking into
account the nature and importance of each, assigns to all
their due order of precedence. It maintains no one
department of thought exclusively, however ample and
noble; and it sacrifices none. It is deferential and loyal,
according to their respective weight, to the claims of
literature, of physical research, of history, of metaphysics J
of theological science. I t is impartial towards them all,
and promotes each in its own place and for its own
object. It is a'ncillary certainly, and of necessity, to the
Catholic Church; but in the same way that one of the
Queen's judg
s is an officer of the Queen's, and never-
theless determines certain legal proceedings between the
Queen and her subjects. It isministrative to the Catholic
Church, first, because truth of any kind can but minister
to truth; and next, still more, because Nature ever will
pay homage to Grace, and Reason cannot but illustrate
and defend Revelation; and thirdly, because the Church
has a sovereign authority, and, when she speaks ex cathe-
dra, must be obeyed. But this is the remote end of a
University; its immediate end (\vith which alone we
have here to do) is to secure the due disposition, accord-

4bO Christianity and Scientific Investigation.

ing to one sovereign order, and the cultivation in that
order, of all the provinces and methods of thought which
the human intellect has created.
I n this point of view, its several professors are like the
ministers of various political po\vers at one court or con-
ference. They represent their respective sciences, and
attend to the private interests of those sciences respec-
tively; and, should dispute arise between those sciences,
they are the persons to talk over and arrange it, without
risk of extravagant pretensions on any side, of angry
collision, or of popular commotion. A liberal philosophy
becomes the habit of minds thus exercised; a breadth
and spaciousness of thought, in which lines, seemingly
parallel, may converge at leisure, and principles, recog-
nized as incommensurable, may be safely antagonistic.

3.
And here, Gentlemen, we recognize the special cha-
racter of the Philosophy I am speaking of, if Philosophy
it is to be called, in contrast with the method of a strict
science or system. Its teaching is not founded on one
idea, or reducible to certain formulæ. Newton might
discover the great law of nlotion in the physical world

and the key to ten thousand phenomena; and a similar
resolution of complex facts into simple principles may
be possible in other departments of nature; but the
great Universe itself, moral and material, sensible and
supernatural, cannot be gauged and meted by even the
greatest of human intellects, and its constituent parts
admit indeed of comparison and adjustment, but not
of fusion. This is the point which bears directly on the
subject which I set before me when I began, and towards
which I am moving in all I have said or shall be saying.
I observe, then, and ask you, Gentlemen, to bear in mind,

Chrz"stÙlllz"ty and Scientific Investigatzon. 461

that the philosophy of an imperial intellect, for such I
am considering a University to be, is based, not so much
on simplification as on discrimination. Its true repre-
sentative defines, rather than analyzes. He aims at no
complete catalogue, or interpretation of the subjects of
knowledge, but a following out, as far a.s man can, what
in its fulness is mysterious and unfathomable. Taking
into his charge all sciences, methods, collections of facts,
principles, doctrines, truths, which are the reflexions of
the universe upon the human intellect, he admits them all,
he disregards none, and, as disregarding none, he allows
none to exceed or encroach. His watchword is, Live
and let live. He takes things as they are; he submits to
them all, as far as they go ; he recognizes the insuperable
lines of demarcation which run between subject and
subject; he observes how separate truths lie relatively
to each other, where they concur, \vhere they part com-
pany, and where, being carried too far, they cease to be
truths at all. It is his office to determine how much can be
known in each province of thought; when we must be
contented not to know; in what direction inquiry is
hopeless, or on the other hand full of promise; where it
gathers into coils insoluble by reason, where it is absorbed
in mysteries, or runs into the abyss. It will be his care to
be familiar \vith the signs of real and apparent difficulties,
with the methods proper to particular subject-matters,
\vhat in each particular case are the limits of a rational
scepticism, and what the claims of a peremptory faith. -1L.
he has one cardinal n1axim in his
hiloso phy, it is, that
truth cannot be contrary to truth; ifhe has ä seOOïid
iS:- -
that truth often see1ns contrary to truth; and, if a third,
it is the pr::Jc.tir:
1 C'onclusion, that we must be patient
\vith such appearances. and not be hasty to pronounce
them to be really of a more formidable char a çter.

462 Christianity and Scientific investigation,.

It is the very in1mensity of the system of things, the
hunlan record of which he has in charge, which is the
reason of this patience and caution; for that immensity
suggests to hin1 that the contral ieties and mysteries, which
meet him in the various sciences, may be simply the
consequences of our necessarily defective comprehension.
There is but one thought greater than thatofthe universe,
and that is the thought of its l\laker. It: Gentlemen, for
one single instant, leaving my proper train of thought, I
allude to our knowledge of the Supreme Being, it is in
order to deduce from it an illustration bearing upon Iny
subject. He, though One, is a sort of world of worlds in
Himself, giving birth in our minds to an indefinite nunlber
of distinct truths, each ineffably more n1ysterious than
any thing that is found in this universe of space and time.
Anyone of His attributes, considered by itself, is the
object of an inexhaustible science: and the attempt to
reconcile any two or three of them together,-love, po\ver,
justice, sanctity, truth, wisdom,-:-affords matter for an
everlasting controversy. \Ve are able to apprehend and
receive each divine attribute in its elementary form, but
still we are not able to accept then1 in their infinity

either in themselves or in union \vith each other. Yet
\ve do not deny the first because it cannot be perfectly
reconciled \\'ith the second, nor the second because it is
in apparent contrariety \vith the first and the third. The
case is the same in its degree \\
ith His creation material
and moral. It is the highest wisdom to accept truth of
whatever kind, wherever it is clearly. ascertained to be
such, though there be difficulty in adjusting it with other
kno\vn truth.
Inßtances are easily producible of that extrenle con-
trarietyof ideas, one with another, \"hich the contemplation
of the Universe
ces upon our acceptance, making it

Christianity and Scientific luvestzgattoll. 463

clear to us that there is nothing irrational in submitting to
undeniable incompatibilities, which we call apparent, only
because, if they were not apparent but real, they could
not co-exist. Such, for instance, is the conten1plation of
Space; the existence of which we cannot deny, though its
idea is capable, in no sort of posture, of seating itself (if I
may so speak) in our minds;-for we find it impossible to
say that it comes to a limit anywhere; and it is incon1pre-
hensible to say that it runs out infinitely; and it seems to
be unmeaning if we say that it does not exist till bodies
come into it, and thus is enlarged according to an accident.
And so again in the instance of Time. We cannot
place a beginning to it without asking ourselves what
was before that beginning; yet that there should be no
beginning at all, put it as far back as we will, is simply
incomprehensible. Here again, as in the case of Space,
we never dream of denying the existence of what we
have no means of understanding.
And, passing from this high region of thought (which,
high as it may be, is the subject even of a child's contelll-
plations), when we come to consider the mutual action
of soul and body, we are specially perplexed by inconl-
patibilities which we can neither reject nor explain.
How it is that the will can act on the muscles, is a ques-
tion of which even a child may feel the force, but \vhich
no experimentalist can answer.
Further, when we contrast the physical with the social
laws under which man finds himself here below, we must
grant that Physiology and Social Science are in collision.
Man is both a physical and a social being; yet he can-
not at once pursue to the full his physical end and his
social end, his physical duties (if I may so speak) and
his social duties, but is forced to sacrifice in part one or
the other. If we were wild enough to fancy that there

.

464 Christianity and SCIentific Investigation.

were t\VO creators, one of whonl was the author of o
r
animal franles, the other of society, then indeed we
might understand how it comes to pass that labour of
mind and body, the useful arts, the duties of a statesman,
government, and the like, \vhich are required by the

ocial system, are so' destructive of health, enjoyment,
and life. That is, in other words, \ve cannot adequately
account for existing and undeniable truths except on the
hypothesis of \vhat \ve feel to be an absurdity.
And so in
'Iathematical Science, as has been often
insisted on, the philosopher has patiently to endure the
presence of truths, which are not the less true for being
irreconcileable with each other. He is told of the exist-
ence of an infinite number of curves, which are able to
divide a space, into which no straight line, though it be
length without breadth, can even enter. He is told, too,
of certain lines, which approach to each other con-
tinually, with a finite distance between them, yet never
meet; and these apparent contrarieties he must be ar

he best can, \vithout attemp ting to deny the existen c

o f the truths which constitut""ëthem in the Science in
question.

4.
N O\V, let me call your attention, Gentlemen, to \\'hat
I \vould infer fronl these familiar facts. It is, to urge
you with an argument à fortiori: viz., that, as you
exercise so much exemplary patience in the case of the
inexplicable truths which surround so many departments
of knowledge, human and divine, viewed in themselves;
as you are not at once indignant, censorious, suspicious,
difficult of belief, on finding that in the secular sciences
one truth is incompatible (according to our human in-
tellect) with another or inconsistent with itself j so you

Christianity and Scientific InvestJgatzon. 465

should not think it very hard to be told that there
exists, here and there, not an inextricable difficulty, not
an astounding contrariety, not (much less) a contradic-
tion as to clear facts, between Revelation and Nature;
but a hitch, an obscurity, a divergence of tendency, a
temporary antagonism, a difference of tone, between the
two,-that is, between Catholic opinion on the one hand,
and astronomy, or geology, or physiology, or ethnology,
or political economy, or history, or antiquities, on the
other. I say that, as we admit, because we are Catho-
lics, that the Divine Unity contains in it attributes,
which, to our finite minds, appear in partial contrariety
with each other; as we admit that, in His revealed
Nature are things, which. tho u gh not opposed to Reason ,
a re infinitely strane-e to .th eJmag-ination ; as in His works
we can neither reject nor admit the ideas of space, and
of time, and the necessary properties of lines, \vithout
intellectual distress, or even torture; really, Gentle-
men, I am making no outrageous request, when, in the
name of a University, I ask religious writers, jurists!
economists, physiologists, chemists, geologists, and his- - ..

torians, to go on quietly, and in a neighbourly way, in
their own respective lines of speculation, research, and
experiment, with full faith in the consistency of that
multiform truth, which they share between them, in a
generous confidence that they will be ultimately consist-
ent, one and all, in their combined results, though there
may be momentary collisions, awkward appearances,
and many forebodings and prophecies of contrariety, and
at all times '!þings hard to the I magination, though no t,
I repeat, to the Reason. It surely is not asking them a -
great deal to beg of them,-since they are forced to
admit mysteries in the truths of Revelation, taken by
themselves, and in the truths of Reason, taken by the'm-
30

466 Christz'allzïy and Scie'/ltzjic I1't
'estigation.

selves,-to beg of then1, I say, to keep the peace, to live
in good will, and to exercise equanin1ity, if, when Nature
and R.evelation are compared with each other, there be,
as I have said, discrepancies,-not in the issue, but in
the reasonings, the circumstances, the associations, the
anticipations, the accidents, proper to their respective
teachings
It is most necessary to insist seriously and energeti-
cally on this point, for the sake of Protestants, for they
have very strange notions about us. In spite of the
testimony of history the other way, they think that the
Church has no other method of putting down error than
the arm of force, or the prohibition of inquiry. They
defy us to set up and carryon a School of Science. For
their sake, then, I am led to enlarge upon the subject
here.
y, then, he \vho believes Revelation with that _
..absolute faith \vhich is the prerogative of a Catholic. is not
the nervous cr eature \vho startles a t every suclQenßound..J.-
and is flutte re<!l> r: eve ry2 tran g e or novel a ppearance
which meets his eyes. He has no sort of apprehension, -
h e laughs at the idea, that any thing can be discovered
by any other scientific method, \vhich can contradict any
one of the dogmas of his religion. He knows full well
there is no science whatever, but, in the course of its ex-
tension, runs the risk of infringing, \vithout any meaning
of offence on its own part, the path of other sciences:
and he kno\vs also that, if there be anyone science
\\7hich, from its sovereign and unassailable position can
calmly bear such unintentional collisions on the part of
the children of earth, it is Theology. He is sure, and
nothine- shall make him doubt, that. if anything seems
to be proved by astronomer, or e-eolog-ist, or chronologist.
or antiquarian, or ethnologist. in contradiction to the
dog mas of fa i
h, that poin t will e ve ntu ally turn out, first,

Christianity and Scientific InvesligatzOlle 4 6 7

120t to be proved, or, secondly, not cOlltrad'ictory, or thirdly,
'_not contradictory to any thine- really revealed, but to
s omething which has been confused with revelation. And
if, at the moment, it appears to be contradictory, then he
is content to wait, knowing that error is like other delin-
quents; give it rope enough, and it will be found to have
a strong suicidal propensity. I do not mean to say he
will not take his part in encouraging, in helping forward
the prospective suicide; he will not only give the error
rope enough, but show it how to handle and adjust the
rope ;-he will commit the matter to reason, reflection,
sober judgment, common sense; to Time, the great in-
terpreter of so many secrets. Instead of being irritated
at the momentary triumph of the foes of Revelation, if
such a feeling of triumph there be, and of hurrying on
a forcible solution of the difficulty, which may in the
event only reduce the inquiry to an inextricable tangle,
he will recollect that, in the order of Providence, our
seeming dangers are often our greatest gains; that in the
words of the Protestant poet,

The clouds you so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

s.
'fo one notonous instance indeed it is obvious to allude
here. When the Copernican system first made progress,
what religious man would not have been tempted to
uneasiness, or at least fear of scandal, from the seeming
contradiction which it involved to some authoritative tra-
dition of the Church and the declaration of Scripture?
It was generally received, as if the Apostles had ex-
pressly delivered it both orally and in writing, as a truth
of Revelation, that the earth was stationary, and that

468 ChrisliaJ/zly and
ètentiJic Investigation.

'
..

the sun, fixed in a solid firmament, whirled round the
earth. After a little time, however, and on full considera-
tion, It was found that the Church had decided next to
nothing on questions such as these, and that Physical
Science n1ight range.in this sphere of thought ahnost at
will, without fear of encountering the decisions of eccle-
siastical authority. N ow, besides the relief which it
afforded to Catholics to find that they \\'ere to be spared
this addition, on the side of Cosmology, to their many
controversies already existing, there is something of an
argument in this very circumstance in behalf of the
divinity of their Religion. For it surely is a very re-
markable fact, consideri n g- how widely and how long or.c:
cert ain interpretation of these physical statel n ents in
S cnpture had be
I]. _ receiveUy Cath olics, that the
Church should not h ave formally ac knowledged - i

Looki ng at the matter in a human p oin t of view, it w as
inevitable tho h. 0 1. h m:j.de that opinion he

own. But no\v we fin d.) on ascert aini n
where we st and, in
, the face of the new scie nces of the se latter times, that i
spi teöf -the bõUirtrful comments whic h from the fir st
sh;-has ever been making on the sacredtëXt
s it is he;
duty and her right to do, nevertheles s , she has nev el _
been l ed formall y to ex plain the texts in que stion, or to
give diem an autiï'ffiibtive sense which m
ern science _ -
may questio n.
N or was this escape a mere accident, but rather the
result of a providential superintendence; as would ap-
pear from a passage of history in the dark age itself.
When the glorious St. Boniface, Apostle of Germany,
great in sanctity, though not in secular knowledge, com-
plained to the Holy See that St. Virgilius taught the
existence of the Antipodes, the Holy See was guided
what to do; it did not indeed side with the Irish phiJo-

Christianity and
-.cieJltific investigation. 469

sopher, \vhich \vould have been going out of its place, but
it passed over, in a matter not revealed, a philosophical
opinion.
Time went on; a new state of things, intellectual and
social, came in; the Church was girt with temporal
power; the preachers of St. Dominic were in the ascen-
dant: now at length \ve may ask with curious interest,
did th6 Church alter her ancient rule of action, and pro-
scribe intellectual activity? Just the contrary; this is
the very age of Universities; it is the classical period of
the schoolmen; it is the splendid and palmary instance
of the wise policy and large liberality of the Church, as
regards philosophical inquiry. If there ever ,vas a time
\vhen the intellect \vent wild, and had a licentious revel,
it was at the date I speak of. When was there ever a
more curious, more meddling, bolder, keener, more pene-
trating, more rationalistic exercise of the reason than at
that time? What class of questions did that subtle,
metaphysical spirit not scrutinize? What premiss was
allowed without examination? What principle ,vas not
traced to its first origin, and exhibited in its most naked
shape? What whole was not analyzed? \\That complex
idea was not elaborately traced out, and, as it were, finely
painted for the contemplation of the mind, till it \vas
spread out in all its minutest portions as perfectly and
delicately as a frog's foot sho\vs under the intense scrutiny
of the microscope ? Well, I repeat, here was something
which came somewhat nearer to Theology than physical
research comes; Aristotle was a some\vhat more serious
foe then, beyond all mistake, than Bacon has been since.
Did t.he Church take a high hand with philosophy then?
No, not though that philosophy \vas metaphysical. It
,vas a time when she had temporal power, and could
have exterminated the spirit of inquiry with fir
and

4- 70 Christianity and Sczllltific 11lvestigatw1z.

sword; but she determined to put it down byargll1nent,
she said: H Two can play at that, and my argument is
the better." She sent her controversialists into the
philosophical arena. It was the Dominican and Fran-
ciscan doctors, the greatest of them being St. Thomas,
\vho in those medieval Universities fought the battle of
Revelation with the weapons of heathenism. I t was no
tnatter whose the weapon was; truth was truth all the
world over. With the jawbone of an ass, with the skele-
ton philosophy of pagan Greece, did the Samson of the
schools put to flight his thousand Philistines.
Here, Gentlemen, observe the contrast exhibited be-
t\veen the Church herself, who has the gift of wisdom, and
even the ablest, or wisest, or holiest of her children. As
St. Boniface had been jealous of physical speculations,
so had the early Fathers sho\vn an extreme aversion to
the great heathen philosopher \vhom I just now named,
Aristotle. I do not know who of them could endure
him; and when there arose those in the middle age who
'would take his part, especially since their intentions
were of a suspicious character, a strenuous effort was
made to banish him out of Christendom. The Church
the while had kept silence; she had as little denounced
heathen philosophy in the mass as she had pronounced
upon the meaning of certain texts of Scripture of a
cosmological character. From T ertullian and Caius to
the two Gregories of Cappadocia, froITI them to Anasta-
sius Sinaita, from him to the school of Paris, Aristotle
was a word of offence; at length St. Thomas made him
a hewer of wood and drawer of water to the Church. A
strong slave he is; and the Church herself has given her
sanction to the use in Theology of the ideas and terms
of his philosophy.

Christianity and Scientific Investigation. 47 I

6.

N O\V, while this free discussion is, to say the least, so
safe for Religion, or rather so expedient, it is on the other
hand simply necessary for progress in Science; and I
shall no\v go on to insist on this side of the subject.
I say, then, that it is a matter of primary importance in
the cultivation of those sciences, in which truth is dis-
coverable by the human intellect, that the investigator
should be free, independent, unshackled in his movements;
that he should be allo\ved and enabled, without impedi..
ment, to fix his mind intently, nay, exclusively, on his
special object, \vithout the risk of being distracted every
other minute in the process and progress of his inquiry,
by charges of temerariousness, or by warnings against
extravagance or scandal. But in thus speaking, I must

premise several explanations, lest I be misunderstood.
First, then, Gentlemen, as to the fundamental principles
of religion and morals, and again as to the fundamental
principles of Christianity, or what are called the dogl1tas
of faith,-as to this double creed, natural and revealed,
-we, none of us, should say that it is any shackle at all
upon the intellect to maintain these invio] ate. Indeed,
a Catholic cannot put off his thought of them; and they
as little impede the movements of his intellect as the la\vs
of physics impede his bodily movements. The habitual
apprehension of them has become a second nature with
him, as the la\vs of optics, hydrostatics, dynamics, are
latent conditions which he takes for granted in the
use of his corporeal organs. I am not supposing any
collision with dogma, I an1 but speaking of opinions of
divines, or of the multitude, parallel to those in former
times of the sun going round the earth, or of the last day

472 Christianit; and Scientific Investigation.

being close at hand, or of St. Dionysius the Areopagite
being the author of the works \vhich bear his name.
N or, secondly, even as regards such opinions, am I
supposing any direct intrusion into the province of religion,
or of a teacher of Science actually laying do\vn the law
ill a 11latter of Religiòn,. but of such unintentional colli-
sions as are incidental to a discussion pursued on some
subject of his own. It would be a great n1istake in such
a one to propose his philosophical or historical conclusions
as the formal interpretation of the sacred text, as Galileo
is said to have done, instead of being content to hold his
doctrine of the motion of the earth as a scientific con-
clusion, and leaving it to those \vhom it. really concerned
to compare it \vith Scripture. And, it must be confessed,
Gentlemen, not a few instances occur of this mistake at
the present day, on the part, not indeed of men of science,
but of religious men, who, from a nervous impatience lest
Scripture should for one moment seem inconsistent with
the results of some speculation of the hour, are ever pro-
posing geological or ethnological comments upon it, which
they have to alter or obliterate before the ink is \vell dry,
from changes in the progressive science, which they have
so officiously brought to its aid.
And thirdly, I observe that, when I advocate the in-
dependence of philosophical thought, I am not speaking
of any forntal teachÙzg at all, but of investigations, specu-
lations, and discussions. I am far indeed from allowing,
in any n1atter which even borders on Religion, what an
eminent Protestant divine has advocated on the most
sacred subjects,-I mean" the liberty of Prophesying."
I have no wish to degrade the professors of Science, who
ought to be Prophets of the Truth, i!ú o mere advertisers
of crude fancies or notortouS absurdities. I am not plead-
ing that they should at randoln sho\ver do\vn upon their

Christianity and Scientific Investigation. 473

hearers ingenuities and novelties; or that they should
teach even what has a basis of truth in it, in a brilliant,
off-hand way, to a collection of youths, who may not
perhaps hear them for six consecutive lectures, and who
will carry away with them into the country a misty idea
of the half-created theories of some ambitious intellect.
Once more, as the last sentence suggests, there must
be great care taken to a void scandal, or shocking the
popular mind, or unsettling the weak; the associatio

between truth and error being so strong in particular
mi nds that it is im p ossible to weed them of the error Y
without rooting up the wheat with it. If, then, there i s
the chance of any current religious opinion being in any
way compromised in the course of a scientific investiga-
tion, this would be a reason for conducting it, not in light

ephemeral publications, \vhich come into the hands of
the careless or ignorant, but in works of a grave and
business-like character, answering to the medieval schools
of philosophical disputation, which, removed as they were
from the region of popular thought and feeling, have, by
their vigorous restlessness of inquiry, in spite of their
extravagances, done so much for theological precision.

7.
1 anl not, then, supposing the scientific investigator (I)
to be coming -into collision with doglna,. nor (2) venturing,
by means of his investigations, upon any interpretation
of Scripture, or upon other cOl1clusion -in the matter of
religion
. nor (3) of his teaching, even in his own science,
religious parodoxes, when he should be investigating
and proposing; nor (4) of his recklessly scanda!tzÙtg the
weak
' but, these explanations being made, I still say }
that a scientific speculator or inquirer is not bound, in
conducting his researches, to be every moment adjusting

474 Chrzstianity and Scientific Investigation.

I'"
· '1.9 .

his course by the maxims of the schools or by popular
traditions, or by those of any other science distinct froni
his own, or to be ever narro\vly watching \vhat those
external sciences have to say to him, or to be determined
to be edifying, or to be ever answering heretics and un-
believers; being confident, from the impulse of a generous
faith, that, however his line of investigation may s\verve
now and then, and vary to and fro in its course, or
threaten momentary collision or embarrassment with
any other department of kno\vledge, theological or not,
yet, if he lets it alone, it will be sure to come home,
because truth never can really be contrary to truth, and
because often what at first sight is an "exceptio," in the
event most emphatically" probat regulam."

rhis is a point of serious importance to him. Unless he
i
at liberty to investigate on the basis, and according to
the peculiarities, of his science, he cannot investigate at
all. It is the very law of the hutnan mind in its inquiry
after and acquisition of truth to make its advances by a
process which consists of many stages, and is circuitous.
There are no short cuts to knowledge; nor does the road
to it ahvays lie in the direction in which it terminates,
nor are we able to see the end on starting. It may often
seem to be diverging from a goal into which it will soon
run without effort, if we are but patient and resolute in
following it out; and, as we are told in Ethics to gain
the mean merely by receding from both extremes, so in
scientific researches error may be said, without a paradox,
to be in some instances the way to truth, and the only
way. Moreover, it is not often the fortune of anyone
man to live through an investigation; the process is one
of not only many stages, but of many minds. What
one begins another finishes; and a true conclusion is at
length worked out by the co-operation of independent

Christianity and Scientific Investzgation. 475

schools and the perseverance of successive generations.
This being the case, we are obliged, under circum..
stances, to bear for a while with what we feel to be error,
in consideration of the truth in which it is eventually to
Issue.
The analogy of locomotion is most pertinent here.
No one can go straight up a mountain; no sailing vessel
makes for its port without tacking. And so, applying
the illustration, we can indeed, if we will, refuse to allow
of investigation or research altogether; but, if we invite
reason to take its place in our schools, we must let reason
have fair and full play. If we reason, we must submit
to the conditions of reason. We cannot use it by halves;
we must use it as proceeding from Him who has also
given us Revelation; and to be ever interrupting its
processes, and diverting its attention by objections
brought from a higher knowledge, is parallel to a lands-
man's dismay at the changes in the course of a vessel on
which he has deliberately embarked, and argues surely
some distrust either in the powers of Reason on the one
hand, or the certainty of Revealed Truth on the other.
The passenger should not have embarked at all, if he
did not reckon on the chance of a rough sea, of currents,
of wind and tide, of rocks and shoals; and we should
act more wisely in discountenancing altogether the exer-
cise of Reason than in being alarmed and impatient
under the suspense, delay, and anxiety which, from the
nature of the case, may be found to attach to it. Let
us eschew secular history, and science, and philosophy
for good and all, if we are not allowed to be sure that
Revelation is so true that the altercations and perplexi-
ties of human opinion cannot really or eventually injure
its authority. That is no intellectual triumph of any
truth of Religion, \vhich has not been preceded by a full

476 Chi istiallity and Scientific IJlvestigalioll.

statelnent of what can be said against it; it is but the
ego vapulando, ille verberando, of the Comedy.
Great minds need elbo\v-room, not indeed in the
domain of faith, but of thought. And so indeed do lesset
n1Ïnds, and all minds. There are many persons in the
world \vho are called, and \vith a great deal of truth,
geniuses. They had been gifted by nature with some
particular faculty or capacity; and, \vhile vehemently
excited and imperiously ruled by it, they are blind to
everything else. They are enthusiasts in their own line,
and are simply dead to the beauty of any line exceþt
their own. Accordingly, they think their o\vn line the
onl y line in the \vhole \vorld worth pursuing, and they
feel a sort of contempt for such studies as move upon
any other line. N ow, these nlen may be, and often are,
very good Catholics, and have not a dream of any thing
but affection and deference to\vards Catholicity, nay,
perhaps are zealous in its interests. Yet, if you insist
that in their speculations, researches, or conclusions in
their particular science, it is not enough that they should
subtnit to the Church generally, and acknowledge its
dogmas, but that they must get up all that divines h:ive
said or the multitude believed upon religious matters,
you sinlply crush and stamp out the flame within them,
and they can do nothing at all.
This is the case of men of genius: now one word on
the contrary in behalf of master minds, gifted with a
broad philosophical view of things, and a creative power,
and a versatility capable of accomnlodating itself to
various provinces of thought. These persons perhaps,
like those I have already spoken of, take up some idea
and are intent upon it ;-some deep, prolific, eventful
idea, which grows upon them, till they develop it into a
great system. Now, if any such thinker starts from

Christial1ity and Scientific Investigation. 477

radically unsound principles, or aims at directly false
conclusions, if he be a Hobbes, or a Shaftesbury, or a
Hume, or a Bentham, then, of course, there is an end of
the whole matter. He is an opponent of Revealed
Truth, and he tueans to be so ;-nothing more need be
said. Hut perhaps it is not so; perhaps his errors are
those which are inseparable accidents of his system or
of his mind, and are spontaneously evolved, not perti-
naciously defended. Every human system, every human
writer, is open to just criticism. Make him shut up his
portfolio; good! and then perhaps you lose what, on
the whole and in spite of incidental mistakes, would
have been one of the ablest defences of Revealed Truth
(directly or indirectly, according to his subject) ever
given to the \vorld.
This is ho\v I should account for a circumstance, which
has sometin1es caused surprise, that so many great
Catholic thinkers have in some points or other incurred
the criticism or animadversion of theologians or of eccle-
siastical authority. It must be so in the nature of
things; there is indeed an animadversion which implies
a condemnation of the author; but there is another
which means not much more than the" piè legendum"
written against passages in the Fathers. The author
may not be to blame; yet the ecclesiastical authority
would be to blame, if it did not give notice of his im..
perfections. I do not know what Catholic would not
hold the name of Malebranche iT} veneration;" but he
may have accidentally come into collision with theolo-
gians, or made temerarious assertions, notwithstanding.
· Cardinal Gerdil speaks of his c, l'vletaphysique, II as "brillante à la verité,
mais non moins solide II (p. 9.), and that "la liaison qui enchaine toutes les
parties du système philosophique du Père l\1alebranche, . . pourra servir
d'apologie à la noble assurance, avec laquelle i1 \')ropose ses sentiments. It
(p. 12, ffiuvces, t. iv.)

478 Christianity aUll Scie1ltific Investigation.

l'he practical question is, whether he had not 1l1uch
better have written as he has written, than not have
written at all. And so fully is the Holy See accustomed
to enter into this view of the matter, that it has allowed
of its application, not only to philosophical, but even to
theological and ecclesiastical authors, who do not come
\vithin the range of these rem(J.rks. I believe I am right
in saying that, in the case of three great names, in
various departments of learning, Cardinal Noris, Bossuet,
and Ivl uratori, - \vhile not concealing its sense of their
having propounded each what might have been said
better, nevertheless it has considered, that their services
to Religion were on the whole far too important to allow
of their being molested by critical observation in detail.

8.

And now, Gentlemen, I bring these renlarks to a con-
clusion. What I would urge upon everyone, whatever
may be his particular line of research,-what I would
urge upon men of Science in their thoughts of Theology,

what I would venture to recomn1end to theologians,
when their attention is dra\vn to the subject of scientific
investigations,-is a great and firm belief in the sove-
reignty of Truth. Error may flourish for a tin1e, but
Truth will prevail in the end. The only effect of error
ultimately is to promote Truth. Theories, speculations,
hypotheses, are started; perhaps they are to die, still
not before they have suggested ideas better than them-
selves. These better ideas are taken up in turn by other
men, and, if they do not yet lead to truth, nevertheless
they lead to what is still nearer to truth than themselves;
and thus knowledge on the whole makes progress. The

.. Muratori's work was not directly theolow.cal. VId. note at the end uf
the Volume.

Christianit.y and Scz"e1ltijic IllvestigatÙJ1z. 479

errors of some minds in scientific investigation are mort"
fruitful than the truths of others. A Science seems
making no progress, but to abound in failures, yet im-
perceptibly all the time it is advancing, and it is of
course a gain to truth even to have learned what is not
true, if nothing more.
On the other hand, it must be of course remembered,
Gentlemen, that I am supposing all along good faith,
honest intentions, a loyal Catholic spirit, and a deep
sense of responsjbility. I am supposing, in the scientific
inquirer, a due fear of giving scandal, of seeming to
countenance vie\vs which he does not really countenance,
and of siding with parties from whom he heartily differs.
I am supposing that he is fully alive to the existence
and the po\ver of the infidelity of the age; that he
keeps in mind the moral weakness and the intellectual
confusion of the majority of men; and that he has no
wish at all that anyone soul should get harm from
certain speculations to-day, though he may have the
satisfaction of being sure that those speculations will, as
far as they are erroneous or misunderstood, be corrected
in the course of the next half-century.

4 80

IX.

DISCIPLINE OF MIND.

AN ADDRESS TO THE EVENING CLASSES.

I.

W HEN I found that it was in my power to be pre-
sent here at the conlmencement of the ne\v Ses-
sion, one of the first thoughts, Gentlemen, which thereupon
occurred to me, was this, that I should in conseq uenee
have the great satisfaction of meeting you, of whom I
had thought and heard so much, and the opportunity of
addressing you, as Rector of the University. I can truly
say that I thought of you before you thought of the
University; perhaps I may say, long before j-for it ,vas
previously to our commencing that great work, which is
now so fully before the public, it \\.as when I first came
over here to make preparations for it, that I had to
encounter the serious objection of wise and good men,
who said to me, "There is no class of persons in Ireland
who 11eed a University;" and again, "Wh.om will you
get to belong to it? who will fill its lecture-rooms?"
This was said to me, and then, without denying their
knowledge of the state of Ireland, or their sagacity, I
made answer, " We will give lectures in the evening, we
will fill our classes with the young men of Dublin."
And some persons here may recollect that the very

.Discipline o.f .lJfind.

481

first thing I did, when we opened the School of Philoso-
phy and Letters, this time four years, was to institute a
system of Evening Lectures, \vhich were suspended after
a while, only because the singularly inclelnent season
which ensued, and the want of publicity and interest
incident to a new undertaking, made them premature.
And it is a satisfaction to me to reflect that the Statute,
under which you will be able to pass exanlinations and
take degrees, is one to which I specially obtained the
consent of the Academical Senate, nearly tw
years ago,
in addition to our original Regulations, and that you
will be the first persons to avail yourselves of it.
Having thus prepared, as it were, the University for
you, it was \vith great pleasure that I received from a
number of you, Gentlemen, last May year, a spontanebus
request which showed that my.original anticipations were
not visionary. You suggested then what we have since
acted upon,-acted upon, not so quickly as both you
might hope and we might wish, because all important
commencements have to be maturely considered-still
acted on at length according to those anticipations of
mine, to which I have referred; and, while I recur to
them as an introduction to what I have to say, I might
also dwell upon them as a sure presage that other and
broader anticipations, too bold as they may seem now,
will, if we are but patient, have their fulfilment in their
season.

2.
For I should not be honest, Gentlemen, if I did not
confess that, much as I desire that this University
should be of service to the young men of Dublin, I do
not desire this benefit to you, simply fQr your own sakes.
For your own sakes certainly I wish it, but not on your
3 1

482

Disciþline o.f MÙld.

account only. Man is not born for himself alone, as the
classical moralist tells us. Y Olt are born for Ireland;
and, in your advancement, Ireland is advanced ;-in
your advancement in what is good and what is true, in
knowledge, in learning, in cultivation of mind, in enlight-
ened attachment to your religion, in good name and
respectability and social influence, I am contemplating
the honour and renown, the literary and scientific aggran-
disement, the increase of political po\ver, of the Island
of the Sain ts.
I go fðrther still. If I do homage to the many virtues
and gifts of the Irish people, and am zealous for their
full development, it is not simply for the sake of them-
selves, but because the nanle of Ireland ever has been,
and, I believe, ever \vill be, associated with the Catholic
Faith, and because, in doing any service, ho\vever poor it
may be, to Ireland, a man is ministering, in his own
place and nleasure, to the cause of the Holy Roman
Apostolic Church.
Gentlemen, I should consider it an impertinence in
me thus to be speaking to you of myself, were it not
that, in recounting to you the feelings with \vhjch I have
witnessed the establishment of these Evening Classes, I
am in fact addressing to you at the same .titue ,vords of
encouragement and advice, such \vords as it becomes a
Rector to use in speaking to those who are submitted to
his care.
I say, then, that, had I been younger than I was when
the high office which I at present hold was first offered
to me, had I not had prior duties upon me of affection
and devotion to the Oratory of St. Philip, and to my
o\vn dear country, no position whatever, in the \vhole
range of administrations \\'hich are open to the atnbitioI1
of those who wIsh to serve God in their generation, and

Discipline of lVIind.

483

to do some great work before they die, would have had
more attractions for me than that of being at the head
of a University like this. When I became a Catholic, one
of my first questions was, "Why have not our Catholics a
University?" and Ireland, and the metropolis of Ireland,
was obviously the proper seat of such an institution.
Ireland is the proper seat of a Catholic University, on 1
account of its ancient hereditary Catholicity, and again
of the future which is in store for it. It is impossible,
Gentlemen, to doubt that a. futl1r
i
in store fo r Ir
l and,

for more reasons than can here be enumerated. First,
t h ere is the circumstance, so highly suggestive, even if
there was nothing else to be said, viz., that the Irish
have been so miserably ill-treated and misused hitherto;
for, in the times now opening upon us, nationalities are
waking into life, and the remotest people can make
themselves heard into all the quarters of the earth. The 01
lately invented methods of travel and of intelligence
have destroyed geographical obstacles; and the wrongs
of the oppressed, in spite of oceans or of mountains, are
brought under the public opinion of Europe,-not before
kings and governments alone, but before the tribunal of
the European populations, who are becoming ever more
powerful in the determination of political questions. And
thus retribution is demanded and exacted for past crimes
in proportion to their heinousness and their duration. /
And in the next place, it is plain that, according as
intercommunion grows between Europe and America, it
is Ireland that must grow with it in social and political
importance. For Ireland is the high road bv which that
intercourse is carried on; and the tra :ffi.Ç between hemi -=--
spheres must be to her a source of material as well a L
social benefit ,-as of old time, though on the minute
geographical scale of Greece, Corinth, as being the

484

Dt.sciþb'ne o.f Mind.

thoroughfare of commerce by sea and land. became and
was called " the rich."
And then, again, we must consider the material re-
sources of Ireland, so insufficiently explored, so poorly
developed,-of which.it belongs to them rather to speak,
who by profession and attainments are masters of the
subject
That this momentous future, thus foreshadowed, will
be as glorious for Catholicity as for Ireland we cannot
doubt from the experience of the past; but, as Provi-
dence works by means of human agencies, that natural
anticipation has no tendency to diminish the anxiety and
earnestness of all zealous Catholics to do their part in
securing its fulfilment. And the wise and diligent culti-
vation of the intellect is one principal means, under the
Divine blessing, of the desired result.

3.
. Gentlemen, the seat of this intellectual progress must
necessarily be the great to\vns of Ireland; and those
great towns have a remarkable and happy characteristic,
as contrasted with the cities of Catholic Europe. Abroad,
even in Catholic countries, if there be in any part of
their territory scepticism and insubordination in religion,
cities are the seat of the mischief: Even Rome itself
has its insubordinate population, and its concealed free-
thinkers; even Belgium, that nobly Catholic country,
cannot boast of the religious loyalty of its great towns.
Such a calamity is unknown to the Catholicism of Dublin,
Cork, Belfast, and the other cities of Ireland; fo! ! to say
nothing of higher and more r eligi
s -9 uses of the d if-
f erence, th
very pre sence_ of a r i val rel igi2!L is
PÇ!:, -
petual incentive to faith and de votio n in m en who, from
the circumstances of the case, would be in dan ger of

Dísciþlt'ne 0/ Mind.

4 8 5

becoming worse than lax Catholics , unless th ey Lesolw
on being zealous ones.
Here, then, is one remarkable ground of promise in
the future of Ireland, that that large and important class,
members of which I am nÇ>w addressing,-that the
middle classes in its cities, which will be the depositaries
of its increasing political power, and which elsewhere are
opposed in their hearts to the Catholicism which they
profess,-are here so sound in faith, and so exemplary
in devotional exercises, and in works of piety.
And next I would observe, that, \vhile thus distin-
guished for religious earnestness, the Catholic population
is in no respect degenerate from the ancient fame of
Ireland as regards its intellectual endowments. It too
often ha ens that the reli iousl dis osed are in the
same degree inte ectua ly deficient; but the Irish ever
have been, as their worst enemies must grant, not only a
Catholic people, but a people of
reat natural abilities,
keen-witted, original, and subtle. This has been the
characteristic of the nation from the very early times

and was especially prominent in the middle ages. As
Rome was the centre of authority, so, I may say, Ire-
land was the native home of speculation. In this respect
they were as remarkably contrasted to the English as they
are now, though, in those ages, England was as devoted
to the Holy See as it is now hostile. The Englishman
was hard-working, plodding, bold, determined, persever-
ing, practical, obedient to law and precedent, and, if he
cultivated his mind, he was literary and classical rather
than scientific, for Literature involves in it the idea of
authority and prescription. On the other hand, in Ire-
land, the intellect seems rather to have taken the line of
Science, and we have various instances to show how fully
this \vas recognized in those times, and with what success it

486

Discipline of Mind.

.

was carried out. "Philosopher," is in those times almost
the name for an Irish monk. Both i n Paris and Oxford,
the two g reat schools of medieval t
ht. we fi;;d the
bol dest and most subtle of their disputants an Irishman,
-the monk J ohn Scotus Erigena, at Paris, and D un s ·
Scotus, .! he Fran c is c an fr iar, at Oxford. _
Now, it is my belief, Gentlemen, that this character of
mind remains in you still. I think I rightly recognize in
the Irishman now, as formerly, the curious, inquisitive
observer, the acute reasoner, the subtle speculator. I
recognize in you talents which are fearfully mischievous,
when used on the side of error, but \vhich, when wielded
by Catholic devotion, such as I am sure will ever be the
characteristic of the Irish disputant, are of the highest im-
portance to Catholic interests, and especially at this day,
when a subtle logic is used against the Church, and de-
nlands a logic still more subtle on the part of her defenders
to expose it.
Gentlemen, I do not expect those who, like you, are
employed in your secular callings, who are not monks or
friars, not priests, not theologians, not philosophers, to
come for\vard as champions of the faith; but I think
that incalculable benefit may ensue to the Catholic cause,
greater almost than that \vhich even singularly gifted
theologians or controversialists could effect, if a body of
men in your station of life shall be found in the great towns
of Ireland, not disputatious, contentious, loquacious, pre-
sumptuous (of course I am not advocating inquiry for
mere argument's sake), but gravely and solidly educated
in Catholic knowledge, intelligent, acute, versed in their
religion, sensitive of its beauty and majesty, alive to the
arguments in its behalf, and aware both of its difficulties
and of the mode of treating them. And the first step in
attaining this desirable end is that you should submit

D'lsct"þ/int oj'Mind.

4 8 7

yourselves to a curriculum of studies, such as that which
brings you with such praiseworthy diligence within these
walls evening after evening; and, though you may not
be giving attention to them with this view, but from the
laudable love of knowledge, or for the advantages which
will accrue to you personally from its pursuit, yet my
own reason for rejoicing in the establishment of your
classes is the same as that which led me to take part
in the establishment of the University itself, viz., the
wish, by increasing the intellectual force of Ireland, to
strengthen the defences, in a day of great danger, of the
Christian religion.

4-
Gentletuen, within the last thirty years, there has been,
as you kno\v, a great movement in behalf of the exten-
sion of knowledge among those classes in society whom
you represent. This movement has issued in the estab-
lishment of what have been called Mechanics' Institutes
through the United Kingdom; and a new species of
literature has been brought into existence, with a view,
among its objects, of furnishing the members of these
institutions with interesting and instructive reading. I
never will deny to that literature its due praise. It has
been the production of men of the highest ability and
the most distinguished station, who have not grudged,
moreover, the trouble, and, I may say in a certain sense,
the condescension, of presenting themselves before the
classes for whose intellectual advancement they were
showing so laudable a zeal; who have not grudged, in
the cause of Literature, History, or Science, to make a
display, in the lecture room or the public hall, of that
eloquence, which ,vas, strictly speaking, the property, as
I may call it, of Parliament, or of the august tribunals of

488

Disct'þline of Mi'nd.

the Law. Nor will I deny to the speaking and writing,
to which I am r
ferring, the merit of success, as well as
that of talent and good intention, so far as this,-that it
has provided a fund of innocent amusement and informa-
tion for the leisure hours of those who might otherwise
have been exposed to the temptation of corrupt reading
or bad company.
So much may be granted,-and must be granted in
candour: but, \vhen I go on to ask myself the question,
what þermanent advantage the mind gets by such desul-
tory reading and hearing, as this literary movement en-
courages, then I find myself altogether in a new field of
thought, and am obliged to return an answer less favour-
able than I could \vish to those who are the advocates of
it. We must carefully distinguish, Gentlemen, between
the mere diversion of the mind and its real education.
Supposing, for instance, I am tempted to go into some
society which will do me harm, and supposing, instead, I
fall asleep in my chair, and so let the time pass by, in
that case certainly I escape the danger, but it is as if by
accident, and Iny going to sleep. has not had any real
effect upon me, or made me more able to resist the
telnptation on some future occasion. I wake, and I am
\vhat I \vas before. The opportune sleep has but removed
the temptation for this once. It has not made me better;
for I have not been shielded from temptation by any act
of my own, but I was passive under an accident, for such
I may call sleep. And so in like manner, if I hear a
lecture indolently and passively, I cannot indeed be else-
where 7.vltile I am here hearing it,-but it produces no
positive effect on my mind,-it does not tend to create
any power in my breast capable of resisting temptation
by its own vigour, should temptation come a second time.
Now this is no fault, Gentlemen, of the books or the

Disciþ/z'ne 0/ Mind.

4 8 9

lectures of the Mechanics' Institute. They could not do
more than they do, from their very nature. They do
their part, but their part is not enough. A man may
hear a thousand lectures, and read a thousand volumes,
and be at the end of the process very much where he was,
as regards knowledge. Something more than merely
ad1Jzittillg it in a negative way into..the mind is necessary,
if it is to remain there. It must not be passively received,
but actually and actively entered into, embraced, mastered.
The mind must go half-\vay to meet what comes to it
from without.
This, then, is the point in which the institutions I am
speaking of fail; here, on the contrary, is the advantage
of such lectures as you are attending, Gentlemen, in our
University. You have come, not merely to be taught,
but to learn. You have come to exert your minds. Yau
have come to make what you hear your own, by putting
out your hand, as it \vere, to grasp it and appropriate it.
Tï ou do not come merely to hear a lecture, or to read a
book, but you come for that catechetical instruction,
which consists in a so
of conversation between your
lecturer and you. He tells you a thing, and he asks you
to repeat it after him. He questions you, he examines
you, he will not let you go till he has proof, not only that
you have heard, but that you know.

s.
Gentlemen, I am induced to quote here some renlarks
of my own, which I put into print on occasion of those
Evening Lectures, already referred to, with which we
introduced the first terms of the University. The at-
tendance upon them was not large, and in. consequence
we discontinued them for a time, but I attempted to ex-
plain in print \vhat the object of them had been
and

490

Disciþl1:ne '!/ M,:nd.

while what I then said is pertinent to the subject I am
now pursuing, it will be an evidence too, in addition to
my opening remarks, of the hold which the idea of these
Evening Lectures has had upon me.
"I will venture to &ive you my thoughts," I then said,
writing to a friend, - (( on the object of the Evening Public
Lectures lately delivered in the University House, which,
I think, has been misunderstood.
(( I can bear witness, not only to their remarkable merit
as lectures, but also to the fact that they were very satis-
factorily attended. Many, however, attach a vague or
unreasonable idea to the word (satisfactory,' and main-
tain that no lectures can be called satisfactory which do
not make a great deal of noise in the place, and they are
disappointed otherwise. This is what I mean by mis-
conceiving their object; for such an expectation, and
consequent regret, arise from confusing the ordinary with
the extraordinary object of a lecture,-upon which point
we ought to have clear and definite ideas.
" The ordinary object of lectures is to teach,. but there
1:S an object, sometimes demanding attention, and not
incongruous, \vhich, nevertheless, 'cannot be said properly
to belong to them, or to be more than occasional. As
there are kinds of eloquence \vhich do not aim at any
thing beyond their own exhibition, and are content with
being eloquent, and with the sensation which eloquence
creates; so in Schools and Universities there are sea-
sons, festive or solemn, anyhow extraordinary, when
academical acts are not directed towards their proper
ends, so much as intended to amuse, to astonish, and to
attract, and thus to have an effect upon public opinion.
Such are the exhibition days of Colleges; such the
annual Commemoration of Benefactors at one of the
· U ni versity Gazette, No. 42, p. 420.

Disciþli1U '!/ Mind.

491

English Universities, when Doctors put on their gayest
gowns, and Public Orators make Latin Speeches. Such,
too, are the Terminal Lectures, at which divines of the
greatest reputation for intellect and learning have before
now poured forth sentences of burning eloquence into the
ears of an audience brought together for the very sake
of the display. The object of all such Lectures and
Orations is to excite or to keep up an interest and rever-
ence in the public mind for the Institutions from which the
exhibition proceeds :"-1 might have added, such are the
lectures delivered by celebrated persons in
1echanics'
Institutes.
I continue: (( Such we have suitably had in the new
University;-such were the Inaugural Lectures. Dis-
plays of strength and skill of this kind, in order to succeed,
should attract attention, and if they do not attract atten-
tion, they have failed. They do not invite an audience,
but an attendance; and perhaps it is hardly too much to
say that they are intended for seeing rather than for
hearing.
(( Such celebrations, however, from the nature of the
case, must be rare. It is the novelty which brings, it is
the excitement ,vhich recompenses, the assemblage. The
academical body which attempts to make such extraordi-
nary acts the normal condition of its proceedings, is
putting itself and its Professors in a false position.
"It is, then, a simple misconception to suppose that
those to \vhom the government of our University is con-
fided h3.ve aimed at an object, which could not be con-
templated at all without a confusion or inadvertence, such
as no considerate person will impute to them. Public
lectures, delivered with such an object, could not be suc-
cessful; and, in consequence, our late lectures have, I
cannot doubt (for it could not be otherwise), ended unsatis-

49 2

D'isciplz"ne of Mind.

factorily in the judgment of any zealous person who has
assumed for them an office with which their projectors
never invested them.
It What their object really was the very meaning of
academical institutions suggests to us. It is, as I said
when I began, to teach. Lectures are, properly speaking,
not exhibitions or exercises of art, but matters of business;
they profess to impart something definite to those who
attend them, and those \vho attend them profess on their
part to receive what the lecturer has to offer. It is a
case of contract :-( I will speak, if you will listen :'-' I
will come here to learn, if you have any thing worth
teaching me.' In an oratorical display, all the effort is
on one side; in a lecture, it is shared between t\VO parties,
\vho co-operate to\vards a common end.
"There should be ever something, on the face of the
arrangements, to act as a memento that those who come,
come to gain something, and not from mere curiosity. And
in matter of fact, such \vere the persons \vho did attend, in
the course of last term, and such as those, and no others,
will attend. Those came who ,vished to gain information
on a subject new to them, from informants whom they
held in consideration, and regarded as authorities. It
was impossible to survey the audience which occupied
the lecture-room ",rithout seeing that they came on \vhat
may be called business. And this is why I said, \vhen
I began, that the attendance was satisfactory. That
attendance is satisfactory,-not which is numerous, but
-which is steady and persevering. But it is plain, that to
a mere by-stander, who came merely from general in-
terest or good will to see how things were going on, and
who did not catch the object of advertising the Lectures,
it would not occur to look into the faces of the audience;
he would think it enough to be counting their heads; he

Disciþlt:ne of Mind.

493

would do little more than observe whether the staircase
and landing were full of loungers, and whether there
was such a noise and bustle that it was impossible to
hear a word; and if he could get in and out of the room
without an effort, if he could sit at his ease, and actually
hear the lecturer, he would think he had sufficient
grounds for considering the attendance unsatisfactory.
"The stimulating system may easily be overdone, and
does not answer on the long run. A blaze among the
stubble, and then all is dark. I have seen in my time
various instances of the way in which Lectures really
gain upon the public; and I must express my opinion
that, even were it the sole object of our great under.
taking to make a general impression upon public opinion,
instead of that of doing definite good to definite persons,
I should reject that method, which the University indeed
itself has.1lot taken, but which young and ardent minds
may have thought the more promising. Even did I
wish merely to get the intellect of all Dublin into our
rooms, I should not dream of doing it all at once, but
at. length. I should not rely on sudden, startling effects,
but on the slow, silent, penetrating, overpowering effects
of patience, steadiness, routine, and perseverance. I
have known individuals set themselves do\vn in a neigh-
bourhood where they had no advantages, and in a place
which had no pretensions, and upon a work which had
little or nothing of authoritative sanction; and they have
gone on steadily lecturing week after week, with little
encouragement, but much resolution. For months they
were ill attended, and overlooked in the bustle of the
world around them. Bu t there was ð secret, gradual
movement going on, and a specific force of attraction,
and a drifting and accumulation of hearers, \vhich at
length made itself felt, and could not be mistaken. In

494

DisciþlÙze o.f Mind.

this stage of things, a friend said in conversation to me,
\\'hen at the moment I knew nothing of the parties:
'By-the-bye, if you are interested in such and such a
subject, go by all means, and hear such a one. So and
so does, and says there is no one like him. I looked in
myself the other night, and was very much struck. Do
go, you can't mistake; he lectures every Tuesday night, or
Wednesday, or Thursday,' as it might be. An influence
thus gradually acquired endures; sudden popularity
dies away as suddenly."
As regards ourselves, the time is passed now, Gentle-
men, for such modesty of expectation, and such caution
in encouragement, as these last sentences exhibit. The
fe,v, but diligent, attendants upon the Professors' lectures,
with whom we began, have grown into the diligent and
zealous many; and the speedy fulfilment of anticipations,
\vhich then seemed to be hazardous, surely is a call on
us to cherish bolder hopes and to form more extended
plans for the years which are to follow.

6.
You will ask me, perhaps, after these general remarks,
to suggest to you the particular intellectual benefit \vhich
I conceive students have a right to require of us, and
which we engage by means of our evening classes to pro-
vide for them. And, in order to this, you must allow
me to make use of an illustration, \vhich I have hereto-
fore employed,. and which I repeat here, because it is
the best that I can find to convey what I wish to impress
upon you. It is an illustration which includes in its
application all of us, teachers ås well as taught, though
it applies of course to some more than to others, and to
those especial1y who come for instruction.
· Vul. supr. p. 231.

Disczpline of Mind.

495

I consider, then, that the position of our minds, as far
as they are uncultivated, towards intellectual objects,-l
mean of our minds, before they have been disciplined and
formed by the action of our reason upon them,-is analo-
gous to that of a blind man towards the objects of vision,
at the moment when eyes are for the first time given to
him by the skill of the operator. Then the multitude of
things, which present themselves to the sight under a mul-
tiplicity of shapes and hues, pour in upon him from the
external world all at once, and are at first nothing else
but lines and colours, without nlutual connection, depend-
ence, or contrast, without order or principle, without
drift or meaning, and like the wrong side of a piece of
tapestry or carpet. By degrees, by the sense of touch,
by reaching out the hands, by walking into this maze of
colours, by turning round in it, by accepting the princi-
ple of perspective, by the various slow teaching of ex-
perience, the first information of the sight is corrected,
and what was an unintelligible \vilderness becomes a land-
scape or a scene, and is understood to consist of space,
and of bodies variously located in space, with such con-
sequences as thence necessarily follow. The knowledge is
at length gained of things or objects, and of their rela-
tion to each other; and it is a kind of knowledge, as is
plain, which is forced upon us all from infancy, as to the
blind on their first seeing, by the testimony of our other
senses, and by the very necessity of supporting life; so
that even the brute animals have been gifted with the
faculty of acquiring it.
Such is the case as regards material objects; and it is
much the same as regards intellectual. I mean that
there is a vast host of matters of all kinds, \vhich address
themselves, not to the eye, but to our mental sense; viz.,
all those matters of thought which, in the course of life

49 6

Disciþline 0/ l1fz.nd.

and the intercourse of society, are brought before us,
which we hear of in conversation, which we read of in
books; matters political, social, ecclesiastical, literary,
domestic; persons, and their doings or their writings;
events, and works, and undertakings, and laws, and in-
-
stitutions. These make up a much more subtle and
intricate world than that visible universe of which I was
just now speaking. It is much more difficult in this
world than in the material to separate things off from
each other, and to find out how they stand related to
each other, and to learn ho\v to class them, and where
to locate them respectively. Still, it is not less true
that, as the various figures and forms in a landscape
have each its own place, and stand in this or that direc-
tion towards each other, so all the various objects which
address the intellect have severally a substance of their
own, and have fixed relations each of them with every-
thing else,-relations which our minds have no power of
creating, but which we are obliged to ascertain before
we have a right to boast that we really know any thing
about them. Yet, when the n1ind looks out for the first
time into this manifold spiritual world, it is just as much
confused and dazzled and distracted as are the eyes of
the blind when they first begin to see; and it is by a
long process, and \vith much effort and anxiety, that we
begin hardly and partially to apprehend its various con-
tents and to put each in its proper place.
We grow up from boyhood; our minds open; we go
into the world; we hear what men say, or read what
they put in print; and thus a profusion of matters of all
kinds is discharged upon us. Some sort of an idea we
have of most of them, from hearing \vhat others say;
but it is a very vague idea, probably a very mistaken
idea. Young people, especially, because they are young,

Disciþline 0/ Mind.

497

colour the assemblage of persons and things which they
encounter with the freshness and grace of their o\vn
springtide, look for all good from the reflection of theit
o\vn hopefulness, and worship what they have created.
lVlen of ambition, again, look upon the \vorld as a theatre
for fame and glory, and make it that n1agnificent scene
of high enterprise and august recoll1pence which Pindar
or Cicero has delineated. Poets, too, after their wont,
put their ideal interpretation upon all things, material
as well as moral, and substitute the noble for the true.
Here are various obvious instances, suggestive of the
discipline which is imperative, if the mind is to grasp
things as they are, and to discriminate substances froaJ
shadows. For I am not concerned merely \vith youth,
aInbition, or poetry, but \vith our mental condition gene-
rally. It is the fault of all of us, till \ve have duly
practised our minds, to be unreal in our sentiments and
crude in our judgments, and to be carried off by fancies,
instead of being at the trouble of acquiring sou!ld know-
ledge.
In consequence, when we hear opinions put forth on
any new subject, we have no principle to guide us in
balancing them; \ve do not know \vhat to make of them;
\ve turn them to and fro, and over, and back again, as if
to pronounce upon them, if we could, but \vith no means
of pronouncing. It is the same when we attempt to
speak upon them: \ve n1ake some random venture; or
we take up the opinion of some one else, which strikes
our fancy; or perhaps, ,vith the vaguest enunciation
possible of any opinion at all, we are satisfied \vith our--
selves if we are merely able to throw off some rounded
sentences, to make some pointed remarks on some other
subject, or to introduce some figure of speech, or flowers
of rhetoric, which, instead of being the vehicle, are the
3 2

498

Dist"iþ/t"ne of Mind.

mere substitute of meaning. We wish to take a part In
politics, and then nothing is open to us but to follow
SOIne person, or some party, and to learn the conlmon-
places and the \vatchwords \vhich belong to it. We
hear about landed interests, and mercantile interests,
and trade, and higher and lo\ver classes, and their rights,
duties, and prerogatives; and we attempt to transmit
\vhat \ve have received; and soon our minds become
loaded and perplexed by the incumbrance of ideas which
\ve have not mastered and cannot use. We have some
vague idea, for instance, that constitutional government
and slavery are inconsistent with each other; that there
is a connection between private judgment and democracy,
bet\veen Christianity and civilization; we attempt to find
arguments in proof, and our arguments are the most
plain demonstration that we simply do not understand the
things themselves of which we are professedly treating.

7.
Reflect, Gentlemen, how many disputes you must have
listened to, which were interminable, because neither party
understood either his opponent or himself. Consider the
fortunes of an argument in a debating society, and the
need there so frequently is, not simply of some clear
thinker to disentangle the perplexities of thought, but of
capacity in the combatants to do justice to the clearest
explanations which are set before them,-so much so,
that the luminous arbitration only gives rise, perhaps, to
more hopeless altercation. "Is a constitutional govern-
ment better for a population than an absolute rule?"
What a number of points have to be clearly apprehended
before we are in a position to say one \vord on such a
question! What is meant by "constitution"? by cc con-
stitutional government"? by "better"? by "a popula-

Dzsczpline of Mind.

499

tion "1 and by "absolutism"? The ideas represented
by these various words ought, I do not say, to be as per-
fectly defined and located in the minds of the speakers
as objects of sight in a landscape, but to be sufficiently.
even though incompletely, apprehended, before they have
a right to speak. "How is it that democracy can admit
of slavery, as in ancient Greece?" "How can Catho-
licism flourish in a republic?" N ow, a person who knows
his ignorance will say, "These questions are beyond me;"
and he tries to gain a clear notion and a firm hold of
them; and, if he speaks, it is as investigating, not as
deciding. On the other hand, let him never have tried
to throw things together, or to discriminate between them,
or to denote their peculiarities, in that case he ha.s no
hesitation in undertaking any subject, and perhaps has
most to say upon those questions which are most new to
him. This is why so many men are one-sided, narrow-
minded, prej udiced, crotchety. This is why able men
have to change their minds and their line of action in
middle age, and to begin life again, because they have
followed their party, instead of having secured that faculty
of true perception as regards intellectual obj ects which
has accrued to them, without their kno\ving how, as re-
gards the objects of sight.
But this defect will never be corrected,-on the contrary,
it will be aggravated,-by those popular institutions to
which I referred just now. The displays of eloquence, or
the interesting matter contained in their lectures, the
variety of useful or entertaining knowledge contained in
their libraries, though admirable in themselves, and advan-
tageous to the student at a later stage of his course, never
can serve as a substitute for methodical and laborious
teaching. A young man of sharp and active intellect, who
has had no other training, has little to show for it besides

500

Dzsczplz.ne o.f M,t"lld.

a litter of ideas heaped up into his mind anyhow. He
can utter a number of truths or sophisms, as the case
may be, and one is as good to him as another. He is up
with a number of doctrines and a number of facts, but
they are all loose and straggling, for he has no principles
set up in his mind round which to aggregate and locate
thent. He can say a word or two on half a dozen sciences,
but not a dozen words on anyone. He says one thing
now, and another thing presently j and \vhen he attempts
to write down distinctly what he holds upon a point in
dispute, or what he understands by its terms, he breaks
down, and is surprised at his failure. He sees objections
more clearly than truths, and can ask a thousand ques-
tions which the wisest of men cannot answer j and \vithal,
he has a very good opinion of himself, and is \vell satis-
fied with his attainments, and he declares against others,
as opposed to the spread of knowledge altogether, who
do not happen to adopt his ways of furthering it, or the
opinions in which he considers it to result.
This is that barren mockery of kno\vledge which comes
of attending on great Lecturers, or of mere acquaintance
with reviews, magazines, newspapers, and other literature
of the day, which, however able and valuable in itsel
is
not the instrument of intellectual education. If this is
all the training a man has, the chance is that, when a few
years have passed over his head, and he has talked to the
full, he wearies of talking, and of the subjects on which
he talked. He gives up the pursuit of knowledge, and
forgets what he knew, whatever it was j and, taking
things at their best, his mind is in no very different con-
dition from what it was when he first began to improve
it, as he hoped, though perhaps he never thought of more
than of amusing himself. I say, "at the best," for per-
haps he will suffer from exhaustion and a distaste of the

Disciþline o.f Mind.

501

subjects which once pleased him; or perhaps he has
suffered some real intellectual mischief; perhaps he has
contracted some serious disorder, he has admitted some
taint of scepticism, which he will never get rid of.
And here we see 1Nhat is meant by the poet's maxim,
II A little learning is a dangerous thing." Not that
knowledge, little or much, if it be real knowledge, is
dangerous; but that many a man considers a mere hazy
view of many things to be real knowledge, whereas it
does but mislead, just as a short-sighted man sees only
so far as to be led by his uncertain sight over the
preci pice.
Such, then, being true cultivation of mind, and such the
literary institutions \vhich do not tend to it, I might pro-
ceed to show you, Gentlemen, did time admit, how, on
the other hand, that kind of instruction of which our
Evening Classes are a specimen, is especially suited to
effect what they propose. Consider, for instance, what
a discipline in accuracy of thought it is to have to con-
strue a foreign language into your own; what a still
severer and more improving exercise it is to translate
from your own into a foreign language. Consider, again,
what a lesson in memory and discrimination it is to get
up, as it is called, anyone chapter of history. Consider
what a trial of acuteness, caution, and exactness, it is to
master, and still more to prove, a number of definitions.
Again, what an exer
ise in logic is classification, what
an exercise in logical precision it is to understand and
enunciate the proof of any of the more difficult pro-
positions of Euclid, or to master anyone of the great
arguments for Christianity so thoroughly as to bear ex-
amination upon it; or, again, to analyze sufficiently, yet
in as few words as possible, a speech, or to draw up a
critique upon a poem. And so of any other science,-

5 02

DisciPline oj Mind.

chemistry, or comparative anatomy, or natural history ;
it does not matter what it is, if it be really studied and .
mastered, as far as it is taken up. The result is a forma..
tion of mind,-that is, a habit of order and system, a
habit of referring every accession of kno\vledge to what
we already know, and of adjusting the one with the
other; and, moreover, as such a habit implies, the actual
acceptance and use of certain principles as centres of
thought, around which our kno\vledge grows and is
located. Where this critical faculty exists, history is no
longer a mere story-book, or biography a romance;
orators and publications of the day are no longer in-
fallible authorities j eloquent diction is no longer a
substitute for matter, nor bold statements, or lively
descriptions, a substitute for proof. This is that faculty
of perception in intellectual matters, which, as I have
said so often, is analogous to the capacity we all have of
mastering the multitude of lines and colours \vhich pour
in upon our eyes, and of deciding what every one of
them is worth.

8.
But I should be transgressing the limits assigned to
an address of this nature were I to proceed. I have
not said any thing, Gentlemen, on' the religious duties
which become the members of a Catholic University,
because we are directly concerned here with your studies
only. It is my consolation to know that so many of you
belong to a Society or Association, which the zeal of
some excellent priests, one especially, has been so in-
strumental in establishing in your great towns. You
do not come to us to have the foundation laid in your
breasts of that knowledge which is highest of all: it has
been laid already. You have begun your mental train..

Dzsciþlzne if Mind.

5 0 3

ing with faith and devotion; and then you come to us
to add the education of the intellect to the education of
the heart. Go on as you have begun, and you will be
one of the proudest achievements of our great under-
taking. We shall be able to point to you in proof that
zeal for knowledge may thrive even under the pressure
of secular callings; that mother-wit does not necessarily
make a man idle, nor inquisitiveness of mind irreverent;
that shrewdness and cleverness are not incompatible
with firm faith in the mysteries of Revelation; that
attainment in Literature and Science need not make
men conceited, nor above their station, nor restless, nor
self-willed. We shall be able to point to you in proof
of the power of Catholicism to make out of the staple of
great towns exemplary and enlightened Christians,-of
those classes which, external to Ireland, are the problem
and perplexity of patriotic statesmen, and the natural
opponents of the teachers of every kind of religion.

As to myself, I wish I could by actual service and
hard work of my own respond to your zeal, as so many
of my dear and excellent friends, the Professors of the
University, have done and do. They have a merit, they
have a claim on you, Gentlemen, in which I have no
part. If I admire the energy and bravery with which
you have undertaken the work of self-improvement, be
sure I do not forget their public spirit and noble free
devotion to the University any more than you do. I
know I should not satisfy you with any praise of this
supplement of our academical arra.ngements which did
not include those who give to it its life. It is a very
pleasant and encouraging sight to see both parties, the
teachers and the taught, co-operating with a pure esprit-
de-corps thus voluntarily,-they as fully as you can do,-

5 0 4

Dz"sciþll:ne of Mind.

for a great object; and I offer up my earnest prayers to
the Author of all good, that He will ever bestow on you
all, on Professors and on Students, as I feel sure He will
bestow, Rulers and Superiors, who, by their zeal and
diligence in their o
n place, shall prove themselves
worthy both of your cause and of yourselves.

5 0 5

x.

CHRISTIANITY AND MEDICAL SCIENt:E.

AN ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS OF MEDICINE.

I.
I HAVE had so few opportunities, Gentlenlen, of ad-
dressing you, and our present meeting is of so interest-
ing and pleasing a character, by reason of the obj ect
which occasions it, that I am encouraged to speak freely
to you, though I do not know you personally, on a sub-
ject which, as you may conceive, is often before my own
mind: I mean, the exact relation in which your noble
profession ,stands towards the Catholic University itselí
and towards Catholicism generally. Considering my
own most responsible office as Rector, my vocation as
an ecclesiastic, and then again my years, which increase
my present claim, and diminish my future chances, of
speaking to you, I need make no apology, I am sure,
for a step, which will be recommended to you by my
good intentions, even though it deserves no consideration
on the score of the reflections and suggestions themselves
which I shall bring before you. If indeed this U niver-
sity, and its Faculty of Medicine inclusively, were set up
for the promotion of any merely secular object,-in the
spirit of religious rivalry, as a measure of party politics,
or as a commercial speculation,-then indeed I should

506 Chrzstz"anzlY and JJedz.cal Science.

be out of place, not only in addressing you in the tone
of advice, but in being here at all; for what reason could
I in that case have had for having now given some of
the most valuable years of my life to this University,
for having placed it fa emost in my thoughts and anxie-
ties,-(I had well nigh said) to the prejudice of prior,
dearer, and more sacred ties,-except that I felt that
the highest and most special religious interests were
bound up in its establishment and in its success? Suffer
me, then, Gentlemen, if \vith these views and feelings I
conform my observations to the sacred build.ïng in which
we find ourselves, and if I speak to you for a few minutes
as if I were rather addressing you authoritatively from
the pulpit than in the Rector's chair.
N O\v I am going to set before you, in as few words as
I can, what I conceive to be the principal duty of the
Medical Profession to\vards Religion, and some of the
difficulties which are found in the observance of that
duty: and in speaking on the subject I am conscious
how little qualified I am to handle it in such a way as
will come home to your minds, from that want of ac-
quaintance with you personally, to which I have alluded,
and from my necessary ignorance of the influences of
\vÌ1atever kind which actually surround you, and the
points of detail \vhich are likely to be your religious em-
barrassments. I can but lay down principles and maxims,
which you must apply for yourselves, and which in some
respects or cases you may feel have no true application
at all

2.
All professions have their dangers, all general truths
have their fallacies, all spheres of action have their limits,
and are liable to improper extension or alteration. Every

Christianity and Med'ical Science. 5 0 7

professional man has rightly a zeal for his profession,
and he would not do his duty towards it without that
zeal. And that zeal soon becomes exclusive, or rather
necessarily involves a sort of exclusiveness. A zealous
professional man soon comes to think that his profession
is all in all, and that the world would not go on without
it. We have heard, for instance, a great deal lately in
regard to the war in India, of political views suggesting
one plan of campaign, and military views suggesting
another. How hard it must be for the military man to
forego his own strategical dispositions, not on the ground
that they are not the best,-not that they are not ac-
knowledged by those who nevertheless put them aside
to be the best for the object of military success,-but
because military success is not the highest of objects,
and the end of ends,-because it is not the sovereign
science, but must ever be subordinate to political con-
siderations or maxims of government, which is a higher
science with higher objects,-and that therefore his sure
success on the field must be relinquished because the
interests of the council and the cabinet require the sac-
rifice, that the war must yield to the statesman's craft, the
commander-in-chief to the governor-general. Yet what
the soldier feels is natural, and what the statesman does
is just. This collision, this desire on the part of every
profession to be supreme,-this necessary, though reluc-
tant, subordination of the one to the other,-is a process
ever going on, ever acted out before our eyes. The
civilian is in rivalry with the soldier, the soldier with the
civilian. The diplomatist, the lawyer, the political econo-
mist, the merchant, each wishes to usurp the powers of
the state, and to mould society upon the principles of
his own pursuit.
Nor do they confine themselves to the mere province of

5 08 Chrz.stz.anity and Medical Science.

secular matters. They intrude into the province of Re-
ligion. In England, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, law-
yers got hold of religion, and never have let it go. Abroad,
bureaucracy keeps hold of Religion with a more or less
firm grasp. The circJes of literature and science have
in like manner before now made Religion a mere province
of their universal empire.
I remark, moreover, that these various usurpations are
frequently made in perfectly good faith. There is no
intention of encroachment on the part of the encroachers.
The commander recommends what with all his heart and
soul he thinks best for his country when he presses on
Government a certain plan of campaign. The political
economist has the most honest intentions of improving
the Christian system of social duty by his reforms. The
statesman may have the best and most loyal dispositions
towards the Holy See, at the time that he is urging
changes in ecclesiastical discipline which would be
seriously detrimental to the Church.
And now I will say how this applies to the Medical
Profession, and what is its special danger, viewed in re-
lation to Catholicity.

3.
Its province is the physical nature of man, and its
object is the preservation of that physical nature in its
proper state, and its restoration when it has lost it. It
limits itself, by its very profession, to the health of the
body; it ascertains the conditions of that health; it
analyzes the causes of its interruption or failure; it seeks
about for the means of cure. But, after all, bodily health
is not the only end of man, and the medical science is
not the highest science of \vhich he is the subject. 1Vlan
has a moral and a religious nature, as well as a physical.

Christ-ianily and MédÙ:al Sczence. 509

He has a nlind and a soul; and the mind and soul have
a legitimate sovereignty over the body, and the sciences
relating to them have in consequence the precedence
of those sciences which relate to the body. And as the
soldier must yield to the statesman, when they come into
collision ,vith each other, so must the medical man to the
priest; not that the medical man may not be enunciating
what is absolutely certain, in a medical point of view,
as the commander may be perfectly right in what he
enunciates strategically, but that his action is suspended
in the given case by the interests and duty of a superior
science, and he retires not confuted but superseded.
N ow this general principle thus stated, all will admit:
who will deny that health must give way to duty? So
far there is no perplexity: supposing a fever to break
out in a certain place, and the nledical practitioner said
co a Sister of Charity who was visiting the sick there,
" You will die to a certainty if you remain there," and
her ecclesiastical superiors on the contrary said, " You
have devoted your life to such services, and there you
must stay;" and supposing she stayed and was taken
off; the medical adviser would be right, but who would
say that the Religious Sister was wrong? She did not
doubt his word, but she denied the importance of that
,vord, compared with the word of her religious superiors.
The medical man was right, yet he could not gain his
point. He was right in \vhat he said, he said what was
true, yet he had to give way.
I-Iere we are approaching what I conceive to be the
especial temptation and danger to which the medical
profession is exposed: it is a certain sophism of the in-
tellect, founded on this maxiLll, implied, but not spoken
or even recognized-" What is true is lawfu1." Not so.
Observe, here is the fallacY',-What is true in one science

5 10 Christianity and lI1"edz'cal Sc'z"e1lce.

is dictated to us indeed according to that science, but
not according to another science, or in another depart-
ment. What is certain in the military art has force in
the military art, but not in statesmanship; and if states-
nlanship be a higher department of action than war, and
..
enjoins the contrary, it has no claim on our reception and
obedience at all. And so what is true in medical science
might in all cases be carried out, were man a mere
aninlal or brute without a soul; but since he is a rational,
responsible being, a thing may be ever so true in medicine,
yet may be unla\vful in fact, in consequence of the lug-her
la\v of morals and religion having come to some different
conclusion. N ow I must be allowed some few words to
express, or rather to suggest, more fully \vhat I mean.
The \vhole universe comes from the good God. It is
His creation; it is good; it is all good, as being the work
of the Good, t ,. c:h ood onl in its, . _ -. .., .' . -
His Infinite Perfection. The physical nature of man is
good; nor can there be any thing sinful in itself in acting
according to that nature. Every natural appetite or func-
tion is lawful, speaking abstractedly. No natural feeling
or act is in itself sinful. There can be no doubt of all
this; and there can be no doubt that science can deter-
mine what is natural, what tends to the preservation of
a healthy state of nature, and what on the contrary is
inj urious to nature. Thus the medical student has a vast
field of knowledge spread out before him, true, because
kno\vledge, and innocent, because true.
So much in the abstract-but when we come to fact,
it may easily happen that what is in itself innocent nlay
not be innocent to this or that person, or in this or that
mode or degree. Again, it may easily happen that the
im pressions made on a man's mind by his own science
may be indefinitely more vivid and operative than the

Chnsl'ianzty and Medl.cal Science. 5 11

enunciations of truths belonging to some other branch of
knowledge, which strike indeed his ear, but do not come
home to him, are not fixed in his memory, are not im-
printed on his imagination. And in the profession before
us, a medical student may realize far more powerfully and
habitually that certain acts are advisable in themselves
according to the law of physical nature, than the fact that
they are forbidden according to the law of some higher
science, as theology; or again, that they are accidentally
wrong, as being, though lawful in themselves, \vrong in
this or that individual, or under the circumstances of the
case.
N ow to recur to the instance I have already given: it
is supposable that that Sister of Charity, who, for the
sake of her soul, would not obey the law of self-preserva-
tion as regards her body, might cause her medical adviser
great irritation and disgust. His own particular profes-
sion might have so engrossed his mind, and the truth of
its maxims have so penetrated it, that he could not
understand or admit any other or any higher system.
lIe might in process of time have become simply dead
to all religious truths, because such truths were not present
to him, and those of his own science were ever present.
And observe, his fault would be, not that of taking error
for truth, for \vhat he relied on was truth-but in not
understanding that there \vere other truths, and those
higher than his own.
Take another case, in which there will often in parti-
cular circumstances be considerable differences of opinion
among really religious men, but which does not cease on
that account to illustrate the point I am insisting on. A
patient is dying: the priest wishes to be introduced
lest
he should die without due preparation: the medical man
says that the thought of religion will disturb his mind

5 12 Chrzsliallity a11d MedÙ:al Science.

and imperil his recovery. No\v in the particular case,
the one party or the other may be right in urging his
own view of what ought to be done. I am n1erely
directing attention to the principle involved in it. I-Iere
are the representatives of two great sciences, Religion
and Medicine. Each says what is true in his o\vn science,
each ,vill think he has a right to insist on seeing that the
truth which he hinlself is maintaining is carried out in
action; whereas, one of the two sciences is above the
other, and the end of Religion is indefinitely higher than
the end of Medicine. And, however the decision ought
to go, in the particular case, as to introducing the subject
of religion or not, I think the priest ought to ha
e that
decision; just as a Governor-General, not a Commander-
in-Chief, would have the ultimate decision, were politics
and strategies to come into collision.
You will easily understand, Gentlemen, that I dare
not pursue my subject into those details, which are of
the greater importance for the very reason that they
cannot be spoken of. A medical philosopher, who has
so simply fixed his intellect on his own science as to have
forgotten the existence of any other, will view man, who
is the subject of his contemplation, as a being who has
little more to do than to be born, to grow, to eat, to drink,
to walk, to reproduce his kind, and to die. He sees him
born as other animals are born; he sees life leave hin),
with all those phenomena of annihilation which accom-
pany the death of a brute. He compares his structure,
his organs, his functions, with those of other animals

and his o\vn range of science leads to the discovery of no
facts which are sufficient to convince him that there is
any
ifference in kind between the human animal and
thenl. His practice, then, is according to his facts and
l1is theory. Such a person will think himself free to give

Chrzslianity and Medical Science. 5 13

advice, and to insist upon rules, which are quite insuffer-
able to any religious mind, and simply antagonistic to
faith and morals. It is not, I repeat, that he says what
is untrue, supposing that man were an animal and nothing
else: but he thinks that whatever is true in his own
science is at once lawful in practice-as if there were not
a number of rival sciences in the great circle of philosophy,
as if there were not a number of conflicting views and
objects in human nature to be taken into account and
reconciled, or as if it were his duty to forget all but his
o\vn ; whereas

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

I have known in England the most detestable advice
given to young persons by eminent physicians, in con-
sequence of this contracted view of man and his destinies.
God forbid that I should measure the professional habits
of Catholics by the rules of practice of those who were
not! but it is plain that what is actually carried out
where religion is not knov{n, exists as a ten1ptation and
a dan
er in the Science of Medicine itself, where reli
ion
is known ever so well.

4-
And now, having suggested, as far as I dare, what I
consider the consequences of that radical sophism to
\vhich the medical profession is exposed, let me go on to
say in what way it is corrected by the action of Catho-
licism upon it.
You will observe, then, Gentlemen, that those higher
sciences of which I have spoken, Morals and Religion.
are not represented to the intelligence of the world by
intimations and notices strong and obvious, such as those
33

5 14 Christianity and Medical SC'l'èllCe

Y.l3.

which are the foundation of Physical Science. The
physical nature lies before us, patent to the sight, ready
to the touch, appealing to the senses in so unequivocal a
way that the science which is founded upon it is 3.5
real to us as the fact of our personal existence. But
the phenomena, whicn are the basis of morals and Reli-
gion, have nothing of this luminous evidence. Instead
of being obtruded upon our notice, so that we cannot
possibly overlook them, they are the dictates either of
Conscience or of Faith. They are faint shadows and
tracings, certain indeed, but delicate, fragile, and almost
evanescent, which the mind recognizes at one time, not
at another,-discerns \vhen it is calm, loses when it is in
agitation. The reflection of sky and mountains in the
lake is a proof that sky and mountains are around it,
but the twilight, or the mist, or the sudden storm hurries
away the beautiful image, which leaves behind it no
memorial of what it was. Something like this are the
Moral Law and the informations of Faith, as they pre..
sent themselves to individual minds. JVho can deny
the existence of Conscience? who does not feel the forc e-
-
of its injunctions? but how dim is the illumination in
w hich it is inv est ed arui..how
e ble its influence, com-
p ared with that evidence of si g ht and touch which is the
.fo undation of Ph-ysil.
1 Science! Ho\v easily can we be
tal ked out of our clearest views of duty f how does this
or that moral precept crumble into nothing when we
rudely handle it f how does the fear of sin pass off fronl
us, as quickly as the glow of modesty dies away from
the countenance! and then we say, "It is all supersti-
tion." However, after a time we look round, and then
to our surprise we see, as before, the same law of duty,
the same moral precepts, the same protests against sin,
appearing over against us, in their old places, as if they

Chrz"stiantty and Medt:cal Sc'ience. 5 I 5

never had been brushed away, like the divine handWriting l
upon the wall at the banquet. Then perhaps we ap-
proach them rudely, and inspect them irreverently, and
accost them sceptically, and away they go again, like so
many spectres,-shining in their cold beauty, but notl
presenting themselves bodily to us, for our inspection, so
to say, of their hands and their feet. And thus these
awful, supernatural, bright, majestic, delicate apparitions,
much as we may in our hearts acknowledge their sove-
reignty, are no match as a foundation of Science for
the hard, palpable, material facts whIch make up the
province of Physics. Recurring to my ori{!inal illus-
tration. it is as if the India Commander -in-Chiet i nstead of
neine- under the control of a local seat o f
overnme nt at
Calcutta, were governed sim.E!Y -.!r.Q m London , or fr

the moon. In that case, he would be under a stro ng
t
p !ation t <L-Jleglect the home government, which..
n
ertheless in theo ry he ack wle g ed. Such. I say.!..
is the natural condition of mankind :-we depend upon
a seat of government which is in another world : we are
directed and
overned by intimations from above; we
need a local .. . 'II" .. ....
- -
That = reat insti . , . . . , . .. . , ,.
been set up by Divine Mercy. as a present, visible anta-
gonist, and the only possible anta
onist, to sig-ht and
sense. C onscIence, reason, good feeling, the instincts of
our moral nature, the traditions of Faith, the conclusions
and deductions of philosophical Religion, are no match
at all for the stubborn facts (for they are facts, though
there are other facts besides them), for the facts, which
are the foundation of physical, and in particular of medi-
cal, science. Gentlemen, if you feel, as you must feel,
the whisper of a law of moral truth within you, and the
impulse to believe, be sure there is nothing whatever on

516 Christianity and MedÙ:al Sct.ence.

earth which can be the sufficient champion of these
sovereign authorities of your soul, \vhich can vindicate
and preserve them to you, and make you loyal to them,
but the Catholic Church. You fear they will go, you
see with dismay that they are going, under the continual
-.
impression created on your mind by the details of the
material science to which you have devoted your lives.
It is 50-1 do not deny it ; except under rare and happy
circumstances, go they will, unless you have Catholicism
to back you up in keeping faithful to them. The world
is a roue-h antagonist of spiritual truth: sometimes with
mailed hand . m - .". ... . . · · · . . ,

times with a storm of irresistible facts, it presses on

ainst you. What it says is true perhaps as far as it
goes, but it is not the whole truth, or t h e most im ortant
trot . ese more im p ortant truths , whic h the_ natu ral
beart admits in their substance, thoue-h it cannot main-
I taint-the being of ;l (;oò, the certainty of future retri-
f <). bution. thp rbimi nf tlJe mora] la\v, the reality of sin

the hope of supernatural help,-of these the Church is in
matter of fact the undaunted and the only defe nder. ...
Even those who do not look on her as divine must
grant as much as this. 1 do not ask you for more here
than to contemplate and recognize her as a fact,-as
other things are facts. She has been eighteen hundred
years in the world, and all that time she has been doing
battle in the boldest, most obstinate way in the cause of
the human race, in maintenance of the undeniable but
comparatively obscure truths of Religion. She is always
alive, always on the alert, \\,hen any enemy whatever
attacks them. She has brought them through a thou-
sand perils. Sometimes preaching, sometimes pleading,
sometimes arguing,-sometimes exposing her ministers
to death, and sOlnetimes, though rarely, inflicting blows

Christianity and Medical Scu1lce. 5 I 7

herself,-by peremptory deeds, by patient concessions,-/
she has fought on and fulfilled her trust. No wonder
so many speak ae-ainst her, for she deserves it: she h

earned the hatred and obloQuy of her opponents bv her l
success in 0 osin them. Those even who s
again

..,..--er in thi s d ay. own tha t she was of use in a former da
(
The historians in fashion with us just now, much as they
may disown her in their own country, where she is an
actual, present, unpleasant, inconvenient monitor, ac-
knowledge that, in the middle ages which are gone, in
her were lodged, by her were saved, the fortunes and
the hopes of the human race. The very characteristics
of her discipline, the very maxims of her policy, which
they reprobate now, they perceive to have been of ser-
vice then. They understand, and candidly avow, tha J
once she was the patron of the arts, the home and sanc-
tuary of letters, the basis of law, the principle of order
and government, and the saviour of Christianity itself.
They judge clearly enough in the case of others, though
they are slo\v to see the fact in their own age and coun-
try; and, while they do not like to be regulated by her,
and kept in order by her, themselves, they are very well
satisfied that the populations of those former centuries
should have been so ruled, and tamed, and taught by
her resolute and wise teaching. And be sure of this
that.. a s the
eneration now alive admits t hese ben efit

to have arisen from her presence in a state of society
now E"one by. so in turn. when the interests and pas-
sions of this day are passed a\v aYJ \vill future enerations
ascribe to her a like special benefi cial a ction upon this
nineteenth centu ry in which we live. For she is ever
the sameJ-ever y oun g an d vigorous, and ever overc om -
ing new errors wit h t he old wea pon
.

5 I 8 C h
istianzty and lIIedzcal Science.

And now I have explained, Gentlemen, \vhy it has
been so highly expedient and desirable in a country like
this to bring the Faculty of Medicine under the shadow
of the Catholic Church. I say II in a country like this;"
for, if there be any country which deserves that Science
should not run wild, liKe a planet broken loose from its
celestial system, it is a country which can boast of such
hereditary faith, of such a persevering confessorship, of
such an accumulation of good works, of such a glorious
name, as Ireland. Far be it from this country, far be it
fronl the counsels of Divine Mercy, that it should grow
in knowledge and not grow in religion I and Çatholicism

. is the strength of Relie-ion. as Science and System ar

the stren
th of Knowle dge.
Aspirations suc h as t hese are met, Gentlemen, I am
well a\\'are, by a responsive feeling in your own hearts;
but by my putting theln into words, thoughts which
alread y exist within you are brought into livelier exercise,
and sentiments which exist in many breasts hold inter-
communion with each other. Gentlemen, it will be your
high office to be the links in your generation between
Religion and Science. Return thanks to the Author of
all good that He has chosen you for this work. Trust
the Church of God implicitly, even when your natural
judgment would take a different course from hers, and
would induce you to question her prudence or her correct-
ness. Recollect what a hard task she has; how she is
sure to be criticized and spoken against, whatever she
does ;-recollect how much she needs your loyal and
tender devotion. Recollect, too, how long is the experi-
ence gained in eighteen hundred years, and what a right
she has to claim your assent to principles which have

Christianity and jJiedical Science. 519

had so extended and so triumphant a trial. Thank her
that she has kept the faith safe for so many generations,
and do your part in helping her to transmit it to genera-
tions after you.
For me, if it has been given me to have any share in
so great a work, I shall rejoice with a joy, not such indeed
as I should feel were I myself a native of this generous
land, but with a joy of my own, not the less pure, because
I have exerted myself for that which concerns others
more nearly than myself. I have had no other motive,
as far as I know myself, than to attempt, according to
my strength, some service to the cause of Religion, and
to be the servant of those to whom as a nation the whole
of Christendom is so deeply indebted; and though this
University, and the Faculty of Medicine which belongs
to it, are as yet only in the commencement of their long
career of usefulness, yet while I live, and (I trust) after
life, it will ever be a theme of thankfulness for my heart
and my lips, that I have been allowed to do even a little,
and to witness so much, of the arduous, pleasant, and
hopeful toil which has attended on their establishtnent.

5 20

NOTE ON PAGE 478.

I TH INK it worth \vhile, in illustration of what I have
said above at the page specified, to append the fol-
lowing passage from Grandorgæus's catalogue of Mura-
tori's works.
"Sanctissimus D.N. Benedictus xiv. Pont. Max. Epis-
tolam sapientiæ ac roboris plenam dederat. . . ad
Episcopum Terulensem Hispaniæ lnquisitionis Majorem
Inquisitorem, quâ ilIum hortabatur, ut 'Historiam Pel a-
gianam et dissertation em, etc.,' editas à claræ memoriæ
Henrico Cardinali Norisio, in lndicem Expurgatorium
Hispanum nuper ingestas, perinde ac si aliquid Baia-
nismi aut] ansenismi redolerent, prout auctor f Bibliothecæ
J ansenisticæ' immerito autumavit, quamprimum expun-
gendas curaret. Eoque nomine Sapientissimus Pontifex
plura in n1edium attulit prudentis æconomiæ exempla,
qua semper usum, supremuln S. R. Congr. lndicis Tribu-
nal, à proscribendis virorum doctissimorum operibus
aliquando ten1peravit.
Ie Quum autem summus Pontifex, ea inter nomina
illustria Tillemontii, Bollandistarum, Bosoueti Ep. Meld.,
et illud recensuerit L. A. Muratorii, his ad Auctorem
nostrum delatis, quam maximè indoluit, veritus ne in
tantâ operum copiâ ab se editorum, aliquid Fidei aut
Religioni minùs consonum sibi excidisset. . .
"Verùm clementissimus Pontifex ne animum despon-
deret doctus et humilis filius, pernumaniter ad ipsun1
rescripsit. . . eumque paternè , con
olatus, inter alia hæc

Note 6Jl Page 478.

5 21

habet: 'Quanto si era detto nella nostra Lettera all'
Inquisitore di Spagna in ordine aIle di Lei Opere, non
aveva che fare con la materia delle Feste, nè con verun
dogma 0 disciplina. II contenuto delle Opere chi qui
non è piaciuto (nè che Ella poteva mai lusingarsi che
fesse per piacere), riguarda la Giurisdizione Temporale
del Romano Pontifice nè suoi stati,'" etc. (pp. Ix., Ix i).

INDEX

ABELARD, g6, age or, 2 6 3
Accomplishments not education, 144
Addison, his Vision of Mirza, 279; his care in writing, 284 ; the child of
the Revolution, 3 I 2, 329
Æschylus,25 8
Alcuin, 17
Aldhelm, St., 17
Alexander the Great, his delight i"l Homer, 258 j conquests of, 2Ó4
Anaxagoras, 116
Andes, the, 136
Animuccia and St. Philip Neri, 237
Apollo Belvidere, the, 283
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 134, 26 3, 3 8 4
Arcesilas, 101
Architecture, 81
Arian argument against our Lord's Divinity, 95
Ariosto, 316
A ristotelic philosophy, the, 52
Aristotle, xii., 6, S3; quoted, 78, 101, 106, 109, 134, 222, 275 j his sketch
of the magnanimous man, 280, 383, 43 1 , 4 6 9
Athens, the fountain of secular knowledge, 264
Augustine, St., of Canterbury, mission of, 16
Augustine, St., of Hippo, quoted, 410
BACCI'S Life of St. Philip Neri, quoted, 236
Bacon, Friar, xiiL, 220
Baconian philosophy, the, 109
Bacon, Lord, quoted, 77, 9<>, 117- 11 9, 175, 221, 225, 26 3, 3 1 9. 437
Balaam, 66
Beethoven, 286, 313
Bentham's Pr
1Ies Juáiâaires, 96
Berkeley, Bishop, on Gothic Architecture, 81
Boccaccio, 316
Boniface, St., 220
Borromeo, St. Carlo, enjoins the use of some of the Latin classics, 261 j on
preaching, 406, 4 12 , 4 1 4r 42 1
Bossuet and Bishop Bull, 7
Brougham, Lord, his Discourse at Glasgow, quoted, 30, 34-35
Brotus, abandoned by philosophy, 116
Burke, Edmund, 176; hil nlediction to the spirit of chivalry, 201

5 2 4

Índex.

Burman, 140
Butler, Bishop, his Analogy, 61, 100, 158, 226
Byron, Lord, his versification, 326
CAIETAN, St., 235

mpbell, Thomas, 322, 326
Cameades, 106
Cato the elder, his oppositioQ to the Greek philosophy, t06
Catullus, 325
Chinese civilization, 252
Christianity and Letters, 249
Chrysostom, St., on Judas, 86
Cicero, quoted, 77 ; on the pursuit of knowledge, 104. 116, 260; style o

281, 282, 327 ; quoted, 399; his orations against Verres, 421
Civilization and Christianity, 255
Clarendon, Lord, 311
Colours, combination of, 100
"Condescension," two senses of, 205
Copleston, Dr., Bishop of Llandaff, 157 i quoted, 167-169
Corinthian brass, 175
Cowper, quoted, 191, 467
Crabbe, his Tales oj th
Hall, 150; his versification, 326
Craik, Dr. G. L, his Pursuit of KnDW/
dg
UnMr Difficulties, quoted, 10 3,
104
DANTE, 316, 329
Oavison, Joho, 158; on Liberal Education, 169 I ì7
Definiteness, the life of preaching, 426
I )emosthenes, 259, 284
Descartes, 315
Dumesnil's Synonymes, 368
Du Pin's Ecclesiastical History, 140
EDGEWORTH, Mr., on Professional Education, 158, 17 0 , 176
Edinburgh, 154
Edinburg" Rntinu, the, 153, 157, 160, 301, 329
Edward II., King of England, vow at his flight from Bannockbum, 155
Elmsley, xiv.
Epicurus, 40
Euclid's Elements, 274. 3 1 3, 501
Euripides, 258
FENELON, on the Gothic style of Architecture, 82
Fontaine, La, his immoral COllieS, 315
Fouqué, Lamotte, his tale of the Unknown Patimt, 119
Fra Angelico, 287
Franklin, 304
Frederick II., 3 8 3, 384
GALEN, 222
Gentleman, the true, defined, 208
Genii!, Cardinal, quoted, xiü., on the Emperor Julian, 194; OD MaJa.
branche, 477

index.

5 2 5

Giannone, 3 I 6
Gibbon, on the darkness at the Passion, 95; his hatred of Christianity,
195, 196; his care in writing, 285 ; influence of his style on the litera-
ture of the present day, 323 ; his tribute to Hume and Robertson, 3 2 5
Goethe, 134
Gothic Architecture, 82
Grammar, 96, 334
Gregory the Great, St., 260
HARDOUIN, Father, on Latin literature, 310
Health, 164
Herodotus, 284, 3 2 5, 3 2 9
Hobbes, 311
Homer, his address to the Delian women, 257; his best descriptions. accord-
ing to Sterne, marred by translation, 271
Hooker, 311
Horace, quoted, 257, 258, 329
Home Tooke, 96
Hume, 40, 58; style of 325
Humility, 206
Russ, 155
JACOB'S courtship, 232
Jeffrey, Lord, 157.
Jerome, St., on idolizing the creature, 87
Jerusalem, the fountain-head of religious knowledge, 264
Ignatius, St. 235
Job, religious merry-makings of, 232; Book of, 289
John, King, 383
John of Salisbury, 262
Johnson, Dr., his method of writing the Ramblers, xx. ; his vigour and
resource of intellect, xxi. ; his definition of the word University 20; his
Rasselas quoted, 116-117; .style of, 283; his Table-talk, 313; his bi3$
towards Catholicity, 319 ; his definition of Grammar, 334
Joseph, history of, 27 I
Isaac, feast at his weaning, 232
Isocrates, 282
Julian the Apostate, 194
Justinian, 265
Juvenal, 325
KEBLE, John, 158; his Latin Lectures, 3
9
Knowledge, its own end, 99; viewed in relation to learning, 124; to pro.
fessional skill, 15I; to religion, 179
LALANNE, Abbé, 9
Leo, St., on the love of gain, 87
Literature, 268
Locke, on Education, I58-IÓO, 16 3, 319.
Logos, 276
Lohner, Father, his story of a court-preacher, 4U
Longinus, his admiration of the
Iosaic ar.count of Creation, 271
Lutheran leaven, spread of the. 28

5 20

Index.

l\IACAULAY, Lord, his Essay on :Bacon's philosophy, 118, 221; his Essays
quoted, 301, 435-438, 450
l\Iachiavel, 316
Malebranche, 477
Maltby, Dr., bishop of Durham, his Address to the Deity, 33, 40
l\lichael Angelo, first attempts of, 283
Milman, Dean, his History of the Jews, 85
\fUton, on Education, 169; his ,samson Agonistes quoted, 323; hi! allu
sions to himself, 329
Modesty, 206
:Montaigne's Essays, 315
More, Sir Thomas, 437
Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, 14c
M'Jratori, 478, 520
!\Iusic, 80
NERI, St. Philip, 234
Newton, Sir Isaac, xiii., 49, 53; on the Apocalypse, 304; his marvellow
powers, 324
Newtonian philosophy, the, 49
Noah's ark, 73
OLYMPIC games, the, 107
Optics, 46
PAINTING, 79
Palestrina, 237
Paley, 58, 449
PaUadio, 57
Pasca1, 315
Patrick, St., greatness of his work, IS
Periodical criticism, 333
Persian mode of letter-writing, 277
Pindar, 329
Pitt, 'Yilliam, his opinion of Butler's Analogy, 100
Pius IV., Pope, death of, 237
Plato, on poets, 101 ; on music, 110
Playfair, Professor, 157
Political Economy, 86
Pompey's Pillar, 136
Pope, Alex., quoted, I 18; an indifferent Catholic, 318: has tuned oUI
versification, 3 2 3; quoted, 375. 501
Porson, Richard, xiv., 304
Pride and self-respect, 207
Private Judgment, 97 .
Protestant argument against Transubstantiation, 95
Psalter, the, 289
Pulci, 3 16
Pythagoras, "ill
RABELAIS, 3 1 S
Raffaelle, first attempts of, 283; 287
Rassaas quoted. 116

III I ler.

5 2 7

Recreations not Education, 1<<
Robertson, style of, 325
Rome, 265
Round Towers of Ireland, the, 95
SALES, St. Francis de, on preaching, 4 06 , 410. 411
Salmasius, 140
Savonarola, 235
Scott, Sir Walter, 313; his Old Mortality, 359
Seneca, 110, 116, 327
· Sermons of the seventeenth century, 140
Shaftesbury, Lord, his Characteristics, 196-201, 204
Shakespeare, quoted, 150; his iWacbeth quoted, 280; IIamÜt quoted, 281;
quoted, 284, 287; morality of, 318; quoted, 4 10 , 513
Simon of Tournay, narrative of, 384
Smith, Sydney, 157
Sophocles, 258
Southey's Thalaba, 323; quoted, 324
Sterne's Sermons, quoted, 270-272
Stuffing birds not education, 144
Sylvester II., Pope, accused of magic, 220

r ARPEIA, 140
Taylor, Jeremy, his Lw"ty of Prophesying, 472
Terence and Menander, 259
Tertullian, 327
Thales, :xiii.
Theology, a branch of knowledge, 19; definition of, 60
Thucydides, 259, 3 2 5, 329
Titus, armies of, 265

.

VIRGIL, his obligations to Greek poetc;, 259; wishes his Æneid ounn. 2S.L
fixes the character of the hexameter, 325. 329
Voltaire, 3 0 3, 315
UTILITY in Education, 161
\VATSON, Bishop, on Mathematics, 101
\Viclif, 155
\Vren, Sir Christopher, 1)7
XAVIER, St. FrancIS, 235
Xenophon quoted, 107, 258

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and the Rev. EDWARD MYERS, M.A. 3s. 6d. net.

THE PRIEST'S STUDIES. By the Very Rev. THOMAS
SCANNELL, D.O., Canon of Southwark Cathedral. Editor of The
Catholic Dictionary. 3s. 6d. net.

THE TRADITION OF SCRIPTURE: its Origin,
Authority and Interpretation. By the Very Rev. WILLIAM BARRY,
D.O., Canon of Birmingham. 3s. 6d. net.

THE LEGENDS OF THE SAINTS: An Introduction
to Hagiography. From the French of Père H. DELEHA YE, S.J., Bollan-
dist. Translated by Mrs. V. M. CRAWFORD. 3s. 6d. net.

NON-CA THOLIC DENOMINATIONS. By the Very
Rev. Monsignor ROBERT HUGH BENSON. 3s. 6d. net.

The following Volumes are in Preparation:-

CHRISTIAN ARCHÆOLOGY. By the Right Rev.
Monsignor A. S. BARNES, M.A. With Illustrations.

THE CLERGY AND SOCIAL ACTION. By the Rev.
CHARLES PLATER, 5.1.
THE INSTRUCTION OF CONVERTS. By the Rev.
SYDNEY F. SMITH, S.j.

4

MESSRS. LONGMANS. LIST OF WORKS

For the Clergy and Students.
PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM: By Monsignor PIERRE
BA TIFFOL. Authorised translation by HENRY L. BRIANCEAU.
St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore. revised by the Author. 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.

THE CREDIBILITY OF THE GOSPEL. cc Orpheus
et rÉvangile." By Monsignor PIERRE BA TIFFOL. Translated by the
Rev. G. C. H. POLLEN, S.J. With an Appendix giving the Decisions
of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, j une 19th, 1911, and June 26th, 1912.
Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. tlet.
*.* The Appendix will be supPlied separately on applicatIon to the Publishers.

HISTORY OF THE ROMAN BREVIARY. By
Monsignor PIERRE BATIFFOL. Translated from the Third French
Edition, by the Rev. A. M. Y. BA YLA y, M.A. With a New Chapter
on the Decree of Pius X. 8vo. 9s. tlet.

SCHOLASTICISM, Old and New: an Introduction to
Scholastic Philosophy. Mediæval and Modem. By MAURICE DE
WULFf Professor at the University of Louvain. Translated by P. COFFEY.
Ph.D. (Louvain), Professor of Logic and Metaphysics, Maynooth College.
Ireland. 8vo. 6s. net.

HISTORY OF MEDlEY AL PHILOSOPHY. By
MAURICE D. WULF. Translated by P. COFFEY, Ph.D. 8vo.
1 Os. 6d. 1lct.

THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC: an Inquiry into the Principles
of Accurate Thought and Scientific Method. By P. COFFEY, Ph.D.
(Louvain), Professor of Logic and Metaphysics, Maynooth College, Ireland.
2 vols. 8vo.
Vol. I. Conception, Judgment, and Inference. 7s. 6d. net.
Vol. II. Method, Science, and Certitude. 7s. 6d. net.

MOTIVE-FORCE AND MOTIV A TION- TRACKS:
a Research in Will Psychology. By E. BOYD BARRETT, S.j., Doctor
of Philosophy. Superior Institute, Louvain, M.A., Honours Graduate
National University, Ireland. 8vo, 7s. 6d. net; paper covers, 6s. llet.

OUTLINES OF DOGMATIC
SYLVESTER JOSEPH HUNTER, S.j.
6s. 6d. each.

THEOLOGY. By
Crown 8vo. Three vols.

STUDIES ON THE GOSPELS. By VINCENT ROSE,
O.P., Professor in the University of Fribourg. Translated by ROBERT
FRASER. D.D.. Domestic Prelate to H.H. Pius X. Crown 8vo. 6s. net.

BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS.

5

For the Clergy and Students-continued.
THEODICY: Essays on Divine Providence. By ANTONIO
ROSMINI SERBA TI. Translated with some Omissions from the Italian
Edition of 1845. 3 vols. Crown 8vo. 21s. net.

THOUGHTS OF A CATHOLIC ANATOMIST. By
THOMAS DWIGHT. M.D., LL.D., Parkman Professor of Anatomy
at Harvard. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

ESSAYS IN PASTORAL MEDICINE. By AUSTIN
O'MALLEY, M.D., Ph.D.. LL.D.. Pathologist and Ophthalmologist to
Saint Agnes's Hospital. Philadelphia; and JAMES J. WALSH. Ph.D.,
LL.D., Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the New York Polytechnic
School for Graduates in Medicine. 8vo. I Os. 6d. teet.
.** The term ,. Pastoral Medicine It may be said to represent that part of medicine which
$S of import to "' pastor in his cure. and those divisions oj ethics and moral theology which
concern a physician in his practice. This book is primarily intended lor Roman Catholic
confessors.

BODILY HEALTH AND SPIRITUAL VIGOUR. A
Book for Preachers and Teachers. By WILLIAM J. LOCKINGTON,
5.1. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.

THE SCIENCE OF ETHICS. By Rev. MICHAEL
CRONIN. M.A., D.D., Ex-Fellow. Royal University of Ireland;
Professor. Clonliffe College, Dublin. 8vo.
Vol. I., General Ethics. 12s. 6d. net.

THE OLD RIDDLE AND THE NEWEST ANSWER.
An Enquiry how far Modern Science has altered the aspect of the Problem
of the Universe. By JOHN GERARD, S.J., F.L.S. Crown 8vo.
2s. 6d. net. Popular Edition. Paper Covers. 6d.
*** An examination of the assumptions of Haeckel's II The Riddle of the Universe ft.

THE KEY TO THE WORLD'S PROGRESS: an
Essay on Historical Logic, being some Account of the Historical Significance
of the Catholic Church. By CHARLES STANTON DEV AS, M.A.
Crown 8vo. 5s. net. Popular Edition. Paper covers. 6d.
* * * The object of this book is to give to the logic and history of Newman an economic or
sociological setting, and thus to show that U for the explanation of World-history we must
first have the true theory of the Christian Church and her life through eighteen centuries".
Part I. states briefly the problems which the philosophy of history seeks to resolve. Part II.
presents the solution offered by Christianity and takes the form of an historical analysis of the
princiPles by which the Church has been /(uided in her relations with the world.

6

MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS

For the Clergy and Students-continued.
THE PRICE OF UNITY. By the Rev. B. W. MATURIN.
Crown Bvo. 5s. net.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. FROM WITHIN. With
a Preface by His Eminence CARDINAL V AUGHAN, formerly
Archbishop ot Westminster. Oown Bvo. 6s. 6d. 'tete

BISHOP GORE AND THE CATHOLIC CLAIMS.
By Dl)m JOHN CHAPMAN, O.S.B. Bvo. Paper Covers,6d. net;
cloth. I s. net.

ASPECTS OF ANGLICANISM; or, Some Comments
on Certain Incidents in the 'Nineties. By Mgr. JAMES MOYES, D.O.,
Canon of Westminster Cathedral. Crown Bvo. 2s. 6d. net. Paper Covers,
2s. net.

LENT AND HOLY WEEK: Chapters on Catholic Ob-
servance and Ritual. By the Rev. HERBERT THURSTON, S.].
Crown Bvo. 6s. net.

SOME PAPERS OF LORD ARUNDELL OF WAR-
DOUR. 12th BARON. COUNT OF THE HOLY ROMAN
EMPIRE. Etc. With a Prdace by the Dowager LADY ARUN-
DELL OF W ARDOUR. With Portrait. Bvo. Bs. 6d. net.

A memorÌtl1 volllme consisting of a collectioll of Lord A rlllldell's it'riNngs, the thoughts
that he it/rote d07t/1& after leading. or ..dlich i
'ere illtended to be spokell in Parliamtllt. to his
tllUmtr)', or at public meetillgs. The cOlltellts of the volume are divided as follows: Social
Ineqllality and lÙllflral RiKht-Hollle Politics-Pope and QlIeel
Foreign Politics-The
.Vature .\J)'th Theory.

PSYCHOLOGY OF POLITICS AND HISTORY. By
the Rev. J. A. DEWE. M.A. Crown Bvo. 5s. net.

THE MONTH; A Catholic Magazine. Conducted by
FATHERS OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. Published Monthly.
8vo. Paper Covers, 1 s.; Covers for binding volumes. I s. net.

INDEX TO THE MONTH, 1864..1908.
under Subjects and Authors. Bvo. Cloth. 3s. 6d. net.
Writing Paper. 5s. net.

Arranged
Interleaved with

STONYHURST PHILOSOPHICAL SERIES

POI particulars sa page 2.

BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS.

7

History.
THE INQUISITION: a Critical and Historical Study of
the Coercive Power of the Church. By the Abbé E. V ACANDARD.
Translated from the French by the Rev. BERTRAN D L. CO NW A Y,
C.S.P. Crown 8vo. 6s. net.

MEMOIRS OF THE SCOTT1SH CATHOLICS DUR-
ING THE XVllth AND XVllith CENTURIES. Selected from
inedited MSS. by WILLIAM FORBES LEITH, S.J. With 20 Illus-
trations. 2 vols. Medium 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF BISHOP CHALLONER,
1t>91-1781. By EDWIN H. BURTON, D.D., F.R.Hist.S., Vice-
President of St. Edmund's College, Ware. With 34 Portraits and other
Illustrations. 2 vols. 8vo. 25s. net.

THE DAWN OF THE CATHOLIC REVIVAL IN
ENGLAND, 1781-1803. By the Right Rev. Monsignor BERNARD
WARD, F.R.Hist.S., President of St. Edmund's College, Ware. With
38 Illustrations. 2 vols. 8vo. 25s. net.

THE EVE OF CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION.
Being the History of the English Catholics during the first Thirty Years
of the Nineteenth Century. By the Right Rev. Monsignor BERNARD
WARD, F.R.Hist.S. With Portraits and other Illustrations. 3 vols. 8vo.

Vols. I. and 11.-1803-1820. 21s. net.
Vol. 1l1.-1820-1829. 12s. 6d. net.

THE DOMINICAN REVIVAL IN THE NINE-
TEENTH CENTU R Y. Being some Account of the Restoration of the
Order of Preachers throughout the W orId under Father Jandel, the seventy-
third Master-General. By Father RAYMUND DEVAS, O.P. With
Portraits. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

BEGINNINGS, OR GLIMPSES OF VANISHED
CIVILIZATIONS. By MARION M'MURROUGH MULHALL,
Member of the Roman Arcadia. Crown 8vo. 25. 6d. net.

8 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS

History-continued.

THE STORY OF ANCIENT IRISH CIVILISA TION.
By P. W. JOYCE, LL.D., M.R.I.A. Fcp.8vo. Is. 6d. llet.

A SMALLER SOCIAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT
IRELAND. By P. W. JOYCE, LL.D., M.R.I.A. With 13 llIustra.
tions. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. tlet.

A SHORT HISTORY OF IRELAND, from the Earliest
Times to 1608. By P. W. JOYCE, LL. D., M.R.I.A. With Map.
Crown 8vo. 1 Os. 6d.

THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF IRISH NAMES
OF PLACES. By P. W. JOYCE, LL.D., M.R.I.A. 2 vols. Crown
8vo. 5s. each.

THE WONDERS OF IRELAND; and other Papers on
Irish Subjects. By P. W. JOYCE, LL.D., M.R.I.A. Crown 8vo.
2s. 6d. llet.

STOLEN WATERS: a Page from the Conquest of Ulster.
By T. M. HEALY, K.C., M.P., Bencher of King's Inns, Dublin, and of
Gray's Inn, London. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 1let.

HISTORY OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS IN NORTH
AMERICA: Colonial and Federal. By THOMAS HUGHES of the
same Society. Royal 8vo.

TEXT.
Volume I. From the First Colonization, 1580, till 1645. With 3 Maps
and 3 Facsimiles. 15s. net.
Volume II. 111. þreparation.
Volume III. In þreþaration.

DOCUMENTS.
Volume I. Part I. Nos. 1-140 (1605-1838). With 2 Maps and 5
Facsimiles. 21 s. 1let.
Volume J. Part II. Nos. 141-224 (1605-1838). With 3 Facsimiles.
2 Is. uet.

BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS.

9

Works by the Author of "The Life of a Prig," etc.

THE FIRST DUKE AND DUCHESS OF NEW-
CASTLE-UPON-TYNE. With Portrait and 15 other Illustrations.
8vo. I Os. 6d. net.

THE CURIOUS CASE OF LADY PURBECK: A
Scandal of the Seventeenth Century. 8vo. 6s. net.

PRYINGS AMONG PRIVATE PAPERS: Chiefly of
the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. 8vo. 7s. 6d. net.

ROCHESTER AND OTHER LITERARY RAKES
OF THE COURT OF CHARLES II. With some Account of their
Surroundings. With 15 Portraits. 8vo. 16s.

FALKLANDS. With 6 Portraits and 2 other Illustra-
tions. 8vo. I Os. 6d.

THE LIFE OF SIR KENELM DIGBY: By One of his
Descendants. With 7 Illustrations. 8vo. 16s.

THE ADVENTURES OF KING JAMES II. OF
ENGLAND. With an Introduction by the Right Rev. F. A.
GASQUET, D.O. With 27 Portraits and other Illustrations. 8vo.
13s. 6d. net.

CHISEL, PEN AND POIGNARD: Or, Benvenuto
Cellini, his Times and his Contemporaries. With 19 Illustrations.
Crown 8vo. 5s.

MARSHAL TURENNE. With an Introduction by
Brigadier-General FRANCIS LLOYD, C.B., D.S.O. With numer-
ous Illustrations. 8vo. 12s. 6d. net.

10

MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS

Biography, etc.
CONFESSIONS OF A CONVERT. By the Very Rev.
Monsignor ROBERT HUGH BENSON. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.
'(his is the recort.l of the tllltho
's leligious life alld dev.elopment, 'it!ith accounts of the
"L'
lnous
tagts of bdtt.J thrullgh. 'it!lnch he }(
ss
d, tUul of the
liflue1!ces which bore upon him.
J he book wcllltles skLlclzes oj Ius home educatwll, Ills schoolltJe, hIs 11limstry as a parochwl
clergyman 111 tOwn and
oulltry, his 11Iember
h,:p"1 all A nglic.an Heligious c01U1mmity; and
/1
lall)' the. stages by "<:'hfCh he came .to SU
l1
lt to Home tHut./us exptrimce
in the city itself.
Jlze lJook
s not deJl1lttely controversw/; tl IS rather 'larl.atwe and descriptIVe.

BACK TO HOL Y CHURCH: Experiences and Know..
ledge acquired by a Convert. By Dr. ALBf.RT VON RUVILLE,
Protessor of History at the University of Halle, Germany. Translated by
G. SCHOETEN
ACK. Edited with a Preface by the Very Rev.
Monsignor KOBEK f HUGH BENSON. With Portrait. Crown Bvo.
3s. 6d. net.

APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA, being a History of his
Religious Opinions. By JOHN HENKY CAKDINAL Nl.:.WMAN.
Crown tlvo. 3s. 6d.
Pocket Edition. Feap. Bvo. cloth, 2s. 6d. tlet; leather, 3s. 6d. tlet.
Popular Edition, Bvo, sewed, 6d. net.
rhe .. J'ocket" Edition alld the" J'opu[ar" Edition of this book conta;'1 a letter, hitherto
ullp"bltslzt'd, 'i.'nUen by Cardmal fI, e....mwn to Cmwn Flallagan in 1857, which may be said to
WlItain m embryo the "A puLogJl
" itsclJ.

THE LIFE OF JOHN HENRY CARDINAL
NEWMAN. Based on his Private Journals and Correspondence. By
WILFRID W AKD. With 15 Portraits and Illustrations. 2 vols. Bvo.
36s. net.

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CARDINAL WISEMAN.
By WILFRID WARD. With 3 Portraits. 2 vols. Crown Bvo. I Os. net.

WILLIAM GEORGE WARD AND THE CATHOLIC
REVIV AL. By WILFRID WARD. With a New Preface, Portrait
and Facsimile. Övo. 6s. 6d. net.

TEN PERSONAL STUDIES. By WILFRID WARD.
With 10 Portraits. Bvo. I Os. 6d. net.
CONTI-..:-'Ts.-Arthur J ames Balfour-Three 1\otable Editors: Deh
ne, Hutton,. Knowles
-Some Characteristics of Henry Sidgwick-}{obert, .harl of Lytton-father Ignatius Ryder
-Sir 1\1. E. Grant DuH's Diaries-Leo XIll.-The Genius of Cardinal \Vlseman-John
Henry Newman-IS'e\\man and ;\1anning-Appendix

ESSAYS. By the Rev. FATHER IGNATIUS DUDLEY
RYDER. Edited by FRANCIS BACCHUS. of the Oratory, Bir-
mingham. With Frontispiece. Bvo. 9s. net.
CQrnEf\Ts.-A Jesuit Reformer and Poet: Frede
ick Spee-Revelations o! the
fter-
\Vorld-Savonarola-
1. .hmery, Superior ot St. Sulplce, 17b9-18II-Auncular ConfesslOn-
The Pope and the Anglican An:hbishops-.l{i.tualism, }{oman Cath?hcism, and Converts-
On Certain EccleslasUcal :\Iiracles- rhe EthicS ot W ar-l he Passions uf the Past-Some
:\lemories of a Jail Chaplain-Purcell's Life of Cardinal Manning.
ApJ'I-:,\J)I'\..-Some 1\otes on R)der's Controversy with \Vard.

BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS.

11

Biography, etc.-contz'nued.
THE THREE SISTERS OF LORD RUSSELL OF
KILLOWEN AND THEIR CONVENT LIFE. By the Rev.
MATTHEW RUSSELL, S.J. With 5 Illustrations. Bvo. 6s. net.
UNSEEN FRIENDS. By Mrs. WILLIAM O'BRIEN.
With a Photogravure Portrait of Nano Nagle, Foundress of the Presentation
Order. Bvo. 6s. 6d. net.
CONTENTs.-
1other Margaret Mary Hallahan-A Novelist of the last Century: Mrs.
Oliphant-Nano Nagle-Charlotte Brontë at Home-Mary Aikenhead, Foundress of the
Irish Sisters of Charity-Felicia Skene-C.1tharine McAuley, Foundress of the Sisters of
Mercy-Jean Ingelow-Mother Frances Raphael Drane-Eugénie de Guérin-EmiIie
d'Oultrement-PauIine de la Ferronays and her Family-A French Heroine in China:
Hélêne de Jaurias, Sister of Charity-Christina Rossetti-Marie Antoniette Fage.

AUBREY DE VERE: a Memoir based on his unpublished
Diaries and Correspondence. Bv WILFRID WARD. With Two Photo-
gravure Portraits and 2 other Illustrations. Bvo. 14s. net.

THE HISTORY OF ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA
AND HER COMPANIONS. With a Translation of her Treatise on
Consummate Perfection. Bv AUGUSTA THEODOSIA DRANE.
With 10 Illustrations. 2 vols. Bvo. 15s.

A MEMOIR OF MOTHER FRANCIS RAPHAEL,
O.S.D. (AUGUSTA THEODOSIA DRANE), sometime Prioress
Provincial of the Congregation of Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of
Siena. Stone. With some of her Spiritual Notes and Letters. Edited by
the Rev. Father BERTRAND WILBERFORCE, O.P. With portrait.
Crown Bvo. 7 s. 6d.

LIFE OF THE MARQUISE DE LA ROCHE-
JAQUELEIN, THE HEROINE OF LA VENDÉE. By the
Hon. Mrs. MAXWELL SCOTT (of Abbotsford). With B Illustrations
and a Map. Bvo. 7s. 6d. 1tet.

LIFE OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI.
CUTHBERT,O.S.F.C. With 13 Illustrations. Bvo.

By Father
12s. 6d. net.

SAINT FRANÇIS OF ASSISI: a Biography. By
JOHANNES .JORGENSEN. Translated by T. O'CONOR
SLOAN E. With 5 Illustrations. Bvo. 12s. 6d. 1tet.

THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF THE LADY SAINT
CLARE : Translated from the French version (1563) of Brother Francis
du Puis. By Mrs. REGINALD BALFOUR. With an Introduction by
Father CUTHBERT, O.S.F.C., and 24 Illustrations. Crown Bvo.
Gilt top. 4s. 6d. net.
LIFE OF ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY,
DUCHESS OF THURINGIA. By the COUNT DE MONTALEM-
BERT, Peer of France, Member of the French Academy. Translated by
FRANCIS DEMING HOYT. Large Crown Bvo. I Os. 6d. net.

12

MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS

Biography, etc.-continued.
HISTORY OF ST. VINCENT DE PAUL, Founder of
the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentians), and of the Sisters of Charity.
By Monseigneur BOUGAUD, Bishop of Laval. Translated from the
Second French Edition by the Rev. JOSEPH BRADY, C.M. With an
Introduction by His Eminence CARDINAL VAUGHAN, late Arch-
bishop of Westminster. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. net.

IN ST. DOMINIC'S COUNTRY. By C. M. ANTONY.
Edited with a Preface by the Rev. T. M. SCHWERTNER, O.P.,
S.T. L. With 50 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 6s. net.

The recOld of a piIKrit''''Ke to the tOh'ns and villaKes of SOllthern France knot.'n to have
been visited by Saint Dominic, between 1205'1219, h,ith the accmmt of his Apostolate there,
and the fOUJuiing of his First alld Secomt Orders. A sketch of the A lbigmsian Crusade is
also given. The book is illustrated h'ith ot'cr forty photograPhs, more tha11 half of h'hich
have been n.þressly taken for the purpose, and COlltaHls two sketch maps. It niay on thÙ
account fat"rl)' la)' claim to be-at least for tllese fourtun important years-a Picture Book of
Saint Dominic.

The Beginnings of the Church.
A Series of Histories of the First Century.

By the Abbé CONSTANT FOUARD, Honorary Cathedral Canon Professor
of the Faculty of Theology at Rouen, etc., etc.

THE CHRIST, THE SON OF GOD. A Life of Our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. With an Introduction by CARDINAL
MAN N I N G. With 3 Maps. Two vols. Crown 8vo. 14s.
Popular Edition. 8vo. Cloth, 1 s. net. Paper Covers, 6d. tiel.

ST. PETER AND THE FIRST YEARS OF CHRIS-
TIANITY. With 3 Maps. Crown 8vo. 9s.

ST. PAUL AND HIS MISSIONS. With 2 Maps. Crown
8vo. 9&.
Popular Edition. 8vo. Cloth, 1 s. net. Paper Covers, 6d. net.

THE LAST YEARS OF ST. PAUL.
and Plans. Crown 8vo. 9s.

With 5 Maps

ST. JOHN AND THE CLOSE OF THE APOSTOLIC
AGE. Crown
8vo. 78. .6d.

BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS.

13

Lives of the Friar Saints.

Editors for the Franciscan Lives:
The Very Rev. Fr. OSMUND COONEY, O.F.M., Provincial, and
C. M. ANTONY.

Editors for the Dominican Lives:
The Rev. Fr. BEDE JARRETT, O.P., and C. M. ANTONY.
Feap. Bvo. Cloth, 1 s. 6d. per volume; Leather, 2s. 6d. net per volume.

THE HOLY FATHER has expressed through the Very Rev. Fr.
Thomas Esser, O.P., Secretary of the Congregation of the Index, his great
pleasure and satisfaction that the series has been undertaken, and wishes it
every success. He bestows "most affectionately" His Apostolic Blessing upon
the Editors, Writers, and Readers of the whole series.
The Master-General of the Dominicans, at Rome. in sending his blessing to
the writers and readers of the series, says : " The Lives should teach their readers
not only to know the Saints, but also to imitate them".
The Minister-General of the Franciscans sends his blessing and best wishes
for the success of the series.
The series, which has received the warm approval of the authorities of both
Orders in England, Ireland, and America, is earnestly recommended to Tertiaries,
and to the Catholic public generally.
Fr. OSMUND COONEY, O.F.M.,
Fr. BE DE JARRETT, O.P.,
C. M. ANTONY,

DOMINICAN.
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS.
Of the Order of Preachers (1225-
1274). A Biographical Study of
the Angelic Doctor. By Fr.
PLACID CONWAY, O.P.
With 5 Illustrations.

ST. VINCENT FERRER,
O.P. By Fr. STANISLAUS
HOGAN, O.P. With 4 Illus-
trations.

ST. PIUS V. Pope of the
Holy Rosary. By C. M.
ANTONY. With Preface
by the Very Rev. Monsignor
BENSON. With 4 Illustra-
tions.

Editors.

FRANCISCAN.
ST. BONAVENTURE.

The Seraphic Doctor. Minister
General of the Franciscan Order,
Cardinal Bishop of Albano. By Fr.
LAURENCE COSTELLOE.
O.F.M. With 6 Illustrations.

ST. ANTONY OF PA-
DUA. The Miracle Worker
(1195-1231). By C. M. AN-
TONY. With 4 Illustrations.

ST. JOHN CAPISTRAN.
By Fr. VINCENT FITZ-
GERALD, O.F.M. With
4
Illustrations.

14

MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS

Belles Lettres.

LEVIA PONDERA :
A YSCOUGH. Crown 8vo.

..
An Essay
5s. net.

Book.

By

JOHN

CONTI:NTS.- Sir \Valter-A Scamp's Probation-II The Entail": an Appreciation-The
Leddy 0' Grippy-Fickle Fame-King's Servants-An Essay on Essayists-Parallels-
Loyalists and Patriots-Time's Reprisals-Cause and Cure-The Shoe and the Foot-Of
Old \Vays- Scientiae Inimici-Laxity or Sanctity-Press and Public-On Book Buying-Of
Dislike of Books-Atmosphere and Antidote-On Sitting StilJ-Diat.otica Trees-Footnotes
_" This Public Conscience "-State and Conscience-Empire Day-Duty and Discipline-
On Decadence-:\Iessrs. Hooligan and Turveydrop-Two Pessimisms-Peace and Peoples
-Dress and Clothing-Of Cathedrals-Of Stone Sermons and "'hite Elephants-An
Admiration N ote- \Vhy N on\ ich ?-Cold Porridge-Of W eaker Brethren-The Roman Road
-Of Saints and \Vorthies-Of Great At{e-:\Iare's
ests and Much Boasting-Of Lapse
and Losses.

GRACECHURCH PAPERS.
Crown 8vo.

By JOHN A YSCOUGH.

IN GOD'S NURSERY.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

By C. C. MARTINDALE, S.].

F/ú:se sketches for11l a study in the religious psycholoR.Y of pagan or of unformed Christicm
minds. So particular dogma is emplwsised, but it is sUKKestcc[ by the gmcral t,end of the
stories that, 7..!h ile the perfect religion is only altaÌ1ted ;'1 the supeT1latuwl rl'velation of
C hristÙmity, yet.. in I1hWY fraKmenls awi in many 4'ays," a Divine ami educative factor has
a/ways m
l et'erY7..'here bun "dive.

ESSA YS. By the Rev. FATHER IGNATIUS DUDLEY
RYDER. Edited by FRANCIS BACCHUS, of the Oratory, Birming-
ham. With Frontispiece. 8vo. 9s. ltd.
FOT Contents see page 10.

UNSEEN FRIENDS. By Mrs. WILLIAM O'BRIEN.
With a Photogravure Portrait of Nano Nagle, Foundress of the Presentation
Order. 8vo. 6s. 6d. Ild.

For Colttellts see page 11.

BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 15

For Spiritual Reading.
THE SERMON OF THE SEA, and Other Studies. By
the Rev. ROBERT KANE, S.J. Crown 8vo. 5s. net.

THE PLAIN GOLD RING. By the Rev. ROBERT
KANE, S.J. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.

GOOD FRIDAY TO EASTER SUNDAY.
Rev. ROBERT KANE,S.]. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.

By the

A T HOME WITH GOD: Priedieu Papers on Spiritual
Subjects. By the Rev. MATTHEW RUSSELL, S.J. Crown 8vo.
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AMONG THE BLESSED: Loving Thoughts about
Favourite Saints. By the Rev. MATTHEW t{USSELL, 5.]. With
8 full-page Illustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net.

THE PARADOXES OF CATHOLICISM. A Series
of Sermons preached in Rome during Lent, 1913. By the Very Rev.
Monsignor ROBERT HUGH BENSON. Crown 8vo.

CHRIST IN THE CHURCH: A Volume of Religious
Essays. By the Very Rev. Monsignor ROBERT HUGH BENSON.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 1tet.

THE FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST: Sermons.
Very Rev. Monsignor ROBERT HUGH BENSON.
3s. 6d. net.

By the
Crown 8vo.

SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND SELF-DISCIPLINE. By
the Rev. B. W. MATURIN. Crown 8vo. 5s. l1et.

LA WS OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. By the Rev.
B. W. MATURIN. Crown 8vo. 5s. net.

THE INNER LIFE OF THE SOUL. Short Spiritual
Messages for the Ecclesiastical Year. By S. L. EM ER Y. Crown 8vo.
4s. 6d. net.

OUR LADY IN THE CHURCH, and other Essays. By
M. NESBITT. With a Preface by the Right Rev. Dr. CASAHTELLI,
Bishop of Salford. With a Frontispiece. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. 1z.et.
A collection of essays, 1/ltlÏ1Jly historical or antiquarian in clul1acter. The papers deal
..Jith the life and work oJ the Catholic Church, alld ..'ith 'NlJ inus /1JCUl1Iers, custOI1lS, cwd
reli
i(lf{s observances in media-t'al times.

16 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS

For Young People.
THE HOUSE AND TABLE OF GOD: a Book for His
Children Young and Old. By the Rev. WILLIAM ROCHE, S.J.
With 24 Drawings by T. BAINES. Crown Bvo. Cloth, 2s. 6d. ?let;
V egetable Vellum, 3s. 6d. net.
This book is primarily intouted to guide the thoughts of childlm at a1
age when tilt)'
begin to wondL r, and to argue secletly withitl themselves about questi(lns of life and uligion;
bllt is equally suited to the opeu-mÙlded of every age. It offers a consecutive serÜs of readiugs
calculated to deepm religious thou{;ht allL feeling on essential tl1tlh.

A CHILDtS RULE OF LIFE. By the Very Rev.
Monsignor ROBERT HUGH BENSON. Printed in Red and Black
and Illustrated by GABRIEL PIPPET. 4to. Paper Covers, Is. net;
Cloth, 2s. uet.
A LIFE OF CHRIST FOR CHILDREN. With 20
Illustrations, reproduced chieRy from the Old Masters. With Preface by
His Eminence CARDINAL GIBBONS. Large Crown Bvo. 4s. net.
BIBLE STORIES TOLD TO "TODDLES 91. By Mrs.
HERMANN BOSCH. Crown Bvo. 2s. 6d. net.
WHEN u TODDLES 91 WAS SEVEN: A Sequel to
., Bible Stories told to 'Toddles'''. By Mrs. HERMANN BOSCH.
Crown Bvo. 3!!. net.
THE GOOD SHEPHERD AND HIS LITTLE
LAMBS. By Mrs. HERMAN N BOSCH. With a Frontispiece. Fcap.
Bvo. 2s. 6d. net.
STORIES ON THE ROSARY. By LOUISE EMILY
DOBRËE. Parts I.. IL. III. Crown Bvo. Is. 6d. each.
A TORN SCRAP BOOK. Talks and Tales illustrative
of the "Our Father". By GENEVIÈVE IRONS. With a Preface by
the Very Rev. Monsignor R. HUGH BENSON. Crown Bvo. 2s. 6d.
OLD RHYMES WITH NEW TUNES. Composed by
RICHARD RUNCIMAN TERRY, Mus. Doc., F.R.C.O., Organist
and Director of the Choir at Westminster Cathedral. With Illustrations by
GABRIEL PIPPET. 4to. 2s. 6d. llet.
A MYSTERY PLAY IN HONOUR OF THE NA TI-
VITY OF OUR LORD. By the Very Rev. Monsignor ROBERT
HUGH BENSON. With 14 Illustrations by GABRIEL PIPPET;
Appendices, and Stage Directions. Crown Bvo. 2s. 6d. net.
Acting Edition. 6d. net.
THE COST OF A CROWN: a Story of Douay and
Durham. A Sacred Drama 10 Three Acts. By the Very Rev. Monsignor
ROBERT HUGH BENSON. With 9 Illustrations by GABRIEL
PIPPET. Crown Bvo. 3s. 6d. net.
THE MAID OF ORLEANS. By the Very Rev.
Monsignor ROBERT HUGH BENSON. With 14 Illustrations by
GABRIEL PIPPET. Crown Bvo. 3s. net.
Acting Edition. 6d. lief.

BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS.

17

Poetry and Romance.

BALLADS OF IRISH CHIVALRY. By ROBERT
DWYER JOYCE, M.D. Edited, with Annotations, by his brother,
P. W. JOYCE, LL.D. With Portrait of the Author and 3 Illustrations.
8vo. Cloth gilt, 2s. net. Paper cover!;, I s. net.

OLD CELTIC ROMANCES. Twelve of the most beauti-
ful of the Ancient Irish Romantic Tales. Translated from the Gaelic. By
P. W. JOYCE, LL.D., M.R.I.A. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.

ANCIENT IRISH MUSIC. Containing One Hundred
Airs never before published, and a number of Popular Songs. Collected and
Edited by P. W. JOYCE, LL.D., M.R.LA. 4to. Paper wrappers,
1 s. 6d. Cloth, 3s.

OLD IRISH FOLK MUSIC AND SONGS: a collection
of 842 Irish Airs and Songs hitherto unpublished. Edited by P. W. JOYCE,
LL. D., M. R.I.A., with Annotations, for the Royal Society of Antiquaries
of Ireland. Medium 8vo. 1 Os. 6d. net.

IRISH PEASANT SONGS. In the English Language;
the words set to the proper Old Irish Airs. Collected and Edited by
P. W. JOYCE, LL.D., M.R.I.A. Crown 8vo. Paper Covers, 6d. net.

HISTORICAL BALLAD POETRY OF IRELAND.
Arranged by M. J. BROWN. With an Introduction by STEPHEN j.
BROWN, S.j. With 8 Portraits. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.

18 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS

Fiction.

A READER'S GUIDE TO IRISH FICTION. By
STEPHEN J. BROWN, S.J. Crown 8vo. 35. 6d. net.
.

THE FUGITIVES. By MARGARET FLETCHER. Crown
8vo. 65.

CATHERINE SIDNEY. By FRANCIS DEMING HOYT.
Crown 8vo. 65.

Novels by Mrs. Wilfrid Ward.
ONE POOR SCRUPLE. Crown 8vo. 65.
OUT OF DUE TIME. Crown 8vo. 6s.
GREAT POSSESSIONS. Crown 8vo. 65.
THE LIGHT BEHIND. Crown 8vo. 65.
THE JOB SECRETARY. An Impression. Crown 8vo.
45. 6d.

Novels by M. E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell).
DORSET DEAR: Idylls of Country Life. Crown 8vo. 65.
L YCHGA TE HALL: a Romance. Crown 8vo. 65.
THE MANOR FARM. With Frontispiece by Claude C.
du Pré Cooper. Crown 8vo. 6s.

FIANDER'S WIDOW. Crown 8vo. 65.
YEOMAN FLEETWOOD. Crown 8vo. 3s. net.

BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS.

19

Works by the Very Rev. Canon Sheehan, D.D.

MIRIAM LUCAS. A Novel. Crown 8vo. 6s.

THE QUEEN'S FILLET. A Tale of the French
Revolution. Crown Bvo. 6s.

LISHEEN ; or, The Test of the Spirits. A Novel. Cr. 8vo. 6s.

LUKE DELMEGE. A Novel. Crown 8vo. 65.

GLENANAAR: a Story of Irish Life. Crown 8vo. 6s.

THE BLINDNESS OF DR. GRAY; or, the Final Law:
a Novel of Clerical Life. Crown 8vo. 6s.

"LOST ANGEL OF A RUINED PARADISE It: a
Drama of Modern Life. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.

THE INTELLECTUALS : An Experiment in Irish Club
Life. 8vo. 6s.

P ARERGA: being a Companion V olume to "Under the
Cedars and the Stars". Crown Bvo. 7s. 6d. 1let.

EARLY ESSAYS AND LECTURES. Crown 8vo.
65. l'Zet.

CON TEN Ts.-Essays : Religious Instruction in Intermediate Schools-In a Dublin Art
Gallery-Emerson-Free-Thought in America-German Universities (Three Essays)-
German and Gallic Muses-Augustinian Literature-The Poetry of Matthew Arnold-
Recent Works on St. Augustine-Aubrey de Vere (a Study). Lectures.. Irish Youth and
High Ideals-The Two Civilisations-The Golden Jubilee of O'Connell's Death-Our
Personal and Social Responsibilities-The Study of Mental Science-Certain Elements of
Character-The Limitations and Possibilities of Catholic Literature.

20 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS

Education.
A HISTORY OF ENGLAND FOR
SCHOOLS. By E. WYATT-DAVIES, M.A.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.

CA THOLIC
With 14 Maps.

OUTLINES OF BRITISH HISTORY. By E. WYATT-
DAVIES, M.A. With 85 Illustrations and 13 Maps. Crown 8vo. 2s.6d.
A CHILD'S HISTORY OF IRELAND. From the
Earliest Times to the Death of O'Connell. By P. W. JOYCE, LL.D.,
M.R.LA. With specially constructed Map and 160 lIlustrations, including
Facsimile in Full Colours of an Illuminated Page of the Gospel Book of
MacDuman, A.D. 850. Fcp.8vo. 3s.6d.
OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF IRELAND.
From the Earliest Times to 1837. By P. W. JOYCE, LL.D., M.R.LA.
F cpo 8vo. 9d.
A READING BOOK IN IRISH HISTORY. By
P. W. JOYCE, LL. D., M.R.LA. With 45 Illustrations. Crown 8vo.
1 s. 6d.
A HISTORY OF IRELAND FOR AUSTRALIAN
CATHOLIC SCHOOLS. From the Earliest Times to the Death of
O'Connell. By P. W. JOYCE, LL. D., M.R.l.A. With specially
constructed Map and 160 Illustrations, including Facsimile in Full Colours
of an Illuminated Page of the Gospel Book of MacDurnan, A.D. 850.
F cap. 8vo. 2s.
The authorised Irish History Jor Catholic Schools and Colleges throughout A tlstla/asia.

AN EXPERIMENT IN HISTORY TEACHING. By
EDWARD ROCKLIFF, S.j. With 3 Coloured Charts. Crown 8vo.
2s. 6d. net.

HISTORICAL ATLAS OF INDIA, for the Use of High
Schools, Colleges and Private Students. By CHARLES JOPPEN, S.j.
29 Maps in Colours. Post 4to. 2s. 6d.
GRAMMAR LESSONS. By the PRINCIPAL OF ST.
MARY'S HALL, Liverpool. Crown 8vo. 2s.
THE CLASS TEACHING OF ENGLISH COMPOSI-
TION. By the PRINCIPAL OF ST. MARY'S HALL, Liverpool.
Crown 8vo. 2s.

ENGLISH AS WE SPEAK IT IN IRELAND.
By P. W. JOYCE, LL.D., M.R.LA. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
A GRAMMAR OF THE IRISH LANGUAGE.
By P. W. JOYCE, LL. D., M.R. LA. Fcp. 8vo. h.
STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF CLASSICAL
TEACHING. By the Rev. T. CORCORAN, S.}. Crown 8vo.
7s. 6d. net.

BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS.

21

Education-continued.
HANDBOOK OF HOMERIC STUDY. By HENRY
BROWNE, S.J., M.A., New College, Oxford. With 22 Plates.
Crown Bvo. 6s. net.

HANDBOOK OF GREEK COMPOSITION. With
Exercises for Junior and Middle Classes. By HENRY BROWNE, S.J.,
M.A. Crown Bvo. 3s. net.

HANDBOOK OF LATIN COMPOSITION. With
Exercises. By HEN RY BROWN E, 5.1., M.A. Crown 8vo. 3s. 1zet.
DELECTA BIBLICA. Compiled from the Vulgate Edition
of the Old Testament, and arranged for the use of Beginners in Latin.
By a SISTER OF NOTRE DAME. Crown Bvo. Is.
SCIENCE OF EDUCA TION. By T. P. KEATING,
B.A., L.C.P. With an Introduction by Rev. T. A. FINLAY, M.A.,
National University, Dublin. Crown 8ve. 2s. 6d. net.

THE EDUCATION OF CA THOLIC GIRLS. By
JANET ERSKINE STUART. With a Preface by the CARDINAL
ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER. Crown Bvo. 3s. 6d. net.
THE TEACHER'S COMPANION. By Brother DE
SALES. M.A. Diplomate in Education, etc. Crown Bvo. 2s. 6d. net.
*,..* A book on School Methods. with blank pages for the insertion of the personal experi-
ences of the teacher.

A HANDBOOK OF SCHOOL MANAGEMENT
AND METHODS OF TEACHING. By P. W. JOYCE, LL.D.,
M.R.I.A. Fcp. 3s. 6d.
QUICK AND DEAD
To Teachers. By Two of
Them. Crown Bvo. 1 s. 6d.

THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. To Catholic Teachers.
By One of the Authors of ,. Quick and Dead". Crown Bvo. 1 s. 1let.

PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC. By G. H. JOYCE, S.J., M.A.,
Oxford, Professor of Logic at Stonyhurst. 8vo. 6s. 6d. net.

INTRODUCTORY PHILOSOPHY: a Textbook for
Colleges and High Schools. By CHARLES A. DUBRA Y, S. M.,
Ph. D., Professor of Philosophy at the Marist College, Washington, D.C.
With a Preface by Professor E. D. PACE, of the Catholic University,
Washington, D.C. Bvo. IDs. 6d. 1zet.

FIVE CENTURIES OF ENGLISH POETRY. From
Chaucer to De Vere. Representative Selections with Notes and Remarks
on the Art of Reading Verse Aloud. By the Rev. GEORGE O'NEILL,
S.J., M.A., Professor of.:r..English, University College, . Dublin. Crown Bvo.
3s. 6d. net.

22

MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS

Cardinal Newman's Works.

I. SER.MONS.

PAROCHIAL AND PLAIN
the Rev. W. J. COPELAN D. B.D.

SERMONS. Edited by
8 vols. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each.

The first six volumes are reprinted from the six volumes of Parochial Sermons.
fi.rst published in 183-t, 1835, 1836. 1838, 18-to, and 18.t2 respectively; the seventh and
eighth formed the fifth volume of Plain Sermons by Contributors to the Tracts
for the Times. originally published in 18-t3.
The fame of these sermons has been celebrated by Froude, Principal Shairp, James
Mozley, Dean Church, and others. " The Tracts," writes the last-named in his 0 \ford
\l ovement, "were not the most powerful instruments in drawing sympathy to the
movement. None but those who heard them can adequately estimate the effect of i\Ir.

ewman's four o'clock sermons at St. Mary's. The world knows them. . . but it hardly
realizes that without these sermons the movement might never have Rone on. . . . \Vhile
men were reading and talking about the Tracts, they were hearing the sermons; and in
the sermons they heard the living meaning, and reason. and bearing of the Tracts.
. . . The sermons created a moral atmosphere, in which men judged the questions in
debate." The Parochial Sermons fell out of print between 1845 and 1868, at which
latter date they were republished by Newman's former curate at St, i\1ary's, :VIr.
Copeland. The success of this re-issue was a striking testimony to the degree to
\\hich Newman had recovered his popularity and prestige by the Apologia. He recorded
in his private journal that in six months 3500 copies of the first volume were sold.
\Vard's Life of Newman. vol. ii. p. 2.p.

SELECTION, ADAPTED TO THE SEASONS OF
THE ECCLESIASTICAL YEAR, from the "Parochial and Plain
Sermons n. Edited by the Rev. W. J. COPELAND, B.D. Crown
8vo. 3s. 6d.

This volume consisting of fifty-four sermons was first published in 1878.
CONTENT::> :-Adveut: Self-denial the Test of Religious Earnestness-Divine Calls-
The Ventures of Faith-\\'atching. Ch,'istmas Day: Religious Joy. New Year's Sunday:
The Lapse of Time-Epiphany: Remembrance of Past l\Iercies- Equanimity-The
Immortality of the Soul- Christian :Manhood - Sincerity and Hypocrisy- Christian
Sympathy. Septllagesima: Present Blessings. Sexagesima: Endurance, the Christian's
Portion. Quinquagesima: Love, the One Thing Needful. Lent: The Individuality of
the Soul-Life, the Season of Repentance-Bodily Suffering-Tears of Christ at the Grave
of Lazarus-Christ's Privations, a Meditation for Christians-The Cross of Christ the
Measure of the \V orld. Good Friday: The Crucifixion. Easter Day: Keeping Fast and
Festi\'al. Eas/et Tide: Witnesses of the Resurrection--A Particular Providence as
revealed in the Gospel-Christ Manifested in Remembrance-The Invisible World-
Waiting for Christ. Asct1lsio1l: \Varfare the Conditicn of Victory. Sunday after Ascen-
sion: Rising with Christ. WhitsUlt Day: The Weapons of Saints. Trinity Sunday: The
Mysteriousness of Our Present Being. Sundays after Trinity: Holiness Necessary for
Future Blessedness-The Religious Use of Excited Feelings-The Self-wise lnquirer-
Scripture a Record of Human Sorrow-The Danger of Riches-Obedience without Love,
as instanced in the Character of Balaam-Moral Consequences of Single Sins-The
Greatness and Littleness of Human Life-Moral Effects of Communion with God-The
Thought of God the Stay of the Soul-The Power of the \ViII-The Gospel Palaces-
Religion a \Veariness to the Natural Man-The World our Ellemy- The Praise of Men-
Religion Pleasant to the Religious- Mental Pnyer--Curiosity a Temptation to Sin-
Miracles no Remedy for Unbelief-Jeremiah, a Lesson for the Disappointed-The Shep-
herd of our-Souls-Doing Glory to
God in Pursuits of the World.

BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS.

23

Cardinal Newman's Works-continued.

SERMONS BEARING UPON SUBJECTS OF THE
DA Y. Edited by the Rev. W. J. COPELAND, B.D. Crown 8vo.
35. 6d.
This volume was first published in 1843, and republished by Mr. Copeland in 1869.
This collection contains the celebrated sermons" \Visdom and Innocence," and" The
Parting of Priends". l\lr. Copeland appended to it "ery important chronological lists,
giving the dates at which the sermons contained in it and the eight volumes of Parnc111al
and J>'aÙ
Sermons were first delivered.
CONTENTs.-The Work of the Christian-Saintliness not Forfeited by the Penitent-
Our Lord's Last Supper and His First-Dangers to the Penitent-The Three Offices of
Christ-Faith and Experience-Faith unto the W orld- The Church and the W orld-
Indulgence in Religious Privileges-Connection between Personal and Public Improve-
ment-Christian NObleness-Joshua a Type of Christ and His Followers-Elisha a Type
of Christ and His FoJlowers-The Christian Church a Continuation of the Jewish-The
Principles of Continuity between the Jewish and Christian Churches-The Christian
Church an Imperial Power-Sanctity the Token of the Christian Empire-Condition of
the Members of the Christian Empire-The Apostolic Christian-Wisdom and Innocence
-Invisible Presence of Christ-Uutward and Inward Notes of the Church-Grounds for
Steadfastness in our Religious Profession-Elijah the Prophet of the Latter Days-
Feasting in Captivity-The Parting of Friends.

FIFTEEN SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE THE
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, between 1826 and 1843. Cr.8vo. 35.6d.
The first edition of these sermons was published in 1843 ; the second in 184-1-. The
original title was" Sermons, chiefly on the Theory of Religious Eelief, Preached," etc.
The third edition was published in 1870, with (I) a new Preface, in which the author ex-
plains, inter aha, the sense in which he had used the term" Reason" in the sermons;
and (2) notes" to draw attention to certain faults which are to be found in them, either of
thought or language, and, as tar as possible, to set these right". This preface and the
notes are of great value to students of the Grammar of Assent. Among the sermons con-
tained in this volume is the celebrated one delivered in 1843 on .. The Theory of Develop-
ments in Religious Doctrine".
CONTENTs.-The Philosophical Temper, first enjoined by the Gospel-The Influence
of Natural and Revealed Religion respectively-Evangelical Sanctity the Perfection of
Natural Virtue-The Usurpations of Reason-Personal Influence, the Means of Pro-
pagating the 1ruth-On Justice as a Principle of Divine Governance-Contest between
Faith and Sight-Human Responsibility, as independent of Circumstances- \Vilfulness,
the Sin of Saul-Faith and i<eason, contrasted as Habits of :Vlind- The Nature of Faith
in Relation to Reason-Love. the Safeguard of Faith against Superstition-Implicit and
Explicit Reason-Wisdom, a5 contrasted with Faith and with Bigotry-The Theory of
Developments in Religious Doctrine.

DISCOURSES TO MIXED CONGREGATIONS.
Crown 8vo. 35. 6d.
First published in 18
9.
.. These sermons have a definite tone and genius of their own. . . and though they
have not to me quite the delicate charm of the reserve, and I might almost say the shy pas-
sion, of his Oxford sermons, they represent the full-blown blossom of his genius, while
the former shows it only in the bud. . . . The extraordinary wealth of detaIl with which
Newman concei\"es and realises the various SIOS and miseries of the human lot has, per-
haps, never been illustrated in all his writings with so much force as in the wonderful
sixteenth sermon on · The Mental Sufferings of our Lord in His Passion,' " etc.
The late Mr. R. H. HUTTON.
CONTENTs.-The Salvation of the Hearer the Motive of the Preacher-Neglect of
Divine Calls and Warnings-Men not Angels-The Priests of the Gospel-Puflty and
Love-Saintliness the Standard of Christian Principle-God's \Vill the End of Life-
Perseverance in Grace - Nature and Grace - Illuminating Grace - Faith and Private
Judgment-Faith and Doubt-Prospects of the Catholic i\hssioner-Mysteries of Nature
and of Grace-The Mystery of Divine Condescension-The Infinitude ot the Divine Attri-
butes-Mental Sufferings of our Lord in His Passion-The Glories of :\lary for the Sake
of Her Son-On the Fitness of the Glories of Mary.

24

MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS

Cardinal Newman's Works-continued.

SERMONS PREACHED ON V ARIOUS OCCA-
SIONS. Crown Bvo. 35. 6d.
This volume, which was first published in 1857, consists of eight sermons preached
before the Catholic University of Ireland in 1856-1857, and seven sermons delivered on
different occasions between 1850 and 1B72. Among the latter are the celebrated" Second
Spring" and .. The Pope and the Revolution" preached 1850-1872 at St. Chad's, the
Oratory, OSCOtl, and Farm Stree , London, with Notes.
CONTENTs.-Intellect the Instrument of Religious Training-The Religion of the
Pharisee-The Religion of Mankind-\Vaiting flor Christ-The Secret Power of Divine
Grace-Dispositions for Faith-Omnipotence in Bonds-St. Paul's Characteristic Gift
-St. Paul's Gift of Sympathy-Christ upon the Waters-The Second Spring-Order, the
"'itness and Instrument of Unity-The Mission of St. Philip Neri-The Tree beside the
\Vaters-In the \Vorld but not of the \Vorld-The Pope and the Revolution-Notes.

2. TREATISES.
LECTURES ON THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICA-
TION. Crown Bvo. 35. 6d.
These Lectures .were first published in 1838. They
ere reprinted in 1874 with an
.. Advertisement to the Third Edition" and SOme additional notes.
CONTENTs.-Faith considered as the Instrumental Cause of Justification-Love con-
sidered as the Formal Cause of Justification-Primary Sense of the term" Justification "-
Secondary Senses of the term" Justification "-Misuse of the term" Just" or .. Righteous"
-The Gift of Righteousness-ï'he Characteristics of the Gift of kighteousness-Right-
eousness viewed as a Gift and as a Quality-Righteousness the .Fruit of our Lord's
Resurrection- The Office of Justifying Faith-The Nature of Justifying Faith-Faith
viewed relatively to Rites and Works-On Preaching the Gospel-Appendix-On the
Formal Cause of Justification.

AN ESSAY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRIS-
TIAN DOCTRINE. Crown Bvo. 38. 6d.
.. In this New Edition of the Essay, first published in 1845, various important altera-
tions have been made in the arrangement of its separate parts, and some, not indeed in
its matter, but in its text."-Preface to ïhird Eciiti01J, 1878.

THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY DEFINED AND
ILLUSTRATED. Crown Bvo. 35. 6d.
I. In Nine Discourses delivered to the Catholics of Dublin.
II. In Occasional Lectures and Essays addressed to the members of the Catholic
University.
Part I. was first published in 1852 under the title of Discourses on the Scope an-I
Nature of U1Jiversity Education, etc.
CONTENTS.-I. Introductory-II. Theology a Branch of Knowledge-III. Bearing of
Theolog:r on other Knowledge-IV. Bearing of other Knowledge on Theology-V. Know-
ledge its own End-VI. knowledge viewed in Relation to Learning-VB. Knowledge
,-iewed in Relation to Professional Skill-VIII. Knowledge viewed in Relation to Religious
Duty-IX. Duties of the Church towards Knowledge.
Part II. was first published in 1859 under the title of Lectures and Essays on U1Ji.
versity Subjects.
CONTENTS.-I. Christianitv and Letters-II. Literature-III. Catholic Literature in the
English Tongue-IV. Elementary Studies-V. A Form of Infidelity of the Day-VI.
tTmversity Preaching-VII. Christianity and Physical Science-VIII. Christianity and
Scientific Investigation-IX. Discipline of Mind-X. Christianity and Medical Science.
* * * Part 1. is also issued seþarately as follows :-
UNIVERSITY TEACHING CONSIDERED IN NINE DIS-
COURSES. With a Preface by the Rev. JOHN NORRIS. Fcp.
8vo. Cloth, Gilt Top, 25. 1let. Leather, 35. net.

BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS.

25

Cardinal Newman's Works-continued.
AN ESSAY IN AID OF A GRAMMAR OF ASSENT.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
First published in 1870, with Notes at the end of the volume added to the later editions

AN INDEXED SYNOPSIS OF CARDINAL NEW-
MAN'S" AN ESSAY IN AID OF A GRAMMAR OF ASSENT".
By the Rev. JOHN j. TOOHEY,S.j. Crown 8vo. 3s.6d.

3. HISTORICAL.
HISTORICAL SKETCHES. Three vols. Crown 8vo.
3s. 6d. each.
VOL. I.-The Turks in their Relation to Europe-Marcus Tullius Cicero-Apollonius
of Tyana-Primitive Christianity.
The Essay on "The Turks in their Relation to Europe" was first published under the
title of Lectures onthe History of the Turks by the Author of Loss a1Jd Gain, in 1854. As
is well known, Newman took what was then the unpopular side. The Czar was" attack-
inl{ an il1famous power, the enemy of God and Man ". .. Many things are possible; one
is inconceivable-that the Turks should, as an existing nation, accept of modern civilisa-
tion; and in default of it, that they should be able to stand their ground amid the
encroachments of Russia, the interested and contemptuous patronage of Europe, and
the hatred of their subject populations."
Personal and Literary Character of Cicero. First published in 1824.
Apollonius of Tyana. First published in 1826.
Primitive Christianity.
I. What does St. Ambrose say about it ?-II. What says Vincent of Lerins ?-III. What
says the History of Apollinaris ?-IV. What say J ovinian and his companions?- V. What
say the Apostolical Canons?
This series formed part of the original Church of the Fathers as it appeared in the
British .Magazine of 18::n-36, and as it was published in 1840. .. They were removed
from subsequent Catholic editions, except the chapter on Apollinaris, as containing
polemical matter, which had no interest for Catholic readers. Now [1872] they are
republished under a separate title."
VOL. H.-The Church of the Fathers-St. Chrysostom-Theodoret-Mission of St.
Benedict- Benedictine Schools.
The Church of the Fathers.
I. Trials of Basil-II. Labours of Basil-III. Basil and Gregory-IV. Rise and Fall of
Gregory-V. Antony in Conflict-VI. Antony in Calm-VII. Augustine and the Vandals-
VIII. Conversion of Augustine-IX. Demetrias-X. Martin and Maximus.
St. Chrysostom. Reprinted from the Rambler, 1859-60.
Trials of Theodoret. First published in 1873.
The Mission of St. Benedict. From the Atlantis, 1858.
The Benedictine Schools. From the Atlantis, 1859.
VOL. IH.-Rise and Progress of Universities {originally published as .. Office and
Work of Universities ")-Northmen and Normans in England and Ireland-Mediæval
Oxford-Convocation of Canterbury.
Rise and Progress of Universities.
The following illustrations of the idea of a University originally appeared in 185-1- in
the columns of the Dublin Catholic University Gazette. In 1856 they were published in
one volume under the title of The Office and TVork of Unit'ersities, etc.
Northmen and Normans in England and Ireland. From the Rambler of 1859.
Mediaeval Oxford. From the British Critic of 1838.
The Convocation of the Province of Canterbury. From the British MagazÍ1Je of

834-35
THE CHURCH OF THE FATHERS. Reprinted from "Historical
Sketches". Vol. II. With a Preface by the Rev. JOHN NORRIS.
Fcp. 8vo. Cloth, Gilt Top, 25. 1Jet. Leather! 35. net.

26

MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS

Cardinal Newman's Works-continued.

4. ESSAYS.
TWO ESSAYS ON MIRACLES.

Crown 8vo. 35. 6d.

CO
Tl:NTs.-I. The
Iirac1es of Scripture compared with those reported elsewhere as
regards their nature, credibility. and evidence-II. The !\firac1es of Early Ecclesiastical
History compared \\ith those of Scripture as regards their nature, credibility, and evidence.
The former of these Essays was \uitten for the Em:yclopædia Metroþolitwta, 1825-
;::6; the latter in 18.\2-43 as Preface to a Translation of a portion of Fleury's Ecclcsi-
"stiml History. They were republished in 1870 with some additional notes.

DISCUSSIONS AND ARGUMENTS. Cr. 8vo. 35. 6d.

I. How to accomplish it. 2. The Antichrist of the Fathers. 3. Scripture and the
Creed. 4. Tamworth Reading-room. 5. \Vho's to Blame? 6. An Internal Argument for
Christianity.
How to _4ccompllsh It originally appeared in the Rritish !l{Llj;a:ine of 1830 under the title
of" Home Thoughts Abroad ". I. The discussion on this Paper is carried on by two
speculative Anglicans. who aim at
iving vitality to their church, the one by uniting
it to the Holy See, the other by developing a nineteenth century Anglo-Catholicism.
The narrator sides on the whole \\ ith the latter of these."
The Patristicalldea of Antichrist. This was the Eighty-third Number of the Tracts
for the T"mes, published in 1838.
Holy Scripture in Its Relation to the Catholic Creed. This was the Eighty-fifth
Number of the Tracts for the Times.
The Tamworth Reading Room. A series of seven letters, signed .. Catholicus," first
printed in the Times during February, 18.p, and pUblished as a pamphlet. They were
provoked by addresses delivered by Lord Brougham at Glasgow and Sir Robert Peel
at the opening of a Library and Reading- Room at Tamworth, in which those distin-
guished statesmen exalted secular knowledge into the great instrument of moral
improvement. They ran as follows: (I) Secular Knowled
e in contrast with Religion.
(2) Secular Knowledl{e not the principle of Moral Improvement. (3) Not a direct means
of :\Ioral Improvement. (
) :Not the antecedent of Moral Improvement. (5) Not a
principle of social unity. (6) Not a principle of action. (7) But without personal
religion a temptation to unbelief.
\Vho's to Blame? A series of letters addressed to the Catholic Stalldard in 1855. There
was at that time a great deal of blame attributed to the Government on account of its
management of the Crimean \Var. Newman threw the blame on the British constitu-
tion, or rather on those who clamoured for a foreign war, for the conduct of which
this constitution is singularly ill-adapted. The letters are a \"alu
ble study of the
genius of the Anglo-Saxon race and the British constitution.
An Internal Argument for Christianity. A review. originally published in the Month
of 1 une, 1866, of Lca Homo.

ESSAYS, CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL. Two VOI5..
with Notes. Crown 8vo. 7s.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.-I. Poetry with reference to Aristotle's Poetics. With Note-
II. The Introduction of Rationalistic Principles into Revealed Religion. With Note-III.
Apostolical Tradition. With Note-IV. The Fall of la Mennais. With Note-V.
Palmer's View of Faith and Unity. \Vith Note-VI. The Theology of St. Ignatius. \Vith
Note- VII. Prospects of the Anglican Church. \Vith Note-VIII. The Anglo-American
Church. With Note-IX. Selina Countess of Huntingdon. \Vith Note.
CONTE:-õTS OF \ OL. H.-X. The Catholicity of the Anglican Church. \Vith Note-
XI. The Protestant View of Antichrist. \Vith Note-XII. Milman's View of Christianity.
\Vith Note-XIII. The Reformation of the Eleventh Century. \Vith Note-XIV. Private
Judgment. \Vith Note-XV. John Davison. \Vith Note-XVI. John Keble. \Vith Note.
The first Essay was written in 1828 for the Lomlon Revie
t.'; the second in 1835 for the
Tracts for the Times; the last in 1846 for the Dublin Review; the rest for the British
Critic between 1837 and 1842. The original title of VII. was Home Thoughts A broad.
The" Notes" v.ere \\fitten when the Essays were republished in IB7 1 .

BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS.

27

Cardinal Newman's Works-continued.

THE ARIANS
Crown 8VD. 3s. 6d.
First published in 1833. Republished, with an Appendix containing over seventy
pages of additional matter, in 1871.
CONTENTS OF ApPENDIX.-I. The Syrian School of Theology-II. The Early Doctrine
of the Divine Genesis-III. The Confessions at Sirmium-IV. The Early use of usia and
hypostasis-V. Orthodoxy of the Faithful during Arianism-VI. Chronology of the Councils
-VII. Omissions in the Text ofthe Third Edition (1871).
(5) is a long extract from the article published in the Rambler of 1859, II On con-
sultmg the Faithful on Matters of Doctrine n. In the fourth (1876) and subsequent
editions of the A rians the author appended to the extract an explanatIon of a passage
in the original article which had been seriously misunderstood in some quarters.

5. PATRISTIC.
OF rrHE FOURTH

CENTURY.

SELECT TREATISES OF ST. A THANASIUS IN
CONTROVERSY WITH THE ARIANS. Freely Translated.
Two vols. Crown 8vo. 7s.
First published in 1881. The first volume contains the II Treatises"; the second the
notes alphabetically arranged so as to form a kind of theological lexicon to St.
Athanasius's writings.
In 1842 Newman contributed to the Oxford Library of the Fathers two volumes
entitled Select Treatises of St. AthatJasius in Controversy 'With the A rians. This work was
described by the late Canon Bright as ranking" among the richest treasures of English
Patristic literature" ; by the late Canon Liddon as .. the most important contribution to the
Library"; and in later prospectuses of the Library, after Newman's connection with it
had ceased, as .. the most important work published since Bishop Bull n. The present
edition differs from that of the Oxford Li brary in four important points, ,"iz.: (I) the
freedom of the translation; (2) the arrangement of the notes; (3) the omission of the
fourth" Discourse against the Arians "; l4) the omission of some lengthy Dissertations.
A Latin version of these last is included in Tracts: Theological and Ecclesiastical.

TRACTS: THEOLOGICAL and ECCLESIASTICAL.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
CO:-OTENTS.-1. Dissertatiunculæ Quatuor Critico-Theologicæ [Rome 1847]-II. On the
Text of the Epistles of St. Ignatius[lb70]-III. Causes of the Rise and Success of Arianism
[1872]-IV. 1he Heresy of Apollinaris-V. St. Cyril's Form1Jla
IL\. <<ÞY
I

E
APKn-

IE
H. (Atlantis, 1858)-VI. The Ordo de Tempore in the Breviary. (Atlantis, 1870)-
VII. History of the Text of the Douay Version of Scripture. (Rambler, 1859).

6. POLEMICAL.
THE VIA MEDIA OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH.
Illustrated in Lectures, Letters and Tracts written between 1830 and 1841.
Two vols. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each.
This collection was first published in 1877.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.-The Prophetical Office of t:le Church, etc., originally published in
1837, reprinted with Notes and a Preface.
fhe Preface, which extends to about ninety pages, is one of Newman's most im-
portant polemical writings. His adversary is his former self. In his .. Essay On
Development," he dealt with one of the two great charges he used to bring against the
Catholic Church; in this Preface he deals with the other.
CONTE:-OTS OF VOL. 11.-1. Suggestions in behalf of the Church Missionary Society, 1830
-II. Via Media, 1834 (being Nos. 38 and 40 of Tracts for the Times)-III. Restoration of
Suffragan Bishops, 183S-IV. On the Mode of Conducting the Controversy with Rome (being
No. 71 of Tracts for the Times)-V. Letter to a
Iagazine in behalf of Dr. Pusey's Tracts
on Holy Baptism, 1837-VI. Letter to the Margaret Professor of Divinity on Mr. R. H.
Froude's Statements on the Holy Eucharist, 1838-VII. Remarks on Certain Passages in the
Thirty-nine Articles, 1841 (being No. go of Tracts for the Times)-VIII. Documentary
:\Iatter consequent upon the foregoing Remarks on the Thirty-nine Articles-IX. Letter to
Dr. JeU in Explanation of the Remarks, 1841-X. Letter to the Bishop of Oxford on the
same Subject, 18.p-XI. Retractation of Anti-Catholic Statements, 1843-45.
*L
o. YII. in this Volume is the famous Tract 90 of Tracts for tht' Times, the
whole with new
otes.

28

MESSRS. LONGMANS' LisT OF WORKS

Cardinal Newman's Works-continued.
CERTAIN DIFFICULTIES FELT BY ANGLICANS
IN CATHOLIC TEACHING CONSIDERED. Two vols. Crown
8vo. 3s. 6d. each.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.-Twelve Lectures addressed in J850 to the party of the Religious
:Movement of 1833.
CONTENTS OF VOL. 11.-1. Letter addressed to Re,'. E. B. Pusey, D.D., on Occasion of
his Eirenicon of 1864-11. A Letter addressed to the Duke of Norfolk, on Occasion of Mr.
Gladstone's Expostulation of 1874. ·

LECTURES ON THE PRESENT POSITION OF
CATHOLICS IN ENGLAN D. Addresses to the Brothers of the
Oratory in the Summer of 1851. Crown 8vo. 35. 6d.
APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA, being a History of his
Religious Opinions.
First published in 1864.
Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.
Pocket Edition. Fcp. 8vo. Cloth, 2s. 6d. net. Leather, 3s. 6d. net.
Popular Edition. Bvo. Paper cover, 6d. net.
The II Pocket" Edition and the" Popular" Edition of this book contain a letter, hitherto
unpublished, written by Cardinal Newma1
to Canon Flanagan in 1857, which may be said
to contain in embryo
he .. Apologia" itsell.

7. LITERARY.
LOSS AND GAIN: The Story of a Convert. Cr. 8vo. 35. 6d.
First published in 1848.
.. Of his experience as a Catholic, Loss and Gain, published in 18.}.8, was the first
fruit . . . the book has been a great favourite with me, almost ever since its first publi-
cation, partly for the admirable fidelity with which it sketches young men's thoughts
and difficulties, partly for its happy irony, partly for its perfect representation of the
academical life and tone at Oxford. . . . In the course of the story there are many
happy sketches of Oxford society. such as, for example, the sketch of the evangelical
pietism which Mr. Freeborn pours forth at Bateman's breakfast, or the sketch of the Rev.
Dr. Brownside's prim and pompous Broad Church University sermon. . . . Again, there
is one very impressive passage not taken from Oxford life, in which Newman makes...
[one of his characters] insist on the vast difference between the Protestant and Roman
Catholic conception of worship."-R. H. HUTTON'S Cardinal Newman.

CALLIST A : A Tale of the Third Century. Cr. 8vo. 3s. 6d.
First published in 1855, with postscripts of 1856,1881, 1888.
.. It is an attempt to imagine and express, from a Catholic point of view. the feelings
and mutual relations of Christians and heathens at the period to which it belongs."
A uthor's Preface.

VERSES ON VARIOUS OCCASIONS.
Crown 8vo. 35. 6d.
Pocket Edition. Fcp. 8vo. Gilt top, Cloth, 2s. net. Leather, 35. net.
THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS.
16mo. Sewed, 6d. Cloth, I s. net.
With Introduction and Notes by MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, D.O.,
LL.D. With Portrait. Crown 8vo. Is. 6d.
Presentation Edition, with an Introduction specially written for this Edition by
E. B(L). With Photogravure Portrait of Cardinal Newman, and 5 other
Illustrations. Large Crown Bvo. Cream cloth, with gilt top, 3s. net.

BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS.

29

Cardinal Newman's Works-continued.
8. DEVOTIONAL.
MEDITATIONS AND DEVOTIONS. Part I. Medita-
tions for the Month of May. Novena of St. Philip. Part II. The
Stations of the Cross. Meditations and Intercessions for Good Friday.
Litanies, etc. Part I II. Meditations on Christian Doctrine. Conclusion.
Crown 8vo. 5s. 1tet.
Also in Three Parts as follows. F cap. 8vo. Cloth, I s. net each. Limp
leather, 2s. net each.
Part I. THE MONTH OF MAY.
Part II. STATIONS OF THE CROSS.
Part III. MEDITATIONS ON CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.

9. BIOGRAPHIES.
THE LIFE OF JOHN HENRY CARDINAL
NEWMAN. Based on his Private Journals and Correspondence. By
WILFRID WARD. With 15 Portraits and Illustrations (2 Photo-
gravures). 2 vols. 8vo. 36s. 1let.
LE1TERS AND CORRESPONDENCE OF JOHN
HENRY NEWMAN DURING HIS LIFE IN THE ENGLISH
CHURCH. With a brief Autobiography. Edited, at Cardinal Newman's
request, by ANNE MOZLEY. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. 7s.
.. Materials for the present work were placed in the Editor's hands towards the close of
1884. The selection from them was made, and the papers returned to Cardinal Newman
in the summer of 1887."-Editor's Note. .
.. It has ever been a hobby of mine, though perhaps it is a truism, that the true life of a
man is in his letters. . . . Not only for the interest of a biography, but for arriving at
the inside of things, the publication ofJetters is the. true method. Biographers varnish,
they assign motives, they conjecture feelings, they interpret Lord Burleigh's nods; but
contemporary letters are facts."-Dr. Newman to his sister, Mrs. John Mozley, .May 18,
1863.

10. POSTHUMOUS.
ADDRESSES TO CARDINAL NEWMAN, WITH
HIS REPLIES, 1879-81. Edited by the Rev. W. P. NEVILLE (Cong.
Orat.). With Portrait Group. Oblong croWD 8vo. 6s. net.
NEWMAN MEMORIAL SERMONS: Preached at the
Opening of the Newman Memorial Church, The Oratory, Birmingham,
8th and 12th December, 1909. By Rev. Fr. JOSEPH RICKABY, S.J.,
and Very Rev. Canon MciNTYRE, Professor of Scripture at St. Mafj.'s
College, Oscott. 8vo. Paper covers, 1 s. net.
SERMON NOTES. Crown 8vo.

Cardinal Newman left behind him two MS. volumes filled with notes or memoranda
of Sermons and Catechetical_Instructions delivered by him during the years 1847 to
18 79.
Besides their utility to priests and teachers, it is hoped that the notes will appeal to
aU lovers of Newman's writings. So characteristic of him are they, in spite of their
brevity, that their authorship would be at once recognised even if they appeared without
his name. Those of an earlier date are specially interesting. They introduce the
reader to Newman in the first days of his Catholic life, settling down to the ordinary
duties of an English priest, and instructing a .. Mixed Congregation" in the rudiments
of Catholic Doctrine.

INDEX.

Page
Advwtuus oj Ki1lg Ja,mes II. oj E11gland 9
Antony (C. M.) In St. Dominic's Country 12
--- St. A nton}' of Padua 13
St. Pills V. 13
ArundeU (
ord) Papers 6
Ayscough (j.) Gracechurch Papers 14
--- Levia POllciera .' 14

Balfour (
frs. Reginald) The LiJe and
Legend of the Lady Saint Clare
Barnes (A. S.) Christia11 A rchæology... 3
Barrett (E. Boyd) Motive Force ami
Uotivation-Tlacks 4
Barry (W.) The Tradition of Scriptule ... 3
Batitfol (P.) Credibility of the Gospel

History of the Roman Brevimy 4
Primitive Catholicism 4
Benson (R. H.) Child's Rule of Life 16
--- Christ in the Church 15
Confessions of a Convert 10
Cost of a Crown ... 16
FrimcishiP of Christ 15
\laid ofOrlums ... 16
Mystery Play 16
Non-Catholic DenomilJa-

ti01l5

Paradoxes of Catholicism
Boedder (B.) Natural Theology...
Bosch (
lrs. H.) Bible Stories told to
.. Toddles"
Good Sh,pherd atld
His Little Lambs
IVhen .. Toddles" was

Seven
Bougaud (Mgr.) History oj St. Vincent
de Paul...
Brown (M. J.) Historical Ballad PoetlY
of Ilelatllt
Brown (S. J.) A Reader's Gltide to Irish
FictiOlt ...
Browne (H.) Handbook of Greek C01nposi--
lion

H ome,.ic Study
Latin Composi-

lion
Burton (E. H.) Life dnd Times oj Bishop
Challoner
and Myers (E.) l";ew Psal-
ter and its Use....
Catholic Church Jrom Within
Challoner. Life and Times of Bishop
Chapman (j.) Bishop Gore and Catholic
Claims
Chisel. Pen; ami Poignard

Page
16

Christ, Life of, Jor Childrm
Clarke (R. F.) Logic
Class-Teaching (Tlte) of English Com-
position ...
Coffey (P.) The Science oj Logic ...
Conway (P.) St. Thomas Aquillas
Corcoran (T.) Studies in the Histor)' of
Classical Teaching
Costelloe (L.) St. Bonaventure
II Cronin (M.) The Science oj Ethics
Curiolls Case oj Lady Pltrbeck ...
Cuthbert (Fr.) Life 01 St. Fraucis of
A ssisi

20
4
13

20
13
5
9

II

Delecta Biblica.
Delehaye (H.) The Legmds oj the Saints
De Montalembert (Count) Life of St.
Eli::abeth of Hungary
Devas (C. S.) Political Economy...
Key to the World's Progress
Devas (R.) Domi'llicmJ Revival ill tlt

X inetecnth Century
De Vere (Aubrey), Memoir oj. by Wilfrid
\Vard
Dewe (j. A.) Psychology 01 Politics and
3 History...
15 De Wulf(M.) History of Medieval Philo-
2 sophy
--- Scholasticism, Old and New
16 Digby. Life of Sit Kmelm
Dobrt:e (L. E.) Storie$ on the Rosal Y
16 Drane (A. T.) History of St. Catheri"e of
Siena

21

3

II
2
5

7

II

6

4
4
9
16

II

16

Memoir (Mother FralJCis

Raphael) I I
12 Dubray (C. A.) Intl'Oductory PhJlosophy 21
Dwight (T.) Thoughts of a Catholic
17 A'IIatomist 5

18 Emery (S. L.) The Inner Life of the Soul 15

21 FalklatMs
21 Filst Duke and Duchess of Newcastle-on-
Tyne
21 Fitz-Gerald (V.) St. Johl' Capistrau
Fletcher (M.) The Fugitives
7 Fortescue (A.) The Mass ...
Fouard (Abbé) St. John and the Close of
the Apostolic Age
St. Partl and his \fissions 12
St. Peter
The Christ the Son of God 12
6 Last Fears of St. Palll 12
9 Fountain of Life (The)

g

9
13
18

3

3
6
7

12

u

21

IN DEX.

31

Francis (M. E.) Dorset Dear
Fiander's Hl
dow
Lychgate Hall ...
__--Manor Farm
_______yeoman Fleetwood
Friar Saint Series ...
Gerard (j.) The Olet Riddle anet the
Newest Answer ...
Grammar Lesso1JS, by the Principal of
St. Mary's HaU, Liverpool...

Healy (T. M.) Stolen Waters
Hedley (1. C.) Holy Euchm'ist
Hogan (S.) St. Vincent Ferrer
Hoyt (F. D.) Ce
ther;ne Sid1JeY
Hughes (T.) History of the Society of
Jesus Ù
N01'th America
Hunter (S. J.) Outli'
es of Dogmatic
Theology...

Index to The Month ...
Irons (G.) A Torn Scrap Book
joppen (C.) Historical Atlas of India
J örgensen U.) St. Francis of Assisi
Joyce (G. H.) PrÏ1
ciples of Logic
Joyce (P. W.) Ancimt Irish Music 17
Child's History of Ireland 20
__-English as we Speak it in
Ireland
Grammar of the Irish
La'
guage
_--Handbook
Management
History of Ireland for
A ustralian Catholic Schools n.
--I1'ish Peasant Songs
Old Celtic Romances
---Old Irish Folk Music
Origin at
d History of
Irish Names of Places
_-Outlines of the History of
Ireland
----Reading Book in Irish
History n.
---Short History of Ireland
Smaller Social History
of Ancient Ireland
---Story of Irish CivilisatiolJ
_-Wonders of Irelami
Joyce (R. D.) Ballads of Irish Chivalry
Kane (R.) Good Friday to Easta Sunday
Plain Gold Ring
Sermon of the Sea
Keating (T. P.) Science of ß411catio1
I!'

of

Page
18
18
18
18
18
13

Page
Leith (W. F.) Memoirs of the Scottish
Catholics n. 7
Lives of the Friar Saints ... 13
Lockington (W. J.) Bodily H eaIth and
Spiritual Vigollr 5

5 Maher (M.) Psychology
M '
rshal Turenne
20 Martindale (C. C.) In God's Nursery
Maturin (B. W.) Laws of the spilitual
Life

2

9
14

8
3
13
18

15
6

Price of UIJ
ty
Self-K nowledge and
Self-Discipline ...
Maxwell-Scott (Hon. Mrs.) Life of the
Marquise de la Rochejaquelein
Montalembert (Count de) St. Elizabeth
of Hungary
6 Month ...
16 Moyes (j.) Aspects of Anglicanism
Mulhal1 (M. M.) BegÍ1mings, or Glimpses
of Vanished Civilizatio1JS

15

8

II

4

II
6
6

20

7

II

21

20

Nesbitt (M.) 01tr Lady Ù
the Clwrch... 15
Newman (Cardinal) Addresses to, 1 8 79- 81 29
. Apologia pro Vita
sua 10, 28
__- A'riam of the Fourth

20

27

Century...

School

Callista, an Histof'i-
28
Church of the Fathers 25
Critical and Histori-

21

cal Tale ...

20

17
17 __-- Development of
17 Christian Doctrine
Difficulties of A ngli-

26

cal Essays

24

8

cans

28

Discourses to ."\fixed

20

23

Congregatiom

and

Discussions

20 A rg'U'ne1
ts 26
8 _--- Dream of Ger01
tius 28
------ Essays on M iracle!ì
6
8 _---- Grammar of Assent 25
8 Historical Sketches 25
8 Idea of a University 24
17 1 'Ustification ... 2-t-
15 --- IJ eUers and Carre-
lS sp01
dence... 29
15
----- Life, by Wilfrid
21 Ward 10,29

32

IN D EX.

PaKe
28

Newman (Cardinal) Loss and Gain
Meditations and De-

voft.ons

Memorial S et'tn01Js...
Oxford University

Serm01
s ...

23
Parochial Sermons... 22
Present PositiOþ of

Catholics ...

Select Treatises of St.

A tlranasius

Selections from Ser-

mons

Sermoll Notes
Sermons on Subjects

of the Day

Sermons Preached on
Various Occasions
Theological Tmcts
University 1'eaching
Verses on Various

Page
Sales (Brother De) Teacher's Companion 21
Scannell (T. B.) The Priest's Studies 3
29 Sheehan (P. A.) Blindness of Dr. Gray 19
29 Early Essays and Lec-

tures

19
19
19
19

2

Glenanaar
Intellectuals
Lisheen ...
U Lost A ngel of a Ruined

Paradise" 19
2- Luke Delmege 19
Miriam L1tCaS 19
22 Parerga ... 19

Quun
FaW 19
Smith (S. F.) The Iustruction of Converts 3
23 STONYHURST PHILOSOPHICAL
SERIES... 2
24 Stuart (j. E.) The Education of Catholic
27 Girls 21
24

Occasions... 28 Terry (R. R.) Old Rhymes with New
Via Media 27 Tunes 16
Thurston (H.) Lwt mrd H oly Week 6
O'Brien (Mrs. William) Unsetn Friends II, 14 Toohey (J. J.) Sy1WPSis of Ne'4'man's
O'Malley (A.) and Walsh (]. J.) Pastoral Ie Grammar of Assel
t" 25
Medicine ... 5
O'Neill (G.) Five Centuries of English
Poetry 21 Vacandard (E.) The Inquisition ... 7

Plater (C.) Clergy and Social Action
Pryings among Private Papers

Quick anti Dead

Rickaby (john) First PrinciPles of Know-
ledge
--- Gemral MetaPhysics
Rickaby (Joseph) Moral Philosophy
--- and McIntyre (Canon)
Newman .\Iemorial Sermons... 29
Rochester and other Literary Rakes 9
Roche (W.) The House and Table of God 16
Rockliff (E.) A n Experiment in History
Teaching...
Rose (V.) Studies on the Gospels ...
Rosmini (A.) Theodicy
Russell (M.) A mong the Blessed ...
At Home with God ...
The Three Sisters of Lord
Russell of Kill owen II
Ruville (A. Von) Back to Holy Church 10
Ryder (I.) Essays 10, q.

No. 13. IO,OOO-iii/13. A.V.P.

3 Walker (L. J.) Theories 0/ K1rowledge... 2
9, Ward (B.) Dawn of the Catholic Revival
in England ... ... ... ... 7
21 --Eve of Catholic Emancipation 7
\Vard (Wilfrid) A ubrey de Vere, a Memoir II
Life of Cardinal New-
10,29
Life of Cardinal JVise-

2

man

2
2

man

10

Ten Personal Studies... 10
TJ'illiam G. Ward aud
the Catholic Revival... 10
Ward (Mrs. Wilfrid) Great Possessions... 18
Job Secretary 18
Light Behind 18
4 - One Poor ScruPle 18
5 Out of Due Time... 18
15 WESTMINSTER LIBRARY... 3
IS Wiseman (Cardi1cal) Life. by Wilfrid Ward 10
Wyatt.Davies (E.) History of England
for Catholic Schools ...
Outlines of British

20

20

History..,

,,,

,.'

f

51 0 7
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