Criticism and courage, and other essays

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Ryan, Frederick

Criticism and courage, and
other essays.

■'i'tjlttii

I TOWER PRESS BOOKLETS

IBER SIX JT jr jr

:riticism and courage
\nd other essays. by

mEDERICK RYAN.

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CRITICISM AND COURAGE
AND OTHER ESSAYS. BY
FREDERICK RYAN.

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NUMBER SIX jr jT

CRITICISM AND COURAGE
AND OTHER ESSAYS. BY
FREDERICK RYAN. jr

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CONTENTS.

PREFACE 7

CRITICISM AND COURAGE .... 9

THE MORAL FUTURE 1 8

POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM . 29

DR. SHEEHAn's DEFENCE OF DOGMA . . 38

PREFACE

I WOULD be the last to claim that the essays
here reprinted deserved to be rescued from the
magazines in which, with one exception, they
first appeared ; the last in the book has not
been in print before. Having undertaken,
however, to make a selection of pieces for
the series, I thought it better, in such a small
compass, to keep the articles more or less to
the one point, viz., the advocacy of intel-
lectual freedom in Ireland as an essential
prelude to real national progress.

One of the characteristics of modern Ireland
which is most depressing and disquieting is its
apathy and hypocrisy with regard to such issues
as are here treated of. My experience is that
quite half the educated and reflective people
in Ireland to-day are in intellectual and moral
revolt against the old and effete theological
dogmas which are conventionally lauded, and
on the maintenance of which immense sums
are yearly expended. But these people are
mostly afraid to speak out. This man is a
shopkeeper and is afraid of losing his custom.
That one is a newspaper proprietor or director
and is afraid of losing his readers or offending
his shareholders. Another is member of a
County Council and is afraid of the opinion of
his constituents. A reciprocal fear thus keeps
in countenance a discredited creed. Even
those in Ireland who take up in politics what

7

PREFACE

is colloquially called an "anti-clerical" position
are often at the greatest pains to protest their
fundamental agreement with the theological
basis on which all clericalism rests. Nothing
is further from my desire than to censure any-
one who finds that intellectual sincerity in-
volves too great an economic sacrifice, nothing
is cheaper than to prescribe heroic conduct for
others. But I certainly maintain that such
suppression of free thought as occurs in
Ireland at the present time cannot be morally
healthy for any nation. When men are afraid
to freely speak their minds there is generated
a mean habit and a moral cowardice which
react injuriously on the whole national life.
These little essays, then, which mostly discuss
this topic, do not pretend to exhibit any literary
graces or abstruse learning. I have spent no
time constructing epigrams or moulding meta-
phors. And I am quite prepared to find my
writing described as "shallow," "superficial,"
and the rest, by astute gentlemen who have
sufficiently obvious motives for echoing what
they suppose to be the beliefs of the crowd.
The sole title of these criticisms to any reader's
attention is that they are the frank expression
of the writer's thoughts.

No'Vember^ 1906. F. R.

CRITICISM AND COURAGE

Whenever any attempt is made in this
country to set up a platform, however modest,
for the unprejudiced discussion of poh'tical and
religious opinions and beliefs, it is always
interesting to note the numerous and subtle
arguments employed in different qiiarters to
prove that the process of argument should not
be applied to all beliefs. Some time ago I
was present at a rather paradoxical discussion
in a club, of which I have the honour to be
a member, and which avov/edly meets for the
interchange of opinion. The subject under
consideration was the need, as alleged, for
independent thinking in Ireland ; but the
conclusion of the " discussion," \{ it may
be so summed up, was that one should
have as few opinions as possible, and no
expression of them at all. The futility
of trying to change anyone's intimate be-
liefs ; the impropriety and indecorum of
government officials saying anytliing, even
anonymously, in criticism of governmental
practice ; the propriety of teachers being
obliged to resign if their opinions underwent
any hetero.iox change, since in that case they
were no longer qualified for their duties ; the
hardship of taking away " sources of comfort "
in the shape of theological dogmas from
those who had nothing to cling to but
such comforts ; the arrogance of those who
B 9

CRITICISM AND COURAGE

set themselves up as dissenters from the
majority-opinion, and so forth : the changes
were rung by various speakers, men and
women, on all these arguments for conformity,
these counsels of quiescence. Let us never
do or say anything that will cause the slightest
mental change in anyone, was the rule of
action to be logically deduced from the argu-
ment. From this to the proposition that the
life of the oyster or the tortoise is to be pre-
ferred to the life of man is only a step ; and
the final prescription of conformity might
run : " Let us eat, drink, and sleep, but above
all. Silence ! " It is a small part of the paradox
of conformity that this precept itself was
volubly elaborated, and the doctrine of not
changing our neighbour's beliefs was put for-
ward by way of changing the beliefs of those
of us who stood for the morality of progressive
change.

In order to clear the discussion, then, let
us take the commonest subject of public con-
tention. In the case of politics it is quite
obvious that everyone is seeking to influence
public opinion in favour of the policy which
he thinks desirable, or in which he is personally
interested. In this country, political issues
are discussed vigorously enough and often
acrimoniously enough, and some of those who
warn us against giving pain by criticising old
traditions have themselves very little hesitation
10

CRITICISM AND COURAGfi

about giving pain to political opponents or
ascribing their actions to base motives. It is
true, of course, that the democratic side in Ire-
land, as elsewhere, has to bear the brunt of
official and other pressure. The Government,
through its extensive bureaucracy, and the
Church, by its theological influence, exert an
immense power which causes men to suppress
their political convictions, or subconsciously
find arguments for suppressing them. What
government can do in that way we see every
day ; the spirit of Castlereagh is not dead in
Dublin Castle, and the distribution of offices
and favours affi^rds an opportunity for the day-
to-day repetition of the tactics by which the Act
of Union was carried. As for the Church, we
saw her political power during the Parnell
crisis, and at present, for instance, we see her
political influence exerted to press on members
of Parliament and others a scheme of sectarian
university "reform," for which there is little
or no spontaneous public demand.

Notwithstanding these impediments and
shackles, however, political discussion is
comparatively free. Whenever anyone calls
for a cessation of the political warfare and a
" union of all classes," we know at once that
he is a reactionary, well-meaning or otherwise*
The real antithesis is not between politics and
no-politics, but between good politics and bad ;
and part of good politics is to work for
I I

CRITICISM AND COURAGE

progress with as little personal ill-feeling and
as much good taste as possible. In politics,
then, we have little hesitation in " disturbing the
beliefs " of those who would be glad to rest in
the assurance that everything was for the best
in the best-governed State in the world. And
when we meet benign old people who think
the " picturesque poverty " of the Irish peasant
in the West is not to be disturbed as making
for " spiritual excellence," we have, most of
us, little compunction in shattering the
" spiritual " dream. Political progress must
in/olve change in political ideals and beliefs.

And the same falls to be said of literary and
scientific discussion in the main. If a physician
discovered a cure for cancer or tuberculosis,
no one would dream for a moment of deter-
ring him from publication on the ground that
he might disturb the hitherto accepted view as
to the origin and proper treatment of these
diseases. In literature, too, criticism is free
enough. Take at random any of the subjects
of discussion or gossip in Ireland in the last
year : Mr. Yeats' plays and Mr. O'Brien's
"Conciliation," the Sinn F^in policy, and
the National Exhibition — on all of these sub-
jects we express ourselves with a commendable
lack of reserve, though occasionally also with
a boisterousness that, if not uniformly elevat-
ing, is at least not harmful.

The truth is that the kind of discussion
I 2

CRITICISM AND COURAGE

which is most condemned and against which
the " arguments " mentioned at the beginning
are mainly directed, is the discussion of re-
ligious iJciis. Those beliefs which are sup-
posed to be most vital and important are those
wiiich are to be least examined, and the
doctrines which are held to be the most solidly
established of all are thought to be the least
able to bear criticism of any. No one would
fear to discuss the propositions of Euclid, lest
he might find them false, but most people fear
to discuss their theological beliefs, lest, pre-
sumably, they might find them untenable ;
for, obviously, if they were certain of finding
them true, they would welcome criticism.
And one notes, thus, a kind of truce in Ire-
land between the rival Christian sects which
bespeaks insincerity. The stage when Catho-
lic and Protestant clergymen held public
debates in the Rotunda on the merits of their
respective creeds has long been passed. Doubt-
less it was realised that such encounters were
more likely to make Freethinkers than con-
verts to either Catholicism or Protestantism.
And so there has set in the ignoble fashion at
present in vogue of discountenancing on both
sides such discussion. Catholics make little or
no open attempt to convert Protestants, and,
beyond one or two irresponsible agencies,
Protestants make little or no attempt to con-
vert Catholics. Whenever a zealous Protestant,

13

CRITICISM AND COURAGE

thinking he is carrying h'ght unto darkness,
drops a Protestant tract in the way of Catho-
lics, the Catholic Press raises an outcry as if
some heinous offence had been committed,
and the well-to-do Protestant, anxious to live
on good terms with his Catholic neighbours,
joins in condemning such tactics as " bad
form." The whole phenomenon, it must be
repeated, stands for insincerity, the insincerity
of men who, half-conscious of the weakness of
their dogmatic base, yet- lack the courage to
submit their beliefs to the test of examination
and criticism. Men who have truth are anxious,
and properly anxious, to spread it, even as men
loyally desiring the truth are concerned that
other men, equally sincere, should vitally differ
from them. If any astronomer or physician
put forward a scientific view on any aspect of
his studies, he would be affected by the know-
ledge that other astronomers and physicians
disagreed with him, and he would assuredly
seek to clear the disagreement up. At the
very least he would not shun the whole diffi-
culty. Yet that is the course prescribed and
pursued all round on questions of religion in
Ireland. One interesting and typical incident,
illustrating this, comes to my mind. Some
months ago Father Sheehan delivered an
address to the " Catholic Truth Society" in
Dublin. In the course of his remarks he
advocated the cultivation of " passionless "
14

CRITICISM AND COURAGE

literature and the bowdlerising of poets like
Burns and Byron, and in addition referred to
to the large numbers of cheap rationalist publi-
cations which were now openly sold in a
" Catholic city " like Dublin, a fact which he
deplored. Did he, however, recommend his
hearers to peruse these books ? Did he say,
as one might expect a sincere and wise teacher
to say : "Read, my friends, what the best
minds have to say against you if you seek
loyally the truth, for until you know the best
that can be said against you, you know neither
your weakness nor your strength"? Not at
all. Father Sheehan merely fell back on the
old and shameful dictum that these were
" immoral " books, to be shunned by the
faithful. And when it is mentioned that the
publications in question consist mostly of cheap
reprints of standard works by men like Mill,
Spencer, Huxley, Darwin, Haeckel, Renan,
and Matthew Arnold, the grossness of the
libel may be estimated. At least Father
Sheehan's creed did not deter him from
blackening his neighbour's character, when
that neighbour had the temerity to differ from
his theology.

But that is the temper in which all such
studies are met in Ireland. A cultivated
ignorance, as ludicrous as it is contemptible, is
the prevailing note. Read any popular journal
and observe the tone of snobbish superiority to
15

CP.rnCISM AND COURAGE

modern science and all that it stands for ; so
that when, as is often the case, we are warned
against the *' pride of knowledge," some of us
are prone to reflect that, if that be a reprehen-
sible vanity, the pride of ignorance must be
considerably worse. You will find in any
newspaper you take up long accounts of the
interminable laying of foundation stones of
churches, of the continual opening of bazaars
for ecclesiastical objects, of lugubrious addresses
from prelates and priests on themes that belong
to the mental atmosphere of the Middle Ages.
But of anything that connects with the real
intellectual life of the world outside Ireland,
little or nothing is heard. When, for instance,
some time ago, an article appeared on the
Abbe Loisy from the pen of a French critic,
a widely-circulated clerical weekly editorially
declared tiiat it had never heard of Loisy and
did not want to hear oi him, the writer arguing,
in bucolic fashion, that what did not interest
him ought to interest no one else. A couple
of years ago I heard a well-known Jesuit
preacher, within a few months of the publica-
tion of the Encyclopedia Biblica (which was
itself a redaction of current continental scholar-
ship) tell a rather high-class congregation that
modern criticism had left the Bible untouched.
To pretend that discoveries which tell against
you do not exist, to belittle those who make
them, and abuse those who publish them, and, in
i6

CRITICISM AND COURAGE

short, to refuse to face the intellectual battle,
confident in the final victory of the truth, is
the attitude of our theological guides to-day.
And it is this mental and moral cowardice,
for which orthodoxy is primarily responsible,
that helps to keep us as a people intellectually
inferior. A vital concern for truth more than
for established beliefs correlates with all the
other virtues that keep a nation progressive
and alive.

It would, however, be idle to make light of
the tremendous forces that oppose the rational
discussion of such questions as I have touched
upon, and which produce the corresponding
insincerity. Vast vested interests of all kinds
stand in the way, whereas those who follow
truth loyally have a thankless task, which
nothing but an inward sanction can sustain.
Yet they may reflect that never yet was pro-
gress possible without intellectual change,
never yet did humanity advance a step without
the breaking of old traditions and the discard-
ing of old beliefs. The true humanist will
assuredly wish that such change as must be
should entail as little pain as possible, since it
is not pain but growth in knowledge that is
desired. But some pain is inevitable, and it is in
the readiness to face it that true courage lies.
For a nation, certainly, it bodes ill when, as a
mass, it is afraid of truth, or at least afraid of the
sacrifices by which alone truth can be attained.
17

THE mORAL FUTURE

We are living in an age of intellectual change.
The old creeds are rapidly crumbling, the old
ceremonies have no longer the old appeal. We
are in the presence of a mental and moral
transformation which is the inevitable prelude
to outward and material reconstruction. As Mr.
C. F. Masterman, in one of his recent essays,
remarks : " To-day, were we but as sensitive
to disturbance in the world of man's profound
convictions, as to the obvious outward modifi-
cations of the forms of society in which those
convictions are clothed, our ears might well
be deafened by the noise of the crash of the
elements, of growing and of dying worlds."
One incident, as it concerns the theological
side of this change, is the startling and acknow-
ledged rapidity with which ancient dogma is
being thrown off. The typical man of the
present day no longer concerns himself with
sin and salvation, candles and confessionals.
The problems of humanity are becoming more
important in the eyes of man than the pro-
blems of the gods, which become darker the
more they are examined. Oiie result of the
decay of theological faith is the rise of human
faith. The problem of the unemployed, the
drink traffic, the control of the idle rich, the
land question, the labour question, the slum
question — all these are pushing aside the
barren questions of the creeds.
i8

THE MORAL FUTURE

One phase of this change in these countries
is the recent remarkable spread of cheap scien-
tific and rationalist books. Of course the
phenomenon might have been predicted. We
are only witnessing the popular result of that
great movement of thought set going by the
scientific thinkers of the nineteenth century.
The w^ork of Spencer, Darw^in, Haeckel,
Huxley, Mill, Comte, Tyndall, Vi^ith the
kindred literary v/ork of men like Matthew
Arnold, Renan, and numerous others — all
this could not remain for ever in high-
priced volumes out of reach of the multitude.
What is happening is that the literature
which was the common possession of inquiring
and reflecting men is descending to the " man
in the street " and the great minds of the
last two generations are coming into their
inheritance.

All this, hov/ever, is alarming the Churches.
As Mr. Lecky has pointed out, the Church
was never enamoured of knowledge. Faith,
not knowledge, is what it naturally stands by,
and faith is much more likely to be the hand-
maid of ignorance than of its opposite. At
first sight it might be difficult to see the cause
of the disquietude. Nothing new or essen-
tially new has been produced. Only existing
literature has been cheapened. Yet there have
been papers and discussions on the subject at
every Church meeting. It would thus seem
19

THE MORAL FUTURE

that the Church only grows alarmed, not at
the fact of " heresy " itself, but at the prospect
of " heresy " becoming popular.

Amongst the more recent bodies to seriously
tackle the problem has been the conference of
the Catholic Truth Society held at Birming-
ham at the end of September. At this con-
ference the most important paper read was one
by Father Gerard, S.J., curiously entitled : "A
Leaf from the Enemy's Book." The meaning
of that title was indicated in Father Gerard's
suggestion that the Catholic Church, with an
infallible Pope at its head, should take a leaf
out of the book of the much-despised and
much-abused Rationalists and should apply to
the propagation and defence of the Holy Faith
the method which the "unbelievers" had
found so efficacious for their purposes. The
dignity of the title and suggestion does not
seem to have excited remark, but points from
Father Gerard's paper are interesting as show-
ing the trend of events. It is one of the
regrettable characteristics of theologians when
dealing with Rationalists to impute bad faith
at every turn, and to suggest that those who
philosophically disagree with them are morally
debased. The absurdity of such a line of
attack in the case of the men whose works I
mentioned at the beginning was probably so
striking as to deter Father Gerard from the
worst excesses which are common on that side.
20

THE MORAL FUTURE

But he does sug2;est that Mr. Edward Clodd's
writings are welcome to a certain "class of
minds " who desire to " freely follow their
own inclinations without a thought of any-
thing else ;" he pretends that Mr. Grant
Allen complained of not being allowed to
publish obscenity, and he appeals for help
again>t Rationalism to " all who believe that
man is essentially different from the beasts in
the field and the earth he treads " — the innu-
endo being that the Rationalists preach a
beastly and demoralising creed.

There can, I think, be no question that this
line of criticism, to say nothing of its lack of
charity, has imported an amount of bitterness
into philosophical and ethical discussion that
has in the long run reacted unfavourably on
the theological side. The angriness of the at-
tack tends to beget bitterness in the defence,
though it must be said that the naturalist
school does not err in this respect to anything
like the same degree as its rival ; and in any
case, since the question at issue is one of truth,
the importing of passion merely darkens mat-
ters. There are, no doubt, morally-flawed
sceptics just as there are morally-flawed Catho-
lics and even as there have been immoral
popes. But the argument that an evil-disposed
person is likely to derive some satisfaction
from a study of Darwin or Huxley, or is likely
to approach that study in the hope of finding a
21

THE MORAL FUTURE

sanction for immorality there is ridiculous.
One result of such innuendoes as Father
Gerard's is sometimes overlooked. When
young students, in spite of the appeals and
threats, do study the scientific writers for
themselves and find no such lurid incitements
to crime as it is suggested they will find,
they naturally get a shock at the revelation of
the untruth which theologians like Father
Gerard have not been ashamed to propagate.

Beyond a disparagement af all the writers
whose works have been named and a rather
inconsistent attack on a body called the
Rationalist Press Association which issues these
books, there was little or no argument in
Father Gerard's paper. But there was an
appeal to his Catholic audience to adopt the
methods of the Association in question and
circulate cheap and well-written defences of
Catholicism, or perhaps more exactly, attacks
on the naturalist writers. An answer to
Haeckel would certainly be more effective
than a sixpeimy pamphlet on the Immaculate
Conception.

It is here that the difficulty for the Catholic
arises. Thinking people are no longer inte-
rested in the details of the dogmatic case ; they
are interested in the pretensions of that case as
a whole. The battleground has been shifted.
With all their alleged defects the scientists
have surely accomplished that, and Father
22

THE MORAL FUTURE

Gerard has followed them. His paper was
entirely taken up with " destructive criticism."
It was a negativing of the right of the
scientists to speak at all on theological or
philosophical subjects, and a denial of the truth
of their conclusions. But when Huxley and
Tyndall are completely exploded and Mr.
Grant Allen's reputation cheerfully destroyed,
we will be as far as ever from the doctrines of
Papal Infallibility and Original Sin. The
Rationalist criticism thus succeeds where the
mere Anti-Rationalist criticism cannot. If the
scientists make good their case the dogmas are
ipso facto shattered. But if Darwin be over-
thrown, the dogmas are no nearer substan-
tiation.

Because of this consideration the most
prominent feature of addresses like Father
Gerard's is their insincerity. In this paper he
appeals constantly to that very criterion of
reason which is at other times denounced.
The questions that are raised by the scientists
are only to be settled by an appeal to
science. The Rationalists can only be fought
with rational weapons. The literature, in short,
for which Father Gerard is appealing and
which he is asking Catholics to subsidise, is a
literature of reason, an exposure of alleged bad
logic and bad science. But Father Gerard
cannot claim that his dogmas may be ration-
ally established, and there is thus an ugly

23

THE MORAL FUTURE

suspicion of moral crookedness in seeking the
verdict of a court whose jurisdiction is denied.
If Father Gerard should scientifically prove
Haeckel to be wrong, we know he would
claim the victory. But if Haeckel should con-
clusively prove Father Gerard to be wrong the
latter would fall back on " authority " or " re-
velation " or some other non-rational sanction.
Either v/ay he claims to dominate. Would
it not then be more strictly honest to abandon
this sham invocation of reason, this pretence
that Catholic dogmas can be established by the
same methods as Darwin employs to establish
his theses. We know it is a hollow pretence.

The Catholic Truth Society, by the issue of
such books as the proceedings under notice
foreshadow, may at the utmost overthrow some
scientific reputations, and may, perchance, turn
some Agnostics into Theists ; but how will
Catholicism be thereby furthered ? To accept
that religion men must, as it were, commit
intellectual suicide ; they must accept dogmas,
not at all because these are reasonable, for
they are not, but because they have been
taught by an "authority" which is above
criticism. Tliat is the end of the question ;
and when one observes such proposals as
Fath.er Gerard's the chief thing that strikes
one is their inconsequence. For instance, in
his paper Father Gerard told Catholics that
what they should supply to counteract the
24

THE MORAL FUTURE

scientists would be a " literature which may
at least help readers to learn how to think, to
distinguish assertion from argument, and specu-
lation from fact, making them realise the
extremely narrow limits of what can be termed
our knowledge and the folly of imagining it to
extend to that whereof we are in truth as
profoundly ignorant as ever we were."* The
description might pass for a definition of the
aims of the Agnostics, and if Father Gerard is
desirous of issuing books which answer this
description he could not do better than adopt
the works of the Rationalists he denounced.
They do emphatically distinguish dogmatic
assertion from argument and theological specu-
lation from fact, and it is not they who are
given to the folly of transcendental imaginings
" whereof we are in truth as profoundly
ignorant as ever we were." But in any case,
Father Gerard's demand for books that shall
make people think is an interesting variant on
the frequent complaint from similar teachers
that there is nowadays too much thinking and
too little " faith."

The fact regarding dogmatic religion is that,
to use a vulgar phrase, the game is up. Re-
actions there may yet be, a backward wave
here and a forward one there ; and, now that
the imposing reign of unchallenged pulpit
supremacy is ending, an evangelisation by

* "The Tablet," October 1st, 1904.

c 25

THE MORAL FUTURE

pamphlet may achieve a little. But for dis-
cerning minds the old structure is gone, past
repair. It is undermined on all sides, on that
of physical science, of philosophy, of Biblical
criticism, of the study of Christian origins.
And to those who take note of the serious
questions of to-morrow the centre of interest
is not in the battle over dogma, which is
already over, but in the problem of placing
morality on a new and sounder basis than the
old one which has crumbled away. Some
there are who declare that the reign of science
will mean an era of moral laxity, and that with
the overthrow of dogma the sanctions for right
conduct will have disappeared. It is a shallow
view, negatived even at the moment by the
very record of the chief men who are engaged
in the propagation of the scientific view, and
whose lives for the most part are lives abso-
lutely above reproach. When one recalls the
amazing patience of Darwin, the enthusiasm
for humanity of Comte, the heroic self-sacrifice
and abstemiousness of Spencer, necessary, in-
deed, to accomplish his huge task, the gentle-
ness of Renan, the singleminded studiousness
of Mill, one feels that it Vv^ould be well if
theological sanctions had always such examples
to show.

It will be answered, of course — it has been
answered — that these were exceptions, that they
were high-minded men who would naturally
26

THE MORAL FUTURE

have led upright lives in any case. The answer
is unconsciously a complete surrender ; for it
admits that morality is a " natural " product,
depending on heredity, on character, and on
early training. The moral instinct is as natural
as any other instinct, and is even assumed as
fundamental by the theologians themselves
when they base their appeals on moral grounds.
The theological assumption that men only
abstain from injuring one another because of
an ingenious system oi post-mortem rewards and
punishments, distributed on an absurd and in-
calculable basis, is the very reverse of fact. To
say nothing of the brutalising effect of the
belief in eternal punishment, which helped in
turn to make men cruel, these beliefs have
been the proximate cause of an enormous
amount of human misery and ill-will. And
if we compare the standard of general conduct
in periods and countries where these threats
have most force, with the standard in those
periods and countries where they have least,
we shall obtain a measure of the value of the
dogmatic appeal.

The cause of morality will, in fact, perma-
nently gain when morals are disentangled from
dogma and empty ceremonials are no longer
confused with human duties. None the less,
however, must human sympathy and the ideals
of justice, of truth, of kindness, be impressed
on the new generations. At the base of all the
27

THE MORAL FUTURE

old religions was fear ; but fear never yet was
the mother of goodness. It might produce an
external conformity, it could not furnish an
inward light. At the base of the new religion
there must be understanding. One man who
understands is worth a thousand who merely
obey.

28

P0LIT1C.4L AND
INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM

More than one recent incident has set up the
fear in many minds that Ireland is about to ex-
perience another attack of that religious fever
which has so often afflicted her in the past, at
a time when other indications go to show that
saner and more pacific ideals are gaining in
strength. We continually suffer in Ireland
from rival bigotries which, so far from injuring,
positively help one another and stimulate
each other. There is, firstly, the Orange and
ascendancy party, continually waging a politi-
cal war against the people and against the
policy of self-government which is the chief
cure for Orange and Catholic bigotry alike.
That Orange party, with the vices which
pciculiarly attach to every such faction, main-
tained by outside political support and kept in
countenance by outside authority, actuated by
base and bigoted ideas, has the strength which
all such minorities possess. It is comparatively
compact, unimaginative, self-centred. Its
boycott, of course, is chiefly political, but it also
tends to set up a counter bigotry on the other
side. That is the fate of all countries so situated
as Ireland. The vices of the dominant faction,
ruling without consent and without sympathy,
corrupt the whole body politic, so that in such
a soil race and religious passion waxes strong,
and political science is at a discount.
29

POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL FP.EEDOM

This seems to me the simple explanation of
such incidents as the campaign started some
time ago by a weekly Dublin journal to
accentuate and embitter Catholic feeling, to
make Catholics particularly sensitive as to their
Catholicism, and to urge them to demand
rights, not as citizens, nor in the interests of
national well-being, but to demand them
as Catholics in the interests of Catholicity.
This campaign, it is true, is carried on at
a level of vulgarity and with a wealth cf
epithet that might excite the envy of Mr.
Chamberlain, and is of that "will-you-
take-it-lying-down " order which peculiarly
appeals to the uneducated and semi-
educated mob, since it touches that natural
and even healthy egoism which lies so near
the surface in any crowd. The formula
of that mob-appeal is now fairly familiar to
m.ost of us. When England, v/ith a quarter of
a million of men, set out to conquer two little
peasant States in South Africa, the English
Jingo politicians and journals appealed to the
English mob in a fashion that would lead an
observer to imagine that they were fighting a
desperate battle for their very existence against
tremendous odds.

A case by which the ethical standard of
the leaders of this Catholic campaign might
be tested arose in the matter of the anti-
Jewish outburst in Limerick. An ignorant

30

POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM

priest in Limerick preached a sermon retailing
old and exploded libels against Jews in general,
and urging the people to boycott the Jews in
Limerick, a sermon which, by the way, evoked
a humane and admirable protest from Mr.
Michael Davitt, one of the many incidents
which justified the high place he held in the
esteem of Irish democrats. What was the
conduct of those who are so loud in their
demand for "justice" to Catholics? They
supported the priest. When Catholics are
boycotted it is an outrageous injustice ; when
Catholics boycott others it is all right and
proper, being merely a process of recovering
their own. On many to whom this conduct
appears defensible, probably nothing that is
here written will have any effect. But to
others the question may be put : on what
principle is any lawless egoism to be con-
demned, if this be justified ?

At the same time I would like to here
record my conviction that the spirit of political
exclusiveness and sectarian bigotry on th-
Catholic side, such as it is, does not in any
respect equal that on the Protestant side, nor
does any conduct on the part of Irish Catholics
known to me compare with, say, the persistent
and continuous boycott of Catholics in the
matter of civic employment in Protestant
Belfast. It is even doubtful whether the
intolerant clericalist campaign before referred
31

POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM

to commands any large support amongst lay
Catholics themselves.

Let us, however, seek a clear intellectual
outlook. Logically, of course, the con-
duct of the religionists all round is absurd.
According to the Christian view, this world
is a " vale of tears," a vestibule of eternity,
a mere halting place on a road that stretches
into the illimitable future. Yet amongst the
people who profess this belief, the fight is
waged with a bitterness which seems to suggest
that the combatants are determined to stay in
the " vestibule " as long as they can, and to
devote all their energy to making it as com-
fortable, in the meantime, as possible. The
contrast between precept and practice here
is certainly amusing. Yet far be it from me
to press the old precepts on the various
combatants. Tiie only modern Christian to
profess the doctrine of non-resistance is
Count Tolstoy, and even with him it is only
a profession since he maintains a continuous
and vigorous propaganda against what he con-
siders the evils of modern society. Lideed
his English admirers keep up a supply of
books, pamphlets, and leaflets from his pen in
such bewildering profusion that one never
knows exactly whether one is reading a new
pronouncement or merely a new edition of an
old one.

Yet Tolstoy's example surely sets us on the
32

POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM

right path. The method of redressing the
sectarian bitterness in Ireland is not by counter
bitterness. We shall never cure matters by
boycotting, by intimidation, or by abuse. It is
by science and by moral appeal that progress
is always to be permanently won. The first
and absolutely necessary step is the winning
of self-government. And it is the failure to
recognise this that vitiates otherwise capable
surveys like Mr. Filson Young's and Sir Horace
Plunkett's. Indeed the latter book, in this
respect, considering its title and pretensions,
is almost rendered worthless. A man sets out
to describe the condition of a patient suffering
from cancer, and the one thing he will not
discuss is — cancer. He will dispassionately
and even illuminatingly discuss every by-
effect of the malady, but he is ignorant
of the fact of the malady itself, or else
is professionally precluded from dealing with
it. For most of the evils that many
recent writers discuss have their proximate
cause in the lack of political wisdom. And
the only road to political wisdom is by
way of political responsibility. A people long
suffering from political servitude have the
vices of slavery, lack of constructive political
faculty, lack of initiative, lack of the wise
compromise that comes of action ; though
notwithstanding these defects the Irish
people, on the whole, have shown at the
33

POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM

least as much political sagacity as the English.
But to recognise and proclaim these things
does not by any means preclude the right or
the propriety of internal criticism. Ratlier
does that criticism come the more appropriately
from those who are alive to the main political
evil. And w^hilst demanding the redress of
that evil, it becomes necessary, concurrently,
to raise our own canons of conduct and
scrutinise our own standards of thinking.
Sir Horace Plunkett in one passage in his book
observes : —

" The revolution in the industrial order,
and its consequences, such as the concen-
tration of immense populations within
restricted areas, have brought with them
social and moral evils that must be met
with new weapons. In the interests of re-
ligion itself, principles first expounded to a
Syrian community with the most elementary
physical needs and the simplest of avoca-
tions, have to be taught in their application
to the conditions of the most complex social
organisation and economic life. Taking
people as we find them, it may be said with
truth that their lives must be wholesome
before they can be holy; and while a
voluntary asceticism may have its justifica-
tion, it behoves a Church to see that its
members, while justly acknowledging the
claims of another life, should develop the
34

POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM

qualities which make for well-being in this
life."*

Some of us, of course, might cavil at Sir
Horace's implication that it is possible to really
combine concern for "another life" with
effective regard for the well-being of this.
The essential business of the Churches all
round and the essence of the Church ideal is
to prepare men for the "hereafter", and the
affairs of this world are only treated as inci-
dental to such preparation. The true logical
antithesis of this view is the positivist and
scientific ideal which, taking humanity as the
highest we know, regards the well-being of
humanity here as the greatest end for which
we can work, and frankly accepting the fact
that this life is the only one of which we
have real knowledge, ignores all distracting
hypotheses.

None the less, however, is it well and
courageous for Sir Horace to put the secular
ideal in his own words and fashion. It is easy
for the popular Press to sneer at him on this
score, for it is sure of a response from the re-
ligious multitude. But it is precisely in a
country where the "principles" of "Syria,"
to use Sir Horace Plunkett's euphemism, are
professed on all sides with a heartiness almost
unknown elsewhere, that we have the eternal

* "Ireland in the New Century," pp. 103-104.

35

POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM

sectarian wrangles, here o 'er the creed of a
dispensary doctor or an inspector of schools,
there over the religion of an unfortunate
foundling, who may be "damned" without its
knowledge by tlie votes of a board of guardians
consisting for the most part of publicans and
slum-owners.

One would on first thoughts conclude that
the spectacle of such sectarian squabbling would
perforce raise in an ordinarily intelligent people
doubts of the genuineness of the creeds that
could stimulate it. But such is not the case ;
it seems to require a definitely humanist
philosophy and a humanitarian enthusiasm to
realise that the welfare of humanity as such
is the greatest and noblest end for which
humanity can work. But humanity in Ire-
land has not yet come into its inheritance. In
a review of Mr. Filson Young's book, Ireland
at the Cross Roads, the Rev. Dr. McDonald,
in an article in the Freeman s Journal, wrote :
"Consider the real Ireland too. In that sad
country one thing only has prospered, as Mr.
Young admits — the Church ; and she is based
on a system of almost absolute self-govern-
ment." So far as Dr. McDonald intended
t'.iis as an argument for self-government, as
against Mr. Young, I am with him. But he
does not seem to have realised the ominous
significance of his point. The Church has
flourished amidst universal decay. Precisely.
36

POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM

In a country warped and injured by lack of
political freedom, it would be curious if intel-
lectual freedom prospered. The Irish people,
trampled by alien and unsympathetic rule, have
looked with aching eyes to a heaven of bliss,
and they have, more or less apathetically lain
down in their chains, soothed by the hope of
after-reward. If Ireland is to be saved we
must surely change all that ; the people
must turn their energies from dreaming of
another world to the task of bettering and
beautifying the things of this. It is nobler to
make a happy human home than to raise a
dozen granite temples for a worship which
does not need them ; it is a greater thing to
rescue one human heart from despair than to
have kept every letter of the religious law.
We need in Ireland a spirit of intellectual
freedom, and a recognition of the supremacy
of humanity. And so far from this prescrip-
tion being offered as a substitute for national
freedom it is urged as a necessity of a true
national ideal. For the synthesis of much
recent criticism is this : intellectual freedom
and political freedom are not opposites.
Rightly understood, intellectual freedom and
political freedom are one.

37

T>R. SHEEHJN'S ^DEFENCE
OF T>OGMA.

Perhaps nothing more strikingly illustrates
the progress, hovvever slow it may be,
towards positive and real standards of in-
tellectual value, than the subtle shifting of
the ground of orthodox defence in recent
times. Every modern apologist for dogmatic
religion, from Mr. Benjamin Kidd, shall we
say to Dr. Sheehan, practically appeals, not to
the test of truth, but to the test of utility. It
is true, of course, that Dr. Sheehan formally
repudiates utilitarianism, but it is a utilitarian
standard he applies all the same. The burden
of all the present day religionists is practically
this, man requires theistic and Christian
dogmas and threats in order to coerce him to
do what is right. These beliefs and threats
may or may not be true and valid ; at least
they are necessary lest humanity should rush
down a steep place into the sea. The moral
sense, whilst being implicitly appealed to as
something natural, is conceived of solely in
terms of crude selfish desire, and if men once
lose the steadying and sobering belief in an
eternal hell (which, by the way, is almost
always reserved for other people) they will gaily
commence to cut one another's throats and
take their recreation by way of stealing one
another's gold plate. That is the dogmatic
case in a nut-shell.

38

DR. SHEEHAN S DEFENCE OF DOGMA

That that case has little or no relation to
fact is a matter with which I shall presently
deal. But at the outset it is well to emphasise
the point that this habit of regarding beliefs,
or any alleged statements of fact, apart from
the primary question of their truth, is in
reality a piece of childish folly. There are
many "beliefs" that would cause any given
individual the greatest pleasure and comfort to
harbour. Let a poor and weary man in the
midst of financial trouble fill his mind with
the notion that a rich uncle in Chicago has
left him a fortune, and if he can believe it, it
may be as good as a month at the seaside.
Let a forlorn lover but convince himself that
the cold-hearted object of his affections has
relented, and he may be changed from a state
of melancholia to one of transcendent joy.
But how could such effects be achieved save
by a process of deliberate self-delusion ? And
assuming them to be in any way beneficial,
how could such effects survive the discovery
that the foundations on which they rested
were false r In any event, whatever be the
case with individuals, there is no possibility of
permanently deluding humanity. The only
permanent basis of morality is truth. And the
tendency on the orthodox side to substitute
a utilitarian test for belief is one that reveals
the groundless fear that the truth, even if
immediately unpleasant, does not in the long

39

DR. SHEEHAN S DEFENCE OF DOGMA

run contain its own adjustments. A moral code
founded on an intellectual basis that will not
stand critical examination is a house built on
sand. Herbert Spencer, after all, put a whole
philosophy in a sentence when he said : "The
only infidelity is the fear lest the truth
be bad."

There is another point that calls for notice.
The dogmatist, by his appeals, practically
shows that he admits the existence of
morality without dogma. Dr. Sheehan, in
a recent paper,* holds up a dreadful vista of
evils as likely to flow from the decay of
dogmatic religion. Anarchism, Socialism,
Saint-Simonism, and what-not-other awful
and horrible things, will come on the heels
of a non-dogmatic morality. But since Dr.
Sheehan is primarily addressing those who
disagree with him (since it would be useless
to argue with the already convinced) he
assumes, most curiously, that the " non-
dogmatist " feels that awful and horrible
things should be prevented. And so we are
asked to set up dogma in order to prevent
what, without dogma, we already reprobate.
Just as all argument implies a common
standard of intelligence, so all appeals to moral
feeling imply the very existence of a common
moral sense. By the very form of his plea Dr.
Sheehan thus upsets his essential argument.

*"New Irelanl Review," August, 1905,
40

DR. SHF.EHAN S DEFENCE OF DOGMA

When, however, we turn to tliat argument
in detail its most prominent feature is its
narrowness. Dr. Sheehan's article is typical
ol the limitations, int'cllectual and other, which
are a prime condition of a belief in orthodox
Ch.ristian dogmas at the present day. In the
first place he is solely concerned with that
fragment of humanity, limited in tim.e and
numbers, who have heard of or have embraced
Christianity. Nay, not even that, he is solely
dealing with that smaller fragment which has
em.braced orthodox Catholicism. The human
point of view is never reached in any direction.
In one passage he asks why people do not
accept the teachings of Confucius, Seneca,
Marcus Aurelius, and others; surely hundreds
of millions have accepted the teachings, say, of
Confucius; generations of men in China have
lived by his light for centuries. And if the
Chri^,tian God be other than a mere tribal
deity, surely tliese millions of Chinese are as
much His children as Father Sheehan himself.
Why should a just God have freely given a
chance of salvation, or even a chance of a high
morality, to ancient Italy, and withheld such
chances from ancient China, if all men are
equal in His sight ? But Dr. Sheehan
practically bewails the error of the whole
modern world. From Rousseau to Frederic
Harri-on, from Tennyson to Walt Whitman
every modern of note has been left in

D 4 1

DR. SHEEHAN S DEFENCE OF DOGMA

ignorance of the truth of those dogmas which
Providence seems to have exclusively confided
to Father Sheehan and his friends. Let it be
admitted that such naive conceits are almost
refreshing at this time of day. But when a
man implies or declares that he has been
specially favoured by some person or power,
he has inevitably raised the question as to the
principles on which that person or power
distibutes favours.

In the present case Dr. Sheehan has appealed
to the experiential test. To the justice of that
test one must put in a demurrer ; for even
were it proved that the dogmatists had a
monopoly of good conduct, the question of
why Infinite Justice had thus created such a
monopoly would remain. But with that
demurrer, let us go to the test of experience.
Is it then the fact that those who abandon the
dogmatic case are base and evil-minded men
who prey upon their fellow-men, whilst the
orthodox dogmas uniformly produce flowers of
virtue in those who believe them ? Father
Sheehan has mentioned various writers and
thinkers who abandoned dogmatic beliefs. Let
us go through the list. Is Frederic Harrison
known as an apologist for corruption in
English public life ? Was Herbert Spencer a
well-known despoiler of women ? Does any-
one allege that Haeckel is a confirmed
drunkard ? Was Comte a proved murderer
42

DR. SHEEHAN S DEFENCE OF DOGMA

or Renan a convicted thief? Did Tennyson
when he " threw dogma to the winds "
gravitate to the criminal dock ? Was Mill a
blackguard ? Did Huxley figure in the divorce
court ? Is Mr. John Morley a base-minded
scoundrel ?

Surely the very asking of such questions
almost constitutes an insult. Should we not
rather ask : Were and are these men, taken
on the whole, not models of scrupulous and
honourable living, devoted to science and
literature and the service of humanity ? No
one holds them up as perfect ; all men have
flaws. And I do not claim that one may not
find defective character allied to the intellectual
rejection of dogma, just as we find plenty of
defective character allied to orthodox belief.
But I do claim that though the men I have
named differ intellectually from Dr. Sheehan,
they are certainly as well-conducted as he,
whilst I am sure many of them are incapable
of his partisanship. They would hardly be
likely, any of them, to write that " it lends
but sanction to human vice and passion to say:
Live noble lives and quit yourselves like men
in the fight." If such teaching lends a sanction
to vice, how is it we do not see the vice in the
lives of the teachers themselves ? Dr. Sheehan
contrives to insinuate in various ways that the
teaching of a human morality untrammelled by
theological dogma leads to bestiality. But

43

DR. SHEEHAN S DEFENCE OF DOGMA

beyond innuendo he produces nothing. He tells
us that it requires the thunders of Sinai to
validate the injunction against bearing false
witness. And a couple of pages further on
he implies (p. 331) that men like Carlyle and
Karl Marx (strange combination) taught tliat
"there is nothing true, nor genuine, nor honest
under the sun." What are we to say of the
veracity or morality which puts into the
mouth of opponents trash which none of
them ever uttered \ Let me hasten to add
that I cannot bring myself to believe for a
moment that Dr. Sheehan would wilfully
misrepresent anyone. All that has happened
is that, under the sway of passion, with all his
dogmatic belief. Dr. Sheehan has worked him-
self up to think that men whose teaching
he intensely dislikes are capable of talking
transparent nonsense. At the same time I
should be sorry for any humanist who would
be guilty of such recklessness in paraphrasing
an opponent's utterance ; he would be held
up, I fear, to our scorn as a very embodiment
of iniquity.

"Ah," it will be said, "all this is quite
true. The leaders of modern freethought are
men of culture and refinement ; 'lolling in
arm-chairs' they do not realise the evil that
they do; their intentions may even be good.
It is in their followers — the rank and file —
that we must look for the hideous results of
44,

DR. sheehan's defence of dogma

their teaching." This kind of argument I
have myself heard used by a gentleman who,
a few minutes before, had contended that
Christianity was not fairly to be judged by the
corruptions of it current in the market place.
Such be orthodox ideas of equitable judgment.
And in any case it is safe to make imputations
against a crowd. But who are these people
who take the teachings of Spencer or Comte
to mean that they may revel in bloodshed and
lechery .? They loom large in the orthodox
imagination, but I fear nowhere else. I have
been reading of them for a long time, but I
have never met them in the flesh. They cer-
tainly do not disclose themselves in the criminal
statistics. Of the murderers hanged in Ireland
say in the last ten years how many were Free-
thinkers ? How many of those charged in our
police courts are students of Positivism ? Surely
the case against which we are arguing is
farcical. Perhaps, however. Father Sheehan
has in mind what is specifically called social
crime. Well, in Ireland during the past
twenty-five years, to go no further back, we
have admittedly had a good deal of unrest.
There have been murders like those of the
Phoenix Park; moonlighting, boycotting,
"intimidation," and so on. I pass no detailed
comment here on how much of all this was
excusable or justifiable in any way, though
personally I hold that very much of it, like
45

DR. SHEEHAN S DEFENCE OF DOGMA

all such happenings, was excusable even if
regrettable ; the primary criminals in such
cases, in my judgment, are governors and
those in authority who, by their conduct,
make such violence the only channel of
popular protest. There would be very
little social crime if there was social
justice. But Dr. Sheehan is in different case.
To him, as to Burke in his reactionary mood,
every kind of popular upheaval is iniquitous
in the last degree. Amongst the " ugly
brood" whom he deplores, he omits to mention
Fenians and Land Leaguers. But that can
only be an oversight. Yet how many of the
social "criminals" in Ireland could be traced
to the influence of anti-dogmatic teaching ?
Indeed if Dr. Sheehan had ever glanced at
the diatribes circulated by Orangemen and
ultra-Protestants in England, he would have
found out that the attack on landlordism in
Ireland, with all its results, is often benignly
attributed to the "immoral" teachings of the
Catholic Church. And the Orangemen have
this much justification for their diatribes, that
the persons concerned are unquestionably
Catholics, whilst Father Sheehan has abso-
lutely nothing to justify his diatribes but his
own assumptions.

The root of the whole difference is in the
view we take of humanity. The dogmatist
looks at humanity with jaundiced eyes as a
46

DR. SHEEHAN S DEFENCE OF DOGMA

fallen race, prone naturally to evil, and he
thinks it can be kept from the abyss of
destruction only by a kind of transcendental
hangman's rope. Considering that Europeans,
at any rate for hundreds of years, have been
taught to despise humanity it is small wonder
that we have much to deplore. But such an
outlook leads us straight to the most hideous
pessimism. If the only hope of morality is a
belief in the validity of " the thunders of
Sinai," or an acceptance of the doctrines of the
Crucifixion and the Atonement, then the vast
majority of the human race has never known
any morality and never will. But to suggest
that, say, the Japanese are an immoral crowd
of wretches who, not believing in Catholic
dogmas, have no notion of what right conduct
means, is merely to advertise our own
ignorance or our own conceit. As a matter
of fact what the dogmatist offers is not a
morality, but a police measure. Yet, as Mill
said, a man who refrains from wrong-doing
because of the fear of hell is not a good man,
but a bad man in chains. Such chains may
possibly be necessary to those who have grown
accustomed to their use ; none the less would
it be our duty to train a race able to do
without them. Yet even the risk of
temporary moral loss is very doubtful. Mr.
Morley in his Diderot suggests that the decline
of sexual morality in eighteenth century France
47

DR. SHEEHAN S DEFENCE OF DOGMA

may have been due to the discrediting of
religion. "This," he says, "must always be
the natural consequence of building sound
ethics on the shifting sands and rotting
foundations of theology."* But Mr. Morley's
point is well met by Mr. Cotter Morrison.
Referring to the idea that the license of
manners of the French upper classes in the
eighteenth century was in some way due to
the propaganda of Rousseau, Diderot, and
Voltaire, he says : " But such an idea has no
foundation. Corrupt as was the society which
read the novels of Louvet and the younger
Crebillon, it was in a variety of ways superior
to the society to which Bossuet and Bourdaloue
preached, and which flocked to hear the sacred
dramas of the spotless Racine. The whole of
the reign of Louis XIV. was marked by a
great depravity of m.anners, and this depravity
was found quite compatible with an osten-
tatious and possibly sincere attachment to
religion. The King, in spite of the gross
immorality of his private life, was a bigot in
matters of faith." t Yet even the morality
of Louis at its worst was not lower than
that of the mediaeval Papal Moiiarchy, when
every Council of the Church was a scene
of contention and intrigue and the succession
to the Papacy was constantly regulated

* "Diderot and the Encyclopaedists," 1 vol ed., y. 5<\
t "The Service of Man." p. 129.

48

DR. SHEEHAN S DEFENCE OF DOGMA

by anythin'r but "spiritual" considerations.

But even were it proved that there was some
risk of temporary moral slackening by the
rejection of discredited theological belief, all
progress of every kind involves some possible
risks. One of the standing arguments in the
mouths of Unionists against Irish self-govern-
ment is that the people, being unaccustomed
to such self-rule, would abuse it. Yet only
by steadily following the better light will we
ever move to higher things.

The humanist view is that morality rests
on sympathy, and that sympathy is as natural
to the heart of man as that purely self-
regarding feeling on which the dogmatist solely
bases his " moral " appeals. Prince Kropotkin
in his recent fascinating book, Mutual Aid^
has shown that this sense of co-operation and
sacrifice pervades even the whole animal
world. And in mankind it can be consciously
developed so that from it we get most of the
arts and graces which have made civilisation
possible. The heart of man then is not
fundamentally and mysteriously prone to evil;
it has the potentiality of all good within it.
And to those who declare that such teaching
is negative and infidel I would give this
prescription for a nobler faith : only by
steadily believing that Man is naturally
capable of the highest will we ever evoke the
highest there is in Man.

49

The Tow^er Press Booklets.

(Firs* Scries.)

*^* Single numbers of the first series can still he,
obtained^ price is. net^ except Nos. L* and III. *'
which can only be had in complete sets. a/fi,
there is a 'Very limited number of complete sets
available the price has been raised to Js. 6d. net
for the six numbers.

I.* SOME IRISH ESSAYS. By A. E.

II. SONGS OF A DEVOTEE. By

Thomas Keohler.

III.* REMINISCENCES
IMPRESSIONIST
By George Moore.

OF THE
PAINTERS.

V. POEMS. By Ella Young.

V. BARDS AND SAINTS. By

John Eglinton.

VI. CRITICISM AND COURAGE and
Other Essays. By Frederick Ryan.

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