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THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY. 
 
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 THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY 
 DEFINED AND ILLUSTRATED 
 
 I. IN NINE DISCOURSES DELIVERED TO THE CATHOLICS OF 
 
 DUBLIN 
 
 il. IN OCCASIONAL LECTURES AND ESSAYS ADDRESSED TO THE 
 MEMBERS OF THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY 
 
 JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN 
 
 
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I. 
 
 UNIVERSITY TEACHING 
 
 CONSIDERED IN NINE DISCOURSES. 
 
Ilospes eram, et collegistis Me. 
 
 IN GRATEFUL NEVER-DYING 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 PENANCES, 
 
 AND BY THEIR GENEROUS STUBBORN EFFORTS, 
 
 AND BY THEIR MUNIFICENT ALMS, 
 
 HAVE BROKEN FOR HIM THE STRESS 
 
 OF A GREAT ANXIETY, 
 
 THESE DISCOURSES, 
 
 OFFERED TO OUR LADY AND ST. PHILIP ON ITS RISE, 
 
 COMPOSED UNDER ITS PRESSURE, 
 
 FINISHED ON THE EVE OF ITS TERMINATION, 
 
 ARE RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 LN FEST. PRESENT, 
 
 B. M. V. 
 
 NOV. 21, 1852. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE view taken of a University in these Discourses 
 is the following : — That it is a place of teaching 
 universal l^nowledge. 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 were scientific and 
 philosophical discovery, I do not see why 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 ofifice of intellectual education ; 
 but the Church steadies it in the performance of that 
 office. 
 
 Such are the main principles of the Discourses which 
 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 
 
 b 
 
X Pre/ace. 
 
 novel or singular in the argument which 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 to 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, however, 
 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 now 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 descent from the Fisherman, to have a 
 zeal for the Baconian or other philosophy of man for its 
 
 * Vid. Ruber's English Universities, London, 1843, vol. ii,, part i, pp. 
 ^21, etc. 
 
Preface. xi 
 
 own sake ? 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 philosophical 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 Uni- 
 versit}^, his first and chief and direct object 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 St. Paul, ''Non judicavi me scire aliquid inter 
 vos, nisi Jesum 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 
 military standard of height or age, but for the purposes 
 
xii Preface, 
 
 of war, and no 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 founds 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 
 committees, 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 
 primarily contemplates Science itself, and not students ; 
 
Preface, xiii 
 
 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, '' qu'il y ait aucune 
 veritable opposition entre I'esprit des Academies et celui 
 des Universites ; ce sont seulement des vues differentes. 
 Les Universites sont etablies pour enseigner les sciences 
 aux eleves qui veulent s'y former; les Academies se 
 proposent de noiivelles recheixhes a faire dans la carriere 
 des sciences. Les Universites d' Italic ont fourni des 
 sujets qui ont fait honneur aux Academies ; et celles-ci 
 ont donne aux Universites des Professeurs, qui ont rempli 
 les chaires avec la plus grande distinction."* 
 V The nature of the case and the history of philosophy 
 combine to recommend to us this division of intellec- 
 tual labour between Academies and Universities. To 
 discover and to teach are distinct functions ; they 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 
 have either leisure or energy to acquire new. The com- 
 mon sense of mankind has associated the search after 
 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 Grsecia, 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. iii., p. 353, 
 
xiv Preface. 
 
 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, while teaching involves external engage- 
 ments, the natural home for experiment and speculation 
 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 good, — 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. 
 If, then, this maybe taken for granted, as I think it may, 
 the only point which remains to be settled is, whether I 
 have formed a probable conception of the sort of benefit 
 which the Holy See has intended to confer on Catholics 
 who speak the English tongue by recommending 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 
 
 are, 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 w^iich 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 {cceteris paribus) for one 
 who 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 v/ith Protestants in 
 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 w^orld, the 
 statesman, the landholder, or the opulent gentleman. 
 Their legitimate stations, duties, employments, have been 
 
xvi Preface. 
 
 taken 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 desideratum 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 comprehensiveness and the 
 versatility of intellect, the command over our own powers, 
 the instinctive just estimate of things as they pass before 
 us, which sometimes indeed is a natural gift, but com- 
 monly is not gained without much effort and the exercise 
 of years. 
 
 This is real cultivation of mind ; and I do not deny 
 that the characteristic excellences of a gentleman are 
 included in it. Nor 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 
 
Preface. xvii 
 
 being flippant, or what is emphatically called ^* young^ 
 They are merely dazzled by phenomena, instead of per- 
 ceiving things as they are. 
 
 It were 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 unreal? 
 " That they simply do not know what they are talking 
 about '*' is the spontaneous silent remark of any man of 
 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 
 estimable qualities would otherwise secure. Hence others 
 can never look straight before them, never see the point, 
 and have no difficulties in the most 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' hote, in every 
 mixed company, an evil, however, to which Catholics are 
 not less exposed than the rest of mankind. 
 
 When the intellect has once been properly trained and 
 formed to have a connected view or grasp of things, it 
 will display its powers with more or less effect according 
 
xviii Preface, 
 
 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, which 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 intellectual 
 department. In all it will be a faculty of entering with 
 comparative ease into any subject of thought, and of 
 taking up with aptitude any science or profession. All 
 this it will be and will do in a measure, even when 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 brilliant general views about all 
 things whatever. 
 
Preface. xix 
 
 This indeed, if well founded, would be a most 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 educa- 
 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 theories and imposing sophistries 
 and dashing paradoxes, which carry away half-formed 
 and 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 of '' views " on 
 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 must 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 what 
 are called original thinkers. As the great man's guest 
 must produce his good stories or 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 wholes, 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 
 
Pre/ace, 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 Johnsons ; yet how many men at this day are 
 assailed by incessant demands on their mental powers, 
 which only a productiveness like his could suitably 
 supply ! There is a demand for a reckless originality of 
 thought, and a sparkling plausibility of argument, which 
 he would have despised, even if he could have displayed ; 
 a demand for crude theory and unsound philosophy, 
 rather than none at all. It is a sort of repetition of the 
 " Quid novi } " of the Areopagus, and it must have an 
 answer. Men must be found who can treat, where it is 
 necessary, like the Athenian sophist, de omni scibili, 
 
 " Grammaticus, Rhetor, Geometres, Pictor, Aliptes, 
 Augur, Schoenobates, 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 pairt 
 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 
 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 
 
xxii Preface, 
 
 may 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 writers 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 will : 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 matter 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 with their predecessors and with each other, 
 
 November 21, 1852. 
 
UNIVERSITY TEACHING. 
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 I. Introductory 
 
 II. Theology a Branch of Knowledge . • 
 
 III. Bearing of Theology on other Knowledge 
 
 IV. Bearing of other Knowledge on Theology 
 V. Knowledge its own end .... 
 
 VI. Knowledge viewed in relation to Learning 
 VII. Knowledge viewed in relation to Professional Skill 
 VIII. Knowledge viewed in relation to Religious Duty 
 
 IX. Duties of the Church towards Knowledge , 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 19 
 
 43 
 
 71 
 
 99 
 
 124 
 
 151 
 
 179 
 
DISCOURSE I 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 I. 
 
 IN 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 
 of 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, experimental or definitive, bearing upon it. 
 About fifty years since, the English University, of which 
 I was 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 
 7* I 
 
2 Discourse /. 
 
 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 many ob- 
 stacles, were met from without, as often happens in such 
 cases, by ungenerous and jealous criticisms, which, at 
 the very moment that they were urged, were beginning 
 to be unjust. Controversy did but bring out more 
 clearly to its own apprehension the views 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 
 individual energy and an act of the academical corpora- 
 tion, gradually became popular, and was taken up and 
 carried out by the separate collegiate bodies, of which 
 the University is composed. This was the first stage of 
 the controversy. Years passed away, 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 
 \nd pamphlets, it happened as before that the threatened 
 dangers, in the course of their repulse, did but afford 
 fuller development and more exact delineation to the 
 principles of which the University was the representativq 
 
 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 imitility ; in 
 the latter, it was their connexion with a particular form of 
 belief, or, in other words, their religious excliisiveness. 
 
 Living then so long as a witness, though hardly as an 
 actor, in these scenes of intellectual conflict, I am able 
 
Introductory. 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, 
 may be serviceable at this season to that great cause in 
 which we are here so especially interested, to me per- 
 sonally it will afford 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 natural turn of my mind carries me 
 off to trains of thought hke 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 extreme delicacy and peril which 
 attach to disputations directly bearing on the subject- 
 matter of Divine Revelation, 
 
 2. 
 
 There are several reasons why I should open the 
 discussion with a reference to the lessons with which 
 past years have supplied me. One reason is this : It 
 would concern me, Gentlemen, were I supposed to have 
 got up my 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 moral persuasive- 
 ness which attends on tried and sustained conviction. 
 It would have made me seem the advocate, rather than 
 the cordial and d ^liberate maintainer and witness, of the 
 doctrines which I was to support ; and, though it might 
 be said to evidence the faith I reposed in the practical 
 
4 Discourse /. 
 
 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 argument 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 which 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, 
 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 my 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- 
 ment 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 I 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 would 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 special 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 illumination 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 CathoUcs ; 
 nay, there is reason to anticipate that in certain times 
 and places they will be more thoroughly investigated, 
 and better understood, and held more firmly by Protest- 
 ants than by ourselves. 
 
 It is natural to expect this from the very circumstance 
 that the philosophy of Education is founded on truths 
 in the natural 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 
 week ; 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 sole resource is 
 to use what they have ; " Knowledge is " their " power" 
 and nothing else ; they are the anxious cultivators of a 
 rugged soil. It is otherwise with us ; ^^ f lines ceciderunt 
 mihi in prcEclarisT We have a goodly inheritance. This 
 is apt to cause us (I do not mean to rely too much on 
 
6 Discourse /, 
 
 prayer, and the Divine Blessing, for that is impossible ; but) 
 we sometimes forget that we shall please Him best, and get 
 most from Him, when, according to the Fable, we '' put 
 our shoulder to the wheel," when we use what we have by 
 nature to the utmost, at the same time that we look out 
 for what is beyond nature in the confidence of faith and 
 hope. However, we are sometimes tempted to let things 
 take their course, as if they would in one way or another 
 turn up right at last for certain ; and so we go on, living 
 from hand to mouth, getting into difficulties and getting 
 out of them, succeeding certainly on the whole, but with 
 failure in detail which might be avoided, and with much 
 of imperfection or inferiority in our appointments and 
 plans, and much disappointment, discouragement, and 
 collision of opinion in consequence. If this be in any 
 measure the state of the case, there is certainly so far 
 a reason for availing ourselves of the investigations 
 and experience of those who are not Catholics, when we 
 have to address ourselves to the subject of Liberal 
 Education. 
 
 Nor is there surely any thing derogatory to the position 
 of a Catholic in such a proceeding. The Church has 
 ever appealed and deferred to witnesses and authorities 
 external to herself, in those matters in which she 
 thought they had means of forming a judgment: and 
 that on the principle, Ctdqtie in arte sua credendum. 
 She has ever used unbelievers and pagans in evidence 
 of her truth, as far as their testimony went. She avails 
 herself of scholars, critics, and antiquarians, who are not 
 of her communion. She has worded her theological teach- 
 ing in the phraseology of Aristotle ; Aquila, Symmachus, 
 Theodotion, Origen, Eusebius, and Apollinaris, all more 
 or less heterodox, have supplied materials for primitive 
 exegetics. St. Cyprian called TertuUian his master; 
 
Introductory. 7 
 
 St. Augustin refers to Ticonius ; Bossuet, in modern 
 times, complimented 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. If, 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 measures ; 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 I 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 
 means in my power, doctrines and views, true in them- 
 
8 Discourse L 
 
 selves, recognized by Catholics as such, familiar to my 
 own mind ; and to do this quite apart from the consider- 
 ation of questions which have been determined without 
 me and before me. I am here the advocate and the 
 minister of a certain great 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 
 must suppose, of my being selected for this ofhce, 
 and is the cause of my accepting it. I am told on 
 authority that a principle is expedient, which I have 
 ever felt to be true. And I argue in its behalf on its 
 own merits, 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 am 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 immutable truth, 
 but of practice and expedience. It would ill have 
 become me to undertake a subject, on which 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 
 imperative rule of conduct. It would have been pre- 
 sumptuous in me so to have acted, nor am 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 
 decided. Necessity has no law, and expedience is often 
 one form of necessity. It is no principle with sensible 
 
Introductory, g 
 
 men, of whatever cast of opinion, to do always what is 
 abstractedly best. Where no direct duty forbids, we 
 may be obliged to do, as being best under circumstances, 
 what we murmur and rise against, while we 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 what is called secular 
 Education, 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 time, and in this very 
 country, as regards at least the poorer classes of the 
 community, whose secular acquirements ever must be 
 limited, it has seemed best to the Irish Bishops, under 
 the circumstances, to suffer the introduction into the 
 country of a system of Mixed Education in the schools 
 called National. Such a state of things, however, is 
 passing away ; as regards University education at least, 
 
 * Vide M. L'Abbe Lalanne's recent work. 
 
lo Discourse I. 
 
 the highest authority has now decided that the plan, 
 which is abstractedly best, is in this time 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 guide 
 for Catholics in m^atters of religion. It has always the 
 right to interpose, and sometimes, in the conflict of 
 parties and opinions, it is called on to e :ercise that 
 right. It has lately exercised it in our own 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 obeyed, and that the more, because the 
 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 demands 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 
 maintaining, nevertheless, that after all, they are nothing 
 
Introductory. 1 1 
 
 more than the dreams of men who live out of the world, 
 and who 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 what 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 small, 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 educated 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 which 
 Catholicity is the fundamental principle. Nay, even if 
 the attempt could accidentally succeed, would not the 
 mischief exceed the benefit of it 1 How great the 
 sacrifices, in how many ways, by which it would be 
 preceded and followed 1 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. 1 hese are your deep misgivings ; 
 
1 2 Discourse I, 
 
 and, in proportion to the 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 say an 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 would 
 not become me to argue the matter with those who 
 understand the circumstances of the problem so much 
 better than myself. What do I know of the state of things 
 in Ireland, that I should presume to put ideas of mine, 
 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, fur 
 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 t 
 
l7itrodudo7y. 1 3 
 
 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 
 with 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 
 which I ever come round, v/hen the question of the 
 possible and the eicpedient 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 years 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 was 
 a power on earth who had an eye for the times, who 
 has confined himself to the practicable, and has been 
 happy in his anticipations, whose words have been facts, 
 and whose commands prophecies, such is he in the 
 history of ages, who sits from generation to generation 
 in the Chair of the Apostles, as the Vicar of Christ, and 
 the Doctor of His Church. 
 
 6. 
 
 These are not the words of rhetoric. Gentlemen, but of 
 history. All who take part v/ith the Apostle, are on the 
 winning side. He has long since given warrants for the 
 
14 Discourse 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 whole 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 
 overwhelmed. Lawless kings arose, sagacious as the 
 Roman, passionate as the Hun, yet in him they found 
 their match, and were 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 went with 
 them by his missionaries, to China, to Mexico, 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, with 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 ? 
 
 In the first centuries of the Church all this practical 
 
Introdudojy. 1 5 
 
 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 forsret 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 
 illuminate 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 which 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 knowledge, sacred and 
 profane, and the asylum of religion, literature and 
 science, when 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. 
 
 Nor can I forget either, how my own England had 
 meanwhile become the solicitude of the same unwearied 
 
1 6 Discourse I, 
 
 eye : how Augustine was 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 trembling," 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 Augustine 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, with pictures, with 
 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, " which," 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 
 
 * Cressy. 
 
Introducfojy, 1 7 
 
 monks went up to Lindisfarne and Melrose, and taught 
 the Saxon youth, and when a St. Cuthbert and a St. 
 Eata repaid their charitable toil ! O blessed days 
 of peace and confidence, when the Celtic Mailduf pene- 
 trated to Malmesbury in the south, which has inherited 
 his name, and founded there the famous school which 
 gave birth to the great St. Aldhelm ! O precious seal 
 and testimony of Gospel unity, when, as Aldhelm. in 
 turn tells us, the English went to Ireland "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 when 
 from Ireland went forth to Germany the two 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 two 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, who was 
 the chief of those who 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 in 
 7* 2 
 
1 8 Discourse /. 
 
 its texture, is ever new in its colouring and fashion. 
 England and Ireland are not what they once were, 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, while we 
 zealously and lovingly fulfil it 
 
19 
 
 DISCOURSE II. 
 THEOLOGY A BRANCH OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 THERE 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 which will form the subject of 
 what I have to lay before you, and I shall now enter upon 
 the former of the two. 
 
 I. 
 
 It 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 writers 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 should 
 
20 Disc^vrse II. 
 
 lay down, by its very name professes to teach universal 
 knowledge: 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 say 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 was 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 writers 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, writing as an historian, says that, before 
 the rise of the University of Paris, — for instance, at Padua, 
 or Salamanca, or Cologne, — " the whole circle of sciences 
 then known was not taught ; " but that the school of 
 Paris, ''which exceeded all others in various respects^ 
 as well as in the number of teachers and students, was 
 the first to embrace all the arts and sciences, and there- 
 fore first became a University." f 
 
 If, with other authors, we consider the word to be 
 derived from the invitation which is held out by a Uni- 
 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. Vid. Keuffel, de Scholis. 
 f Hist. vol. ii. p. 529. London, 1841. 
 
Theology a Branch of Knowledge. 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 is a 
 science, and an important one : so I will 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 knowledge 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 knowledge, 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 this, or he must say that; he must own, 
 either that little or nothing is known about the Supreme ^Z' 
 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 which makes no reli- 
 gious profession, implies that those parties severally 
 consider, — not indeed that their own respective opinions 
 are trifles in a moral and practical point of view — of 
 
22 Discourse IL 
 
 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 insult them as to consent to their 
 omission 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. 
 
 I think this will 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 wishes, and to drop the minor differences, as they 
 are commonly called, which exist between man and man. 
 No two persons perhaps are to be found, however inti- 
 mate, however congenial in tastes and judgments, how- 
 ever eager to have one heart and one soul, but must 
 deny themselves, for the sake of each other, much which 
 they like or desire, if they are to live together happily. 
 Compromise, in a large sense of the word, is the first 
 principle of combination ; and any one who insists on 
 enjoying his rights to the full, and his opinions without 
 toleration for his neighbour's, and his own way in al/ 
 things, will soon have all things altogether to himself^ 
 and no one to share them with him. But most true as 
 this confessedly is, still there is an obvious limit, on the 
 other hand, to these compromises, however necessary they 
 be ; and this is found in the proviso, that the differences 
 surrendered should be but '* minor," or that there should 
 be no sacrifice of the main object of the combination, in 
 the concessions which are mutually made. Any sacrifice 
 
Theology a Branch of Knowledge. 2^ 
 
 which compromises that object is destructive of the 
 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 object of their uniting, as recognized on all hands, 
 being 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 the 
 Bible, is the religion of Protestants. On the contrary, 
 if the committee of som.e 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 complain 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 
 compromised 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, — Knowledge 
 itself. Knowledge being their object, they need not of 
 course insist on their own private views about ancient or 
 modern 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 Knowledge 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 Knov/ledge or Science Thus no 
 one would insist on the Malthusian teaching being a sine 
 qua non 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 knovv^ledge 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 me, Gentle- 
 
Theology a Branch oj Kiioiv Ledge. 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, 
 Gentlemen, 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 Knowledge, and so draw 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 t we exclude metaphysics ; 
 by abstract reasoning } we exclude physics. Is not the 
 being of a God reported to us by testimony, handed 
 dov/n by history, inferred by an inductive process, brought 
 home to us by metaphysical necessity, urged on us by 
 the suggestions of our conscience t It is a truth in the 
 natural order, as well 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 t Is it a comprehensive 
 
26 Discourse II, 
 
 truth ? Say that no other rehglous idea whatever were 
 given but it, and you have enough to fill the mind ; you 
 have at once a whole dogmatic system. The word 
 " God " is a Theology in itself, indivisibly one, inex- 
 haustibly various, from the vastness and the simplici^ 
 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 t All true principles run over with 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 without 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 knowledge of the Creator is in a 
 different order from knowledge of the creature, so, in like 
 manner, metaphysical science is in a different order from 
 physical, physics from history, history from ethics. 
 You will soon break up into fragments the whole circle 
 of secular knowledge, 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, as 
 
Theology a Branch of 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 will, is a subject of thought not more mysterious 
 than the result of volition on our muscles, which we 
 admit as a fact in metaphysics. 
 
 I do not see how 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 omni scibili. 
 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 world or the end of man. 
 
 4. 
 
 This, I fear, is the conclusion to which intellects, clear, 
 logical, and consistent, have come, or are coming, from 
 the nature of the case ; and, alas ! in addition to this 
 prhnd-facie suspicion, there are actual tendencies in the 
 same direction in Protestantism, viewed whether in its 
 original idea, or again in the so-called Evangelical move- 
 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. The old Catholic notion, which still lingers in the 
 
2 8 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 was 
 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 subhme fancies. They learned to believe and to 
 take it for granted, that Religion was nothing beyond a 
 supply of the wants of human 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 
 Aan it could do without bread ; a supply was absolutely 
 necessary, good or bad, and, as in the case of the articles 
 
Theology a Braiich of Kitowledge. 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 
 government, the curb of self-will and self-indulgence, 
 which 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, however 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, 
 many things, but not at all on reason ; reason was 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 feehng, sense of honour, patriotism, grati- 
 tude, maternal affection, or good companionship, pro- 
 posals which would be simply unmeaning. 
 
 5. 
 Now, 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 
 
30 Discourse IL 
 
 forget the celebrated discourse of the celebrated man to 
 whom I am referring ; a man who is first in his pecuHar 
 walk; and who, moreover (which is much to my purpose), 
 has had a share, as much as any one alive, in effecting 
 the public recognition in these 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 : 
 
 "As men," he said, " 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, " 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 any one 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 vvas 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 
 
 * Mr. Brougham's Glasgow Discourse. 
 
Theology a Branch of K^iowledge. 31 
 
 1825, resounds on all sides of us, with ever-growing con- 
 fidence and success, in 1852. I open the Minutes of 
 the Committee of Council on Education for the years 
 1848-50, presented to both Houses of Parliament by com- 
 mand 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 
 astronomy ; of relations and laws, as mathematics ; and 
 lastly sentiment, 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 dehcate 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 
 with 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 sentiment ; 
 for, I suppose, music and poetry, which are the writer's 
 own examples of sentiment, have not much 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 sentiment',^ he says, " embraces read- 
 ing in its higher sense, poetry, music, together with 
 moral and religious Education." I am far from intro- 
 
32 Discourse II. 
 
 ducing this writer for his own sake, because I have no 
 wish to hurt the feehngs of a gentleman, who is but 
 exerting himself zealously in the discharge of anxious 
 duties ; but, taking him as an illustration of the wide- 
 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 : " According to the classification proposed, the 
 essential idea of all religious Education will consist in the 
 direct cultivation of t\\Q feelings. '' What we contemplate, 
 then, what we aim at, when we give a religious Educa- 
 tion, is, it seems, not to impart any knowledge whatever, 
 but to satisfy anyhow desires after the Unseen which 
 will arise in our minds in spite of ourselves, 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 with 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 of 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 comes 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 world, 
 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 knowledge, as regards the creature, is 
 inimitable, but impossible or hopeless as regards the 
 being and attributes and works of the Creator. 
 
 6. 
 
 Here, however, it may be objected to me that this re- 
 presentation is certainly extreme, for the 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 of 
 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 assembly standing uncovered in solemn silence." 
 '' 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 Discourse 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 Divine Truth!' Here is 
 apparently a distinct recognition that there is such a 
 thing as Truth in the province of Religion ; and, did the 
 passage stand by itself, and were it the only means we 
 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 writings 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 '' gratifying treats," crowns the catalogue with 
 mention of " the highest of all our gratifications in the 
 contemplation of science," which he proceeds to explain 
 thus : 
 
 " We are raised by them," says he, " 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 Hving creatures, 
 and especially of ourselves, that we can feel no hesitation 
 in concluding, that, if we knew the whole scheme of 
 Providence, every part would be in harmony with a plan 
 of absolute benevolence. Independent, however, of this 
 most consoling inference, the delight is inexpressible, of 
 being able to follow, as it were, with our eyes, the mar- 
 
TJieology a Branch of Knowledge. 35 
 
 vellous works of the Great Architect of Nature, to trace 
 the unbounded power and exquisite skill which are 
 exhibited in the most minute, as well as the mightiest 
 parts of His 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, 
 while those hurt the health, debase the understanding, 
 and corrupt the feehngs ; it teaches us to look upon all 
 earthly objects as insignificant and below 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 Supreme Being, 
 without denying the fact, nay, as a Catholic, with full 
 conviction of it, nevertheless I am obliged to ask what 
 the statement means in their mouths, what they, the 
 
36 Discourse II. 
 
 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-sufiicient 
 for Himself; who created and upholds the universe ; who 
 will judge every one 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 towards the subject-matter 
 of each particular science which the book of knowledge 
 unfolds ; who has with an adorable, never-ceasing 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 
 Education. 
 
 This is the doctrine which behef in a God implies in 
 the mind of a Catholic : if it means any thing, it means 
 all this, and cannot keep from meaning all this, and a 
 great deal more ; and, e^^n though there were nothing 
 
Theology a Bi^anch of 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 
 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 which patience of thought, and depth and consistency 
 of view, are scorned as subtle and scholastic, in which 
 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 
 doctrine, some portion of that scepticism which it 
 exercises itself towards every received but unscrutinized 
 assertion whatever. 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 would be a relief to my mind 
 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 word, and mean no- 
 thing by it. The heathens used to say, "God wills," 
 when they meant " Fate ;" " God provides," when they 
 meant " Chance ;" " God acts," when they meant " In- 
 stinct" or "Sense;" and "God is every where," when 
 they meant " the Soul of Nature." The Almighty is 
 something infinitely different from a principle, or a 
 centre of action, or a quality, or a generalization of 
 phenomena. If, then, by the word, you do but mean a 
 Being who keeps the world in order, who acts in it, but 
 only in the way of general Providence, who acts towards 
 
38 Discourse IL 
 
 us but only through what are called laws of Nature, 
 who is more certain not to act at all than to act independ- 
 ent of those laws, who is known and approached indeed, 
 but only through the medium of those laws ; such a God 
 it is not difficult for any one to conceive, not difficult for 
 any one to endure. If, I say, as you would revolu- 
 tionize society, so you would revolutionize heaven, if you 
 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 command except through legal forms and 
 precedents, and with the counter-signature of a minister, 
 then belief in a God is no more than an acknowledgment 
 of existing, sensible powers 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 shows 
 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 will gathered from the im- 
 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, while 
 the pageant of experiment or abstract reasoning passes 
 by, still, such piety is nothing more than a poetry of 
 thought or an ornament of language, and has not even 
 an infinitesimal influence upon philosophy or science, of 
 which it is rather the parasitical production. 
 
Theology a Branch 0/ Knowledge, 39 
 
 I understand, in that case, why Theology should require 
 no specific teaching, for there is nothing to mistake 
 about ; why it is powerless against scientific anticipations, 
 for it merely is one of them ; why it is simply absurd in 
 its denunciations of heresy, for heresy does not lie in the 
 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 onwards to 
 divine truth," for divine truth is not something separate 
 from Nature, but it is Nature with a divine glow 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, which one man has, and another has not, which 
 gifted minds strike out, which others see to be admirable 
 and ingenious, and which all would be the better for 
 adopting. It is but the theology of Nature, just as we 
 talk of the philosophy or the romance 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 
 of the day, or the consent of the world, recognizes in 
 any set of objects which are subjected to its contem- 
 plation. 
 
 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 which gives them currency ; but what 
 I read about the " gratification " of keeping pace in our 
 scientific researches with "the Architect of Nature;" 
 about the said gratification " giving a dignity and import- 
 ance to the enjoyment of life," and teaching us that 
 
40 Discourse II. 
 
 knowledge and our duties to society are the only earthly 
 objects worth our notice, all this, I own 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 between God and Nature 
 insinuated by such philosophers as Hume. This acute, 
 though most low-minded of speculators, in his inquiry 
 concerning the Human Understanding, introduces, as is 
 well known, 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, that 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 world, 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 we cannot 
 help admitting, the phenomena of Nature and the world, 
 it is only a question of words whether 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, " the 
 
Theology a Branch of Knowledge. 41 
 
 gods to be the authors of the existence or order of the 
 universe, it follows that they possess that precise degree 
 of power, intelligence, and benevolence, which appears 
 in their workmanship ; but nothing farther can be proved, 
 except we 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 we conclude these attributes to exist. The 
 supposition of farther attributes is mere hypothesis ; 
 much more the supposition that, in distant periods of 
 place and time, there has been, or will be, a miore magni- 
 ficent display of these attributes, and a scheme of admin- 
 istration more suitable to such imaginary virtues." 
 
 Here is a reasoner, who would not hesitate to deny 
 that there is any distinct science or philosophy possible 
 concerning the Supreme 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 him then it would be only consistent 
 to drop Theology in a course of University Education : 
 but how is it consistent in any one who shrinks from his 
 companionship } I am glad to see that the author, 
 several times mentioned, is in opposition to Hume, in 
 one sentence of the quotation I have made from his 
 Discourse upon Science, deciding, as he does, that the 
 phenomena of the material world 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 Hume or Epicurus ? 
 
42 Discourse IL 
 
 9. 
 
 I end then as I began : religious doctrine is knowledge. 
 This is the important truth, little entered into at this day, 
 which I wish that all who have honoured me with their 
 presence here would allow me to beg them to take away 
 with them. I am not catching at sharp arguments, but 
 laying down grave principles. Religious doctrine is 
 knowledge, in as full a sense as Newton's doctrine is 
 knowledge. University Teaching without Theology is 
 simply 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 recognized sciences is 
 not only indefensible in itself, but prejudicial to all the 
 rest. 
 
43 
 
 DISCOURSE III. 
 
 BEARING OF THEOLOGY ON OTHER BRANCHES OF 
 KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 WHEN men of great intellect, who have long and 
 intently and exclusively given themselves 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 who have neither 
 eyes nor ears for any thing which does not immediately 
 bear upon it, when such men are at length made to realize 
 that there is a clamour all around them, which must be 
 heard, for what they have been so little accustomed to 
 place in the category of knowledge as Religion, and that 
 they themselves are accused of disaffection to it, they are 
 impatient at the interruption ; they call the demand 
 tyrannical, and the requisitionists bigots or fanatics. 
 They are tempted to say, that their only wish is to be 
 let alone; for themselves, they are not dreaming of offend- 
 ing any one, or interfering with any one ; they are pur- 
 suing their own particular line, they have never spoken a 
 word against any one'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 II L 
 
 All they say is, that there are other beings in the world 
 besides the Supreme 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 we are contemplating 
 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. '' Let us go our own way," they say, " and 
 you go yours. We do not pretend to lecture on Theology, 
 and you have no claim to pronounce upon Science." 
 
 With this feeling they attempt a sort of compromise, 
 between their opponents who claim for Theology a free 
 introduction into the Schools of Science, and themselves 
 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 permitted in private, 
 wherever a sufficient number of persons is found to 
 desire it. Such persons, they seem to say, may have it 
 all their own way, when they are by themselves, so that 
 they do Bot attempt to disturb a comprehensive system 
 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 answer to 
 this representation, that is, to the project 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 : — I begin then thus : — 
 
Bearing of Theology on Other Knoiv ledge. 45 
 
 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 Truth means facts and their 
 relations, which 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. Knowledge is the 
 apprehension of these facts, whether in themselves, or in 
 their mutual positions and bearings. 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, as viewed 
 by the mind, are combined together, and possess a 
 correlative character one with 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, from the most glorious seraph down 
 to the vilest and most noxious of reptiles. 
 
 Now, 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 some huge structure 
 of many parts and sides, the mind goes round about it, 
 noting down, first one thing, then another, as it best may, 
 and viewing it under different aspects, by way of making 
 progress towards mastering the whole. So by degrees 
 
46 Discourse III. 
 
 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 which the mind looks out upon its object, are called 
 sciences, and embrace respectively larger or smaller por- 
 tions of the field of knowledge ; sometimes extending far 
 and wide, but superficially, sometimes with exactness 
 over particular departments, sometimes occupied together 
 3n 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 same subject-matter, but views it or treats 
 it differently; lastly, Geology and Comparative Anatomy 
 have subject-matters partly the same, partly distinct. 
 Now these views 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 transfer our knowledge from 
 the custody of memory to the surer and more abiding 
 protection of philosophy, thereby providing both for its 
 spread and its advance : — for, inasmuch as sciences are 
 forms of knowledge, they enable the intellect to master 
 and increase it ; and, inasmuch as they are instruments, 
 to communicate it readily to others. Still, after all, they 
 
Bearing of Theology on Other Knowledge, 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 any one which fully, 
 enlightens the mind in the knowledge of things, as they 
 are, or brings home to it the external object on which it 
 wishes 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 mental 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 subject-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 away, 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. 
 
 3. 
 Let us take, for instance, man himself as our object of 
 contemplation ; then at once we shall find we can view 
 
48 Discourse II L 
 
 him in a variety of relations ; and according to those 
 relations are the sciences of which he is the subject-matter, 
 and according to our acquaintance with 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 
 mental 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 economics, 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, similar 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 whole 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 mathematics, though 
 to pure mathematics 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- 
 matics are applied, corrected, and adapted, by mixed ; 
 but so too the conclusions of Anatomy, Chemistry, 
 
Bearing of 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 allows it to accomplish. 
 Let, however, that resistance be made the subject ot 
 scientific analysis, and theri we shall have a new 
 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 sciences, one corrects another for purposes of 
 fact, and one without the other cannot dogmatize, except 
 hypothetically and upon its own abstract principles. For 
 instance, the Newtonian philosophy requires the admis- 
 sion of certain metaphysical postulates, if it is to be more 
 than a theory or an hypothesis ; as, for instance, that 
 what happened yesterday will happen to-morrow ; that 
 there is such a thing as matter, that our senses are trust- 
 worthy, that there is a logic of induction, and so on. 
 Now to Newton metaphysicians grant all that he asks ; 
 but, if so be, they may not prove equally accommodating 
 to another who asks something else, and then all his 
 most logical conclusions 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 
 7* 4 
 
50 Discourse III. 
 
 bodies, except what the theory of gravitation supplies, 
 were I simply absorbed in that theory so as_ to make 
 it measure all motion on earth and in the sky, I should 
 indeed come to many right conclusions, I should hit off 
 many important facts, ascertain many 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 manner, did I simply give myself 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 simply 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 become bigots and 
 quacks, scorning all principles and reported facts which 
 do not belong to their own pursuit, and thinking to effect 
 everything without aid from any other quarter. Thus, 
 before now, chemistry has been substituted for medicine ; 
 and again, political economy, or intellectual enlighten- 
 ment, or the reading of the Scriptures, has been cried up 
 as a panacea against vice, malevolence, and misery. 
 
 4. 
 
 Summing up. Gentlemen, what I have said, I lay it 
 down that all knowledge forms one whole, because its 
 subject-matter is one ; for the universe in its length and 
 breadth is so intimately knit together, that we cannot 
 separate off portion from portion, and operation from 
 operation, except by a mental abstraction ; and then 
 
Bearing of Theology on Other Knowledge, 5 1 
 
 again, as to its Creator, though He of course in His own 
 Being is infinitely separate from it, and Theology has its 
 departments towards which human knowledge has no 
 relations, yet He has so implicated Himself with it, and 
 taken it into His very bosom, by His presence in it, His 
 providence over it, His impressions upon it, and His 
 influences through it, that we cannot truly or fully con- 
 template it without in some main aspects contemplating 
 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 whole subject-matter 
 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 them- 
 selves, though complete in their own idea and for their 
 own respective purposes ; on both accounts they at once 
 need and subserve each other. And further, the com- 
 prehension of 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 all, 
 one with another, this belongs, I conceive, to a sort of 
 science distinct from all of them, and in some sense a 
 science of sciences, v/hich is my own conception of what 
 is meant by Philosophy, in the true sense of the word, 
 and of a philosophical habit of mind, and which in these 
 Discourses I shall call by that name. This is what I 
 have to say about knowledge and philosophical know- 
 ledge generally ; and now I proceed to apply it to the 
 particular science, which has led me to draw it out. 
 
 I say, then, that the systematic omission of any one 
 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 III. 
 
 though it comes from heaven, though its truths were 
 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 law 
 to which every mental exercise is subject, viz., from that 
 imperfection, which ever must attend the abstract, when 
 it would determine the concrete. Nor 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 which 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 we would 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 
 without prejudice to truth of every kind, physical, meta- 
 physical, historical, and moral ; for it bears upon all 
 truth. And thus I answer the objection with which I 
 opened this Discourse. I supposed the question put to 
 me by a philosopher of the day, " Why cannot you go 
 your way, and let us go ours .?" I ansv>er, in the name 
 
Bearing of Theology on Other Knowledge, 53 
 
 of the Science of Religion, "When Newton can dis- 
 pense with the metaphysician, 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 with 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 somewhat parallel case. The great 
 philosopher of antiquity, when he would enumerate the 
 causes of the things that take place in the world, after 
 making mention of those which he considered to be 
 physical and material, adds, " and the mind and every- 
 thing which is by means of man."* Certainly ; it would 
 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 anywhere. 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 know- 
 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 
 omission supposed would not have been merely an 
 
 * Arist. Etliic. Nicom., iii. 3. 
 
54 Discourse 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 laymen, 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 were 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 question, after this sweeping 
 act of exclusion, should forthwith send out proposals on 
 the basis of such exclusion for publishing an Encyclo- 
 paedia, 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 system of scientific teaching, in which the 
 
Bearing of Theology on Othej^ Knowledge. 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, 
 with a list of sciences, we will say, Astronomy, Optics, 
 Hydrostatics, Galvanism, Pneumatics, Statics, Dynamics, 
 Pure Mathematics, Geology, Botany, Physiology, Ana- 
 tomy, and so forth ; but not a word about the mind and 
 its powers, except what is said in explanation of the 
 omission. That explanation is to the effect that the 
 parties concerned in the undertaking have given long and 
 anxious thought to the subject, and have been reluctantly 
 driven to the conclusion that it is simply impracticable 
 to include in the list of University Lectures the Philo- 
 sophy of Mind. What relieves, however, their regret is 
 the reflection, that domestic feelings and polished man- 
 ners are best cultivated in the family circle 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, 
 such as it is, they pass over the consideration of the 
 human mind and its powers and works, "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 
 awarded : — 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 .f* 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 professors gravely lecturing on medicine, or 
 
56 Discourse III. 
 
 history, or political economy, who, 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 claims of 
 mutual justice and charity. Common sense indeed and 
 public opinion set bounds at first to so intolerable a 
 licence ; yet, as time goes on, an omission which was 
 originally but a matter of expedience, commends itself 
 to the reason ; and at length a professor is found, more 
 hardy than his brethren, still however, as he himself main- 
 tains, with sincere respect for domestic feelings and good 
 manners, who takes on him to deny psychology in toto, 
 to pronounce the influence of mind in the visible world 
 a superstition, and to account for every effect which is 
 found in the world by the operation of physical causes. 
 Hitherto intelligence and volition were accounted real 
 powers ; the muscles 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 
 will ; but there has been a revolution, or at least a new 
 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 laws, so vague in their operation, so 
 sheltered from experience, that a wise man will 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 himself 
 to the tangible and sure. Human exploits, human devices, 
 human deeds, human productions, all that comes under 
 
Bearmg of Theology on Other Knoiv ledge. 5 7 
 
 thescholastictermsof* genius" and "art," and the meta- 
 physical ideas of "duty," "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 show how the whole fabric of 
 material civilization has arisen from the constructive 
 powers of physical elements and physical laws. He 
 descants upon palaces, castles, temples, exchanges, bridges, 
 causeways, and shows that they never could have grown 
 into the imposing dimensions which they present to us, 
 but for the laws of gravitation and the cohesion of part 
 with part. The pillar would come down, the loftier the 
 more speedily, did not the centre of gravity fall within its 
 base ; and the most admired dome of Palladio or of Sir 
 Christopher v/ould gWQ way, were it not for the happy 
 principle of the arch. He surveys the complicated 
 machinery of a single day's arrangements in a private 
 family ; our dress, our furniture, our hospitable board ; 
 what would become of them, he asks, but for the laws of 
 physical nature .? Those laws 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 ; and it 
 is a property of caloric to relax the fibres of animal 
 matter, acting through water in one way, through oil in 
 another, and this is the whole mystery of the most 
 elaborate cuisine: — but I should be tedious if I con- 
 tinued the illustration. 
 
 6. 
 
 Now, Gentlemen, pray understand how 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 man to the works of God, which Paley has 
 done, which Hume 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 would be deciding on facts by means of theories. 
 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-minded 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, 
 when it changes its position, sway it to and fro, like a 
 
Bearing of 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 manner, if a people prays, and the wind changes, the 
 rain ceases, the sun shines, and the harvest is safely 
 housed, when no one expected it, our Professor may, if 
 he will, consult the barometer, discourse about the 
 atmosphere, and throw what has happened into an 
 equation, ingenious, even though it be not true ; but, 
 should he proceed to rest the phenomenon, in matter of 
 fact, simply upon a physical cause, to the exclusion of a 
 divine, and to say that the given case actually belongs to 
 his science because other like cases do, I must tell him, 
 Ne sutor ultra crepidam : he is making his particular 
 craft usurp and occupy 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 more is the Creator ; and as our excluding volition 
 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 encyclopaedia of knowledge out of 
 joint ; and supposing God can will and act of Himself in 
 this world which He has made, and we deny or slur it 
 over, then we 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 blot out 
 the agency of God t I have hitherto been engaged in 
 
6o Discourse IIL 
 
 showing that all the sciences come to us as one, that 
 they all relate to one and the same 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 omission is more or less important, in propor- 
 tion to the field which each covers, and the depth to 
 which 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 will it destroy the equili- 
 brium of the whole system of Knowledge ? This is the 
 inquiry to which I proceed. 
 
 7. 
 Now what is Theology ? First, I will tell you w^hat 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, 
 while 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 will appear in the sequel, 
 
/: 
 
 Bearing of Theology on Other K^iowledge. 6 1 
 
 though of course I shall use Catholic language. Neither, 
 secondly, will I fall into the fashion of the day, of identi- 
 fying Natural Theology with 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 world viewed religiously, 
 whereas the word " Natural " properly comprehends man 
 and society, and all that is involved therein, as the great 
 Protestant writer, Dr. Butler, shows us. Nor, in the third 
 place, do I mean by Theology polemics of any kind ; for 
 instance, what are called " the Evidences of Religion," 
 or " the Christian Evidences ;" 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 with the body politic. Nor, fourthly, 
 do I mean 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 who can 
 tell what it is. I discard it, for the very reason that it 
 cannot throw itself into a proposition. Lastly, I do not 
 understand by Theology, acquaintance with the Scrip- 
 tures ; for, though no person of religious feelings can 
 read Scripture but he will find those feelings roused, 
 and gain much knowledge of history into the bargain, 
 yet historical reading and religious feehng 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 when 
 He will. 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 contrary, 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 which 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 without beginning or Eternal, and the only 
 Eternal ; that in consequence He has lived a whole 
 eternity by Himself; and hence that He is all-sufficient, 
 sufficient for His own blessedness, and all-blessed, and 
 ever-blessed. Further, I mean 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 what we do not know and cannot even 
 imagine of Him, is far more wonderful than what we do 
 and can. I mean One who is sovereign over His own 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 
 
Bearing of Theology on Other Knowledge. t'X) 
 
 works, one by one, and confronts every thing He has 
 made by His particular and most loving Providence, and 
 manifests Himself to each according to its needs ; and 
 has on rational beings imprinted the moral law, and 
 given them power to obey it, imposing on 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 system, 
 and in particular aspects to be simply external to nature, 
 and to seem in parts even to be irreconcileable with 
 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, allows 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 which 
 we are born. His too are the powers 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 III. 
 
 Him ; and, If evil is not from Him, as assuredly it is not, 
 this is because evil has no substance of its own, but is 
 only the defect, excess, perv^ersion, or corruption of that 
 which has substance. All we see, hear, and touch, the re- 
 mote sidereal firmament, as well as our own sea and land, 
 and the elements which compose them, and the ordinances 
 they obey, are His. The primary atoms of matter, their 
 properties, their mutual action, their disposition and 
 collocation, electricity, magnetism, gravitation, light, and 
 whatever other subtle principles or operations the wit of 
 man is detecting or shall detect, are the work of His 
 hands. From Him has been every movement 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 animalculse, 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 intellectual, moral, social, and political 
 world. Man, with his motives and works, his languages, 
 his propagation, his diffusion, is from Him. 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 
 of the Eternal King. Peace and civilization, commerce 
 and adventure, wars when just, conquest when humane 
 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 of Theology on Other K^iowledge, 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 moral world, in ruins though it be, are to be referred 
 to Him. He " 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), which 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 reminiscences of His glory haunt 
 the mind of the self-sufficient sage, and of the pagan 
 devotee ; His writing is upon the wall, 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 
 7* 5 
 
66 Discourse IIL 
 
 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 is 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 dimly 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 beautiful, all that is beneficent, be it great or small, be it 
 perfect or fragmentary, natural as well as supernatural, 
 moral as well as material, comes from Him. \r^\^ 
 
 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 with human sciences, I 
 cannot understand at all how, supposing it to be true, it 
 can fail, considered as 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 
 human mind is capable ; it embraces 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 t What results of philosophic 
 speculation are unquestionable, if they have been gained 
 without inquiry as to what Theology had to say to them } 
 Does it cast no light upon history ? has it no influence 
 
Bearing of Theology on Other Krioivledge, 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 dilemma 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. I speak of one idea unfolded in its just pro- 
 portions, carried 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 with 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 am led to another and most important 
 point in the argument in its behalf, — I mean its wide re- 
 ception. 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. It is not the fashion of a 
 season, as certain "medical treatments may be considered. 
 It has had a place, if not possession, in the intellectual 
 world from time immemorial ; it has been received by 
 minds the most various, and in systems of religion the 
 most hostile to each other. It has prima facie claims 
 
68 Discourse III. 
 
 upon us, so imposing, that it can only be rejected on the 
 ground of those claims being nothing more than impos- 
 ing, that is, being false. As to our own countries, it 
 occupies our language, it meets us at every turn in our 
 literature, it is the secret assumption, too axiomatic to be 
 distinctly professed, of all our writers ; nor can we help 
 assuming it ourselves, except by the most unnatural 
 vigilance. Whoever philosophizes, starts with it, and 
 introduces it, when he will, without any apology. Bacon, 
 Hooker, Taylor, Cudworth, Locke, Newton, Clarke, 
 Berkeley, and Butler, and it would be as easy to find 
 more, 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 Milton, Lord Herbert and Baxter, 
 herald it forth. Nor 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 attained a completeness such as Mono- 
 theism } We find it in old Greece, and even in Rome, 
 as well as in Judea 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 
 schismatical Russia, or in the Mahometan 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 which 
 could not be rejected except on the score of convicted 
 imposture, as astrology or alchemy ; 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 Knowledge. 69 
 
 distinctly reprobated, or rather, which cannot be passed 
 over in a scheme of universal instruction, without involv- 
 ing a positive denial of its truth, it is this ancient, this 
 far-spreading philosophy. 
 
 10. 
 
 And now, Gentlemen, I may bring a somewhat tedious 
 discussion to a close. It will not take many words to 
 sum up what I have been urging. I say then, if the 
 various branches 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 con- 
 clusion are we brought from these two premisses but 
 this t that to withdraw Theology from the public 
 schools is to impair the completeness and to invalidate 
 the trustworthiness 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 intelHgent Creator in its fulness, 
 without going on a great deal farther than he at present 
 dreams. I say, then, secondly : — if this Science, even 
 a<: human reason may attain to it, has such claims on 
 the regard, and enters so variously into the objects, of 
 \he 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 
 
70 Discotcrse III. 
 
 which he knows to be most true, be omitted from among 
 the subjects of his teaching ? 
 
 In a word, Rehgious Truth is not only a portion, but 
 a condition of general knowledge. To blot it out is 
 nothing short, if I may so speak, of unravelling the web 
 of University 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. 
 
71 
 
 DISCOURSE IV. 
 
 BEARING OF OTHER BRANCHES OF KNOWLEDGE ON 
 THEOLOGY. 
 
 I. 
 
 NOTHING 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 who draw this infer- 
 ence, it matters 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 Hke man- 
 ner, why should you dread secular education, except 
 that it is against you ? Why impede the circulation 
 of books which take religious views opposite to your 
 own } V/hy forbid your children and scholars the free 
 
72 Discourse IV. 
 
 perusal of poems or tales or essays or other light 
 literature which 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 opponents ? 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 between secular science and divine, which is 
 the subject on which I am at present engaged, I made 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 all 
 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 a compliment, 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 knowledge, of whatever 
 kind, and that revealed knowledge is very far indeed 
 from an inconsiderable department of knowledge, 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 whole, so in turn 
 Revelation itself may be viewed as one of the constituent 
 parts of human knowledge, considered as a whole, and 
 
Bearing of Other IC?iowledge on Theology. 73 
 
 its omission is the omission of one of those constituent 
 parts. Revealed Religion furnishes facts to the other 
 sciences, which those sciences, left to themselves, would 
 never reach ; and it invalidates apparent facts, which, 
 left to themselves, they would imagine. Thus, in the 
 science of history, the preservation of our race in Noah's 
 ark is an historical fact, which history never would 
 arrive at without Revelation ; and, in the province of 
 physiology and moral philosophy, our race's progress 
 and perfectibility is a dream, because Revelation con- 
 tradicts it, whatever may be plausibly argued in its be- 
 half by scientific inquirers. It is not then that Catho- 
 lics are afraid of human knowledge, but that they are 
 proud of divine knowledge, and that they think the 
 omission of any kind of knowledge whatever, human or 
 divine, to be, as far as it goes, not knowledge, but 
 ignorance. 
 
 2. 
 
 Thus I anticipated the objection in question last week: 
 now I am going to make it the introduction to a further 
 view of the relation of secular knowledge to divine. I 
 observe, then, that, if you drop any science out of the 
 circle of knowledge, you cannot keep its place vacant for 
 it ; that science is forgotten ; the other sciences close 
 up, or, in other words, they exceed their proper bounds, 
 and intrude where they have no right. For instance, I 
 suppose, if ethics were sent into banishment, 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 Metaphysicians .? The case is the same with the 
 
74 Discourse IV. 
 
 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 would 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 wishing, in accordance with Scripture language, to 
 make the sun go round the earth, are not the men to 
 deny that a science which 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 simple reason that it 
 is encroaching on territory not its own, 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 of Other Knowledge on Theology. 75 
 
 It 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 Hnes 
 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, lights and 
 shadows, tints and contours. It distinguishes between 
 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 viewing, 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 we 
 often put up with insufficient or absurd views or inter- 
 pretations of what we meet with, rather than have none 
 at all. We refer the various matters which are brought 
 home to us, material or moral, to causes which we happen 
 to know of, or to such as are simply imaginary, sooner 
 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, with which the world 
 abounds. Not from self-will only, nor from malevolence, 
 but from 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 view or other, 
 for instance, of any public man, or any public event, nay, 
 even so far in some cases as to reach the mental delinea- 
 tion of his appearance or of its scene ? yet how few have 
 a right to form any view. Hence the misconceptions of 
 character, hence the false impressions and reports of words 
 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. 
 We cannot do without a view, and we put up with an 
 illusion, when we cannot get a truth. 
 
 4- 
 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 one science, or the exercise of one method 
 of thought, have no more right, though they have often 
 more ambition, to generalize upon the basis of their own 
 pursuit but beyond its range, than the schoolboy or the 
 ploughman to judge 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 of Other Knowledge on llieology, 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 employed 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 admired, or some 
 Sciences which they have most applied; and give all things 
 else a tincture according to them utterly untrite and im- 
 proper. ... So have the alchemists made a philo- 
 sophy out of a few experiments of the furnace; and 
 Gilbertus, our countryman, 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 harmony, 
 saith pleasantly, * hie ab arte sua non recessit,' ' he was 
 true to his art' But of these conceits Aristotle speaketh 
 
78 Discourse IV. 
 
 seriously and wisely when he saith, 'Qui respiciunt 
 ad pauca, de facili pronunciant/ ' they who contemplate 
 a few things have no difficulty in deciding.' " 
 
 5v 
 And now I have said enough to explain the incon- 
 venience which 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 sciences. What it 
 unjustly forfeits, others unjustly seize. They have their 
 own 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 
 I true, though when out of its place, perverted or carried to 
 1 excess, it is not true. And, as every man has not the 
 I capacity of separating truth from falsehood, they per- 
 I 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, sometimes 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, I 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 
 with a firm hand, instead of being servants, will aim at 
 becoming 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 of Other Knowledge on Theology. 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 of 
 earth : Nature is its pattern, and the object 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 own 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 unseemly forms, which 
 the Art had created, borrowing withal a colouring and a 
 character from that bad company. Not content with 
 neutral ground for its development, it was attracted by 
 the sublimity of divine subjects to ambitious and hazar- 
 dous essays. Without my saying a word more, you will 
 clearly understand, Gentlemen, that under these circum- 
 stances Religion was bound to exert itself, that the world 
 might not gain an advantage over it. Put out of sight 
 the severe teaching of Catholicism in the schools of Paint- 
 ing, as men now would put it aside in their philosophical 
 studies, and in no long time you would have the hierarchy 
 of the Church, the Anchorite and Virgin-martyr, the 
 
8o ' Discourse IV. 
 
 Confessor and the Doctor, the Angelic Hosts, the 
 Mother of God, the Crucifix, the Eternal Trinity, sup- 
 planted by a sort of pagan mythology in the guise of 
 sacred names, by a creation indeed of high genius, of 
 intense, and dazzling, and soul-absorbing beauty, in 
 which, however, there was nothing which subserved the 
 cause of Religion, nothing on the other hand which did 
 not directly or indirectly minister to corrupt nature and 
 the powers of darkness. 
 
 6. 
 
 The 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 Musical 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 mathe- 
 matical science also, it is the expression of ideas greater 
 and more profound than any in the visible world, ideas, 
 which centre indeed in Him whom Catholicism mani- 
 fests, who is the seat of all beauty, order, and perfection 
 whatever, still ideas after all which are not those on 
 which Revelation directly and principally fixes our gaze. 
 If then a great master in this mysterious science (if I 
 
Bearing of Other K?wwledge on Theology, 8 1 
 
 may speak of matters which seem to lie out of my own 
 province) throws himself on his own gift, trusts its in- 
 spirations, and absorbs himself in those thoughts which, 
 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 human 
 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 mechanical 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, while 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 remark, if I recollect aright, 
 both of Fenelon and Berkeley, men so different, that it 
 7 « 6 
 
82 Discourse IV, 
 
 carries more with it even than the names of those cele- 
 brated men, that the Gothic style is not as simple 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 style possesses 
 with which we are acfjuainted, 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 growth of an idea, whereas the 
 Gothic style is as harmonious and as intellectual as it is 
 graceful. But this feeHng 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 means. It is surely quite within the bounds of pos- 
 sibility, that, as the renaissance three centuries ago 
 carried away its own day, in spite of the Church, into 
 excesses in literature and art, so that revival of an almost 
 forgotten architecture, which is at present taking place 
 in our own countries, in France, and in Germany, may 
 in some way or other run away with us into this or that 
 error, unless we keep a watch over its course. I am not 
 speaking of Ireland ; but to English Catholics at least it 
 would be a serious evil, if it came as the emblem and 
 advocate of a past ceremonial or an extinct nationalism. 
 We are 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 
 and symbol what they cannot read in books. Our rules 
 and our rubrics have been altered now to meet the 
 
Bearing of Other Knowledge on Theology, ^i^ 
 
 times, and hence an obsolete discipline may be a 
 present 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 object 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 
 CathoHc 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 Discourse IV. 
 
 and good taste to obtrude them upon the world. They 
 neither wish to shock people, nor to earn for themselves 
 a confessorship which 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 nam.e. However, they have 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 would style the bigoted and 
 bitter hostility of a party. This misfortune is easily 
 conceivable, and has befallen many a man. Before he 
 knows where 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 
 make 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 ; which principles 
 he has never made his landmarks, and which, whatever 
 might be their effect upon himself, at least would have 
 warned him against practising upon the faith of others, 
 had they been authoritatively held up before him. 
 
 9. 
 
 Instances of this kind are far from uncommon. Men 
 who are old enough, will remember the trouble which 
 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 
 \ie so treated the subject of Comparative Anatomy as 
 
Bearing of Other Knowledge 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. What 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 livincf 
 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- h 
 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 
 might rule that to be false which attracted him by its 
 speciousness. 
 
 lO. 
 
 I 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 more literally the love of money, " is the root of all 
 evils ; " and that " they that would become rich fall into 
 temptation ; " and that " hardly shall they that have 
 riches enter into the kingdom of God ; " and after draw- 
 ing the picture of a wealthy and flourishing people, it 
 adds, "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. 
 " Judas," says St. Chrysostom, " was with Him who 
 
Bearing of Other Knoiv ledge on TJieology. 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." "There is not a trace of justice in that 
 heart," says St. Leo, "in v/hich 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 testimonies, 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 wealth is at any rate to be 
 sought, or that it is the way to be virtuous 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 whether 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 knows 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 summum bonum, 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 
 
Bearing of Other Knowledge 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 Univer- 
 sity in question, by its first Professor. Yet with all these 
 circumstances in its favour, you will soon see. Gentlemen, 
 into what extravagance, for so I must call it, a grave 
 lawyer 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. subjects of thought 
 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, " 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 according to what laws it is distributed, 
 
go 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 impos- 
 sible." After this he notices a certain objection, which 
 I shall set before you in his own words, as they will 
 furnish me with the illustration I propose. 
 
 This objection, he says, is, that, " as the pursuit of 
 wealth is one of the humblest 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."^ 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 remote and deeper parts of any science, if you 
 stand upon the level of the science, and ascend not to a 
 higher science." f 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. 1 1, 12. 
 f Advancement of Learning, 
 
Bearing of Other Knoiv ledge on TheolGgy. g i 
 
 Science or Philosophy, whatever 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, what does Revelation, say on the point ? 
 Political Economy must not be allowed to give judg- 
 ment in its own favour, but must come before a higher 
 tribunal. The objection is an appeal to the Theologian ; 
 however, the Professor does not so view 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 Judg- 
 ment, — so he answers it himself, and as follows : 
 
 12. 
 
 "My answer," he says, "is, first, that the pursuit of 
 wealth, that is, the endeavour to accumulate the means of 
 future subsistence and enjoyment, is, to the mass of 
 mankind, the great source of moralimprovement" Now 
 observe. Gentlemen, how exactly this bears out what I have 
 been saying. It is just so far true, as to be able to instil 
 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 
 from 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, 
 
92 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 under circumstances, let us rather 
 contemplate what the author's direct assertion is. He 
 says," the ^rvdi^d^fowx \.o accumidate!' the words should be 
 weighed, and for what? " for enjoyment ; " — " to accumu- 
 late the means of future subsistence and enjoymicnt, 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 something 
 individual and personal, " of moral improvement^ 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 power and their wish to 
 accumulate ; none more mischievous than one which 
 should diminish their motives and means to save." No 
 institution more beneficial than one which should increase 
 the wish to acctumilate ! then Christianity is not one of 
 such beneficial institutions, for it expressly says, " Lay 
 not up to yourselves treasures on earth ... for where 
 thy treasure is, there is thy heart also ;" — no institution 
 more mischievous than one which should diminish the 
 
Bearing of Other Knowledge on Theology, 93 
 
 motives to save! then Christianity is one of such mischiefs, 
 for the inspired text proceeds, " Lay up to yourselves 
 treasures in heaven, where neither the rust nor the moth 
 doth consume, and where thieves do not dig through, 
 nor steal." 
 
 But it is not enough that morals and happiness are 
 made 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 
 wealth ; 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, " Such a population must be grossly ignorant. 
 The desire of knowledge is one of the last results 
 of refinement ; 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, raligion, 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. Lect., p. i6. 
 
94 Discourse IV, 
 
 social or political virtue tends to moral and religious 
 excellence ; but the sense needs to be defined and the 
 statement to be kept within bounds. This is the very- 
 point 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 " 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, exceptis excipiendis ; 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 
 measure 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 which 
 I might 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 import- 
 ance in determining 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 of Other Knowledge on Theology. 95 
 
 and Christianity may be so unduly valued as to be 
 made 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 profane writers, — whereas there 
 are numberless facts in past times which we cannot deny, 
 for they are indisputable, though history is silent about 
 them. I suppose, on this score, we ought to deny that 
 the round towers of this country had any origin, because 
 history does not disclose it ; or that any individual came 
 from Adam who cannot produce the table of his an- 
 cestry. 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 Mishna, 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 writings 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 
 ojffice 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- 
 minable 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 themselves, as I 
 
96 . Discourse IV. 
 
 have been showing, so a like mistake may befall any 
 other. Grammar, for instance, at first sight does not 
 appear to admit of a perversion ; yet Home Tooke 
 made it the vehicle of his peculiar scepticism. Law 
 would seem to have enough 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 
 Moses ; and Logic may deny the Holy Trinity ; * and 
 other sciences, now rising into notice, are or will be 
 victims of a similar abuse. 
 
 14. 
 
 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 which 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 
 * \^id. Abelard, for instance. 
 
Bearing of Other Knowledge on Theology. 97 
 
 true, and act upon them, which they neither have 
 authority to lay down themselves, 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 I 
 historical documents ; " or if the Philosophic Historian ! 
 says, " There is nothing in Judaism different from other 
 political institutions;" or if the Anatomist, ''There is 
 no soul beyond the brain ; " or if the Political Economist, 
 " Easy circumstances make men virtuous." These are 
 enunciations, not of Science, but of Private Judgment ; 
 and it is Private Judgment that infects every science 
 which it touches with a hostility to Theology, a hostility 
 which properly attaches to no science 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- 
 nomy and 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 ? 
 
 15. 
 
 And now I consider I have 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* 7 
 
gS Discourse IV. 
 
 of a University. I have shown, 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 together, and having bearings one on 
 another, it is impossible to teach them all thoroughly, 
 unless they all are taken into account, and Theology 
 among them. Moreover, I have insisted on the important 
 influence, which Theology in matter of fact does and must 
 exercise over a great variety of sciences, completing and 
 correcting them ; so that, granting it to be a real science 
 occupied upon truth, it cannot be omitted without great 
 prejudice to the teaching of the rest. And lastly, I have 
 urged that, supposing Theology be not taught, its 
 province will not simply be neglected, but will be actually 
 usurped by other sciences, which will teach, without 
 warrant, conclusions of their own in a subject-matter 
 which needs its own proper principles for its due forma- 
 tion and disposition. 
 
 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 ; 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 when 
 we direct our attention to its students. Now 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 
 work of the Creator. Hence it is that the Sciences, into 
 which our knowledge may 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, which is 
 
lOO DiscotiT^e 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 itself, 
 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 white, change their shades, according to the contrast 
 to which they are submitted. And, in like manner, the 
 drift and meaning of a branch of knowledge varies with 
 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, which has had so much to 
 do with the conversion to the Catholic faith of members 
 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 
 
Knoivledo^e its Own Eiid. loi 
 
 ^ 
 
 of Llandafif, 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 whole 
 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 
 adjust 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 cf 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 " Liberal." A habit of mind is formed which 
 lasts through life, of which the attributes are, freedom, 
 equitableness, calmness, moderation, and wisdom ; or 
 
I02 Discourse 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 me, 
 what, after all, is the gain of this Philosophy, of which I 
 make such account, and from which I promise so much. 
 Even 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 which is any- 
 where to be found, how are we 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 does it do } how does it profit .? what does it 
 promise } Particular sciences are respectively the basis 
 of definite arts, which carry on 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 community, when we set about the 
 enterprise of founding a University "i 
 
 I am asked what is the end of University Education, 
 and of the Liberal or Philosophical Knowledge which I 
 conceive it to impart : I answer, that what I have already 
 
Knowledge its Own End, 103 
 
 said has been sufficient to show that it has a very tan- 
 gible, real, and sufficient end, though the end cannot be 
 divided from 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 own 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 the 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 compensation 
 of a great deal of thought in the compassing, and a 
 great deal of trouble in the attaining. 
 
 Now, when I say that Knowledge is, not merely a 
 means 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 own 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 knowledge. 
 I am but saying what whole volumes have been written 
 to illustrate, viz., by a " selection from the records of Phi- 
 losophy, Literature, and Art, in all ages and countries, 
 of a body of examples, to show how the most unpropitious 
 circumstances have been unable to conquer an ardent 
 
io4 Discourse V, 
 
 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 am very- 
 far indeed from denying ; but, independent of these, we 
 are satisfying a direct need of our nature in its very 
 acquisition ; and, whereas our nature, unlike that of the 
 inferior creation, does not at once reach its perfection, 
 but depends, in order to it, on a number of external aids 
 and appliances. Knowledge, as one of the principal of 
 these, is valuable for what its very presence in us does 
 for us after the manner of a habit, even though it be 
 turned to no further account, nor subserve any direct 
 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, " 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. 
 f Cicer. Offic. init. 
 
Knowledge its Own End, 105 
 
 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 when we 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 procedure 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. " All these methods," he 
 says, " 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 activit}^ of the mind is vigorous enough to 
 carry us on in the pursuit of knowledge, even without 
 any exertion of our own." The idea of benefiting 
 society by means of " the pursuit of science and know- 
 
io6 Discourse V, 
 
 ledge " did not enter at all into the motives which he 
 would assign for their cultivation. 
 
 This was the ground of the opposition which the elder 
 Cato made to the introduction of Greek Philosophy 
 among his countrymen, when Carneades and his com- 
 panions, on occasion of their embassy, were charming 
 the Roman youth with their eloquent expositions of it. 
 The fit representative of a practical people, Cato esti- 
 mated every thing by what it produced; whereas the 
 Pursuit of Knowledge promised nothing beyond Know- 
 ledge itself. He despised that refinement or enlargement 
 of mind of which he had no experience. 
 
 4. 
 Things, which can bear to be cut oiT from every thing 
 else and yet persist in living, must have life in themselves ; 
 pursuits, which issue in nothing, and still maintain their 
 ground for ages, which are regarded as admirable, though 
 they have not as yet proved themselves to be useful, 
 must have their sufBcient end in themselves, whatever it 
 turn out to be. And we are brought to the same con- 
 clusion by considering the force of the epithet, by which 
 the knowledge under consideration is popularly desig- 
 nated. It is common to speak of " liberal knowledge," 
 of the " liberal arts and studies," and of a " liberal edu- 
 cation," as the especial characteristic or property of a 
 University and of a gentleman ; what is really meant 
 by the word ? Now, first, in its grammatical sense it is 
 opposed to servile; and by "servile work" is understood, 
 as our catechisms inform us, bodily labour, mechanical 
 employment, and the like, in which the mind has little 
 or no part. Parallel to such servile works are those arts, 
 \i they deserve the name, of which the poet speaks,* 
 
 * T^x^V T'^XW ^(TTep^e Kal t6xv t^X^V^- 
 
 Vid. Arist. Nic. Ethic, vi. 
 
Knowledge its Owfi End. 107 
 
 which owe their 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 commonly 
 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 most diversified powers 
 of mind. 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 palaestra, 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 
 accomplishments of a gentleman. War, too, however 
 rough a profession, has ever been accounted Hberal, 
 unless in cases when it becomes 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 games of skill, or 
 
lo8 Discourse V, 
 
 military prowess, though bodily, are, it seems, accounted 
 liberal ; on the other hand, what is merely professional, 
 though highly intellectual, nay, though liberal in com- 
 parison of trade and manual labour, is not simply called 
 liberal, and mercantile occupations are not liberal at all. 
 Why this distinction ? because that alone is liberal know- 
 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 complete ; the 
 highest lose it, when they minister to something beyond 
 them. It 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 "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 am illustrating; just as 
 a face worn by tears and fasting loses its beauty, or a 
 
Knoivledge its Own End, 109 
 
 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 Theology. 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 Pursuits 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, 
 v/henever personal gain is the motive, still more 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, " those rather are useful, which 
 bear fruit ; those libei^al, which tend to enjoyment. By 
 fruitful, I mean, which yield revenue ; by enjoyable, 
 where nothing accrues of consequence beyond the usijig!'* 
 
 5. 
 Do not suppose, that in thus appealing to the ancients, 
 I am throwing back the world two thousand years, and 
 fettering Philosophy with the reasonings of paganism. 
 While the world lasts, will Aristotle's doctrine on these 
 matters last, for he is the oracle of nature and of truth. 
 While we are men, we cannot help, to a great extent, 
 being Aristotelians, for the great Master does but analyze 
 the thoughts, feelings, views, and opinions of human kind. 
 He has told us the meaning of our own words and ideas, 
 
 * Aristot. Rhet. i. 5. 
 
no Discourse 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. Now, as to the particular instance before us, the 
 word " liberal " as applied to Knowledge and Education, 
 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 was 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, 
 when 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 
 generahzed ; but though its subjects vary with the age, 
 it varies not itself. The palaestra may seem a Hberal 
 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- 
 
Knowledge its Own End. jit 
 
 tions imply, instead of discrediting, the archetypal idea, 
 which is but a previous hypothesis or condition, by 
 means of which issue is joined between 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 knowledge, or a gentleman's know- 
 ledge, when 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 
 Knowledge has to be considered as a good, these it has 
 in a higher degree when it is viewed 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. 
 
 Now 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 Knowledge, which, 
 to those who possess it, is its especial value, and which 
 dispenses with the necessity of their looking abroad for 
 any end to rest upon external to itself. Knowledge, 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 ijt 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 
 may 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 two 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 two 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 
 Knowledge. It 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 unsuitable to an occasion like this, 
 I say, it seems to me improper to call that passive sen- 
 sation, or perception of things, which brutes seem to 
 
Knowledge its Own End. 113 
 
 possess, by the name of Knowledge. When I speak of 
 Knowledge, I mean something intellectual, something 
 which grasps what it perceives through the senses ; some- 
 thing which takes a view of things ; which sees more 
 than the senses convey ; which reasons upon what it 
 sees, and while it sees ; which 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 Knowledge, 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 things is the state of slaves or children ; to have 
 mapped out the Universe is the boast, or at least the 
 ambition, of Philosophy, 
 
 Moreover, such knowledge is not a mere extrinsic or 
 accidental advantage, which is ours to-day and another's 
 to-morrow, which 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 well as more 
 usual, to speak of a University as a place of education, 
 than of instruction, though, when knowledge is concerned, 
 instruction would at first sight have seemed the more 
 appropriate word. We 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 committed to mem.ory, to tradition, or to use, 
 7* 8 
 
114 Discourse V, 
 
 and bear 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 connexion with religion and virtue. When, 
 then, we speak of the communication of Knowledge as 
 being Education, we thereby really imply that that 
 Knowledge 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, 
 which 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 remuneration 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 which she puts it, 
 I am prepared to maintain that Philosophy is its own 
 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 minutes 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 some 
 minds be surrounded. 
 
 It may be objected then, that, when 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, however obstinately the idea 
 may have kept its ground from age to age, still it is 
 
Knowledge its Own End, 115 
 
 simply unmeaning to say that we seek Knowledge for 
 its own sake, and for nothing else ; for that it ever leads 
 to something beyond itself, which 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 Knowledge ; — 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 themselves, 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 were 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 dissipated portion of mankind, in consequence of 
 them. Thus they have furnished against themselves both 
 the ground and the means of their own exposure, with- 
 out any trouble at all to any one 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 } What has 
 the deep and lofty thought of its disciples ended in but 
 
1 1 6 Discourse V. 
 
 eloquent words ? Nay, what has its teaching ever medi- 
 tated, when it was 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. How 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 superhuman 
 doctrine, and then succumbed without an effort to a trial 
 of human affection. 
 
 " He discoursed," we are told, " with great energy on 
 the government of the passions. His look was venerable, 
 his action graceful, his pronunciation clear, and his 
 diction elegant. He showed, with great strength of 
 sentiment and variety of illustration, that human nature 
 is degraded and debased, when the lower faculties pre- 
 dominate over the higher. He communicated the 
 various precepts given, from time to time, for the con- 
 quest of passion, and displayed the happiness of those 
 who had obtained the important victory, after which 
 man is no longer the slave of fear, nor the fool of hope . . , 
 He enumerated many examples of heroes immoveable 
 by pain or pleasure, who looked with indifference on 
 those modes or accidents to which the vulgar give the 
 names of good and evil." 
 
Knowledge its Own End, 117 
 
 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, " 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." " Young man," answered the philosopher, 
 "you speak like one who has never felt the pangs of 
 separation." " 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 always 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 ? " 
 
 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 low, 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 
 
1 1 8 Discourse V, 
 
 "meanest" of mankind, he was so in what may be called 
 his private capacity and without 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 was 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 
 Knowledge 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 was the divinely provided 
 minister of temporal benefits to all of us so great, that, 
 whatever I am forced to think of him as a man, I have 
 not the heart, from mere gratitude, to speak of him 
 severely. 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 Macaulay in his 
 Essay on Bacon's Philosophy. I do not know whether he would agi-ee 
 with me. 
 
 f De Augment, iv. 2, vid. Macaulay's Essay ; vid. also "Inprincipio 
 operis ad Deum Patrem, Deum Verbum, Deum Spiritum, preces fundimus 
 humillimas et ardentissimas, ut humani generis serumnarum memores, et 
 peregrinationis istius vitse, in qua dies paucos et malos terimus, novis suis 
 elee/nosynis, per mantis nosti'as, familiam humanam dotare dignentur. 
 Atque illud insuper supplices rogamus, ne humana divinis officiant ; neve 
 ex reseratione viarum senses, et accensione majore luminis naturalis, aliquid 
 incredulitatis et noctis, animis nostris erga divina mysteria oboriatur," etc. 
 ricef. 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 well have thought it 
 was a youth gathering flowers for his beloved, instead 
 of an old physician gathering healing herbs in the 
 morning dew." * 
 
 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 own 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, Hke 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 narrowness of his school ! 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 shown 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 
 we rejoice in them. 
 
 * Fouque's Uiaknown Patient. 
 
I20 Discottrse V, 
 
 9. 
 
 Useful Knowledge then, I grant, has done its work ; 
 and Liberal Knowledge as certainly has not done its 
 work, — 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 allow it, those objectors have said nothing to 
 the purpose. I admit, rather I maintain, what they have 
 been urging, for I consider Knowledge to have its end in 
 itself. For all its friends, or its enemies, may say, I 
 insist upon it, that it is as real a mistake to burden it 
 with virtue or religion as with the mechanical arts. Its 
 direct business is not to steel the soul against temptation 
 or to console it in affliction, any more than to set the 
 loom in motion, or to direct the steam carriage ; be it 
 ever so much the means or the condition of both ma- 
 terial and moral advancement, still, taken by and in 
 itself, it as little mends our hearts as it improves our 
 temporal circumstances. And if its eulogists claim for 
 it such a power, 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. Philosophy, however enlightened, 
 however profound, gives no command over the passions, 
 no influential motives, no vivifying principles. Liberal 
 Education makes not the Christian, not the Catholic, 
 but the gentleman. It is well to be a gentlemen, it is 
 well to have a cultivated intellect, a delicate taste, a 
 candid, equitable, dispassionate mind, a noble and 
 courteous bearing in the conduct of life ; — these are the 
 
Knowledge its Own End, 121 
 
 connatural qualities of a large knowledge ; they are tiie 
 objects of a University ; I am advocating, I shall illus- 
 trate and insist upon them ; but still, I repeat, they are 
 no guarantee for sanctity or even for conscientiousness, 
 they may attach to the man of the world, to the profli- 
 gate, to the heartless, — pleasant, alas, and attractive as 
 he shows when "decked out in them. Taken by them- 
 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 own fault, but because 
 their professors and their admirers persist in taking them 
 for what 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 with a 
 thread of silk ; then may you hope with such keen and 
 delicate instruments as human knowledge and human 
 reason to contend against those giants, the passion and 
 the pride of man. 
 
 Surely we 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 intelligible to 
 say, and that is what I say here, that Liberal Education, 
 viewed in itself, is simply the cultivation of the intellect, 
 as such, and its object is nothing more or less than 
 intellectual excellence. 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, visible, invisible, all are good 
 in their kind, and have a des^ 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 meant 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 mansions, 
 your churches ; and their beauty leads to nothing beyond 
 itself. There is a physical beauty and a moral : there is 
 a beauty of person, there is a beauty of our moral being, 
 which is natural virtue ; and in like manner there is a 
 beauty, there is a perfection, of the intellect. There is 
 an ideal perfection in these various subject-matters, 
 towards which individual instances are seen to rise, and 
 which are the standards for all instances whatever. The 
 Greek divinities and demigods, as the statuary has 
 moulded 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 Caesar, 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. 
 To open the mind, to correct it, to refine it, to enable it 
 to know, and to digest, master, rule, and use its know- 
 ledge, to give it power over its own faculties, application, 
 flexibility, method, critical exactness, sagacity, resource, 
 address, eloquent expression, is an object as intelligible 
 (for here we are inquiring, not what the object of a 
 
Knowledge its Own End, 123 
 
 Liberal Education is worth, nor what use the Church 
 makes of it, but what it is in itself), I say, an object as 
 intelligible as the cultivation of virtue, while, at the 
 same time, it is absolutely distinct 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 ; but 
 at first they do but fail in a faiUng world; and if the 
 powers of intellect decay, the powers 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 aims higher than its own. 
 
1-4 
 
 DISCOURSE VI. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE VIEWED IN RELATION TO LEARNING. 
 
 I. 
 
 IT were well 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 with reference to the animal frame, and 
 "virtue," with reference to our moral nature. I am not 
 able to find such a term ; — talent, ability, genius, belong 
 distinctly to the raw material, which is the subject-matter, 
 not to that excellence which is the result of exercise and 
 training. When we turn, indeed, to the particular kinds 
 of intellectual perfection, words are forthcoming for our 
 purpose, as, for instance, judgment, taste, and skill ; yet 
 ev^en 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 human life. Knowledge, 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 
 in English, as it ought to do, to the intellect itself. The 
 
Knowledge viewed in Relation to Learning. [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 which that object consists. Every one 
 knows practically what are the constituents of health or 
 of virtue ; and every one recognizes health and virtue as 
 ends to be pursued ; it is otherwise with intellectual 
 excellence, and this must be my excuse, if I seem to 
 any one to be bestowing a good deal of labour on 
 a prehminary 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, whatever name we 
 bestow on it, it is, I believe, as a matter of history, 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 work of a Hospital lies in 
 healing the sick or wounded, of a Riding or Fencing 
 School, or 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 much as this. It educates the intellect 
 
126 Discourse VL 
 
 to reason well in all matters, to reach out towards 
 trath, 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 which had not its 
 specific good ; that the word " educate" would net be 
 used of intellectual culture, as it is used, had not the 
 intellect had an end of its own ; that, had it not such an 
 end, there would be no meaning in calling certain 
 intellectual exercises "liberal," in contrast with "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 works of any kind ; that a philosophical 
 scheme of knowledge, or system of sciences, could not, 
 from the nature of the case, issue in any one 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- 
 mined that the cultivation of the intellect is an end 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 limb or 
 cures a fever: what does an Institution effect, which 
 professes the health, not of the body, not of the soul, 
 
Knowledge viewed in Relation to Lear7iing. 12'] 
 
 but of the intellect ? What is this good, which in 
 former times, as well as our own, 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 mere knowledge ; 
 secondly, to professional knowledge ; and thirdly, to 
 religious knowledge. In other words, are acqidrernefits 
 and attainments the scope of a University Education t 
 or expertness in particular arts and pursuits ? or inoral 
 and religious proficiency ? or something besides these 
 three ? These 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 with intel- 
 lectual illumination or Philosophy. 
 
 3. 
 
 I suppose the prhna-facie view which the public at 
 large would take of a University, considering it as a place 
 of Education, is nothing more or less than a place for 
 acquiring a great deal of knowledge on a great many 
 subjects. Memory 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 
 niemory. For some years his intellect is little more 
 than an instrument for taking in facts, or a receptacle for 
 storing them ; he welcomes them as fast as they come to 
 
128 Discourse VL 
 
 him ; he lives on what is without ; he has his eyes ever 
 about him ; he has a hvely susceptibility of impressions ; 
 he imbibes information of every kind ; and little does he 
 make his own in a true sense of the word, living rather 
 upon his neighbours all around him. He has opinions, 
 religious, political, and literary, and, for a boy, is very 
 positive in them and sure about them ; but he gets them 
 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 ; he is almost passive in the 
 acquisition of knowledge. 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 
 seven years of plenty with him : he gathers in by hand- 
 fuls, like the Egyptians, without counting ; and though, 
 as time goes on, there is exercise for his argumentative 
 powers in the Elements of Mathematics, 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 when he is leaving for the Univer- 
 sity, he is mainly the creature of foreign influences and 
 circumstances, and made up of accidents, homogeneous 
 or not, as the case may be. Moreover, the moral 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. Acquirements, 
 again, are emphatically producible, and at a moment ; 
 they are a something to show, both for master and 
 scholar ; an audience, even though ignorant themselves 
 of the subjects of an examination, can comprehend 
 when questions are answered and when they are not. 
 
Knowledge viewed in Relation to Learrmig. i2<^ 
 
 Here 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 knowledge. 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 
 who 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, who 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 which holds a great deal; and 
 what seems to put the matter beyond dispute is, the 
 
 ;• 9 
 
130 Discourse VL 
 
 fact of the great number of studies which 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 knowledge, or know- 
 ledge considered in its matter ; and I shall best attain my 
 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 which 
 are not, and thus, by the comparison, you will be able 
 to judge for yourselves, Gentlemen, whether Knowledge, 
 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, whose experience has 
 hitherto been confined to the more calm and unpretend- 
 
 * The pages which follow are taken almost verbatim from the author's 
 14th (Oxford) University Sermon, which, at the time of writing this 
 Discourse, he did not expect ever to reprint. 
 
Knowledge viewed in Relation to Learrmig. 131 
 
 ing scenery of these islands, whether here or in England, 
 go for the first time into parts where 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 difi"erent in its nature. He will perhaps 
 be borne forward, 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- 
 ments, 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 
 
132 Discourse VI. 
 
 takes away 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, which 
 before it did not possess. 
 
 And in like manner, 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 
 modes 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 men are, how low-minded, how 
 bad, how opposed, yet how confident in their opinions ; 
 all this exerts a perceptible influence upon the mind, 
 which it is impossible 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 arguments 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 what system to 
 build up as its own private persuasion ; when this torrent 
 of wilful thoughts rushes over and inundates it, who will 
 
Knowledge viewed in Relation to Learning. 133 
 
 deny that the fruit of the tree of knowledge, or what the 
 mind takes for knowledge, 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, who suddenly cast off their Maker. Their eyes 
 are opened ; and, like the judgment-stricken king in the 
 Tragedy, they see two suns, and a magic universe, out of 
 which they look back upon their former state of faith and 
 innocence with a sort of contempt and indignation, as if 
 they were then but fools, and the dupes of imposture. 
 
 On the other hand. Religion has its own enlargement, 
 and an enlargement, not of tumult, but of peace. It is 
 often remarked of uneducated persons, who have hitherto 
 thought little of the unseen world, that, on their turning 
 to God, looking into themselves, regulating their hearts, 
 reforming their conduct, and meditating on death and 
 judgment, heaven and hell, they seem to become, in 
 point of intellect, different beings from what they were. 
 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 own estimate of whatever 
 happens 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. 
 Now from these instances, to which 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 which 
 at this day we hear so much in certain quarters : this 
 
134 Discourse VI, 
 
 cannot be denied ; but next, it is equally plain, that such 
 communication is not the whole of the process. The 
 enlargement 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 new 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- 
 ments ; it is a making the objects of our knowledge 
 subjectively our own, or, to use a familiar word, it is a 
 digestion of what we" receive, into the substance of our 
 previous state of thought ; and without this no enlarge- 
 ment is said to follow. There is no enlargement, unless 
 there be a comparison of ideas one with another, as they 
 come before the mind, and a systematizing of them. 
 We feel our minds to be growing and expanding theuy 
 when we not only learn, but refer what we learn to what 
 we know already. It is not the mere addition to our 
 knowledge that is the illumination ; but the locomotion, 
 the movement onwards, of that mental centre, to which 
 both what we know, and what we are learning, the ac- 
 cumulating 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 Newton, 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; 
 without which there is no whole, and no centre. It 
 possesses the knowledge, not only of things, but also of 
 their mutual and true relations ; knowledge, not merely 
 considered as acquirement, but as philosophy. 
 
Knowledge viewed m 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 knowledge. 
 For instance, a great memory, as I have already said, 
 does not make a philosopher, any more than a dictionary 
 can be called a grammar. There are men who embrace 
 in their minds a vast multitude of ideas, but with little 
 sensibility about their real relations towards each other. 
 These may be antiquarians, annalists, naturalists ; they 
 may 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 guarantee 
 the absence of narrowness of mind. If they are nothing 
 more than well-read men, or men of information, they 
 have not what specially deserves the name of culture of 
 mind, or fulfils the type of Liberal Education. 
 
 In like manner, we sometimes fall in with persons 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 
 settled principles, religious or political, they speak of 
 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 instructing 
 the hearer, but simply talking. No one would say that 
 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 
 
136 Discourse VL 
 
 powers and deficient education. Perhaps they have 
 been much in foreign countries, and they receive, in a 
 passive, otiose, unfruitful way, the various facts which are 
 forced upon them there. Seafaring men, for example, 
 range from one end of the earth to the other ; but the 
 multipHcity 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, and 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 them carries 
 them forward or backward, to any idea beyond itself 
 Nothing has a drift or relation ; nothing has a history or 
 a promise. Every thing stands by itself, and comes and 
 goes in its turn, like the shifting scenes of a show, which 
 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, 
 while conscious that some expression of opinion is ex- 
 pected from him ; for in fact he has no standard of judg- 
 ment at all, and no landmarks to guide him 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 enlargement of mind 
 
Knowledge viewed in Relation to Learning. 137 
 
 which is the power of viewing many things at once as 
 one 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 whicti 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 Knowledge 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 " 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 Discourse VL 
 
 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 not know what to think or say, at 
 every fresh juncture; they have no view 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 while 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 T^TpayiavoQ 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 
 moment 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 with 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 
 
Knowledge viewed in Relatio7i 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 bean ideal, to be imparted 
 to individuals in their respective measures, is the clear, 
 calm, 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 
 nature ; it has almost supernatural chanty from its 
 freedom from littleness and prejudice ; it has almost the 
 repose of faith, because nothing can startle it ; it has 
 almost the beauty and harmony of heavenly contem- 
 plation, so intimate is it with the eternal order of things 
 and the music 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 Knowledge, 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 hmited ; in 
 every case, to command it, is to mount above it. Who 
 has not felt the irritation of mind and impatience 
 created by a deep, rich country, visited for the first time, 
 
140 Discourse VI. 
 
 with winding lanes, and high hedges, and green steeps, 
 and tangled woods, and every thing smiling indeed, but 
 in a maze ? The same feeling comes 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 
 must 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 master, 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 
 Mole ruit sua. 
 
 You will be overwhelmed, like Tarpeia, by the heavy 
 wealth which you have exacted from 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 
 many on Holy Scripture, from whom we 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 subject into details, destroy its 
 life, and defraud us of the whole by their anxiety about 
 the parts ! 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 without thinking ; and 
 
Knowledge viewed in Relation to Learning, 141 
 
 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. Derangement, I believe, has been 
 considered as a loss of control over the sequence of 
 ideas. The mind, once set in motion, is henceforth 
 deprived of the power of initiation, and becomes the 
 victim of a train of associations, one thought suggesting 
 another, in the way of cause and effect, as if by a 
 mechanical process, or some physical necessity. No 
 one, who has had experience of men of studious habits, 
 but must recognize the existence of a parallel phe- 
 nomenon in the case of those who have over-stimulated 
 the Memory. In such persons Reason acts almost as 
 feebly and as impotently as in the madman ; once fairly 
 started on any subject whatever, they have no power of 
 self-control ; they passively endure the succession of 
 impulses which are evolved out of the original exciting 
 cause ; they are passed on from one idea to another and 
 go steadily forward, plodding along one line of thought 
 in spite of the amplest concessions of the hearer, or wan- 
 dering from it in endless digression in spite of his remon- 
 strances. Now, if, as is very certain, no one would envy the 
 madman the glow and originality of his conceptions, why 
 must we extol the cultivation of that intellect, which is 
 the prey, not indeed of barren fancies but of barren facts, 
 of random intrusions from without, though not of morbid 
 imaginations from within } And in thus speaking, I am 
 not denying that a strong and ready memory is in itself 
 a real treasure; I am not disparaging a well-stored 
 
142 Discourse 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 men ; 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 which 
 are indisputably higher. 
 
 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 twenty 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. It 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 enlargement, which it is not ; of considering an ac- 
 quaintance with the learned names of things and persons, 
 and the possession of clever duodecimos, and attendance 
 on eloquent lecturers, and membership with 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, without attention, without toil ; without ground- 
 ing, without advance, without finishing. There is to be 
 nothing individual in it ; and this, forsooth, is the wonder 
 
Knowledge viewed in Relation to Lear7iing. 143 
 
 of the age. What the steam engine does with 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 volumes. 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. 
 Wise men have lifted up their voices in vain; and at 
 length, lest their own institutions should be outshone 
 and should disappear in the folly of the hour, they have 
 been obliged, as far as they could with a good conscience, 
 to humour a spirit which they could not withstand, and 
 make temporizing concessions at which they could not 
 but inwardly smile. 
 
 It 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. Nor am I an 
 enemy to the cheap publication of scientific and Hterary 
 works, 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. Further, 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 
 from bad employments and bad companions. Moreover, 
 as to that superficial acquaintance with chemistry, and 
 geology, and astronomy, and political economy, and 
 modern history, and biography, and other branches of 
 knowledge, which periodical literature and occasional 
 lectures and scientific institutions diffuse through the 
 
144 Discourse VI. 
 
 community, I think it a graceful accomplishment, and 
 a suitable, nay, in this day a necessary accomplishment, 
 in the case of educated men. Nor, lastly, am I dis- 
 paraging or discouraging the thorough acquisition of 
 any one 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 knowledge 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 must 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- 
 ments, such occupations of mind, are not a great gain ; 
 but they are not education. You may as 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. We require intellec- 
 tual eyes to know 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 room will assist us greatly, but we must be true 
 to ourselves, we must be parties in the work. A Uni- 
 versity is, according to the usual designation, an Alma 
 
K?ww ledge viewed i7i 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 
 wide 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 
 which of these two 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 I 
 must determine w^hich 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 produced better public men, men of the 
 world, men whose names would descend to posterity, I 
 have no hesitation in giving the preference to that Uni- 
 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 public schools 
 and colleges of England, in the course of the last century, 
 at least will bear out one side of the contrast as I have 
 drawn it. What would come, on the other hand, of the 
 ideal systems of education which have fascinated the 
 imagination of this age, could they ever take effect, and 
 whether they would not produce a generation frivolous, 
 narrow-minded, and resourceless, intellectually considered, 
 7* 10 
 
146 Discourse VI. 
 
 is a fair subject for debate ; but so far is certain, that the 
 Universities and scholastic establishments, to which I 
 refer, and which did little more than bring together first 
 hoys and then youths in large numbers, these institutions, 
 with miserable deformities on the side of morals, with a 
 hollow 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 conspicuous for great natural virtues, for habits 
 of business, for knowledge of life, for practical judgment, 
 for cultivated tastes, for accomplishments, who have 
 made England what it is, — able to subdue the earth, 
 able to domineer over Catholics. 
 
 How is this to be explained ? I suppose as follows : 
 When a multitude 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 
 
Knowledge viewed in Relatioii to Learning. 147 
 
 with widely different notions, and there is much to 
 generahze, much to adjust, much to eHminate, 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 will con- 
 stitute a whole, it will embody 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 shape of a self-perpetuating tradition, 
 or a genius loci, as it is sometimes 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 shadow. 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 judgment is found 
 in them, which, as developed in the individual who is 
 submitted to it, becomes a twofold source of strength to 
 him, both from the distinct stamp it impresses on his 
 mind, and from the bond of union 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 VL 
 
 details ; it is a something, and it does a something, which 
 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 which 
 they dare profess, and with no common principles, who 
 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 wide philosophy, three times 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 will gain by being spared an entrance 
 into your Babel. Few indeed there are who can dis- 
 pense with the stimulus and support of instructors, or 
 Vv^ill do anything 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 moral 
 evils, but serious hindrances to the attainment of truth. 
 And next to none, perhaps, or none, who will 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 what every one knows and takes for granted, 
 of that multitude of small truths which fall upon the 
 
Knowledge viewed in Relation to Learning, 149 
 
 mind like dust, impalpable and ever accumulating ; 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 own 
 mode of viewing things, unwilling to be put out of their 
 way, slow to enter into the minds of others ; — 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 indiscriminate 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 result 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 know 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 
 
150 Discourse VL 
 
 down books as they meet him, and pursunig 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 ! " 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 our language — who, not in the wide world, 
 but ranging day by day around his widowed mother's 
 home, "a dexterous gleaner" in a narrow 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 ! 
 
 But in a large subject, I am exceeding my necessary 
 limits. Gentlemen, I must conclude abruptly ; and 
 postpone any summing up of my argument, 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 w^ork which can please in youth and age, 
 seems to fulfil (in logical language) the accidental definition of a Classic. 
 [A further course of twenty years has past, and I bear the same witness in 
 favour of this Poem. J 
 
15^ 
 
 DISCOURSE VII. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE VIEWED IN RELATION TO PROFESSIONAL 
 SKILL. 
 
 I. 
 
 I HAVE 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 own 
 sake ; and next, on the nature of that cultivation, or 
 what that cultivation consists in. Truth of whatever 
 kind is the proper object of the intellect; its cultivation 
 then lies in fitting it to apprehend and contemplate 
 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 many faculties and 
 exercises of mind. 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 reading 
 
^52 
 
 DucQiirse 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 
 may 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 
 mind ; 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, — quahties which do not come of mere acquire- 
 ment. The bodily eye, the organ for apprehending 
 material 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 training, by which the intellect, 
 instead of being formed or sacrificed to some particular 
 or accidental purpose, some specific trade or profession, 
 or study or science, is disciplined for its own sake, for 
 the perception of its own proper object, and for its own 
 highest culture, is called Liberal Education ; 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 any one 
 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 Professional 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 towards 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 " 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 lawyer, that an engineer, aad 
 that a surgeon ; or at least if it does not lead to dis- 
 coveries in chemistry, astronomy, geology, magnetism, 
 and science of every kind. 
 
 This 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- 
 brated 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 committed 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 would 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 were 
 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 me 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 
 profiting. 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 
 
Knowledge and Professional Skill. 155 
 
 Scotus and Occam and Dante, before Wiclif or Huss had 
 kindled those miserable fires which are still raging to the 
 ruin of the highest interests of man, an unfortunate king 
 of England, Edward the Second, flying from the field of 
 Bannockburn, 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 working 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 committed to them in 
 such a way as their conscience pointed out as best. So, 
 
156 Discourse VI I , 
 
 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 from 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 small College, which had first 
 put itself into a condition to be her champion. 
 
 These defenders, I have said, were two, of whom the 
 
Knowledge and Professioiial Skill, 157 
 
 more distinguished was the late Dr. Copleston, then a 
 Fellow of the College, successively its Provost, and Pro- 
 testant Bishop of Llandaff. In that Society, which owes 
 so much to him, his name lives, and ever will live, for 
 the distinction which his talents bestowed on it, for the 
 academical importance to which he raised it, for the 
 generosity of spirit, the Hberality of sentiment, and the 
 kindness of heart, with which he adorned it, and which 
 even those who had least sympathy with some aspects 
 of his mind and character could not but admire and 
 love. Men come to their meridian at various periods of 
 their lives ; the last years of the eminent person I am 
 speaking of were given to duties which, I am told, have 
 been the means of endearing him to numbers, but 
 which afforded no scope for that peculiar vigour and 
 keenness of mind which enabled him, when a young 
 man, single-handed, with easy gallantry, to encounter 
 and overthrow the charge of three giants of the North 
 combined against him. I beheve I am right in saying 
 that, in the progress of the controversy, the most 
 scientific, the most critical, and the most witty, of that 
 literary company, all of them now, as he himself, re- 
 moved from this visible scene. Professor Playfair, Lord 
 Jeffrey, and the Rev. Sydney Smith, threw together 
 their several efforts into one article of their Review, in 
 order to crush and pound to dust the audacious contro- 
 vertist who had come out against them in defence of 
 his own Institutions. To have even contended with 
 such men was a sufficient voucher for his ability, even 
 before we 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. 
 
 He was supported in the controversy, on the same 
 general principles, but with more of method and distinct- 
 
1^8 Discourse VIL 
 
 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 
 v/orld 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 
 without sighing that such a man was lost to the Catholic 
 Church, as Dr. Butler before him, by some early bias or 
 some 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 gj-ound, which had already been rapidly 
 traversed by Dr. Copleston, and, though professedly em- 
 ployed upon Mr. Edgeworth, is really replying to the 
 northern critic who had brought that writer s work into 
 notice, and to a far greater author than either of them, 
 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. " 'Tis matter 
 
 * Mr. Keble, Vicar of Hursley, late Fellow of Oriel, and Professoi of 
 Poetry in the University of Oxford. 
 
Knowledge and Professional Skill. 159 
 
 of astonishment.'^ he says in his work on Education, 
 •' that men of quality and parts should suffer themselves 
 to be so far misled by custom and implicit faith. Reason, 
 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 
 v/hereof 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-making, 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, what company and places he is likely to spend 
 his time in, nay, and estate too ; for it is very seldom 
 seen that any one discovers mines of gold or silver 2> 
 Parnassus. '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 Roman language, when 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 
 we have every where amongst us examples of it, that a 
 child should be forced to learn the rudiments of a 
 
i6o Discourse VI L 
 
 language, which he is never to use in the course of life that 
 he is 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. 
 
 Now 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 manner 
 of Locke, that no good could come of a system which 
 was not based upon the principle of Utility. 
 
 " Classical Literature," they said, " is the great object 
 at Oxford. Many minds, so employed, have produced 
 many works and much fame in that department ; but if 
 all liberal arts and sciences, useful to human life., had 
 been taught there, if some had dedicated themselves to 
 chemistryy some to mathematics, some to experimental 
 philosophy, and \{ every attainment had been honoured in 
 the mixt ratio of its difficulty and utility, the system of 
 such a University 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 follow. 
 
 " When a University has been doing useless things for 
 
Knowledge and Professional Skill. i6i 
 
 a long time, it appears at first degrading to them to be 
 use/id. 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 there of dignity in intellectual 
 labour but usefidness ? And what ought the term 
 University to mean, but a place where every science 
 is taught which is liberal, and at the same time useful 
 to mankind ? Nothing would so much tend to bring 
 classical Hterature within proper bounds as a steady and 
 invariable appeal to Utility in our appreciation of all 
 human knowledge .... Looking ahvays to real lUility 
 as our guide J 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 necessary that 
 matter should be studied and subdued to the tcse of 
 man, as that taste should be gratified, and imagination 
 inflamed." 
 
 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 who have 
 advocated it, it has a claim on the attention of those 
 whose principles I am here representing. Certainly it is 
 specious to contend that nothing is worth pursuing but 
 what is useful ; and that life is not long enough to ex- 
 pend upon interesting, or curious, or brilliant trifles. 
 7 * II 
 
1 62 Discourse VI L 
 
 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 1 and if a College of Physicians 
 is a useful institution, because it contemplates bodily 
 health, why is not an Academical Body, though it were 
 simply and solely engaged in imparting vigour and 
 beauty and grasp to the intellectual portion of our 
 nature } And the Reviewers I am quoting seem to 
 allow 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 : — 
 
 " The present state of classical education," they say, 
 *' cultivates the miagination 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, and his taste good. 
 Talents for speculation and original inquiry he has none, 
 nor has he formed the invaluable Jiabit of pitsJiing things 
 tip to their first principles^ or of collecting dry and un- 
 amusing facts as the materials for reasoning. All the 
 solid and masculine parts of his understanding are left 
 wholly without cultivation ; he hates the pain of thinking, 
 and suspects every man whose boldness and originality 
 
Knowledge and Professional SkilL 163 
 
 call upon him to defend his opinions and prove his 
 assertions." 
 
 5- 
 
 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, 
 imaginative ; still so far I readily grant, that the culti- 
 vation of the " understanding," of a " 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 usefid 
 education, as they seem to do in the foregoing passage, 
 it follows, that what they mean by " useful " is just what 
 I mean by "good" or '* 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 claims of UtiHty in our 
 plans of Education ; but I am not going to leave the 
 subject here : I mean to take a wider view of it. Let 
 us take " 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 mean, not what is simply 
 
164 Discourse VI L 
 
 good, but what tends to good, or is the instrument 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 professional, education. " Good " 
 indeed means one thing, and " useful " means another ; 
 but I lay it down as a principle, which will 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 own 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 
 fulness 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 will see what I mean by the parallel of bodily 
 health. Health is a good in itself, though nothing came 
 of it, and is especially worth 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 Pjv/essional Skill. 1 65 
 
 back upon it and encircle it, that we never think of it 
 except as useful as well as good, and praise 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 down, 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 complete 
 end. The parallel is exact : — As the body may be 
 sacrificed to some manual or other toil, whether mode- 
 rate or oppressive, so may the intellect be devoted to 
 some specific profession ; and I do not call this the culture 
 of the intellect. Again, as some member or organ of 
 the body may be inordinately used and developed, so 
 may memory, 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 view to its general health, so may 
 the intellect also be generally exercised 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 what 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 
 manner general culture of mind is the best aid to pro- 
 fessional and scientific study, and educated men can do 
 what illiterate cannot ; and the man who has learned to 
 
1 66 Discourse VIL 
 
 think and to reason and to compare 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 which he can take up 
 any one of the sciences or callings I have referred to, or 
 any other for which 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 knowledge 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 will 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 more than a lawyer, physi- 
 cian, geologist, or political economist; whereas in a Uni- 
 versity he will just know where he and his science stand, 
 he has come to it, as it were, from a height, he has taken 
 
Knowledge and Professional Skill. 167 
 
 a survey of all knowledge, he is kept from 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 own in con- 
 sequence with a philosophy and a resource, which 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 from cultivating the intellect, under the notion 
 that no education is useful which does not teach us some 
 temporal 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. 
 There is a duty we owe 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 whom 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," 
 
1 68 Discourse VIL 
 
 says Dr. Copleston, " 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 some instances pursued so far as to 
 excite the wonder 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 employment, the 
 greater skill and quickness will he naturally display in 
 performing it. But, while he thus contributes more 
 effectually to the accumulation of national wealth, he 
 becomes himself more and more degraded as a rational 
 being. In proportion as his sphere of action is narrowed 
 his mental powers and habits become contracted ; and 
 he resembles a subordinate part of some powerful ma- 
 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 ; we 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 it to that single study. But, 
 although the ai't itself is aclfvanced by this concentration of 
 mind in its service, the individual who is confined to it 
 goes back. The advantage of the community is nearly in 
 an inverse ratio with his own. 
 
 " Society itself requires some other contribution from 
 each individual, besides the particular duties of his 
 
Knoivledge and Professional Skill, 1 69 
 
 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 which 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 
 common feelings, unmixed with those narrow prejudices 
 with 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 
 limbs 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 somewhat 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. Without teaching him the 
 peculiar business of any one 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.' "* 
 
 The view of Liberal Education, advocated in these 
 extracts, is expanded by Mr. Davison in the Essay to 
 which I have already referred. He lays more stress on 
 * Vid. Milton on Lducation. 
 
lyo Discourse VI I , 
 
 the " usefulness" of Liberal Education in the larger sense 
 of the word than his predecessor in the controversy. 
 Instead of arguing that the Utility of knowledge 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 what is commonly called a 
 Useful Education, and next, that it is necessary or useful 
 for the purposes even of that Professional Education whicli 
 commonly engrosses the title of Useful. The former of 
 these two theses he recommends to us in an argument 
 from which the following passages are selected : — 
 
 " It is to take a very contracted view of life," he says, 
 " to think with great anxiety how persons may be 
 educated to superior skill in their department, compara- 
 tively neglecting or excluding the more liberal and 
 enlarged cultivation. In his (Mr. Edgeworth's) system, 
 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 which come in to sustain the 
 common relations of society, and raise the individual in 
 them. 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 
 gown or uniform, and the whole man to be shaped, 
 pressed, and stiffened, in the exact mould of his technical 
 character. Any interloping accomplishments, or a faculty 
 which cannot be taken into pubHc 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 would lead us. 
 
Knowledge and Professional Skill, 171 
 
 ''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, 
 which are neither parochial, nor forensic, nor military, 
 nor to be described by any such epithet of civil regulation, 
 and yet are in no. wise 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, 
 revolving, 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 may 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 made 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 when we tell them that this same faculty which we 
 would have encouraged, is simply that of speaking good 
 sense in English, without fee or reward, in common con- 
 versation. They will smile when we lay some stress 
 upon it ; but in reality it is no such 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, 
 
172 Discourse VI L 
 
 they have nothing to say. Turn to improved hfe, and you 
 find conversation in all its forms the medium of some- 
 thing more than an idle pleasure ; indeed, a very active 
 agent in circulating and forming the opinions, tastes, and 
 feelings of a whole people. It makes of itself a con- 
 siderable affair. Its topics are the most promiscuous — 
 all those which do not belong to any particular province. 
 As for its power and influence, we may fairly say that it 
 is of just the same consequence to a man's immediate 
 society, how he talks, as how he acts. Now 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-timed, 
 learned loquacity. We do not desire of him lectures or 
 speeches ; and he has nothing else to give. Among 
 benches he may be powerful ; but seated on a chair he 
 is quite another person. On the other hand, we 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 might fairly be ex- 
 pected of it, it actually subserves the discharge of those 
 particular fiinctions, and the pursuit of those particular 
 advantages, which are connected with professional exer- 
 tion, and to which Professional Education is directed. 
 
Knowledge and Professional Skill, 173 
 
 " We admit," he observes, " that when a person makes 
 a business of one pursuit, he is in the right way to emi- 
 nence in it ; and that divided attention will rarely give 
 excellence in many. But our assent will go no further. 
 For, to think that the way to prepare a person for excel- 
 ling in any one 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 few 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 
 main ingredients of that ability are requisite knowledge 
 and cultivated faculties ; but, of the two, the latter is by 
 far the chief A man of well improved faculties has the 
 command of another's knowledge. A man without them, 
 has not the command 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 problem. It would be ignorant presumption 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 
 simples,' but are the combined essence and extracts of 
 many different things, drawn from much varied reading 
 and discipline, first, and observation afterwards. For if 
 there be a single intelligible point on this head, it is that 
 a man who has been trained to think upon one subject 
 or for one subject only, will never be a good judge even 
 
174 Discourse VIL 
 
 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 
 which it is practised in its first essays are of use to its 
 power } 
 
 " To open our way a little further on this matter, we 
 will define what we mean by the power of judgment ; 
 and then try to ascertain among what kind of studies 
 the improvement of it ma}^ be expected at all. 
 
 "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 
 common reputation ; but for that master-principle of 
 business, literature, and talent, which gives him strength 
 in any subject he chooses to grapple with, and enables 
 him to seize the strong point in it. Whether this definition 
 be metaphysically correct or not, it comes home to the 
 substance of our inquiry. It describes the power 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. 
 
 " 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 may be classed for our purpose. 
 Those which belong to the province of the judgment 
 
ICnow ledge and Professional 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 power of moral reason." 
 
 " If these studies," he continues, " 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. Might we 
 venture to imitate 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 
 comparative utility of the different studies, we should 
 say that history would give fulness, moral philosophy 
 strength, and poetry elevation to the understanding. 
 Such in reality is the natural force and tendency of the 
 studies ; but there are few minds susceptible enough 
 to derive from them any sort of virtue adequate to 
 those high expressions. We must be contented there- 
 
176 Discourse VIL 
 
 fore to lower 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 not to be found fully and truly ex- 
 pressed in any one 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 with one 
 can produce only an intellect either too flashy or too 
 jejune, or infected with some other fault of confined 
 reading. History, for example, shows things as they are, 
 that is, the morals and interests of men disfigured and 
 perverted by all their imperfections of passion, folly, and 
 ambition ; philosophy strips the picture too much; poetry 
 adorns it too much ; the concentrated lights of the three 
 correct the false peculiar colouring of each, and show us 
 the truth. The right mode of thinking upon it is to be 
 had from them taken all together, as every one must 
 know who has seen their united contributions of thought 
 and feeling expresoed in the masculine sentiment of our 
 immortal statesman, Mr. Burke, whose eloquence is 
 inferior only to his more admirable wisdom. If any 
 mind improved like his, is to be our instructor, w^e must 
 go to the fountain head of things as he did, and study 
 not his works but his method ; by the one we may 
 become -feeble imitators, by the other arrive at some 
 ability of our own. But, as all biography assures us, he, 
 and every other able thinker, has been formed, not by 
 a parsimonious admeasurement of studies to some 
 definite future object (which is Mr. Edgeworth's maxim), 
 but by taking a wide and liberal compass, and thinking 
 
Knowledge and Professional Skill, 
 
 I i 
 
 a great deal on many subjects with no better end in 
 view than because the exercise was one which made 
 them more rational and intelligent beings." 
 
 10. 
 
 But I must bring these extracts to an end. To-day I 
 have confined myself to saying that that training of the 
 intellect, which is best for the individual himself, best 
 enables him to discharge his duties to society. The 
 Philosopher, indeed, and the man of the world differ in 
 their very notion, but the methods, by which they are re- 
 spectively formed, are pretty much the same. The Philoso- 
 pher has the same command of matters of thought, which 
 the true citizen and gentleman has of matters of business 
 and conduct. If then a practical end must be assigned to a 
 University course, I say it is that of training good mem- 
 bers of society. Its art is the art of social life, and its end is 
 fitness for the world. It neither confines its views 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 Univer- 
 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 
 Newtons, of Napoleons or Washingtons, of Raphaels or 
 Shakespeares, though such miracles of nature it has before 
 now contained within its precincts. Nor is it content on the 
 other hand with forming the critic or the experimentalist, 
 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 
 pubUc mind, at purifying the national taste, at supplying 
 true principles to popular enthusiasm and fixed aims to 
 7* 12 
 
lyS Discourse VI I. 
 
 popular aspiration, at giving enlargement and sobriety to 
 the ideas of the age, at facilitating the exercise of political 
 power, and refining the intercourse of private life. It is 
 the education which gives a man a clear conscious view 
 of his own opinions and judgments, 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 what is irre- 
 levant. It prepares him to fill any post with credit, and 
 to master any subject with facility. It shows him how 
 to accommodate himself to others, how to throw himself 
 into their state of mind, how to bring before them his 
 own, how to influence them, how to come to an under- 
 standing with them, how to bear with them. He is at 
 home in any society, he has common ground with every 
 class ; he knows when to speak and when 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 
 he has nothing to impart himself ; he is ever ready, yet 
 never in the way ; he is a pleasant companion, and a 
 comrade you can depend upon ; he knows when to be 
 serious and when to trifle, and he has a sure tact which 
 enables him to trifle with gracefulness and to be serious 
 with effect. He has the repose of a mind which lives in 
 itself, while it lives in the world, and which has resources 
 for its happiness at home when it cannot go abroad. He 
 has a gift which serves him in public, and supports him 
 in retirement, without which good fortune is but vulgar, 
 and with which failure and disappointment have a charm. 
 The art which 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 it is less susceptible of method, and 
 less tangible, less certain, less complete in its result. 
 
I7Q 
 
 DISCOURSE VIII. 
 KNOWLEDGE VIEWED IN RELATION TO RELIGION. 
 
 WE shall be brought, Gentlemen, to-day, to the 
 termination of the investigation which I com- 
 menced three Discourses back, and which, I was well 
 aware, from its length, if for no other reason, would make 
 demands upon the patience even of indulgent hearers. 
 
 First I employed myself in estabHshing the principle 
 that Knowledge is its own reward ; and I showed 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 Knowledge, when 
 it is said to be pursued for its own sake ; and I showed 
 that, in order satisfactorily to fulfil this idea. Philosophy 
 must be its form ; or, in other words, that its matter 
 must not be admitted into the mind passively, as so much 
 acquirement, but must be mastered and appropriated as a 
 system consisting of parts, related one to the other, and 
 interpretative of one another in the unity of a whole. 
 
 Further, I showed that such a philosophical contem- 
 plation of the field of Knowledge as a whole, leading, as 
 it did, to an understanding of its separate departments, 
 and an appreciation of them respectively, might in con- 
 sequence be rightly called an illumination ; also, it was 
 rightly called an enlargement of mind, because it was a 
 
i8o Discourse VIII, 
 
 distinct location of things one with another, as if in 
 space ; while it was moreover 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 Knowledge, which deserves to 
 be sought for its own sake, even though it promised no 
 ulterior advantage. But, when I had got as far as this, I 
 went farther, and observed that, from the nature of the 
 case, what was so good in itself could not but have a 
 number of external uses, though it did not promise them, 
 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, which 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 another in defensive alliance. The 
 
Knowledge and Religious Duty, 1 8 1 
 
 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, 
 viewed in itself, and its relations to the various instru- 
 ments of teaching and training which 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 Religion. 
 
 2. 
 
 Right Reason, that is. Reason rightly exercised, leads 
 the mind 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 
 world, 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 for 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, now 
 across, now divergent, now counter, in proportion to its 
 own imperfection and to the attraction and influence 
 which grace exerts over it. And what takes place as 
 regards other principles of our nature and their develop- 
 ments is found also as regards the Reason. There is, we 
 know, a Religion of enthusiasm^ of superstitious ignorance. 
 
1 82 Discourse VIIL 
 
 of statecraft ; and each has that in it which resembles 
 CathoHcism, and that again which contradicts Catho- 
 Hcism. There is the Rehgion of a warHke 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 matter 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 specifically 
 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 determine 
 how they lie relatively to those principles, doctrines, and 
 rules, which Heaven has given us in the Catholic 
 Church. 
 
 And here again, when I speak of Revealed Truth, it 
 is scarcely necessary to say that I am 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 of, 
 whether it be viewed within or outside the Church, does 
 not necessarily take cognizance of the Creed. Where 
 
K7iowledge and Religious Duty. i '^i 
 
 the country is Catholic, the educated mind takes its 
 articles for granted, by a sort of implicit faith; wherd 
 it is not, it simply ignores them and the whole subject- 
 matter to which they relate, as not affecting social and 
 political interests. Truths about God's Nature, about 
 His deahngs 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 
 Catholicism, but I am contemplating Catholicism chiefly 
 as a system of pastoral instruction and moral duty; 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 claims 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 gains Heaven except by the free 
 grace of God, or without a regeneration of nature ; that 
 no one can please Him without faith ; that the heart is 
 the seat both of sin and of obedience ; that charity is 
 the fulfilling of the Law; and that incorporation into 
 the Catholic Church is the ordinary instrument of salva- 
 tion. These are the lessons which distinguish Catholi- 
 cism as a popular religion, and these are the subjects to 
 which the cultivated intellect will practically be turned : — 
 
1 84 Discourse VIIL 
 
 I have to compare and contrast, not the doctrinal, but 
 the moral and social teaching of Philosophy on the one 
 hand, and Catholicism on the other. 
 
 3. 
 Now, 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 man 
 and the renovation of his nature, is his rescue from that 
 fearful subjection to sense which 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 might almost 
 say, half way to Heaven. Here, even divine grace, to 
 speak of things according to their appearances, is ordi- 
 narily baffled, and retires, without expedient or resource, 
 before this giant fascination. Religion seems too high 
 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. It is like holding 
 out the arm at full length, or supporting some great 
 weight, which we manage to do for a time, but soon are 
 exhausted and succumb. Nothing can act beyond its 
 own nature ; when then we are called to what 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. We 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 
 attempt to mount upwards. Religion indeed enlightens^ 
 terrifies, subdues ; it gives faith, it inflicts remorse, it in- 
 spires resolutions, it draws tears, it inflames devotion, but 
 
Knowledge and Religious Duty. 1 85 
 
 only for the occasion. I repeat, it imparts an inward 
 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 he before me, and I say that, in 
 matter 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 wont 
 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 some expedient or instrument, which at least 
 will obstruct and stave off the approach of our spiritual 
 enemy, and which is sufficiently congenial and level 
 with our nature to maintain as firm a hold upon us as 
 the inducements of sensual gratification. It will be our 
 wisdom to employ nature against itself 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, 
 however, 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, which is capable of resting on the mind, and 
 taking up its familiar lodging with it, and engrossing it, 
 and which thus becomes a match for the besetting power 
 ofsensuahty, and a sort of homoeopathic 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 
 
1 86 Discourse VI I L 
 
 of any thing supernatural ; it is not meritorious of 
 heavenly aid or reward ; but it does a work, at least 
 materially good (as theologians speak), whatever be its 
 real and formal character. It expels the excitements of 
 sense by the introduction of those of the intellect. 
 
 This then is th.Q prima facie advantage of the pursuit 
 of Knowledge ; it is the drawing the mind off from 
 things which will 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 say the least, inexpressibly 
 dangerous } is it a little thing to exchange a circle of 
 ideas which are certainly sinful, for others which are 
 certainly not so .? You will say, perhaps, in the words 
 of the Apostle, " Knowledge pufifeth 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 more than the substitution of pride for 
 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 intellectual employ- 
 ments, though they do no more than occupy the mind 
 with objects naturally noble or innocent, have a special 
 claim upon our consideration and gratitude. 
 
Knowledge and Religious Duty, 187 
 
 4. 
 
 Nor is this all : Knowledge, 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 enormi- 
 ties of evil, which are often or ordinarily reached at 
 length by those who are not careful from the first to 
 set themselves against what is vicious and criminal. It 
 generates within the mind a fastidiousness, analogous to 
 the delicacy or daintiness Avhich good nurture or a sickly 
 habit induces in respect of food ; and this fastidiousness, 
 though arguing no high principle, though no protection 
 in the case of violent temptation, nor sure in its operation, 
 yet will often or generally be lively enough to create 
 an absolute loathing of certain offences, or a detestation 
 and scorn of them as ungentlemanlike, to which ruder 
 natures, nay, such as have far more of real religion 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 Irom the restraint of public opinion. In many 
 cases, where 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 them, 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 will create an irresolution and indecision in doing- 
 
1 88 Discourse VIIL 
 
 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 so keen a remorse and so intense 
 a self-hatred, as are even sufficient to cure the particular 
 moral disorder, and to prevent its accesses ever after- 
 wards ; — as the spendthrift in the story, who, after gazing 
 on his lost acres from the summit of an eminence, came 
 down a miser, and remained a miser to the end of his 
 days. 
 
 And all this holds good in a special way, in an age 
 such as ours, when, although pain of body and mind 
 may be rife as heretofore, yet other counteractions of evil, 
 of a penal character, which are present at other times, 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 feehngs of discomfort 
 to the mind, as far as they convey feelings at all. Expo- 
 sure to the elements, social disorder and lawlessness, the 
 tyranny of the powerful, and the inroads of enemies, are 
 a stern discipline, allowing 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 pharmacy, which 
 now are the trials of only particular classes of the 
 community, were once the lot more or less of all. In the 
 deep woods or the wild solitudes of the medieval era, 
 feelings of religion or superstition were naturally pre- 
 sent to the population, which in various ways co-operated 
 with the missionary or pastor, in retaining it in a noble 
 simplicity of manners. But, when in the advancement 
 
Knowledge and Religious Duty. 189 
 
 of society men congregate in towns, and multiply in con- 
 tracted spaces, and law gives them security, and art 
 gives them comforts, and good government robs them of 
 courage and manliness, and monotony of life throws 
 them back upon themselves, who does not see that 
 diversion or protection from evil they have none, that 
 vice is the mere reaction of unhealthy toil, and sensual 
 excess the holyday of resourceless ignorance ? This is 
 so well understood by the practical benevolence of the 
 day, that it has especially busied itself in plans for sup- 
 plying the masses of our town 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 mind 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 enemies, 
 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, which 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 a 
 series of influences, which intellectual culture exerts 
 upon our moral nature, and all upon the type of Chris- 
 tianity, manifesting themselves in veracity, probity, 
 equity, fairness, gentleness, benevolence, and amiable- 
 ness f so much so, that a character more noble to look 
 at, more beautiful, more winning, in the various relations 
 of life and in personal duties, is hardly conceivable, than 
 may, or might be, its result, when that culture is bestowed 
 
190 Discourse VI I L 
 
 upon a soil naturally adapted to virtue. If you would 
 obtain a picture for contemplation which may seem to 
 fulfil the ideal, which the Apostle has delineated under 
 the name of charity, in its sweetness and harmony, its 
 generosity, its courtesy to others, and its depreciation of 
 self, you could not have recourse to a better furnished 
 studio than to that of Philosophy, with the specimens of 
 it, which with greater or less exactness are scattered 
 through society in a civilized age. 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 moral 
 material is rich, and the intellectual cast is perfect. 
 Individuals will occur to all of us, who deservedly attract 
 our love and admiration, and whom the world almost 
 worships as the work of its own 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 may 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 refinem_ent from 
 genuine religion, in spite of its seeming relationship, is 
 the very cardinal point on which my 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 who 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, 191 
 
 5. 
 
 You will bear in mind then, Gentlemen, that I spoke 
 just n(3w 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 implanted in the 
 breast by nature, but it inflicts upon us fear as well as 
 shame ; when the mind is simply angry with itself and 
 nothing more, surely the true import of the voice of 
 nature and the depth of its intimations have been 
 forgotten, and a false philosophy has misinterpreted 
 emotions which ought to lead to God. Fear implies 
 the transgression of a law, and a law implies a lawgiver 
 and judge ; but the tendency of intellectual culture is to 
 swallow up the fear in the self-reproach, and self-reproach 
 is directed and limited to our mere sense of what is fit- 
 ting and becoming. Fear carries us out of ourselves, 
 shame confines us within 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 own gifts), but still 
 the ordinary sin of the Intellect; conscience becomes 
 what 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 ; " 
 
102 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 lawgiver, 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 Maker, but are engrossed in notions of what is 
 due to themselves, to their own dignity and their own 
 consistency. Their conscience has become 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* 
 lions of their conduct into a v/hole, their one object, 
 however unconscious to themselves, is to paint a smooth 
 and perfect surface, and to be able to say to themselves 
 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 humble. They shut themselves up in themselves ; 
 it is misery to them to think or to speak of their own 
 feelings; it 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 them 
 it is impossible; unless indeed, in cases where they have 
 been guilty, an apology is due to their own character, is 
 expected of them, and will be satisfactory to look back 
 upon. They are victims of an intense self-contemplation. 
 ' There are, however, far more pleasing and interesting 
 forms of this moral malady than that which I have been 
 
Knowledge and Religious Duty, 193 
 
 depicting : I have spoken of the effect of intellectual 
 culture on proud natures ; but it will show to greater 
 advantage, yet with as little approximation to religious 
 faith, in amiable and unaffected minds. 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 imaginative 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 them 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 own minds their sanctuary, their 
 own ideas their oracle, and conscience in morals was but 
 parallel to genius in art, and wisdom in philosophy. 
 7* 13 
 
194 Discourse 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 Julian, the apostate from Christian Truth, 
 the foe of Christian education. He, in whom every 
 Catholic sees the shadow of the future Anti-Christ, was 
 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 Regulus with the accomplishments 
 of Pliny or Antoninus. His simplicity of manners, his 
 frugality, his austerity of life, his singular disdain of 
 sensual pleasure, his military heroism, his application to 
 business, his literary diligence, his modesty, his clemency, 
 his accomplishments, as I view them, go to make him 
 one of the most eminent specimens of pagan virtue 
 which the world has ever seen."^ Yet how shallow, how 
 meagre, nay, how unamiable is that virtue after all, when 
 brought upon its critical trial by his sudden summons 
 into the presence of his Judge ! His last hours form a 
 tmiqiie 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 inconsistent with the 
 following passage from Cardinal Gerdil, though I have enlarged on the favour- 
 able side of Julian's cliaracter, " Du genie, des connaissances, de I'habilite 
 dans le metier de la guerre, du courage et du desinteressenient dans le com- 
 mandement des armees, des actions plutot que des qualites estimables, 
 mais le plus souvent gatees par la vanite qui en etait le principe, la super- 
 stition jointe a I'hypocrisie ; un esprit fecond en ressources eclaire, mais sus- 
 ceptible de petitesse ; des fautes essentielles dans le gouvernement ; des in- 
 nocens sacrifies a la vengeance ; une haine envenimee contre le Christianisme, 
 qu'il avait abandonne ; un attachement passionne aux folies de la Theurgie; 
 tels etaient les trails sous Icsiiuels on nous preignait Julien." Op. t. x. p. 54- 
 
Knowledge and Religious Duty, 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 from 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 
 afBrm with confidence that the supreme authority, that 
 emanation of the divine Power, has been preserved in 
 my hands pure and immaculate ... I now 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 of 
 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 who in a few moments 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 Maximus 
 on the nature of the soul. The efforts which he made, 
 of mind as well as body, most probably hastened his 
 death. His wound 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, Gentlemen, is the final 
 exhibition of the Religion of Reason : in the insensibility 
 * Gibbon, Hist., ch. 24. 
 
 From the 
 Library of 
 
196 Discourse VIII. 
 
 of conscience, in the ignorance of the very idea of sin, in 
 the contemplation of his own moral consistency, in the 
 simple 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 what, conformably with 
 the sentiments of a godless intellectualism, was an his- 
 torical fulfilment 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 
 make some extracts from this work. 
 
 One of his first attacks is directed against the doctrine 
 of reward 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 mer- 
 cenary a thing, and have talked so much of its rewards, 
 that one can hardly tell what there is in it, after all, which 
 can be worth rewarding. For to be bribed only or 
 terrified into an honest practice, bespeaks little of real 
 honesty or worth." " If," he says elsewhere, insinuating 
 what he dare not speak out, " if through hope merely of 
 reward, or fear of punishment, the creature be inclined 
 to do the good he hates, or restrained from doing the ill 
 to which he is not otherwise in the least degree averse 
 
Knowledge aitd Religiotis Duty, 197 
 
 there is in this case no virtue or goodness whatever. 
 There is no more 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 whip 
 . . . . 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 which is done 
 through it merely 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, while a bad conscience is not 
 much 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 ornament and grace, a judgment in 
 proportions of all kinds, and a general good taste in 
 most of those subjects which make the amusement and 
 delight of the ingenious people of the world. Let such 
 gentlemen as these be as extravagant as they please, or 
 as irregular in their morals, they must at the same time 
 discover their inconsistency, live at variance with them- 
 selves, and in contradiction to that principle on which 
 they ground their highest pleasure and entertainment. 
 Of all other beauties which virtuosos pursue, poets 
 celebrate, musicians sing, and architects or artists of 
 whatever kind describe or form, the most delightful, 
 the most engaging and pathetic, is that which is drawn 
 from real life and from the passions. Nothing affects 
 
198 Discourse VI I L 
 
 the heart like that which is purely from itself, and 
 of its own nature : such as the beauty of sentiments, 
 the grace of actions, the turn of characters, and the 
 pj'oportions and features of a human mind. This lesson 
 of philosophy, even a romance, a poem, or a play may 
 teach us ... . Let poets or the men of harmony deny, 
 if they can, this force of nature, or withstand this moral 
 magic .... Every one is a virtuoso of a higher or 
 lower degree ; every one pursues a grace ... of one 
 kind or other. The veniLstum, the honestum, the decorimt 
 of things will 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 determines what is virtuous is, not con- 
 science, but taste. " Could we once convince ourselves," 
 he says, " of what 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 well in respect 
 of inward character of features as of outward person, be- 
 haviour, and action, we should be far more ashamed of 
 ignorance and wrong judgment in the former 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 
 models of perfection .... He takes particular care to 
 turn his eye from every thing which is gaudy, luscious, 
 and of false taste. Nor is he less careful to turn his ear 
 from every sort of music, besides that which is of the 
 best manner and truest harmony. 'Twere to be wished 
 we had the same regard to a rigJU taste in life and 
 manners .... If civility and humanity be a taste ; if 
 brutality, insolence, riot, be in the same manner a taste, 
 .... who would not endeavour to force nature as well 
 
Knowledge mid 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 with prin- 
 ciple and conscience, and gives it the preference over 
 them. " After all," he says, " * tis not merely what we 
 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 symmetries 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: ''Even 
 conscience, I fear, such as is owing to religious discipline, 
 will make but a slight figure, when 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 inspired by beauty is admiration, it follows that 
 vice is not a thing to weep about, but to laugh at. 
 '' Nothing is ridiculous," he says, *' but what is deformed ; 
 nor is any thing proof against raillery but what is hand- 
 some and just. And therefore 'tis the hardest thing in 
 the world to deny fair honesty the use of this weapon, 
 which can never bear an edge against herself, and bears 
 against every thing contrary." 
 
 And hence again, conscience, which intimates a Law- 
 giver, being superseded by a moral taste or sentiment, 
 
200 Discourse VIII, 
 
 which has no sanction beyond the constitution of our 
 nature, it follows that our great rule is to contemplate 
 ourselves, if we would gain a standard of life and morals. 
 Thus he has entitled one of his Treatises a " Soliloquy," 
 with the motto, *' Nee te qu^siveris extra ; " and he 
 observes, " The chief interest of ambition, avarice, 
 corruption, and every sly insinuating vice, is to prevent 
 this interview and familiarity of discourse, which is 
 consequent upon close retirement and inward recess. 
 'Tis the grand artifice of villainy and lewdness, as well 
 as of superstition and bigotry, to put us upon terms of 
 greater distance and formality with ourselves, and evade 
 our proving method of soliloquy .... A passionate 
 lover, whatever solitude he may affect, can never be truly 
 by himself .... 'Tis the same reason which keeps the 
 imaginary saint or mystic from being capable of this 
 entertainment. Instead of looking narrowly into his own 
 nature and mind, that he may be no longer a mystery to 
 himself, he is taken up with the contemplation of other 
 mysterious natures, which he never can explain or 
 comprehend." 
 
 8. 
 
 Taking these passages as specimens of what I call the 
 Religion of Philosophy, it is obvious to observe that 
 there is no doctrine contained in them which is not in a 
 certain sense true ; yet, on the other hand, that almost 
 every statement 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 deformity, but it is worse. Lord Shaftesbury 
 may insist, if he will, that simple and solitary fear cannot 
 effect a moral conversion, and we are not concerned to 
 
Knowledge and Religious Duty. 201 
 
 answer him ; but he will have a difficulty in proving that 
 any real conversion follows from a doctrine which makes 
 virtue a mere point of good taste, and vice vulgar and 
 ungentlemanlike. 
 
 Such a doctrine is essentially superficial, and such will 
 be its effects. It 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 make light of what is deepest 
 within 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 what 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 
 evil by losing all its grossnessr In the 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 disorder, 
 make up the idea of profligacy : poets may say any 
 thing, however wicked, with impunity ; works of genius 
 may be read without danger or shame, whatever their 
 
202 Discourse VIIL 
 
 principles ; fashion, celebrity, the beautiful, the heroic, 
 will suffice to force any evil upon the community. The 
 splendours of a court, and the charms of good society, 
 wit, imagination, taste, and high breeding, the prestige 
 of rank, and the resources of wealth, are a screen, an 
 instrument, 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 
 shadow indeed of the Church, and in its due development, 
 Philosophy does service to the cause of morality ; but, 
 when it is strong enough to have a will of its own, and is 
 lifted up with an idea of its own importance, and attempts 
 to form a theory, and to lay down a principle, and to 
 carry out a system of ethics, and undertakes the moral 
 education of the man, then it does but abet evils to 
 which at first it seemed instinctively opposed. True 
 Religion is slow in growth, and, when once planted, is 
 difficult of dislodgement ; 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, 
 when it has lost the real power. Deformity is its abhor- 
 rence ; accordingly, since it cannot dissuade men from 
 vice, therefore in order to escape the sight of its deformity, 
 it embellishes it. It " skins and films the ulcerous 
 place," which it cannot probe or heal, 
 
 " Whiles rank corruption, mining all within, 
 Infects unseen." 
 
 And from this shallowness of philosophical Religion 
 it comes to pass that its disciples seem able to fulfil certain 
 precepts of Christianity more readily and exactly than 
 
Knowledge and Religious Duty, 203 
 
 Christians themselves. St. Paul, as I have said, gives us 
 a pattern of evangelical perfection ; he draws 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, amiable, virtuous, and ol 
 good repute. Such is St. Paul's exemplar of the Chris- 
 tian in his external relations ; and, I repeat, the school of 
 the world seems to send out living copies of this typical 
 excellence with greater success than the Church. At 
 this day the " gentleman " is the creation, not of Chris- 
 tianity, but of civilization. But the reason is obvious. 
 The world is content with setting right the surface of 
 things ; the Church aims at regenerating the very depths 
 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 honesty, 
 and the elements of charity; and has so much to do with 
 precept, that she almost leaves it to inspirations from 
 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 ma}' 
 
204 Discourse VI I L 
 
 then be in a condition, if they shall be called upon, to 
 aspire to the heroic, and to attain the full proportions, as 
 well as the rudiments, of the beautiful. 
 
 9- 
 
 Such is the method, or the policy (so to call it), of the 
 Church ; but Philosophy looks at the matter from a very 
 different point of view : what have Philosophers to do 
 with the terror of judgment 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 what he will ; he discards the 
 theological, the mysterious, the spiritual ; he makes 
 selection of the morally or esthetically beautiful. To 
 him it matters not at all that he begins his teaching 
 where he should end it ; it matters not that, instead of 
 planting the tree, he merely crops its flowers for his ban- 
 quet ; he only aims at the present life, his philosophy 
 dies with him ; if his flowers do but last to the end of 
 his revel, he has nothing more to seek. When night 
 comes, the withered leaves may be mingled with 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 accomplishment, to 
 write Latin or to play on an instrument, — the profession 
 of an artist, not the commission of an Apostle. 
 
 This embellishment of the exterior is almost the be- 
 ginning and the end of philosophical morality. This is 
 why it aims at being modest rather than humble ; this 
 is how it can be proud at the very time that it is unas- 
 suming. To humility indeed it does not even aspire; 
 
Knowledge a?id Religious Duty. 205 
 
 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 ; however, we are little concerned 
 with them here, for, I repeat, it is hardly professed even 
 by name in the code of ethics which we are reviewing. 
 As has been often observed, ancient civilization had 
 not the idea, and had no word to express it : or rather, 
 it had the idea, and considered it a defect of mind, not 
 a virtue, so that the word which denoted it conveyed a 
 reproach. As to the modern world, you may gather its 
 ignorance of it by its perversion of the somewhat 
 parallel term " condescension." Humility or condescen- 
 sion, viewed as a virtue of conduct, may be said to con- 
 sist, as in other things, so in our placing ourselves in our 
 thoughts on a level with our inferiors ; it is not only a 
 voluntary relinquishment of the privileges of our own 
 station, but an actual participation or assumption of the 
 condition of those to whom we stoop. This is true 
 humility, to feel and to behave as if we were low ; not, to 
 cherish a notion of our importance, while we affect a low 
 position. Such was St. Paul's humility, when he called 
 himself " the least of the saints ;" such the humility of 
 those many holy men who have considered themselves 
 the greatest of sinners. It is an abdication, as far as their 
 own thoughts are concerned, of those prerogatives or 
 privileges to which others deem them entitled. Now it is 
 not a little instructive to contrast with this idea, Gentle- 
 men, — with 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 world's humility and the humility of the 
 Gospel. As the world uses the word, "condescension" 
 is a stooping indeed of the person, but a bending for- 
 
200 Discourse VI I L 
 
 ward, unattended with any the slightest effort to leave by 
 a single inch the seat in which it is so firmly established. 
 It 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 
 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 is, such it has ever 
 been ; we know the contempt which the educated pagans 
 had for the martyrs and confessors of the Church ; and 
 it is shared by the anti-Catholic bodies of this day. 
 
 Such are the ethics of Philosophy, when 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 some 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 
 modesty.-^ what virtue, at first sight, simulates humility 
 so well ? though what in fact is more radically distinct 
 from it ? In truth, great as is its charm, modesty is not 
 the deepest or the most religious of virtues. Rather it is 
 the advanced guard or sentinel of the soul militant, and 
 watches 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 deportment, as other virtues have relation 
 to matters theological, others to society, and others to 
 the mind itself. And being more superficial than other 
 virtues, it is. more easily disjoined from their company ; it 
 
KnowlecCge and ReCigious 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 humiHty, that it is even 
 compatible with pride. The better for the purpose of 
 Philosophy ; humble it cannot be, so forthwith modesty 
 becomes its humility. 
 
 Pride, under such training, instead of running to waste 
 in the education of the mind, is turned to account ; it 
 gets a new name ; it is called self-respect ; and ceases to 
 be the disagreeable, uncompanionable quality which it is 
 in itself Though 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 lonsrer 
 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. It is directed 
 into the channel of industry, frugality, honesty, and obe- 
 dience ; and it becomes the very staple of the religion 
 and morality held in honour in a day like our own. It 
 becomes the safeguard of chastity, the guarantee of vera- 
 city, in high and low; it is the very household god of 
 society, as at present constituted, inspiring neatness and 
 decency in the servant girl, propriety of carriage and re- 
 fined manners in her mistress, uprightness, manliness, and 
 generosity in the head of the family. It diffuses a light 
 over town and country ; it covers the soil with handsome 
 edifices and smiling gardens ; it tills the field, it stocks 
 and embellishes the shop. It is the stimulating principle 
 of providence on the one hand, and of free expenditure on 
 the other; of an honourable ambition, and of elegant en- 
 joyment. Tt breathes upon the face of the community, and 
 the hollow sepulchre is forthwith beautiful to look upon. 
 
2o8 Discourse VIII, 
 
 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 from 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 if a tribute must be paid to the wealthy 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. 
 It teaches men to suppress their feelings, and to control 
 their tempers, and to mitigate both the severity and the 
 tone of their judgments. As Lord Shaftesbury would 
 desire, it prefers playful wit and satire in putting down 
 what is objectionable, as a more refined and good- 
 natured, as well as a more effectual method, than the 
 expedient which is natural to uneducated minds. It is 
 from this impatience of the tragic and the bombastic 
 that it is now quietly but energetically opposing itself to 
 the unchristian practice of duelling, which it brands as 
 simply out of taste, and as the remnant of a barbarous 
 age ; and certainly it seems likely to effect what Religion 
 has aimed at abolishing in vain. 
 
 lO. 
 
 Hence it is that it is almost a definition of a gentle- 
 man to say he is one who never inflicts pain. This 
 description is both refined and, as far as it goes, ac- 
 curate. He is mainly occupied in merely removing the 
 
Knoi'oledge and Religions Duty. 20:) 
 
 obstacles which hinder the free and unembarrassed 
 action of those about him ; and he concurs with their 
 movements rather than takes the initiative himself His 
 benefits may be considered as parallel to what are called 
 comforts or conveniences in arrangements 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 their ease and at home/ He has his eyes on all 
 his company; he is tender towards the bashful, gentle 
 towards the distant, and merciful towards the absurd ; 
 he can recollect to whom he is speaking ; he guards 
 against unseasonable allusions, or topics which may 
 irritate ; he is seldom prominent in conversation, and 
 never wearisome.// 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 com- 
 pelled, 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 remember injuries, and too indolent to 
 '7* 14 
 
210 Discourse VI IL 
 
 bear malice. He is patient, forbearing, and resigned, on 
 philosophical principles ; he submits to pain, because 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 from the blundering discourtesy of better, perhaps, 
 but less educated minds ; who, like blunt weapons, 
 tear and hack instead of cutting clean, who mistake the 
 point in argument, waste their strength on trifles, mis- 
 conceive their adversary, and leave the question more 
 involved than they find it. He may be right or wrong 
 in his opinion, but he is too clear-headed to be unjust ; 
 he is as simple 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 minds 
 of his opponents, he accounts for their mistakes. He 
 knows the weakness of human 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 which he does not assent ; 
 he honours the ministers of religion, and it contents 
 him to decline its mysteries without assailing or de- 
 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 impartial eye, 
 but also from the gentleness and effeminacy of feeling, 
 which is the attendant on civilization. 
 
 Not that he may not hold a religion too, in his own 
 way, even when he is not a Christian. In that case his 
 religion is one of imagination and sentiment ; it is the 
 embodiment of those ideas of the sublime, majestic. 
 
Knowledge and Religious Duty. 2 ii 
 
 und beautiful, without which 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 what 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 than as a 
 number of deductions. 
 
 Such are some of the lineaments of the ethical charac- 
 ter, which the cultivated intellect will form, apart from 
 religious principle. They are seen within the pale of the 
 Church and without it, in holy men, and in profligate ; 
 they form the beau-ideal of the world ; they partly assist 
 and partly distort the development of the Catholic. 
 They may subserve the education of a St. Francis de 
 Sales or a Cardinal Pole ; they may be the limits of the 
 contemplation of a Shaftesbury or a Gibbon. Basil and 
 J ulian were fellow-students at the schools of Athens ; 
 and one became the Saint and Doctor of the Church, the 
 other her scoffing and relentless foe. 
 
212 
 
 DISCOURSE 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 which 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 follow out a line 
 of thought more familiar to Protestants just now than 
 to Catholics, upon Catholic grounds. I declared my 
 intention, when 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 more severe than 
 his, who in a difficult 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 of the Church Towards Knowledge. 2 1 3 
 
 on myself. Happy they who are engaged in provinces 
 of thought, so famiHarly traversed and so thoroughly 
 explored, that they see every where 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, of 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 obj ects, 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 we 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 our 
 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 want neither of authori- 
 tative principles nor distinct precedents, but of treatises 
 in extenso on the subject on which I have written, — the 
 fmished 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 what I have been attempting has 
 been of a preliminary nature, not contemplating the 
 duties of the Church towards a University, nor the 
 
2 1 4 Discourse IX, 
 
 characteristics of a University Avhich 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 subject-matter 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 
 knowledge to the intellect in this philosophical way is 
 its true culture ; that such culture is a good in itself ; that 
 the knowledge 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 own 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 conchide 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 Univer- 
 sity cannot exist externally to the Catholic pale, for it 
 cannot teach Universal Knowledge if it does not teach 
 CathoHc theology. This is certain ; but still, though it 
 
Duties of the Chicrch Towards Knowledge. 215 
 
 had ever so many theological Chairs, that would not 
 suffice to make it a Catholic University ; for theology 
 would 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 matters 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. 
 
 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 
 weight 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 "VVe 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 Catholicism, keenly zealous for 
 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 which has pre- 
 vailed in these islands ; nay, it was an instrument of the 
 
2 1 6 Discourse IX. 
 
 State, according to the confession of the acutest Protes- 
 tant historians, in its warfare against the Holy See. Con- 
 sidered " materially I' it was nothing but Catholic ; but 
 its spirit and form were earthly and secular, in spite of 
 whatever faith and zeal and sanctity and charity were to 
 be found in the individuals who from time to time had 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 came into collision with the supreme 
 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- 
 
 Nor is this all : such Institutions may become hostile 
 to Revealed Truth, in consequence of the circumstances 
 of their teaching as well as of their end. They are em- 
 ployed in the pursuit of Liberal Knowledge, and Liberal 
 Knowledge has a special tendency, not necessary or 
 rightful, but a tendency in fact, when cultivated by 
 beings such as we are, to impress us with a mere philo- 
 
DuMes of the Church Towards Knowledge, 217 
 
 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 ; and 
 while Useful Knowledge is the possession of truth as 
 powerful, Liberal Knowledge is the apprehension 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 
 will 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 which 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 immediately con- 
 veyed. A sense of propriety, order, consistency, and 
 
2 1 8 Discourse IX. 
 
 completeness gives birth to a rebellious stirring against 
 miracle 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 dogmatism ; — a perception of the Beautiful 
 becomes the substitute for faith. In a country which 
 does not profess the faith, it at once runs, if allowed, into 
 scepticism or infidelity ; but even within 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 down 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 protege of science; 
 it must play the literary academician, or the empirical 
 philanthropist, or the 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 
 
Duties of the Church Toivards Knowledge, 219 
 
 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 ; 
 — which 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. 
 
 There are three great subjects on which Human Reason 
 employs itself: — God, Nature, and Man: and theology 
 being 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, while 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 
 hostility between Religion and physical philosophers. 
 The name of Galileo reminds us of it at once. Not con- 
 
2 20 Discourse IX, 
 
 tent with 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 minister, 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 of 
 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 suspicion 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 Gerr^my. 1 suppose, 
 in matter of fact, magical superstition and physical 
 knowledge did commonly go together in those ages : 
 however, the hostility between experin:iental 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, 
 among the Greeks, the atheistic was the philosophy most 
 favourable to physical discoveries, and he does not hesi- 
 tate to imply that the rise of the religious schools was the 
 ruin of science.* 
 
 Now, 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 own explanation of 
 it. It is common in judicial inquiries to caution the 
 parties on whom the verdict depends to put out of their 
 minds whatever they have heard out of court on the sub- 
 ject to which their attention is to be directed. They are to 
 judge by the evidence ; and this is a rule which 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 experiments 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 First 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 Essay, and the Author's 
 Oxford University Sermons, IX, 
 
222 Discourse IX, 
 
 former 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 moment 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 intelligible 
 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 remoras to the ship, that 
 hinder the sciences from holding on their course of 
 improvement, 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 laws 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. 
 
 4. 
 Another reason of a kindred nature is to be found 
 in the difference of method by which truths are gained 
 
 * In Augment., 5. 
 
Duties of the Church 1 awards Knowledge, 223 
 
 in theology and in physical science. Induction is the 
 instrument of Physics, and deduction only is the instru- 
 ment of Theology. There the simple question is, What 
 is revealed } all doctrinal knowledge flows from one 
 fountain head. If we are able to enlarge our view and 
 multiply our propositions, it must be merely by the 
 comparison and adjustment of the original truths ; if we 
 would solve new questions, it must be by consulting old 
 answers. The notion of doctrinal knowledge absolutely 
 novel, and of simple addition from without, is intole- 
 rable to Catholic ears, and never was entertained by 
 any one who was even approaching to an understand- 
 ing of our creed. Revelation is all in all in doctrine ; 
 the Apostles 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 meaning. Now 
 this process, as far as it was reasoning, was the very 
 mode of reasoning which, as regards physical know- 
 ledge, the school of Bacon has superseded by the in- 
 ductive method : — no wonder, then, that that school 
 should be irritated and indignant to find that a subject- 
 matter remains still, in which their favourite instrument 
 has no office ; no wonder that they rise up against this 
 memorial of an antiquated system, as an eyesore and an 
 insult ; and no wonder that the very force and dazzling 
 success of their own method in its own departments 
 should sway or bias unduly the religious sentiments of 
 any persons who come under its influence. They assert 
 that no new 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 Truth is purely of revelation ; that revelation we can 
 but explain, we cannot increase, except relatively to our 
 
2 24 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. Niebuhr may revolutionize history, Lavoisier 
 chemistry, Newton astronomy; but God Himself is the 
 author as well as the subject of theology. When Truth 
 can change, its Revelation can change; when human 
 reason can outreason the Omniscient, 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 ; 
 and Ethics they admit only on condition that it gives 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. Catholicism, forsooth, " confines the 
 intellect," because it holds that God's intellect is greater 
 than theirs, and that what He has done, man cannot 
 improve. And what in some sort justifies them to them- 
 selves in this extravagance is the circumstance that 
 there is a religion close at their doors which, discarding 
 so severe a tone, has actually adopted their own 
 principle of inquiry. Protestantism treats Scripture just 
 as they deal with Nature ; it takes the sacred text as a 
 large collection of phenomena, from which, by an in- 
 ductive process, each individual Christian may arrive at 
 just those religious conclusions which approve them- 
 
Duties of the Church Towar as K710W ledge. 12^ 
 
 selves to his own judgment It considers faith a mere 
 modification of reason, as being an acquiescence \\\ 
 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 
 must 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 moral evil into the world : whereas the 
 Catholic Church is the instrument 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 
 material and animal creation gives no scope ; power, 
 wisdom, 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. 
 " Sacred Theology," says Lord Bacon, " must be drawn 
 from the words and the oracles of God : not from the 
 light of nature or the dictates of reason. It is written, 
 that 'the Heavens declare the glory of God ;' but we no- 
 where find it that the Heavens declare the will of God ; 
 which is pronounced a law and a testimony, that men 
 7* IS 
 
2 26 Discourse IX, 
 
 should do according to it. Nor 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 subhme to be attained by 
 the light of nature; though it is still certain that men, 
 even with the light and law of nature, have some notions 
 of virtue, vice, justice, wrong, good, and evil." * 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 profound work of the Anglican Bishop Butler ; 
 but they cannot in any sense be gathered from nature, 
 and the silence of nature concerning them may easily 
 seduce the imagination, though it has no force to per- 
 suade the reason, to revolt from doctrines which have 
 not been authenticated by facts, but are enforced by 
 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 
 which physical science gives to the indulgence of those 
 sentiments of beauty, order, and congruity, of which I 
 have said so much as the ensigns and colours (as they 
 may be called) of a civilized age in its warfare against 
 CathoHcism. 
 
 It being considered, then, that CathoHcism differs from 
 physical science, in drift, in method of proof, and in sub- 
 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 ultimately the loser by such ill treatment of Theo- 
 * De Augm., § 28. 
 
Duties 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 bond fide recognition, sincerely made 
 and consistently acted on. 
 
 6. 
 
 II. And 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 stands to 
 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 him 
 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 from 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 natural man. 
 
2 28 Discourse IX. 
 
 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. Circumstances, 
 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 
 vv'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 what it was, in pro- 
 portion as there has been an abuse of knowledge granted 
 and a rejection of truth. On the whole, then, I think it 
 will be found, and ever found, as a matter of course, that 
 Literature, as such, no matter of what nation, is the 
 science or history, partly and at best of the natural man, 
 partly of man in rebellion. 
 
Duties of the Church Toivards Knowledge, 2 2g 
 
 7 
 
 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 
 imputation 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 Jewish." You cannot have it : — I do not 
 say you cannot form a select literature for the young, nay, 
 even for the middle 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, from 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 attempt a sinless Litera- 
 ture of sinful man. You may gather together something 
 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 ; but say you do so. Do not say you are studying 
 him, 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 them all to the life, 
 
 Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas, 
 Gaudia, discursus. 
 
 He pours out his fervid soul in poetry ; he sways to and 
 fro, he soars, he dives, in his restless speculations ; his 
 lips drop eloquence ; he touches the canvas, and it 
 glows with beauty; he sweeps the strings, and they 
 thrill with an ecstatic meaning. 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, whatever 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 whom 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, Jabel 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 habitat of natural gifts is the natural man. 
 The Church may use them, she cannot at her will origi- 
 
Duties of the Church Towards Knowledge, 231 
 
 nate them. Not till the whole human race is made new 
 will its literature be p-are 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, if you would in fact 
 have a literature of saints, first of all have a nation of 
 them. 
 
 What 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 few ; it is no picture of Hfe, but an anticipation of 
 death and judgment. Human literature is about ail 
 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 mind ; 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. 
 
232 Discourse IX, 
 
 feast when Isaac was weaned, and of Jacob's courtship, 
 and of the rehgious merry-makings of holy Job ; but 
 exceptions, such as these, do but remind us what might 
 be in Scripture, and is not. If then by Literature is 
 meant the manifestation of human nature in human lan- 
 guage, you will seek for it in vain except in the world. 
 Put up with it, as it is, or do not pretend to cultivate it ; 
 take things as they are, not as you could wish them. 
 
 8. 
 
 Nay, I am obliged to go further still ; even if we could, 
 still we should be shrinking from our plain duty, Gentle- 
 men, did we leave out Literature from Education. For 
 why do we educate, except to prepare for the world .^ 
 Why do we cultivate the intellect of the many beyond 
 the first elements of knowledge, except for this world ? 
 Will it be much matter in the world to come whether 
 our bodily health or whether our intellectual strength 
 was more or less, except of course as this world is in 
 all its circumstances a trial for the next } If then a 
 University is a direct preparation for this world, let it 
 be what it professes. It is not a Convent, it is not a 
 Seminary ; it is a place to fit men of the world for the 
 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 
 them against what 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 manifestations of the natural man ; and 
 those manifestations are waiting for your pupil's benefit 
 at the very doors of your lecture room in living and 
 
Duties of tJie Church Toivards Knowledge. 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 from the vile," beauty from sin, the truth from 
 the sophistry of nature, what is innocent from what is 
 poison. You have refused him the masters of human 
 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- 
 men, 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 
 magazines, 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 atmosphere of death. You have succeeded 
 but in this, — in making the world his University. 
 
 Difficult then as the question may be, and much as it 
 may try the judgments and even divide the opinions of 
 zealous and religious Cathohcs, I cannot feel any doubt 
 myself. Gentlemen, that the Church's true policy is not 
 to aim at the exclusion of Literature from Secular 
 Schools, but at her own admission into them. Let her do 
 
234 Discourse 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 stimu- 
 lus of curiosity ; it makes its way by means of gaiety, 
 satire, romance, the beautiful, the pleasurable. Is it 
 wonderful that with an agent Hke 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 were the only instruments of its conclusions 1 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 winter was 
 
Duties of the Church Towards Knowledge, i^^^ 
 
 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 within 
 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 argument, 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 aureol of a saint ; not to be a St. 
 Ignatius, wrestling with 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, cr hunter of souls, for 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 sanctify what God had made very good and man had 
 spoilt. 
 
 And s(? he contemplated as the idea of his mission, 
 not the propagation of the faith, nor the exposition of 
 
236 Discourse IX. 
 
 doctrine, nor the catechetical schools ; whatever was exact 
 and systematic pleased him not ; he put from him mo- 
 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 
 unaffected humility and unpretending love. AH He did 
 was to be done by the light, and fervour, and convincing 
 eloquence of his personal character and his easy conver- 
 sation. He came to the Eternal City and he sat himself 
 down there, and his home and his family gradually grew 
 up around him, by the spontaneous accession of materials 
 from without. 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 well 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 lov/ and narrow cell at San Girolamo, 
 reading the hearts of those who 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 who came 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 Knowledge. 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 welcome to all : 
 caressing the poor equally with 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 
 Home 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 was 
 conducted by him through Purgatory to Heaven. And 
 who was he, I say, all the while, but an humble priest, 
 
 * Bacci, vol. i., p. 192, ii., p. 98. 
 
238 Discourse 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, if 
 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. Neither 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 am 
 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 
 import of principles, upon the tendency of measures, as 
 past reflection and experience enable me to contribute. 
 I shall have to make appeals to your consideration, your 
 friendliness, your confidence, of which I have had so 
 many instances, on which I so 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, and 
 makes me unequal to anticipations in which you have 
 been too kind, and to hopes in which I may have been 
 too sanguine. 
 
11. 
 
 UNIVERSITY SUBJECTS, 
 
 DISCUSSED IN OCCASIONAL LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 
 
 J* i6 
 
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 WILLIAM MONSELL, M.P, etc, etc. 
 
 My 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 which you so 
 dearly love, and in behalf of an undertaking in which 
 you feel so deep an interest 
 
 Nor 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, 
 
 JOHN H. NEWMAN. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 IT 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 circumstances 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 remark. 
 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, 
 Avith which he had been put in charge, by such methods, 
 graver or lighter, so that they v /ere lawful, as successively 
 came to his hand. 
 
 Nov ember y 1858. 
 
UNIVERSITY SUBJECTS. 
 
 I. Christianity and Letters. A Lecture read in the School 
 
 of Philosophy and Letters, November, 1854 - - 249 
 
 IL Literature. A Lecture read in the School of Philosophy 
 
 and Letters, November, 1858 ... - 268 
 
 III. Catholic Literature in the English Tongue, 
 
 1854-8:— 295 
 
 §. I. in its relation to Religious Literature - - - 296 
 
 §. 2. to Science ..---. 299 
 §. 3. to Classical Literature . - - - - 307 
 
 §. 4. to Literature of the Day ... - 320 
 
 IV. Elementary Studies, 1854-6: — - - - - 331 
 
 §. I. Grammar ..---- 334 
 
 §. 2. Composition ------ 348 
 
 §. 3. Latin Writing ------ 362 
 
 §. 4. General Religious Knowledge - - - 372 
 
 V. A Form of Infidelity of the Day, 1854 : — - - 381 
 
 §. I. Its sentiments - - - - - - 381 
 
 §. 2. Its policy ------ 392 
 
 VI. University Preaching, 1855 - - - - 405 
 
 VII. Christianity and Physical Science. A Lecture read 
 
 in the School of Medicine, November, 1855 - - 428 
 
 VIII. Christianity and Scientific Investigation. A Lecture 
 
 for the School of Science, 1855 - - - - 456 
 
 IX. Discipline of Mind. An Address delivered to the Evening 
 
 Classes, November, 1858 - - . - 480 
 
 X. Christianity and Medical Science. An Address delivered 
 
 to the Students of Medicine, November. 1858 - - 505 
 
249 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND LETTERS. 
 
 A LECTURE IN THE SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY AND 
 LETTERS. 
 
 IT seems but natural, Gentlemen, now that we are 
 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 
 a 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 really 
 is), and should emphatically live in, the Faculty of Arts ; 
 but such is the deliberate decision of those who have 
 
250 Christia7iity and Leiiers. 
 
 most deeply and impartially considered the subject* 
 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, — I 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 difificulty. 
 
 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 much 
 fluctuation, agitation, ebbing and flowing, that we may 
 despair to discern any law in its movements, taking the 
 
 * Vid. Iluber. 
 
Christianity a7td Letters, 251 
 
 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- 
 mation amid the chaos, — one and one only, — and ex- 
 tending, though riot 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 are other civihzations in the world, as there are 
 other societies, yet :his civilization, together with the 
 society 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." 
 
 There are indeed great outlying portions of mankind 
 which are not, perhaps never have been, included in this 
 
252 Christia7i ity and L etters. 
 
 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, 
 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 civilization, 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 compari- 
 son with the Society and the Civilization which I have 
 described as alone having a claim to those names, and on 
 which 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 
 influences intersect and conflict, and then at length inter- 
 mingle 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- 
 
Ch ridianity and L etters, 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 
 common 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 age 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 Hindoo, or Mexican, or Saracenic, 
 or of any new description hitherto unknown, but the 
 lineal descendant, or rather the continuation, mutatis 
 muta7zdis, 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 
 
2 54 Christianity 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 commonwealth pre-eminently and emphati- 
 cally Human 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 terrariim, 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 presents 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 outHne or unmeaning lumps outside 
 of it, intent upon the harmonious circle which fills the 
 imagination within it. 
 
 3. 
 Now, before going on to speak of the education, and 
 the standards of education, which the Civilized World, as 
 I may now call it, has enjoined and requires, I wish to 
 draw your attention. Gentlemen, to the circumstance 
 that this same orbis terrariLin, 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 
 Maker has given us directly from Himself, the Christian 
 Polity. The natural and divine associations are not 
 indeed exactly coincident, nor ever have been. As the 
 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, 
 and Civilization partly outside Christianity ; but, on the 
 
Christianity ajid Letters. 755 
 
 whole, the two have occupied one and the same orhis ter- 
 rarum. Often indeed they have even vaoYQd pari passti, 
 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 whole earth, neither does Christianity; 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 ten^arum, 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 which 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 the parallel instance of 
 Civilization, continues on in the world without interrup- 
 tion from the date of its rise, while other religious bodies, 
 huge, local, and isolated, are rising and falling, or are 
 helplessly stationary, from age to age, on all sides of it. 
 
 There is another remarkable analogy between Chris- 
 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 know that 
 
Z^6 Ch ristia^i ity and L e iters, 
 
 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 esteem 
 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 the 
 instruments of education which the civilized orbis ter- 
 rarum has adopted ; just as inspired works, and the 
 lives of saints, and the articles of faith, and the catechism, 
 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 L etters. 257 
 
 of intellectual gifts, in the age which preceded or 
 introduced the first formations of Human Society, in an 
 era scarcely historical, we may dimly 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 was 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 v/as said, — 
 
 " Seven famous towns contend for Homer dead, 
 Through which the hving 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 ^gean and the Asian coasts, that 
 those who had known 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 aere 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 
 remains, 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- 
 member me in time to come, and when any one of men 
 on earth, a stranger from far, shall inquire of you, O 
 maidens, who is the sweetest of minstrels here about, 
 
 7* i; 
 
2^8 Christimiity and Letters, 
 
 and in whom do you most delight ? then make answer 
 modestly, 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 countrymen, they might be the 
 secret delight of thousands, but they were not collected 
 into a volume, 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 them 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 with the office of forming the 
 young mind of Greece to noble thoughts and bold deeds. 
 To be read in Homer 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 who 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 went on, other poets were associated 
 with Homer in the work of education, such as Hesiod 
 and the Tragedians. The majestic lessons concerning 
 duty and religion, justice and providence, which occur in 
 iEschylus and Sophocles, belong to a higher school than 
 that of Homer ; and the verses of Euripides, even in his 
 lifetime, were so famiUar to Athenian lips and so dear 
 to foreign ears, that, as is reported, the captives of 
 
Christiajiity 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 aUiance 
 between these two gifts had existed from the time that 
 the verses of Orpheus had, according to the fable, made 
 woods and streams and wild 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, 
 which it was found to involve, were four principal ones. 
 Grammar, 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, we are met with 
 the common remark, that Rome produced Httle that was 
 original, but borrowed from Greece. It is true ; Terence 
 copied from Menander, Virgil from Homer, Hesiod, and 
 
2 6o Christianity 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, with 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 world's education was 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 which would 
 have changed the character of its civilization. I think it 
 very remarkable, too, how soon the Latin writers became 
 text-books in the boys' schools. Even to this day Shake- 
 speare and Milton 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 terrarum, and the Greek writers with 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, St. Gregory the 
 Great, whose era, not to say whose influence, is often con- 
 sidered especially unfavourable to the old hterature, wa» 
 himself well versed in it, encouraged purity of Latinity 
 in his court, and is said figuratively by the contemporary 
 
Christianity and Letters, 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, when the dark age was 
 close at hand, we still hear of the cultivation, with what- 
 ever success (according of course to the opportunities of 
 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 Statins." In the thirteenth or following centuries, 
 of " Virgil, Lucian, Statins, Ovid, Livy, Sallust, Cicero, 
 and Quintilian ; " and after the revival of literature in 
 the commencement of the modern era, we find St. Carlo 
 Borromeo enjoining the use of works of Cicero, Ovid, 
 Virgil, and Horace.* 
 
 5. 
 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 down 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 Universi- 
 ties is so different from that of the schools which preceded 
 them, nevertheless the course of study pursued in those 
 
 * Vzd. the treatises of P. Daniel and Mgr. Landriot, referred to in His- 
 torical Sketches, vol. ii., p. 460, note. 
 
262 Christianity ajid Letters. 
 
 schools was 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 that 
 civilization which is so intimately associated with Chris- 
 tianity, that it may even be called the soil out of which 
 Christianity grew. The medieval sciences, great as is 
 their dignity and utility, were never intended to supersede 
 that more real and proper cultivation of the mind which 
 is effected by the study of the liberal Arts ; and, when 
 certain of these sciences did in fact go out of their pro- 
 vince and did attempt to prejudice the traditional course 
 of education, the encroachment was in matter of fact 
 resisted. There were those in the middle age, as John of 
 Salisbury, who 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 which Universities were 
 the seat ; 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- 
 ments of mental cultivation, and the best guarantees for 
 intellectual progress. 
 
 And this experience of the past we may apply to the 
 
Christianity and Letters, 263 
 
 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 
 applications in the interests of our material well-being, 
 have dazzled the imaginations of men, somewhat in the 
 same way as certain new sciences carried them away in 
 the age of Abelard ; and since that method does such 
 wonders in its own province, it is not unfrequently sup- 
 posed that it can do as much in any other province also. 
 Now, Bacon himself never would have so argued; he 
 would not have needed to be reminded that to advance 
 the useful arts is one thing, and to cultivate the mind 
 another. The simple question to be considered is, how 
 best to strengthen, refine, and enrich the intellectual 
 powers ; the perusal of the poets, historians, and philo- 
 sophers of Greece and Rome will accomplish this pur- 
 pose, as long experience has shown ; but that the study 
 of the experimental sciences will do the like, is proved 
 to us as yet by no experience whatever. 
 
 Far indeed am I from denying the extreme attrac- 
 tiveness, as well as the practical benefit to the world 
 at large, of the sciences of Chemistry, Electricity, and 
 Geology ; but the question is not what department of 
 study contains the more wonderful facts, or promises 
 the more brilliant discoveries, and which is in the 
 higher and which in an inferior rank ; but simply which 
 out of all provides the most robust and invigorating 
 discipline for the unformed mind. And I conceive it is 
 as little disrespectful to Lord Bacon to prefer the Classics 
 in this point of view to the sciences which have grown 
 out of his philosophy as it would be disrespectful to St. 
 Thomas in the middle ages to have hindered the study 
 
264 Christianity a7id Letters. 
 
 of the Summa from doing prejudice to the Faculty of 
 Arts. Accordingly, I anticipate that, as in the middle 
 ages both the teaching and the government of the 
 University remained in the Faculty of Arts, in spite 
 of the genius which created or illustrated Theology and 
 Law, so now too, whatever 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 we 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 what are called the 
 Arts, as a first step towards the establishment on 
 Catholic ground of a Catholic University. And while 
 we thus recur to Greece and Athens with pleasure 
 and affection, and recognize in that famous land the 
 source and the school of intellectual culture, it would 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 knowledge, high and supernatural, which is 
 seated in Palestine. Jerusalem is the fountain-head of 
 religious knowledge, as Athens is of secular. In the 
 ancient world we see two centres of illumination, acting 
 independently of each other, each with its own move- 
 ment, and at first apparently without any promise of 
 convergence. Greek civilization spreads over the East, 
 conquering in the conquests of Alexander, and, when 
 
Christianity and Lettei^s. 265 
 
 carried captive into the West, subdues the conquerors who 
 brought it thither. Rehgion, on the other hand, is driven 
 from its own 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 
 mission ; 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 performed 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 
 history. Romie has inherited both sacred and pro- 
 fane learning ; she has perpetuated and dispensed the 
 traditions of Moses and David in the supernatural order, 
 and of Homer and Aristotle in the natural. To separate 
 those distinct teachings, human and divine, which meet 
 in Rome, is to retrograde ; it is to rebuild the Jewish 
 Temple and to plant anew the groves of Academus. 
 
 6. 
 
 On this large subject, however, on which I might say 
 much, time does not allow me to enter. To show how 
 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 Christianity and Letters. 
 
 lating you, Gentlemen, on the great undertaking which 
 we have so auspiciously commenced. Whatever be its 
 fortunes, whatever its difficulties, whatever 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 but a presage and an anticipation 
 of a gradual advance towards its completion, in such 
 times and such manner as Providence shall 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 my 
 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 my own 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 conception, 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. 
 
Christianity and Letters. 267 
 
 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 grand an 
 edifice ; it is enough, more than enough for me, if I do 
 so much as merely begin, what others may m^re hope- 
 fully continue. One only among the sons of men has 
 carried out a perfect work, and satisfied and exhausted 
 the mission on which He came. One alone has with 
 His last breath said " Consummatum est." But all who 
 set about their duties in faith and hope and love, with a 
 resolute heart and a devoted will, are able, weak though 
 they be, to do what, though incomplete, is imperishable. 
 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 which 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, 
 who did most when they fancied themselves least 
 prosperous, and died without being permitted to see 
 the fruit of their labours. 
 
268 
 
 11. 
 
 LITERATURE. 
 
 A LECTURE IN THE SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY AND 
 LETTERS. 
 
 I. 
 
 WISHING 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. Now the 
 question m^ay arise as to what is meant by ** Philosophy," 
 and what is meant by " Letters." As to the other 
 Faculties, the subject-matter which they profess is in- 
 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. 269 
 
 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, 
 Law, and, in short, the teaching of all the other Faculties. 
 Far from confusing these various studies, we view the 
 works of Plato or Cicero sometimes as philosophy, some- 
 times as literature ; on the other hand, no one would 
 ever be tempted to speak of Euclid as Hterature, or of 
 Matthiae's Greek Grammar. Is, then, literature synony- 
 mous with composition } with books written with an 
 attention to style 1 is literature fine writing .? 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 own 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 well as ancient, lies 
 under this disadvantage. This, however, they will not 
 allow; for they maintain,) 3. that Holy Scripture presents a 
 remarkable contrast to secular writings on this very point, 
 
270 L iterature. 
 
 viz., In that Scripture does easily admit of translation, 
 though it is the most sublime and beautiful of all writings. 
 
 2. 
 
 Now 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. 
 
 *' 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 words, 
 which glitter, but convey little or no light to the under- 
 standing. This kind of writing is for the most part 
 much affected and admired 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 "he great geniuses of all 
 ages, so much more so with 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 
 
L iteraiure, 271 
 
 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 almost vanish away, in the vulgar Latin 
 translation. 
 
 " Let any one but take the pains to read the common 
 Latin interpretations of Virgil, Theocritus, or even of 
 Pindar, and one may venture to affirm he will 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 which Moses gives -of the creation of the 
 heavens and the earth, which Longinus . . . 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 
 with as much force and vehemence as in the original. . 
 In the history of Joseph, where Joseph makes himself 
 known, and weeps aloud upon the neck of his dear 
 orother Benjamin, that all the house of Pharaoh heard 
 him, at that instant none of his brethren are introduced 
 
272 Literature. 
 
 as uttering aught, either to express their present joy 
 or paUiate 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 occasion." * 
 
 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 human 
 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 ; — and now I address myself 
 to my task : — 
 
 Here, then, in the first place, I observe, Gentlemen, 
 that Literature, from the derivation of the word, implies 
 * Sterne, Sermon xlii. 
 
Literature, 2^];^ 
 
 writing, not speaking ; this, however, arises from the 
 circumstance of the copiousness, variety, and pubHc 
 circulation of the matters of which it consists. What ii^ 
 spoken cannot outrun the range of the speaker's voice, 
 and 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 which 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 " saying," " speaking," 
 "telling," "talking," "calling;" we use the terms "phrase- 
 ology" and "diction;" as if we were still addressing our- 
 selves to the ear. 
 
 Now 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 machinery, 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 
 must certainly belong to some one person or other, and 
 is the expression of that one person's ideas and feelings, 
 — ideas and feeHngs personal to himself, though others 
 may have parallel and similar ones, — proper to himself, 
 7* i8 • 
 
2 74 * Literature. 
 
 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 objective 
 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 whole 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 we may perpetuate them by writing, 
 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 
 what is called the nature of things, or at least on con- 
 ditions external to us. The words, 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, 
 which, 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 makes use 
 of words as the mere vehicle of things, and is thereby 
 withdrawn from the province of literature. Thus 
 metaphysics, ethics, law, political economy, chemistry, 
 theology, cease to be literature in the same degree as 
 they are capable of a severe scientific treatment. And 
 
Literature, 
 
 275 
 
 hence it is that Aristotle's works on the one hand, 
 though at first sight Hterature, 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 
 own 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 personal ; science uses words merely as 
 symbols, but literature uses language in its full compass, 
 as including phraseology, idiom, style, composition, 
 rhythm, eloquence, and whatever other properties are 
 included in it. 
 
 Let us then put aside the scientific use of words, when 
 we are to speak of language and Hterature. 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 ; we 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 
 
276 Literature, 
 
 the nations speaking them has often been pointed out. 
 And, while the many 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, aspirations, which pass within him, 
 the abstractions, the juxtapositions, the comparisons, the 
 discriminations, the conceptions, which are so original in 
 him, his views of external things, his judgments upon 
 life, manners, 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 inward mental action itself 
 and analogous to it, the faithful expression of his in- 
 tense personality, attending on his own inward world of 
 thought as its very shadow : so that we might as well 
 say that one man's shadow is another's as that the style 
 of a really gifted mind can belong to any but himself. 
 It follows 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. 
 Matter and expression are parts of one : style is a think- 
 ing out into language. This is what 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 thoughts expressed in language. Call to mind. 
 Gentlemen, the meaning of the Greek word which 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 which 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 light and illumination, life and 
 motion, the convex and the concave of a curve, then will 
 it be possible for thought to tread speech under foot, and 
 to hope to do without it — then will it be conceivable 
 that the vigorous and fertile intellect should renounce 
 its own double, its instrument of expression, and the 
 channel of its speculations and emotions. 
 
 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 from 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 way in which young gentlemen go to work 
 in the East, when they would engage in correspondence 
 with those who 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 view. They have a 
 point to gain from a superior, a favour to ask, an evil to 
 deprecate ; they have to approach a man in power, 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 might 
 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 the man of words ; and 
 the man of words, duly instructed in the thought, dips 
 the pen of desire into the ink of devotedness, and pro- 
 
278 Literature. 
 
 ceeds to spread it over the page of desolation. Then the 
 nightingale of affection is heard to warble to the rose of 
 loveliness, while the breeze of anxiety plays around the 
 brow of expectation. This is what the Easterns are said 
 to consider fine writing; and it seems pretty much 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 
 much 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 without a style. Being of the 
 opinion of the Orientals, with whose writings he was 
 familiar, he determined 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 
 * *' Position of Catholics in England," pp. loi, 2. 
 
Literature, 
 
 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 pouring forth 
 beautiful words because they had beautiful thoughts ? 
 this is surely too great a paradox to be borne. Rather, 
 it is the fire witfiin the author's breast which overflows 
 in the torrent of his burning, irresistible eloquence ; it is 
 the poetry of his inner soul, which reHeves itself in the 
 Ode or the Elegy ; and his mental attitude and bearing, 
 the beauty of his moral countenance, the force and 
 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 
 words alone, but even the rhythm, the metre, the verse, 
 will be the contemporaneous 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. 
 And, since the thoughts and reasonings of an author 
 have, as I have said, a personal character, no wonder that 
 
28o hiteraiure. 
 
 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 writers seem 
 artificial, is nothing else but the mere habit and way of a 
 lofty intellect. Aristotle, in his sketch of the magnani- 
 mous man, tells us that his voice is deep, his motions slow, 
 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 fewer 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 
 Kvhel'yamv, rejoicing in his own vigour and richness of re- 
 source. I say, a narrow critic will call it verbiage, when 
 really it is a sort of fulness of heart, parallel to that which 
 makes the merry 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 obhvious 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. 
 
Liter aticre, 281 
 
 The following from Hamlet is of the same kind : — 
 
 " 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, 
 Nor customary suits of solemn black, 
 Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, 
 No, nor the fruitful river in the eye. 
 Nor the dejected haviour of the visage. 
 Together with all forms, modes, shows of grief, 
 That can denote me truly. '^ 
 
 Now, if such declamation, 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 will 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 
 *' mens magna in corpore magno." It is the develop- 
 ment of the inner man. Cicero vividly realised the 
 status of a Roman senator and statesman, and the 
 " pride of place" of Rome, in all the grace and grandeur 
 which attached to her ; and he imbibed, and became, 
 
282 Literature. 
 
 what he admired. As the exploits of Scipio or Pompe}-' 
 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 lords 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. 
 
 You will say that Cicero's language is undeniably 
 studied, but that Shakespeare's is as undeniably natural 
 and spontaneous ; and that, this is what is meant, when 
 the Classics are accused of being mere artists of words. 
 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. 
 
Literahtre, 283 
 
 If I must give an English instance of this fault, much as 
 I love and revere the personal character and intellectual 
 vigour of Dr. Johnson, I cannot deny that his style often 
 outruns the sense and the occasion, and is wanting in 
 that simplicity which is the attribute of genius. 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 mean to say he does not study his 
 subject ? does he not make sketches ? does he not even 
 call them " studies" 1 does he not call his workroom 
 a studio f is he not ever designing, rejecting, adopting, 
 correcting, perfecting } Are not the first attempts of 
 Michael Angelo and Rafifaelle 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 t 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 .? 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 Virgil ? 
 Our greatest poet tells us, 
 
284 Liierahcre, 
 
 "The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, 
 Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, 
 And, as imagination bodies forth 
 The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
 Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 
 A local habitation and a name." 
 
 Now, 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 perfection 
 of his narrative. Who exhibits such happy negligence 
 as our own 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 nut wonderful that other authors, whose style 
 is not simple, should be instances of a similar literary 
 dih'gence. Virgil wished his ^neid to be burned, 
 elaborate as is its composition, because he felt it needed 
 more labour still, in order to make it perfect. The 
 
Literature 28=^ 
 
 historian Gibbon in the last century is another instance 
 in point. You must not suppose I am going to recom- 
 mend his style for imitation, any more than his principles ; 
 but I refer to him as the example of a writer feeling the 
 task which lay before him, feeling that he had to bring 
 out into words for the comprehension of his readers a 
 great and complicated scene, and wishing 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 improved 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 m all these instances, I wish you to observe, 
 that what I have admitted about literary workmanship 
 differs from the doctrine which 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 with 
 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 immediately follows 
 
286 Literature, 
 
 from this, and which was the second point which 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. 
 Nor 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 view, which every other language has. Now, 
 as far as regards Science, it is true that all languages 
 are pretty much alike for the purposes of Science ; but 
 even in this respect some are more suitable than 
 others, which have to coin words, or to borrow 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 musical, 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 t A great 
 author takes his native language, masters it, partly 
 throws himself into it, partly moulds and adapts it, and 
 pours out his multitude of ideas through the variously 
 ramified and delicately minute channels of expression 
 which he has found or framed : — does it follow that this 
 his personal presence (as it may be called) can forth- 
 with be transferred to every other language under the 
 sun t Then may we reasonably maintain that Beeth- 
 oven's piano music is not really beautiful, because it 
 cannot be played on the hurdy-gurdy. Were not this 
 
Literature, 287 
 
 astonishing doctrine maintained by persons far superior 
 to the writer whom 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 any one language what- 
 ever. Whereas I should rather have conceived that, in 
 proportion as ideas are novel and recondite, 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 measure 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 more 
 an artist is of a painter, the less he is likely to be of 
 a sculptor. The more he commits his genius to the 
 methods 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, which 
 no Angel, could achieve in wood .? Each of the Fine 
 Arts has its own subject-matter ; from the nature of the 
 
2 88 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, why 
 should not genius be able to do in Greek what it cannot 
 do in Latin ? and why are its Greek and Latin works 
 defective because they will not turn into English ? That 
 genius, of which we are speaking, did not make English ; 
 it did not make all languages, present, past, and future ; 
 it did not make the laws of miy 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 compared with profane literature. Hitherto we have 
 been concerned with the doctrine of these writers, viz., 
 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 thei^ 
 fact is as untenable as their doctrine. 
 
 Scripture easy of translation ! then why have there 
 been so few good translators } why is it that there 
 has been such great difficulty in combining 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- 
 trinally correct, and in a difficult problem is obliged to 
 
Literature. 289 
 
 put up with defects in what is of secondary importance, 
 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 musical in 
 cadence ! Why, consider the Epistle to the Hebrews — 
 where is there in the classics any composition more care- 
 fully, more artificially written ? 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 rhythm, 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 t Who can say that these are 
 popular compositions t 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 volume 
 more simple both in style and in meaning, and that 
 these are the more sacred and sublime passages, as, 
 for instance, parts of the Gospels, I grant at once ; 
 but this does not militate against the doctrine I have 
 been laying down. Recollect, Gentlemen, my distinction 
 when I began. I have said Literature is one thing, and 
 that Science is another ; that Literature has to do with 
 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 writers, and rises 
 into the region of pure and mere inspiration, when it 
 ceases in any sense to be the writing of man, of St. Paul 
 7* 19 
 
2QO Literature, 
 
 or St John, of Moses or Isaias, then it comes 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 were 
 inspired and infallible, did not cease to be men. St. 
 Paul's epistles, then, I consider to be literature in a real 
 and true sense, as personal, as rich in reflection and 
 emotion, as Demosthenes or Euripides ; and, without 
 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 
 St. John s Gospel, which we read at the end of Mass. 
 Such is the Creed. I mean, passages such as these are 
 the mere enunciation of eternal things, without (so to 
 say) the medium of any human mind transmitting them 
 to us. The words used have the grandeur, the majesty, 
 the calm, unimpassioned 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 
 translate. 
 
 Did time admit I could show you parallel instances of 
 what I am speaking of in the Classics, inferior to the 
 inspired word in proportion as the subject-matter of the 
 classical authors is immensely inferior to the subjects 
 treated of in Scripture — but parallel, inasmuch 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. 
 
Literature* 291 
 
 9- 
 
 I shall then merely sum up what 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 
 answered, that by Letters or Literature is meant the 
 expression of thought in language, where by " thought" 
 I mean the ideas, feelings, views, reasonings, and other 
 operations 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 consists 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 their own judgments. A great author, 
 Gentlemen, is not one who merely has a copia verbortim, 
 whether in prose or verse, and can, as it were, turn on at 
 his will any number of splendid phrases and swelling 
 sentences ; but he is one who 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 knowledge of human nature, 
 or experience of human life, though these additional 
 gifts he may have, and the more 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 
 
2Q2 Literature, 
 
 be, elaborate his compositions, or he may pour out his 
 improvisations, but in either case he has but one aim, 
 which he keeps steadily before him, and is conscientious 
 and single-minded in fulfilling. That aim is to give forth 
 what he has within him ; and from his very earnestness 
 it comes to pass that, whatever be the splendour of his 
 diction or the harmony of his periods, he has with him 
 the charm of an incommunicable simplicity. Whatever 
 be his subject, high or low, he treats it suitably and for 
 its own sake. If he is a poet, "nil molitur inepte!' If he 
 is an orator, then too he speaks, not only ''distincte" and 
 "splendide," but also '' apte!' His page is the lucid 
 mirror of his mind and life — 
 
 " Quo fit, ut omnis 
 Votivi pateat veluti descripta tabelld 
 Vita senis." 
 
 He 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 embraces 
 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 ; when his heart is touched, it thrills along 
 his verse. He always has the right word for the right 
 idea, and never a word too much. If he is brief, it is 
 because few words suffice; when he is lavish of them, still 
 each word has its mark, and aids, not embarrasses, the 
 vigorous march of his elocution. He expresses what all 
 feel, but all cannot say; and his sayings pass into 
 proverbs among his people, and his phrases become 
 household words and idioms of their daily speech, which 
 
Literature, 293 
 
 is tesselated with the rich fragments of his language, 
 as we see in foreign lands the marbles of Roman gran- 
 deur 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 
 what they express is common to the whole race of man, 
 and they alone are able to express it. 
 
 10. 
 
 If then the power of speech is a gift as great as any 
 that can be named, — if the origin of language is by 
 many 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, hidden 
 grief is carried off, sympathy conveyed, counsel imparted, 
 experience recorded, and wisdom perpetuated, — if by 
 great authors the many 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 
 communication with each other, — if such men are, in a 
 word, the spokesmen and prophets of the human family, 
 — it will not answer to make light of Literature or 
 to neglect its study ; rather we may be sure that, in 
 proportion as we master it in whatever language, and 
 imbibe its spirit, we shall ourselves become in our 
 own measure the ministers of like benefits to others, 
 
294 Literature, 
 
 be they many or few, be they in the obscurer or the more 
 distinguished walks of Hfe, — who are united to us by 
 social ties, and are within the sphere of our personal 
 influence. 
 
295 
 III. 
 
 ENGLISH CATHOLIC LITERATURE. 
 
 ONE of the special objects which a Catholic Uni- 
 versity would promote is that of the formation 
 of a Catholic Literature in the English language. It is an 
 object, however, which must be understood before it 
 can be suitably prosecuted ; and which will not be 
 understood without some discussion and investigation. 
 First 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 what was to be aimed at by its fleets and 
 armies, what was practicable, what was 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, without having the caution to examine what 
 is feasible, and what is unnecessary or hopeless. Ac- 
 cordingly, it is natural I should wish to direct attention 
 to this subject, even though it be too difficult to handle 
 in any exact or complete way, 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 not. 
 
 * August, 1854. 
 
2g6 
 
 §. I. In its relation to Religious Literature, 
 
 WHEN a *' Catholic Literature in the English 
 tongue" is spoken of as a desideratum, no reason- 
 able person will mean by " Catholic works" much more 
 than the "works of Catholics." The phrase does not 
 mean a religious literature. " Religious Literature" 
 indeed would mean much more than " the Literature of 
 religious men ; " it means over and above this, that the 
 subject-matter of the Literature is religious ; but by 
 " 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 
 whatever, treated as a Catholic would treat them, and 
 as he only can treat them. Why it is important to have 
 them treated by Catholics hardly need be explained 
 here, though something will be incidentally said on the 
 point as we proceed : meanwhile I am drawing atten- 
 tion to the distinction between the two phrases in order 
 to avoid a serious misapprehension. For it is evident 
 that, if by a Catholic Literature were meant nothing 
 more or less than a religious literature, its writers would 
 be mainly ecclesiastics ; just as writers on Law are 
 mainly lawyers, and writers on Medicine are mainly 
 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 with a Seminary 
 or a Theological SchooL 
 
English Catholic Liierature. 297 
 
 I am 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 will be entangling himself in a semi-clerical 
 occupation. It is not uncommon, on expressing an 
 anticipation that the Professors of a Catholic University 
 will promote a Catholic Literature, to have to encounter 
 a vague notion that a lecturer or writer so employed 
 must have something polemical about him, must 
 moralize or preach, must (in Protestant language) 
 improve the 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 will speak, on the 
 Classics, or Fine Arts, or Poetry, or whatever he has 
 taken in hand. Men think that he cannot give a lecture 
 on Comparative Anatomy without being bound to 
 digress into the Argument from Final Causes ; that he 
 cannot recount the present geological theories without 
 forcing them into an interpretation seriatim of the first 
 two chapters of Genesis. Many, indeed, seem to go 
 further still, and actually pronounce that, since our own 
 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 
 have the discipline of a Seminary ; which is about as 
 sensible and logical a view of the matter as it would be 
 
2g8 English 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 House of Commons must 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 catechists, divines, 
 preachers, or schoolmen. 
 
299 
 
 §. 2, In Us relaiiofi to Science, 
 
 I. 
 
 AND next, it must be borne in mind, that when we 
 aim at providing a Catholic Literature for Catholics, 
 in place of an existing hterature which is of a marked 
 Protestant character, we do not, strictly speaking, 
 include the pure sciences in our desideratum. 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 
 we 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 time to come 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 mathematics, chemistry, as- 
 tronomy, and similar subjects, one man will 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, 
 might be safely admitted into Catholic lecture-rooms, 
 and put without scruple into the hands of Catholic youths. 
 There is no crying demand, no imperative necessity, 
 for our acquisition of a Catholic Euclid or a Catholic 
 Newton. The object of all science is truth ; — the pure 
 
300 English Catyiolic Literature, 
 
 sciences proceed to their enunciations from principles 
 which the intellect discerns by a natural light, and by 
 a process recognized by natural reason ; and the experi- 
 mental sciences investigate facts by methods of analysis 
 or by ingenious e:?r.pedients, ultimately 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 mechanic, or 
 critic, no matter what man he be, Hindoo, Mahometan, 
 or infidel, his conclusions within his own science, accord- 
 ing to the laws of that science, are unquestionable, and 
 not to be suspected by Catholics, unless Catholics may 
 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 me ; but I might even go 
 on to speak of them in their persons as well as in their 
 books. Were it not for the scandal which they would 
 create ; were it not for the example they would set ; 
 were it not for the certain tendency of the human mind 
 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 all, were 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 from him, I 
 
English Catholic Literature. 301 
 
 repeat, in hypothesis, what never could possibly be 
 abstracted 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 
 own science, they would be unable, like the heathen 
 Prophet in Scripture, to " go beyond the word of the 
 Lord, to utter any thing of their own head." 
 
 So far the arguments hold good of certain celebrated 
 writers in a Northern Review, who, in their hostility to 
 the principle of dogmatic teaching, seem obliged to 
 maintain, because subject-matters are distinct, that 
 living opinions are distinct too, and that men are 
 abstractions as well as their respective sciences. " 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 matters, " two great captains, equal in authority, 
 united by close private and public ties, but of different 
 creeds, prepared for battle, on the event of which were 
 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 might listen to the Lutheran 
 ministers ; and Capuchins might encourage the Austrian 
 squadrons, and pray to the Virgin for a blessing on the 
 arms of the holy Roman Empire. The battle com- 
 mences ; these men of various religions all act like 
 members of one body : the CathoHc and the Protestant 
 
302 English Catholic Literature, 
 
 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 
 worship." * 
 
 The writer of this lively passage would be doubtless 
 unwilling himself to carry out the principle which it 
 insinuates to those extreme conclusions to which it is 
 often pushed by others, in matters of education. Viewed 
 in itself, viewed 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 in 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, with- 
 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 between 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 shown in English popular publications, when 
 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, 
 
 * Macaulay's Essays. 
 
English Catholic Literature. 303 
 
 or has presented his sailors with a picture of the 
 Madonna. 
 
 If, then, we 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 mouths on their own special subject, and 
 in their scientific pedantry were dead to the world ; if 
 they resembled the well known character in the Romance, 
 who was so imprisoned or fossilized in his erudition, 
 that, though " he stirred the fire with some address," 
 nevertheless, on attempting to snuff the candles, he 
 " was unsuccessful, and relinquished that ambitious post 
 of courtesy, after having twice reduced the parlour to 
 total darkness," then indeed Voltaire himself might be 
 admitted, not without scandal, but without risk, to lecture 
 on astronomy or galvanism in Catholic, or Protestant, 
 or Presbyterian Colleges, or in all of them at once; and 
 we should have no practical controversy with philoso- 
 phers who, after the fashion of the author I have been 
 quoting, are so smart in proving that we, who differ from 
 them, must needs be so bigotted and puzzle-headed. 
 
 And in strict conformity with these obvious distinc- 
 tions, it will 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. We 
 allow our Catholic student to use them, so far as he can 
 surprise them (if I may use the expression), in their 
 formal treatises, and can keep them close prisoners there. 
 
 Vix defessa senem passus componere membra, 
 Cum clamore ruit magno, manicisque jacentem 
 Occupat. 
 
 The fisherman, in the Arabian tale, took no harm from 
 
304 English Catholic Literature. 
 
 the genius, till he let him out from the brass bottle in 
 which he was confined. " He examined the vessel and 
 shook it, to see if what was 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, 
 which, ascending to the clouds and extending itself 
 along the sea shore in a thick mist, astonished him very 
 much. After a time the smoke 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 
 difference between an unbelieving or heretical philoso- 
 pher in person, and in the mere disquisitions proper to his 
 science. Porson was no edifying companion for young 
 men of eighteen, nor are his letters on the text of the 
 Three Heavenly Witnesses to be recommended ; 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 throw out, as I think he did in private, that each 
 solar system had its own god ; but such extravagances 
 of so able a man do not interfere with the honour we 
 justly pay his name in the history of experimental 
 science. Nay, the great Newton himself 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 
 wonderful analysis which he, Protestant as he was, 
 originated, and which French infidels have developed } 
 We are glad, for their own sakes, that anti-Catholic 
 writers should, in their posthumous influence, do as 
 much real service to the human race as ever they can, 
 and we have no wish to interfere with it. 
 
English Catholic Literature, 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 writings 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 becoming 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 
 vv^orks 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 ; 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 
 7 * 20 
 
<c6 Enoiish Catholic Literature. 
 
 ti 
 
 fall under English Literature at all ; — for by Literature 
 I understand Thought, conveyed under the forms of 
 some particular language. And this brings me to speak 
 of Literature in its highest and most genuine sense, viz., 
 as an historical and national fact; and I fear, in this 
 sense of the word also, it is altogether beside or beyond 
 any object which 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 must 
 postpone it to another Section* 
 
307 
 
 §. 3» ^^ ii^ relation to Classical Literature. 
 
 I HAVE been directing the reader's attention, first 
 to what v/e do not, and next to what we need not 
 contemplate, when we turn our thoughts to the formation 
 of an EngHsh Cathohc Literature. I said that our 
 object was neither a Hbrary 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 encyclopaedia. 
 One undertaking, however, there is, which not merely 
 does not, and need not, but unhappily cannot, come 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 simply the creation of an English 
 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 
 wild imaginations or impossible schemes, which will, as 
 a matter of course, end in disappointment. 
 
3o8 English Cat hoik Literature. 
 
 Were 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 
 were the present intellectual activity of the nation to con- 
 tinue, as of course it would continue, we 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 would 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, 
 while 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, form an English Literature ; for by 
 the Literature of a Nation is meant its Classics, and its 
 Classics have been given to England, and have been 
 recognized as such, long since. 
 
 2. 
 
 A Literature, when 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 we can do the same towards the race or lan- 
 guage which it represents. Every great people has a cha- 
 racter of its own, which it manifests and perpetuates in 
 a variety of ways. It developes into a monarchy or re- 
 public; — by means of commerce or in war, 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 songs 
 
English Catholic Literature. 309 
 
 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, whether 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 ; we may most 
 seriously protest against the spirit which ever lives, and 
 the tendency which 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 write a new Milton 
 or a new Gibbon ; we cannot expurgate what needs to 
 be exorcised. They are great English authors, each 
 breathing hatred to the Catholic Church in his own way, 
 each a proud and rebellious creature of God, each gifted 
 with incomparable gifts. 
 
 We must take things as they are, if we take them at all. 
 We may refuse to say a word to English literature, if we 
 will; we may have recourse to French or to Italian instead, 
 if we think either of these less exceptionable than our own ; 
 we may fall back upon the Classics of Greece and Rome; 
 we may have nothing whatever to do with literature, as 
 such, of any kind, and confine ourselves to purely amor- 
 phous or monstrous specimens of language ; but if we 
 do once profess in our Universities the English language 
 and literature, if we think it allowable to know the state 
 of things we live in, and that national character which we 
 share, if we think it desirable to have a chance of writing 
 what may be read after our day, and praiseworthy to aspire 
 
3IO English Catholic Literature, 
 
 after providing for Catholics who speak Enghsh a Catho- 
 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 with 
 our ecclesiastical indexes and emendations, but — we must 
 not fancy ourselves creating what is already created in 
 spite of us, and which never could at a moment be created 
 by means 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 '' 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 charm ; 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, 
 and its most philosophic historian. Language changes 
 with the progress of thought and the events of history, and 
 style changes with it; and while in successive generations 
 it passes through a series of separate excellences, the 
 respective deficiencies of all are supplied alternately by 
 each. Thus language and literature may be considered as 
 dependent on a process of nature, and admitting of subjec- 
 tion to her 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 accident of genius. 
 
English Catholic Literature. 3 1 1 
 
 First-rate excellence in literature, as in other matters, 
 is either an accident or the outcome of a process ; and in 
 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 gifted, 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 human beings as heterogeneous as Burns and Bunyan, 
 De Foe and Johnson, Goldsmith and Cowper, 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 would not have been with- 
 out the Great Rebellion ; Hobbes is the prophet of the 
 reaction to scoffing infidehty ; and Addison is the child 
 
3 1 2 English Catholic Literature, 
 
 of the Revolution and its attendant changes. If there be 
 any of our classical authors, who 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 College v/hich still points to the walk 
 which he planted, must 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 him and used 
 him. While his writings educated his own generation, 
 they have delineated it for all posterity after him. 
 
 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 with 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 form. All greater matters 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, Hume, and Goldsmith, have been the making 
 of the English language ; and as that language is a fact, 
 so is the literature a fact, by which it is formed, and in 
 which it lives. Men of great ability have taken it in 
 
Encrlish Catholic Literature. 313 
 
 't, 
 
 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 Umbs, 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 
 monuments both of the powers of the language and the 
 genius of its cultivators. 
 
 How real a creation, how sui generis, is the style of 
 Shakespeare, or of the Protestant Bible and Prayer 
 Book, or of Swift, or of Pope, or of Gibbon, or of John- 
 son ! Even were the subject-matter without meaning, 
 though in truth the style cannot really be abstracted 
 from the sense, still the style would, on that supposition, 
 remain as perfect and original a work as Euclid's ele- 
 ments or a symphony of Beethoven. And, like music, 
 it has seized upon the pubUc 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, which 
 has gone forth in its expressions and its sentiments into 
 the world of men, 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 Milton, 
 of Pope, of Johnson's Tabletalk, and of Walter 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 man in the comedy spoke prose without knowing 
 it ; and we Catholics, without consciousness and without 
 offence, are ever repeating the half sentences of dissolute 
 
314 Efiglish Catholic Literature, 
 
 playwrights and heretical partizans and preachers. So 
 tyrannous is the hterature of a nation ; it is too much 
 for us. We cannot destroy or reverse it ; we may con- 
 front and encounter it, but we cannot make it over 
 again. It is a great work of man, when it is no work of 
 God's. 
 
 I repeat, then, whatever we be able or unable to effect 
 in the great problem which lies before us, any how we 
 cannot undo the past. English Literature will ever have 
 been Protestant. Swift and Addison, the most 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 undertaking 
 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 will bring this Section to an end. 
 
 I. First, then, it is to be considered that, whether we 
 look to countries Christian or heathen, we find the state of 
 literature there as little satisfactory as it is in these islands ; 
 so that, whatever are our difficulties here, they are 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 Protestant- 
 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 
 
English Catholic Literature. 315 
 
 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 who is there that holds 
 a place among its writers so historical and important, 
 who is so copious, so versatile, so brilhant, as that Voltaire 
 who is an open scoffer at every thing sacred, venerable, 
 or high-minded } Nor can Rousseau, though he has 
 not the pretensions of Voltaire, be excluded from the 
 classical writers 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 witty Rabelais is said, by a recent 
 critic,* to show covertly in his former publications, 
 and openly in his latter, his "dislike to the Church of 
 Rome." La Fontaine was with difficulty brought, on 
 his death-bed, to make public satisfaction for the scandal 
 which he had done to religion by his immoral Contes, 
 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 "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 writer tells us, by "a sceptical bias and great indiffer- 
 ence of temperament ; " and " has led the way " as an 
 
 • Hallam. 
 
3i6 English Catholic Literature, 
 
 habitual offender, "to the indecency too characteristic of 
 French literature." 
 
 Nor does Italy present a more encouraging picture. 
 Ariosto, one of the few names, ancient or modern, who 
 is allowed on all hands to occupy the first rank of Litera- 
 ture, is, I suppose, rightly arraigned by the author I have 
 above quoted, of " coarse sensuality." Pulci, " by his 
 sceptical insinuations, seems clearly to display an inten- 
 tion of exposing religion to contempt." Boccaccio, the 
 first of Italian prose-writers, had in his old age touch- 
 ingly to lament the corrupting tendency of his popular 
 compositions ; and Bellarmine has to vindicate him, 
 Dante, and Petrarch, from the charge of virulent abuse 
 of the Holy See. Dante certainly does not scruple to 
 place in his Inferno a Pope, whom the Church has since 
 canonized, and his work on Monarctiia 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 Roman Pontiff. 
 
 These are but specimens of the general character of 
 secular literature, whatever be the people to whom it be- 
 longs. One literature may be better than another, but 
 bad will be the best, when weighed in the balance of 
 truth and morality. It cannot be otherwise ; human 
 nature is in all ages and all countries the same ; and its 
 literature, therefore, will ever and everywhere be one and 
 the same also. Man's work will savour of man ; in his 
 elements and powers excellent and admirable, but prone 
 to disorder and excess, to error and to sin. Such too 
 will be his literature ; it will have the beauty and the 
 fierceness, the sweetness and the rankness, of the natural 
 man, and, with all its richness and greatness, will neces- 
 sarily offend the senses of those who, in the Apostle's 
 
English Catholic Literature. 317 
 
 words, are really " exercised to discern between good 
 and evil." " It is said of the holy Sturme," says an Ox- 
 ford writer, "that, in passing a horde of unconverted 
 Germans, as they were bathing and gambolling in the 
 stream, he was so overpowered by the intolerable scent 
 which arose from them that he nearly fainted away." 
 National Literature is, in a parallel way, the untutored 
 movements of the reason, imagination, passions, and 
 affections of the natural man, the leapings and the 
 friskings, the plungings and the snortings, the sportings 
 and the buffoonings, the clumsy play and the aimless 
 toil, of the noble, lawless savage of God's intellectual 
 creation. 
 
 It is well that we should clearly apprehend a truth so 
 simple and elementary as this, and not expect from the 
 nature of man, or the literature of the world, what they 
 never 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 from our own. I have 
 never fancied that we should have reasonable ground for 
 surprise or complaint, though man's intellect puids na- 
 turalibus did prefer, of the two, liberty to truth, or though 
 his heart cherished a leaning towards licence of thought 
 and speech in comparison 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 might be worse at home. We have, it is true, a 
 Protestant literature ; but then it is neither atheistical 
 nor immoral ; and, in the case of at least half a dozen 
 of its highest and most influential departments, and of 
 
3i8 English Catholic Literature, 
 
 the most popular of its authors, it comes to us with very 
 considerable alleviations. For instance, there surely is 
 a call on us for thankfulness that the most illustrious 
 amongst English writers has so little of a Protestant 
 about him that Catholics have been able, without ex- 
 travagance, to claim him as their own, and that enemies 
 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 vEschylus, 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 victim, 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 my 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 written 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 was 
 actually a Catholic, though personally an unsatisfactory 
 one. His freedom indeed from Protestantism is but a poor 
 compensation for a false theory of religion in one of his 
 poems ; but, taking his works as a whole, we may surely 
 
E71 polish Cat fiohc 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 to'vards 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. JLocke 
 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 CathoHc 
 faith ; and he deserves by his writings to be called the 
 most orthodox of Protestant philosophers. 
 
."^2-0 
 
 §.4- I^^ ^i^ relation to the Literature of the Day, 
 
 ^ I. 
 
 THE 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 we 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 away. Moreover, 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 
 
English Catholic Literature, ^2l 
 
 Ipng period to be the medium of European correspon- 
 dence. Greek was 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 summer, 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 writers 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 from ^schylus 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 mean 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 
 clumsy ; and it demands a succession of skilful artists to 
 make it malleable and ductile, and to work it up to its 
 proper perfection. It improves by use, but it is not 
 every one 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 eminent masters becomes henceforth in 
 some sort a property of the language itself; words, 
 phrases, collocations, and structure, which hitherto did 
 
 7 * 21 
 
322 English Catholic Literature. 
 
 not exist, gradually passing into the conversation and 
 the composition of the educated classes. 
 
 Now I will attempt to show 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 
 works, it may contain. I suppose all of us will recognize 
 this fascination. For myself when I was fourteen or 
 fifteen, I imitated Addison ; when I was seventeen, I 
 wrote in the style of Johnson ; about the same time I fell 
 in with 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 make 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 common property of the nation. Henceforth, the 
 most ordinary composer, the very student in the lecture- 
 room, is able to write with a precision, a grace, or a copi- 
 ousness, as the case may be, unknown before the date 
 
Efiglish Catholic Literature, 323 
 
 of the authors whom he Imitates, and he wonders at, if 
 he does not rather pride himself on, his 
 
 novas frond es, et non sua poma. 
 
 If there is any one 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, any one, 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 with 
 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 eloquent flow, it is 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, 
 
 For 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 His 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 : — 
 
 A dewy freshness fills the silent air ; 
 No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain, 
 
 Breaks the 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, Thomson, Gray, Goldsmith, and other poets ot 
 the eighteenth century, in the musical eloquence of 
 Southey. 
 
 3- 
 
 So much for the process ; now for its termination. 1 
 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 some measure any advance 
 beyond his own. Thus, in the parallel case of science, 
 it is commonly said on the continent, that the very 
 marvellousness of Newton's powers was the bane ot 
 English mathematics : inasmuch as those who succeeded 
 
English Catholic Literature, 325 
 
 him were content with his discoveries, bigoted to his 
 methods of investigation, and averse to those new instru- 
 ments which 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 admirers 
 put his name. The school which he forms would fain 
 monopolize 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- 
 meter in subsequent poetry, and took away the chances, 
 if not of improvement, at least of variety. Even Juvenal 
 has much of Virgil in the structure of his verse. I have 
 knowm those who prefer the rhythm of Catullus. 
 
 However, so summary a result is not of necessary 
 occurrence. The splendour of an author may excite a 
 generous emulation, or the tyrannous formalism of his 
 followers a re-action ; and thus other authors and other 
 schools arise. We read of Thucydides, on hearing 
 Herodotus read his history at Olympia, 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 might 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 somethino- 
 of the kind against the supremacy of Pope, since the time 
 
 * Misc. Works, p. 55. 
 
326 English 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 betaken into account. 
 When a language has been cultivated in any particular 
 department of thought, and so far as it has been generally 
 perfected, an existing want has been supplied, and there 
 is no need for further workmen. In its earlier times, 
 while 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 communicating between place and place. 
 The authors of that age deserve to be Classics, both 
 because of what 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 to 
 . write 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 multiphed, 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 conventional 
 
English Catholic Literature. 327 
 
 terminology. There is an historical, political, social, com- 
 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 Hberty. Criticism 
 has become an art, and exercises 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 
 without 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 improvements of centuries, is far 
 superior perhaps in perfectness to that of any one of 
 those national Classics, who 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; 
 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 Ian- ■ 
 guage, and the true canons of taste. Political causes may 
 co-operate in a revolt of this kind ; and, as a nation 
 declines in patriotism, so does its language in purity. 
 It seems to me as if the sententious, epigrammatic style 
 of writing, which set in with Seneca, and is seen at least 
 as late as in the writings of St. Ambrose, is an attempt 
 to escape from the simplicity of Csesar and the majestic 
 elocution of Cicero ; while Tertullian, with more of 
 genius than good sense, relieves himself in the harsh 
 originality of his provincial Latin. 
 
328 English Catholic Literature, 
 
 There is another impediment, as time goes on, to the 
 rise of fresh classics in any nation ; and that is the effect 
 which foreigners, or foreign hterature, 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 some 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 
 idiomatic in the sense in which it once was so ; and 
 whatever grace or propriety it may retain, it will be 
 comparatively tame and spiritless ; or, on the other 
 hand, it will be corrupted by the admixture of foreign 
 elements. 
 
 4- 
 
 Such, as I consider, being the fortunes of Classical 
 Literature, viewed generally, I should never be sur- 
 prised to find that, as regards this hemisphere, for I can 
 prophesy nothing of America, we have well nigh seen 
 the end of English 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 formation of a 
 Catholic school of writers, I have respect principally to 
 the matter of what is written, and to composition only 
 so far forth as style is necessary to convey and to recom- 
 mend the matter. I mean a literature which resembles 
 the literature of the day. This is not a day for great 
 writers, but for good writing, and a great deal of it. 
 There never was a time when men wrote so much and 
 so well, and that, without being of any great account them- 
 
English Catholic Literature. 329 
 
 selves. While our literature in this day, especially the 
 periodical, 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 writers. In point of mere style, I 
 suppose, many an article in the Times 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, which is the greatest charm of an author. The very 
 form of the compositions of the day suggests to us their 
 main deficiency. They are anonymous. So was it not in 
 the literature of those nations which we consider the 
 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 
 Hahcarnassus, 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 writes anonymously, he writes under a 
 professed character, and that in a great measure his own; 
 
;^^o English Catholic Literature, 
 
 he writes In the first person. The "■ I " of the Spectator, 
 and the " we " of the modern Review or Newspaper, are 
 the respective symbols of the two ages in our Hterature. 
 CathoHcs must do as their neighbours ; they must be 
 content to serve their generation, to promote the interests 
 of rehgion, to recommend 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 shown 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 
 be difficult to pursue, nor easy to terminate, I prefer to 
 leave the subject at the preliminary point to which I 
 have brought it. 
 
331 
 
 IV. 
 
 ELEMENTARY STUDIES. 
 
 IT has often been observed that, when the eyes of the 
 infant first open upon the world, the reflected rays of 
 Hglit which strike them from the myriad of surrounding 
 objects present to him no image, but a medley of colours 
 and shadows. They do not farm 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 more 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 
 moves 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 him in his mental process, and thus 
 gradually converts a calidoscope into 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 doing all through life, both 
 as a necessity and as a duty, but unlearning the world s 
 
S3^ Ele7ne7iiiify Studies, 
 
 poetry, and attaining to its prose ! This is our educa- 
 tion, as boys and as men, in the action of Hfe, and in the 
 closet or Hbrary ; 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 education, of the labours of both 
 school and university, is to remove the original dimness 
 of the mind's eye ; to strengthen and perfect its vision ; 
 to enable it to look out into the world rip;ht forward, 
 steadily and truly ; to give the mind clearness, accuracy, 
 precision ; to enable it to use words aright, to understand 
 what it says, to conceive justly what it thinks about, to 
 abstract, compare, analyze, divide, define, and reason, cor- 
 rectly. There is a particular science v/hich 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 
 manual or treatise. The instruction given him, of what- 
 ever kind, if it be really instruction, is mainly, or at least 
 pre-eminently, this, — a discipline in accuracy of mind. 
 
 Boys are always more or less inaccurate, and too many, 
 or rather the majority, remain boys all their lives. When, 
 for instance, I hear speakers at public meetings declaim- 
 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 Studies. 333 
 
 mental vision of a Turk, — 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 with intense interest, irre- 
 sistible in 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 unmeaning 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 who 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 sub- 
 ject, which might be pursued at great length, and of 
 which here I shall but attempt one or two illustrations. 
 
334 
 
 §. I — Grammar. 
 
 I. 
 
 ONE 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 " the elements 
 of Latin and Greek Grammar." " Grammar " 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 " Grammar " is now more commonly 
 meant, as Johnson defines it, " the art of using words 
 properly," and it '' comprises four parts — Orthography, 
 Etymology, Syntax, and Prosody." Grammar, in this 
 sense, is the scientific analysis of language, and to be 
 conversant with 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 word is used when the " elements of Latin 
 and Greek Gramm.ar " 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 writers in general, 
 and were to he able to give an opinion about the elo- 
 quence of Demosthenes and Cicero, the value of Livy, 
 
Elementary Studies. 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 examination 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 frame 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 which every 
 sensible tutor will maintain. His maxim is, "a little, 
 but well ; " that is, really know what you say you know: 
 know what you know and what you do not know ; o-et 
 one thing well 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 
 
336 Elementary Studies. 
 
 faithful memory. 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. 
 
 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 /<3:r, 
 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 what 
 is meant by inaccuracy. And, in order to simplify the 
 case to the utmost, I shall take, as he will perceive as I 
 proceed, one singte word as a sort of text, and show how 
 that one word, 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 t C. Homer, Lucian, Demosthenes, 
 Xenophon, Virgil, Horace, Statius, Juvenal, Cicero, 
 Analecta, and Matthiae. 
 
 T. No ; I mean what are the books I am to examine 
 you in ? C. is sitent. 
 
 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 sitent. 
 
 T. What work of Xenophon "> C. Xenophon. 
 
 T. Xenophon wrote many works. Do you know the 
 
Elementary Studies, 337 
 
 names of any of them ? CI... Xenophon . . . 
 Xenophon. 
 
 T. Is it \\\^ Anabasis you take up ? C. {zvtth surprise) 
 O yes ; the Anabasis. 
 
 T. Well, Xenophon's Anabasis ; now what is the 
 meaning of the word anabasis f C. is silent. 
 
 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. Now 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 ; now what is the 
 verb that anabasis is derived from } C. is silent. 
 
 T. From the verb ava^aivw, isn't it "i from ava^alvco, 
 C. Yes. 
 
 T. Just so. Now, what does ava^aluco mean } C. To 
 go up, to ascend. 
 
 T. Very well ; and which part of the word means to 
 go, and which part up ? C. avd is up, and fialvco is go. 
 
 T. Baivco to go, yes ; now ^dai^ } What does ^dai,^ 
 mean .? C. A going. 
 
 T. That is right ; and dvd-l3aa-L<; } C A going up. 
 
 T. Now what is a going down ? C. is silent. 
 
 T. What is down .? . . , Kard . . . don't you recollect 1 
 icard. C. Kara. 
 
 T. Well, then, what is a going down f Cat ... cat 
 ... C. Cat. ... 
 
 T. Cata ... C. Cata. . . . 
 
 T. Catabasis. C. Oh, of course, catabasis. 
 
 T. Now tell me what is the future oflSalvco ? C. (thinks) 
 
 Bav(b, 
 
 ^* 22 
 
2t2fS, Eleme7itary Shidies. 
 
 T. No, no ; think again ; you know better than that. 
 C. {objects) ^aivo, (j^avco ? 
 
 T. Certainly, (j)av(o is the future of cpalvco ; but ^alvco 
 is, you know, an irregular verb. C. Oh, I recollect, ^rjcro). 
 
 T. Well, that is much better ; but you are not quite 
 right yet ; /Stjcro/iiat. C. Oh, of course, /Sijcro/jiaL 
 
 T. BrjcroiJbaL. Now do you mean to say that ^rja-ofjuat 
 comes from ^aivco ? C. is silent. 
 
 T. For instance : ruA/rcD comes from TvirT(o by a change 
 of letters ; does /STJaofxat in any similar way come from 
 ^atvo) ? C. It is an irregular verb. 
 
 T. What do you mean by an irregular verb ? does it 
 form tenses anyhow and by caprice ? C. It does not 
 go according to the paradigm. 
 
 T. Yes, but how do you account for this t C. is silent. 
 
 T. Are its tenses formed from several roots t C. is 
 silent. T. is silent ; then he changes the subject. 
 
 T. Well, now you s,d.y Anabasis means an ascent. Who 
 ascended "i C, The Greeks, Xenophon. 
 
 T. Very well : Xenophon and the Greeks ; the Greeks 
 ascended. To what did they ascend t C. Against the 
 Persian king : they ascended to fight the Persian king. 
 
 T. That is right ... an ascent ; but I thought we 
 called it a <i^scent when a foreign army carried war into 
 a country } C. is silent. 
 
 T. Don't we talk of a descent of barbarians > C. Yes. 
 
 T. Why then are the Greeks said to go zip ? C. They 
 went up to fight the Persian king. 
 
 T. Yes ; but why np . . . why not dozu7i ? 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 up to Persia, not 
 down ? C. They went tip to Persia. 
 
Elementary Studies, 339 
 
 T. Why do you not say they went down f C. pauses, 
 then, . . . They went down to Persia. 
 
 T. You have misunderstood me. 
 
 A silence. 
 
 T. Why do you not say down ? .f. 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 oit both sides. 
 
 T. Have you come up to DubHn or down ? I came 
 up. 
 
 T. Why do you call it coming up f C. thinks, then 
 smiles, 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 
 know ; 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. is 
 silent. 
 
 T. Because it was the seat of government ; that was 
 one reason. Persia was the seat of government; they 
 went up because it was the seat of government. C. Be- 
 cause it was the seat of government. 
 
 T. Now where did they go up from .? C. From Greece. 
 
 T. But where did this army assemble } whence did it 
 set out ? C. is silent. 
 
 T. It is mentioned in the first book ; where did the 
 troops rendezvous ? C. is silent. 
 
340 Elementary Studies, 
 
 T. Open your book ; now turn to Book L, chapter 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 . . . a 
 pause, then . . . 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 silent. 
 
 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 
 silent. 
 
 T. Was Persia in possession of many countries .-* C. 
 is silent. 
 
 T. Was Persia at the head of an empire } C. is silent. 
 
 T. Who was Xerxes 1 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 yo« 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 'i 
 Do we talk of going up or down from the sea-coast } 
 C. Up. 
 
 T. That is right ; well, going from Asia Minor, would 
 you go from the sea, or towards it .<* G. From. 
 
 T. What countries would you pass, going from the 
 coast of Asia Minor to Persia .'*... mention any of them. 
 C. is silent. 
 
 T. What do you mean by Asia Minor? . . . why 
 called Minor .? . . . how does it lie .? C. is silent. 
 Etc., etc. 
 
Elementary Studies. 341 
 
 3- 
 
 I have drawn out this specimen at the risk of weary- 
 ing the reader ; but I have w^ished to bring out clearly 
 what 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 Matthiae's minute criticisms. Indeed, 
 this seems to have been Mr. Brown's stumbling-block ; he 
 began by saying that he had read Demosthenes, Virgil, 
 Juvenal, 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 be coaxed into 
 getting through a tale of romance. Such Mr. Brown 
 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 mental 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 any one 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 
 
342 Elementary Studies, 
 
 history or other cognate subjects ; — and so far they may 
 be regarded with satisfaction; but on the other hand 
 they profess that they do not Hke logic, they do not like 
 algebra, they have no taste for mathematics ; 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 intellectual gymnastics. 
 The consequence will be that, when they grow up, they 
 may, if it so happen, be agreeable in conversation, they 
 may be well informed in this or that department of 
 knowledge, they may be what is called literary ; but 
 they will have no consistency, steadiness, or perseve- 
 rance ; they will not be able to make a telling speech, or 
 to write a good letter, or to fling in debate a smart 
 antagonist, unless so far as, now and then, mother-wit 
 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 
 do 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, who, whatever may 
 be his proficiency, at least knows 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- 
 liares, Mr. Black } Open, if you please, at Book xi., 
 Epistle 29, and begin reading. 
 
Ekmeiitary Studies. 343 
 
 C. reads. Cicero Appio salutem. Dubitanti mihi (quod 
 scit Atticus noster), de hoc toto consilio profectionis, quod 
 in utramque partem in mentem multa veniebant, magnum 
 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, cum, 
 initio civilis belli, per literas te consuluissem quid mihi 
 faciendum esse censeres ; eundumne ad Pompeium an 
 manendum in Italia. 
 
 T. Very well, stop there ; Now construe. C. Cicero 
 Appio salutem. . . Cicero greets Appius. 
 
 T. " Greets Appius!' True ; but it sounds stiff in 
 English, doesn't it .? What is the real English of it } 
 C. " My dear Appius .?"... 
 
 T. That will do ; go on. C. Dubitanti mihi, quod scit 
 Atticus noster, While I was hesitating^ as our friend 
 Atticus knows. . . 
 
 T. That is right. C. De hoc toto consilio profectionis, 
 about the ivhole plan. . . entire project. . . de hoc toto 
 consilio profectionis. . . on the subject of my proposed 
 journey. . . on 'iny proposed joitrney altogether. 
 
 T, Never mind ; go on ; any of them will do. C. 
 Quod in utramque partem in mentem multa veniebant, 
 inasmuch as many considerations both for and against it 
 came into my mind, magnum pondus accessit ad tollen- 
 dam dubitationem, it came with great force to remove my 
 hesitation. 
 
 T. What do you mean by " accessit " .? C. It means 
 it 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 Elementary Studies. 
 
 a powerful help towards removing my hesitation. . . 
 no. . . this was a powerful help, viz., your judgment and 
 advice. 
 
 T. Well, what is the construction of " pondus " and 
 "judicium " ? C. YoiLr advice ca^ne as a great weight. 
 
 T. Very well, go on. C. Nam et scripsisti aperte quid 
 tibi videretur ; for you distinctly wrote your opinion. 
 
 T. Now, what is the force of " nam" 1 C. pauses ; then. 
 It refers to " accessit "... it is an explanation of the 
 fact, that Appius's opinion was a help. 
 
 T. " Et " ; you omitted '' et " . . . " et scripsisti." C. 
 It is one of two " ets " ; et scripsisti, et Atticus. 
 
 T. Well, but why don't you construe it } C. Et 
 scripsisti, j^(?2/ both distinctly. . . 
 
 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. Also 
 with the second clause .? 
 
 T. That is right, go on. C. Nam ^t, for you distinctly 
 stated in writing your opinion, et Atticus ad me ser- 
 monem tuum pertulit, and Atticus too sent ine word of 
 ivhat you said, . . . of what you said to him ht co7iver' 
 sation. 
 
 T. " Pertulit." C. It means that Atticus conveyed on 
 to Cicero the conversation he had with Appius. 
 
 T. Who 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 1 C. No. 
 T. What were his opinions } (^. He was an Epicurean. 
 
Elementary Studies. 345 
 
 T. What was an Epicurean ? C. is silent, then, 
 Epicureans lived for themselves. 
 
 T. You are answering very well, sir ; proceed. C. 
 Semper judicavi, / have ever considered, in te, et in 
 capiendo consilio prudentiam summam esse, et in dando 
 fidem ; that your wisdom was of the highest order . . . 
 that you had the greatest wisdom . . . that nothing cottld 
 exceed the wisdom of your resolves, or the honesty of your 
 advice. 
 
 T. " Fidem." C. It means faithfidness to the person 
 asking . . . maximeque sum expertus, ^;/<////^.:/<^^r^^^ 
 proof of it. 
 
 T. Great; why don't you sdij greatest ? " maxime " 
 is superlative. C. The Latins use the superlative, when 
 they only mean the positive. 
 
 T. You mean, when English uses the positive ; can 
 you give me an instance of what you mean } C. Cicero 
 always speaks of others as amplissimi, optimi, doctissimi, 
 clarissimi. 
 
 T. Do they ever use the comparative for the positive .'' 
 C. thinks, then, Certior factus sum. 
 
 T. Well, perhaps; however, here, "maxime" may mean 
 special, may it not } C. A 7id I had a special proof of it, 
 cum, initio civilis belli, per literas te consuluissem, wheri, 
 on the commencement of the civil war, I had written to ask 
 your advice, quid mihi faciendum esse censeres, what you, 
 thought I ought to do, eundumne ad Pompeium, an ma- 
 nendum in Italia, to go to Pompey, or to remain in Italy. 
 
 T. Very well, now 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 siLch as for those who. 
 
 T. Well, but why do you use it here ? What is the 
 
346 Elementary Studies, 
 
 antecedent to *^ quod " ? C. The sentence Dubitanti 
 mihi, etc. 
 
 T. Still, construe " quod " literally. C. A thing zvhich. 
 
 T. Where is a thing f C. It is understood. 
 
 T. Well, but put it in. C. lUud quod. 
 
 T. Is that right t what is the common phrase } C. is 
 silent. 
 
 T. Did you ever see " illud quod " in that position } is 
 it the phrase 1 C. is silent. 
 
 T. It is commonly " id quod," isn't it } id quod. C. 
 Oh, I recollect, id quod. 
 
 T. Well, which is more common, "quod," or "id 
 quod," when the sentence is the antecedent .'' C. I think 
 "id quod." 
 
 T. At least it is far more distinct ; yes, I think it is 
 more common. What could you put instead of it .? C, 
 Quod quidem. 
 
 T. Now, dubitanti mihi ; what is " mihi " governed 
 by.'* C. Accessit. 
 
 T. No ; hardly. C. is silent. 
 
 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 1 Do you say, Venit mihi, he came to mef C. 
 No, Venit ad me ; — I recollect. 
 
 T. That is right ; venit ad me. Now, for instance, 
 "incumbo:" what case does " incumbo" govern? C. In- 
 cumbite remis } 
 
 7". Where is that. Mn Cicero.? (7. No, in Virgil. Cicero 
 uses " in " ; I recollect, incumbere in opus ... ad opus. 
 
 T. Well, then, is this " mihi " governed by "accessit " } 
 what comes after accessit 1 C. I see ; it is, accessit ad 
 tollendam dubitationem. 
 
Elementary Studies, 347 
 
 T. That Is right ; but then, what after all do you do 
 with " mihi " ? how is it governed ? C. is silent. 
 
 T. How is " mihi " governed, if it does not come after 
 " accessit " ? C. pauses, then, " Mihi " ..." mihi " is 
 often used so ; and " tibi " and " sibi " : I mean " suo 
 sibi gladio hunc jugulo " ; . . . "venit mihi in mentem " ; 
 that is, it came into my mind ; and so, " accessit mihi ad 
 tollendam," etc. 
 
 T. That is very right. C. I recollect somewhere in 
 Horace, vellunt tibi barbam. 
 
 Etc., etc. 
 
 4. 
 And now, 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 : " 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 — Composition. 
 
 I. 
 
 I AM able to present the reader by anticipation with 
 the correspondence which will pass between Mr. 
 Brown's father and Mr. White, the tutor, on the subject 
 of Mr. 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 certain 
 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 within 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 music. 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 discipHne of the mind, 
 
Elementary Studies. 349 
 
 as it should be conducted at College and University, and 
 as it manifests 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 now going to continue the caricature by 
 bringing in Mr. 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 without misconstruction to put before 
 the reader the correspondence of which I have spoken. 
 
 2. 
 
 Mr. Brown, jun.^ to his father, 
 
 " My dear Father, 
 
 " It seems odd I never was in Dublin before, though 
 we have been now some time in Ireland. Well, I find 
 
350 Elementary Studies, 
 
 it a handsomer 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. 
 
 " I called with your letter on Mr. Black, who intro- 
 duced me to the professors, some of whom, judging by 
 their skulls, are clever men. 
 
 *' 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 must be a new hand, he was so uneasy. 
 He gave me the slowest examination ! I don't know 
 to this minute 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 Balvco. 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 
 alarmed, Mr. Brown ; take your time, Mr. Brown ; 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 coiild put me 
 out of countenance. 
 
Elementary 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 away. 
 
 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 character. 
 
 " Your dutiful son, etc., 
 
 " Robert." 
 
 Mr. White to Mr. Brown, sen. 
 " My dear Sir, 
 
 " I have to acknowledge the kind letter you sent 
 me by your son, and I am much pleased to find the 
 confidence you express in us. Your son seems an 
 amiable 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, you 
 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 
 something about a great many things, of which youths of 
 his age commonly know nothing. Of course we cozdd 
 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- 
 
352 Elementary Studie. 
 
 les. 
 
 ticular character. Our rule is to recommend youths to 
 do a little zuell, 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 
 
 " 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 what to read in the meanwhile. 
 Did it depend on me, I should send him for that time to 
 a good school or college, or I could find you a private 
 Tutor for him. 
 
 " I am, etc." 
 
 Mr. Brown, 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 exemplary 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 well-conducted 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 were 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 * every hope of passing his academical career with 
 
Elementary Studies. 353 
 
 respectability, and his examiitation with credit;' you 
 allow that 'he knows something about a great many 
 things, of which youths of his age commonly know no- 
 thing:' no common commendation, I consider; yet, in 
 spite of this, you recommend, though you do not exact, 
 as a complete disarrangement of my plans (for I do not 
 know 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 wanted in education as ^^^^^r^a:/ know- 
 ledge. This alone will fit a youth for the world. In a 
 less stirring time, it may be well enough to delay in 
 particularities, and to trifle over minutiae ; 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 something in 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 which he would 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 Learnings 
 Macaulay, and Hallam : I never met with a faster reader. 
 7* 23 
 
354 Elementary Studies, 
 
 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 Magazines, 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. 
 
 " Allow me, as a warm friend of your undertaking, to 
 suggest, that the substance of knowledge is far more valu- 
 able than its technicalities ; and that the vigour of the 
 youthful mind is but wasted on barren learning, and its 
 ardour is quenched in dry disquisition. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, etc.'* 
 
 On the receipt of this letter, Mr. White will find, to 
 his dissatisfaction, that he has not advanced one hair's 
 breadth in bringing home to Mr. 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 
 with this disappointing thought, for a while he will not 
 inspect the enclosures of Mr. Brown's letter, being his 
 son's attempts at composition. At length he opens them, 
 and reads as follows : 
 
 Mr. Browfis poetry. 
 
 THE TAKING OF SEBASTOPOL.* 
 
 Oh, might I flee to Araby the blest, 
 
 The world forgetting, but its gifts possessed, 
 
 Where fair-eyed peace holds sway from shore to shore^ 
 
 And war's shrill clarion frights the air no more. 
 
 * This was written in June, i8|4, before the siege began. 
 
Elementary Studies, 355 
 
 Heard ye the cloud-compelling blast * awake (* Bombarding) 
 The slumbers of the inhospitable lake ? f (+ The Black Sea) 
 Saw ye the banner in its pride unfold 
 The blush of crimson and the blaze of gold ? 
 
 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 
 
 ■X- ***** « 
 
 Mr. Brown's prose, 
 
 **FORTES FORTUNA ADJUVAT." 
 
 " Of all the uncertain and capricious powers which rule 
 our earthly destiny, fortune is the chief. Who 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." % 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 how little we 
 can rely on fortune ; but his faults, great as they were, 
 are being redeemed by his nephew, Louis Napoleon, who 
 has shown himself very different from what we expected, 
 
 + Here again Mr. Brown prophesies. He wrote in June, 1854. 
 
356 Elemenfary Studies, 
 
 though he has never explained how he came to swear to 
 the Constitution, and then mounted the imperial throne. 
 " 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 cultivate 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 compositions over, Mr. White will 
 take to musing ; then he will reflect that he may as well 
 spare himself the trouble of arguing with a correspondent, 
 whose principle and standard of judgment is so different 
 from 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, Mr. 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. To him, then, not quite an impartial 
 judge, Mr. Brown unbosoms his dissatisfaction, present- 
 ing to him his son's Theme as an experiinentum crucis 
 between him and Mr. White. Mr. Black reads it 
 
Eiemefitary Studies. 357 
 
 through once, and then a second time ; and then he 
 observes — 
 
 " 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 not the sort of thing which any boy 
 could write, Mr. Black continues — 
 
 '' There's not one word 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 which 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 : — 
 
 "Now look here," he says, "the subject is 'Fortes 
 fortuna adjuvat' ; now this \s di proposition ; it states a 
 certain general principle, and this is just what an ordinary 
 boy would be sure to miss, and Robert does miss it. 
 He goes off at once on the word ' fortuna.' ' Fortuna' 
 was 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 with a subject, which, as being definite, would 
 have supported him. 
 
 " It would have been very cruel to have told a boy to 
 write on ' fortune ' ; it would have been like asking him 
 
358 Elementary Studies. 
 
 his opinion ^ 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 one of them, and I will write upon 
 it ; I cannot write on more than one ; Robert prefers to 
 write upon all. 
 
 " ' 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 avail himself of this assistance ; 
 your boy is not solitary in his inaccuracy ; all boys are 
 more or less inaccurate, because they are boys ; boyish- 
 ness of mind means inaccuracy. Boys cannot deliver a 
 message, or execute an order, or relate an occurrence, 
 without a blunder. They do not rouse up their attention 
 and reflect : they do not like the trouble of it : they 
 cannot look at anything steadily ; 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 wrote their fingers off. 
 
 " A really clever youth, especially as his mind opens, 
 is impatient of this defect of mind, even though, as being 
 a youth, he be partially under its influence. He shrinks 
 from a vague subject, as spontaneously as a slovenly 
 mind 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 ' his opinion' was of Lord Chatham. 
 Well, this was like asking him his view of ' things in 
 general' The poor youth stuck, and looked like a fool," 
 though it was not he. The examiner, blind to his own 
 
Elementary Studies, 359 
 
 absurdity, went on to ask him ' what were the charac- 
 teristics of English history.' Another silence, and the 
 poor fellow seemed to lookers-on to be done for, when 
 his only fault was that he had better sense than his 
 interrogator. 
 
 " When I hear such questions put, I admire the tact 
 of the worthy Milnwood in Old Mortality, when 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 own, 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 answer to the question 
 before him. Thereby he was enabled to pronounce 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 miUtary inquisitor. It was in some such 
 way my young friend got off. His guardian angel re- 
 minded him in a whisper 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 views 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 Mr. Brown takes advantage 
 of the pause to insinuate that Mr. Black is not himself a 
 disciple of his own 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 with the nominative 
 
360 Elemefitary Studies. 
 
 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. However, at least he might have kept to 
 some subject or other; he might have shown 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. Next, 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 what fortune did not do, for they died, 
 as they lived, in their respective states of life. Then comes 
 the Emperor Nicholas hie et nunc; 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 differently 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, when we cannot 
 help it ; and by giving us advice, sound, but unexpected, 
 to cultivate virtue." 
 
 ** O ! Black, it is quite ludicrous "... breaks in Mr. 
 
Elementary Studies. 361 
 
 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 will 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 write : 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 down little ; but depend upon it, his half sentences 
 will be worth more than the folio sheet of another boy, 
 and an experienced examiner will see it. 
 
 " Now, I will 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 will look out for 
 flowers, full-blown flowers, 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 
 when he gets there. He is a sensible man at bottom, as 
 well as good-tempered, this Mr, Brown, 
 
362 
 
 §. 3 — Latifi Writing. 
 
 MR. WHITE, the Tutor, is more and more pleased 
 with young Mr. 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. 
 
 Mr. White's view of Latin translation. 
 
 " 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 
 which requires especial attention is idio7natic propriety. 
 
 " By idiom is meant that use of words which is peculiar 
 to a particular language. Two nations may have corre- 
 sponding words for the same ideas, yet difi*er altogether 
 in their mode of using those words. For instance, ' et * 
 means ' 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 f ' faire ' is not used, but 'se porter,' viz., ' Com- 
 ment vous portez-vous ? ' 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 ox peculiar uses of his own Ian- 
 
Elementary Studies, 363 
 
 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 tise of words and 
 constructions, or the knowledge of idiom, 
 
 " Take the following English of a modern writer : 
 
 " * 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 : — 
 
 " ' Hsec est seria consideratio. Inter homines, ut inter 
 feras, gustus sanguinis creat ejus appetitum, et ejus 
 appetitus indulgentia roboratur.' 
 
 " Purer Latin, as far as diction is concerned, more 
 correct, as far as syntax, cannot be desired. Every word 
 is classical, every construction grammatical : yet Latinity 
 it simply has none. From beginning to end it follows 
 the English mode of speaking, or English idiom, not the 
 Latin. 
 
 "In proportion, then, as a candidate advances from 
 this Anglicism into Latinity, so far does he write good 
 Latin. 
 
 "We might make the following remarks upon the 
 above literal version. 
 
 " I. ' Consideratio ' is not ^a consideration;' the Latins, 
 having no article, are driven to expedients to supply its 
 place, e.g., quidam is sometimes used for a. 
 
 " 2. ' Consideratio ' is not ' a consideration,' i.e., a thing 
 considered, or a subject ; but the act of considering. 
 
 "3. It must never be forgotten, that such words as 
 * consideratio ' are generally metaphorical, and therefore 
 cannot be used simply, and without limitation or ex- 
 
364 Elementary Studies, 
 
 planation, in the English sense, according to which the 
 mental act is primarily conveyed by the word. ' Con- 
 sideratio/ it is true, can be used absolutely, with greater 
 propriety than most words of the kind ; but if we take 
 a parallel case, for instance, * agitatio,' we could not use 
 it at once in the mental sense for 'agitation,' but we 
 should be obliged to say ' agitatio mentis, animil etc., 
 thoug 1 even then it would not answer to 'agitation.' 
 
 " 4. ' Inter homines, gustus,' etc. Here the English, as 
 is not uncommon, throws two ideas together. It means, 
 first, that something occurs among men, and occurs 
 among wild 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 among 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 meaning, it only translates its expression. 
 
 " 5. 'Inter homines' is not the Latin phrase for 'among.' 
 'Inter' generally involves some sense of division, viz., 
 interruption, contrast, rivalry, etc. Thus, with a singular 
 noun, * inter coenam hoc accidit,' i.e., this interrupted 
 the supper. And so with two nouns, 'inter me et Brun- 
 dusium Caesar est' And so with a plural noun, 'hoc 
 inter homines ambigitur,' i.e., man with man. 'Micat 
 inter omnes Julium 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 followed by 
 accusatives, are foreign to the main structure of a Latin 
 sentence. 
 
Elementary Studies, 365 
 
 "7. * Et ; ' here two clauses are co7tnected, having 
 different subjects or nominatives ; in the former ' 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 connected clauses. 
 
 " 8. ' Et ' here connects two distinct clauses. * Autem ' 
 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 
 composition, and though more or less deficient in hitting 
 the Latin idiom, yet evidently know what idiom is. 
 
 " The first wrote : — Videte rem graviorem ; quod feris, 
 id hominibus quoque accidit, — sanguinis sitim semel 
 gustantibus intus concipi, plene potantibus maturari. 
 
 " The second wrote : — Res seria agitur ; nam quod in 
 feris, illud in hominibus quoque cernitur, sanguinis 
 appetitionem et suscitari lambendo et epulando inflam- 
 mari. 
 
 " The third : — Ecce res summa consideratione digna ; 
 et in feris et in hominibus, sanguinis semel delibati sitis 
 est, saepius hausti libido. 
 
 " The fourth : — Sollicite animadvertendum est, cum in 
 feris tum in hominibus fieri, ut gutt^ pariant appetitum 
 sanguinis, frequentiores potus ingluviem. 
 
 '* And the fifth : — Perpende sedulo, gustum sanguinis 
 tam in hominibus quam in feris primo 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, when 
 he sees his father, he mentions to him Mn 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 throw light on the subject treated in common by 
 both these literary authorities. 
 
 2. 
 
 Old Mr. Black's Confession of his search after a Latin 
 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 who come after ; and, as I am only 
 speaking to you, it strikes me that I may, without 
 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 
 whom the title of genius justly belongs ; for in most 
 cases, to be self-taught is to be badly grounded, to be 
 
Elementary Studies. 367 
 
 slovenly finished, and to be preposterously conceited. 
 Nor, again, was 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. 
 
 "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 know 
 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 was to write Latin well. I had some idea of 
 the style of Addison, Hume, and Johnson, in English ; 
 but I had no idea what was meant by good Latin style. 
 I had read Cicero without learning what it was ; the 
 books said, ' This is neat Ciceronian language,' ' this is 
 pure and elegant Latinity,' but they did not tell me why. 
 Some persons told me to go by my ear ; to get Cicero 
 by heart ; and then I should know how to turn my 
 thoughts and marshal my words, nay, more, where to 
 put subjunctive moods and where 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 was sixteen, I fell upon an article in the 
 Quarterly, which reviewed a Latin history of (I think) 
 the Rebellion of 171 5 ; perhaps by Dr. Whitaker, 
 
368 Elementary ShccCies. 
 
 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 
 nie. I read it carefully, and made extracts which, I 
 believe, I have to this day. Had I known more of Latin 
 writing, 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, idiomatic 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 
 was Dumesnil's Synonymes, a good book, but one which 
 does not even profess to teach Latin writing. I was 
 aiming to be an architect by learning to make bricks. 
 
 " Then I fell in with the Germania and Agricola of 
 Tacitus, and was very much taken by his style. Its 
 peculiarities were much easier to understand, and to 
 copy, than Cicero's : ^ decipit exemplar vitiis imitabile ; ' 
 and thus, without 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 colloquial 
 expressions, rather than of sentences with an adequate 
 structure." 
 
 Mr. Black takes breath, and then continues : 
 "The labour, then, of years came to nothing, and when 
 I was twenty I knew no more of Latin composition than 
 
Elementary Studies* 369 
 
 I had known at fifteen. It was then that circumstances 
 turned my attention to a volume of Latin Lectures, 
 which had been pubHshed by the accompHshed 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 ex tempore the course of a discussion delivered in 
 a foreign tongue, they needed a style as neat, pointed, 
 lucid, and perspicuous as it was ornamental. Moreover, 
 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 which Cicero scatters over a treatise ; 
 but still on that very account more fitted for the purpose 
 of inflicting upon the inquiring student what Latinity was. 
 Any how, such was its effect upon me ; it was like the 
 ' Open Sesame ' of the tale ; and I quickly found that I 
 had a new sense, as regards composition, that I under- 
 stood beyond mistake what a Latin sentence should be, 
 and saw how an English sentence must be fused and 
 remoulded in order to make it Latin. Henceforth 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 was over ; and, whether I ever wrote 
 Latin or not, at least I knew what good Latin was. 
 7* 24 
 
370 Elementary Studies. 
 
 " I had now learned that good Latlnlty lies in struc- 
 ture ; that every word of a sentence 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 which I had 
 attained. Rules and remarks, such as are contained in 
 works on composition, had not led me to master the 
 idea ; and now 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 which I 
 drew out and threw into form what 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 of 
 which I have not happened to see in print. Consider- 
 ing, however, how much has been done for scholarship 
 since the time I speak of, and especially how many 
 German books have been translated, I doubt not I 
 should now 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 
 which 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 ; — 
 
Elementaty Studies. 371 
 
 what is possible In Latin composition and what is not, 
 how to compensate for want of brevity by elegance, and 
 to secure perspicuity by the use of figures, these, and a 
 hundred similar points of art, I illustrated with a dili- 
 gence which even bordered on subtlety. Cicero became 
 a mere magazine 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 any one else, but 
 I have a vivid recollection of the great utility they were 
 at that time to my own mind. 
 
 "The general subject of Latin composition, my dear 
 son, has ever interested me much, and you see only one 
 point in it has made me speak for a quarter of an hour ; 
 but now that I have had my say about it, what 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 
 them ; 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 ; throw 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 
 speak like a book. You must let me ask you to write 
 down for me what you have been giving out in conver- 
 sation." 
 
 / have had the advantage of the written copy. 
 
372 
 
 §. 4* — General Religious Knowledge, 
 
 IT has been the custom in the English Universities 
 to introduce reHgious instruction into the School of 
 Arts ; and a very right custom it is, which every Univer- 
 sity may well imitate. I have certainly felt it ought to 
 have a place in that School ; yet the subject is not with- 
 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 admitted. 
 There are many who would make over the subject ot 
 Religion to the theologian exclusively ; there are others 
 who allow it almost unlimited extension in the province 
 of Letters. The latter of these two 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 am 
 not here concerned with opinions of this character, which 
 I respect, but cannot follow. Nor am I concerned with 
 that large class, on the other hand, who, in their ex- 
 clusion of Religion from the iecture-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 
 
Elementary Studies. ^y^ 
 
 same practical conclusion as the sceptic and unbeliever, 
 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 suf^cient for the 
 definite direction of those who have to carry out the 
 matter of it in practice. 
 
 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 world 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 accomplished 
 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 information, 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 we 
 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 with the chance of its exercising 
 them wrongly ; or shall we proceed to feed it with divine 
 truth, as it gains an appetite for knowledge t 
 
 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 which 
 that course results ; for nothing will 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, whether 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, will appear, if 
 I proceed to explain the mode which I should propose 
 to adopt for the purpose : — 
 
 I would 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 knowledge 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 
 
 description 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 efi"ects 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 which 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 objection 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 and eccle- 
 siastical history as well as profane : it is desirable that 
 he should be on a par with them, and able to keep up a 
 conversation with them. It is desirable, if he has left 
 our University with honours or prizes, that he should 
 know 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 down to this day. 
 He should have some idea of its propagation, and of the 
 order in which the nations, which have submitted to it, 
 
376 Elementary Studies. 
 
 entered its pale ; and of the list of its Fathers, and of 
 its writers generally, and of the subjects of their works. 
 He should know who St. Justin Martyr was, and when 
 he lived ; what language St. Ephraim wrote in ; on what 
 St. Chrysostom's literary fame is founded ; who was 
 Celsus, or Ammonius, or Porphyry, or Ulphilas, or Sym- 
 machus, or Theodoric. Who were the Nestorians ; what 
 was the religion of the barbarian nations who took pos- 
 session of the Roman Empire : 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 what 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 Wykeham, 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 we 
 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 desirable that, while our students are encouraged to 
 pursue the history of classical literature, they should 
 also be invited to acquaint themselves with some general 
 facts about the canon of Holy Scripture, its history, the 
 Jewish canon, St. Jerome, the Protestant Bible ; again, 
 about the languages of Scripture, the contents of its 
 separate books, their authors, and their versions. In all 
 such knowledge I conceive no great harm can lie in being 
 superficial. 
 
 But now as to Theology itself. To meet the appre- 
 hended danger, I would exclude the teaching in extenso of 
 
Klementary Studies. 377 
 
 pure dogma from the secular schools, and content 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 lawyer 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 world 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 ; what 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 ot 
 faith } He hears the Pope accused of interfering with 
 
378 Ekmeiiiary Studies. 
 
 the prerogatives of her Majesty, because he appoints an 
 hierarchy. What is he to answer? What principle is to 
 guide him in the remarks which he cannot escape from 
 the necessity of making ? He fills a station of impor- 
 tance, and he is addressed 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 
 m_eant by his intention, what by the opus operatum ; 
 whether, and in what sense, we consider Protestants to 
 be heretics ; whether any one can be saved without 
 sacramental confession ; whether we deny the reality of 
 natural virtue, or what worth we assign to it ? 
 
 Questions may be multiplied Avithout 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 few 
 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. It will not answer thu 
 purpose for a Catholic to say, " 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 down the law. I say '' lay down the law ; " for 
 remarkable it is that even those who speak against 
 Catholicism like to hear about it, and will excuse its 
 advocate from alleging arguments if he can gratify 
 their curiosity by giving them 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 information. I 
 recollect, some twenty-five years ago, three friends of my 
 own, as they then were, clergymen of the Establishment, 
 making a tour through Ireland. In the West or South 
 they had occasion to become pedestrians for the day ; 
 and they took a boy of thirteen to be their guide. They 
 amused themselves 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 any train of arguments, or re- 
 fined theological disquisition, but merely by knowing and 
 understanding the answers 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 view it from 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, Arnobius, and Lactantius. In 
 like manner in this age some of the most prominent 
 defences of the Church are from laymen : as De Maistre, 
 Chateaubriand, Nicolas, Montalembert, and others. If 
 laymen may write, lay students may read ; they surely 
 may read what their fathers may have written. They 
 
380 Elementary Studies. 
 
 might surely study other works too, ancient and modern, 
 written whether by ecclesiastics or laymen, which, al- 
 though they do contain theology, nevertheless, in theii 
 structure and drift, are polemical. Such is Origen's great 
 work against Celsus ; and Tertullian's Apology ; such 
 some of the controversial treatises of Eusebius and 
 Theodoret ; or St. Augustine's City of God ; or the tract 
 of Vincentius Lirinensis. And I confess 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 
 treatises on the Loci Theologici. On these questions in 
 detail, however, — which are, I readily acknowledge, very 
 delicate, — opinions may differ, even where the general 
 principle is admitted ; but, even if we confine ourselves 
 strictly to the Philosophy, that is, the external contem- 
 plation, of Religion, we shall have a range of reading 
 sufficiently wide, and as valuable in its practical applica- 
 tion as it is liberal in its character. In it will be included 
 what 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 : — 
 Whatever 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. 
 
38i 
 
 A FORM OF INFIDELITY OF THE DAY. 
 §. I. Its Sentiments, 
 
 THOUGH 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 was 
 in one portion of the middle ages. Nay, contrasting the 
 two periods together, we may even say, that in this very 
 point they differ, that, in the medieval, since Catholicism 
 was then the sole rehgion recognized in Christendom, 
 unbelief necessarily made its advances under the lan- 
 guage and the guise of faith ; whereas in the present, 
 when universal toleration prevails, and it is open to 
 assail revealed truth (whether Scripture or Tradition, 
 the Fathers or the " Sense of the faithful"), unbelief in 
 consequence throws off the mask, and takes up a position 
 over against us in citadels of its own, and confronts us 
 in the broad light 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 
 
^82 A Form of hiMelity of the Day. 
 
 command and policy of the Church), that I prefer to Hve 
 in an age when the fight is in the day, not in the 
 twilight ; and think it a gain to be speared by a foe, rather 
 than to be stabbed by a friend. 
 
 I do not, then, repine at all at the open development 
 of unbelief in Germany, supposing unbelief is to be, or at 
 its growing audacity in England ; not as if I were satis- 
 fied with the state -of things, considered positively, but 
 because, in the unavoidable alternative of avovi^ed unbe- 
 lief and secret, my own personal leaning is in favour of 
 the former. I hold that unbelief is in some shape una- 
 voidable in an age of intellect and in a world like this, 
 considering that faith requires an act of the will, and 
 presupposes the due exercise of religious advantages. 
 You may persist in calling Europe Catholic, though it is 
 not ; you may enforce an outward acceptance of Catho- 
 lic dogma, and an outward obedience to Catholic pre- 
 cept ; and your enactments may be, so far, not only 
 pious in themselves, but even merciful towards the 
 teachers of false doctrine, as well as just towards their 
 victims ; but this is all that you can do ; you cannot 
 bespeak conclusions which, in spite of yourselves, you 
 are leaving free to the human will. There will be, I say, 
 in spite of you, unbelief and immorality to the end of 
 the world, and you must be prepared for immorality 
 more odious, and unbelief more astute, more subtle, 
 more bitter, and more resentful, in proportion as it is 
 obliged to dissemble. 
 
 It is one great advantage of an age in which unbelief 
 speaks out, that Faith can speak out too ; that, if false- 
 hood assails Truth, Truth can assail falsehood. In such 
 an age it is possible to found a University more empha- 
 tically Catholic than could be set up in the middle age, 
 because Truth can entrench itself carefully, and define 
 
A Form of Infidelity of the Day. 383 
 
 its own profession severely, and display its colours 
 unequivocally, by occasion of that very unbelief which 
 so shamelessly vaunts itself And a kindred advantage 
 to this is the confidence which, in such an age, we can 
 place in all who are around us, so that we need look foi 
 no foes but those who are in the enemy's camp. 
 
 2. 
 
 The medieval schools were the arena 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 
 Universities risen into popularity, when they were found 
 to be infected with the most subtle and fatal forms of 
 unbelief ; and the heresies of the East germinated in the 
 West of Europe and in Catholic lecture-rooms, with a 
 mysterious vigour upon which history throws little light. 
 The questions agitated were as deep as any in theology ; 
 the being and essence of the Almighty were the main 
 subjects of the disputation, and Aristotle was introduced 
 to the ecclesiastical youth as a teacher of Pantheism. 
 Saracenic expositions of the great philosopher were in 
 vogue ; and, when a fresh treatise was 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 Caesar 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 society was dis- 
 
384 ^ Form of Infidelity of the Day. 
 
 covered in the Universities of Lombardy, Tuscany, and 
 France, organized for the propagation of infidel opinions ; 
 it was bound together by oaths, and sent its missionaries 
 among the people in the disguise of pedlars and vagrants. 
 The success of such efforts was attested in the south 
 of France by the great extension of the Albigenses, and 
 the prevalence of Manichean doctrine. The University 
 of Paris was obliged to limit the number of its doctors in 
 theology to as few as eight, from misgivings about the 
 orthodoxy of its divines generally. The narrative of 
 Simon of Tournay, struck dead for crying out after 
 lecture, "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 which Christianity was exposed. 
 Amaury of Chartres was 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 who might be named, show the extra- 
 ordinary influence of anti-Catholic doctrines on high 
 and low. 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 University at 
 Naples with a view to the propagation of the infidelity 
 which was so dear to him. It gave birth to the great 
 St. Thomas, the champion of revealed truth. So inti- 
 mate was the intermixture, so close the grapple, between 
 faith and unbelief. It was the conspiracy of traitors, it 
 was a civil strife, of which the medieval seats of learning 
 were the scene. 
 
 In this day, on the contrary. Truth and Error lie over 
 against each other with a valley between them, and 
 
A Form of Infidelity of the Day, 385 
 
 David goes forward In the sight of all men, and from 
 his own camp, to engage with the Philistine. Such is 
 the providential overruling 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 what she loses 
 in extent. She has now a direct command and a reliable 
 influence over her own institutions, which was wanting 
 in the middle ages. A University is her possession in 
 these times, as well as her creation : nor has she the 
 need, which once was so urgent, to expel heresies from 
 her pale, which have now their own centres of attrac- 
 tion elsewhere, and spontaneously take their departure. 
 Secular 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 communion ! I repeat 
 it, I would rather fight with unbelief as we find it in the 
 nineteenth century, than as it existed in the twelfth and 
 thirteenth. 
 
 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 are there in agitation 
 against us. The arming and the manoeuvring, the earth- 
 works and the mines, go on incessantly ; and one cannot 
 of course tell, without the gift of prophecy, which of his 
 projects will be carried into effect and attain its purpose, 
 7* 25 
 
386 A For7n of Infidelity of the Day, 
 
 and which 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 
 my anticipations according to the signs of the times ; 
 and such must be my proviso, 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 must 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 any one man as yet con- 
 sciously holds, or sees the drift, of that portion of the 
 theory to which he has given assent. I am to describe 
 a set of opinions which may be considered as the true 
 explanation of many floating views, and the converging 
 point of a multitude of separate and independent minds; 
 and, as of old Arius or Nestorius not only was spoken 
 of in his own person, but was viewed as the abstract and 
 typical teacher of the heresy which 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 manner, I may be 
 describing a school of thought in its fully developed 
 proportions, which at present every one, to whom mem- 
 bership with it is imputed, will at once begin to disown, 
 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 which exist ; and 
 
A Form of Infidelity of 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 
 which 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 firm 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, "without denying that in the 
 matter of religion some things are true and some things 
 false, still we certainly are not in a position to determine 
 the one or the other. And, as it would be absurd to 
 dogmatize about the weather, and say that i860 will be 
 a wet season or a dry season, a time of peace or war, so 
 it is absurd for men in our present state to teach any- 
 
388 A Form of Infidelity of the Day. 
 
 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 own 
 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, when he is handled 
 sceptically by another, would not be taken to argue a 
 secret misgiving in your mind about 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 time 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 misery 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 Form of Infidelity of the Day, 389 
 
 ourselves. Our mistake reproduces and corroborates itself. 
 A small insect, 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 eflbrt which cannot lead to 
 anything beyond itself. When, then, in like manner, you 
 have once resolved that certain reHgious 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, will never reach its aim ; and, 
 since you are convinced it ought to do so, the more you 
 have failed hitherto, the more violent and pertinacious will 
 be your attempt in time to come. And further still, since 
 you are not the only man in the world who is in this error, 
 but one of ten thousand, all holding the general principle 
 that Religion is scientific, and yet all difl"ering 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 misery 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 laid," 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 what it cannot. Diff"erences of opinion crop 
 up and multiply 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 for the visionary." 
 
3 go A Form of Infidelity of the Day, 
 
 Now, there is no call on me here to refute these argu- 
 ments, but merely to state them. I need not refute what 
 has not yet been proved. It is sufficient for me to repeat 
 what I have already said, that they are founded upon a 
 mere assumption. Supposing, indeed, religious truth can- 
 not be ascertained, then, of course, it is not only idle, but 
 mischievous, to attempt to do so ; then, of course, argu- 
 ment does but increase the mistake of attempting it. But 
 surely both Catholics and Protestants have written solid 
 defences of Revelation, 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 
 minds that it can be attained ; and the onus probandi 
 plainly lies with those who are introducing into the world 
 what the whole world feels to be a paradox. 
 
 5. 
 . 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 
 patriot abhors and loathes the partizans who have de- 
 graded and injured his country ; and the citizen of the 
 world, the advocate of the human race, feels bitter indig- 
 nation at those whom he holds to have been its misleaders 
 and tyrants for two thousand years. " The world has 
 lost two thousand years. It is pretty much where it was 
 in the days of Augustus. This is what 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 of hijidelity of the Day, 391 
 
 those, again, who are good enough to grant that the 
 CathoHc Church fostered knowledge and science up to 
 the days of GaHleo, and that she has only retrograded 
 for the last several centuries. But the new teacher, whom 
 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. And 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 Christian theology, the scabbard flung away, 
 and no quarter given t and what will be the issue but 
 the triumph of the stronger, — the overthrow of an old 
 error and an odious tyranny, and a reign of the beautiful 
 Truth t " Thus he thinks, and he sits dreaming over the 
 inspiring thought, and longs for that approaching, that 
 inevitable day. 
 
 There let us leave him for the present, dreaming and 
 longing in his impotent hatred of a Power which Julian 
 and Frederic, Shaftesbury and Voltaire, and a thousand 
 other great sovereigns and subtle thinkers, have assailed 
 in vain. 
 
392 
 
 § 2. Its Policy 
 
 IT is a miserable time when a man's Catholic profes- 
 sion is no voucher for his orthodoxy, and when a 
 teacher of religion may be within the Church's pale, yet 
 external to her faith. Such has been for a season the 
 trial of her children at various eras of her history. It was 
 the state of things during the dreadful Arian ascendancy, 
 when the flock had to keep aloof from the shepherd, 
 and the unsuspicious Fathers of the Western Councils 
 trusted and followed some consecrated sophist from 
 Greece or Syria. It was the case in those passages of 
 medieval history when simony resisted the Supreme 
 Pontiff, or when heresy lurked in Universities. It was a 
 longer and more tedious trial, while the controversies 
 lasted with the Monophysites of old, and with the Jan- 
 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 condemnation at length pronounced upon one whom 
 in their simplicity they have admired. We, too, in this 
 age have our scandals, for scandals must be ; but they 
 are not what they were once ; and if it be the just com- 
 plaint of pious men now, that never was infidelity so 
 rampant, it is their boast and consolation, on the other 
 hand, that never was the Church less troubled with false 
 teachers, never more united. 
 
 False teachers do not remain within her pale now, 
 
A For7n of Infidelity of the Day. 393 
 
 because they can easily leave it, and because there are 
 seats of error external to her to which they are attracted. 
 " They went out from us," says the Apostle, " but they 
 were not of us ; for if they had been of us, they would 
 no doubt have continued with us : but that they might 
 be made manifest 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 
 middle ages it might have managed, by means of subter- 
 fuges, to maintain itself for a while within the sacred 
 limits, — now of course it is outside of it ; yet still, from 
 the intermixture of Catholics with the world, and the 
 present immature condition of the false doctrine, it may 
 at first exert 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 which a University 
 of this age will have to contend, as the medieval Univer- 
 sities had their own special antagonists. And for both 
 reasons I am hazarding some remarks on a set of opinions 
 and a Hne of action which seems to be at present, at least 
 in its rudiments, in the seats of English intellect, whether 
 the danger dies away of itself or not. 
 
 I have already said that its fundamental dogma is, 
 that nothing can be known for certain about the unseen 
 world. 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 ^ Form of Infidelity of the Day, 
 
 thrown away ; nay, has been, not useless merely, but 
 even mischievous, inasmuch 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 members, is a deep hatred and a bitter resentment 
 against the Power which has managed, as they consider, 
 to stunt the world's knowledge and the intellect of man 
 for so many hundred years. Thus much I have already 
 said, and now I am going to state the line of policy which 
 these people will adopt, and the course of thought which 
 that policy of theirs will make 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 with 
 theologians ? This evidently would be to increase, to 
 perpetuate the calamity. Nothing, they will say to them- 
 selves, do religious men desire so ardently, nothing would 
 so surely advance the cause of Religion, as Controversy. 
 The very policy of religious 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 own game, they will consider, 
 is, on the contrary, to be elaborately silent about it. 
 Should they not then go on to shut up the theological 
 schools, and exclude Religion from the subjects scienti- 
 fically treated in philosophical education t This indeed 
 has been, and is, a favourite mode of proceeding with very 
 
A Form of Infidelity of the Day. 395 
 
 many of the enemies of Theology ; but still it cannot be 
 said to have been justified by any greater success than the 
 policy of Controversy. The establishment of the Lon- 
 don University only gave immediate occasion to the 
 establishment of King's College, founded on the dogma- 
 tic principle ; and the liberalism of the Dutch govern- 
 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. What- 
 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 University, — 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^ A Form of Lijidelity of 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 home 
 of Duns Scotus and Alexander Hales. What envious 
 mischance put an end to those halcyon days, and revived 
 the odium theologicum 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 mischief has 
 been done; and now the wisest course for the interests 
 of infidelity is to leave it to itself, and let the fever 
 gradually subside ; treatment would but irritate it Not 
 to interfere with Theology, not to raise a little finger 
 against it, is the only means of superseding it. The 
 more bitter is the hatred which such men bear it, the 
 less they must show it. 
 
 3. 
 
 What, then, is the line of action which they must pur- 
 sue } They think, and rightly think, that, in all contests, 
 the wisest 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 themselves ; merely 
 
A Form of Infidelity of 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. Get 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 
 with 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 method 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, 
 antiquities, — these be your indirect but effectual means 
 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 temper, 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 towards the sciences I 
 have enumerated, or apprehension of their legitimate 
 
398 A Form of Infidelity of the Day. 
 
 tendencies ; whereas my very object is to protest against 
 a monopoly of them by others. And it is not surely a 
 heavy imputation on them to say that they, as other 
 divine gifts, may be used to wrong purposes, with which 
 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, which is its truest interpreter, were 
 made to minister to sensuality ; as, in the middle ages, 
 abstract speculation, another great instrument of truth, 
 was often frittered away 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 student, 
 and be degraded into the accidental tool, hie et nunc, of 
 infidelity. I am as little hostile to physical science as I 
 am to poetry or metaphysics ; but I wish for studies of 
 every kind a legitimate application : nor do I grudge 
 them to anti-Catholics, so that anti-Cathulics will not 
 claim 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 those who are sure, that in the incessant inves- 
 tigation of facts, physical, political, and moral, something 
 or other, or many things, will sooner or later turn up, 
 and stubborn facts too, simply contradictory of revealed 
 declarations. A vision comes before them of some phy- 
 sical or historical proof tnat mankind is not descended 
 from a common origin, or that the hopes of the world 
 were never consigned to a wooden ark floating on the 
 waters, or that the manifestations on Mount Sinai were 
 the work of man or nature, or that the Hebrew patriarchs 
 
A For7?i of Infidelity of the Day. 399 
 
 or the judges of Israel are mythical personages, or that 
 St. Peter had no connection with 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, where this feeling exists, there 
 will be a still stronger motive for letting Theology alone. 
 That party, with whom success is but a matter of time, 
 can afford to wait patiently ; and if an inevitable train 
 is laid for blowing up the fortress, why need we be 
 anxious that the catastrophe should take place to-day, 
 rather than to-morrow ? 
 
 4. 
 
 But, without making too much of their own anticipa- 
 tions on this point, which may or 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. Any one study, 
 of whatever kind, exclusively pursued, deadens in the 
 mind the interest, nay, the perception of any other. Thus, 
 Cicero says that Plato and Demosthenes, Aristotle and 
 Isocrates, might have respectively excelled in each other's 
 province, but that each was absorbed in his own ; his 
 words are emphatic ; "quorum uterque, suo studio delec- 
 tatus, coiitemsit alterum." Specimens of this peculiarity 
 occur every day. You can hardly persuade some men 
 to talk about any thing but their own pursuit ; they refer 
 the whole world to their own centre, and measure all 
 
400 A Form of Infidelity of the Day, 
 
 matters by their own rule, like the fisherman In the 
 drama, whose eulogy on his deceased lord was, that '^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 
 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 men indiffer- 
 entists or sceptics, merely by being exclusively pursued. 
 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. 
 
 Nor is this all ; they trust to the influence of the 
 modern 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, 
 which, 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, o^ 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 Form of Infidelity of the Day. 401 
 
 plane, in accordance with our senses, discourses of the 
 sun's rising and setting, while physical, in accordance 
 with our reason, asserts, on the contrary, that the sun is 
 all but stationary, and that it is the earth that moves. 
 This is what is meant by saying that truth lies in a well; 
 phenomena are no measure of fact ; prima facie repre- 
 sentations, which we receive from without, do not reach 
 to the real state of things, or put them before us simply 
 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 one 
 of ten million globes moving in space ; let him learn 
 from the geologist that on that globe of ours enormous 
 revolutions have been in progress through innumerable 
 ages ; let him be told by the comparative anatomist 
 of the minutely arranged system of organized nature ; 
 by the chemist and physicist, of the peremptory yet 
 intricate laws to which nature, organized and inorganic, 
 is subjected ; by the ethnologist, of the originals, and 
 ramifications, 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, restless 
 7* 26 
 
402 A Form of Infidelity of the Day. 
 
 world of men ; I say, let him take in and master the 
 vastness of the view thus afforded him of Nature, its 
 infinite complexity, its awful comprehensiveness, 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 warnings and prophecies of the Gospels, 
 or the Symbolum Quicumque, or the Life of St. Antony 
 or St. Hilarion, and he may certainly experience 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 swims 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 own world. All this, the school I am speaking 
 of understands well ; it comprehends that, if it can 
 but exclude the professors of Religion from the lecture- 
 halls of science, it may safely allow them full play in 
 their own ; for it will be able to rear up infidels, without 
 speaking a word, merely by the terrible influence of that 
 faculty against which both Bacon and Butler so solemnly 
 warn us. 
 
 I say, it leaves the theologian the full and free pos- 
 session of his own schools, for it thinks he will have no 
 chance of arresting the opposite teaching or of rivalling 
 the fascination of modern science. Knowing little, and 
 T;aring less for the depth and largeness of that heavenly 
 Wisdom, on which the Apostle delights to expatiate, or 
 the variety of those sciences, dogmatic or ethical, mysti- 
 
 * Vid. University Sermons, vii., 14- 
 
A Form of Infidelity of the Day. 403 
 
 cal or hagiological, historical or exegetical, which Reve- 
 lation has created, these philosophers know perfectly 
 well that, in matter of fact, to beings, constituted as we 
 are, sciences which concern this world and this state of 
 existence are worth far more, are more arresting and 
 attractive, than those which relate to a system of things 
 which they d.o not see and cannot master by their natural 
 powers. Sciences which deal with tangible facts, prac- 
 tical results, evergrowing discoveries, and perpetual 
 novelties, which 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, in 
 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 by emptying 
 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 former 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 mind towards 
 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 Form of Infidelity 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 some 
 suggestions which, if worth anything, others may use. 
 
405 
 
 VI. 
 
 UNIVERSITY PREACHING. 
 
 I. 
 
 WHEN I obtained from various distinguished per- 
 sons the acceptable promise that they would give 
 me the advantage of their countenance and assistance by 
 appearing from time to time in the pulpit of our new 
 University, some of them accompanied that promise with 
 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 most satisfactorily accompHshed. On 
 the other hand, it was quite as natural that I on my part 
 should be disinclined to take on myself an office which 
 belongs to a higher station and authority in the Church 
 than my own ; and the more so, because, on the definite 
 subject about which the inquiry is made, I should have 
 far less direct aid from the writings of holy men and great 
 divines than I could desire. Were it indeed my sole 
 business to put into shape the scattered precepts which 
 saints and doctors have delivered upon it, I might have 
 ventured on such a task with comparatively little mis- 
 giving. Under the shadow 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 
 
4o6 University Preaching, 
 
 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 aad the same in all cases ; but 
 not the subject-matter 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 attempted to perform a task which 
 seemed naturally to fall to me ; and I am thankful to 
 say that, though I must in some measure go beyond the 
 range of the simple direction to which I have referred, 
 the greater part of my remarks will lie within it. 
 
 2. 
 
 I. So far is clear at once, that the preacher's object is 
 the spiritual good of his hearers. " Finis praedicanti sit," 
 says St. Francis de Sales ; " ut vitam (justitiae) habeant 
 ho7nines, et abundantius habeant." And St. Charles : 
 ** Considerandum, ad Dei omnipotentis gloriam, ad ani- 
 marumque salutem, referri omnem concionandi vim ac 
 rationem." Moreover, " Prsedicatorem esse ministrum 
 Dei, per quem verbum Dei a spiritus fonte ducitur ad 
 fidelium animas irrigandas." As a marksman aims 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 maxim, 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 what is the conduct of men who have one object 
 definitely before them, and one only .-* Why, that, what- 
 
University Preacki^ig. 407 
 
 ever be their skill, whatever their resources, greater or 
 less, to its attainment all their efforts are simply, spon- 
 taneously, visibly, directed. This cuts off a number of 
 questions sometimes asked about preaching, and extin- 
 guishes a number of anxieties. "SoUicita es, et turbaris," 
 says our Lord to St. Martha; "erga plurima; porrounum 
 est necessarium." We ask questions perhaps about dic- 
 tion, elocution, rhetorical power; but does the commander 
 of a besieging force dream of holiday displays, reviews, 
 mock engagements, feats of strength, or trials of skill, 
 such as would be graceful and suitable on a parade 
 ground when a foreigner of rank was to be received and 
 feted ; or does he aim at one and one thing only, viz., to 
 take the strong place .'* Display dissipates the energy, 
 which 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 accomplish- 
 ments. Indeed, St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, 
 who made much of such advantages of nature, contrasts 
 the persuasive words of human wisdom "with the show- 
 ing of the Spirit," and tells us that " the kingdom of God 
 is not in speech, but in power." 
 
 But, not to go to the 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 enough to absorb and possess 
 a preacher has at least a prima facie claim of attention 
 on the part of his hearers. On the other hand, any thing 
 which interferes with this earnestness, or which argues 
 its absence, is still more certain to blunt the force of the 
 
4o8 U^iiversity Preachmg. 
 
 most 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 from 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 merely to the feelings or to the 
 reason. 
 
 On these grounds I would go on to lay down a precept, 
 which I trust is not extravagant, when allowance is made 
 for the preciseness and the point which are unavoidable 
 in all categorical statements upon matters of conduct. 
 It 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 *' one thing is necessary," — an intense perception and 
 appreciation of the end for which he preaches, and that is, 
 to be the minister of some definite spiritual good to those 
 who hear him. Who could wish to be more eloquent, 
 more powerful, more successful than the Teacher of the 
 Nations .'' yet who more earnest, who more natural, who 
 more unstudied, who more self-forgetting than he ^ 
 
 3. 
 
 (i.) And here, in order to prevent misconception, two 
 
 remarks must be made, which will lead us further into 
 
 the subject we are engaged upon. The first is, that, in 
 
 what I have been saying, I do not mean that a preacher 
 
Ufiiversity Preaching, 409 
 
 must aim at earnestness, but that he must aim at his 
 object, which is to do some spiritual good to his hearers, 
 and which will at once make him earnest. 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 ruHng 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 aiming directly at earnest- 
 ness ; any one may become earnest by meditating on 
 the motives, and by drinking at the sources, of earnest- 
 ness. We may of course work 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 v/armth 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 arms together are 
 signs of warmth ; though they are natural where earnest- 
 ness already exists, and pleasing as being its spontaneous 
 concomitants. To sit down to compose for the pulpit 
 with a resolution to be eloquent is one impediment to 
 persuasion ; but to be determined to be earnest is abso- 
 lutely 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 
 countenance, his manner, his voice, speak for him, in pro- 
 
4IO University Preaching, 
 
 portion as his view has been vivid and minute. The 
 great English poet has described this sort of eloquence 
 when a calamity had befallen : — 
 
 Yea, this man'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. 
 
 It 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 
 their faith and love. As the case would be with one 
 who has actually seen what he relates, the herald of 
 tidings of the invisible world also will be, from the 
 nature of the case, whether vehement or calm, sad or 
 exulting, always simple, grave, emphatic, and peremp- 
 tory ; and all this, not because he has proposed to him- 
 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, "ut ipsemet penitus hauseris, ut persuasissimam 
 tibi habeas, doctrinam quam aliis persuasam cupis. 
 Artificium summum erit, nullum habere artificium. In- 
 flammata sint verba, non clamoribus gesticulationibusve 
 immodicis, sed interiore afifectione. De corde plus quam 
 de ore proficiscantur. Quantumvis ore dixerimus, sane 
 cor cordi loquitur, lingua non nisi aures pulsat" St. 
 Augustine had said to the same purpose long before : 
 '' Sonus verborum nostrorum aures percutit ; magister 
 intus est." 
 
 (2.) My second remark is, that it is the preacher's duty 
 to aim at imparting to others, not any fortuitous, unpre- 
 meditated benefit, but some definite spiritual good. It is 
 here that design and study find their place ; the more 
 
ZJ} liver si fy PreacJiing, 411 
 
 exact and precise is the subject which he treats, the more 
 impressive and practical will he be ; whereas no one will 
 carry off much from 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 image 
 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 emotion or sentiment from mind to mind, 
 but it is not able to fix it there. He must aim at imprint- 
 ing on the heart what will never leave it, and this he 
 cannot do unless he employ himself on some definite 
 subject, which he has to handle and weigh, and then, as it 
 were, to hand over from himself to others. 
 
 Hence it is that the Saints insist so expressly on the 
 necessity of his addressing himself to the intellect of 
 men, and of convincing as well as persuading. " Necesse 
 est ut doceat et moveat," says St. Francis ; and St. 
 Antoninus still more distinctly : " Debet praedicator 
 dare loqui, ut insUniat intellectiLrn 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 
 would 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 any one to listen. 
 
 Nay, I would go the length of recommending a 
 preacher to place a distinct categorical proposition 
 before him, such as he can write down in a form of words, 
 and to guide and limit his preparation by it, and to aim 
 
4 1 2 University Preaching. 
 
 in all he says to bring it out, and nothing else. This 
 seems to be implied or suggested in St. Charles's direc- 
 tion : "Id omnino studebit, ut quod in concione dicturus est 
 antea bene cognitum habeat." Nay, is it not expressly con- 
 veyed in the Scripture phrase of " preaching the word'' f 
 for what is meant by ** the word " but a proposition ad- 
 dressed to the intellect ? nor will a preacher's earnestness 
 show itself in anything more unequivocally than in his re- 
 jecting, whatever be the temptation 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 preaching 
 on three or four subjects at once. I acknowledge I am 
 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 we 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 which 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 between 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, definiteness of object 
 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 make it his own, or else 
 
University Preaching. 413 
 
 have already dwelt on it and mastered it, so as to be 
 able to use it for the occasion from an habitual under- 
 standing of it ; and that then he should employ himself, 
 as the one business of his discourse, to bring home to 
 others, and to leave deep. within them, what 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 temptation 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 what will I 
 but that it be kindled .? " He had one work, and He 
 accomplished it. " The words," He says, '' which Thou 
 gavest Me, I have giveit to them, and they have received 
 them, . . . and now I come to Thee." And the 
 Apostles, again, as they had received, so were they to 
 give. " That which we have seen and have heard," says 
 one of them, " we declare unto you, that you may have 
 fellowship with us." If, then, a preacher's subject only 
 be some portion of the Divine message, however elemen- 
 tary it may be, however 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 to whom it goes 
 forth from him, according to the words of the promise, 
 " My word, which shall go forth from My mouth, shall 
 not return to Me void, but it shall do whatsoever I please, 
 and shall prosper in the things for which I sent it." 
 
 4. 
 
 2. And now having got as far as this, we shall see 
 
4 1 4 University Preaching, 
 
 without difficulty what a University Sermon ought to be 
 just so far as it is distinct from other sermons ; for, if all 
 preaching is directed towards 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 which 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 to those." The holy Pope himself throws the 
 maxim into another form, still more precise : '*' Debet 
 prsedicator," he says, " perspicere, ne plus prsedicet, 
 quam ab audiente capi possit." And St. Charles ex- 
 pounds it, referring to Pope St. Gregory : " Pro audien- 
 tium genere locos doctrinarum, ex quibus concionem 
 conficiat, non modo distinctos, sed optime explicatos 
 habebit. Atque in hoc quidem multiplici genere con- 
 cionator videbit, ne quaecumque, ut S. Gregorius scite 
 monet, legerit, aut scientia comprehenderit, omnia enun- 
 ciet atque effundat ; sed delectum habebit, ita ut do- 
 cumenta alia exponat, alia tacite relinquat, prout locus, 
 ordo, conditioque auditorum deposcat." And, by way of 
 obviating the chance of such a rule being considered a 
 human artifice inconsistent with the simplicity of the 
 Gospel, he had said shortly before : "Ad Dei gloriam, ad 
 coelestis regni propagationem, et ad animarum salutem, 
 plurimum interest, non solum quales sint prsedicatores, 
 sed qua via, qua ratione praedicent" 
 
 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 maxim 
 from secular, nay, from pagan schools. For divine grace 
 
University Preaching, 415 
 
 does not overpower nor supersede the action of the human 
 mind according to its proper nature ; and if heathen 
 writers have analyzed that nature well, so far let them 
 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, which simply teaches the 
 right use of reason, whereas Rhetoric is the art of per- 
 suasion, which implies a person who 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 world, but directly for the sake 
 of those very persons who are before him. He is, when 
 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 same all over the earth ; but he has 
 not only to prove, but to persuade ; — Whom f A hearer, 
 then, is included in the very idea of preaching ; and we 
 cannot determine how in detail we ought to preach, till 
 we know whom we are to address. 
 
 In all the most important respects, indeed, all hearers 
 are the same, and what is suitable for one audience is 
 suitable for another. All hearers are children of Adam, 
 all, too, are children of the Christian adoption and of the 
 Catholic Church. The great topics which suit the 
 multitude, which 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 
 
4l6 University Preaching. 
 
 cloister, or noviciate, or seminary, or boarding-school ; it 
 is an assemblage of the young, the inexperienced, the 
 lay and the secular ; and not even the simplest of 
 religious truths, or the most elementary article of the 
 Christian faith, can be unseasonable from its pulpit. A 
 sermon on the Divine Omnipresence, on the future judg- 
 ment, on the satisfaction of Christ, on the intercession of 
 saints, will be not less, perhaps more, 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 most 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 what- 
 ever. Nay, further ; an academical auditory might be 
 well 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 circumstanceswhich impartto the auditory 
 a peculiar colour and expression, even where it does not 
 substantially differ from 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 him both in his choice of 
 subject, and in his mode of treating it. 
 
 5. 
 
 (i.) And first as., to his matter or subject. Here I 
 
 would remark upon the circumstance, that courses of 
 
 sermons upon theological points, polemical discussions, 
 
 treatises in exteiiso, and the like, are often included in 
 
University Preaching. 417 
 
 the idea of a University Sermon, and are considered to 
 be legitimately 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 sermons, and the like. 
 Putting such exceptional compositions aside, I will con- 
 fine myself to the consideration of what may be called 
 Sermons proper. And here, I repeat, any general sub- 
 ject will be seasonable in the University pulpit which 
 would be seasonable elsewhere ; but, if we look for sub- 
 jects especially suitable, they will be of two kinds. The 
 temptations which ordinarily assail the young and the 
 intellectual are two : those which are directed ag-ainst 
 their virtue, and those which are directed against their 
 faith. All divine gifts are exposed to misuse and per- 
 version ; youth and intellect are both of them 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 would have a subject which has especial sig- 
 nificancy in such a place, he must select one which bears 
 7* 2'] 
 
4i8 University Preaching, 
 
 upon one or other of these two classes of sin. I mean, 
 he would be treating on some such subject with the 
 same sort of appositeness as he would discourse upon 
 almsgiving when addressing the rich, or on patience, 
 resignation, and industry, when he was addressing the 
 poor, or on forgiveness of injuries when he was address- 
 ing the oppressed or persecuted. 
 
 To this suggestion I append tv/o cautions. First, I 
 need ^lardly say, that a preacher should be quite sure 
 that he understands the persons he is addressing before 
 he ventures to aim at what he considers to be their ethical 
 condition ; for, if he mistakes, he will probably be doing 
 harm rather than good. I have known consequences 
 to occur very far from edifying, when strangers have 
 fancied they knew an auditory when they did not, and 
 have by implication imputed to them habits or motives 
 which were not theirs. Better far would it be for a 
 preacher to select one of those more general subjects 
 which are safe than risk what is evidently ambitious, if 
 it is not successful. 
 
 My other caution is this : — that, even when he ad- 
 dresses himself to some special danger or probable defi- 
 ciency or need of his hearers, he should do so covertly, 
 not showing on the surface of his discourse what he is 
 aiming 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 weapons ; 
 whereas 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 oi the Church, consistency of 
 
University Preaching, 419 
 
 the Catholic faith, relation of Scripture to the Church, the 
 philosophy of tradition, and any others, which may touch 
 the heart and conscience, or may suggest trains of 
 thought to the intellect, without proclaiming the main 
 reason why they have been chosen. 
 
 (2.) Next, as to the mode 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 in 
 the case of sermons, each may undertake the same sub- 
 ject, yet treat it in its own way, as contemplating its 
 own hearers. This is well exemplified in the speeches of 
 St. Paul, as recorded in the book of Acts. To the Jews he 
 quotes the Old Testament; on the Areopagus, addressing 
 the philosophers of Athens, he insists, — not indeed upon 
 any recondite doctrine, contrariwise, upon the most ele- 
 mentary, the being and unity of God; — but he treats it with 
 a learning and depth of thought, which 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 treatment 
 more exact than is necessary in merely popular exhorta- 
 tions. It is not asking much to demand for academical 
 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 show erudition, or to construct an original argument, 
 or to be ambitious in style and profuse of ornament, on 
 
420 University 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 what may offend them, 
 or mislead, or disappoint, or fail to profit. 
 
 3. But here a distinct question opens upon us, on which 
 I must say a few words in conclusion, viz., whether or not 
 the preacher should preach without book. 
 
 This is a delicate question to enter upon, considering 
 that the Irish practice of preaching without book, which 
 is in accordance with that of foreign countries, and, as it 
 would appear, with the tradition of the Church from the 
 first, is not universally adopted in England, nor, as I 
 believe, in Scotland ; and it might seem unreasonable 
 or presumptuous to abridge a Hberty at present granted 
 to the preacher. I will simply set down what 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 was the rule in Catholic 
 countries, as I have just said, both in this and in former 
 times, to preach without 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 commentaries 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 sermons 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 ; and again, though I do not 
 
University Preachhtg. 421 
 
 profess to be well read in the Avorks of St. Chrysostom, 
 there is generally in such portions of them as are known 
 to those of us who 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 which would seem to be quite beyond the mere 
 fidelity of reporters. It would seem, then, he must after 
 all have written them ; and if he did write 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 afterwards from notes, for what 
 is now called "publication," which at that time could 
 hardly be said to exist at all. To this consideration we 
 must add the remarkable fact (which, though in classical 
 history, throws light upon our inquiry) that, not to pro- 
 duce other instances, the greater part of Cicero's power- 
 ful and brilliant orations against Verres were never 
 delivered at all. Nor must it be forgotten that Cicero 
 specifies memoiy 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 preparation of a sermon, as amounting in 
 fact to composition, even in writing, and in extenso. Now 
 consider St. Carlo's direction, as quoted above : " Id 
 omnino studebit, ut quod in concione dicturus est, antea 
 bene cognitum 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, "cognitum habet," already; but when the 
 matter is of a more 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- 
 
42 2 University Preaching, 
 
 hand. Study and meditation being imperative, can i1 
 be denied that one of the most effectual means 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 views of its relations to other subjects, 
 and to develop it generally, is to write down carefully 
 all we have to say about it ? People indeed differ in 
 matters of this kind, but I think that writing is a stimu- 
 lus to the mental faculties, to the logical talent, to 
 originality, to the power of illustration, to the arrange- 
 ment of topics, second to none. Till a man begins to 
 put down his thoughts about a subject on paper he will 
 not ascertain what he knows and what he does not 
 know ; and still less will 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, 
 with other duties, and preaching on elementary subjects, 
 and supported by the systematic order and the sugges- 
 tions of the Catechism ; but in occasional sermons the 
 case is otherwise. 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 will find himself at home when the time of 
 delivery arrives. I have said " generally necessary," for 
 of course there will be exceptional cases, in which such 
 a mode of preparation does not answer, whether from 
 some mistake in carrying it out, or from some special 
 gift superseding it. 
 
 To many preachers there will be another advantage 
 besides ; — such a practice will secure them against ven- 
 turing upon really extempore matter. The more ardent 
 a man is, and the greater power he has of affecting his 
 hearers, so much the more will he need self-control and 
 sustained recollection, and feel the advantage of com- 
 
University Preaching. 423 
 
 mittlng 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 composition. 
 
 It must be borne in mind too, that, since a University 
 Sermon will commonly have more pains than ordinary 
 bestowed on it, it will be considered in the number of 
 those which the author would especially wish to preserve. 
 Some record of it then will be natural, or even is involved 
 in its composition ; and, while the least elaborate will be 
 as much as a sketch or abstract, even the most minute, 
 exact, and copious assemblage of notes will not be found 
 too long hereafter, supposing, as time goes on, any reason 
 occurs for wishing to commit it to the press. 
 
 Here are various reasons, which 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 manuscript into the pulpit itself, if the 
 case supposed fell for certain under the idea of a Uni- 
 versity Sermon. It may be urged with great cogency 
 that a process of argument, or a logical analysis and in- 
 vestigation, cannot at all be conducted with suitable 
 accuracy of wording, completeness of statement, or suc- 
 cession of ideas, if the composition is to be prompted at 
 the moment, and breathed out, as it were, from the 
 intellect together with the very words which are its 
 vehicle. There are indeed a few persons in a generation, 
 such as Pitt, who are able to converse like a book, and 
 to speak a pamphlet; but others must be content to write 
 and to read their writing. This is true ; but I have 
 
4^4 University Preaching, 
 
 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, 
 which, from its fineness and precision of ideas, is too 
 difficult for a preacher to deliver without such extraneous 
 assistance, is too difficult for a hearer to follow ; and, if 
 a book be imperative 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 which has an application wider than the par- 
 ticular case which has suggested it. 
 
 While, then, a preacher will find it becoming and advis- 
 able to put into writing any important 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 well to conceal it, as far as he can, unless, 
 which is the most effectual concealment, whatever be its 
 counterbalancing disadvantages, he prefers, mainly not 
 verbally, to get it by heart. To conceal it, indeed, in one 
 way or other, will be his natural impulse ; and this very 
 circumstance seems to show us that to read a sermon needs 
 an apology. For, why should he commit it to memory, or 
 conceal his use of it, unless he felt that it was more natural, 
 more decorous, to do without it } And so again, if he em- 
 ploys a manuscript, 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 considered to preach; and, 
 on the other hand, the more 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. 
 What is this but a popular testimony to the fact that 
 preaching is not reading, and reading is not preaching t 
 
U7iiversity Preaching, 425 
 
 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, when asked why 
 they do not go to church, that ''they can read their book 
 at home quite as well." It is quite true, they can read 
 their book at home, and it is difficult what to rejoin, and 
 it is a problem, which has employed before now the more 
 thoughtful of their communion, to make out what is got 
 by going to public service. The prayers are from a 
 printed book, the sermon is from a manuscript. 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 
 something 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 minister 
 of the sacraments, that he comes to his hearers, in some 
 sense or other, with antecedents. Clad in his sacerdotal 
 vestm.ents, he sinks what is individual in himself alto- 
 gether, and is but the representative of Him from whom 
 he derives his commission. 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 U^ilversity 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 
 Missal under the priest's eye ; nor in any language but 
 that in which it has come down to us from the early 
 hierarchs of the Western Church. But, when it is over, 
 and the celebrant has resigned the vestments proper to 
 it, then he resumes himself, and comes to us in the gifts 
 and associations which attach to his person. He knows 
 his sheep, and they know him ; and it is this direct bear- 
 ing of the teacher on the taught, of his mind upon their 
 minds, and the mutual sympathy which exists between 
 them, which 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 
 world ; 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 who 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 what is true of a parish priest ap- 
 plies, mutatis mutandis, to a University preacher ; who, 
 even more, perhaps, than the ordinary parochus, comes to 
 his audience with a name and a history, and excites a 
 personal interest, and persuades by what he is, as well as 
 by what he delivers. 
 
 I am far from forgetting that every one has his own 
 talent, and that one has not what another has. Elo- 
 quence is a divine gift, which to a certain point super- 
 
University Preaching, 427 
 
 sedes rules, and is to be used, like other gifts, to the glory 
 of the Giver, and then only to be discountenanced when 
 it forgets its place, when it throws 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 work 
 and to sacred objects. And how to make eloquence sub- 
 servient to the evangelical office is not more difficult 
 than how 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 which render the use of a manuscript the 
 more advisable course ; but I have been considering 
 how the case stands in itself, and attempting to set down 
 what is to be aimed at as best. If religious men once 
 ascertain what is abstractedly desirable, and acquiesce 
 in it with their hearts, they will be in the way to get over 
 many difficulties which otherwise will be insurmountable. 
 For myself, I think it no extravagance to say that a 
 very inferior sermon, delivered without book, answers 
 the purposes for which all sermons are delivered more 
 perfectly than one of great merit, if it be written and 
 read. Of course, all men will not speak without book 
 equally well, just as their voices are not equally clear 
 and loud, or their manner equally impressive. Elo- 
 quence, I repeat, is a gift ; but most men, unless they 
 have passed the age for learning, may with practice 
 attain such fluency in expressing their thoughts as will 
 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 deficiencies, and 
 makes up for them over and over again in the judgment 
 of his hearers. 
 
4^8 
 
 VII. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 
 
 A LECTURE IN THE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE. 
 I. 
 
 NOW that we have just commenced our second 
 Academical Year, it is natural, Gentlemen, that, 
 as in November last, when we were entering upon our 
 great undertaking, I offered to you some remarks sug- 
 gested by the occasion, so now 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 when I apply myself to think what topic I shall in 
 consequence submit to your consideration, I seem to be 
 directed what to select by the principle of selection which 
 I followed on that former occasion to which I hav^e 
 been referring. Then * we were 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 
 two 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 
 
 * Vid. Article I. 
 
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 which at the moment I do not 
 formally undertake. I propose, then, to discuss the an-^ 
 tagonism which is popularly supposed 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 
 should 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 
 community, 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, when 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 who 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 more carefully and exactly; 
 it may assist us in attaining clearer ideas than before 
 how Physics and Theology stand relatively to each other. 
 
43^ Christia7iity and Physical Science, 
 
 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 knowledge, 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 powers. By the supernatural world is meant 
 that 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 
 two great circles of knowledge, 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, 
 allowing this interference to the full, it will be found, 
 on the whole, that the two worlds and the two 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 knowledge of 
 one of these worlds, may be nevertheless, on the whole, 
 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 known about physics, 
 about politics, about geography, ethnology, and ethics, 
 will have made no approximation whatever to decide 
 
Christianity and Physical Science. 43 1 
 
 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 mean 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 knowledge, 
 but even opinion. If, then. Theology be the philosophy 
 of the supernatural world, and Science the philosophy of 
 the natural, Theology and Science, whether in their re- 
 spective ideas, or again in their own actual fields, on the 
 whole, are incommunicable, incapable of collision, and 
 needing, at most to be connected, never to be reconciled. 
 
 Now 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 human science, and therefore was secured from 
 coming into collision with divine. 
 
 "Not without reason," they say, "did St. Thomas 
 acknowledge 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 Christianity and Physical Science^ 
 
 3. 
 
 But if there be so substantial a truth even in this 
 very broad statement concerning the independence of the 
 fields of Theology and general Science severally, and the 
 consequent impossibility of collision between them, how 
 much more true is that statement, from the very nature 
 of the case, when we contrast Theology, not with Science 
 generally, but definitely with Physics ! In Physics is 
 comprised that family of sciences which is concerned 
 with the sensible world, with the phenomena which we 
 see, hear, and handle, or, in other words, with matter. It 
 is the philosophy of matter. Its basis of operations, 
 what it starts from, what it falls back upon, is the phe- 
 nomena which meet the senses. Those phenomena it 
 ascertains, catalogues, compares, combines, arranges, and 
 then uses for determining something beyond themselves, 
 viz., the order to which they are subservient, or what we 
 commonly call the laws 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 within that material system with which it began, 
 and never ventures beyond the "flammantia moenia 
 mundi." It may, indeed, if it chooses, feel a doubt of 
 the completeness of its analysis hitherto, and for that 
 reason endeavour to arrive at more simple laws and fewer 
 principles. It may be dissatisfied with 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 bottom of its own 
 subject ; but still its aim will be to get to the bottom, 
 and nothing more. With matter it began, with matter it 
 
Christianity and Physical Scie?ice, 433 
 
 will end ; it will never trespass into the province of mind. 
 The Hindoo notion is said to be that the earth stands 
 upon a tortoise; but the physicist, as such, will never 
 ask himself by what influence, external to the universe, 
 the universe is sustained; simply because he is a physicist. 
 If indeed he be a religious man, he will of course have 
 a very definite view of the subject ; but that view 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 which it set out. The question 
 is simply extra artem. The physical philosopher has 
 nothing whatever to do with 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 way, he is at once questioned in turn 
 what place he came from : something like this would be 
 the unseasonableness of a physicist, who inquired how the 
 phenomena and laws of the material world primarily 
 came to be, when his simple task is that of ascertaining 
 what they are. Within the limits of those phenomena 
 he may 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 which they have effected upon 
 matter, and the rise, growth, and decay of phenomena ; 
 and so in a certain sense he may write the history of 
 the material world, as far as he can ; still he will always 
 advance from phenomena, and conclude upon the internal 
 evidence which they supply. He will not come near the 
 questions, what that ultimate element is, which we call 
 matter, how it came to be, whether it can cease to be, 
 
 2^ 
 
434 Christianity and Physical Science, 
 
 whether it ever was not, whether it will ever come to 
 nought, in what its laws really consist, whether they can 
 cease to be, whether they can be suspended, what causa- 
 tion is, what time is, what the relations of time to cause 
 and effect, and a hundred other questions of a similar 
 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 with 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 
 knowledge, and is occupied, not with the finite, but the 
 Infinite. It unfolds and systematizes what He Himself 
 has told us of Himself; of His nature, His attributes. 
 His will, and His acts. As far as it approaches towards 
 Physics, it takes just the counterpart of the questions 
 which occupy the Physical Philosopher. He tontem- 
 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 laws ; 
 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 how the two 
 schools stand related to each other, at that point where 
 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 deaHngs of the 
 Creator with the creature. 
 
CJiristiaiiity and Physical 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 musical truths be said to 
 interfere with the doctrines of architectural science ; as 
 well may there be a collision between the mechanist and 
 the geologist, the engineer and the grammarian ; as well 
 might the British Parliament or the French nation be 
 jealous of some possible belligerent power upon the sur- 
 face of the moon, as Physics pick a quarrel with Theology. 
 And it may be well, — 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 words upon the subject of a writer of the 
 day :* — 
 
 " We often hear it said," he observes, writing as a Pro- 
 testant (and here let me assure you. Gentlemen, that 
 though his words have a controversial tone with them, I 
 do not quote them in that aspect, or as wishing 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 wish that we could think so. But we see 
 great reason to doubt whether this is a well-founded ex- 
 pectation. We see that during the last two hundred and 
 fifty years the human 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 
 * Macaulay's Essays. 
 
436 Christianity and Physical Science, 
 
 inventions tending to promote the convenience of life ; 
 that medicine, surgery, chemistry, engineering, have been 
 very greatly improved, that government, police, and law 
 have been improved, though not to so great an extent as 
 the physical sciences. Yet we see that, during these two 
 hundred and fifty years. Protestantism has made no con- 
 quests worth speaking of Nay, we beHeve that, as far 
 as there has been change, that change has, on the whole, 
 been in favour of the Church of Rome. We cannot, 
 therefore, feel confident that the progress of knowledge 
 will necessarily be fatal to a system which has, to say the 
 least, stood its ground in spite of the immense progress 
 made by the human race in knowledge since the days of 
 Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 " Indeed, the argument which we are considering 
 seems to us to be founded on an entire mistake. There 
 are branches of knowledge with respect to which the law 
 of the human mind is progress. In mathematics, when 
 once a proposition has been demonstrated, it is never 
 afterwards contested. Every fresh story is as solid a 
 basis for a new superstructure as the original foundation 
 was. Here, therefore, there is a constant addition to 
 the stock of truth. In the inductive sciences, again, the 
 law is progress. . . 
 
 " But with 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 which the early Greeks had. . . As to the 
 other great question, the question what becomes of man 
 after death, we do not see that a highly educated Euro- 
 pean, left to his unassisted reason, is more likely to be 
 
Christiafiity and Physical Science. 43 7 
 
 in the right than a Blackfoot Indian. Not a single one 
 of the many sciences, in which we surpass the Blackfoot 
 Indians, throws the smallest light on the state of the soul 
 after the animal life is extinct. . . 
 
 " Natural Theology, then, is not a progressive science. 
 That knowledge of our origin and of our destiny which 
 we derive from Revelation is indeed of very different 
 clearness, and of very different importance. But neither 
 is Revealed Religion of the nature of a progressive 
 science. . . In divinity there cannot be a progress ana- 
 logous to that which is constantly taking place in phar- 
 macy, geology, and navigation. A Christian of the fifth 
 century with a Bible is neither better nor worse situated 
 than a Christian of the nineteenth century with a Bible, 
 candour and natural acuteness being of course supposed 
 equal. It matters not at all that the compass, printino-, 
 gunpowder, steam, gas, vaccination, and a thousand other 
 discoveries and inventions, which were unknown in the 
 fifth century, are familiar to the nineteenth. None of 
 these discoveries and inventions has the smallest bear- 
 ing on the question whether man is justified by faith 
 alone, or whether the invocation of saints is an orthodox 
 practice. . . We are confident that the world will never 
 go back to the solar system of Ptoleiiiy ; 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 we reflect that Sir 
 Thomas More was ready to die for the doctrine of 
 Transubstantiation, we cannot but feel some doubt 
 whether the doctrine of Transubstantiation may not 
 triumph over all opposition. More was a man of emi- 
 nent talents. He had all the information on the sub- 
 ject that we have, or that, while the world lasts, any 
 
43^ Christianity aiid Physical Science, 
 
 human being will have. . . No progress that science has 
 onade^ or will make, 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 More believed respecting Transubstan- 
 tiation may not be believed to the end of time by men 
 equal in abilities and honesty to Sir Thomas More. But 
 Sir Thomas More is one of the choice specimens of 
 human wisdom and virtue ; and the doctrine of Tran- 
 substantiation is a kind of proof charge. The faith 
 which stands that test will stand any test. . . 
 
 " The history of Catholicism strikingly illustrates these 
 observations. During the last seven centuries the public 
 mind 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. Twice that Church remained com- 
 pletely victorious. Twice she came forth from 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 way she is to perish." 
 
 You see, Gentlemen, if you trust the judgment of a 
 sagacious mind, deeply read in history, Catholic Theo- 
 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. 
 
 5. 
 It is true that the author in question, while saying all 
 
Christia7iity and Physical Science, 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 has 
 in one or two instances advanced beyond its chosen 
 territory, which is the invisible world, in order to throw 
 light upon the history of the material universe. Holy 
 Scripture, it is perfectly true, does declare a few mo- 
 mentous facts, so few that they may be counted, of a 
 physical character. It speaks of a process of formation 
 out 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 we 
 should anticipate any difficulty in accepting these state- 
 ments as they stand, whenever their meaning and drift 
 are authoritatively determined ; for, it must be recol- 
 lected, their meaning has not yet engaged the formal 
 attention of the Church, or received any interpretation 
 which, as Catholics, we are bound to accept, and in 
 the absence of such definite interpretation, there is per- 
 haps some presumption in saying that it means this, and 
 does 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 which 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 am only concerned 
 with the letter of the Holy Scriptures itself, as far as it 
 
440 Christianity mid Physical Science, 
 
 bears upon the history of the heavens and the earth ; and 
 I say that we may wait in peace and tranquillity till 
 there is some real collision between Scripture authorita- 
 tively interpreted, and results of science clearly ascer- 
 tained, before we consider how we are to deal with a 
 difficulty which we have reasonable grounds for think- 
 ing will never really occur. 
 
 And, after noticing this exception, I really have made 
 the utmost admission that has to be made about the 
 existence of any common ground upon which Theology 
 and Physical Science may fight a battle. On the whole, 
 the two studies do most surely occupy distinct fields, in 
 which 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 which are its object, though He has 
 not done so : but whether it had pleased Him to do so 
 or not, anyhow Theology and Physics would be distinct 
 sciences ; and nothing which the one says of the ma- 
 terial world ever can contradict what the other says of 
 the immaterial. Here, then, is the end of the question ; 
 and here I might come to an end also, were it not in- 
 cumbent on me to explain how 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 remainder of my Lecture. 
 
 6. 
 
 I observe, then, that the elementary 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 two schools, viz., that 
 
Christianity and Physical Science, 441 
 
 neither of them has been quite content to remain on its 
 own homestead, but that, whereas each has its own 
 method, which is the best for its own science, each has 
 considered it the best for all purposes whatever, and has 
 at different times thought to impose it upon the other 
 science, to the disparagement or rejection of that opposite 
 method which legitimately belongs to it. 
 
 The argumentative method of Theology is that of 
 a strict science, such as Geometry, or deductive ; the 
 method of Physics, at least on starting, is that of an 
 empirical 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 world no strictly new truth can be added to the theo- 
 logical information which the Apostles were 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, still, 
 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 Christianiiy and Physical Science, 
 
 mence with sight and touch ; it has to handle, weigh, 
 and measure its own 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- 
 mental, Theology traditional ; Physical Science is the 
 richer, Theology the more exact ; Physics the bolder, 
 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 these two methods 
 can hardly help extending it beyond its due limits, 
 unless they are put upon their guard, and have great 
 command of themselves. It cannot be denied that 
 divines have from time to time been much inclined to 
 give a traditional, logical shape to sciences which do not 
 admit of any such treatment. Nor 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 new experimental and critical process for the 
 improvement of that which has been given once for all 
 from above. Hence the mutual jealousy of the two 
 parties ; and I shall now 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 which I have already had occasion to 
 allude. Scripture, we know, is to be interpreted accord- 
 ing to the unanimous consent of the P'athers ; but, 
 
Christianity and Physical Science. 443 
 
 besides this consent, which is of authority, carrying with 
 it the evidence of its truth, there have ever been m 
 Christendom a number of floating opinions, more or less 
 appended to the divine tradition ; opinions which have a 
 certain probabihty of being more than human, or of having 
 a basis or admixture of truth, but which admit of no test, 
 whence they came, 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 was once an opinion, for 
 instance, drawn from the sacred text, that the Chris- 
 tain Dispensation was 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 St. 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 
 common 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 which 
 reference was made, did not commit itself to any condem- 
 nation of the unusual opinion. The same alarm again 
 
444 Shristia7iity a?id Physical Scmice, 
 
 occupiea the public mind when the Copernican System 
 was 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 were enforced, 
 and, as it were, enacted, to the prejudice and detriment 
 of scientific investigations (and this was never done by 
 the Church herself), this was a case of undue interference 
 on the part of the Theological schools in the province 
 of Physics. 
 
 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 with 
 less claim and greater inconvenience be put forward to 
 harass the physical inquirer, to challenge his submission, 
 and to preclude that process of examination which is 
 proper to his own peculiar pursuit. Such are the dicta- 
 torial formulae against which Bacon inveighs, and the 
 effect of which was to change Physics into a deductive 
 science, and to oblige the student to assume implicitly, 
 as first principles, enunciations and maxims, which were 
 venerable, only because no one could tell whence they 
 came, and authoritative, only because no one could say 
 what arguments there were in their favour. In proportion 
 as these encroachments were made upon his own field of 
 inquiry would be the indignation of the physical philo- 
 sopher ; and he would exercise a scepticism which re- 
 lieved his feelings, while it approved itself to his reason, 
 if he was called on ever to keep in mind that light bodies 
 went 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 with a true genius 
 for physical research found the Physical Schools of his 
 
Christianity and Physical Science. 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 moisture, 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, with Theology itself 
 
 I wish the experimental school of Philosophers had 
 gone no further in its opposition to Theology than in- 
 dulging in some 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 the 
 logical method of inquiry, it has encouraged, by way of 
 reprisals, encroachments and usurpations on the province 
 of Theology far more serious than that unintentional and 
 long obsolete interference with its own province, on the 
 part of Theologians, which has been its excuse. And to 
 these unjustifiable and mischievous intrusions made by 
 the Experimentalists into the department of Theology 
 I have now, Gentlemen, to call your attention. 
 
 8. 
 
 You will let me repeat, then, what 1 have already said, 
 that, taking things as they are, the very idea of Revela- 
 tion is that of a direct interference from above, for the 
 introduction of truths otherwise unknown ; moreover, as 
 such a communication implies recipients, an authoritative 
 
44 6 Christianity and Physical Science. 
 
 depositary 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 simply by appealing to the authoritative keepers of 
 them, as every Catholic 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 maintain 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 t 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 which 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. 
 
 Now let us pause for a moment and make a reflection 
 before going into any detail. Truth cannot be contrary 
 to truth ; if these three subject-matters were able, under 
 the pressure of the inductive method, to yield respectively 
 theoloo^ical conclusions in unison and in concord with each 
 
Christianity and Physical Sciejice, 447 
 
 other, and also contrary to the doctrines of Theology as 
 a deductive science, then that Theology would not indeed 
 at once be overthrown (for still the question would remain 
 for discussion, which of the two doctrinal systems was 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 ; — if, then, on 
 the other hand, these three subject-matters, — Scripture, 
 Antiquity, and Nature, — worked through three centuries 
 by men of great abilities, with 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 whole, 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 all, and bears out 
 the antecedent declaration, or rather prophecy, of theo- 
 logians, before these experimentalists started, that it was 
 nothing more than a huge mistake to introduce the method 
 of research and of induction into the study of Theology 
 at all. 
 
 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 
 
448 Christianity and Physical Scie7ice, 
 
 empirical method, which has done such wonderful things 
 in physics and other human sciences, has sustained a most 
 emphatic and eloquent reverse in its usurped territory, — 
 has come to no one conclusion, — has illuminated no de- 
 finite view, — has brought its glasses to no focus, — has 
 shown 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 which it dispos- 
 sessed, but by announcing that nothing can be known 
 on the subject at all, — that religion is not a science, and 
 that in religion scepticism is the only true philosophy ; 
 or again, by a still more remarkable avowal, that the 
 decision lies between 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 new empirical schools, but in that old teaching, 
 founded on the deductive method, which was in honour 
 and in possession at the time when Experiment and In- 
 duction commenced their brilliant career. What a sin- 
 gular break-down of a noble instrument, when used for 
 the arrogant and tyrannical invasion of a sacred territory! 
 What can be more sacred than Theology ? What can 
 be more noble than the Baconian method ? But the two 
 do not correspond ; they are mismatched. The age has 
 mistaken lock and key. It has broken the key in a lock 
 which does not belong to it ; it has ruined the wards by 
 a key which never will fit into them. ' 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 draw this moral in the first place ; and now I will say 
 a few words on one specimen of this error in detail. 
 
Christianity and Physical Science, 449 
 
 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 subject of this Lecture. 
 
 The school of Physics, from its very drift and method 
 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 
 from 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 *' Naturalis Theologia," but, in the 
 sense in which Paley uses it in the work which he has so entitled. 
 7* 29 
 
4 50 Christianity and Physical Science, 
 
 I have no wish to speak lightly of the merits of this 
 so-called Natural or, more properly, Physical Theology. 
 There are a great many 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 which 
 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 
 His simplest attributes, Power, Wisdom, and Goodness. 
 
 These are great services rendered to faith by Physical 
 Theology, and I acknowledge them as such. Whether, 
 however. Faith on that account owes any great deal to 
 Physics or Physicists, is another matter. The Argument 
 from 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 which 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 which the early Greeks had. 
 We say, just the same ; for the discoveries of modern astro- 
 nomers and anatomists Jiave really added nothing 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 same use of the statues of Polycletus and 
 the pictures of Zeuxis, which Paley makes of the watch." 
 
 Physical Theology, then, is pretty much what it was 
 
Christiaiiity and Physical Science, 45 1 
 
 two 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 words to explain. 
 
 10. 
 
 I observe, then, that there are many investigations in 
 every 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 always 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 Christianity and Physical Science. 
 
 paralogism. And if such a paralogism has taken place, 
 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 
 what is there found will, when maturely weighed, be 
 nothing else than an illustration and confirmation of 
 our own Theology. But it is another thing altogether 
 whether the results will go to the full lengths of our 
 Theology ; they will 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 was 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 deserves the acknow- 
 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- 
 ment of the Baconian empirical method in a depart- 
 ment not its own. 
 
 3. And now we 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 with 
 
Christiaiiity and Physical Science. 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 persons of the 
 Physical Schoolj 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. 
 
 Any one 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 incommunicableness 
 and distance from the creature of the Uncreated 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 1 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 } Religion is 
 more than Theology ; it is something relative to us ; and 
 it includes our relation towards the Object of it. What 
 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 Christianity afid Physical Science, 
 
 ments 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 any true sense, at all : 
 — and from this plain reason, because it is derived from 
 informations which existed just as they are now, before 
 man was created, and 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, 
 taking men as they are, this so-called science tends, if it 
 occupies the mind, to dispose it against Christianity. And 
 for this plain reason, because it speaks only of laws ; and 
 cannot contemplate their suspension, that is, miracles, 
 which are of the essence of the idea of a Revelation. 
 Thus, the God of Physical Theology may very easily 
 become a mere idol ; for He comes to the inductive mind 
 in the medium of fixed appointments, so excellent, so 
 skilful, so beneficent, that, when it has for a long time 
 gazed upon them, it will think them too beautiful to be 
 broken, and will at length so contract its notion of Him 
 as to conclude that He never could have the heart (if I 
 may dare use such a term) to undo or mar His own work ; 
 and 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 Power, Wisdom, 
 and Goodness, and nothing else, is not very different from 
 the God of the Pantheist. 
 
 In thus speaking of the Theology of the modern Phy- 
 
Christianity and Physical Science, 455 
 
 Sical School, I have said but a few words on a large sub- 
 ject ; yet, though few words, 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 
 awful, 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 how 
 immutable they are in their own order ; and it will in 
 other ways subserve theological truth. Separate it from 
 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, pantheistic rehgionist. His 
 profession of Theology deceives others, perhaps deceives 
 himself. 
 
 Do not for an instant suppose, Gentlemen, that I would 
 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 
 which has enabled you to sustain a discussion which 
 cannot be complete, upon a subject which, however 
 momentous, cannot be popular. 
 
456 
 
 VIII. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION. 
 A LECTURE WRITTEN FOR THE SCHOOL OF SCIENCE. 
 
 THIS is a time, Gentlemen, when not only the 
 Classics, but much more 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 terms 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 which 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 way of de- 
 precating and protesting against the needless antagonism^ 
 which sometimes exists in fact, between divines and the 
 cultivators of the Sciences generally. 
 
 2. 
 
 Here I am led at once to expatiate on the grandeur 
 
CJiristiafiity and Scientific Investigation. 457 
 
 of an Institution which is comprehensive enough to 
 admit the discussion of a subject such as this. Among 
 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 " University " is under- 
 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. 
 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 minute, nothing too discursive, nothing 
 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 knowledge 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 which 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 CJudstianity a7id Scientific Investigaiioii, 
 
 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, without 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 most 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 draw 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 legitimate range of action ; to allow 
 them severally the indulgence of national feelings, and 
 the stimulus of rival interests ; and yet withal 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 was the special boast, as the poet considered it, 
 
CJiristia7tity and Scientific Investigation. 459 
 
 of the Roman ; a boast as high in its own line as that 
 other boast, proper to the Greek nation, of Hterary 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 encroachment 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, 
 of theological science. It is impartial towards them all, 
 and promotes each in its own place and for its own 
 object. It is ancillary certainly, and of necessity, to the 
 Catholic Church ; but in the same way that one of the 
 Queen's judges is an officer of the Queen's, and never- 
 theless determines certain legal proceedings between the 
 Queen and her subjects. It is ministrative 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 (with which alone we 
 have here to do) is to secure the due disposition, accord- 
 
460 Christia7iity 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. 
 
 In this point of view, its several professors are like the 
 ministers of various political powers 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 formulae. Newton might 
 discover the great law of motion 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, 
 
Christianity and Scientific Investigation. 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 as 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, where 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 with the signs of real and apparent difficulties, 
 with the methods proper to particular subject-matters, 
 what in each particular case are the limits of a rational 
 scepticism, and what the claims of a peremptory faith. If 
 he has one cardinal maxim in his philosophy, it is, that 
 truth cannot be contrary to truth ; if he has a second, it is, 
 that truth often seems contrary to truth ; and, if a third, 
 it is the practical conclusion, that we must be patient 
 with such appearances, and not be hasty to pronounce 
 them to be really of a more formidable character. 
 
462 Christimiity and Scientific hives ligation. 
 
 It is the very immensity of the system of things, the 
 human record of which he has in charge, which is the 
 reason of this patience and caution ; for that immensity 
 suggests to him that the contrarieties 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 that of the universe, 
 and that is the thought of its Maker. If, 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 my 
 subject. He, though One, is a sort of world of worlds in 
 Himself, giving birth in our minds to an indefinite number 
 of distinct truths, each ineffably more mysterious than 
 any thing that is found in this universe of space and time. 
 Any one 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, power, 
 justice, sanctity, truth, wisdom, — affords matter for an 
 everlasting controversy. We are able to apprehend and 
 receive each divine attribute in its elementary form, but 
 still we are not able to accept them in their infinity, 
 either in themselves or in union with each other. Yet 
 we do not deny the first because it cannot be perfectly 
 reconciled with the second, nor the second because it is 
 in apparent contrariety with the first and the third. The 
 case is the same in its degree with 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 
 known truth. 
 
 Instances are easily producible of that extreme con- 
 trariety of ideas, one with another, which the contemplation 
 of the Universe forces upon our acceptance, making it 
 
Christianity and Scientific Investigation, 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 contemplation 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 incompre- 
 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 contem- 
 plations), when we come to consider the mutual action 
 of soul and body, we are specially perplexed by incom- 
 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 which 
 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 a?id Scie7itific Investigation, 
 
 were two creators, one of whom was the author of our 
 animal frames, 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, which are required by the 
 social system, are so destructive of health, enjoyment, 
 and life. That is, in other words, we cannot adequately 
 account for existing and undeniable truths except on the 
 hypothesis of what we feel to be an absurdity. 
 
 And so in Mathematical 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 w^hich 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 bear as 
 he best can, without attempting to deny the existence 
 of the truths which constitute them in the Science in 
 question. 
 
 4. 
 
 Nov/, let me call your attention. Gentlemen, to what 
 I would infer from these familiar facts. It is, to urge 
 you with an argument a 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 ; so you 
 
Christianity and Scientific Livestigation. 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, though not opposed to Reason, 
 are infinitely strange to the Imagination ; as in His' works 
 we can neither reject nor admit the ideas of space, and 
 of time, and the necessary properties of lines, without 
 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 things hard to the Imagination, though not, 
 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 them- 
 7* 30 
 
466 Christianity and Scientific Investigation, 
 
 selves, — to beg of them, I say, to keep the peace, to live 
 in good will, and to exercise equanimity, if, when Nature 
 and Revelation 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 carry on a School of Science. For 
 their sake, then, I am led to enlarge upon the subject 
 here. I say, then, he who believes Revelation with that 
 absolute faith which is the prerogative of a Catholic, is not 
 the nervous creature who startles at every sudden sound, 
 and is fluttered by every strange or novel appearance 
 which meets his eyes. He has no sort of apprehension, 
 he laughs at the idea, that any thing can be discovered 
 by any other scientific method, which 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, without any meaning 
 .of offence on its own part, the path of other sciences : 
 and he knows also that, if there be any one science 
 which, 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 
 nothing shall make him doubt, that, if anything seems 
 to be proved by astronomer, or geologist, or chronologist, 
 or antiquarian, or ethnologist, in contradiction to the 
 dogmas of faith, that point will eventually turn out, first, 
 
Chrisiianity and Scie7iti/ic Investigation. 467 
 
 not to be proved, or, secondly, not contradictory, or thirdly, 
 not contradictory to any thing really revealed, but to 
 something 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. 
 
 5. 
 To one notorious 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 1 
 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 Christianity and Scientific 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 might range in this sphere of thought almost at 
 will, without fear of encountering the decisions of eccle- 
 siastical authority. Now, besides the relief which it 
 afforded to Catholics to find that they were 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, considering how widely and how long one 
 certain interpretation of these physical statements in 
 Scripture had been received by Catholics, that the 
 Church should not have formally acknowledged it. 
 Looking at the matter in a human point of view, it was 
 inevitable that she should have made that opinion her 
 own. But now we find, on ascertaining where we stand, in 
 the face of the new sciences of these latter times, that in 
 spite of the bountiful comments which from the first 
 she has ever been making on the sacred text, as it is her 
 duty and her right to do, nevertheless, she has never 
 been led formally to explain the texts in question, or to 
 jive them an authoritative sense which modern science 
 may question. 
 
 Nor 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 philo- 
 
Christianity and Scieiitific Investigation, 469 
 
 sopher, which would 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 we may ask with curious interest, 
 did the Church alter her ancient rule of action, and pro- 
 scribe intellectual activity t 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 was a time 
 when the intellect went 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 t What class of questions did that subtle, 
 metaphysical spirit not scrutinize .? What premiss was 
 allowed without examination t What principle was not 
 traced to its first origin, and exhibited in its most naked 
 shape } What whole was not analyzed 1 What complex 
 idea was not elaborately traced out, and, as it were, finely 
 painted for the contemplation of the mind, till it was 
 spread out in all its minutest portions as perfectly and 
 delicately as a frog's foot shows 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 somewhat more serious 
 foe then, beyond all mistake, than Bacon has been since. 
 Did the Church take a high hand with philosophy then } 
 No, not though that philosophy was metaphysical. It 
 was a time when she had temporal power, and could 
 have exterminated the spirit of inquiry with fire and 
 
470 Christianity and Scientific Investigation, 
 
 sword ; but she determined to put it down by argit'^nent; 
 she said : " Two can play at that, and my argument is 
 the better." She sent her controversiaHsts into the 
 philosophical arena. It was the Dominican and Fran- 
 ciscan doctors, the greatest of them being St. Thomas, 
 who in those medieval Universities fought the battle of 
 Revelation with the weapons of heathenism. It was no 
 matter 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- 
 tween 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 shown an extreme aversion to 
 the great heathen philosopher whom 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 Tertullian and Caius to 
 the two Gregories of Cappadocia, from 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 1 
 
 6. 
 
 Now, 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 now 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 allowed and enabled, without impedi- 
 ment, to fix his mind intently, nay, exclusively, on his 
 special object, without 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 dogmas 
 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 inviolate. Indeed, 
 a Catholic cannot put off his thought of them ; and they 
 as little impede the movements of his intellect as the laws 
 of physics impede his bodily movements. The habitual 
 apprehension of them has become a second nature with 
 him, as the laws of optics, hydrostatics, dynamics, are 
 latent conditions which he takes for granted in the 
 use of his corporeal organs. I am not supposing any 
 colhsion with dogma, I am 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 Christianity and Scientific Investigation. 
 
 being close at hand, or of St. Dionysius the Areopagite 
 being the author of the works which bear his name. 
 
 Nor, 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 down the law 
 in a matter of Retigion ; but of such unintentional colli- 
 sions as are incidental to a discussion pursued on some 
 subject of his own. It would be a great mistake 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 whom it really concerned 
 to compare it with 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 well 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 d^ny format teaching at all, but of investigations, specu- 
 lations, and discussions. I am far indeed from allowing, 
 in any matter 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, into mere advertisers 
 of crude fancies or notorious absurdities. I am not plead- 
 ing that they should at random shower down 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 avoid scandal, or shocking the 
 popular mind, or unsettHng the weak ; the association 
 between truth and error being so strong in particular 
 minds that it is impossible to weed them of the error 
 without rooting up the wheat with it. If, then, there is 
 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, which 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. 
 
 I am not, then, supposing the scientific investigator (i) 
 to be coming into collision with dogma ; nor (2) venturing, 
 by means of his investigations, upon any interpretation 
 of SciHptuj'e, or upon other conclusion 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 scandalizing 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 Christianity and Scientific Investigation. 
 
 his course by the maxims of the schools or by popular 
 traditions, or by those of any other science distinct from 
 his own, or to be ever narrowly watching what 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 swerve 
 now and then, and vary to and fro in its course, or 
 threaten momentary collision or embarrassment with 
 any other department of knowledge, 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." 
 
 This is a point of serious importance to him. Unless he 
 is 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 human 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 always 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 v\^hich 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 any one 
 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 
 
ChristianHy and Scientific Investigation. 475 
 
 schools and the perseverance of successive generations. 
 This being the case, we are obHged, 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, which has not been preceded by a full 
 
476 Christianily and Scientific Investigatioii. 
 
 statement of what can be said against it ; it is but the 
 ego vapulando, ille verberando, of the Comedy. 
 
 Great minds need elbow-room, not indeed in the 
 domain of faith, but of thought. And so indeed do lessei 
 minds, and all minds. There are many persons in the 
 world who are called, and with a great deal of truth, 
 geniuses. They had been gifted by nature with some 
 particular faculty or capacity ; and, while 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 except 
 their own. Accordingly, they think their own line the 
 only line in the whole world worth pursuing, and they 
 feel a sort of contempt for such studies as move upon 
 any other line. Now, these men may be, and often are, 
 very good Catholics, and have not a dream of any thing 
 but affection and deference towards 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 
 submit to the Church generally, and acknowledge its 
 dogmas, but that they must get up all that divines have 
 said or the multitude believed upon religious matters, 
 you simply 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 accommodating 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 
 
Christianity 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 means to be so ; — nothing more need be 
 said. But 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 world. 
 
 This is how I should account for a circumstance, which 
 has sometimes 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 "pie 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 in veneration ; * but he 
 may have accidentally come into collision with theolo- 
 gians, or made temerarious assertions, notwithstanding. 
 
 * Cardinal Gerdil speaks of his **Metaphysique,"as "brillante alaverite, 
 mais non moins solide" (p, 9.), and that "la liaison qui enchaine toutes les 
 parties du systeme philosophique du Pere Malebranche, . . pourra servir 
 d'apologie a la noble assurance, avec laquelle il propose ses sentiments." 
 (p. 12, (Euvres, t. iv.) 
 
478 Christianity and Scientific Livesiigation. 
 
 Tlie practical question is, whether he had not much 
 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 
 within the range of these remarks. I believe I am right 
 in saying that, in the case of three great names, in 
 various departments of learning, Cardinal Noris, Bossuet, 
 and Muratori,* while 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 remarks to a con- 
 clusion. What I would urge upon every one, 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 recommend to theologians, 
 when their attention is drawn to the subject of scientific 
 investigations, — is a great and firm belief in the sove- 
 reignty of Truth. Error may flourish for a time, 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 
 
 * Muiatori's work was not directly theological. Vid. note at the end of 
 
 the Vokime. 
 
Christianity and Scientific hivestigation. 479 
 
 errors of some minds in scientific investigation are more 
 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 Cathohc spirit, and a deep 
 sense of responsibiHty. I am supposing, in the scientific 
 inquirer, a due fear of giving scandal, of seeming to 
 countenance views 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 power 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 any one 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. 
 
48o 
 
 IX. 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF MIND. 
 AN ADDRESS TO THE EVENING CLASSES. 
 
 WHEN I found that it was in my power to be pre- 
 sent here at the commencement of the new Ses- 
 sion, one of the first thoughts, Gentlemen, which thereupon 
 occurred to me, was this, that I should in consequence 
 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 ; — for it was 
 previously to our commencing that great work, which is 
 now so fully before the public, it was 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 need a University;" and again, "Whom 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 
 
Disciplme of Mind. 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, which were suspended aftei 
 a while, only because the singularly inclement 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 examinations and 
 take degrees, is one to which I specially obtained the 
 consent of the Academical Senate, nearly two 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 with great pleasure that I received from a 
 number of you, Gentlemen, last May year, a spontaneous 
 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 for your own sakes. 
 For your own sakes certainly I wish it, but not on your 
 7* 31 
 
482 Disciplifie of Mind, 
 
 account only. Man is not born for himself alone, as the 
 classical moralist tells us. You 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 power, of the Island 
 of the Saints. 
 
 I go further 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 name of Ireland ever has been, 
 and, I believe, ever will be, associated with the Catholic 
 Faith, and because, in doing any service, however poor it 
 may be, to Ireland, a man is ministering, in his own 
 place and measure, to the cause of the Holy Roman 
 ApostoHc 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 which I have 
 witnessed the establishment of these Evening Classes, I 
 am in fact addressing to you at the same time words of 
 encouragement and advice, such words 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 
 own dear country, no position whatever, in the whole 
 range of administrations which are open to the ambition 
 of those who wish to serve God in their geieration, and 
 
Disciplme of Mind. 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 
 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 future is in store for Ireland, 
 for more reasons than can here be enumerated. First, 
 there 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 
 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 by which that 
 intercourse is carried on ; and the traffic between hemi- 
 spheres must be to her a source of material as well as 
 social benefit, — as of old time, though on the minute 
 geographical scale of Greece, Corinth, as being the 
 
484 Discipline of Mi7id, 
 
 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 towns 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 CathoHc 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 ; for, to say 
 nothing of higher and more religious causes of the dif- 
 ference, the very presence of a rival religion is a per- 
 petual incentive to faith and devotion in men who, from 
 the circumstances of the case, would be in danger of 
 
Discipline 0/ Mind, 485 
 
 becoming worse than lax Catholics, unless they resolved 
 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 now 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, while 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 happens that the religiously disposed are in the 
 same degree intellectually deficient ; but the Irish ever 
 have been, as their worst enemies must grant, not only a 
 Catholic people, but a people of great natural abilities, 
 keen-witted, original, and subtle. This has been the 
 characteristic of the nation from the very early times, 
 and v/as 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 was recognized in those times, and with what success it 
 
486 Discipli7ie of Mind. 
 
 was carried out. "Philosopher," is in those times almost 
 the name for an Irish monk. Both in Paris and Oxford, 
 the two great schools of medieval thought, we find the 
 boldest and most subtle of their disputants an Irishman, 
 — the monk John Scotus Erigena, at Paris, and Duns 
 Scotus, the Franciscan friar, 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 which, 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- 
 mands 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 forward as champions of the faith ; but I think 
 that incalculable benefit may ensue to the Catholic cause, 
 greater almost than that which 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 
 
Discipline of Mind. 487 
 
 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 ■sf\^\N, 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. 
 
 Gentlemen, within the last thirty years, there has been, 
 as you know, 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 was, strictly speaking, the property, as 
 I may call it, of Parliament, or of the august tribunals of 
 
488 Discipline of Mind. 
 
 the Law. Nor will I deny to the speaking and writing, 
 to which I am referring, 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, when I go on to ask myself the question, 
 what permanent 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 wish 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 my going to sleep has not had any real 
 effect upon me, or made me more able to resist the 
 temptation on some future occasion. I wake, and I am 
 what I was 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 tvhile 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 
 
Discipline of Mind, 489 
 
 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 
 admitting 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-way 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. You 
 have come to make what you hear your own, by putting 
 out your hand, as it were, to grasp it and appropriate it. 
 You do not come merely to hear a lecture, or to read a 
 book, but you come for that catechetical instruction, 
 which consists in a sort 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. 
 
 5. 
 Gentlemen, I am induced to quote here some remarks 
 of my own, Avhich 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 what the object of them had been ; and 
 
490 Discipline of Mind. 
 
 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 give 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, hov/ever, 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 
 is an object, sometimes demanding attention, and not 
 incongruous, which, nevertheless, cannot be said properly 
 to belong to them, or to be more than occasional. As 
 there are kinds of eloquence which 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 efi"ect upon pubHc opinion. 
 Such are the exhibition days of Colleges ; such the 
 annual Commemoration of Benefactors at one of the 
 
 * University Gazette, No, 42, p. 420. 
 
Discipline of Mind. 491 
 
 English Universities, when Doctors put on their gayest 
 gowns, and PubHc 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 :" — I might have added, such are the 
 lectures delivered by celebrated persons in Mechanics' 
 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 which 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 whom the government of our University is con- 
 fided have 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- 
 
492 Discipline of Mind. 
 
 factorily in the judgment of any zealous person who has 
 assumed for them an office with which their projectors 
 never invested them. 
 
 "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 who 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 two parties, 
 who co-operate towards 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 matters of fact, such were the persons who did attend, in 
 the course of last term, and such as those, and no others, 
 will attend. Those came who wished 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 without seeing that they came on what 
 may be called business. And this is why I said, when 
 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 
 
Discipline of Mhid, 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 t'he 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 7iot 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 down 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. But there was a secret, gradual 
 movement going on, and a specific force of attraction, 
 and a drifting and accumulation of hearers, which at 
 length made itself felt, and could not be mistaken. In 
 
494 Discipline of Mi7id. 
 
 this stage of things, a friend said in conversation to me, 
 when 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 
 few, 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, 
 which 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. 
 
 You will ask me, perhaps, after these general remarks, 
 to suggest to you the particular intellectual benefit which 
 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, which 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 as well as taught, though 
 it applies of course to some more than to others, and to 
 those especially who come for instruction. 
 
 * Vid. supr. p. 231. 
 
Discipline of Mind, 495 
 
 I consider, then, that the position of our minds, as far 
 as they are uncultivated, towards intellectual objects, — I 
 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 mutual 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 wilderness 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, which address 
 themselves, not to the eye, but to our mental sense ; wiz., 
 all those matters of thought which, in the course of life 
 
49^ Discipline 0/ Mind. 
 
 and the intercourse of society, are brought before us, 
 which we hear of in conversation, which we read of in 
 books ; matters poHtical, 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 how 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 mind 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 with 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 what others say; 
 but it is a very vague idea, probably a very mistaken 
 idea. Young people, especially, because they are young, 
 
Disciplme of Mind, 497 
 
 ccjloar the assemblage of persons and things which they 
 encounter with the freshness and grace of their own 
 springtide, look for all good from the reflection of theii 
 own hopefulness, and worship what they have created. 
 Men of ambition, again, look upon the world as a theatre 
 for fame and glory, and make it that magnificent scene 
 of high enterprise and august recompence 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 from 
 shadows. For I am not concerned merely with youth, 
 ambition, or poetry, but with our mental condition gene- 
 rally. It is the fault of all of us, till we 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 sound know- 
 ledge. 
 
 In consequence, when we hear opinions put forth on 
 any new subject, we have no principle to guide us in 
 balancing them ; we do not know what to make of them; 
 we turn them to and fro, and over, and back again, as if 
 to pronounce upon them, if we could, but with no means 
 of pronouncing. It is the same when we attempt to 
 speak upon them : we make some random venture ; or 
 we take up the opinion of some one else, which strikes 
 our fancy ; or perhaps, with the vaguest enunciation 
 possible of any opinion at all, we are satisfied with 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 
 7» 32 
 
498 Discipline of Mind, 
 
 mere substitute of meaning. We wish to take a part hj 
 politics, and then nothing Is open to us but to follow 
 some person, or some party, and to learn the common- 
 places and the watchwords which belong to it. We 
 hear about landed interests, and mercantile interests, 
 and trade, and higher and lower classes, and their rights, 
 duties, and prerogatives ; and we attempt to transmit 
 what we have received ; and soon our minds become 
 loaded and perplexed by the incumbrance of Ideas which 
 we 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, 
 between 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 t " 
 What a number of points have to be clearly apprehended 
 before we are in a position to say one word on such a 
 question ! What is meant by " constitution '^ .? by " con- 
 stitutional government " ? by " better " ? by " a popula- 
 
Discipline of Mind. 499 
 
 tion"? 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?" Now, 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, prejudiced, 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 objects which 
 has accrued to them, without their knowing 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 Discipline of Mind. 
 
 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 
 them. He can say a word or two on half a dozen sciences, 
 but not a dozen words on any one. He says one thing 
 now, and another thing presently; and when 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 ; and withal, 
 he has a very good opinion of himself, and is well 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 knowledge 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 itself, is 
 lot 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 ; 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 
 
Discipline of Miiid. 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 what is meant by the poet's maxim, 
 "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 
 precipice. 
 
 Such, then, being true cultivation of mind^ and such the 
 literary institutions which 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, any one 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 exercise 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 EucHd, or to master any one 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, — 
 
502 Discipline of 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 knowledge 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 knowledge 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 ; 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 which pour 
 in upon our eyes, and of deciding what every one of 
 them is worth. 
 
 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- 
 
Discipline of Mind, 503 
 
 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 Cathohcism 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 arrangements 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, — 
 
^o4 Discipline 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 own place, shall prove themselves 
 worthy both of your cause and of yourselves. 
 
lot; 
 
 X. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND MEDICAL SCIENCE. 
 AN ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS OF MEDICINE. 
 
 I. 
 
 I HAVE had so few opportunities, Gentlemen, of ad- 
 dressing you, and our present meeting is of so interest- 
 ing and pleasing a character, by reason of the object 
 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 itself 
 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 Univer- 
 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 
 
5o6 Christianity a7ia> Medical 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 foremost 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 with these views and feelings I 
 conform my observations to the sacred building 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. 
 
 Now 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 towards 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 
 whatever kind which actually surround you, and the 
 points of detail which 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 applicatior 
 at all. 
 
 2. 
 
 All professions have their dangers, all general truths 
 have their fallacies, all spheres of action have their limits, 
 and are hable to improper extension or alteration. Every 
 
Christia7iiiy and Medical Science, 507 
 
 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 
 
5o8 Chrisiiditity and Medical Science, 
 
 secular matters. They intrude into the province of Re- 
 hgion. 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 circles 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 which he is the subject. Man 
 has a moral and a religious nature, as well as a physical. 
 
Christianity and Medical Science, 509 
 
 He has a mind 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 with 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. 
 
 Now this general principle thus stated, all will admit : 
 who will deny that health must give way to duty t So 
 far there is no perplexity : supposing a fever to break 
 out in a certain place, and the medical practitioner said 
 to 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 
 word, compared with the word of her religious superiors. 
 The medical man was right, yet he could not gain his 
 point. He was right in what he said, he said what was 
 true, yet he had to give way. 
 
 Here 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 maxim, implied, but not spoken 
 or even recognized — '' What is true is lawful." Not so. 
 Observe, here is the fallacy, — What is true in one science 
 
5 lO Christianity and Medical Science, 
 
 is dictated to us indeed according to that science, but 
 not according to another science, or in anotlier depart- 
 ment. What is certain in the mihtary art has force in 
 the mihtary art, but not in statesmanship; and if states- 
 manship 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 
 animal 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 unlawful in fact, in consequence of the higher 
 law of morals and religion having come to some different 
 conclusion. Now I must be allowed some few words to 
 express, or rather to suggest, more fully what I mean. 
 
 The whole universe comes from the good God. It is 
 His creation ; it\?> good ; it is all good, as being the work 
 of the Good, though good only in its degree, and not after 
 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 
 injurious to nature. Thus the medical student has a vast 
 field of knowledge spread out before him, true, because 
 knowledge, 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 may 
 not be innocent to this or that person, or in this or that 
 mode or degree. Again, it may easily happen that the 
 impressions made on a man's mind by his own science 
 may be indefinitely more vivid and operative than the 
 
Christianity and Medical Science, 5 1 1 
 
 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, wrong in 
 this or that individual, or under the circumstances of the 
 case. 
 
 Now 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. 
 He might in process of time have become simply dead 
 to all reHgious 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 what he relied on was truth — but in not 
 understanding that there were 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 
 
512 Christianity and Medical Science, 
 
 and imperil his recovery. Now 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 merely 
 directing attention to the prmciple involved in it. Here 
 are the representatives of two great sciences, Religion 
 and Medicine. Each says what is true in his own science, 
 each will think he has a right to insist on seeing that the 
 truth which he himself 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 hare that 
 decision ; just as a Governor-General, not a Commander- 
 in-Chief, would have the ultimate decision, were politics 
 and strategics 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 him, 
 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 own range of science leads to the discovery of no 
 facts which are sufficient to convince him that there is 
 any difference in kind between the human animal and 
 them. His practice, then, is according to his facts and 
 his theory. Such a person will think himself free to give 
 
Christianity and Medical Science, 513 
 
 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 viev/s and 
 objects in humxan nature to be taken into account and 
 reconciled, or as if it were his duty to forget all but his 
 own ; 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 known, exists as a temptation and 
 a danger in the Science of Medicine itself, where religion 
 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 
 which 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 
 
514 Christianity and Medical Science 
 
 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 as 
 real to us as the fact of our personal existence. But 
 the phenomena, which 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 when 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. Who can deny 
 the existence of Conscience } who does not feel the force 
 of its injunctions .-^ but how dim is the illumination in 
 which it is invested, and how feeble its influence, com- 
 pared with that evidence of sight and touch which is the 
 foundation of Physical Science ! How easily can we be 
 talked out of our clearest views of duty ! how does this 
 or that moral precept crumble into nothing when we 
 rudely handle it ! how does the fear of sin pass off from 
 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 
 
Christianity a?id Medical Science, 5 1 5 
 
 never had been brushed away, like the divine handwriting 
 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 not 
 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 original illus- 
 tration, it is as if the India Commander-in-Chief, instead of 
 being under the control of a local seat of government at 
 Calcutta, were governed simply from London, or from 
 the moon. In that case, he would be under a strong 
 temptation to neglect the home government, which 
 nevertheless in theory he acknowledged. 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 governed by intimations from above ; we 
 need a local government on earth. 
 
 That great institution, then, the Catholic Church, has 
 been set up by Divine Mercy, as a present, visible anta- 
 gonist, and the only possible antagonist, to sight and 
 sense. Conscience, 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 
 
5 1 6 Christianity a7id Medical Science, 
 
 earth which can be the sufficient champion of these 
 sovereign authorities of your soul, which 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 so — I 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 rough antagonist of spiritual truth : sometimes with 
 mailed hand, sometimes with pertinacious logic, some- 
 times with a storm of irresistible facts, it presses on 
 against you. • What it says is true perhaps as far as it 
 goes, but it is not the whole truth, or the most important 
 truth. These more important truths, which the natural 
 heart admits in their substance, though it cannot main- 
 tain, — the being of a God, the certainty of future retri- 
 bution, the claims of the moral law, the reality of sin, 
 the hope of supernatural help, — of these the Church is in 
 matter of fact the undaunted and the only defender. 
 
 Even those who do not look on her as divine must 
 grant as much as this. I 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, when 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 sometimes, though rarely, inflicting blows 
 
Christianity and Medical Science. 517 
 
 herself, — by peremptory deeds, by patient concessions, — 
 she has fought on and fulfilled her trust. No wonder 
 so many speak against her, for she deserves it ; she has 
 earned the hatred and obloquy of her opponents by her 
 success in opposing them. Those even who speak against 
 her in this day, own that she w^as of use in a former day. 
 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, that 
 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 slow 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 as the generation now alive admits these benefits 
 to have arisen from her presence in a state of society 
 now gone by, so in turn, when the interests and pas- 
 sions of this day are passed away, will future generations 
 ascribe to her a like special beneficial action upon this 
 nineteenth century in which we live. For she is ever 
 the same, — ever young and vigorous, and ever overcom- 
 ing new errors with the old weapons. 
 
5 1 8 Christianity and Medical Science. 
 
 5. 
 
 And now I have explained, Gentlemen, why 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 " in a country Hke 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 
 from the counsels of Divine Mercy, that it should grow 
 in knowledge and not grow in religion ! and Catholicism 
 is the strength of Religion, as Science and System are 
 the strength of Knowledge. 
 
 Aspirations such as these are met, Gentlemen, I am 
 well aware, by a responsive feeling in your own hearts ; 
 but by my putting them into words, thoughts which 
 already 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 Medical 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 establishment. 
 
520 
 
 Note on Page 478. 
 
 I THINK it worthwhile, in illustration of what I have 
 said above at the page specified, to append the fol- 
 lowing passage from Grandorgaeus's catalogue of Mura- 
 tori's works. 
 
 "Sanctissimus D.N. Benedictus xiv. Pont. Max. Epis- 
 tolam sapientiae ac roboris plenam dederat. . . ad 
 Episcopum Terulensem Hispaniae Inquisitionis Majorem 
 Inquisitorem, qua ilium hortabatur, ut ' Historiam Pela- 
 gianam et dissertationem, etc.,' editas a clarae memorise 
 Henrico Cardinal! Norisio, in Indicem Expurgatorium 
 Hispanum nuper ingestas, perinde ac si aliquid Baia- 
 nismi aut Jansenismi redolerent,prout auctor 'BibHothecae 
 Jansenisticae' immerito autumavit, quamprimum expun- 
 gendas curaret. Eoque nomine Sapientissimus Pontifex 
 plura in medium attulit prudentis ceconomiae exempla, 
 qua semper usum, supremum S. R. Congr. Indicis Tribu- 
 nal, a proscribendis virorum doctissimorum operibus 
 aliquando temperavit. 
 
 " Quum autem summus Pontifex, ea inter nomina 
 illustria Tillemontii, BoUandistarum, Bossueti Ep. Meld., 
 et illud recensuerit L. A. Muratorii, his ad Auctorem 
 nostrum delatis, quam maxim^ indoluit, veritus ne in 
 tanta operum copia ab se editorum, aliquid Fidei aut 
 Religion! minus consonum sibi excidisset. . . 
 
 "Verum clementissimus Pontifex, ne animum despon- 
 deret doctus et humilis filius, perhumaniter ad ipsum 
 rescripsit. . . eumque paterne consolatus, inter alia haec 
 
Note on Page 478. 521 
 
 liabet : ' Quanto si era detto nella nostra Lettera all' 
 Inquisitore di Spagna in ordine alle di Lei Opere, non 
 aveva che fare con la materia delle Feste, ne con verun 
 dogma o disciplina. II contenuto delle Opere chi qui 
 non e piaciuto (ne che Ella poteva mai lusingarsi che 
 fosse per piacere), riguarda la Giurisdizione Temporale 
 del Romano Pontifice ne' suoi stati/ *' etc, (pp. Ix., Ixi). 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abelard, 96, age of, 26J 
 
 Accomplishments not education, 144 
 
 Addison, his Vision of Mirza, 279 j his care in writing, 284 ; the child of 
 
 the Revolution, 312, 329 
 iEschylus, 258 
 Alcuin, 17 
 Aldhelm, St., 17 
 
 Alexander the Great, his delight in Homer, 258 ; conquests of, 264 
 Anaxagoras, 116 
 Andes, the, 136 
 
 Animuccia and St. Philip Neri, 237 
 Apollo Belvidere, the, 283 
 Aquinas, St. Thomas, 134, 263, 384 
 Arcesilas, 10 1 
 Architecture, 81 
 
 Arian argument against our Lord's Divinity, 95 
 Ariosto, 316 
 
 Aristotelic philosophy, the, 52 
 Aristotle, xii., 6, 53; quoted, 78, loi, 106, 109, 134, 222, 275; his sketch 
 
 of the magnanimous man, 280, 383, 431, 469 
 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, xiii., 220 
 
 Baconian philosophy, the, 109 
 
 Bacon, Lord, quoted, 77, 90, 117-119, 175, 221, 225, 263, 319, 437 
 
 Balaam, 66 
 
 Beethoven, 286, 313 
 
 Bentham's Preuves Jiidiciaires, 96 
 
 Berkeley, Bishop, on Gothic Architecture, Si 
 
 Boccaccio, 316 
 
 Boniface, St., 220 
 
 Borromeo, St. Carlo, enjoins the use of some of the Latin classics, 261 ; on 
 
 preaching, 406, 412, 414, 421 
 Bossuet and Bishop Bull, 7 
 
 Brougham, Lord, his Discourse at Glasgow, quoted, 30, 34-35 
 Brutus, abandoned by philosophy, 116 
 Burke, Edmund, 176 ; his valediction to the spirit of chivalry, 201 
 
524 Index » 
 
 Burman, 140 
 
 Butler, Bishop, his Analogy, 61, 100, 158, 226 
 
 Byron, Lord, his versification, 326 
 
 Caietan, St., 235 
 
 Campbell, Thomas, 322, 326 
 
 Carneades, 106 
 
 Cato the elder, his opposition to the Greek philosophy, 106 
 
 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 of, 
 
 281, 282, 327 ; quoted, 399; his orations against Verres, 421 
 Civilization and Christianity, 255 
 Clarendon, Lord, 311 
 Colours, combination of, 1 00 
 " Condescension," two senses of, 205 
 
 Copleston, Dr., Bishop of Llandaff, 157 ; quoted, 167-169 
 Corinthian brass, 175 
 Cowper, quoted, 191, 467 
 
 Crabbe, his Tales oj the Hall, 150 ; his versification, 326 
 Craik, Dr. G. L., his Ptirsuit of Knozvledge under Difficulties, quoted, 103, 
 
 104 
 
 Dante, 316, 329 
 
 Davison, John, 158 ; on T/iberal Education, 169-177 
 
 Definiteness, the life of preaching, 426 
 
 Demosthenes, 259, 284 
 
 Descartes, 315 
 
 xvumesnil's Synonymes, 368 
 
 Du Pin's Ecclesiastical History, 140 
 
 Edgeworth, Mr., on Professional Education, 158, 170, 176 
 
 Edinburgh, 154 
 
 Edinbzirgh Review, the, 153, 157, 160, 301, 329 
 
 Edward II., King of England, vow at his flight from Bannockburn, 155 
 
 Elmsley, xiv. 
 
 Epicurus, 40 
 
 Euclid's Elements, 274, 313, 501 
 
 Euripides, 258 
 
 Fenelon, on the Gothic style of Architecture, 82 
 
 Fontaine, La, his immoral Contes, 315 
 
 Fouque, Lamotte, his tale of the Unknown Patient, 119 
 
 Era Angelico, 287 
 
 Franklin, 304 
 
 Frederick II., 383, 384 
 
 Galen, 222 
 
 Gentleman, the true, defined, 208 
 
 Gerdil, Cardinal, quoted, xiii., on the Emperor Julian, 194 j on Male- 
 branche, 477 
 
Giannone, 316 
 
 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, 325 
 
 Goethe, 134 
 
 Gothic Architecture, 82 
 
 Grammar, 96, 334 
 
 Gregory the Great, St., 260 
 
 Hardouin, Father, on Latin literature, 310 
 Health, 164 
 
 Herodotus, 284, 325, 329 
 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 
 Huss, 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 j Book of, 289 
 
 John, King, 383 
 
 John of Salisbuiy, 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 bias 
 towards Catholicity, 319 ; his definition of Grammar, 334 
 
 Joseph, history of, 271 
 
 Isaac, feast at his weaning, 232 
 
 Isocrates, 282 
 
 Julian the Apostate, 194 
 
 Justinian, 265 
 
 Juvenal, 325 
 
 Keble, John, 158 ; his Latin Lectures, 369 
 
 Knowledge, its own end, 99 ; viewed in relation to learning, 124 ; to pro- 
 fessional skill, 151 ; to religion, 179 
 
 Lalanne, Abbe, 9 
 
 Leo, St., on the love of gain, 87 
 
 Literature, 268' 
 
 Locke, on Education, 158-160, 163, 319. 
 
 Logos, 276 
 
 Lohner, Father, his story of a court-preacher, 411 
 
 Longinus, his admiration of the Mosaic account of Cieation, 271 
 
 Lutheran leaven, spread of the, 28 
 
526 Index » 
 
 MacaulAY, Lord, his Essay on Bacon's philosophy, 118, 221; his Essays 
 quoted, 301, 435-438, 450 
 
 Machiavel, 316 
 
 Malebranche, 477 
 
 Maltby, Dr., bishop of Durham, his Address to the Deity, 33, 40 
 
 Michael Angelo, first attempts of, 283 
 
 Milman, Dean, his History of the Jews, 85 
 
 Milton, on Education, 169 ; his Samson Agonistes quoted, 323 ; his allu- 
 sions to himself, 329 
 
 Modesty, 206 
 
 Montaigne's Essays, 315 
 
 More, Sir Thomas, 437 
 
 Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, 140 
 
 Muratori, 478, 520 
 
 Music, 80 
 
 Neri, St. Philip, 234 
 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, xiii., 49, 53 j on the Apocalypse, 304 ; his marvellous 
 
 powers, 324 
 Newtonian philosophy, the, 49 
 Noah's ark, 73 
 
 Olympic games, the, 107 
 Optics, 46 
 
 Painting, 79 
 
 Palestrina, 237 
 
 Paley, 58, 449 
 
 Palladio, 57 
 
 Pascal, 315 
 
 Patrick, St., greatness of his work, 15 
 
 Periodical criticism, 333 
 
 Persian mode of letter- writing, 277 
 
 Pindar, 329 
 
 Pitt, William, his opinion of Butler's Analogy, ico 
 
 Pius IV., Pope, death of, 237 
 
 Plato, on poets, loi ; on music, lio 
 
 Playfair, Professor, 157 
 
 Political Economy, 86 
 
 Pompey's Pillar, 136 
 
 Pope, Alex., quoted, 118; an indifferent Catholic, 318; has tuned our 
 
 versification, 323 ; quoted, 375, 501 
 Porson, Richard, xiv., 304 
 Pride and self-respect, 207 
 Private Judgment, 97 
 
 Protestant argument against Transubstautiation, 95 
 Psalter, the, 289 
 Pulci, 316 
 Pythagoras, xiii 
 
 Rabelais, 315 
 
 Raffaelle, first attempts of, 283 ; 2S7 
 
 Rasselas QViO\Q(\. 116 
 
Index, 
 
 527 
 
 Recreations not Education, 144 
 Robertson, style of, 325 
 Rome, 265 
 Round Towers of Ireland, the, 95 
 
 Sales, St. Francis de, on preaching, 406, 410, 412 
 
 Salmasius, 140 
 
 Savonarola, 235 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, .313; his Old Mortality, 359 
 
 Seneca, no, 116, 327 
 
 Sermons of the seventeenth century, 140 
 
 Shaftesbury, Lord, his Characteristics, 196-201, 204 
 
 Shakespeare, quoted, 150; \i\^ Macbeth o^ot^^L, 280; Hamlet quoted, 281; 
 
 quoted, 284, 287; morality of, 318; quoted, 410, 513 
 Simon of Tournay, narrative of, 384 
 Smith, Sydney, 157 
 Sophocles, 258 
 
 Southey's Thalaba, 323 ; quoted, 324 
 Sterne's Sermons, quoted, 270-272 
 Stufi&ng birds not education, 144 
 Sylvester II,, Pope, accused of magic, 220 
 
 Tarpeia, 140 
 
 Taylor, Jeremy, his Liberty of Prophesying, 472 
 
 Terence and Menander, 259 
 
 Tertullian, 327 
 
 Thales, xiii. 
 
 Theology, a branch of knowledge, 19; definition of, 60 
 
 Thucydides, 259, 325, 329 
 
 Titus, armies of, 265 
 
 Virgil, his obligations to Greek poets, 259 ; wishes his ^neid burnt, 284 ; 
 
 fixes the character of the hexameter, 325, 329 
 Vohaire, 303, 315 
 
 Utility in Education, 161 
 
 Watson, Bishop, on Mathematics, loi 
 
 Wiclif, 155 
 
 Wren, Sir Christopher, 57 
 
 Xavier, St. Francis, 235 
 Xenophon quoted, 107, 258 
 
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